CONTROL OF TERRITORY - ALIBI FOR ARMED CONFLICTS!?

AIM Pristina, 11 June, 1998

After several-day long Serbian military and police offensive operation which had begun on 29 May, armed conflicts in Kosovo have acquired all characteristics of war confrontations. The minimalistic evaluations which rely on Serb sources say that Serbia has engaged about 10 thousand people in this operation. Before concentration of military and police forces for the recent operation, foreign evaluations said that Belgrade had engaged about 30 thousand men in Kosovo. However, if more than 10 thousand mobilised Kosovo Serbs, as claimed by the Albanian press, are added to this number, one would get the most realistic approximate evaluation of the number of Serbian troops in Kosovo. Evaluations of the number of members of the Albanian armed movement in western parts of Kosovo are less certain. With every possible caution, the evaluation of between 20 and 30 thousand Albanian rebels perhaps could be accepted.

Serbian armed forces started using helicopters in operations against Albanian rebels in the end of February. The Albanian sources have recently started to speak about increasing use of a weapon which might be similar or identical to the so-called flame-thrower. Since combat air-craft were introduced into conflicts, one could say that all known weapons for classic warfare are now used in Kosovo.

In assessment of the proportions and seriousness of armed conflicts in Kosovo it is extremely significant that units of Yugoslav army are directly involved in operations. Almost everybody can see movements of military units all around Kosovo, army helicopters and airplanes on various missions. Albanian sources confirm almost every day army participation in combat. They describe colour of uniforms, but also types of used arms such as heavy tanks, large calibre cannons, rocket launchers. It is also stressed that these weapons are not used to stop illegal crossing of the border, but in operations of banishing the Albanian population from their homes in certain regions, that is in implementation of the policy of ethnic cleansing.

The Serb party denies allegations about participation of the army in combat. It also rejects accusations of implementation of the policy of ethnic cleansing. The political propaganda is aimed at this direction. It even denies the presence of refugees in northern Albania, as it was stressed by the latest statement of the General Staff of the Army of Yugoslavia. It is doubtful, however, whether majority of the Serbs can possibly believe that there are no refugees from Kosovo in Albania and that the Serbs and the Albanians are living peacefully side by side in Decani, that the Albanians themselves have demolished and burnt to the ground at least half of this town, that they have unscrupulously executed 30 of their compatriots and that the police is protecting all the citizens from alleged terrorists. Concerning the latter, the Albanian sources claim that the several hundred Albanians who are allegedly protected by police forces are actually hostages held for the purpose of blackmail or threat in conditions which may occur in the further course of the conflict.

Despite official Serbian allegations that all the objectives of the recent offensive have been accomplished, and despite the official assessment that the situation in the region is normal and that full control of the border with Albania has been established, conflicts which are still continuing and new reinforcements which are being brought there in the past few days show that the situation is quite different. With the incessant armed conflicts like in the region Decani-Djakovica, it is hardly possible to speak about normal life, least of all of coexistence of the Serbs and the Albanians. Apart from the hostages who are isolated and a few persons here and there who could not leave their homes, there are almost no Albanians in Decani. There had been about 10 thousand before the latest conflict. In some villages around this municipal centre there is no life. In just a day or two places around Decani have become ghost towns.

Continuation of armed conflicts along the border region between Decani and Djakovica and systematic shelling of the region are the best evidence that the objective of the military and police operation has not been fully accomplished at least when the bordering region is concerned. On the other hand, information from local Albanian newspapers make the impression that the situation might not be the same in all the parts of the border. Besides the bordering region near Decani where the situation is not clear in the sense of control, the bordering region near Djakovica does not seem to be fully controlled by the Serbian armed forces. The difference in movements of the population is also evident. Women, children and other vulnerable groups of inhabitants from the bordering region of Djakovica called Reka e Keqe have not gone to Albania but are mostly evacuated to Djakovica or inside the territory of Kosovo. On the other hand, majority of refugees who have gone to Albania are from deserted villages around Decani and the destroyed town of Decani itself.

