REACTIONS TO STUDENTS' PROTEST IN KOSOVO

AIM Pristina, 7 October, 1997

Although several days have passed since the students' protest held in six major cities in Kosovo, reactions to everything that was happening on 1 October are not dying down. Their organization, different stands of political protagonists concerning the question whether they should have been organized or postponed for a "better time", the attempts of the students to preserve "independence" of their activities, and finally the violent intervention of the police in dispersing the protests, these topics still occupy the front pages of the local pres in Albanian language. The general assessment of respectable individuals in Kosovo, but also of prominent Albanian politicians is that these protests, like none organized for a few decades attracted attention of the domestic and the world public. Numerous foreign journalists, cameras of eminent foreign newspapers and radio and tv stations registered the cruel intervention of the police. This time the protests were also watched by many representatives of embassies in order to see for themselves who would bear the responsibility if riots broke out which could unstable the entire region.

On the very same day after the brutal intervention of the police and despite very bad telephone lines, the first reports from the "spot" were sent. There was no difference in the assessments about the use of violence against the Albanian students, because unanimously all fingers were pointed at those who were the most responsible: the police, the republican government, Slobodan Milosevic.

The presidency of the European Union and the USA, in their joint statement, condemned the use of violence against peaceful protesters in Kosovo and called the international community to join them in the condemnation of this action. "On this occasion", the statement reads, "we repeat again the appeal of the ministers-Members of the Contact Group from New York addressed to Belgrade to establish a dialogue with the Albanian leaders in Kosovo". The spokesman of the State Department James Foley, naming the leadership in Belgrade and Milosevic as the ones responsible for the actions of the police, called Serbian officials to respect fully the rights of the citizens to peaceful gatherings, warning that "as long as such behavior continues, there will be no lifting of the outer wall of sanctions".

American congressman Eliot Angel, who sent a letter with 25 colleagues of his to American Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, reacted similarly, demanding not only to keep the sanctions against Serbia, but even to intensify them, while State Department director for Southern and Central Europe, James Swagert, reminds that "the USA believe that the question of Kosovo was a very serious question in relations with Belgrade".

German foreign minister Klaus Kinkel also reacted very quickly underlying that violent behavior against peaceful demonstrators was a flagrant violation of fundamental human rights. "Those who ordered this action bear large responsibility for dangerous aggravation of the situation which is very strained as it is in Kosovo", said Kinkel warning that stability of the whole region was threatened in Kosovo and that "what is happening over there is not an internal question of FRY, but it a question of the entire Europe".

All the Albanian political parties condemned the assaults with truncheons, teargas and water cannons against students who, like everybody else in the world, wish to attend classes in school buildings out of which they were thrown out six years ago. The protest was assessed as "successful and with great positive effects". The first reactions speak in favour of such an assessment, because at least for a little while the international public "awakened", which happens, as Kosovo analysts stress, unfortunately only after big commotion which usually brings about great tragedies.

Protests of over 25 thousand Albanian students and their professors, for vice-president of the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo (DSK) Hydajet Hyseni, are "the beginning of opening of a new chapter in the history of Kosovo" and "a new way out for a just, stable and peaceful solution of the issue of Kosovo", and as the only argument Serbia has at its disposal he states demonstration of force. Vice-president of the Parliamentary Party of Kosovo, Bajram Kosumi, stresses: "This regime and all former Serbian regimes, communicated with the Albanians only over the sights of guns or by other forms of force, and this was repeated this time again. By this action, Belgrade regime publicly proved that it was not interested in resolving any of the problems in Kosovo. It publicly proved that signing of the agreement for returning school buildings by Milosevic was just a political farce. It publicly proved that this regime was present in Kosovo only by use of the power of force and bloodshed".

For majority of Albanian politicians, but foreign observers as well, forcible intervention proved that the Serbian regime was not consistent even in its own declarations, nor in its own stands. The leader of Parliamentary Party of Kosovo, Adem Demaqi states that the Serbian government broke its promise given to foreign diplomats during their visit to Kosovo. In this context he mentions the promise given by the deputy head of the Kosovo district Veljko Odalovic who promised at the meeting with European and American diplomats that the police would not intervene if protests were peaceful. The local journal in Serbian language called Jedinstvo, which is close to the regime, in its comprehensive report about developments on 1 October, informs its public that the students allegedly threw stones at policemen, and when this exceeded all limits, the latter reacted. Reuters agency had its own version, whose journalist, a Belgrader, wrote in his report that the police had warned the gathered three thousand students to disperse... To the question why he had not written the truth, why his evaluation had intentionally been minimized, he replied: "It is not important how many students there were, it is all the same if there were three thousand or 30 thousand... (!?) Cameras from all over the world registered the real atmosphere anyway..."

