Kos.Net

Internet web sites of the events in Kosovo emerged in March this year, after a Serbian police operation in the village of Donji Prekaz. Since then, the conflict escalated both in the field and on the Internet. There are many new web sites and the old ones have been upgraded and updated. All that makes the Kosovo conflict the first real war you can follow "online". The ethnic Albanians have had the upper hand on the Internet ever since the conflict began. The Serbs were at first very restrained as they tried to minimize and ignore the effects of the conflict, hoping that not too many people will take interest in the fighting. When their strategy proved woefully wrong, they threw themselves at the Internet and started making their own web sites.

Earlier this year, there was virtually nothing about Kosovo in Internet web sites organized by Serbian authorities, patriotic institutions, and individuals. Today, it is full of it. The pile of information presented by the Serbs and the ethnic Albanians as well as the world media makes the Kosovo site pretty chaotic. The ethnic Albanians, however, chose the Internet as the basic media for their cause and this turned out to be the ideal solution for them. Internet is very cheap, very influential  in the USA, their target country, and their presence is constant.

In order to be as appealing to the western media as they possibly could, the ethnic Albanians are using the vocabulary of the Bosnian war where the Serbs are the exclusive villains. Ethnic Albanian web sites are based on words such as "genocide", "ethnic cleansing", "war crimes", "refugees" and so on. Parallels are drawn between Kosovo villages and Srebrenica, while the international community, namely the USA, is being asked to prevent "a new Bosnia in the Balkans". The ethnic Albanians have left out only concentration camps and mass rape, but those two terms can't be ruled out either if the conflict goes on for much longer. The most significant web sites are in English and Albanian, sometimes in German and French. They are never in Serbian, apart from the presentation by the daily in Albanian Koha Ditore, working together with Belgrade's Beta news agency.

In all honesty, Serbian sites are hardly translated in Albanian or Hungarian. The KLA doesn't have its own presentation, but its symbols are present in a number of others done by ethnic Albanian organizations and individuals. Information about the KLA can be found on the www.zik.com, www.juniku.com and the www.xoom.members/Kosovacrisis/ unofficial addresses. Naturally, no information about the KLA can be found in official web sites organized by the self-declared "Republic of Kosovo" or the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo.

The main quality of the ethnic Albanian web sites and their basic advantage over the Serbs’ is their dependability on each other. Although most of them are different, they all include several addresses so that an Internet user can always visit several sites by reading just one. The Serbs, on the other hand, are crippled by the fact that those who make Internet web sites about Kosovo are divided into the lot loyal to the regime and others who aren't. The web sites are connected selectively and many of them are just "hanging" somewhere in Internet space and are difficult to reach. People who read Serbian web sites on the Internet can get only a vague picture as to why Kosovo should remain in Serbia and Yugoslavia. It would be fair to say that the Serbs have accepted the Bosnian game too--their main arguments are historic facts and rights. They expect this to be accepted by everyone unconditionally and unreservedly, although this strategy proved counterproductive several times in the past. Serbian web sites dwell far too much on Kosovo's historic significance for the Serbs and not enough on the current events. The reason for this perhaps lies in the fact that information convenient for internal application is placed even on the Internet, and it's coming mainly from Tanjug which has lost much of its credibility in the country itself. The ethnic Albanian propaganda is being completely ignored and there is no attempt whatsoever to launch and effective counter offensive. To be more exact, ethnic Albanian web sites include photos of the corpses of women and children whose deaths are being blamed on Serbian police and troops, accompanied by emotional appeals for help. Serbian web sites are all about "successful operations in which terrorists in Decani, Orahovac, and Belacevac “have been neutralized" written with police vocabulary. It is not difficult to decide which side most international readers will take after having a look at the two.

Serb web sites are a lot better in terms of design and appearance, simply because far more Serbs than ethnic Albanians have access to the Internet. However, ethnic Albanian web sites are always a step ahead and closer to the reader, meaning that less time (and therefore money) is needed to reach them. Apart from Serbs and ethnic Albanians, major world media are making Internet web sites about Kosovo. Media like CNN (www.cnn.com), MSNBC (www.msnbc.com), and BBC (www.news.bbc.co.uk) have separate updated files on Kosovo. Organizations such as the United Nations (www.un.org) and NATO (www.nato.org) publish resolutions made at their frequent sessions on the Kosovo conflict.

