Situation in Kosovo Deteriorated

SECLUDED VILLAGE - PONOSEVAC

The past week in Kosovo was marked by two things: drastic deterioration of the situation in the field and very slight progress in the diplomatic field

AIM Belgrade, 8 May, 1998

Less than a fortnight passed since the day Serbia had said its resolute NO to interference of the world community in the crisis in Kosovo, when rumours started circling Belgrade that Slobodan Milosevic was ready to accept former Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonsales as the mediator for Kosovo. It is true though that the regime in Serbia stresses that Gonsales' mission is acceptable only in the context of regulation of the comeback of FR Yugoslavia into the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), but it is possible to hear from diplomatic circles that Gonsales will directly be involved in negotiations with Kosovo Albanians. His participation will, however, be discreet in order to offer Milosevic an opportunity to save his reputation among his own people.

Despite today's latest official refusal of Belgrade to accept Gonsales's mission, it is considered a fait accompli that Gonsales will be accepted but after the elections in Montenegro in the end of this month.

This still does not mean that peace is in sight, not even that Milosevic seriously means to negotiate on Kosovo. The president of FRY simply relies on indecisiveness and disharmony within the international community, and now by his apparent concession to the OSCE, intends to further deepen this discord. Judging by the atmosphere and outcome of the meeting of the Contact Group in Rome, he will succeed in his intention. This body, which by the influence of its members (USA, Russia, Britain, France, Italy and Germany) can be compared only to the UN Security Council, was expected if it could not by a single move prevent the arising war in Kosovo, at least to clearly define the policy of the international community concerning this problem. Instead, the ministers spent most of their effort on preservation of the Contact Group which was threatened to fall apart. About ten days before the meeting, the USA had threatened that their representative would walk out of this body if sanctions were not imposed on Serbia due to Milosevic's persistent refusal to accept suggestions of the international community about unconditional negotiations with Kosovo Albanians. The Americans had accepted the greatest resistance from the Russians, but they were especially concerned because declarations of high officials of Italy and France pointed to their considerable closeness with the Russian stand. Besides, Great Britain and Germany, although generally closer to the Americans, avoided to offer unreserved support to any extreme measures.

Every one of these countries is guided by its own interests which have not much to do with Kosovo. Following the tested recipe "Why say Serbia when you mean dollars?", the Russians emphasized their alleged alliance with Serbia in order to be able to exchange it, at a convenient moment, for favourable loans from the West; the Italians were protecting their big Serbian investment (PTT); relations between France and the USA have been strained for some time already concerning a series of issues, from the conflict over interest zones in Africa to commanding structure of the NATO, so Kosovo served as a convenient immediate cause for settling old accounts. The Germans have no interest to burn bridges with Belgrade behind them, because that would jeopardise their program of repatriation of Kosovo asylum seekers, and the British who are the least directly concerned, could permit themselves the luxury of being neutral. When the mixture of all these interests is taken into account, it becomes clear that the meeting of the Contact Group had to end as indeed it did: with a series of semi-measures and semi-threats, and with the announcement of two new meetings - on 9 May in London and 20 May in Paris.

Even the Americans are not quite sure what should be done to put out the fire which is smouldering in Kosovo. Their priority, in fact, is not Kosovo itself, but the possibility of the conflict spilling over into Albania and Macedonia. Dissensions start from the question whose troops will be sent to these countries and their borders with Yugoslavia. The Americans would prefer to offer logistic and air-borne support, and to have somebody else's infantry take the risks on the ground. The French and the British who have already burned their fingers with such "division of labour" in Bosnia, simply will not let the Americans get away with it once again. Concerning Kosovo itself, it appears that the USA wishes a change of the status of the province within the Yugoslav federation. The problem is that neither threats, nor concessions, at least for the time being, have succeeded in making Milosevic begin to cooperate in this sense. "He does not seem to understand that we wish to help him", a western diplomat says with slight distress.

Recent statement of James Folly, spokesman of the State Department, can serve as a good illustration of indecisiveness about the extent to which Milosevic should be pressured: Folly first justified increased presence of the Army of Yugoslavia on the border with Albania, pointing out that it was "legal and legitimate", and then added that the army was "using excessive force" over there.

That is how by announcing, although discreetly, his readiness to accept Gonsales, Milosevic just increased the general confusion because Gonsales represents the party which does not have a clear strategy of quick resolution of the Kosovo tangle. Besides, accepting Gonsales still does not mean accepting Gonsales's future proposals, so Milosevic still has plenty of manoeuvring space left. Even if introduction of the former Spanish prime minister can be considered to be a slight step forward, it is sufficient to look into the situation in the field and see that we are further away from a peaceful solution of the crisis in Kosovo than we have been a few days ago, and in a few days we will be even further away.

A good example how far things have gone in Kosovo is the recent battle between the police forces of Serbia and the Liberation Army of Kosovo (UCK) around the village of Ponosevac. Ponosevac is about ten kilometres from Djakovica on the road to the known Morina crossing. Everything began at about ten thirty in the morning, on Sunday, 3 May, when a police patrol arrested a local Albanian in Ponosevac. From a house in the village, fire was opened at the patrol and two policemen were wounded, and later the police station was attacked at the centre of the village on the left side of the road. The police immediately called for reinforcements from Djakovica in order to defend the station and take out the wounded policemen. However, the attackers also brought reinforcements, so the fighting around Ponosevac continued during the whole night and the whole following day. A reporter of Reuters who managed to get through to Ponosevac on Tuesday, says that a police pick-up truck was torn to pieces with a "wasp", scattered pieces of clothing and dead goats and horses were lying by the road. Policemen told him that "the terrorists were all around the village" and that they were armed "as well as our forces". "This is the war zone", Reuters quotes the words of a policeman who pointing at the destroyed pick-up also said: "Watch out, this could have happened to you".

