GRADUAL FEDERALIZATION OF KOSOVO

AIM Pristina, October 7, 1996

After the elections in Bosnia and lifting of the sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro, it seems that the war on the territory of former Yugoslavia has ended. The Izetbegovic-Milosevic Agreement on mutual recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina and FR Yugoslavia signed in early October in Paris should be one of the pillars of the Dayton formula of a new state conceived as a loose union of "ethnic state entities".

Now the politicians and analysts want to know two things: first, can the fragile Dayton structure live and survive over a longer term? And second, can the implementation of Dayton Agreement secure more lasting stability in the region considering the existence of other potential hotbeds of crisis, such as Kosovo and Macedonia?

As far as the stability of the Dayton Bosnia is concerned, it is being increasingly recognized that the presence of foreign political and military factors will be needed over a longer term. Naturally, today no one knows how long it will take Bosnia to calm down, but it is approximately reckoned that the operation might take at least five to ten years.

As far as Kosovo as well as Macedonia are concerned, the forecasts are unrewarding. In the first place, it is common knowledge that Kosovo, although in the very center of the Yugoslav crisis in the eighties, never reached the culminating point of conflict. In other words, Kosovo remains a potential hotbed of war. Armed conflicts have been avoided here primarily because of a wise decision of the Albanian political leaders to restrain from engaging in armed struggle in the conflict of interests over the control of Kosovo, when Serbia demonstrated readiness to apply all means and already back in 1989 introduced military administration.

The state of neither peace nor war prevailed in Kosovo over the last six years, a sort of status quo based on the balance of fear: Serbia feared the opening up of another front while the conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia were going on, and the Kosovo Albanians assessed that they were economically, military and organizationally inferior to embark on a war adventure. The restraint on the part of the Kosovo Albanians was also influenced by the situation in Albania, which experienced a total collapse in early nineties. The Kosovo Albanians restricted themselves to political acts of proclaiming the Republic of Kosovo (with a government in exile) and developing certain parallel institutions (schooling system, finance, network of independent political organizations, elements of parallel self-administration).

However, it is quite clear that Kosovo's status quo cannot be maintained over a longer period. The Albanians, who make 90 percent of the population of Kosovo, although they have created some forms of parallel institutions will not tolerate the present state of being deprived of all rights. The parallel system they have established does not provide sufficient satisfaction for their ambitions. It had an important role as a factor of resistance, but over long-term it leads to the depletion of resources because the Albanians, in fact, have to pay double taxes, both for those who have "occupied" them as well as those who are "liberating" them. The growing influence of radicals on the political scene, who accuse Dr.Rugova and other leaders of collaborationism and incompetence, should be added to this draining of resources.

In the last few months Kosovo has evidenced a rising spiral of terrorism. It was targeted against the Serbian police, but also the citizens of Serbian nationality. Allegedly, so far unknown illegal Albanian organization, which has its headquarters abroad, has taken the responsibility for all these acts. However, it is suspected that other factors are also involved in all these attempted assassinations, and it is also mentioned that it is quite possible that the Serbian police has "staged" them in order to have an excuse for its repressive policy in Kosovo. The latter suspicion about a "frame-up" was explained by the fact that in most cases, the authorities do not furnish full and impartial information about these attacks.

In any case, one of the catastrophic scenarios for the near future of Kosovo counts on the escalation of terrorism, as an introduction to a strained situation and an outbreak of war. According to all forecasts, this new war could have much harder and far-reaching consequences for the stability of the region, than the war in Bosnia had. It is therefore clear already today to all factors involved in the resolution of the Balkans crisis that the key for ensuring a more lasting stability in the region is finding of the most suitable possible solution for the Kosovo, i.e. Albanian problem.

Because of the latter, the international factors have, for the first time, developed some elements of preventive strategic agreements, as well as precautionary safety measures. When it comes to the strategic consensus of big powers, it should be recalled that the issue of Kosovo was included in the so called Washington Agreement of the Five from 1993 which laid down, not only basic principles for the resolution of the Bosnian crisis, later to be implemented in the Dayton Accords, but also of the crisis in the region at large. And now, in the post-Dayton stage, i.e. after the lifting of the sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro, the big powers have decided to keep the so called external wall of the sanctions, thereby making the access of FR Yugoslavia to some international organizations, which are important to it (The World Bank, the IMF), conditional upon the resolution of the Kosovo problem.

That the maintaining of the outer wall of sanctions, which the United States particularly insisted on, is rather effective is demonstrated by a sudden softening of the Serbian policy towards Kosovo. The turnabout was not only reflected in the Agreement between Milosevic and Rugova about the normalization of the work of the Albanian schooling system, signed in early September, but was announced already last June when Aleksandar Despic, President of SANU (the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences) addressed the nation to point to the necessity for a fresh approach to the Kosovo problem, the essence of which was the proposal for state "delineation with the Albanians".

This Despic's proposal, to which both the regime and the opposition reacted rather mildly, alarmed the radical Kosovo Serbs, who in mid eighties were at the helm of the so called Serbian Resistance Movement, a movement which Milosevic used as a stepping-stone for securing absolute power in Serbia. Neither Milosevic nor the opposition leaders answered the June call for bringing the nation together around Kosovo. This indicative "letting go of Kosovo" is demonstrated in the present campaign for the federal and local elections, in which the radical Serbian movement did not find its place either with the authorities or the opposition.

The secret Albanian-Serbian talks, which were held in Rome during summer, under the auspices of a Catholic mission of good-will, in addition to school agreement have, according to the stories behind the scenes in Pristina, produced a principled agreement on the gradual resolution of many specific political and other problems. The agreement points out that both sides have adopted the principle of gradual resolution of the Kosovo problem. Politicians in both Belgrade and Pristina (the attitude of the Tirana leaders should also be included in this game) have realized that the conflict in Kosovo should be checked and that the war is the game not worth the candle. Everybody is therefore, aware that compromise has to be accepted in a form of a formula of high autonomy, or the so called "autonomy plus", which should resemble the one Kosovo had in 1974, but that the doors should be left open for other solutions.

Although there are other options, mostly pessimistic ones which elaborate on the subject of a catastrophic scenario, I am convinced that the most realistic option is the one which envisages a political settlement through the process of gradual introduction of the "autonomy plus", and later different variations of federalization or confederalization of the Kosovo, i.e. Albanian question. Thus, a process quite opposite to the one in place in Bosnia should be carried out in Kosovo. If the Bosnian Serbs are forced to abandon armed sovereignty for the sake of federalization into a new union, the Kosovo Albanians should, through "autonomy plus", reach a similar level of federalization within Serbia, i.e. FR Yugoslavia. Time will tell whether this will lead to gradual recognition of the Republic of Kosovo, as an integral part of FR Yugoslavia, or some other solution.

However, the main leverage for the resolution of the Balkans crisis (mostly focused on the Albanian-Serbian issue) is the principle of balance of ethnic aspirations based on a relative equilibrium of their potentials. That process will probably have its ups and downs and slight turns, but will never return to the state from early nineties which could only lead to war.

The external wall of the sanctions and a weak position of Serbia should lead to a relatively quick resolution of the Kosovo problem, and once it is solved (or at least settled for some time), the tension will then lessen in the whole region, including Macedonia, or acquire local character. In other words, the Macedonian - Albanian conflict can be put under control more easily (anyway, the American and Scandinavian troops are already stationed in Macedonia) than it can be done with the Serbian - Albanian conflict.

Shkelzen Malici AIM Pristina