Kosovo From the Bosnian Angle

Pro et Contra of the Kosovo's Self-Determination

AIM SARAJEVO, March 12, 1998

Conflicts in Kosovo will escalate - is the opinion of the majority of Bosniacs stated in the recent polls of the local media on the situation in that Serbian province. Actually, the Bosniacs think that the Kosovo people will live the same bitter experience they felt on their own skins, pointing in passing that they should not expect too much support from the international community as it will stall for years, using the carrot and stick policy and that they will have to secure their rights through struggle with own means. Naturally, the common denominator of all the evil on the Balkans - from Croatia, over Bosnia and Herzegovina to Kosovo - is easily recognized in the Belgrade leader, both by the media as well as their consumers. But, apart from his condemnation and a repeated claim that Milosevic should be taken to the Hague, as well as the apparent support to the Kosovo Albanians and the sympathies expressed with their loss, nothing else could be heard from the Sarajevans these days. As if eight years later they have not understood that any totalitarian authority in these parts can easily manipulate any Balkan people. Out of some dozen interviewed Sarajevans, only one mentioned that the maximalist demand for Kosovo Republic was also uniform reasoning instilled in the local population and that, as such, it irresistibly reminded him of the Serbian mythologized conscience.

In this poll (of the Sarajevo daily "Liberation") the interviewees all stated that the Kosovo Albanians should recall the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and fight with arms for their stands. In another poll, 83 percent of 500 randomly selected pollees said that the Albanians in Kosovo were organizing "a legitimate defence of the Albanian people from the Serbian aggression" (emphasis on the "aggression"), while 16.5 percent thought that it was a legitimate action of the Serbian authorities against Albanian separatism.

The behaviour of political representatives of the federal part of B&H towards Kosovo events could almost be predicted. It ranged from open support to all, even the most extreme demands of the Kosovo Albanians, and harsh condemnation of Milosevic and passive international community, to more cautious statements regarding the Kosovo demands from those who still see a strong link between the Kosovo entanglement and not yet completed unravelling of the Bosnian story. Naturally, advocates of the thesis that Kosovo has to be defended by force from the unbearable Belgrade regime, are the leaders of the ruling Party of Democratic Action. The Spokesman for this party, Ismet Grbo, said that the same scenario was in game - the one well-known in these parts of using force against civilians, forcing them from homes and of promoting the Greater Serbia - which was the beginning of the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina. "In contrast to the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina in early 1992, great powers, particularly the USA, have more resolutely warned the Serbian regime to desist from violence in Kosovo", said Grbo.

Nijaz Skenderagic, member of the Main Board of the Social-Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina, claimed that the scenario applied was the same, but somewhat more sophisticated and based on the B&H experiences: "I do not believe that political dialogue which will bring final solution to the Kosovo problem will soon come to pass. Unfortunately, I think that the fields of Kosovo will run red for quite some time", said Skenderagic warning of the inactivity of the international community. At Skenderagic's proposal the Federal Parliament adopted a statement condemning "violence of the local Serbian police and the regime against the Albanian population".

On Kosovo situation Stjepan Kljuic, President of the Republican Party of B&H said that "Ibrahim Rugova was pushing into certain death hundreds of his compatriots gathered under the slogan of independent Kosovo", adding that by insisting on Kosovo's independence, Rugova not only showed that he misunderstood the 1971 Helsinki Convention, but also that he did not learn any lessons from the wars in B&H and Croatia. At the same time, he pointed out, that the international community was not ready to accept the secession of Kosovo but will insist on the autonomy of that province within FR Yugoslavia, but according to the European standards.

The non-parliamentary Liberal Party of B&H (member of the SDA Coalition) said that the Yugoslav President was the only guilty party for the situation in Kosovo because he is leading a rigid regime "which keeps itself in power by constantly producing new crises". The Liberals of Bosnia and Herzegovina thought that it was the absolute responsibility of the international community to stop this regime. This is how Haris Silajdzic, Co-Chairman of the B&H Ministerial Council, commented on the Kosovo situation: "The living space for the European Moslems is being reduced daily"...

