From Enclave to Enclave

The position of Kosovo Serbs points to the fact that their trouble can never be that severe to compel them to join and appear in public in order to represent the people and produce certain effects. The state of affairs can be judged as even worse. In each of the not very many enclaves, inhabited with Kosovo Serbs, there are at least several active political options which are trying to present themselves as an inevitable factor in solving the Kosovo crisis, though they at times consist of only a few people. In essence, among the Serbs in Kosovo today, there are three clear political options and a mass of indecisive people who are, at this moment more concerned with a mere survival than with senseless debates of their leaders. At the same time, Kosovo represents a polygon of combined influences imposed by the international association, those of revengeful Kosovo Albanians, and the residue of formerly popular Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). In such circumstances, as it seems, it is impossible to achieve the minimal harmony in attitudes of mutually disconnected groups, which live in totally insecure conditions, and which additionally worsens the already miserable position of the majority of Serbs.

For more than a year, after the arrival of foreign troops and the establishment of international protectorate on the territory, which belongs to FRY only according to the UN Security Council Resolution 1244, and the following exodus of about 200,000 local Serbs from Kosovo - as the most numerous and best organised body appeared the National Council of Kosovska Mitrovica. By maintaining in one fifth of the former Kosovska Mitrovica, in municipalities of Leposavic, Zubin Potok and Zvecan, about 60,000 Serbs, that organisation represents the interests of the majority of Serbs who remained in Kosovo and denotes a significant barrier to further Albanian expansion northwards. Success of that organisation can be explained with a good geographical position, since the Ibar literally cuts that area from Kosovo, but also with the position of the international association which, as the Albanians themselves admit, tolerates to the Serbs in the north whatever it tolerates to the Albanians elsewhere. The natural connection with Serbia surely includes the possibility of a serious clash between that organisation and the regime in Belgrade. The latter can preserve the illusion of territorial integrity and state sovereignty only at that area of Kosovo. The obvious dependence on international factors, which are the strongest barriers to Albanian expansion beyond the Ibar, requires a strong opposition block, and the Serbian National Council of Mitrovica (SNV) with its representatives and DSS (the Democratic Party of Serbia) do satisfy those conditions to some extent. SNV of Mitrovica is, at the same time, the first registered organisation of Kosovo Serbs, called by such a name.

An organisation with the same name from Gracanica, which at first consisted only of clergy and some behindhand politicians, succeeded in outshining the influence of the state of Serbia. Bishop Artemije from Prizren, father Sava Janjic and, until recently, Momcilo Trajkovic, have, as it seems, paid the price of being too present in the media and the co-operation with the most important delegates of the West, which paraded throughout Kosovo in the past year. The relative failure of Gracanica's organisation is a consequence of both propaganda on the part of the Serbian regime and the impossibility to offer evidence that some Serbs wish to remain below the Ibar frontier on the part of the international association. Exactly due to such reasons, the ambitious plans of return, the way to reconciliation, or at least the peaceful life in separate societies, which is propagated by SNV of Gracanica, are all destined to fail each time the Serbian population is concerned. The Serbs are so desperate, they think the only way to salvation lies in the return of Yugoslav security forces. That is the basis of the third political option of Kosovo Serbs - the remains of the formerly gigantic SPS. In order to comprehend the degree of current SPS influence in Kosovo, it is essential to perform a thorough examination of that party's power prior to March 24th last year, while the Socialists still represented the only serious political 'firm' in Kosovo. Simultaneously, that was the only part of Serbia in which the pre-election slogan 'we are all socialists a little bit' seemed real. Incapable of directing their activities towards real and concrete actions, and evidently ignored by delegates of the international association (except in the cases of unsolved incidents), the Socialists, similarly to the opposition in Serbia, remain to be an important political factor in Kosovo.

In spite of the seriousness of political discord among the Serbs in Kosovo, their viewpoints concerning the three main problems of current political events - the registration of citizens, the local elections announced for October, and the return of the expelled - are almost identical, though they seem to be instigated by different motives. All three sides are strongly opposed to any kind of registration of the local population since, as Bishop Artemije recently said, 'there is nothing to be registered in Kosovo' since two thirds of local Serbs left the province in one way or another. Thanks to flirting with the international association, only the Serbs from Gracanica did not explicitly refuse participation in that process, though they conditioned their concession with the return of the Serbian refugees, which is (as it seems at the moment) going to bear crucial consequences - to whom are the Serbs from Kosovo going to endow their trust. Therefore, the animosity between the two organisations which are hoping to achieve that, is not surprising at all. Gracanica, with the help of the international association, or Mitrovica, with a somewhat weaker international factors, but a more probable support of the expelled Serbs, without whom all efforts are useless.

The third group, which apart from verbal decisions does not act with too much interest for anything that has to do with Kosovo, has the least chance to achieve any success, in spite of its representatives' potential logic which can be engaged in a short period of time. That group has earned neither trust, nor a good approach to the refugees, who have still not settled in Serbia properly. A serious attempt to unite the efforts of SNV of Mitrovica and that of Gracanica, was made by Momcilo Trajkovic who, by stepping out of SNV of Gracanica, tried to link the two organisations. However, he did not meet any support. The other, and it seems a much more significant attempt to fuse all Kosovo Serbs and Albanians, has recently been made by the Washington Institute for Peace, which invited all Kosovo leaders to the meeting announced for July 22nd. If the meeting happens to be successful, it was planned that all participants, along with the US State Secretary Madeline Albright, should sign a joint declaration.