Cosic's Invitation - A Ray of Hope

The Islamic high school in Pristina, in which several meetings of ethnic-Albanian political parties were held so far, was surrounded by the police on June 22, and the school director, a number of school employees and citizens detained. In the early morning hours of that Tuesday, the Kosovo Democratic Alliance Vice-President Fehmi Agani was taken to the police precinct and was informed that the holding of the meeting will be prevented at all costs. Several representatives were arrested, while Skender Berisha of Prizren was sentenced to 60 days in prison "for disturbing public law and order". Depending on their nationality, the Kosovo commentators have been explaining the latest events by saying that "the Republic of Serbia has made it clear to the secessionists that their dealings" will no longer be ignored or tolerated" or "with this act the Serbian Government wanted to score political points within the Serbian nation, with the thesis that this regime alone is able to save 'Serbian Kosovo'". The political subjects of the multi-party Kosovo Parliament underscore that increased repression at a time when the Serbian Government allegedly speaks in favor of dialogue with the ethnic Albanians clearly shows how the ruling Serbian-Montenegrin circles imagine this dialogue. And while the Serbian Government's invitation to dialogue was smoothly rejected because of conditioning and levity, the invitation of the just inaugurated President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Dobrica Cosic, addressed to all political party leaders in Kosovo, instills a ray of hope that the ethnic Albanians and Serbs may finally sit down to the same table, perhaps even with the mediation of foreign factors as Ibrahim Rugova (leader of the Kosovo Democratic League) advocates. The chances are all the greater as the political leaders of the ethnic Albanians are not denying the fact of joining Kosovo with the former Yugoslav federation, then there is the recent Albanian referendum which does not exclude joining a future federation or confederation.

In the past few weeks, the citizens of Kosovo have been disturbed by the presence and behavior of the police force. The most striking event occurred on Saturday, June 20, when a regular police patrol stopped a vehicle inside of which were President of the Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts Mark Krasnici, Secretary of the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights Zenun Celjaj, Kosovo Social Democratic Party Secretary Ibrahim Osmani and the newly-elected member of the Kosovo Parliament Riza Luka. After contacting their superiors, saying that they have caught several "Shiptars", they escorted them back to the police station. They soon allowed Krasnici and Luka to leave, while the other two, Ibrahim Osmani and Zenun Celjaj, got the worst of it. Osmani was the first to enter a room where two police officers - one uniformed, the other a plainclothesman - beat him with truncheons. Then it was Celjaj's turn. Ibrahim Osmani (with whom we had the opportunity to talk) said that he will never forget the screams coming from the room in which they were beating Celjaj. Namely, Celjaj warned them to look out for his feet, because he has problems. This, however, induced the two fuming policemen to take off his shoes and beat his feet. They then called Osmani back into the room and, after dealing him several heavy blows on the head (he said that his ears were ringing), stapled on his breast pocket a VJESNIK (the leading Zagreb daily) press card (Osmani used to be this paper's correspondent). "I don't know why they beat us, what we did wrong, but I was horrified by such hatred that was expressed while we were being beaten. I am surprised in particular by the threat that they will throw us out and kill us before America and Europe come, and that we won't live to see ourselves saved" Ibrahim Osmani said at the end of the talk.

A joint exhibition in the Pristina gallery, where Kosovo artists of different nationalities displayed their works, shows that not everything is black. However, one swallow doesn't make a summer ...