[ALBSA-Info] {QIKSH =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=AB?=ALBEUROPA=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BB?=} PRESS: Kostunica's Rise Could Provoke Albanian Kosovars (San Francisco Chronicle, October 7, 2000)

[Nikoll A Mirakaj]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/10/07/MN81042.DTL

NEWS ANALYSIS

Kostunica's Rise Could Provoke Albanian Kosovars

Serbians might press claim to province

Peter Finn, Washington Post 
Saturday, October 7, 2000 

Budapest -- Vojislav Kostunica's ascent to power in Yugoslavia could
help strengthen Serbian claims on Kosovo and eventually turn the
province's ethnic Albanian majority against the NATO troops stationed
there as peacekeepers. 
     At the same time, the change of power in Belgrade might ease a long
and destabilizing feud between Serbia and Montenegro, the two republics
of the Yugoslav federation. 
     The ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo regards the province as
firmly on the road to independence. The authoritarianism of ousted
president Slobodan Milosevic was their strongest card in arguing that
nationhood was not only inevitable, but morally essential. 
     Now that card is gone, placing the Albanians in potential conflict
with NATO. 
     The West has insisted that Kosovo enjoy broad autonomy, but has
resisted all attempts to formally make the province independent. 
     That is not so far from the position of Kostunica, a democrat but
also an ardent nationalist, who sees Kosovo as historically attached to
Serbia. In one campaign speech, he said that Albanians knew that if the
heavy-handed Milosevic remained in power, ``they will get their
independent Kosovo.'' Voting for Kostunica would keep it in the Serbian
family, he said. 
     With Kostunica now in power, the West may become more sympathetic
to the sanctity of Yugoslav sovereignty. 
     ``That giant revving sound you hear,'' said one Western diplomat in
Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, ``is the sound of the West getting
ready to rush to Belgrade. And when they get there, the Serb attachment
to Kosovo might suddenly seem very reasonable.'' 
     That would anger many Kosovo Albanians, who hid large supplies of
arms after NATO troops entered the province last year after a 78-day air
offensive that forced Serbian security forces to withdraw. 
     Given Western disappointment at the relentless attacks that ethnic
Albanians have staged against the tiny Serbian population in Kosovo
since NATO forces arrived, Serbia under Kostunica can argue that it
represents tolerance vs. Albanian fanaticism, diplomats said. 
     ``Ironically, I think without Milosevic the Albanians will be in a
more difficult position,'' said one Western European diplomat, speaking
from his capital last night. ``And part of their problem, frankly, is
that Kostunica may live up to our hopes while in many ways, with their
killing of Serbs, they have not.'' 
     ``The Albanians never really believed us when we said independence
was out,'' said the diplomat. ``I worry about the consequences if they
do finally believe us.'' 
     Certainly some Serbs in the divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica
believe that Kostunica's rise will be good for them. Oliver Ivanovic, a
Serbian leader there, was telling his community yesterday that a
Kostunica presidency could end the community's isolation and dampen
ethnic Albanian ambitions. 
     ``It is not a disaster,'' Ivanovic told Reuters. The Milosevic
government was ``ready to forget Kosovo and Kosovo Serbs,'' he said. But
the new government ``will be free to come here to talk. Serbs in Kosovo
will not be alone.'' 
     For their part, ethnic Albanians have in recent days shrugged off
the prospect of democracy in Belgrade as irrelevant. 
     ``Kosovo will not be part of Serbia whether it's a dictatorial
Serbia or a democratic Serbia,'' said Hashim Thaqi, head of Kosovo's
Democratic Party and the former political leader of the Kosovo
Liberation Army, Reuters reported. 
     That position, if radical elements decide to try to enforce it with
the caches of arms that NATO believes remain hidden in the province,
could spell trouble. 
     Regarding the feud between Yugoslavia's two republics, Serbia and
Montenegro, it was always a standoff between brothers. Ethnic
differences between the two are relatively small, and tensions grew in
part from Montenegrin resentment of Milosevic and the relatively greater
power of the much larger Serbia within the federation. 

©2000 San Francisco Chronicle   Page A8

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