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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 February - 3 March 1999 Issue No. 418 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 February - 3 March 1999 Issue No. 418
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters West warns Serbs
By Faiza Rady
and leans on KosovarsFollowing 17 days of hard negotiations between Kosovo's ethnic Albanian delegation and representatives of the Yugoslav government at the Rambouillet Château outside Paris, the Albanians finally gave in to combined American and West European pressures and dropped their demand for independence from Yugoslavia. American State Department spokesman, James P. Rubin told reporters on Tuesday that the ethnic Albanians would sign an agreement after "technical consultations" with the people of Kosovo. The Yugoslavs, however, continued to reject the Western nations' key demand that NATO troops be deployed within the war-torn province.
Some political observers believe that the US and the Europeans are bending over backwards to comply with the Yugoslavs' demands. Indeed, despite repeated and ominous threats to bomb recalcitrant Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic into submission should he defy their terms, the US and its NATO allies backed down on Saturday, extending their "unextendable" deadline for an extra three days.
The Yugoslavian army controls the scene as an ethnic Albanian family passes by transporting some corn-stalk from a field to their home in Suve Reka, Kosovo
(photo: AFP)
Responding to US sabre rattling, Russian President Boris Yeltsin informed the Americans in no uncertain terms that Russia would not permit military intervention in Kosovo. "I conveyed to Clinton my view, both by phone and by letter, that this [threatened military strikes] will not work. We will not let you touch Kosovo."
Emboldened by Russian support, Serbian President Milan Milutinovic lashed out at Christopher Hill, the US mediator, denouncing American intransigence and "blackmail". "Hill's fundamental position is that there will not be an accord if we are not prepared to accept NATO in Kosovo," said Milutinovic, adding, "This blackmail shows that from the outset the question, first and foremost, has been a sort of occupation of Kosovo."
At stake is the future status of the embattled Serbian province. With a population estimated at about 90 per cent ethnic Albanian, and a Muslim majority, the Kosovar leadership is seeking secession, and eventual union with Albania. Northern nations are agreed on supporting limited self-determination, but are dead set against secession from Yugoslavia -- fearing an explosion of nationalist separatist movements across the Balkans, in an even more violent replay of the Serbo-Croatian war. "A conflict in Kosovo would probably not be confined within the borders of the former Yugoslavia. Albania would become involved, pressure on Turkey to become involved would be intense, and Greece might also be dragged in. It is a nightmare scenario," opined the New York Times.
Intent on containing the conflict, the Western powers at the Rambouillet peace negotiations strongly pressured the Albanians from the outset to disband the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), drop their demands for a referendum on independence following a three-year interim period, and accept limited self-rule. In lieu of independence, the negotiators offered Kosovo its own parliament and police force, 30,000 NATO troops to monitor elections and human rights violations in the province, and a substantial withdrawal of Serbian police and armed forces from the area. Whether this scenario is even feasible in the face of consistent Serb opposition remains to be seen. However, regardless of its feasibility, the manoeuvering of the North and NATO should not be mistaken for humanitarian concerns for the people of Kosovo, warns political analyst Allen Woods. "The Western powers are only terrified of [the spread of the conflict] and the prospect of war between two NATO members, Greece and Turkey," wrote Woods recently.
Throughout the negotiations, Milutinovic continued to define Kosovo as an integral and indivisible part of the "Greater Serbia", castigating the US in general, and NATO in particular. "If NATO identifies its goals with those of a terrorist organisation," he said, referring to the KLA, "we can see clearly what awaits us if we allow this to go ahead."
Some observers contend that the North is in any case largely responsible for the creation of this monster which they can no longer control. "The people of the Balkans continue to pay a high price for the West's blindness, which in 1991 allowed the dissolution of former Yugoslavia under the banner of nationalism," explained political analyst Ignacio Ramonez in the French monthly Le Monde Diplomatique. Aiding and abetting the emergence of fascist regional leaders such as Milutinovic, under the aegis of anti-communism, the European Union (EU) and the US stood by and watched as Milosevic revoked Kosovo's autonomy in 1989.
Granted a degree of self-determination in 1974 under the leadership of former President Tito, Kosovo was an integral part of Yugoslavia which, in Tito's words, was then made up of "six Republics, five nations, four languages, three religions, two alphabets and a single party."
Besides losing their autonomy under the yoke of Milosevic's right-wing Serbian nationalism, many ethnic Albanians in Kosovo also lost their livelihood. Not only were the majority of the people politically disenfranchised by his racist policies, they were also impoverished. "Tens of thousands of workers in factories, farm cooperatives and other state-controlled enterprises were dismissed. Many have been replaced by members of the local Serbian minority, or by Serbs brought in from other regions," reports The New York Times. The comparison with Slovenia, the richest province in Yugoslavia, highlights Kosovo's drastic poverty. Per capita income is one-seventh that of Slovenia, while infant mortality is six times higher and the illiteracy rate 20 times higher.
In addition to creating massive unemployment and vast areas of poverty, Milosevic fired all Albanians from leadership positions and established a Serbian rule of police and military terror in the province.
Beyond conventional police repression aimed at decimating the cadres of Ibrahim Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo (DLK), harassing local human rights organisations and keeping the population under tight control, the Serbian security forces engaged in the wholesale slaughter of civilians, as evidenced by the Drenica massacres and the recent murder of 45 Kosovar villagers in Racak. Over the past year, at least 2,000 people were killed by the police working in tandem with paramilitary militias who terrorised the population and caused the displacement of some 300,000 civilians.
Meanwhile the struggle between the KLA and the Serbian security forces rages on in Kosovo. The hope of eventual independence has now been definitively ruled out by the Western powers in Rambouillet. Yet, many observers believe that the limited self-determination on offer -- under the shadow of Slobodan Milosevic's iron arm -- cannot possibly fulfil Kosovo's national aspirations. Given the current political map and the present configuration of power, argues Woods, "the only solution to the Kosovo problem lies in the establishment of a democratic state in Yugoslavia which will have no interest in oppressing the Kosovars -- or anyone else."
