Visa for Dialogue

In the Serbian-Albanian relationships which were frozen and very stiff for years, a step has finally been made, which gives hope that the problem will move from the deadlock. Belgrade has revoked exit visas for travelling to Albania which were introduced in 1981 in order to control and prevent contacts between Kosovo and Albania. The revocation of exit visas which is to take effect in late April may be considered as the first sign of the good will of Belgrade, which is aware that serious negotiations with Albania are about to begin. The revocation of exit visas is not a great and painful concession for Belgrade. Visas were introduced in order to prevent close contacts and connections between Tirana and Pristina which were established in the seventies when Kosovo was fairly autonomous. In the meantime, the system of exit visas has become an inefficient and anachronic measure because the Kosovo Albanians found alternative ways to travel to Albania (via Macedonia, or even via Europe). However, the Serbian police applied the exit visa regulations. Passport control was very strict on ethnic Albanians and the Serbian police took their passports if they had stamps from Macedonian-Albanian border crossings, or any other kind of indirect proof that their owners had visited Albania. The suspicion that one had been in Albania was a strong enough reason for harassment, informative talks with the police and even persecution. The first ones to be persecuted were those who erased stamps in their passports in order to conceal that they had visited Albania. The constant strict passport control did complicate communication between Kosovo and Albania but did not prevent it.

Maintaining the physical border with Albania in the present-day circumstances is like insisting on some kind of an ideological Magino line which can have no rational purpose. The classical police control and border regime can no longer limit the flow of people, goods and especially ideas. In the situation when Albania and Kosovo are part of the world telephone and electronic communication networks, when we have satellite television, the police methods of seizing Albanian books and magazines at the border become nonsense. Information, articles and books are exchanged via modems and the old-fashioned police logic is completely powerless and outdated for these forms of communication.

Another fact concerning the Serbian-Albanian border also shows that this police logic is being overcome - Kosovo tourist companies are planning to start operating air traffic between Pristina and Tirana soon. In addition to the revocation of exit visas, this will be a new satisfaction for the Albanians who wish to go to Albania on business, to visit their relatives or to go there as tourists.

However, one should not hastily assess the easing of the Serbian-Albanian relations. The fact that the Serbian police no longer require exit visas does not mean they will automatically facilitate other forms of the border regime toward Albania. One should not have illusions that revocation of exit visas will overcome the gap of political and strategic interests which separate Belgrade from Pristina and Tirana. Major problems remain where they were, with no real signs of yielding, only Belgrade now seems more willing to start a dialogue with Pristina and especially with Tirana. Albanian President Sali Berisha last winter made several compromise statements about Kosovo, which even included the resolution under the Yugoslav sovereignty. Berisha, in exchange, asked that Belgrade should show its good will by revoking exit visas for people travelling to Albania. If Belgrade's latest decision is a reply to Berisha's request, this might mean that Belgrade is praising Tirana's moderate policy, i.e. that when it comes to the essential status of Kosovo, Belgrade and Tirana understand each other better than Belgrade and Pristina.

Pristina sees the revocation of visas as a good sign but not as a fulfilled condition for the beginning of serious talks. Pristina demands cancellation of the repressive police regime installed fifteen years ago. More precisely, Pristina would like Belgrade to make real and not only symbolic steps. Freeing of political prisoners, elimination of police repression, giving people back their jobs, liberation of Albanian-language media - radio and TV above all - normalization of the work of schools and university in Albanian, might be some of the gestures of good will. Belgrade and the installed local Serbian authorities do not even want to hear of such steps. Some of the ethnic Albanians who had been dismissed are now returning to their jobs and even getting compensation for the damage that had been inflicted upon them during 1990-92 when ethnic Albanians were being illegally dismissed. Some of those who had lodged appeals are now being called to court and even getting positive answers. However, this action of the Serbian courts, which is probably coordinated with tactic plans of Milosevic's team concerning Kosovo, is still a limited one and most of the ethnic Albanians do not trust the purpose of the selective return to work. They believe that it is aimed at making a split among the Albanians, or at making some of them dependent on the existing system. Such expectations may easily be recognized in the Serbian regime propaganda over the past few months, such as the claims that part of the Kosovo Albanians are "gaining self-awareness" and "are abandoning the secessionist leadership." This, of course, is more of a wish than a reality. Albanians know that selective offers cannot essentially change the installed anti-Albanian system, but can only change it superficially. The Serbian regime is trying to partly improve the dark image of mass violation of human rights in Kosovo, which has been mentioned in numerous reports of various influential international organizations (UN, OECS, European Parliament, etc.).

However, although Belgrade cannot hope to have a fairly influential pro-Yugoslav generation of Albanians in Kosovo, the ethnic Albanian political circles are afraid of the consequences which manipulation with the unemployed might have. These people have no alternative solutions for their difficult situations.

On the other hand, a general approach to the return to work has many concrete tensions and dissatisfactions. The ethnic Albanians who received their cases for the sustained damage (which the courts in some cases estimated to as much as 100,000 dinars - or approximately 30,000 German Marks) are not satisfied with the collective approach to the problem because they must immediately decide whether to return to work and force the companies to pay the compensation. By yielding to the pressure of the community, they personally would lose and the reward for the concrete sacrifice seems to be virtual with uncertain answers to when and how it would take place. The distinction between the rationality and irrationality of practical decision-making of human beings becomes more than obvious in these cases.

The easing of the border regime, which was at first received with joy, even with euphoria called the "beginning of the fall of the so-called Albanian Berlin wall," later proved as a diabolic act. Revocation of exit visas is a good sign, but it can also be understood as an act which re-confirms the existing borders. The only thing that is being cancelled is the system of exit visas, while entry visas remain in effect, as well as the control of all border crossings. Traffic across the border will be made easier for the Albanians, but Kosovo remains part of Serbia and Yugoslavia. From this aspect, the concession Belgrade is making has its consequences. At the critical moment, when the international community reiterated the principle that borders cannot be changed, and when Kosovo was said to be remaining in Serbia, Belgrade took only a preventive step in order to neutralize the strongest proof of the Kosovo Albanians - their right to maintain free political, cultural and economic communication with Albania as their mother-country. Belgrade can now tell the world: this is where we have opened the door for free communication of the Albanians. After this, Belgrade can promise that the Albanians will be denied no other right except the right to secession!

It could be said that Belgrade is preparing and adjusting itself for a possible compromise in the resolution of the Kosovo issue. The adoption of the principle of unchanged borders must be compensated by wider political rights for the Albanians, which should essentially go - if not so far as full right to self-determination - as far as that which is called internal self-determination. In this case, because of direct implications concerning the stability in the region, the self-determination of Kosovo Albanians must have certain foreign guarantees. This is why the world political centres consider the Kosovo issue internationalized. This means that the principle of unchanged borders should not be understood in the classical sense of the word. The borders are re-affirmed, but the tendency of their relativization prevails.

New Balkan borders, although formed forcibly and after terrible ethnic wars, are essentially undetermined and porous in the same way in which the newly formed states are not typical sovereign states, but something in between. Kosovo might soon find itself in this configuration of relative indetermination and floating.