LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE
February issue,
2003
(the following text is an unofficial translation of
the text from Le Monde Diplomatique, photos by ERP KIM
Info-Service)
By Jean-Arnault D�rens, special correspondent,
Cetinje.
Almost four years ago the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) began a bombing campaign against Yugoslavia; after it ended,
the province of Kosovo was turned into a UN administered protectorate. The
results of the operation are more than doubtful. The economic situation appears
catastrophic. The acts of violence against non-Albanians still continue, and a
majority of 200.000 Serbs expelled from the province still are not able to
return. But most of all, a direct clash between the extremist Albanians and the
international community seems more and more eminent.
On January 4, 2003,
around 5 p.m., unknown persons intercepted a car in one of the streets of Pec, a
big city in the west of Kosovo, and opened fire on the persons inside. Tahir
Zemaj, together with his son and cousin, fell dead. All three men were known
militants of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), president Ibrahim Rugova’s
party. Zemaj had been a commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA or UCK),
but actually was dependent on the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosovo (FARK),
the paramilitary group established in the summer of 1998 by Bujar Bukoshi, at
that time the “prime minister in the exile of the Republic of Kosovo”. FARK was
grouping the followers of Rugova but they were obliged to join the ranks of the
KLA, commanded by nationalists who ideologically professed an Albanian version
of the Marxism-Leninism school, and were also very hostile to the
LDK.
The murder of Zemaj is only the more recent of a long series of
murders. It was surely a real massacre, a blow for the cadres of LDK, especially
in Pec region and in the west of Kosovo. In December of 2002, Zemaj had revealed
he was a witness in the case against the “Dukagjin group,” five ex-combatants of
the KLA who have become members of the Kosovo Protection Corps, a paramilitary
force of unclear competencies, officially created by the UN administration in
order to facilitate a social rehabilitation of ex-guerillas. The five men were
declared guilty of the murder of four Albanians who were, like Zemaj, under the
influence of FARK. The most famous of the defendants was Daut Haradinaj, whose
brother, Ramush, heads the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), a small
nationalistic group that obtained approximately 8% of the votes in the elections
organized in the territory since the beginning of the UN
protectorate.
Ramush, a 34 year-old ex-commander of the KLA in the region
of Pec, Decani and Djakovica, has a thick record in France and Switzerland.
After a short time in the Foreign Legion, he joined the forces of the KLA where
he was noted for his involvement in instances of extreme violence against the
civilian Serb population. Ramush Haradinaj is the most likely of the former KLA
commanders to be indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal in The
Hague.
Nevertheless his party has managed to attract some ex-Communist
Albanian leaders in the province, such as Mahmut Bakalli, and a few
distinguished intellectuals. The AAK had also openly profited – at least until
the year 2001 – from the support of some diplomatic circles, especially in the
United States. This “third force”, despite never managing to attract the
electorate, has been trying to install itself on the political scene, which is
characterized by the confrontation between Rugova's LDK and Hashim Tha�i's
Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), a party which gathers some distinguished
ex-KLA leaders. This is one of the reasons why it has won the support of certain
international circles, who are bothered as much as by the immobility and
subservience of the LDK as by the PDK’s drift toward the mafia. Anyhow, this
support will have been in vain in the event Ramush Haradinaj is seized on
grounds of his criminal past.
Kosovo suffered a long political crisis
after the legislative elections in November of 2001. Only after several months
and three polls did the provincial parliament manage to elect Rugova as
president of Kosovo, a nominal function without any political competencies.
After the negotiations that ensued, Bajram Rexhepi, the leader of PDK, was
appointed to the position of prime minister. This long crisis demonstrated,
above all, the amazing mediocrity of the key figures of political life, who are
interested only in pointless games to gain power.
In the middle of the
rivalry between the LDK, the PDK and the AAK, the only alternative that managed
to break out and reach out to the electorate was the nationalist one. But this
position runs the risk of leading rapidly to an open confrontation with the
international administration of the province. Thus, Rada Trajkovic, the
spokeswoman of the caucus of Serb deputies in the Kosovo parliament, has
announced that in the spring, Europe can expect a confrontation between the
Albanians and international representatives. (1)
It is interesting to
recall, considering the political deadlock in which the province has found
itself, the intentions of the international community when it initiated military
intervention in Yugoslavia. The apparent aim to put an end to the repression and
the acts of violence against the Albanian population concealed another,
political goal, also of major importance: to precipitate the fall of Slobodan
Milosevic's regime. Nevertheless, the Albanian nationalists considered the
intervention as support for their plans of making Kosovo
independent.
Anti-Western resentment
(photo: Ramush
Haradinaj, former legionare, UCK commander and a political
leader)
Milosevic's regime already belongs to the past. And if
Albanian nationalism served as a foundation for Western strategists yesterday,
today it is perceived as a factor of destabilization for all of the Balkans. The
international community is concurrent in excluding all prospects of independence
for Kosovo because it believes that an independent Kosovo would lack economic
viability and might well turn into a small mafia paradise, as well as a magnet
for Albanian irredentism, especially in Macedonia.
As the "peripheral"
nationalisms in Kosovo and Montenegro became of less and less strategic interest
in the eyes of West, anti-Western resentment has grown among both the Albanian
leaders and those in Montenegro, where Milo Djukanovic and his supporters feel –
not unjustifiably - that they have been used and then dumped.
Actually,
the European strategy in the Balkans seems to limit itself to a single purpose:
to buy time. The discussions on the final status of Kosovo have been postponed
indefinitely, and for the past year the European Union has been seeking a
provisional and original solution for the Serbia-Montenegro dispute. The
Belgrade Agreement, signed on March 14, 2002 under the auspices of Javier
Solana, the man in charge of European foreign policy, foresees the replacement
of the present Yugoslav Federation with a new Union of Serbia and Montenegro.
