A NEW CONFLICT IN SIGHT?!
AIM Pristina, 20 April, 1998
Diplomacy is paralysed. Among Kosovo Albanians, the central issue is not whether there will be conflicts in Kosovo, but whether it is possible to prevent breaking out of a general war conflict. The generally shared opinion is that the answer to this quuestion is in the hands of the president of FR Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic and that the power of Kosovo Albanians to decide about war or peace is extremely limited. According to numerous Albanian assessments, the burden of the current situation has become too heavy for the majority Albanian population. That is why underrstanding is increasing for calls not to accept submissively Serb rule in Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians are united in the opinion that the Serb solution of the Kosovo issue would change nothing essentially and that a possible agreement of Kosovo Albanians to such a solution would just legalize the existing situation. This is the broadest political framework which serves for drawing further conclusions concerning the assessment of the situation, development and prospects of the Kosovo situation.
The number of those who believe that in a sense Kosovo is already in the state of war is not small. As an example in favour of this stand they state Drenica and some of the other surrounding regions about which they claim to be already living in war conditions. To the warning that for some time now there has been no shooting there and that there are no victims like in the beginning of March, they reply that nothing has changed in the sense of reducing the quantity of accumulated firearms and the number of armed forces in the region. On the contrary, the arsenal is growing every day, and military, or rather war preparations as claimed are continuing. And it seems that both parties are entrenched and reinforcing their positions, especially at certain points, although it is generally known what the potential of each of them is.
Exchange of fire is sporadic and only occasionally intensive. Albanian sources mostly claim that Serbian forces are shelling Albanian villages "from a distance". Serbian sources are silent about it. Human victims are few because the population has mostly abandoned the towns and villages. According to incomplete data, in the villages of Drenica more than 80 Albanian houses were either destroyed or shattered. The number of damaged and plundered houses or with demolished interior is much greater. However, since March there has been no decisive step from either side to overcome, destroy or drive away the opponents from the positions they had taken. This could be explained by the assessments of military readiness, including acceptability of one's own losses.
However, it seems that these are actually political evaluations and calculations. As if nobody wishes to assume responsibility for making the first step. It is also possible that they are waiting for the moment of the inevitable spontaneous acceleration, the final decision of the politicians, results of diplomacy... or just concurrence of all developments.
In any case, everything is happening contrary to anything that would relieve the general situation in Kosovo. In the shortage of relevant data, it is difficult to speak about the level of the engagement of Serbian armed forces. But, movements of considerable military and police forces are evident. In the intensive everyday movements it is possible to see significant quantities of heavy military equipment. This does not include only reinforcements of ordinary control points on the roads or certain highly sensitive points, but taking positions on the entire Kosovo and war fortifications around certain parts of Kosovo, especially around Drenica. Similar movements are evident also in some parts of Djakovica and Decani towards the border with Albania which are to the west of Drenica. This region still has not been put into "Drenica quarantine", but due to intensive fire in the past few days, especially in the bordering region with Albania, it seems to be the most volatile at the moment. Around Drenica and some villages, or neuralgic points within the region, according to Albanian sources, cannons and rocket launchers were planted. It is less possible to hide from the public constant movements of various types of armed military and police vehicles, and least of all those of airplanes and helicopters which control the ground round-the-clock. The Albanian sources have lately started to mention mine-laying by Serbian forces around certain positions as a form of protection from sudden attacks.
The population of Drenica and regions towards the west of it, to the Albanian border, is living in an atmosphere of everyday expectation of new Serbian military and police offensives. In many villages, women, children and the elderly have not lived in their homes for weeks. They have taken refuge in safer places, and villages and property are guarded by grown-up men. Movements of people are very limited due to ill-treatment and arrests at control points, police barricades and military and police fortifications. Normal supplying has been interrupted since the end of January when the whole region of Drenica was put under siege. Supplies for the interior are mostly taken by roundabout paths known only to the natives. Almost a month after the March attack, international and Kosovo humanitarian organizations have finally reached some places.