The latest information that dozens of thousands of the Kosovo Moslems, who are now called Bosniacs in Sarajevo, were moving in refugee columns towards Sanjak, could be favourable for Izetbegovic's party in this stage of territorialization. This time on a part of the Yugoslav territory, i.e. Sanjak, vis-a-vis which the top leadership of this party always had unhidden pretensions. For the time being, its partner party in power in the Federation - the Croatian Democratic Union - is not showing any signs of interest in the events in Kosovo, preoccupied with itself and the latest threats of Clinton's envoy, Gelbard, that if they failed to resolve things on their own he would himself remove the Herzeg-Bosniac obstacles to Dayton same as he recently removed Pero Raguz, Mayor of Stolac.

On the other hand, the democratic alternative of Bosnia and Herzegovina is trying to make nationalistic parties see the causes and consequences that link the present developments in Kosovo with processes in the post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus, the Union of the Social-Democrats of Bosnia and Herzegovina called the Kosovo events, naturally not terrorism as Belgrade called them, but a popular demand for a greater degree of decision-making, but, at the same time, stated that the extreme polarization of Belgrade and Pristina was "a result of undeveloped democratic alternative that would oppose both the rigid Belgrade regime as well as extremism in the Kosovo ranks".

Caution with which the local democratic alternative speaks of Kosovo is easy to understand. Namely, it is impossible to support the maximalist demands on the national division of the territory of any state (this time Yugoslavia), even if it is called the democratic right of a nation to self-determination, and at the same time insist on the existence of one's own state, i.e. Bosnia and Herzegovina. In other words, how is it possible to support possible independence of the Kosovo Albanians and label similar aspirations of the Bosnian Serbs separatism. Mere recognition of the right of people to self-determination is not only the problem of Kosovo and Serbia, i.e. Republic of Srpska or "Herzeg-Bosnia" in B&H, but also of Istria in Croatia, of Sanjak and Voivodina in Yugoslavia, some parts of Macedonia, etc. In short, the problem of Kosovo will place on the agenda the stability of the entire region, irrespective of the current tragedy the individual Kosovo denizens are experiencing.

It might be interesting to mention that the Bosnian-Herzegovinian media, electronic or written ones alike, regularly report from this part of former Yugoslavia,, but that none of them have their reporter on the spot. Before conflagration of the conflicts some media had their reporters, mostly women, who never mentioned to anyone that they were journalists (with an only exception of the reporter of TV Bosnia and Herzegovina). This could be proof enough of the dangers involved in visiting these regions. The closest location from which correspondents report is Belgrade, apart from the "Daily Courier" which has a correspondent on the ground and the TV B&H which frequently includes in its information programme reports of the editor of the Pristina daily "Koha Ditore". The other media are keeping their distance and using the reports of foreign agencies or other media.

It is interesting that the local public commented on the opening of a provisional air-line Sarajevo-Belgrade-Pristina, as well as regular lines Belgrade-Banja Luka with a question whether that opening accidentally coincided with the conflagration of the Kosovo conflicts? Namely, it is hard to believe that it is a coincidence that two buses which till now connected Sarajevo and Pristina, with approximately same number of passengers in both directions, today leave Sarajevo frequently empty and return rather full. Simply, there is an increasing number of those who want to escape from Kosovo which is catching on fire. But, stories, carried by some of the media, are already going around that there is also a large number of those who are heading for Kosovo, what because of national and what for material reasons. Namely, rumour has it that the "Serbian side" is offering 2,500 DEM in wages to those who volunteer for this conflict, while the opposite side, i.e. the Kosovo Albanians, as much as 6,000 DEM. According to that same source, in case of death the price is the same - 100,000 DEM! Naturally, there are speculations whether young people are being mobilized in the Republic of Srpska and the Federation for new conflicts in Kosovo or perhaps these are just "volunteers" for another round in the Balkan war...

Rubina CENGIC