Kosovo on the Verge of "Controlled" Chaos

(For AIM Podgorica by correspondent from Pristina)

AIM Podgorica, 11 January, 1998

In the night between 8 and 9 January, Pristina was surrounded by Army tanks. In the centre of the city, about 30 different vehicles of the Army of Yugoslavia were deployed, and their strong rotating lightscompleted the picture. Rumours about evacuation of the Serb population from two parts of Pristina, Suncani Breg and Dragodan, where strong military forces were stationed, proved to have been incorrect, but while until late at night similar panic-stricken fabrications were circling the city by telephone it stirred yet unseen fear among ethnic Albanian inhabitants. Many of them did not go to bed until early morning - waiting for the worst to happen. What has actually happened, that is, what the Army of Yugoslavia was prepared to do, or rather the Supreme Defence Council which was in session in Belgrade at the time, is still not clear. If the goal was to instil fear or demonstrate power, it was certainly achieved. The military forces, in agreement with the verifiers, started to withdraw to barracks around midnght, and completed withdrawal about 2 o'clock in the morning. Nevertheless, it was all insufficient to reduce perturbation among the population. Pro-government Media Centre worked during the whole night. The journalists there remained awake. They too were expecting "something to happen". But to the question what it was, they did not know the answer. They said that they had been told that this information centre (which carries exclusively information issued by the army, police, the authorities, as well as official statement of the OSCE) would work...

On that day, on 8 January, in the village of Mazice in the district of Kosovska Mitrovica, members of the Liberation Army of Kosovo (OVK) detained eight members of the Army of Yugoslavia. Serb sources called this act kidnapping; members of the OVK and of the OSCE Verification Mission said that they were taken prisoners. There are no reliable information how it actually happened. Pro-government Media Centre claimed that a truckload of soldiers was distributing food to their colleagues and that they were "kidnapped" by "terrorists" along the way. The OVK claims that the truck full of soldiers entered the territory controlled by it, that it provoked the civilian population, and that there was shooting in which soldiers were "taken prisoners". The OSCE did not give details about how it had happened.

Journalists learnt about the event near the village of Mazice near Stari Trg mine that evening although it had happened in the morning; OSCE verifiers immediately established contact with members of the OVK in order to set the soldiers free. But no agreement was reached even after 48 hours. In the meantime the Army of Yugoslavia started issuing ultimatums, but it gave up after it had been confirmed that the soldiers were alive and treated well. Taking any form of action would mean sacrificing its members, which would be difficult to justify not only to their parents but also to the public. Verifiers took pictures of the soldiers as proof that they were alive, some of the soldiers were allowed even to contact their parents by phone... Parents travelled to Kosovo hoping that they would soon see their sons... However, negotiations still contrinue. Koha ditore journal carried the statement of the main staff of the OVK the very next day in which it was demanded that in return for the soldiers, they demanded release of all the arrested and kidnapped Albanians and that provocations in all places inhabited by ethnic Albanians stop, and it was also said that the soldiers would be released when the Serb party started implementation of Milosevic-Holbrooke agreement. At the latest statement issued on 10 January, referring to sources close to the OVK, it was claimed that release of the soldiers was conditioned by the release of nine Albanians arrested during the latest attempt to cross the Yugoslav-Albanian border, when 37 Kosovo Albanians were killed. The army demands unconditional release of soldiers, the OVK does not agree, OSCE verifiers are trying to find a compromise. In the evening on 11 January, the OVK issued a new statement in which it was said that in accordance with international conventions on exchange of prisoners it would release soldiers in exchange for its arrested members.

And while negotiations still last, surrounded by tanks and who knows what other weapons with barrels lifted towards the place of the negotiations, the situation in the region of Podujevo, that is in the region of Bajgorska Sala which borders with Kosovska Mitrovica, is under unreduced tensions. Before the first ultimatum given to negotiators in Kosovska Mitrovica expired on 9 January, shelling of five villages in the region had begun. The Media Centre stated that police was allegedly taking measures for ensuring safe return of Serb population to the village of Perane. Two policemen were wounded, while Albanian sources reported that there was a large number of wounded Albanians and that suspicion existed that some were killed. Shelling od villages stopped a few hours later due to mediation of the OSCE, but it was a good enough reason to make a large number of the inhabitants leave their homes. In the previous offensive of the Serb forces before the New Year's eve, it is assumed that about 5,500 Kosovo Albanians had abandoned the villages which were attacked. The Serb population has mostly fled to Podujevo and villages with majority Serb population. The very next day, at the main road which leads from Pristina to Podujevo, military forces doubled their mechanization, mostly tanks, on both sides of the road. Barrels were turned towards the villages, but were silent... They are still on the alert.

