News & Letters, April 1998
Our Life and Times
Will the Serbs launch war over Kosova?
by Kevin A. Barry and Mary Holmes
In March, the conflict between Kosova's Albanian majority and their Serbian overlords burst into the open. In a series of brutal attacks reminiscent of the worst days of the 1992-95 Bosnian War, Serbian forces invaded several Kosovar Albanian villages, murdering, torturing, and raping as they went. By the end of March, the death toll was at least 80, with 20,000 people fleeing their villages. As in Bosnia, the U.S. verbally threatened Serbia but did nothing, the Western Europeans temporized, and Russia promised to aid the Serbs. Western human rights groups chimed in, condemning the violence on 'both sides.'
The unindicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic, who still serves as Serbia's top leader, hesitated for a few days after the U.S. threats, but then, when nothing came of them, resumed and even escalated his genocidal attacks. On March 24, in a gesture of contempt, Milosevic invited the notorious killer Vojislav Seselj, who advocates driving 'disloyal' Kosovar Albanians over the border, to join his government.
The background to this conflict goes back to 1987 when, as Communist Yugoslavia began to collapse, Slobodan Milosevic transformed himself from Party apparatchik to Serbian nationalist. He went to KosovaŅeven the spelling of the name is in dispute, with Serbs spelling it Kosovo, and the Albanian majority KosovaŅand gave a speech asserting Serbian control over the province, despite the fact that its population consists of two million Albanians and only 100,000 Serbs.
Using arguments similar to those of religious zealots like Israel's Netanyahu, Milosevic claimed Kosova for Serbia in perpetuity because (1) its churches and monasteries are relics of the time when Serbs dominated the area, and (2) it was here that a Serbian king was defeated in 1389 by the Ottoman Turks, who proceeded to rule over the Serbs for the next 500 years. Even more shockingly, such views were defended by leading opposition intellectuals such as the longtime Marxist humanist Mihailo Markovic. This was the first step in the latter's transformation into the rabid nationalist demagogue he is today.
Beginning in 1989, Milosevic revoked Kosova's autonomy, subjecting it to military rule. The Albanian majority set up a series of unofficial political, educational, and community structures, declaring its independence from Serbia in 1991. Using the tactics of nonviolent resistance under the leadership of Ibrahim Rugova, the majority remained firm and disciplined in its non-cooperation with Serb rule, while also carefully distinguishing between the Serbian people and Milosevic's regime. Another group of Kosovar Albanians, perhaps as large as 500,000, fled abroad rather than suffer under Milosevic's rule.
By 1996, a new generation emerged, impatient not only with Rugova's strict nonviolence, but also with his refusal to call street demonstrations. They were outraged by the fact that Clinton's 1995 Dayton Accords, which sold out Bosnia, failed even to mention the plight of Kosova's two million Albanians. Some of them had also fought as volunteers in the multiethnic Bosnian army.
In early 1996, the Kosova Liberation Army (UCK) announced itself with a series of small-scale attacks. Then, in spring 1996, the dictatorial regime of Sali Berisha in neighboring Albania, which had worked hard to prevent aid from crossing its borders into Kosova, collapsed in a popular uprising. After that, thousands of weapons made their way across the border.
By the fall of 1997, UCK attacks became more frequent and serious. Defying Rugova's ban on street demonstrations, Kosovar Albanian students took to the streets again and again, braving vicious attacks by Milosevic's police. By early 1998, both the UCK's attacks and the student and citizen demonstrations had begun to worry Serb authorities.
Then, on Feb. 23, U.S. envoy to the Balkans Robert Gelbard described the UCK as 'without any question, a terrorist group.' It was only days after receiving this green light from the U.S. that Milosevic began his massive attacks on Kosovar villages.
Is another genocidal Serbian war on the horizon in Kosova? Possibly. Milosevic seems to want one, and the U.S. and its European allies seem ready to give him a relatively free hand once again. However, the alignment of forces is different than in Bosnia in 1992. Serbs constitute only 5% of Kosova's population. In addition, Kosovar Albanians are better organized and armed, both politically and militarily, than were their Bosnian counterparts in 1992, plus they can count on some aid from Albania.
Finally, Milosevic's Serbia is far weaker than in 1992. It is (1) battered by years of war and economic collapse, (2) restless under his authoritarian rule, as shown by the 1996-97 pro-democracy demonstrations, and (3) facing a rearmed Bosnia which chafes under the totally unjust territorial compromises forced upon it at Dayton, and at the way in which Bosnian Serb war criminals continue to rule undisturbed over much of their nation's territory.
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