Backs Against The Wall

SerbAlbanian relations went through several stages in all the states called Yugoslavia. In the first stage, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (19181945) did not guarantee the Albanian minority any rights and they lived under Serb domination. In the second (in the Federative Peoples' Republic of Yugoslavia 19451966), those relations oscillated from armed clashes to efforts to find political solutions. At the time (1964), Adem Demaqi (known as the Albanian ``Mandela'') founded the Revolutionary Movement for the Unification of the Shqiptars (Albanians). The third (in the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia 1966 1981) saw the Albanians gain recognition and guarantees for their extremely wideranging minority rights.

But the late 1980's saw the Republic of Serbia extend its bureaucratic and statist dominance to the province of Kosovo. The Albanian communist elite grew stronger and turned into a strong Albanian nationalist movement, which led to political conflicts.

The fourth stage (19811992) fell under the shadow of the breakup of

former Yugoslavia and the strengthening of nationalist movements, both of which led to open clashes and civil war. At that time, political demands for the constitution of Kosovo as a republic became permanently present.

Serbian sociologist Dusan Janjic sees the demand for Kosovo as a republic as a ``summary expression of the Albanian movement's political program. The movement expressed the interests of the Albanian bureaucratic elite, which wanted to secure complete control over Kosovo and its Albanian population.'' He lists several causes for the escalation of Albanian nationalism: outside influences, especially Yugoslav Albanian relations; problems within Yugoslavia, primarily statism, bureaucracy, underdevelopment, etc.; causes that result from the fact that Kosovo is a part of Serbia; and the fourth group are problems that are specific to Kosovo.

Janjic feels that the Albanian movement today ``insists that resistance to repression by the Milosevic regime is the basis of its identity. However, it isn't capable of rallying all of the national components into a cohesive movement based upon a modern national identity. Because of this, the protests in the late 1980's and early 1990's were more individual revolts than part of a wider strategy.''

Paradoxically, the Albanian nationalist movement calmed down in 1986, while the Serbian movement, headed by the Kosovo Polje (Serbmajority suburb of Pristina) communist elite, strengthened. This was part of efforts to mobilize the centuriesold Kosovo myth (one of the foundations of Serb national identity) for political ends, which included rallying Serbs and engaging them later in the wars against other nations. The deft manipulation of the Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo sparked ``the woundedlion psychology of Serb nationalism''; ``the (socalled) antibureaucratic revolution began, which was essentially an antireform movement inside Serbia, which was doing its best to prevent reforms.''

The members of the Serb Resistance Movement in Kosovo served as Milosevic's ``strike force'' (as coined by Miroslav Solevic) and were used to put special pressure on the federal authorities. Throughout former Yugoslavia, ``rallies of truth'' were organized, as well as rallies of solidarity, which Janjic believes initiated the propaganda war between the republics, which in turn prepared their populations for wider interethnic clashes.

Janjic says the Albanian movement is ``an old social movement which cannot achieve a modern national cohesion, but can endanger the territorial integrity of Serbia and Macedonia.''

Kosovo Albanian professor Gezmend Zajmi sees the degradation and breakup of Yugoslavia as the reason why the Albanian issue was sidetracked. He thinks the Serbian ideological strategy prior to the breakup had three starting points: 1) categorizing the Albanians as a national minority; 2) mobilizing the myth of Serb Kosovo; 3) declaring the Albanians as a nonconstitutive people within the federation.

He thinks that Kosovo has de facto become a colony and adds that ``keeping Kosovo in the SerbiaMontenegro federation by force makes that federation Serb, ethnocratic and repressive and an internationally unrecognized state. The integration of Kosovo by force into Serbia's state structure is an injection of antidemocratic and repressive seeds into the political fate of the Serb people.''

Janjic says the achievements of the Albanian movement are interesting in relation to interSerb relations: ``It stimulates a feeling of endangerment and multiplies demands for a final solution, but at the same time it makes its relationship to the Milosevic regime absurd. On the one hand, it builds its legitimacy and identity on resistance to that regime, and on the other, its own radicalism imposes authoritarianism and chauvinism and prevents stronger Serb resistance to the regime and the democratization of Serbia. In fact, the democratization of Serbia would result in the use of democratic methods and institutions to resolve SerbAlbanian relations, but that requires a modern national Albanian movement with a cohesive strategy. Today, SerbAlbanian relations are dominated by a clash of two authoritarianisms and chauvinisms which do not have the same power and organizational abilities. The Albanians are trying to make up for their weaknesses by making the issue international and creating socalled parallel institutions.''

The extremist movement's basic political problem is its final goal. Kosovo as a republic as the main goal just hangs in midair. That goal is not supported by transitional goals and the lack of such goals makes the main goal hard to achieve, creates exhaustion among the masses, and narrows space for dialogue.