It turned out that just humanitarian aid is not a lasting solution for several ten thousand people who have left their homes, for the ailing and the wounded. The elementary health protection of the population has become extremely needed. The most vulnerable are pregnant women and newly-born infants. There are information about increased death-rate of infants and children due to impossibility of offering them medical aid, as well as about increased frequency of some children's diseases which have been almost eradicated. After an interruption of almost one month, in the beginning of April, an effort was made to normalise work in schools. However, due to exposure to snipers, as claimed, dangerous crossings in the vicinity or at police control points, sporadic shooting and shelling of houses by the Serbian forces, teaching was interrupted again after just a few days, for an indefinite time.
There are no precise information about the number of villages which were deserted after departure of women, children and the elderly, as well as about the number of those who have remained to guard their villages and property, nor about whether and how they are armed. However, regardless of that, it is assumed that the Serbian forces will not be able to penetrate into these villages without using a convincing amount of force. In consideration of this phenomenon, it should certainly be kept in mind that the number is increasing of villages which are forced to take their children and women to safe places and not to wait submissively for Serbian forces. If this continues to spread at the current rate, it will accelerate processes which lead to general confrontation.
The main processes are quickly evolving towards something that makes further developments very vague. The current situation is most frequently defined as a situation which leads to breaking out of a conflict or a situation already characterised by conflicts but for the time being of a local nature. If the latter is taken as the one closer to the truth, it could be said that the situation in Drenica is stabilised on positions established after March conflicts. Along these lines there are occasional conflicts about which neither party issues precise information.
The Liberation Army of Kosovo has not issued a statement for a few weeks already, but rumour goes about its accelerated strengthening thanks to an increasing number of volunteers who are joining it. Rumour from Serb sources is spreading that the Albanian population is arming itself. The latest incident on the border with Albania between Ponasec and Morina near Djakovica, as Belgrade authorities officially declared, occurred when Albanian terrorists tried to bring arms into Kosovo. It was the severest border incident in the past few years, and after many years, decades even, the first one which is believed to be an attemt to bring large quantities of arms to Kosovo. Shooting in the region continued during the next few days so that it still is not clear whether the incident was an isolated case and that continuation of shooting had other causes or whether everything was programmed in advance.
After numerous demands of party committees from Drenica that quarrels between the parties on the level of Kosovo had to stop, a source, as it was presented - close to the Liberation Army of Kosovo - declared to the Albanian daily Koha Ditore that in Drenica political parties were not active for some time and that all forces were gathered in the Self-Defence Front which held regular meetings and consultations with the people. Similar information, but via different channels, are arriving from other parts of Kosovo, primarily from the region of Decani and Djakovica where since the end of March open disobedience to Serbian authorities has been showed.
Conflicts and disturbances in Kosovo have always been accompanied by departures of people from their homes. On the one hand, several ten thousand Albanian women, children and the feeble from Drenica and the region of Decani and Djakovica have not lived in the their homes for quite a long time already. Problems of their sustenance have not become acute due to the fact that migrations of the population are mostly local in nature. In Drenica there had practically been no Serbs so the problem of their migration has simply not arisen. However, several hundred Serbs from villages around Decani have left their homes out of fear of being attacked by armed groups of the Albanians, as some Serbian media reported. It was not said that sianybody had actually been attacked, but they are afraid and information are spreading that they have all already left their homes. About twenty families of about 70 members are accommodated in the former vacation centre in Decani. When the Serbs migrate, it becomes always a big problem with political and other connotations. People are here not even excluding the possibility that the Serbs have been withdrawn on purpose and according to a plan in order to clear the ground for a possible intervention in this area. In the local Albanian political circles, a parallel is drawn with similar moves of the Serbs in Bosnia who withdrew members of their ethnic group from regions they intended to and later did attack.
In the cities and towns of Kosovo, a different process is taking place, which also fits into the general developments. Since about ten days ago, the Democratic League of Kosovo leads everyday, massive midday half-an-hour long protest walks. At the moment it is difficult to speak about direct consequences of this everyday raising of temperature. In Pristina, the walks are passing almost peacefully, but in some cities occasional police interventions have been registered...
AIM Pristina
Fehim REXHEPI