[ALBSA-Info] {QIKSH =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=AB?=ALBEUROPA=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BB?=} Fw: PRESS: Yugoslavia vote clouds prospect of free Kosovo (Boston Globe, 9/29/2000)

[Nikoll A Mirakaj]

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From: "Wolfgang Plarre" <wplarre at bndlg.de>
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Sent: Friday, September 29, 2000 2:40 PM
Subject: PRESS: Yugoslavia vote clouds prospect of free Kosovo (Boston
Globe, 9/29/2000)


>
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/273/nation/Yugoslavia_vote_clouds_prospect
_of_free_Kosovo+.shtml
>
> Yugoslavia vote clouds prospect of free Kosovo
>
> By Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff, 9/29/2000
>
> PRISTINA, Yugoslavia - As the Western allies, led by the United States,
> support the stirrings of democracy in Yugoslavia, ethnic Albanians here
> are worried that the West's enthusiastic embrace of any successor to
> Slobodan Milosevic will kill their dream of an independent Kosovo.
>      With Kosovo's first postwar elections looming next month, there is
> increasing pressure on Kosovo's feuding politicians to behave more like
> democrats, and for ordinary citizens to turn their backs on the
> racketeers who control an overnight market economy that has turned much
> of the province into a gold-rush town.
>      Ten years ago, Koha Ditore, the newspaper read by most ethnic
> Albanians in Kosovo, ran a satirical piece suggesting that a statue of
> Milosevic be put up in the center of Pristina because his repression had
> done so much to spawn a separatist movement here.
>      But the opposite may be true: If Milosevic goes, the raison d'etre
> of Kosovo independence could go with him.
>      It was the desire of many ethnic Albanians to break free from
> Yugoslavia that indirectly led to the war in Kosovo. After a decade of
> repression at the hands of Milosevic, who summarily stripped Kosovo of
> its autonomy in 1989, the Kosovo Liberation Army separatist group sprang
> from the ethnic Albanian community that makes up 90 percent of Kosovo's
> population of 2 million. The separatists took potshots at Serbian police
> in what observers saw as a calculated attempt to provoke Belgrade.
>      Milosevic's crackdown against the KLA, especially the
> indiscriminate killing of civilians and the hundreds of thousands of
> refugees who fled the Serbian scorched-earth policy, led to NATO's
> 78-day war against Yugoslavia.
>      While Serbia suffered under Western sanctions for a decade -
> punishment for Milosevic's serial warmongering in the Balkans - Kosovo,
> since the end of the war in June 1999, has enjoyed the advantages of
> being a United Nations protectorate, and the $300 million a year spent
> by the UN to prop it up.
>      Now, however, with Serbian challenger Vojislav Kostunica appearing
> to have a chance to oust Milosevic, and with the United States and the
> European Union promising to ease sanctions and help Yugoslavia if
> Milosevic goes, ethnic Albanians fear their struggle will be quickly
> forgotten.
>      Veton Surroi, the publisher of Koha Ditore, is among those who are
> wary of Kostunica and of the West's enthusiasm for him.
>      Noting that Kostunica has echoed Milosevic's rhetoric that Kosovo
> must always remain part of Serbia, Surroi describes the possible change
> of power in Belgrade as the replacement of ''a nationalist of
> opportunism ... by a nationalist of conviction.''
>      But others suggest Kostunica's nationalist rhetoric during the
> campaign was calculated so that Milosevic was not able to portray him as
> being soft on Kosovo and, by extension, afraid to stand up to NATO.
>      Louis D. Sell, a former US diplomat in the Balkans, said that in
> private discussions, Kostunica reveals himself to be more open to the
> idea of restoring Kosovo's autonomy. While Milosevic responded to the
> demand for a return to automony with brutal, murderous repression, Sell
> says, Kostunica displays a more pragmatic streak.
>      ''I think Kostunica would consider autonomy for Kosovo. Milosevic
> wouldn't even discuss it,'' said Sell, who is now the Kosovo director
> for the International Crisis Group.
>      Kosovo is home to the battlefields where the Serb nation was
> formed, and to Orthodox shrines that many Serbs hold dear. Sell suggests
> that Kostunica knows that the best way to keep Kosovo part of Serbia is
> to allow ethnic Albanians to run the province where they make up an
> overwhelming majority, thereby removing any need, aside from sheer
> nationalism, to establish an independent Kosovo. Milosevic's response,
> to throw Albanians out of government jobs and close their schools, only
> bred resentment and support for independence, he said.
>      Sell believes ethnic Albanians here ''have not realized what the
> Kostunica phenomenon means to them,'' and have been caught unprepared by
> the depth of the popular opposition to Milosevic.
>      He said the dream for independence, which never enjoyed much
> sympathy in the international community, would have even less if
> Kostunica takes power and steers Yugoslavia back into dialogue and trade
> with a world that, aside from a handful of Serb sympathizers, regarded
> Serbia under Milosevic as a rogue nation.
>      Sell said Kostunica's reasonable approach toward autonomy would
> also push back the demands for independence coming from Montenegro, the
> republic that with Serbia forms Yugoslavia.
>      Ilir Gashi, a 23-year-old housing contractor who describes himself
> as a veteran of the Kosovo Liberation Army, like nearly every young man
> here, said he does not trust Kostunica and does not think the Western
> allies should either.
>      ''He is a Serb, and you saw what the Serbs did to us,'' said Gashi.
> ''America should not be fooled by Kostunica. He would have done the same
> as Milosevic.''
>      In fact, Kostunica was a withering critic of NATO's bombing of
> Serbia and defended the government's crackdown on Albanian separatists.
> But Kostunica's defenders say he is also someone who would not have sent
> death squads to massacre civilians in Kosovo, as Milosevic did,
> according to his indictment for war crimes by the international tribunal
> at The Hague.
>      Privately, United Nations officials say they hope the march toward
> democracy in Serbia will serve as a wakeup call to ethnic Albanians here
> who have shown ambivalence, at best, toward the UN's call for them to
> unconditionally support democracy.
>      Here in Pristina, where an anything-goes atmosphere out of the Wild
> West prevails, racketeers control many of the businesses, legitimate and
> otherwise, that have sprung up since the end of the war. UN police,
> preoccupied with preventing the revenge killings of the 100,000 or so
> Serbs left in Kosovo, look on helplessly as former KLA members shake
> down restaurant and cafe owners.
>      Opinion polls suggest that the most popular politician in Kosovo is
> Ibrahim Rugova, a pacifist whose party has been derided and physically
> attacked by the political wing of the KLA.
>      UN officials and Western diplomats have made no secret of their
> wish to see Rugova's party prevail in next month's local elections,
> which will mark the first legitimate test of political opinion here.
> Western diplomats remain skeptical of the commitment shown to democracy
> by the former rebels and their political leader, Hashim Thaci.
>      The KLA's reputation was not enhanced this week when some of its
> supporters threw eggs at candidates from Rugova's party at a rally in
> Lipjan.
>      As one UN official put it yesterday, speaking on condition of
> anonymity, some ethnic Albanians have got to start acting ''more like
> Kostunica's supporters and less like Milosevic's.''
>
> This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 9/29/2000.
> © Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.
>


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