The Line Between Life and Death

AIM Pristina, February 21, 2001

Seven mutilated, lifeless bodies were buried under the remnants of the bus they died in two kilometers inside Kosovo, near the Merdare border crossing, at noon on February 16. Dozens of wounded people were taken to the hospital by military helicopters belonging to KFOR, which has been deployed in Kosovo for 19 months to preserve a fragile peace in a region with the greatest hostilities in today's Europe. This was the fist assessment of the consequences of one of the bloodiest events in post-war Kosovo. Unknown perpetrators planted an explosive device on the road linking southern Serbia to northern Kosovo, and, as an official report said, "activated the bomb by remote control from a distance of several hundred meters," blowing up the first bus in a convoy of five. Some 250 Kosovo Serbs who had fled to Serbia were traveling, as the report said, to visit the graves of their relatives that Friday, Memorial Day. For seven of them the day became the Day of the Dead. For seven of them the boundary between Serbia and Kosovo became the line between the life and the death. Four days later, international and Yugoslav forensic experts announced that 10 people were killed in the attack, and that one of the victims was a two-year old child. International police confirmed that two ethnic Albanians were arrested in connection with the attack and given 30 days' detention for the duration of the investigation, but also stressed that this did not mean they were involved in organizing the assault. When asked if they had any proof the attack was organized by Albanians, UNMIK and KFOR representatives told the journalists that they did not...

The attack provoked outrage and fierce reactions. UN mission (UNMIK) officials and representatives of peacekeeping force (KFOR) condemned "in the strongest possible terms" the murder of Serb citizens, describing it as "a cowardly and ruthless attack by extremists." Given that the convoy was escorted by international forces controlling Kosovo, the bombing was characterized as a direct attack on KFOR and its mission. Ethnic Albanian political representatives also strongly condemned the event, and some of them "desperately" repeated that it was "damaging to Kosovo's image and working directly against Albanian aspirations for an independent Kosovo." For most Kosovo Albanians this was the gravest crime since the war ended, that could mark a shift in the international community's overall attitude towards Kosovo. This is why the ethnic Albanian leaders themselves are seeking a speedy clarification of all circumstances surrounding the crime. The attack was condemned by all major international factors, and in many instances the condemnations were accompanied by threats that Kosovo could lose all support, assistance and even international protection if the violence continued. The head of the U.S. Mission in Kosovo, Christopher Del, expressed his desperation in several subsequent interviews (on which he appears to have insisted himself) and threatened the Kosovo Albanians they could lose American support. According to him, the attack had caused them great difficulties, and condemnation by their allies for their leading role in the campaign directed against Serbia.

Numerous condemnations forced Kosovo Albanian representatives to start "defending" themselves with questions such as, "What did ethnic Albanians have to gain from such an act." Even if the perpetrators were Albanian, they believe those who ordered the attack should be sought in some other, not Albanian, secret services. Such a stance was expressed in the Koha Ditore newspaper by its columnist and well-known Kosovo analyst Shkelzen Maliqi. The way in which it happened raised many questions concerning the attack, portrayed by almost all as a pure act of terrorism. In all zones inhabited by the Serbs, almost entirely turned into ghettos (euphemistically called enclaves), riots erupted in which the Serbs vented their fury on ethnic Albanian passers-by and their vehicles, even on peacekeepers and international police. Leaders of the Serb community in northern Kosovo severed all contact with UNMIK and KFOR. The Serbs were ordered to speak neither with "anyone from the international community, nor with ethnic Albanians." Independent observers say that the objective of any such terrorist act would be to provoke exactly such reactions, deeply scarring the political process and the building of democratic institutions in Kosovo. Finally, the main purpose of all terrorist acts in Kosovo is to prevent this, the analysts claim, and warn that their perpetrators remain anonymous as long as no one takes responsibility for them, and international representatives, unable to clarify them, chose, like in many instances in the past, which is also what Maliqi believes, "the easy path: blaming Albanian extremist groups."

The participation of Serbs in Kosovo administrative structures is seen as a condition for stabilizing Kosovo society, and this is why many observers believe that Belgrade and a part of the Serbs who fear the building of Kosovo's institutions are using the escalation of violence to prevent the process of stabilization in Kosovo. It appears that nothing is accidental in the region of the greatest hostilities in Europe, not even crime. Various secret services or ethnic Albanian extremist groups could not have hoped for a better chance to prevent the process than a bus bombing. "The period in which international forces have become hostage to frozen relations between Pristina and Belgrade, when Albanian frustrations are on the rise" appears to have been successfully used to deal a blow to the beginning of the process of building Kosovo's institutions. No one has mentioned general elections for days now, although they are supposed to be held this year, nor the legal framework, or as it is sometimes referred to, the Kosovo constitution, that should have been adopted by the beginning of March. On the eve of the second anniversary of the NATO attack on Yugoslavia, the Kosovo Albanians, but not only they, have lost the image of "victims" even in the eyes of the opponents of the NATO intervention, they have become the "aggressors" and the element of destabilization in the region. The latest developments have proven once more that the Albanian-Serb conflict has not ended but is only entering a stage in which, as opposed to two years ago, Belgrade is holding hostage not only the Serbs in Kosovo, but the international community and Albanians as well. Such a belief, prevailing in Kosovo, still cannot change the fact that the victims are the Kosovo Serbs and that their position in Kosovo is still very difficult.

Besnik Bala

(AIM)