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Channeling Despair

The hand of a criminal that cowardly activated explosives sending to their death innocent civilians opened, perhaps the worst since the end of the bombardment in July 1999, concentric circles of fear and tension among the remaining Serbs in Kosovo, the rest of Serbia and Yugoslavia, the whole region, NATO countries and the European Union, all the way to the new US administration. Daily targets of arson, planted bombs, all sorts of mistreatment, Serbs in Kosovo, reacted in the only available manner - by blocking access roads to their enclaves in order to as much as possible regain security and remaining traces of self-confidence that still keep them tied to the land of their ancestors. So that they can on their own, in their pain, grieve for and bury their dead and face the question that is getting increasingly difficult to answer with every new day: what now?

by Svetlana DURDEVIC-LUKIC

NIN, Belgrade, FR Yugoslavia, February 22, 2001

The Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that a "terrorist attack" had been carried out next to the village of Livadice on the road between Merdare and Podujevo. Pristina daily in the Albanian language Zeri assessed that Friday, February 16, was the "black day for Kosovo", while the other daily Koha Ditore concluded that "peace was murdered". These platitudes hide the names of the victims, two-years-old Danilo Cokic, his mother and father, and at least another five civilians whose body parts were strewn in the circle ten meters around the blown up bus of Nis Ekspres and a 250-pounds explosive device. For 43 wounded persons, passengers of the convoy that headed to the homeland to visit the graves on the Rememberance Day and abandoned homes, life and death lost almost any distinction.

Daily targets of arson, planted bombs, all sorts of mistreatment, Serbs in Kosovo, reacted in the only available manner - by blocking access roads to their enclaves in order to as much as possible regain security and remaining traces of self-confidence that still keep them tied to the land of their ancestors. So that they can on their own, in their pain, grief for and bury their dead and face the question that is getting increasingly difficult to answer with every new day: what now?

Bitterness

"The international community is not capable of providing elementary conditions not only for life but also is such critical situations. Members of KFOR and UNMiK run around without any sense or only sit in their offices getting fat pay checks," Gradimir Nalic, advisor of president of FRY Vojislav Kostunica for human rights says with bitterness. "Instead of assisting us to establish as soon as possible the number of the dead and conduct funerals with dignity, they were above all concerned with clearing up the road so that armored troop carriers could go through. For the first time they gave permission for one of our experts to go there, but they created numerous difficulties in the process. Our forensic scientists have to wait for hours and hours for transportation and escorts. Serbs in the central part of Kosovo are literally out of their mind, without phone service, they get newspapers every five days, they have extreme difficulties in creating conditions for leaving their villages and are watching as the noose around them is tightening day by day," Nalic, one of the few state officials who regularly travels to Kosovo, relates his impressions.

Those who are more inclined to political manifestations organized protest rallies in Kosovo, Kraljevo, Nis... Resignation was demanded from the KFOR commander Carlo Cabigiosu. Other demands were the return of the Yugoslav Army and Police to Kosovo, a ban on all Serb participation in the administration of the province, abolishment of the Kosovo Protection Corps, arrest of its leaders...

Even the state and federation officials were not tentative in their condemnations of KFOR and UNMiK, starting with president Vojislav Kostunica who warned that KFOR and UNMiK are not fulfilling the tasks given to them by the UN Resolution 1244. Federal Minister of Internal Affairs [Police] Zoran Zivkovic stated that KFOR is lenient with armed Albanians, unprepared to confront them. Deputy Prime Minister of the Serbian government Nebojsa Covic stressed that "Serbs do not have freedom of movement and that is now clear even to those who refused to acknowledge that fact." Covic warned that "those who think that it is possible to resolve the Kosovo problem without Serbia are fooling themselves," and promised frequent visits of officials to Kosovo and continuous contacts with the KFOR and UNMiK.

Motives

The brutal terrorist attack near Livadice is the culmination of nervous reactions of Albanian terrorists and separatist since the coming of the new democratic authorities in Belgrade to power. With the ousting of Milosevic the option of establishment of Kosovo as an independent state swiftly lost support in the international circles, and the results of the recent local elections, in which the Democratic League of Kosovo led by Ibrahim Rugova triumphed, demonstrated that many of them were not prepared to die for the independence of Kosovo. The creation of new crises in which negotiations and political leaders inclined to pursue negotiations would be marginalized started in November with terrorist attacks in the security zone in the south of Serbia, received new impetus after the general elections in Serbia and the agreement with KFOR and UNMiK about the return of a small number of Serbs to Kosovo, and now reaches its culmination in connection with the final normalization of relations between Serbia and FRY with the recent enemy, NATO, and the unanimous support of the international community to the moderate approach of the Serbian authorities and the Serbian deputy Prime Minister Covic's plan for the solution of the crisis in the south of Serbia.

Skillfully switching the focus from Presevo to Mitrovica, then from there to Strpce (shots fired at a bus on February, one person killed, two wounded), then again to the north of Kosovo (Livadice), and then again back to Bujanovac (murder of three policemen), followed with mobilization of ethnic Albanians, shots fired at a KFOR patrol near Prizren and never more obvious organization and military provocations in Macedonia (concluded with a murder of a soldier), Albanian extremists in the past week opened fighting on all fronts sending terrifying signals to all the participants in the Balkan crisis.

The message reserved for Kosovo Serbs was that they can neither return nor survive in Kosovo, for Belgrade authorities to think again about promised speed in the implementation of their plans, for the international forces that they are risking the repetition of the Somalia scenario, for Macedonian government to stop negotiations with Serbs about the border that do not include ethnic Albanians, and for hesitant compatriots that democracy will have to wait.

