Serbia: The Ground Safety Zone

A Step towards the South

The return of the Yugoslav army and police to the larger portion of the Ground Safety Zone could indicate the start of new, serious and much-desired changes, but is only a first step of a long and difficult journey

AIM Belgrade, March 25, 2001

On Wednesday, March 14, a joint Yugoslav army and police unit deployed in 25 square kilometers of the Ground Safety Zone on the Yugoslav-Macedonian border designated as Sector C-East. Some "patriotic" media outlets found it hard to resist stressing that KFOR and EU monitors were surprised by the speed with which this operation was carried out. They added that it lasted about six hours and that escorted by special troops of the 63rd Airborne Brigade, the first to set foot in the Ground Safety Zone was Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, the Yugoslav army chief of staff. Skeptics, however, warned that regardless of the number of the army and police troops present (later it was added that the area of this size requires one battalion to be fully secured), they would be exposed to possible attacks from three directions: from Macedonia, Kosovo and Metohija, and from the buffer zone itself. They also saw ominous signs in the fact that the Yugoslav units had restrictions imposed on their weaponry -- they were allowed to carry only small arms and grenade launchers up to 82mm in caliber -- and even more so in the withdrawal of artillery and armored units from the areas around Bujanovac and Presevo, agreed beforehand with KFOR and NATO representatives.

Not even the greatest optimists expected that hardly a week later NATO would allow the return of the Yugoslav army and police to two other sectors of the Ground Safety Zone that was established in 1999, by the Kumanovo Military-Technical Agreement as a weapons-free strip along the administrative boundary between Kosovo and Metohija and the rest of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), safely separating two until recently embattled forces: NATO (KFOR) and the Yugoslav army. The entry of the Yugoslav army and police into Sector C-West (on the Yugoslav-Albanian border in Montenegro) and Sector A (stretching from Sector C as far as Medvedja), Yugoslav security forces will this week take full control of approximately 1,350 square kilometers of the buffer zone. In the next phase, depending on how the talks between the Yugoslav authorities and the ethnic Albanian community proceed, the Yugoslav army and police should be deployed in the remaining portion of the zone, in the municipalities of Medvedja, Bujanovac and Presevo.

Yugoslav Army Chief of Staff Nebojsa Pavkovic is a figure whose replacement has been sought by a part of the public since the change of government in Belgrade on Oct. 5, last year. After the "victory" against NATO, his political activity in favor of the Milosevic regime, including incomprehensible statements alleging that the army was ready "to return to Kosovo," have cast a shadow on his image of a defender of the country. His later statements, this time around adapted to the needs of the current authorities, in regard to the army's professionalization, shortening of the mandatory military service, allowing priests to military units, and similar, were equally of poor taste. When army and police units were deploying in the part of the zone at the border with Macedonia, answering a question asking him where Nebojsa Covic was, Pavkovic replied, "Marshal Covic is in the field."

The other Nebojsa, "Marshal Covic," is chairman of the Yugoslav and Serbian governments' coordinating body for resolving the problems in southern Serbia. When asked to comment on Pavkovic's remark, Covic said he was not willing to comment on or respond to what the "dogs of war" had to say. Later both of them on several occasions explained what they had actually said and what they had meant, though not too convincingly. Nebojsa Covic was also a one-time member of the Milosevic regime, and as such become a successful businessman, politician, and mayor of Belgrade for a time. From the latter position he was ousted at the beginning of 1997, after the former authorities forged election results prompting three months of anti-government protests, eventually recognizing the opposition victory in 1996 local elections. Covic joined the winners and founded the Democratic Alternative party, which became a member of the Alliance for Change that was ultimately to become the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS). Owing to his knowledge of the system from within and still functional ties with certain military and police structures, he appears to have played a very important role in the peaceful toppling of Milosevic (his namesake, Gen. Pavkovic claims he should be credited with allegedly refusing to send army troops against the demonstrators last October).

Meanwhile, Covic created new contacts. It appears that at the end of last year at the latest, he established direct ties with William Montgomery, who was back then temporarily residing in Budapest, after ending his term as U.S. ambassador in Zagreb and before being appointed U.S. ambassador to Belgrade. If these reports are true, they might not justify allegations that Covic is "a U.S. man," but they certainly shed more light on the sudden appearance of the "Covic Plan" for southern Serbia, its speedy approval by the U.S. and the EU, and, finally, its equally speedy and efficient realization.

Envisaged as a five-kilometer wide strip of land stretching along the administrative boundary between Kosovo and Metohija and the FRY (and including a 20-kilometer no flight zone in the air), practically controlled by KFOR although formally in charge of lightly armed Yugoslav police, the Ground Safety Zone from day one was a zone where guerrillas of an armed group calling itself the Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja (LAPBM) were trained. Last year 313 armed attacks were registered in the zone and its immediate vicinity leaving nine civilians, eight policemen and seven terrorists (LAPBM fighters, extremists, rebels, various terms are in circulation) dead. A total of 14 people were abducted of which the whereabouts of four of them are not yet known. The largest number of incidents took place in the municipality of Bujanovac -- 285, of which 166 happened near the village of Konculj.