It is hard to say what will be happening in the region of Podujevo. Analysts in Kosovo believe that this might be tracing a road for a future solution of the issue of Kosovo - creation of a corridor or a buffer zone which will in the final phase resemble some sort of cantons, a line connecting Kosovska Mitrovica, Podujevo, Vucitrn, that is the region of Bajgorska Sala which connects a part of central Kosovo where there is almost no Albanian population any more with western Kosovo all the way to the border with Albania which is controlled by the army in a broad ten-kilometre broad belt. It is stated that some members of the OVK believe that if Bajgoska Sala falls, it will mean that Kosovo has "fallen"...

In the meantime, a policeman was seriously wounded near Urosevac, a day after a young man of Albanian origin had been killed and another wounded, when they were shot at by unidentified persons from a car. On that same evening, a hand grenade was thrown at a privately-owned house in Pristina in which there is a billiards club. Nobody was hurt. Sources close to the police say that it might have been a case of racketeering. The Albanians wonder: why did not they think it was "racketeering" when on Christmas eve an explosive device was thrown at a cafe in Pristina owned by a Serb surrounded by cafes owned by Kosovo Albanians. Why are there no suspects, nor arrested young Serbs who have broken windows on Albanian cafes by shooting at them and then robbing them. And who is this Vesko?...

Different levels of risk are already often mentioned in Kosovo. Sources close to the OSCE Verification Mission inform that the third level has been proclaimed in Kosovska Mitrovica, the second in Pristina, and the first level in Urosevac. The fourth level is in fact sounding alarm for evacuation of foreign citizens who are staying in the risky region.

In absence of the head of the OSCE Verification Mission, William Walker, his deputy Gabriel Keller, issued a sharp statement on the occasion of the current situation in Kosovo, marking members of the OVK as responsible for "raising tension" because of imprisoned soldiers and because of the ambush near Dulje on the road Pristina-Suva Reka in which three policemen were killed and four wounded. Two Kosovo Albanians were also wounded who had happened to be on site when, as claimed by Serb sources, a shell from a hand mortar was thrown on a police armoured vehicle. The next day Albanian sources stated that a six-year old girl was also killed, and three adults were wounded in some villages in Suva Reka municipality. Neither the OSCE nor state media issued statements about it, but it is assumed that it has happened "during police search for the attackers". Early in the morning Albanian sources informed about big movements of Serb armed forces in this region and attacks on some viillages of this municipality. A branch of the Democratic League of Kosovo in Podujevo in a statement issued the next day criticised the OSCE statement reminding that Serb armed forces had provoked the conflict in Podujevo without any immediate cause. Corroborating its discontent, the Albanian party reminds that just a few days ago heavily armed Serb inhabitants, some of them masked, blocked all the major roads leading to the main city of Kosovo. The reason for that was the murder of a Serb from the village of Preoce, which is about ten kilometres away from Pristina, near Belacevac coalmine. The perpetrator is unknown, but the authorities suspected "Albanian terrorists". The demand of the protestors was that Serbian president Milan Milutinovic or Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic address them. On the contrary their collective exile would follow. It was said that there were also demands such as follows: "Let us go to liberate Pritina"; Albanian sources claimed that they occasionally fired at houses of the Albanians... That the roads were blocked was confirmed by foreign diplomats who were forced to travel to Pristina by roundabout roads... It took OSCE a long time to demand from Yugoslav authorities to ensure free movement in accordance with the Milosevic - Holbrooke agreement. Various abuses of Kosovo Albanians who came across barickades were not mentioned. The authorities accused president of the Serb Resistance Movement Momcilo Trajkovic for causing the blockade.

Kosovo Albanians believe only American verifiers. Only they and members of the American diplomatic mission negotiate about the liberation of eight members of the Army of Yugoslavia.

In the meantime, diplomatic activity is intensified again. For the third time since the beginning of the year, Christopher Hill, mediator between Pristina and Belgrade, has arrived in Pristina. He stated that there are ideas for overcoming this situation, but did not say what it was all about. Analysts still have not given up on Rugova, though. They believe that he is the biggest problem for Slobodan Milosevic and the Serb "opposition". Milosevic knows in what "language" he should talk with the OVK, but with Rugova he would really have to sit down and - negotiate. And this could be disastrous for him, because he would have to make concessions.

In the absence of concrete results on the diplomatic and political level, the situation in Kosovo is kept for months on the verge of chaos, and it seems every day that it will go over the edge. Numerous unclarified murders since the beginning of the year of citizens of Kosovo from different ethnic groups, which the official propaganda usually accuses the OVK for, and Albanian politicians point their fingers at the Serbian regime and its secret services, cause general uncertainty among the citizens, stirring up their unpredictable reactions. Independent analysts forecast that, in its desperate effort to remain in power, the regime in Belgrade will try to impose the state of permanent war and general anarchy "in which it would continue to play the role of the arbitre".

Laura SMAKAJ