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WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : The Balkans
Elections confirm popular hostility
towards Kosovo Liberation Army
By Tony Robson
17 December 2001
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The most significant feature of November's elections
for the new assembly in Kosovo is the continued failure
of the political successors of the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA) to win any substantial support at the ballot
box.
The Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), under former
KLA leader Hashim Thaci, received 25.5 percent of the
vote, similar to its performance in last October's
municipal elections. The Alliance for the Future of
Kosovo (AAK), headed by Ramush Hajredinaj, another
former KLA leader, won just 7.8 percent of the vote.
Both parties trailed way behind the Democratic League
of Kosovo (LDK) of Ibrahim Rugova, the oldest
established Albanian nationalist party, identified as
leading a non-violent campaign for separation. The
LDK emerged as the outright winner with 46.3 percent
of the vote, but this margin is well short of the
majority
it requires within the new government.
The Western media has hailed the result as a victory
for
moderation and proof that a maturing democracy is
taking shape in the Yugoslav province, which now
exists as a NATO protectorate. However, the body
responsible for supervising the elections-the
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe-avoided such bold assertions and instead
downgraded its usual standard for internationally
supervised elections from "free and fair" to
"legitimate
and credible". This is in recognition of the ethnic
hatred that continues to pervade the province, where
Serb and non-Albanian minorities do not enjoy freedom
of movement for fear of violent attacks.
Any attempt to credit the Western powers for the
extremists poor showing at the ballot box is sheer
hypocrisy, given the fact that they played the primary
role in promoting the KLA in the first place and have
continued to bolster the paramilitaries within the
protectorate since its establishment.
At the Rambouillet talks in February 1999, the US
sidelined Rugova and insisted that KLA
commander-in-chief Thaci head the Kosovar
negotiating team. This was combined with the
ultimatum that the Serbian government of Slobodan
Milosevic surrender all sovereignty to NATO.
America's aim was to create a provocation that would
provide them with a pretext to go to war. The KLA then
served as a proxy for NATO in its 79-day war against
Yugoslavia. Afterwards, the US set up the KLA as the
dominant force in the province.
There have been three different forms of post-war
government in Kosovo-the KLA provisional
government (PGK), the LDK government based upon
the parallel elections of 1998 and the United Nations
interim administration (UNMIK). The Western powers
began to put together an administration under their
control, which allotted key positions to the KLA. The
latter had taken advantage of its military exploits to
impose its rule in 23 of the province's 30
municipalities, taking over state enterprises and the
running of public services including hospitals and
schools. The KLA, along with the five other opposition
parties to Rugova's LDK, were given international
recognition by the major powers. This was exemplified
by the invitation extended to KLA representatives to
attend the Balkan Stability Pact forum in July 1999,
while the LDK were excluded. The KLA were also
given a controlling voice on the UN-sponsored Kosovo
Transitional Council.
In the municipal elections last October, however, the
LDK became the main beneficiary of the discontent that
had arisen at this attempt to install the KLA into
positions of authority. While independence remained
the overriding sentiment amongst ethnic Albanian
voters, there was growing opposition to the KLA's
criminal activities and Mafia-style politics. (See:
After
communal elections: new conflicts on the horizon).
This was despite the best efforts of the US to sanitise
the political image of the KLA. In the run-up to the
elections, Thaci, in his role as leader of the newly
formed PDK was given a hero's welcome in America.
He visited the UN Headquarters, met with officials
from the State Department and was an honoured guest at
the Democratic Party Convention. While the
mainstream media paid little attention to this tour, it
was heavily promoted by the Voice of America radio
station, whose principal audience is Europe, in order
to
bolster Thaci's credibility as a statesmanlike figure.
While the PDK has failed to increase its standing via
the ballot box, one of the main ways in which it has
perpetuated its influence has been through its
dominance of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC).
