[kcc-news] In Kosova, War Is Peace -V.Surroi for NY Times (fwd)

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March 26, 1999
NY Times OP-ED
In Kosova, War Is Peace

By VETON SURROI

PRISTINA, - War is a dirty thing -- that is something I knew before today.
I have seen the faces of refugees in all the previous wars in the former
Yugoslavia. I was aboard one of the last flights out of Croatia before the
war fully exploded there in 1991. I found myself at the end of the line to
board the plane: a pack of men were pushing each other to scramble aboard,
oblivious to three women with small children who were being pushed farther
from the stairs.

This time, sitting in my office and waiting for the imminent NATO strikes
on nearby Serbian positions, war does not look any better. But at least
this time I know it will be shorter, because for the first time the war
machine of the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, will be confronted
by a vastly more powerful one -- one that may even destroy it, never to
rise again.

I also know that this may change the behavior of the Balkan people toward
war. The inhabitants of southeastern Europe will have to face the fact that
NATO has created a security umbrella over them and that the warfare of the
last years -- indeed, of the past centuries throughout Europe -- will not
be allowed to continue.

The peace agreement that I and the other Kosovar representatives signed
last week will give Kosovo a three-year period of self-rule guaranteed by
NATO, with the possibility that the people of Kosovo will then decide their
future status. Still, what has worried me is that these kinds of political
arrangements require war, both as the igniting and driving forces and as
the action that seals them.

For the last decade it has been clear that Kosovo needed to be free from
Mr. Milosevic's grip: two million Kosovars suffered from his rule in every
aspect of our lives, from basic security to education. With the dissolution
of Yugoslavia, Kosovar political activists tried to build on the philosophy
of nonviolence, leading peaceful demonstrations.

But the Western powers did not deal with Kosovo, quite satisfied with the
fact that we had not taken up arms. It took the Dayton Accords, which set
the terms of peace in Bosnia, to show us that a problem is a problem only
when it becomes an armed one.

Only when the first guns were heard from the Kosovar side did the leaders
of the West's democracies react. This raised images of Bosnia in their
minds, as did the renewed scenes of women and children fleeing on tractors.
Thus a second lesson: a problem is a problem only if it has been preceded
by a similar one. (Likewise, after the genocide in Rwanda, it is difficult
to imagine a similar massacre in Africa occurring without outside
intervention.)

Unlike in Bosnia, the line of confrontation now is drawn in the air: the
Serbian forces I can see outside my office can be defeated by NATO planes.
Yet when I step outside, I too may be a target, as will my compatriots here
who do not have arms.

We have been warned that the Serbian forces that have been attacking
Kosovar villages for the last year will hunt down Kosovar leaders and
professionals amid the confusion of war.

I chose to return from France last week to be here at this moment rather
than remain abroad. When I signed the peace agreement I also accepted that
there would be consequences for the people of Kosovo, that if the Serbian
side did not agree to the pact, it would have to be imposed by force --
even at risk to the civilian population. Since then more than 30,000 new
refugees have fled their homes, and only God knows how many people will be
hurt in the days ahead.

We have held up our end of the agreement, and now NATO must honor its
obligation. And it is only right for me to be here, to accept
responsibility and to try to explain why the costs must be borne.

--------------
Veton Surroi, publisher of the newspaper Koha Ditore, was a member of the
Kosovar delegation at the peace conference in Rambouillet, France.


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