If the situation is approximately really as described, it can be concluded that the latest Serb attempts of ethnic cleansing of the region have not been completely successful. Many villages have been destroyed, people have either been banished or they have left their homes. But movements of the population are still mostly local (the so-called internal movements of the population to comparatively safer places) and, despite war conditions, quite organised and controlled. It is also impossible to claim with certainty that the Serbian authorities have managed to create a hermetically closed buffer-zone along the border. Despite departure of women and children and heavy damage and demolitions (six villages out of 40 in the municipality are completely deserted), male inhabitants have mostly remained in the field. All those who have accompanied the vulnerable population to reception centres in northern Albania are returning. This has become a kind of a rule among the Albanians in the regions controlled by the Albanian armed movement.

Evaluations about the size of this territory differ. The Albanians speak about liberated territories, and the Serbs about territories controlled by Albanian terrorists. If we disregard this aspect of Albanian-Serb dispute, in the current conditions of Kosovo it is difficult to define precisely which and how much of the territory is controlled by the Albanian armed movement, that is the territory which is not under jurisdiction and control of Serbian authorities. The Albanians who form more than 90 per cent of the Kosovo population are not only refusing to recognise legitimacy of the Serbian rule of Kosovo, but even deny it in different ways. That is why it is impossible to speak in Kosovo about the rule and the authorities in the political sense, but only in the coercive and administrative sense which is close to mere physical violence. This means that Belgrade can effectively exercise its power only if it ensures the presence of physical force (police, army). From that angle, liberated territory can be marked as the one where Serbian authorities cannot ensure its direct presence. This interpretation is quite broad but it should not be completely rejected. Before the current armed conflicts for years there had been in Kosovo the so-called no-man land which was the concealed free territory for the Albanians. There are still such no-man-lands. They are in some kind of a sandwich which is not "touched" by either conflicting party. There are also territories which are living some local life of their own, with some kind of double rule, in which none of the parties is trying to change things and establish solely its rule. There are also territories which are not under jurisdiction of Serbian authorities and which are considered by the Albanians to be free in municipalities where there have been no armed conflicts yet. Finally, there are territories under direct physical control of the Albanian rebellion movement. Perhaps only in the latter two cases one can speak of territories which are not under Serbian jurisdiction or where Belgrade cannot exercise its power effectively. It is usually assumed that these territories amount to between 20 and 30 per cent of the territory of Kosovo. It should be noted that this evaluation has been made solely on the basis of the situation in the western and the central part of Kosovo and that it does not refer to city centres which are still controlled by the Serbian authorities, that is, which are under a kind of a military and police siege.

For maintaining control of the city centres which are believed to be strongholds for restraining the rebellion and even for its possible marginalisation and curbing, control of main communications is essential. Serbian, that is Yugoslav forces, are faced for weeks with difficulties in supplying, bringing reinforcements and deploying forces in western parts of Kosovo, because of difficulties or impossibility to move along main roads. This is becoming especially obvious in the past few days when Belgrade is bringing numerous new military reinforcements and trying to concentrate them in the western parts of Kosovo. New reinforcements are brought by train or roads, but comparatively freely only to Pristina or by train to Urosevac. Further on, they have to pass either by the south-western main road from Pristina to Prizren and further on to Djakovica and Decani. Although not safe, at the moment it is the only significant communication line which links other parts of Kosovo with its western part. Railway transportation in this direction cannot be used for military purposes for weeks. Approximately at the same time roads between Pristina and Pec and Mitrovica and Pec were also blocked. Roads for Pec via Rozaje and Cakor, as well as the road from Montenegro via Koznjer to Decani are either not safe, that is communication can easily be prevented on them, or they are inconvenient for serious war movements. At the same time, Serbian armed forces have great difficulties in maintenance and using the only main road in western Kosovo which connects Pec and Djakovica via Decani. It is the only and certainly the shortest road between the northern and the western parts of Kosovo, that is between Serbia and these parts of Kosovo.

One could, therefore say, that the territory of Kosovo has started to resemble "Swiss cheese", with parts of the territory controlled by the Liberation Army of Kosovo, and parts which are burned to the ground due to war operations, which reconfirms the horror of this conflict.

AIM Pristina

Fehim Rexhepi