THE BACKGROUND OF BLOODSHED IN DRENICA

AIM Pristina, 2 March, 1998

After nine years, Kosovo has experienced another great bloodshed. Perhaps "the worst" still has not occurred, but it can with increasing certainty be claimed that this region is closer to the situation which is leading to breaking out of general uncontrolled violence. It seems, indeed, that the latest bloodshed in a part of the besieged Drenica exceeds the framework of a military action as the function of political objectives. This action is considered to be a political action by Belgrade, but it is highly questionable whether the Albanians will accept it as such. There is no question about it whether the Albanians will respond in the same manner, simply because they cannot. But, it might happen that the massacre of the innocent population (there were killed old men, women, and according to allegations, even children) of a few Albanian villages, will mark a shift in the perception of the future trends of Albanian-Serbian confrontations.

The tendency towards radicalization exists among the Albanian population for quite some time already. Due to that, regardless of the extent to which mass demonstrations of the Albanians on Monday, 2 March in Pristina, were directly caused by the developments in Drenica, it is in fact an expression of a disposition which had already been manifested by a few rallies organized by Albanian students. According to the number of participants, the latest Albanian demonstrations in Pristina exceed all the gatherings ever held in this city. Apart from the number of participants, certain other elements of these demonstrations are significant for a political analysis. The connection with Drenica is direct. However, apart from solidarity with Drenica, the demonstrators acclaimed to freedom, and shouted that they were ready for sacrifices to attain it. In order to disperse the demonstrators, the police was this time authorized to apply greater force.

Probably for the first time after 15 or 16 years, a certain number of the Albanian demonstrators dared respond to the brutal intervention by throwing stones at the police and police vehicles in the direct clash with them in city streets. This is a significant psychological and political novelty in the behavior of Kosovo Albanians.

From the present perspective, it seems that the essential change of course will develop as a process, maybe of irretrievably growing awareness in the direction of totalization of stands on the problem of Kosovo quite opposite from those which prevailed so far. This current perspective has certain objective foundations. A completely new Albanian generation is coming of age, which does not remember times different from the current and which does not accept to spend the rest of its youth living in the underground and in cellars where it has studied and matured for many years. There is and there can be no dilemma for it about what Serbia is and what it may be. That is why it is not a mere coincidence that the first echoes of the mentioned political shift in the Albanian political disposition were the most expressive in the ranks of the young Albanian generation.

When last autumn the leadership of the Albanian political establishment headed by Rugova refused to support and join peaceful students' protests, a deep vertical political split occurred within the Albanian corps. At the time, the split did not seem to be so threatening for the Albanian political forces, especially for political positions of Ibrahim Rugova and his Democratic Alliance of Kosovo (DSK). But soon after it became clear that this was an utterly wrong evaluation. The evidence of this is continued radicalization and gradual destruction of Albanian parallel institutions established in the previous period of neither war nor peace. The most illustrative examples for that is the split within the Albanian parallel system and the latest deep conflict within the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo at the last electoral convention held a few days ago. That is why the students' protests on the very first day powerfully disturbed "peace in Kosovo" based on the equilibrium of fear and shook political positions of Ibrahim Rugova and the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo.

It seems that Belgrade, in its political calculations, at least not as a direct threat, has not counted on either change of disposition or even the least Albanian political will to offer resistance to any Serb force, even if it were a single policeman, least of all to respond to the Serbian forces and the Serbian dictate by armed resistance. But, towards the end of last year in Drenica, the power of Serbian weapons was not only completely psychologically questioned, but it was for the first time, although very slightly, undermined, which was formerly inconceivable for Albanian policy and for the prevailing Albanian political stands. During that month and a half it seemed as if Kosovo had freed itself of the heavy burden of everyday Serbian repression. The checkpoints along the roads were not so frequent, punitive police patrols and expeditions became scarce, as well as the customary police assaults, arrests and similar activities which Kosovo Albanians had become used to in the past ten years.

However, it was clear to everybody that it was just a lull before the storm. Belgrade assessed that persuasiveness of force was the only means for keeping Kosovo in the state of "relative" peace. That month was used for preparations for a new phase of proving Serbian domination in Kosovo in the political, military, police and diplomatic sense. By mid January, police expeditions in the field were renewed, checkpoints on main roads were re-established and intensified, especially around Drenice, as well as arrests and interventions in Albanian villages... At the same time, massive military and police movements in all directions began. However, as expected, everything concentrated around Drenica. That is how by the end of January, Drenica found itself in a strict police and military quarantine. On regional and some main roads inside the region of Drenica, barricades of sand and other solid material were erected. Transportation of people and goods was not banned but it became very difficult. The siege was also established in some parts of the Klina, Malisevo and Decani municipalities. Nothing could pass along any of the roads in and around this region without being strictly controlled by the police. According to all the available information, it was clear that since the end of January inhabitants of this region have lived in the factual, unproclaimed state of war.

