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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Jan. - 3 Feb. 1999 Issue No. 414 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Jan. - 3 Feb. 1999 Issue No. 414
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Focus Economy Opinion Culture Features Living Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Balkan acid test
By Gamal Nkrumah
Twisted logic rules in the post-Cold War Balkans. Czech President Vaclav Havel put it succinctly: "How can unarmed men prevent an armed conflict?" Havel was referring to the international observers sent to verify the ceasefire in the troubled Yugoslav province of Kosovo. His question reminds us of an awkward truth. Yet it also simply defers the real problem -- which is, that it takes more than an army or two to hold the peace.
A vicious circle of violence is in the making in the region. This week, as NATO flexed its muscles and prepared to deal Slobodan Milosevic the kind of blow most recently reserved for Saddam Hussein, the Serbian president made it clear he would never recognise the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as an independent power in the Balkans. Military experts, moreover, know very well that for there to be even a chance of a successful military intervention, airstrikes would have to be backed by ground troops. NATO's aggressive posturing, it would seem, has served only to embolden the KLA. Meanwhile, Milosevic, his dignity and his patience alike at an end, is more than ever determined to engage in a bloody showdown.
NATO's formidable Strike Force South includes the largest US aircraft carrier, the Enterprise, which is currently commanding a strategic position astride the Adriatic Sea, midway between Italy and the Balkans. Ominously, Enterprise arrived in the Adriatic with 5,000 men and 72 warplanes aboard from the Gulf, where it had taken part in the airstrikes against Iraq. Some 100 sorties are being flown off the ship's deck daily. The carrier's commanding officer Capt. Evan Chanik is ready to execute: "Twenty-four hours is all we really need," he told the press Sunday.
Nor is the Enterprise all there is to this story. NATO is dispatching more ships and planes to the Adriatic. Washington may not really want to get stuck in and sort things out, and Europe, as usual in such post-Cold War scenarios, has been sidelined. Still, European troops are preparing to do battle alongside their American allies. Germany has dispatched war planes to Italy. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook recently revealed that 12 British army and special police units are "out of barracks". In October, there were only three such British units standing by. Then, it was the threat of air strikes which prompted Milosevic to agree to a ceasefire. It is hard to judge if the mood in Washington today is changed all that much since the autumn, when B-51 bombers had their engines running, waiting to take off. One thing is certain, though: Milosevic, like Saddam Hussein, likes to play a deadly game of cat and mouse.
Perhaps it is all just a clever bargaining act. But some days it does seem that the threat to the stability of the region is deadly serious. Will Serbian prevarication finally ignite the ire of the Western powers? If America is indeed intent on acting as policeman to the world, can it tolerate such atrocious killings literally on the doorstep of NATO members such as Italy and Greece?
Since last weekend some 5,300 Albanians fled the villages of Malopoljce, Petrovo and Racak in the south of Kosovo. In the picture, an exhausted and hungry refugee begs for food (photo: AFP)
Evidence is mounting of systematic atrocities against Kosovo's ethnic Albanians. Serbian police recently sealed off the village of Vraganic, a KLA stronghold about 40km northwest of the regional capital Pristina. Vaganica could well become another Guernica. In the village of Gornje Obrinje, near Pristina, five women and four children were killed -- the youngest an 18-month-old infant, Valmiri Delija, the oldest 95-year-old Fazli Delija, who was shot at close range before being burned. In this corner of the world, the senselessness of war seems intent on outdoing even the most pessimistic of forecasts.
The massacre of 45 Kosova villagers in Racak by Serbian security forces brought matters to a head. Milosevic claims that the ethnic Albanians were killed in combat. The KLA charges Serbian police with murdering their countrymen in cold blood. The massacre was apparently a revenge killing, prompted by the murder of Serbian police officer Svetislav Prizic who was gunned down on 10 January. Milosevic has refused to let the UN war crimes tribunal investigate the Racak massacre, and has instead invited Finish forensic experts to examine the bodies. There are growing fears that this is simply a ploy to allow Serbian officials to falsify the results of the investigation and hide any incriminating evidence. The head of the Finnish team, Helena Ranta, has appealed to the Serbian authorities to halt their investigation until her entire team has arrived in Kosovo with their X-ray facilities. Meanwhile, UN chief war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour was twice refused entry into Kosovo to visit the site of the massacre.
The intensification of the fighting has also unleashed a flood of refugees. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata estimates that 20,000 civilians have fled their homes since Christmas. "I am distressed to see women and children once again having to abandon their homes in the middle of a harsh Balkan winter," said Sadako, adding, "A political solution should immediately be found to end the conflict in Kosovo."
But how can we predict a course for Kosovo? "What is clear is that the status quo is neither acceptable nor sustainable," warned US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. But does America really appreciate the moral imperatives that emerge from the horrors of Racak? Kosovo, unlike Iraq, remains a somewhat inconsequential piece in the jigsaw of the global economy. The US has no clear position on the larger underlying question of the province's independence, and a quick decision is unlikely to be forthcoming. There are no plans, because there are no precedents, and no one is willing to make any meaningful suggestions.
Last week, William Walker, chief of the Kosovo verification mission, was ordered out of the war-torn province. Walker pointedly ignored his deportation orders, and Milosevic backtracked, reluctantly allowing Walker a grace period to stay on. However, there is absolutely no indication that the Serbian president intends to permit war-crimes investigators to conduct inspections in any of the territories he controls. Worse, there is growing evidence that Milosevic wants to intensify the crackdown against the rebellious Kosovars who will settle for nothing less than total independence.
Last Wednesday, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) leaders met in Vienna to discuss Milosevic's decision to expel Walker. The OSCE's current chairman, Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaek, was dispatched to Belgrade. Before he left Austria, Vollebaek met with past and future OSCE chairmen Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek and Austria's Wolfgang Schuessel. "Vollebaek has the full support of NATO in his mission to Belgrade, and Milosevic must understand that the NATO threat to use force is real," warned NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana.
Russia remains adamantly opposed to Western military intervention in the Balkans, and the West can ill afford to ignore the stance of Serbia's staunchest ally. Serbia also has the unqualified backing of at least one NATO member -- Greece. Indeed, it is largely thanks to trade with Greece that the country has managed to survive international sanctions. Moreover, most of Serbia's commercial and financial services are conducted clandestinely through Greek intermediaries. Both Serbia and Greece see themselves as embattled Christian Orthodox nations crusading against a resurgent Islam, embodied by Turkey and its supposed surrogates in Bosnia and Kosovo.
But the war in Kosovo is not just about religion. It is about national liberation, social justice and economics. Rugged Kosovo is no Balkan breadbasket, but buried beneath its mountains lies much of the Serbian state's mineral wealth -- nickel, zinc, lead and iron ore.
So Belgrade continues trying to convince the world that Bosnia and Kosovo are different in every way. Elsewhere, however, parallels are drawn. Observers hope that Kosovo may yet have its own Dayton. Yet it was not the Dayton Accords that stopped the war in Bosnia. It was the presence on Bosnian soil of 60,000 American troops, together with the 34,000 soldiers of the international coalition force.