That raises the question of prospects for SerbAlbanian relations. Is an armed conflict possible in Kosovo? ``Judging by everything, Kosovo is closer to peace than war. The masters of war here are tired and I assume NATO and the U.S. are not going to allow the war to spread. Above all, the existing stalemate, i.e. the inability of the sides to achieve their goals, creates a situation in which both sides will be forced to start a dialogue. There are other possibilities: first, a division of territory by peaceful agreement; and second, guarantees for the rights of Albanians within Serbia (and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) and the integration of the Balkan region.'' The first possibility has three versions, of which one is former Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic's idea in which Serbia gets 40% of Kosovo.

``There is little chance that that solution could be achieved without many local and regional conflicts.''

Gezmend Zajmi agrees with that. He says that ``there were some opinions that the division of Kosovo as an inevitable fact is unfounded because there is no basis for realistic ethnicterritorial divisions because the Albanians are the ethnic majority throughout Kosovo.'' Philosopher Shqelzen Maliqi has some similar thoughts: ``Serious AlbanianSerb talks could be held only about selfdetermination for Kosovo and the ways to make it independent. Only in the second stage can we talk about economic, political and other links that Kosovo would have with Serbia.''

Efforts to divide Kosovo on an ethnic basis provide the same results. In Maliqi's opinion, ``the AlbanianSerb conflict over Kosovo is one of the simplest in the explosive Balkan region. Namely, a division is much easier to achieve between Serbs and Albanians than between Serbs and Croats and Bosnian Muslims. In Kosovo and southern Serbia, the Albanians are a compact majority in all local communities except for a few on the borders with Serbia proper, Sandzak and Montenegro... If Kosovo were amputated from Serbia, the Serb ethnic loss would be lower than the current 38% of Albanians (50% if one includes the Albanians in Macedonia) living outside Albania as minorities.''

However, Albanian independence will not be achieved in a civic state, but by the approval of the Serb majority in that state which considers Albanians foreigners and a minority on Serb territory.

Both sides are persistent in their final demands and contacts between the Serbian authorities and the Albanian leaders have almost been broken off. Janjic believes that necessitates a mediator. ``Mediators can be members of the public and opposition among both the Serbians and the Albanians, people who are not directly involved in heightening current tensions. International mediation, aimed at initiating the first steps, is necessary and welcome. The role of international organizations (the CSCE and UN primarily) is very important.''

He also listed conditions that have to be achieved before a dialogue can begin: both sides have to recognize equal rights and freedoms for each other; all limitations of the rights and freedoms of the Albanians have to be lifted; the Kosovo issue must not be narrowed down to the question of the status of Albanians and it has to be formulated as the question of the status of Serbs and other ethnic minorities in Kosovo; both sides have to abandon their ultimate demands; Albanian political leaders have to accept the fact that they can only achieve their demands through parliament and elections.

``The solution should be sought by guaranteeing the rights to Albanian national identity and the autonomy of Kosovo, which would guarantee cultural, economic, administrative and political rights. That requires the majority (the Albanians) to give up their demands for secession, while Serbia and the FRY have to partly give up on sovereignty over the minority population,'' Janjic says. ``Seemingly, that solution could start from the Hague declaration on (former) Yugoslavia from October 18, 1991.''

Albanian sociologist Muhamedin Kulashi commented upon the theory that Kosovo would become a primary issue once the wars in former Yugoslavia end by raising the question of: ``Why should the conflict spread while Serbia is holding on to Kosovo through the army and police, while the Albanian response has been peaceful and political for over 10 years?'' He says that ``the risks posed by the Kosovo `knot', created by manipulating a difficult past in order to advance an aggressive and discriminatory policy, are huge. The Milosevic regime, faced with internal rifts and international pressure, could start a war in Kosovo to sustain the cohesion of the Serbian authorities. There's also another danger here which stems from the nature and logic of this regime: the final implementation of its basic project, the reason for its existencean ethnically pure Serb state.''

Albanian writers think that Kosovo now has a system of apartheid in place (Sevdije Ahmeti) or is ruled as if it were a colony (Shqelzen Maliqi). Ahmeti lists proofs of apartheid in Kosovo. He believes that, although ``apartheid has a complicated motivation structure in Kosovo and throughout the parts of former Yugoslavia populated by Albanians, it is characterized by one single goalimposing a feeling of guilt and lesser worth on the Albanians.''