This year the intensity and the number of attacks on the police and army soared, as well as fatalities among them. KFOR's sometimes incomprehensible tolerance and patience melted away and it lost its temper with the LAPBM on Feb. 16. The ethnic Albanian rebels detonated an explosive device under a bus traveling in a convoy of five buses, and escorted by KFOR, with Serbs headed for their villages in Kosovo and Metohija. The result of the attack -- 11 dead and 40 wounded -- could in no way be interpreted as a mistake or accident, especially when it was determined that the bomb was detonated by remote control only after a KFOR vehicle heading the column passed the spot where only seconds later the explosion occurred.

The other reason for NATO's speedy decision to allow the Yugoslav forces back into the zone was the announced, and then the actual "opening" of the crisis in Macedonia. This is what made the selection of Sector C-East the only logical choice: well-informed observers kept warning since last year that the buffer zone was an ideal ground for transferring arms and guerrillas from Kosovo and Metohija to Macedonia. Clashes between the Macedonian police and a group calling itself the National Liberation Army (NLA), before flaring up in Tetovo, began west of Kumanovo, in the region where Macedonia borders on the southernmost strip of the zone.

The attempt to destabilize Macedonia, believed until yesterday to be the best example of stability and peace in the region and under the sponsorship of the international community, obviously supported, if not even organized, by the Kosovo Albanians, finally made the West worry. The primary concern, of course, was for the safety of soldiers, police and civilians from Western European countries engaged in numerous missions in Kosovo and Metohija. The almost two years an estimated 50,000 KFOR troops have spent in Serbia's southern province have not done much to improve the security of the ethnic Albanian population, and even less of Kosovo and Metohija's non-Albanians. The number of murders, abductions, instances of vandalism, as well as the number of refugees has by far surpassed the figures quoted by the former U.S. president, Bill Clinton, when he explained to the nation why he had decided to bomb Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999.

It is apparent that KFOR's securing of the borders of Kosovo and Metohija focuses on providing safety to its troops. At dusk, all patrols are withdrawn to watch towers, handing control of the ground to various formations of "liberators," smugglers and night travelers to use it as they please. The latest straining of relations with their ethnic Albanian allies, or, more properly, the impossibility to further cover up for the failure of the international community's mission -- in disarming the Kosovo Liberation Army and establishing civic society in Kosovo -- certainly influenced the decision to allow the Yugoslav army and police to return to the Ground Safety Zone. Cooperation with the new authorities in the FRY and Serbia will provide KFOR units with additional security, especially under the conditions the Yugoslav side has accepted.

The greatest opposition to this decision was offered by the leaders of the LAPBM, their "political representatives," and representatives of local ethnic Albanians. The president of Bujanovac municipality, Riza Halimi, who represents them, and the Albanian negotiating team, voiced their disapproval with the fact that the zone had been "militarized" instead of demilitarized.

The Americans demonstrated their interest in quelling the tension in southern Serbia not only by mediating in contacts between Covic's team and the LAPBM -- which could resemble here and there the arm-twisting approach used in forcing the Kosovo Albanian leaders to sign an appeal for a cease-fire in Macedonia -- but also concretely. Personally heading an USAID team, William Montgomery signed contracts on aid to Presevo and Bujanovac amounting to US$450,000. "We came here to show our concrete support for the ongoing process in southern Serbia," Montgomery said on the occasion. "We wish to back this support with actions, and not words. It is support to the peaceful resolution of the crisis, because the course taken by Mr. Covic and the Yugoslav government has our full backing."

The goal -- getting the Serbs and Albanians in southern Serbia to live together, and develop ethnic, religious, and all other forms of tolerance -- will be attained neither speedily nor easily. Both of them face a challenge. In this respect the return of Yugoslav forces to three of four sectors of the Ground Safety Zone is a test that will decide whether they will be allowed to take positions in the last remaining 30-kilometer sector of the zone, in municipalities of Bujanovac and Presevo. Covic has already shown his resolve to change the attitude of soldiers and the police, ordering them out of Albanian homes they had taken up positions in, and strongly criticizing unnamed Yugoslav army officials for having celebrated, with champagne, the return of Yugoslav forces to the zone on March 14. At a safe distance, of course.

Finally, the Ground Safety Zone will not be abolished even when all its sectors are once more under the control of Yugoslav forces: their presence in the zone is precisely defined by various provisions pertaining to their weapons and attitude, and the KFOR commander -- Carlo Cabigiosu will be in that office for several more days – has reserved the right to control events in the area. The March return of Yugoslav forces to the buffer zone, therefore, is merely one in a series of steps that are yet to be made to ensure relatively normal conditions there. If during the last fifteen years we have forgotten what normal conditions are all about, then that is something we will have to learn once again.

Aleksandar Ciric

(AIM)