The common competencies of this future confederal entity will be very limited;
in exchange, Montenegro will have to accept a moratorium of three years before
convoking a possible referendum on self-determination. (2)
Anyway, there
is little chance that the constitutional negotiations between Serbia and
Montenegro will succeed, having not met with success for one whole year, if the
European Union does not implement a new pressurizing intervention. In fact, the
Yugoslav minister of Foreign Affairs, Goran Svilanovic, defined the year 2002 as
“a lost year” in his report. In effect, institutional aid has blocked all
political reform, in Serbia as well as in Montenegro.
The objective of
the new metamorphosis of Yugoslavia would be to prevent the hypothetical
independence of Kosovo, which a rupture in the federal union of Serbia and
Montenegro would make inevitable. But the agreement of March 14 explicitly
restored the Yugoslav rights over the southern territory to Serbia.
The
Albanian leaders have reacted with inflexibility, opposing any negotiations on
the future state, which they boycotted and certainly disdained. Anyhow, the
logic of the Western diplomats is inexorable. According to UN Resolution 1244,
Kosovo continues to be an integral part of the Yugoslav Federation, whose legal
heir will be the new Union of Serbia and Montenegro. But evidently Kosovo does
not belong to Montenegro; its belonging to Serbia must be confirmed. In case of
the break of the Union, it is explicitly stipulated that Kosovo will be under
the sovereignty of Serbia. In November of 2002, Rexhepi, prime minister of the
province, was threatening to unilaterally declare the independence of Kosovo if
the Serbia Montenegro constitutional negotiations were accepted.
The
phantom “Solana State,” as the Union of Serbia and Montenegro was soon
christened runs the risk of precipitating a confrontation between the Kosovo
Albanians and the international community. The lack of skill and foresight in
the international circles is deplorable. After having granted full power to the
most extreme manifestations of Albanian nationalism, was it very likely that it
would be possible to go back without provoking any repercussions?
The
only solution avoiding both the status quo and new confrontations must have the
following indispensable conditions: concrete advances with respect to the
reconciliation between the communities present in Kosovo, and the beginning of a
direct dialogue between Belgrade and the Albanian leaders.
The 40.000
NATO soldiers deployed in Kosovo have already demonstrated their inability to
prevent violence against the non-Albanian communities of Kosovo (3). On the
other hand, the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has failed to seriously assume its
political responsibility to ensure intercommunity dialogue. Accordingly, the
speaker of the parliament of Kosovo, Nexhat Daci, managed to prohibit the
Serbian deputies use the name “Kosovo and Metohija” during parliamentary
sessions without any international reproach, an attitude even more surprising if
one considers the blatant interventions of the UN High Representative in the
political life of Bosnia.
The scanty beginning of dialogue between the
Albanian leaders and Belgrade has always taken place in a neutral country. The
last time was in November of 2002, during a colloquium on the Albanian question
organized in Lucerne, Switzerland. Upon his return, Rexhepi had to publicly
apologize for having shaken hands with to Nebojsa Covic, deputy premier of
Serbia in charge of Kosovo, despite of the fact that the latter had apologized
to the Albanian leader for Serbian excesses committed in the
province.
The nationalistic escalation that the Albanian leaders use as a
political strategy suggests, actually, a complex of irresponsibility fed by the
international community. Since the future of Kosovo is decided by the Western
diplomats, it more provident to engage in demogoguery than in real dialogue with
Belgrade, something which is certainly difficult but unavoidable. In the same
manner, the parliament of Kosovo can pass the most radical decisions but all of
them must be endorsed by the special representative of the UN secretary general,
Michael Steiner, who has the right of discretional veto.
Thus the
“substantial autonomy” promised in the United Nations Resolution 1244 gives was
to a colonial-like, completely uncontrollable situation. The justice system is
only partially functional (4), public services are abandoned and corruption
undermines the UN Mission (5), despite the valiant commitment of some
administrators. An eminent journalist on Kosovo synthesizes the situation in the
following way: “Instead of electricity, they deliver us generators. The same
thing happens with justice, which deals with nothing more than expedient
political operations.”
During the first years of the post-war period, the
reconstruction deceptive, moving forward in a rather anarchic way and leading to
losses in natural resources and historical heritage. But now the economy of
Kosovo is totally stagnant and, for the teeming youth, emigration to the West
seems to be the only exit. Under these conditions it is understandable that the
sirens of radicalism can seduce Serbs and Albanians alike.
Finally,
Kosovo in 2003 represents the same ticking bomb as in 1999. The only difference
is that the international community is now directly involved in the crisis,
although it would be satisfied with an illusory peace and the ability to forget
about Kosovo and the Balkans. Like in 2000 and 2001, a confrontation with the
international community might take the form of new armed clashes in the
peripheral Albanian inhabited regions, especially in Presevo Valley in the south
of Serbia.
1. Danas, 6-1-03
2. See the text of the
Belgrade Agreement [in French] at:
www.balkans.eu.org/article.php3?id_article=795
3. P.M. de La Gorce, “Le
sud-est de l'Europe sous l'emprise de l'OTAN,” Le Monde diplomatique, March
2000
4. Patrice de Charette, Les oiseaux noirs du Kosovo. Un juge �
Pristina, Michalon, Paris, 2002
5. “Kosovo: corruption � la Minuk”, Le
Courrier des Balkans:
www.balkans.eu.org/article.php3?id_article=2065
French original: "Le
pr�c�dent contest� de l'intervention au Kosovo," Jean-Arnault D�rens, Le Monde
diplomatique, February 2003
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