[ALBSA-Info] {QIKSH «ALBEUROPA»} PRESS: Eyes on Kosovo, again (Economist, Oct 28th 2000)

[Wolfgang Plarre]

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=404194&CFID=266089&CFTOKEN=2460071

Eyes on Kosovo, again 

Oct 28th 2000 | PRISTINA AND SKOPJE 

While Yugoslavia's new president consolidates his power, this week's
Balkan focus is shifting back to Kosovo, where upcoming elections could
once more alter the West's calculations for the region 
     NEITHER Yugoslavia's new leader, Vojislav Kostunica, nor the most
widely respected politician in Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, would relish
being compared with one another, but it is hard to ignore the
similarities. As citizens of the dying Yugoslav federation start
considering how they might live together peacefully, these two
old-fashioned academics, representing all that was fusty but
comparatively decent about intellectual life in Marshal Tito's country,
have been embraced, albeit cautiously, by the more sensible youngsters
on both sides of their ethnic wall who hope to escape the vicious Balkan
circle of crime and war.
     Mr Rugova, a French-educated professor of literature, has never
claimed to be a crowd-pleaser. But this awkward, retiring man was mobbed
like a rock star by 20,000 people, at least half of them under 30, when
he appeared at an election rally in the stadium this week in Pristina,
Kosovo's capital. Like every candidate in Kosovo's local elections, due
on October 28th, Mr Rugova refused to discuss any future for the
bitterly contested province, now guarded by 43,000 peacekeepers from 31
countries, save full independence from Serbia.
     Richard Holbrooke, the American ambassador to the UN and veteran
Balkan trouble-shooter, fed those hopes by making a tantalising promise,
during a stopover in Pristina, that negotiations on Kosovo's final
status would start in the near future. Most European policymakers, on
the other hand, still believe it is too soon to bridge apparently
irreconcilable differences between most Albanians and most Serbs about
where Kosovo ultimately belongs. 
     In any case, the difference between Mr Rugova and other contenders
for power in Kosovo has more to do with style than ultimate policy
goals. For middle-class Kosovars who lived modestly but respectably in
the 1980s, before Serbia suppressed their autonomy, and apparently for
many of their children as well, the pacifist Mr Rugova is more
attractive than the swaggering ex-guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA).
     His moderate party, which led a campaign of non-violent resistance
to Serbian rule for much of the last decade, is expected to win about
half the vote in the forthcoming ballot. Watchers from the UN reckon
that the two main ex-KLA parties, several of whose leading lights have
close links with the illegal trade in guns and drugs, might get a
combined total of 20% or so. 
     In Belgrade, meanwhile, the newly elected president has received a
friendly warning from leaders of the student movement Otpor
(Resistance), whose street protests were an important part of his
campaign to end more than a decade of misrule by his predecessor,
Slobodan Milosevic. As posters appeared around the city with the
enigmatic slogan "We are watching you", Otpor's leaders said they would
give Mr Kostunica, a law lecturer and moderate nationalist, 100 days to
make good on his promises to sweep the old guard out of power and
establish a democratic society; otherwise they would withdraw support
and start directing their youthful anger against the new incumbents.
     Given that he was propelled to power by a broad range of
constituencies, from ethnic minorities to disaffected members of the
security forces, the new Yugoslav president cannot avoid disappointing
some of them. But after barely three weeks in office, he is not doing
badly. The sound of ice breaking was audible all over the Balkans this
week as he restored diplomatic relations with neighbouring countries and
the western world.
     On a landmark visit to Sarajevo, Mr Kostunica assured the
authorities, both local and international, that he was prepared to
recognise unconditionally the independence and territorial integrity of
Bosnia-despite the attachment felt by nationalist Serbs, including
himself, to the republic's eastern, Serb-dominated half.
     The new president also admitted, more openly than before, that
"crimes" were committed against other nations by the Milosevic regime
during the four wars which followed old Yugoslavia's disintegration. "I
am ready to accept the guilt for all those people who have been killed,"
he told an American interviewer. "For what Milosevic has done, and as a
Serb, I will take responsibility for many of these crimes," he added, in
comments that seemed to mark a significant step towards convincing his
compatriots to face up to the evils perpetrated in their name.
     A few days later, on October 25th, Mr Kostunica and Mr Holbrooke
co-starred at another ground-breaking Balkan event: a summit of regional
leaders in Skopje, Macedonia's capital, whose main importance lay in the
mere fact that Yugoslavia's leader was not a pariah but a more-or-less
welcome guest.
     Still, the mere fact that many people in Serbia proper and Kosovo
have given their backing to respectable politicians who believe in law,
not war, will not bring magic solutions to the region's long-term
challenge: finding terms on which Slavs, Albanians and others can
co-exist in the southern Balkans.
     Events in Serbia and Kosovo are being watched closely in Skopje,
both by the Slavic majority and the ethnic Albanian minority (which
officially numbers 23%, but may in fact be closer to 35%), and in
Albania proper, where politics has been calmer than usual. This month
Albania's ex-communist Socialists did well in local elections, taking
control of Tirana, the capital, from the right-without fomenting the
chaos and bloodshed that have hitherto accompanied political rivalry in
that country. Albania's prime minister, Ilir Meta, is a careful sort,
nervous about violence in Kosovo spilling over into Albania.
     The ethnic Albanian-dominated areas of Macedonia have done well out
of Kosovo, thanks to investment by wealthy Kosovars and a flourishing
cross-border trade in everything from vegetables to building materials
to drugs. Politicians in Tetovo, an Albanian-speaking Macedonian town
which is abuzz with commercial activity, say they would welcome the
prospect of Kosovo enjoying an increasing measure of independence under
international protection. A similar mood of optimism is discernible
among teachers at Tetovo's Albanian-language university, which will open
next year after the grudging consent of Macedonia's Slavic leadership
and heavy international pressure.
     But the Macedonian Slavs and the country's prime minister, Ljubcho
Georgievski, are nervous about the prospect of an autonomous, let alone
independent, Kosovo, whether it is led by Mr Rugova or by his gun-toting
rivals. More immediately, Mr Georgievski's government, like many others
in the region, fears that the advent of a more decent government in
Belgrade may prompt western governments to take their eye off the Balkan
ball and start overhastily to reduce their troops. 
     Those fears were recently exacerbated when Condoleezza Rice, an
adviser to George W. Bush, the Republican presidential contender,
suggested that keeping 11,000 troops in the Balkans was proving to be
one burden too many for America's 500,000-strong army. Whoever serves as
the Balkans' gendarme needs to stay for many years yet.

Copyright © 1995-2000 The Economist Newspaper Group Ltd. All rights
reserved.


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