In spite of all the mess, an Internet user is able to analyze and compare web sites made by Serbs, ethnic Albanians, and international organizations and can get a pretty clear picture of what is actually going on in Kosovo. Many people are actually doing that, especially those employed by the State Department and the foreign ministries of Contact group member-countries.

Finally, does the sea of information about Kosovo reveal a possible solution to the conflict? We haven't come across one so far, which doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't exist. We will publish an address if we see one, even if we have to issue a special edition.

Kosovo and Kosova

We conducted a little experiment to complement this article. We used the three most popular search programs (Yahoo, Alta Vista, and Excite) using Kosovo and Kosova as the key words. We came across a range of results from 20 to 38,000, depending on the structure and accuracy of the search.

When the key word was Kosovo, ten web sites were almost equally shared by Serbs (the Serbian Renewal Movement, the ministry of information, official Yugoslav government presentation) and the world media (BBC, Le Monde, the Red Cross, the UN, Amnesty International). There were only a few ethnic Albanian web sites by the Kosovo Information Center. The reason is simple: the ethnic Albanian name for Kosovo is Kosova and they use the original term very rarely, even in articles written in English.

Naturally, the results are dramatically different when the word Kosova is used to search the Internet. Almost ten out of ten web sites are made by ethnic Albanians and the reader has easy access to all relevant links. There are even web sites explaining why Kosovo should be called Kosova. In case the name of the southern Serbian province “changes” in the near future, the ethnic Albanian side will be a clear winner on the Internet.

Ethnic Albanian web sites

www.kosova.com
One of the most popular web sites, used by the Kosovo Information Center close to the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo. The design is poor, but the contents are comprehensive. News are updated in Albanian, English, and German.

www.alb-net.com
This presentation is devoted to students of the self-declared University of Kosovo Albanians. It is possible to extend support to the ethnic Albanian students and follow their activities.

www.kohaditore.com
The Web site of the daily Koha Ditore. It transmits news in English by the ARTA agency and has a Kosovo Online forum organized in cooperation with Belgrade's BETA news agency. It provides a quality debate as both Serbs and ethnic Albanians discuss the conflict while all readers can forward their own reactions and opinions. The articles are in ethnic Albanian, Serbian, and English.

www.kosova-state.org
A recently installed presentation of the “Republic of Kosovo, currently under Serbia's virtual occupation”, whatever that means. It resembles an official presentation of any existing state, including facts, maps, and the addresses of political organizations. It doesn't include a Serbian version.

Serbian web sites

www.mediacentar.org
A presentation of the Media Center in Pristina. The design is respectable, but many pages are too empty. There are less news than in the rival Kosovo Information Center, and hardly any of them are illustrated with photos. It offers a good insight of familiar web sites and Yugoslav media.

www.kosovo.com
A presentation of the Serbian Renewal Movement and the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo. It brings mainly statements released by the Church and historic facts presented by Serb sources.

www.srpska-mreza.com
A presentation of Serbs living abroad. The new design is functional and attractive with a clear emphasis on what's going on in Kosovo.
 

www.serbia-info.com
A recently redesigned presentation of the Serbian Information Ministry. The news are updated regularly, but they are all based on agencies and information released by the state media. All international media state this web site as the model of the Serbian position on Kosovo.

www.gov.yu
The official Yugoslav government web site. The front page is poor as Kosovo is not mentioned. It is very complicated to get around and find what you want on.

www.suc.org
A presentation of the Serbian Unity Congress made in Canada. It brings quite a bit of information about Kosovo, as well as the positions of political parties in Serbia on the Kosovo crisis.

Who's reading all this
Only 0.5 percent of Yugoslavia's 9.8 million inhabitants have ever used the Internet. The number of Internet users in the world ranges from 60 million to about 100 million, and many experts agree that the figure doubles every year. Seventy percent of the users live in the United States. Two thirds of them are educated men between 32 and 38 years of age, therefore members of the most influent class in the most influent world country. Winning this population group for a cause means political and commercial success.