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PAS : KE ARAH PEMERINTAHAN ISLAM YANG ADIL
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April 16-30, 2000/ Kosovo
US raids against UCPMB help Serbs to fight Kosovar
Muslims
By Khalil Osman in Prague
[Crescent International, April 16-30, 2000.]
Leaders of a recently-formed Albanian guerrilla group in southeastern
Serbia renounced military action last month, following
political pressure and military operations against them by US forces
serving in neighbouring Kosova.
Speaking to reporters on March 23, after a nine-hour meeting with senior
American and Kosovar officials, Januz Musliu, head
of the Political Council for Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (PCPMB),
said tersely: "We are against armed confrontation."
He proceeded to explain that: "Our stance and our engagement will be in
accord with our own national and international
interests, especially with those of the United States and the North
Atlantic Alliance."
The about-turn, after months of growing militancy, followed intense US
pressure culminating in US military operations against
Albanian fighters, effectively doing the Serbs� work for them. US state
department spokesman James Rubin revealed that the
PCPMB made the statement renouncing armed confrontation at the request
of former Kosova Liberation Army (UCK) leader
Hashim Thaci, after Rubin himself had urged Thaci to persuade them "that
the military course is a disaster for us all."
The PCPMB is the political wing of the Liberation Army of Presevo,
Bujanovac and Medvedja (UCPMB), a militia in the
Presevo valley in southeastern Serbia. Their declared goal had been to
end Serbia�s authority in Presevo and two other border
districts, parts of which overlap with the 5-kilometre-wide
demilitarized zone between Kosova and Serbia, known as the
Ground Safety Zone (GSZ). According to the "Military-Technical
Agreement" signed by Belgrade and NATO last June, only a
limited number of Serb policemen, and no soldiers, are allowed into the
GSZ.
The three districts are sandwiched between Macedonia to the south and
Kosova to the northwest. Presevo�s population is
estimated to be 92 percent Albanian, Bujanovac�s 65 percent, and
Medvedja�s 35 percent. The area, known to the Albanians
as �Kosova Lindore� (Eastern Kosova), was incorporated into Serbia at
the end of the second world war. Local residents
voted overwhelmingly for autonomy and possible unification with Kosova
in the referendum held in the former Yugoslavia in
1992.
The UCPMB, which models itself on the UCK in name, uniform and tactics,
consists of a few hundred well-armed fighters who
are active in the hills of the no-man�s-land around Presevo town, about
12 kilometres east of the boundary between Serbia and
Kosova. The UCPMB headquarters is believed to be in Dobrosin, a village
located inside the GSZ. The group�s leader is
believed to be Sefket Hassani, a 60-year-old local poet, who had
returned to the area last November after spending some time
working in Switzerland.
The ranks of the UCPMB have been growing rapidly, thanks largely to
former members of the UCK. There are about 20,000
unemployed former UCK fighters, many of whom have formed small militia
groups in Kosova. Each of these new militia groups
consists of a dozen or so members, together comprising a force of a few
hundred fighters. They are active mainly in the
US-controlled sector of Kosova, which adjoins the GSZ. But despite their
small size, these groups have weapons and moral
and financial support from the UCK�s fund-raising organization, which
continues to collect substantial donations from migrant
Albanian communities.
In recent months, sporadic gunfights and bomb attacks have been reported
in the Presevo area. The rising tension is similar to
that of the early days of the Kosova conflict. Many residents say that
they were forced to take up arms by police brutality and
harassment, including arrests, beatings, confiscations, burning homes
and killings. Most of the Serb police officers in the area are
bitter veterans of Kosova. Residents in Dobrosin say that the police
have repeatedly mistreated them at a checkpoint at Lucani,
5 kilometres down the road. In mid-December a Serbian police patrol
ordered a group of more than a dozen residents returning
to Dobrosin from shopping in Bujanovac to lie down in the road. Police
officers walked all over them.
The escalation in police harassment and intimidation forced many
residents to seek refuge in Kosova or Macedonia. Over the
past ten months, an estimated 70 percent of Dobrosin�s 1,200 residents
have moved to Kosova. According to the UN High
Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), about 10 percent of the 70,000
Albanians in the Presevo valley area have fled into
Kosova since last June. The true number of refugees could be much
higher, as many who move in with relatives do not register
with aid agencies.
The plight of Albanians in southern Serbia was highlighted even as the
PCPMB renounced military action. Musliu called on the
international community to exert pressure on "the Belgrade regime to
withdraw its military, police and paramilitary forces and to
cease all violence, murder, repression and expulsions and to allow
families to return to their land."
As Serb forces intensified their brutal activities, residents formed
village councils and self-defenze units dedicated to rid the
region of Serbian political control. A village council was reportedly
established in Dobrosin after Serb paramilitaries killed two
inhabitants on October 15 last year. The first serious clash occurred in
December when guerrillas clashed with police near the
village of Bresic. Uniformed UCPMB fighters made their public debut on
January 26, at the funeral of two Albanian brothers
from Dobrosin, who were killed by police while returning from
woodcutting. The fighters vowed to protect local residents from
the Serbian forces.
A UCPMB representative was quoted last month as saying that the
insurgents also aimed to internationalize their plight in the
hope of drawing NATO into another conflict with Yugoslavia. KFOR, the
NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosova,
responded by cracking down on gun-running between Kosova and the UCPMB,
and US secretary of state Madeleine Albright
was quick to warn that ethnic Albanians counting on a new NATO-led
intervention "shouldn�t miscalculate."
In February, the US and its allies actively began to exert pressure on
the UCPMB to abandon military action. NATO supreme
commander general Wesley Clark met former UCK chief Hashim Thachi and
Macedonian Albanian leader Arben Xhaferri to
urge them to pressurise the UCPMB. According to Xhaferri, Clark
ridiculed the goal of breaking away from Serbia as
"romantic adventurism." Both leaders then warned that "provocations" in
southern Serbia will only play into the hands of
Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.
In March, Albright dispatched her spokesman James Rubin to Kosova to add
to the pressure. As Rubin�s attempt to stifle the
UCPMB�s rebellion failed to achieve any immediate breakthrough, US
soldiers in KFOR launched operations which, in the
words of one soldier, included "synchronized, simultaneous assaults" by
airborne and ground forces on five Kosovar Albanian
villages along a 28-kilometre front near the border with Serbia. KFOR
said that the troops arrested nine people, seized seven
rifles, 28 hand grenades, two mortar tubesand numerous mines, and
confiscated over 200 uniforms and 22 crates of
ammunition.
The dawn raid came only a day after a senior Pentagon official warned in
comments to The Washington Post that US soldiers
could face confrontations with their former Albanian allies this spring.
After the raid, KFOR spokesman lieutenant-colonel
Henning Philipp candidly declared that "it seems that this [insurgency]
is under control now and we will closely monitor it to
prevent any things like that in the future."
It is clear that the US and Yugoslavia are working together to stifle
the aspirations of independence that Albanians in southern
Serbia have aspired to for decades. Recent events extend the influence
of KFOR, whose mandate pertains to security issues
only in Kosova, to ethnic Albanians operating beyond the province�s
borders. The only possible consolation for Albanians is
that the PCPMB statement denouncing "armed confrontation" fell short of
a unilateral ceasefire and included no promises to lay
down weapons or disband. That at least leaves open the possibility that
the group will remain able to respond to any future Serb
aggression.
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