Another Balkan Storm

Whenever Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians thought the time had come to get the maximum of their demands (Kosovo as a republic) met from the Serbian regime with the help of the international community they were left without the support of Albania.

Today is no different; the international community put pressure on Serbia to start a dialogue on the status of Kosovo and rebellion broke out in Albania. As usual in the Balkans, that was reason enough to launch conspiracy theories with Serbia, Macedonia and Greece playing the main roles.

This issue of VREME is devoted to the possibility of exporting the rebellion to neighboring states and whether the latest events will speed up or slow down the start of the dialogue between the Serbian authorities and Kosovo Albanians.

The postponement of the scheduled talks between Serbian and ethnic Albanian intellectuals on Mt. Brezovica shows that Kosovo Albanian representatives aren’t prepared to start even an informal dialogue until things calm down in neighboring Albania. Spokesmen for Serbian political parties, with the exception of the ruling SPS, have a different view: they all feel the dialogue is already late and some even feel that now is exactly the right moment to launch a platform on Kosovo.

The opposition has shied away from the Kosovo issue so far, fearing a possible satanization by the regime but now the entire opposition, especially the Zajedno coalition, is forced to talk about the problem in meetings with west European diplomats. SPO leader Vuk Draskovic met with German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel on Tuesday, March 18 and proposed a European-style compromise: "It should remain within Serbia but the Albanian minority in Serbia which makes up a majority in Kosovo should enjoy maximum civil, religious, political and cultural rights and get territorial autonomy." We’re waiting for a comment from the state media which will call Draskovic a "Serb-hater" who wants to sell Kosovo.

"You can write a thousand platforms on Kosovo but they can be implemented only by whoever is in power. We as the opposition have to know what the state concept on resolving the Kosovo issue is. For now, President Milosevic is in power and to journalists here it’s important to know not who’s going to be in power at some point but what the government thinks about an issue," GSS leader Vesna Pesic told a VREME reporter angrily. "Maybe we won’t win the next elections because we didn’t force them to come out with a platform."

VREME couldn’t get to Slobodan Milosevic but did talk to Goran Percevic, a member of the SPS main board. "In regard to events in Albania, the principled constant stand of our policy is to not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. The SPS advocates good neighbor relations with all states. We hope our principled stand on non-interference will be accepted by politicians in Albania which has not always been the case. The deep crisis in Albania has produced consequences affecting the entire region. We advocate the resolution of all conflicts through political means without the use of force. The crisis in Albania cannot spill over. Under a Supreme Defense Council decision our state bodies have imposed all necessary measures including closing the borders."

The SPS coalition partner New Democracy (ND) is more talkative about Kosovo. Ratomir Tanic, one of the mediators in talks on Kosovo, told VREME that what happened in Albania can’t happen in the FRY. "Crises can happen as well as serious internal conflicts but the state and the authorities can’t fall apart. The state mechanisms in Serbia and Montenegro are the most serious in all of the former Yugoslavia. The crisis in Albania has shown us very clearly that regardless of all failures, all mistakes in our policies, the FRY, along with Greece is a factor of stability in the Balkans and the most stable states in the region." Tanic also believes that the crisis in Albania "suits Yugoslavia politically in some ways because it confirms its role as a factor of stability not only in regard to Bosnia but also in regard to all future conflicts. "That is very important to us."

DSS leader Vojislav Kostunica also thinks the kind of anarchy we’ve seen in Albania isn’t possible in Serbia: "The consequences of Communism in Albania are much worse in Albania than in Serbia. Serbia was ruled by a kind of soft Communism compared to the regimes in eastern Europe and undoubtedly the Albanian version of Communism was one of the worst. Some values have been preserved here and that kind of breakup isn’t possible here although there’s no doubt that the agony of the transition from Communism to post-Communism will take a while in Serbia."

Vesna Pesic and Democratic Party (DS) leader Zoran Djindjic also excluded the possibility of the anarchy spreading across the region. "We are trying very intensely as we did throughout the civil protest to reach a minimum of agreement and prevent a fall into anarchy. That’s why we in the Zajedno coalition think it’s important to insist on the strategy of talks not the strategy of opposition obstinacy," Pesic said. Djindjic thinks what happened in Albania is an autonomous internal problem which has nothing to do with international affairs or the situation in this country. "It’s an independent political problem which will appear here unless we implement reforms. The same kind of anarchy that’s happening in Albania could happen in Serbia. There are two integration mechanisms: the legal system and the economy. Both those systems are in a crisis. Something similar happened in Albania. Luckily, we have some more integration mechanisms but I can imagine a crisis in which everything would fall apart. If we hadn’t had the will to keep things peaceful during the 88 days of protest we would have been on the brink of just that. If there had been bloodshed on December 24, who knows what would have happened in Serbia. Unless something is done soon to strengthen the legal system and the economy we’ll be very close to what’s happening in Albania."

Tanic said official Belgrade is very concerned that the unrest in Albania will have an effect on Kosovo, that some ethnic Albanian political forces will become even more radical and organize terrorist groups who want to see the turmoil repeated in Kosovo. "That same danger, or possibly even worse, is looming over Macedonia," he said and added that he’s not sorry to see Albanian President Sali Berisha go because his regime showed no friendship towards Yugoslavia or any responsibility for Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians. "Albania had a direct negative effect because it used a political story which seemed powerful to assure the Kosovo Albanians that a solution is possible outside Serbia and Yugoslavia".

Djindjic is much more specific in his accusations: "It’s no secret that Albania was involved in events in Kosovo. Berisha didn’t confirm that but there’s no doubt that he supported the hard-liners in Kosovo and managed to weaken the moderates, that there were intelligence links between Albania as a state and the radicals in Kosovo, the terrorist elements. Events in Macedonia also saw the involvement of Albanian intelligence services. Now we’ve got a pause simply because the intelligence services and state structures no longer exist which can deal with Kosovo and Macedonia and we have an opportunity to find a political solution in the meantime and start talks with the political representatives of the Kosovo Albanians to find a solution."

All opposition parties expect the authorities to be the first to put forward a platform for talks, insisting on the fact that this is a state issue which must be resolved by whoever is in power. Right now, the regime is only abusing the Kosovo issue for internal political duels.