Status Quo

Various bad news came in from Kosovo last week. News about the death of ethnic Albanian humanitarian workers in Vlaski Drenovac, the abduction of two Serbian reporters near Orahovac, renewed clashes and burning houses in Komoran, Kisna Reka, Nekovce, Stankovce, Fustice, Magure, Suva Reka and Stimlje. Serb troops are probably trying to prevent the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) from regrouping,  taking positions near military facilities and launching new guerrilla attacks, as announced by it’s political representative Adem Demaqi. Demaqi first refused to start peace talks with the Serbs (apart from talks on Kosovo's independence) and then conditioned the talks on war compensation and the withdrawal of all troops and arms except elementary police troops. At the same time, Demaqi attacked Ibrahim Rugova, who agreed to talk to the Serbs but is still trying to delay the peace talks by demanding the withdrawal of Serb troops from Kosovo.

A KLA faction comprising fighters from around 30 villages in the Metohija region has formed it’s own headquarters, meaning that Rugova might now gain control of a part of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Demaqi's response came in an interview to the Voice of America radio broadcast, when he said that the Serbs should give up all hope that the ethnic Albanians will start fighting each other. Demaqi added it was quite irrelevant how many flags and factions there were in the quest for national liberation. Serb politicians, on the other hand, believe that the confusion that apparently emerged among the ethnic Albanians is in fact another attempt to delay the peace talks and attain foreign military intervention in Kosovo.

A MESSAGE TO AMERICA: With the situation as such, Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president, received Christopher Hill, the special US envoy to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, last Tuesday. According to the media, Milosevic told Hill that the United States should "lift the sanctions imposed against Yugoslavia as well as barriers which hinder free development causing severe humanitarian and economic problems, if it truly wants prosperity in the Balkans".

"As far as Kosovo is concerned, the present conflict should be resolved by peaceful and political means only. At the same time, crushing terrorism is a basic prerequisite for a stable situation in Kosovo and the safety of all inhabitants in the southern Serbian province", Milosevic reportedly told Hill.

CONCENSUS AND DIFFERENCES: All major political parties in Serbia agree that the police should crush the KLA. They also agree that the authorities should help the refugees return to their homes and that Kosovo's status within Serbia should be resolved by peace talks. There are certain differences among the parties as to how Kosovo should be pacified. Opposition parties are slightly more radical than those comprising the ruling coalition, bonded by international factors and political pragmatism. The president of the Democratic Party of Serbia, Vojislav Kostunica, is still trying to make his radicalized opinions count while Vuk Draskovic, the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) leader, has been asking for a state of emergency and tougher action for a month or so.

Draskovic reiterated his demand for a state of emergency last week. He came up with the idea that ethnic Albanians should be disarmed and arrested in the presence of international observers, one at a time if necessary. He backed his demands with the explanation that "it can't go on like this any more"!

Other parties snubbed his demand and said the police troops were quite efficient in the given circumstances, adding that introducing a state of emergency would make Kosovo's ethnic Albanians even more frustrated. The ruling Socialist Party of Serbia praised Draskovic's proposal, and it’s spokesman Ivica Dacic said the following: "We maintain that the SPO proposal is well-intended and we will discuss it if the parliament feels that we should vote on it". Dacic specified that the Serbian authorities prohibited the illegal Kosovo Parliament and said he thought talks between the KLA and any foreign representatives, including Richard Holbrooke, were harmful for the peace process.
The Serbian Radical Party and it’s leader Vojislav Seselj do not support a state of emergency in Kosovo. Seselj said it would be meaningless to ask for peace talks after introducing a state of emergency and suspending political parties. Miodrag Vukovic, an official of the Democratic Party of Montenegro's Socialists, qualified the proposition to introduce a state of emergency as "admitting that the Serbian authorities have failed in their quest to create an impression that the situation in the country hasn't been out of the ordinary all these years".

"Serbia insists that Kosovo is nobody's business, but even the federal constitution, which is in discord with the Serbian constitution, says that introducing a state of emergency falls within the competence of the federal assembly, government and president. It is not known whether the SPO is not aware of this or trying to move the ball to the federal government's backyard", Vukovic said.

TWO CONSTITUTIONS: Had the initiative been accepted, the discord between the Serbian and the federal constitution would have been a real problem. "While he was the Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic never exercised his major presidential powers to declare a state of war and, consequently, limit civilian rights and make decisions within the competence of the Serbian parliament and the constitution". Pavle Nikolic states this in his book From Disintegration to Desperation and Hope.

Although this has never been said, the necessity to recruit people and send them to fight in Kosovo, a measure which was very unpopular during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia - is clearly one of the reasons why Serbian politicians rejected the idea to introduce a state of emergency. The cries to defend sacred Serbian land are now few and far between, but there are also less public outcries against war probably because only regular troops and police have been sent to fight. The parents of some conscripts serving the army in Kosovo have staged a couple of protest rallies, and most of them were Vojvodina's Hungarians who don't want to take any part in the Kosovo conflict. There are no indications that the regime will be forced to take any radical measures in Kosovo and it is unlikely that any radical measures would bear fruit.
A state of emergency was declared in Kosovo several times. Military authorities ruled the province in 1945 while weapons were confiscated from the population in 1950.The army and/or the police intervened in 1968, 1981 and 1990. Finally, Kosovo's autonomy was suspended in 1990 and the competence of ruling the province was taken away from the federal authorities by Serbia.

Virtually all the reasons for a state of emergency have ceased to exist. A large area once controlled by the KLA is now back in the hands of Serb police, supply routes to KLA troops have been cut off and their strongholds along the Albanian border destroyed. Recruiting people to go to Kosovo would cost far more than the construction material needed to start rebuilding Kosovo's war-struck homes and villages.

REFUGEES: The ethnic Albanians are trying to capitalize on the fact that some 500,000 people are in the middle of nowhere under the clear blue sky after months of heavy fighting. The Serbs are accusing all ethnic Albanian leaders, including their favorite counterpart Ibrahim Rugova, of deliberately prolonging the suffering of their compatriots. International humanitarian organizations are trying to help the most endangered civilians and keep complaining that the Serbs are deliberately obstructing them with delaying visas and banning permits for communication frequencies. Serbian state-controlled media, on the other hand, say that certain humanitarian organizations are doing intelligence work with their communication gear.

Basically, the Serbs want refugees to be helped only in places where they are certain that the KLA will not benefit from it. It has been estimated that the daily cost of the Kosovo conflict is somewhere between one and two million German marks, while the rough price of the destruction of public and private property is about $ 500,000.

The ethnic Albanian guerrilla fighters are threatening Serbia with economic exhaustion, but it is highly unlikely that their threats will have any effect at all. Ethnic Albanian troops rely heavily on their foreign-based compatriots, their neighboring country of origin which is falling apart and Kosovo's rural population which will surely starve if the fighting continues for much longer. The objective of the sanctions imposed against Yugoslavia is to limit Serbia's resources to wage a war in Kosovo, but the sanctions will prove counterproductive in the end as Serbia's southern province is it’s most undeveloped and most overpopulated region. Therefore Kosovo will be the first to suffer the devastating effects of the sanctions. That's exactly why it is more than likely that Milosevic tried to get an acceptable price in his meeting with Christopher Hill.