Maliqi feels the Kosovo issue is primarily a question of decolonization. ``Serbs and Albanians live apart, the first as a privileged minority, the second in a system which has all the characteristics of apartheid and segregation. The relationship between Serbs and Albanians could be defined as hatred and open hostility which still hasn't grown into a state of war, but the level of militarization is very high... That state of neither war nor peace is accompanied by a fatalistic mood that the gaps can't be bridged and that an ethnic conflict is inevitable. The current Serbian regime is responsible for the militarization and it's not hiding the fact that it wants annexation and changes in the ethnic structure of Kosovo.''

He adds that the Albanians unexpectedly chose a strategy of peaceful resistance, which seemingly eased the annexation of Kosovo, but on the other hand dulled the aggressive ambitions of Serbian war strategists.

``Up to the end of 1989, the time of the greatest depression about the forceful annexation of Kosovo, the dominant feeling among Albanians was a desire for revenge. They were waiting for the moment to mobilize and start a massive armed uprising... But in the winter and spring of 1990 we had a sudden and radical change. Warriors were no longer fashionable. Interestingly, there were no big theoretical debates, no organized propaganda campaign against violence, no figure to become the Albanian Gandhi. The nonviolence strategy imposed itself as the best, most pragmatic and efficient response to Serbian aggressive plans.''

Maliqi says the ``secret should be sought in the process of building an identity opposed to the other, in this case opposed to the rival enemy nation. Unjustly libelled and presented as monsters, as political counterrevolutionaries, separatists, irredentists, etc., and as narrowminded chauvinists, thugs and people who poison the wells of their Serb neighbors, the Albanians developed a tendency to constantly seek and find a collective alibi.''

As an example that the Albanians were proEuropean, Maliqi said that they had, in their most difficult moment, on the brink of war, initiated mechanisms to review their ugly tradition, the parts that were generalized as primitivism; they did away with blood feuds.

Contrary to that opinion, Albanian intellectual Gani Bobi claims that ``the life of the Albanians should become more rational, to make the social system that will be based on it more rational and efficient.'' Bobi sees the dominance of the patriarchal mentality in the behavior of the Albanian opposition. ``To achieve their goals, the Albanians need a much more reflexive and differentiated relationship towards their cultural tradition and heritage, the creation of symbols of collective identity, identification with values that determine the behavior needed to realize special and common interests, interiorization of civic culture, and orientation towards universal values and stronger selfawareness.''

Bobi says that it's important that Albanian selfawareness today be based upon the idea that: ``We want to be free and we want nothing to do with the Serbs and Serbia. We want an independent Kosovo.''

Maliqi says the situation in Kosovo today is ``unbearable, a state of neither war nor peace, but more war than peace. The problem has to be solved in talks and negotiations.'' Asked whether there can be an agreement on the Kosovo issue, Maliqi says: ``On the Serb side, from opposition democratic circles, we sometimes hear mention of the possibility of a historic agreement... The condition for that agreement is the lifting of the measures that the Milosevic regime imposed in Kosovo and the establishment of democracy.''

That raises the question of the level of democracy in Kosovo. ``Some want democracy to be limited to the Serbian parliament, others to the parliament of Kosovo.''

Maliqi says that the ``Albanians see all roads leading to secession. Today, because no one asks them anything, and in some future democratic moment, due to negative experiences with Serbia, they will always vote for their freedom and selfdetermination.''

He adds: ``From a global perspective, witnessing the process in former socialist countries, it's an illusion to expect that a civic state will win anywhere in the former Yugoslavia. The creation of national states throughout diseased eastern Europe has become an unstoppable epidemic. A Civic state without adequate economic relations and civil institutions is nothing.''

Zajmi sees the solution ``in a democratic international resolution, both for the Albanian issue and interethnic relations in the Balkans.''

Kosovo Democratic Alliance VicePresident Fehmi Agani sees ``Serb hegemonism and greed'' in Kosovo with ``Albanians as the true victims.'' He says: ``Albanians cannot be denied the right to selfdetermination; they are a people, not a national minority. In Yugoslavia's political and constitutional reality and development, Albanians and Kosovo surpassed the frameworks of minority and autonomy. Kosovo is a territorial, economic, social and political entity with a clear identity. Albanian demands for selfdetermination and the independence of Kosovo are not secessionism. There can be no mention of secessionism from a state that has fallen apart. Even if the Albanians were a minority, they should be given the right to selfdetermination.''

In the closing remarks, Serbian political scientist Bosko Kovacevic summed up the (im)possibility of a SerbAlbanian dialogue. He said ``newly created holy relics'' had to be put aside or neutralized in the form of unconditional recognition of the statehood and independence of the Kosovo Albanians and added that the state of emergency had to be lifted as well as repression. He also said a dialogue had to be started with the nonproxy representatives of the Albanian people in Kosovo.

It seems that is a reasonable minimum to begin with and that time will bring a solution to the Kosovo issue.