[ALBSA-Info] Daily Telegraph - Leading Article

[Agron Alibali]

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) 
Leading Article

March 07, 2001, Wednesday 

Pg. 29 

Give Kosovo independence 


Two years ago, Nato went to war against Yugoslavia to
counter ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Today, it is
trying to protect Serbia and Macedonia against attacks
by Kosovar guerrillas. The trouble started in the
Presevo valley in Serbia and has now spread into
northern Macedonia. As a consequence, Nato has agreed
to allow Belgrade a freer hand in the buffer zone on
the Serbian side of the Kosovo border, and is sending
a military and political mission to Skopje. One might
be forgiven for thinking that the victims of 1999 have
become the aggressors of 2001. 

Fortunately, the situation is not as simple as that.
There are sections of Kosovar society happy to work
outside the law, whether conducting guerrilla warfare
or engaging in mafia-type operations such as
smuggling. And the Serbian minority, having persecuted
the Kosovars, now finds the boot on the other foot.
Criminality and ethnic discrimination are not
activities which the Nato bombing campaign was
designed to further. 

Against those negative elements must be set last
October's municipal elections in which the moderate
Democratic League of Kosovo under Ibrahim Rugova won
nearly 60 per cent of the vote. In doing so, it
trounced the Democracy Party of Kosovo, led by Hashim
Thaci, former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army.


The United Nations, which, with Nato's help, is
running the province as a protectorate, therefore has
a political figure round which to steer Kosovo towards
self-determination. Yet there is a fundamental
difference between the wish of the Kosovars and
international policy towards the province. The former,
whether of moderate or radical bent, want
independence. But under UN Security Council Resolution
1244 the province, while being granted wide powers of
autonomy, remains part of the Yugoslav federation.
General elections are expected later this year. Beyond
that, Kosovo's eventual status is unclear. 

That uncertainty breeds frustration, which in turn
encourages recourse to violence. The sooner the
outside powers give the province the green light for
independence, the better. For their part, the
guerrillas could usefully reflect that their
activities are a stumbling-block to naming a date for
the next round of elections, and are unnecessarily
antagonising Serbia and Macedonia. The way forward for
Kosovo is through the likes of Mr Rugova, not the
armed advocates of a "Greater Albania". 

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