The atmosphere of repression against the Albanians was felt literally everywhere, and the situation in Kosovo was brought to the state in which almost a day could not pass without at least a single killed, wounded or kidnapped. Those who were beaten up or maltreated in various ways were counted by hundreds. Both the Albanians and the Serbs, although the former much more, were killed or lost their lives in different ways because of the newly created situation. But, everyone lamented and was concerned only for their own. The Serbian authorities have almost ceased publishing official information about cases when only Albanians were killed, and the Albanian media noted human victims among the Serbs in just curt news.

The latest bloodshed ended the period of killing and wounding at the rate of one a day. It was impossible to conceal that on the two last days of February and the first day of March, a massacre of innocent Albanian peasants had taken place. In an alleged search for "Albanian terrorists" who had attacked police patrols, Albanian villages were attacked from helicopters and other heavy arms, people were killed in their homes and some of the houses were destroyed. It is obvious that it was just a massive revenge of impotence. The official Belgrade gave a statement to the public that its forces had killed 16, as they said, terrorists. Wounded Albanians were not mentioned. Due to intensive fire from all types of weapons, the Albanians could not even take away their dead, nor pick up and tend to their wounded. Four policemen were also killed and two wounded, according to the official information.

The Serbian authorities have not offered proof that the killed Albanians actually were terrorists. The shots and television slides with the military material allegedly confiscated from these Albanians arise suspicion, because from the very beginning of the crisis in Kosovo, it often happened that the same shots were presented a few times to the public on different occasions. Like in the past 15 odd years, murders of the Albanians were again presented as the result of accidental and isolated conflicts in the already known style: the terrorists attacked and the members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs responded to the fire and liquidated the terrorists. But, was it really like that? The present operation in the part of Drenica which ended with the big bloodshed - the Albanian and certain foreign sources assess that there may have been up to 30 killed and many wounded Albanians - with the use of massive police and military forces, began in the evening of 27 February and on 1 March it still has not ended.

Unfortunately, after this massacre of Albanian peasants, the situation in Kosovo is passing into the phase in which names are not important any more and when the killed and the wounded are expressed in figures, as if ordinary objects were mentioned. That is why from the political and human point of view, the most important thing is the question what the latest escalation of violence might develop into. Nobody could offer a definite answer to this question. Nobody had believed that this bloodshed would occur, but it did. One thing is evident: in the past few weeks, the spiral of violence spread to dangerous proportions.

Apart from the known and less known protagonists of the developments in Kosovo who, independently of uniforms, ethnic colours and other, firmly hold on to weapons, the extremely negative element in the situation is involvement of civilians into armed confrontations. In the form of resistance aimed at protection from violence of Serbian police expeditions, since the end of last year, the Albanian peasants from some parts of Kosovo are offering armed resistance to Serbian attacks on their homes. On the other hand, ever since the beginning of the current crisis in Kosovo, Serbian civilians have in various ways participated in political and other, more brutal repressive, police and military action against Kosovo Albanians. The impression is that the Serbs are now acting as part of Serbian police and military units.

Regardless of the latest massacre and the possibility of the firm siege of Drenica ending up in such and similar military and police action, if action remains in the domain of politics and diplomacy, it can still be said that in the military sense, the siege and this massacre were completely unnecessary, and in the political and diplomatic sense, mostly inconvenient for Belgrade. They were neither able nor will they ever be able to prevent resistance of the Albanian population, but they have and will continue to stir up Albanian disposition, especially of the young generation, to offer more decisive resistance to the Serbian rule, they will diminish prospects for reaching gradual compromising solutions, and they yielded no significant gain in the diplomatic domain either. It may seem as a gain that the Albanian representatives have been pressured to condemn the Liberation Army of Kosovo, or as the authorities assess them, terrorist action, which has a long time ago and on several occasions already been done by the Albanian leaders (and this is confirmed by their commitment to the platform of peaceful solution for Kosovo), but not in the manner which would create an alibi and pretext for all forms of unfounded repression of the Serbian regime.

AIM Pristina

Fehim Rexhepi