War Within Reach of Border

Pristina television, in its Sunday news cast, also confirmed , either deliberately or not, the existence of Serbian paramilitary units in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and thus denied President of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic. Hence, arms can be legally purchased in Kosovo. All you need is money and a privileged status. But speaking of television, the central studio in Belgrade last week created a precedent. It sent its team to cover a meeting between Milosevic and a hundred-odd Albanians. This was possibly because of the forthcoming international conference on Yugoslavia in London. Major speakers at the meeting were "proven Serbs with Albanian surnames", as they were called by their compatriots.

But danger is ever present! Having returned to their homes, a few of them spoke about the way in which their meeting with the Serbian leader was organized. Esat Aljiju, a driver from Smrekovica near Vucitrn, presented his case:

"The Director ordered me to be in Pristina on July 31 to drive him to Belgrade. When we arrived I asked the director where to wait for him, and he told me to go into the building because other drivers were also waiting there, in a separate room. But, all of us enterd the same conference hall. When I realized what was going on I wanted to leave but the door was locked. It was the same room where we had lbeen served lunch and coffee", Esat Aljiju ended his story.

A number of Albanians recently denied joining an association of Albanians loyal to the Republic of Serbia.

Otherwise the visit by a mission of the CSCE was the major event last week in Kosovo capital. The past two days have shown the mounting discontent among Albanians with the present problem-solving strategy.

Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of Kosovo Albanians, told Le FIGARO in an interview that the war may spread to Kosovo : "I do not rule out this possibility. Since we do not have arms, it cannot be said that this is a question of an organized war. This is why I fear a popular uprising that would cause a tragedy greater then that in Bosnia-Herzegovina."

From Geneva, Adem Demaqi tells his fellow countrymen to prepare for a resumeption of bloodshed "because the war is here, within reach of our borders."His Serbian opponent Vojislav Seselj, the leader of the Serbian Radical Party, tells Albanians that they can pay for their independence only in blood.

Kosovo between war and hope was the topic examined at a meeting that somehow passed rather unnoticed. It was in Pristina about the middle of last week that delegations of the Helsinki Parliament of Citizens, the European Movement in Serbia, the Forum for Ethnic Relations, the Committee on Human Rights Protection, the Kosovo Social Democratic Party and the Parliamentary Party of Kosovo organized a discussion on democracy, inter-ethnic relations and the ways and means to resolve the problems of Kosovo and Albanians.

Helsinki Parliamentarians offer mediation in the future dialogue between the Albanians and Serbs.

Dialogue

Newspapers in Belgrade covered the effort to open a Serbian-Albanian dialogue on Kosovo only to draw the very dismal conclusion that "there was hardly any result save the fact that all participants sat at the same table" (POLITIKA). The Belgrade daily NOVOSTI, without its usual aggressiveness attitude towards the Albanians, naturally stressed that the "participants have not edged a step forward , the sole Albanian representative insisted on an independent Kosovo as the ultimate goal of his compatriots' political struggle while the representatives of Serbia's ruling as well as opposition parties ruled out negotiations on Serbia's integrity."

The only Albanian at the round table conference in Belgrade on August 5 was President of the Parliamentary Party of Kosovo, Veton Suroi, while on the other side was the entire rank of Serbian political parties from Borisav Jovic (Socialist Party of Serbia, SPS) and Vojislav Seselj (Serbian Radical Party,SRS), to Dragoljub Micunovic (Democratic Party, DS) and Vesna Pesic (Reformist Party of Serbia, RSS).

Pick of the week

"Children evacuated from Bosnia-Herzegovina are being sold to German and Austrian families."

Radovan Karadzic, President of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) in Bosnia-Herzegovina