The ministry of internal affairs of Serbia published a statement saying that "groups of students, without any doubt, ordered by the Albanian separatist leadership, tried to organize students' demonstrations without notifying the authorities in charge, demonstrations which were after public warning of the police and pursuant the Law on public order and peace and gathering of citizens, dispersed". Serbian government assesses that "Albanian separatists wish to present students' protests to the domestic and the international public as protests against alleged violations of human rights of the Albanians in Kosovo, but especially the right to education. By doing this", the statement says, "an effort is being made to deceive the public since this is a matter of a separatist orientation in favour of a state in Kosovo, and in accordance with it, of a separate university. This is the basic motive of those who inspired and stimulated organization of demonstrations", it is said in the statement of the Serbian government, and then it is concluded that this was the main reason why the agreement on normalization of Albanian education in Kosovo was not implemented. There is also the warning that Serbia will never permit the existence of a separate Albanian state with separate schools and a university.

It seems that the agreement on Albanian education in Kosovo signed more than a year ago by Slobodan Milosevic and Ibrahim Rugova is back in the focus again. This same agreement was also mentioned in the suggestion of Dr Rugova to postpone the protests, because as he stressed "intense efforts are being made for its implementation". The same allegations could be heard from European and American ambassadors two days before the protests. The head of the American diplomatic mission in Belgrade, Richard Miles, declared that "the Albanian students were warned about the timing of their protest, because it was not happening in a vacuum, but in the period between the two elections rounds in Serbia. On the other hand", he added, " we have the effort of Vincenzo Palle for implementation of the agreement on education".

It is interesting that a large group of an interesting composition, a day before the protest, of foreign diplomats had visited Kosovo for the first time in order to warn the students to be careful because the situation was explosive. The ambassador of the Netherlands who came to Kosovo in the capacity of the representative of the chairman of the European Union, declared that he had warned the students that they bore great responsibility for the developments which could follow. In a briefing for the journalists, foreign diplomats expressed hope that there would be no escalation of violence, "because concerning this question they got assurances from the students that the protests would be peaceful, and from the local Serbian officials that the police would not intervene if the law were not broken".

And their first reports consisted more or less of the following: "The police intervened without warning and it had not been provoked by the students"... Similar stances were those of non-political associations in Serbia, and soon after of some of the political parties which condemned police violence and supported the Albanian students in their right to education. Support to the Albanian students was also offered by the Students' Political Club from Belgrade which was sharply attacked for it by their Serbian colleagues from the University in Pristina. "The demand for return to school buildings conceals the demand for a new Albanian state in this space", the students revealed the objectives to their Belgrade colleagues, which was commented by chroniclers of the developments in Kosovo as opposing of young Serbs to education of their Albanian colleagues.

Students' protests have in the meantime become also the topic of discussions on the Albanian political scene, because they can be reason for new political regrouping. In this sense, the haste of political subjects to express support to students' protest and evaluate them as a success is obvious, but also that they are attacking each other for "obstruction" as they say. The Independent Union of Students also issued a statement appealing on the political subjects to "stop the competition they had begun for who will be louder in declarations about the success of the protest, because these protests are primarily students' protests and for the students", so that attempts of profiteering of political parties cannot be tolerated, nor their mutual squaring of accounts behind the students' backs. "This appeal is also necessary because of the fact that there is a great discord between statements of the majority of political parties before and after the peaceful students' protest", the message of the students to their compatriots was.

All things considered, doubts could not be avoided this time too - whether it was a pure accident or not that the protests in Belgrade and Pristina were organized at the same time and why the police acted so brutally. The leader of the Democratic Party of Serbia, Vojislav Kostunica claims that the violence in Kosovo was an alibi for the police violence in Belgrade. The analysts wonder whether Vuk Draskovic had to remove Zoran Djindjic from office after the second round of the presidential elections in Serbia? Was not this a provocation to which they knew Belgrade would react by going out into the streets, all that in order to reduce interest of the media and the international public in what is happening in Kosovo? It is very difficult to get true answers for this and similar questions.

AIM Pristina

Besim ABAZI