Described as a reserve National Guard, the KPC was
set-up under the auspices of UNMIK. Giving the KLA
cadre a central role in the KPC was described as the
"demilitarisation" of the guerrilla outfit. However,
while the deadline for handing over weapons were
continually deferred and new caches of arms continued
to be discovered-leading to conflicts between
NATO's K-FOR "peace keeping" troops and the
KLA-5,000 of the paramilitary organisation's
estimated 30,000 membership have been absorbed into
the KPC reserve force.
UNMIK appointed former KLA commander Agim Ceku
to be the KPC's Chief of Staff. Ceku is implicated in
the ethnic cleansing of Serbs whilst serving with the
Croatian forces during the military offensives in Medak
in 1993 and the Krajina in 1995. Evidence to this
effect
was leaked from an internal report submitted to The
Hague tribunal prior to NATO's military intervention
in Kosovo.
A report submitted to the UN Secretary General last
year said that the KPC was responsible for "criminal
activities-killings, ill-treatment/torture, illegal
policing, abuse of authority, intimidation, breaches of
neutrality and hate-speech." This is backed up by a
number of sources. The Economist noted last
November: "Foreigners and locals alike complain that
UNMIK and KFOR have gone soft on the local
gangsters to avoid a backlash against their presence.
Certainly, members of the local police and Kosovo
Protection Corps (KPC), a civil-defence force, both
staffed in large part by the former KLA fighters, have
been implicated in all sorts of shady dealing, as have
many well-known ex-KLA politicians. Late last year,
for example, UNMIK police arrested Idriz Brahimi, a
KPC leader, on five counts of murder and torture.
Another prominent former guerrilla was arrested on
weapons charges, but later released without
explanation. In private, UN officials argue that it is
better to keep such thugs uniformed, organised and busy
than underground, disenfranchised and bitter."
Last August the military journal Jane's stated:
"UNMIK is not handling matters particularly well. The
decision to create the Kosovo Defence Force (TMK),
which employs a number of former KLA guerrillas, as
a supposedly 'civilian' emergency task force merely
perpetuated the core of the KLA under cover of a
legitimate body."
The KLA, therefore, remains a force in the land thanks
to Western sponsorship and despite the evident
hostility
of the majority of ethnic Albanians and the hatred of
ethnic Serbs and other minorities. Two-thirds of the
Serb population were driven out of the province by the
KLA, under the noses of K-FOR troops. Most of the
100,000 Serbs that remain live in enclaves guarded by
NATO forces, with over half of these residing north of
the river Ibar in the divided town of Metrovica.
According to one source, although Serbs and other
minorities represent only 10 percent of the population,
they account for 50 percent of murder victims. More
than five Serbs are shot, blown-up or beaten to death
every month.
In the November elections, both the PDK and the AAK
failed to break out of the confines of what have become
their rural fiefdoms. The parties and their leaders are
associated with the bulk of criminal activity that has
flourished in the protectorate. An estimated four to
eight tonnes of heroin are thought to pass through
Kosovo and neighbouring Serbia and Albania every
month. The province is also the transit route for the
smuggling of guns, cigarettes, petrol, stolen cars and
forged documents. The split between Hajredinaj and
Thaci is originally believed to be over the control of
petrol stations.
While these gangster elements clash over who controls
the booty, the vast majority of the population is
slipping
further into poverty. Nationalism is promoted to the
exclusion of all social issues in a province where
unemployment runs at between 50 to 60 percent.
While Rugova's LDK won the election, their slender
majority means that they will have to look to either
the
PDK or AAK to form a coalition. During the elections,
all three Kosovar-Albanian parties tried to outdo each
other by presenting themselves as the most determined
champions of independence. Although the political
scene continues to be dominated by nationalist
demagogues, there are signs that a significant section
of
voters feel disenfranchised as a result. The proportion
of registered voters taking part in November's
elections as compared with those last October declined
from 78 percent to 63 percent.
See Also:
Behind the Milosevic trial: the US, Europe and the
Balkan catastrophe
[4 July 2001]
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