"Albanians clearly and loudly stated that they control the terrain and that KFOR is impotent," Marko Jaksic, the vide-president of DSS from Kosovska Mitrovica assesses, and Miroslav Solevic, president of the Association for Return of Serbs to Kosovo and Metohija concludes: "Albanian politicians will be forced to choose - they either accept the return of the Serbs or confirm that they support ethnic cleansing."

Even ethnic Albanians understand that the messages are terrifying. They condemned the terrorist attacks on the civilian bus and the police patrol in Presevo valley stronger than ever before. Ethnic Albanian comments about the murdered women and children near Livadice along the lines of "who forced them to go there", or already routine blaming of the Serb secret services for similar incidents are strikingly muted in comparison with the calls of ethnic Albanian politicians for "real efforts that would in practice contribute to prevention of all sorts of violence," instead of "habitual and generic condemnations of violence for the sake of political marketing," as the Kosovo Human Rights Council characterized them. Well-known publisher Veton Surroi warned that these explosions prompt the division of Kosovo and that "a bomb was thrown at the civilian bus and at NATO, liberators of Kosovo". "Albanians must ask themselves whether they want to endanger relations with NATO" since "Kosovo is threatened with a trap to which Albanians contribute themselves."

"Continuing attacks on Serbs will become a nightmare for KFOR, causing tensions that cannot be eliminated by any statements. KFOR is not capable of conducting a decisive action that would remove armed Albanians from the region," American analytical agency Stratfor concludes, predicting that new Serb victims would force NATO to change its policy with respect to the Serb armed forces.

Procedures

A NATO spokesperson has for now mentioned reexamination of the safety of NATO troops and the procedures that are supposed to ensure that safety. However, it is unlikely that that indicates that the American soldiers will finally step out of their base Bondsteel, from where they cover most of the territory gravitating towards the Presevo valley. Thanks to their focus on the return home and who knows what else, instead of hermetically sealed border with Kosovo, in the safety zone in the Presevo valley one can see even recoilless cannons of caliber 81mm (made in the USA?), and even traditionally reluctant Macedonian authorities have stated that the border between Kosovo/FRY and Macedonia is guarded only on the Macedonian side.

The international forces have only confirmed that they have taken into custody two individuals for suspicious behavior in Livadice, which perfectly fits with the hitherto conducted brief arrests of armed extremists, without a single trial of ethnic Albanians for murders of civilians, destruction of houses and monasteries. KFOR touts the transport of 200 Serbs in helicopters to Strpce at the time when as many as 65 landmines were detected on the road between Urosevac and Strpce as an unprecedented heroic gesture!

In the meantime the new democratic authorities in Belgrade are facing increasing pressure from the Hague Tribunal, forces loyal to the old regime in connection with the Amnesty [for ethnic Albanian prisoners] law, as well as touching efforts of the association of the relatives of 1,3000 missing persons from Kosovo and Metohija, which is announcing severe actions such as hunger strikes, blockade of prisons and KFOR bases, even self-immolation. Their only consolation comes from the support letters they receive from all sides, including Washington. However, the international authorities are still loath to take any concrete measures... Oliver Ivanovic, the leader of the Serb part of Kosovska Mitrovica suggested that KFOR be reorganized and split into the forces that would focus on general safety and a part that will provide conditions for the safe movement of Serbs and other minorities, which the KFOR commander rejected "with indignation".

Plans

Nevertheless, the number of flood lights hitting the scene in increasing. On Monday, EU leaders will gather, and NATO will hold a meeting on Tuesday in Brussels. The most important topics for discussion will be the situation in the south of Serbia and in Kosovo. A NATO fact-finding commission, with participation of representatives of the EU, UN, and the OSCE, has already arrived to the spot at the invitation from Belgrade.

Cristina Gayak [approximate spelling], Javier Solana's spokesperson, stated for NIN that the EU is not only considering a "very, very, very strong condemnation" but also initiation of some concrete actions, especially demands to the ethnic Albanian leadership to demonstrate its leadership potential in such a crisis situation. UNMiK head Hans Haekkerup has been invited to the EU headquarters where on Monday he is supposed to brief the ministers about the situation, while Solana will arrive in Skopje on Friday to the summit of the leaders of the South-Eastern Balkans, "to discuss with them regional cooperation and sending of right messages to the Albanian leaders about the formation of a negotiating team."

For now it seems unlikely that significantly more strident diplomatic rhetoric directed at the ethnic Albanians will actually reach them. Especially considering the development of the situation in neighboring Macedonia, where observers already predict the repetition of the Beirut scenario. Indications that at the mentioned summit of the Balkan leaders in Skopje Greece will present some sort of a plan were neither confirmed nor denied. Alex Rondos, George Papandreou's advisor and special representative of the chairperson of the OSCE only told us that Greece is deeply concerned and that the road Belgrade-Thessaloniki is of strategic importance for several countries in the region. "The region will either be blackmailed by armed people or it will choose democracy. Countries of the Balkans must improve internal cooperation, and the international community must improve its coordination and send clear messages. The responsibility is shared and we must prove that we shall not accept flimsy peace in the Balkans. We want lasting peace."

The road to peace is for now paved by corpses of Serb civilians and it is not at all certain that "small IQ wars", as these conflicts are referred to by the editor of the Radio Free Europe in Prague, will end with that. The next KFOR commander, a Norwegian general who will take that duty in early April, stated that his main task will be the protection of minorities. However, the London Economist, describing the new UNMiK police commander, Christopher Albiston, with huge experience from Northern Ireland, and "zero tolerance", glumly predicts that he will soon realize that problems in Northern Ireland are simple in comparison with the witches brew in the Balkans.

Translated on January 21, 2002