On Wednesday, it was mostly peaceful and tense in Ponosevac. Majority of the villagers fled, and the police shut itself up in the police station and the food was brought to them by an armoured transporter. It is not possible to determine the exact number of the victims. The police admitted that it had five wounded, one of whom is in a critical situation, and there are no reliable data about Albanian losses. Belgrade journals which are close to the regime reported on Monday already that "there are many dead and wounded terrorists", but they did not state any figures. These same journals claimed on Tuesday that "the terrorists put up a living shield of civilians in front of them". These reports could mean that the police is looking for a pretext in advance for possible civilian victims. Although no corpses have appeared so far, nor names of the disappeared persons, it is logical to assume that there have been victims.

The police saw fit to make it public via the Media Centre in Pristina on Tuesday that "it is in full control of Ponosevac", and that about two hundred members of the UCK were surrounded. A day later it was said that the "terrorist group was crushed" and that "its members withdrew to surrounding villages". On that same day, however, the army published that fire was opened from Ponosevac at its bordering units. Titles such as "Terror under the Thumb" and "Terrorists Surrounded" (Vecernje novosti and Politika ekspres) sound very well, but when things are just partly analysed, the clash in Ponosevac could hardly be described as a big success of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In fact, it is probably just the contrary. The author of this article who visited Ponosevac and the surroundings just a few days before breaking out of the conflict, had the opportunity to see for himself that police control was quite inoffensive in the region. Ponosevac and all the surrounding villages are almost hundred per cent Albanian, and almost all the local inhabitants look upon Serbian police with extreme dislike. Members of the UCK, armed and in uniforms could be seen at broad daylight less than a kilometre from the mentioned police station. Not even the few military bases nearby (Ponosevac is just a couple of kilometres from the border) were of any help, nor the additional police forces located in Djakovica.

Before this event, but especially after it, the police dare move around this region only at daylight in convoys and in armoured vehicles. This means that full mobility, and therefore, the initiative is on the side of the UCK which is fighting on its own ground. Developments in Ponosevac are the pattern according to which many future conflicts between the police and the UCK will probably take place. The UCK first establishes its base in a region, then it begins to send its patrols to "regulate traffic", first at night, and then more and more often at daylight. The police is concentrated in stations and establishes control points. Clashes occur when one party breaks the ceasefire, if the police tries to arrest somebody or the UCK plunges into an attack on a police control point. Then for a few hours or a few days they shoot at each other and then the ones and the others withdraw to the initial positions: the police to its stations and the UCK to its villages and forests.

Nobody won the battle of Ponosevac. What is even worse, it can be assumed that similar events will occur in the future, because the current situation simply leads to new conflicts. The possibility that the armed conflicts might move into the cities causes concern because it would greatly increase the number of victims. It is comforting to hear the analysis of a connoisseur of the situation in Kosovo who says that city actions of UCK would mean numerous victims among the Albanian population and that it could therefore reduce the current popularity of the so-called Liberation Army of Kosovo.

Nevertheless, on St. George's day in Kosovska Mitrovica, in the vicinity of the bus station downtown, a police patrol car was attacked. Using Chinese Kalashnykov machine®guns and hand grenades, the attackers killed a policeman and wounded two of them. One of the two attackers was killed while the second one was wounded. The situation in Pristina does not offer much hope for peace either. In the part called Vranjevac where the poorest Albanians live, every night for more than a month, long and persistent firing is heard. Nobody knows who is shooting and why because the citizens refuse to talk about it, and the police is not willing to go deep in the narrow streets and alleys to find out.

Almost every village in Kosovo is a potential Ponosevac, and almost every town has its Vranjevac. The minute to twelve to try to prevent new, even greater bloodshed by a resolute political initiative has perhaps already passed for good. Apart from Milosevic's stubbornness, the West has lately also been forced to face doubts about Rugova's legitimacy to continue to represent the Albanian cause: his influence among the people is continuously weakening, his party has recently split into two factions, and he himself is persistently repeating that he can in no way affect developments in the field. "He keeps saying the same things all over again. Sometimes I wonder whether we are talking to the right man", recently a head of a western diplomatic mission complained after return from Pristina. It is also possible to hear the opinion that an equal partner in negotiations with Milosevic will be an Albanian politician who will be capable of influencing the behavior of the Liberation Army of Kosovo (for example, to call it to a unilateral ceasefire). At this moment, such a man is not in sight either in Kosovo or among the emigrants, although some would like to see themselves in this role, like for example the prime minister of the "government in exile", Bujar Bukoshi.

And while the new, more intense conflicts are expected, on the political and diplomatic level we have an equation with three unknown quantities: strategy of the international community, intentions of Slobodan Milosevic and legitimacy of the Albanian leader. Until we learn the value of at least two of these three quantities, the Kosovo equation will remain unsolvable.

Dejan Anastasijevic

(AIM)