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wednesday
11.11.98
eight.a
daily kansan
Kosovo conflict tugs on KU heartstrings
stories by pallavi agarwal graphics by jason benavides
It's been 13 years, but Marc Greenberg remembers Kosovo's fields, the tough life of agriculture and mining and the simmering tensions between the Albanian Muslims and the Serbians. Those tensions exploded into a bloody civil war this February.
Greenberg, associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures, was in the capital city of Pristina for a language course.
At the time, Kosovo was one of two autonomous provinces in Serbia, a republic of the former Yugoslavia. A backwater European province with a rare 90-percent Muslim population, Kosovo was ignored by most of the world but was frighteningly real to those who were there.
"I'm not surprised by what's happening today in Kosovo," Greenberg said. "Even in 1985, I was witness to provocations in Kosovo. There was tension in the air."
Greenberg echoes what almost has become a trite comment among many University Balkan experts and Balkan students in Lawrence.
Students and faculty agree that the world responded too slowly to the Balkan crisis. "The West only looks for short-term solutions," said Dhurata Ikonemi, Tirana, Albania, graduate student.
The Balkan crisis began with the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in 1991, as ethnic conflicts stretched into Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and now Kosovo—a province of Serbia.
The two sides battling it in Kosovo are the Kosovo Albanians, who form the 90-percent majority in the province, and the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic.
As part of the former Yugoslavia, Kosovo had been an autonomous Serbian province since 1974, said Bill March, assistant professor of Slavic languages and literatures.
Angry at the loss of their sovereignty, the Kosovo Albanians mobilized to demand an independent status within the new Yugoslavia, which formed after the
Things began to change in 1897, following the rise of Milosevic, who decreed the end of Kosovo's self-governing status in 1898, according to The Chicago Tribune.
"We are killing ourselves for a stupid thing. What is the point of going back to history, of wanting to control someone?"
Dhurata Ikonomi Tirana, Albania, graduate student
breakup of Communist Yugoslavia in 1991, the newspaper reported.
After conflicting reports about which side provoked a Feb.26,1998,Serbian crackdown on the KLA,a civil war started. More than 100 people have been reported dead and almost 300,000 rendered homeless by the war,the BBC said.
The sparring between the two groups led to a slowly evolving separatist movement. The groups' antecedents of civil disobedience and diplomacy under the stewardship of Ibrahim Rugova transformed into a more menacing form under the guise of a guerrilla force called the Kosovo Liberation Army, according to the BBC World Service.
Since then, the United Nations and NATO have intervened in the form of imposing cease-fires, setting up a monitoring force in Kosovo and authorizing punitive airstrikes against Serbia to stop its assault against the Kosovo Albanians.
A UN deadline that ended Oct. 27, 1985.
Milosevic temporary relief against pumi-
vate NATO-sanctioned airstrikes if Milose-
minutes his promise of a drawing Serbian police from
"It is a breach of the sovereignty of a country and a spark that could inflame the region into a long-stand
military strikes against Serbia to be a violation of international law.
sanctioned an his promise h whose vic continues his promise of with-
the province and allowing the rehabilitation of refugees, according to The Associated Press.
Andrel Marusov, Donetsk'k, Ukraine graduate student, is a Serbian supporter who does not agree completely with all of Milošević's tactics but considered any kind of
Balkan experts and students across the dividing line, for various reasons, agree that military strikes against Serbia would have been counterproductive.
ing ethnic war like the one in Northern Ireland, "Marseus said. "Kosovo is a province of Serbia, not an independent country."
For others like Ikonomi, humanitarian concerns of possible bloody Serbian reprisals against the Kosovo Albanians were the chief motivating factors despite the poor condition of the Kosovo Albanian refugees.
"What will happen to the Kosovo Albani
But the onset of winter will bring in a new enemy, Ikonomi said.
ans when the winter arrives?" she said. "Right now, most of them are in the mountains where they are eating berries or have fled to Albania or other neighboring countries."
The urgency behind the Kosovo problem lies not only in ending the nightmare but in a possible conflict outflow to other parts of Europe. Greenbergs said.
The ethnic problem has reverberations in Macedonia, a country to the south of Kosovo. Macedonia is 30 percent Albanian Muslim, prone to any separatist movement in Kosovo, Greenberg said.
"Bulgaria and Greece have interests in Macedonia," he said. "If there is a breakup in Macedonia, these countries will be involved, too. And wherever Greece is involved, Turkey is bound to be involved." One country that has had to bear the brunt of the Kosovo civil war is Albania, Kosovo's neighbor to the southwest and closest in ethnic affinity to the Albanian Kosovars.
Ikonomi, at the University of Kansas for her first semester in America, is miles from home but finds her heartstrings stretched for friends in Kosovo and family in Albania.
Albania is the poorest country in Europe, riddled by political instability and economic hardships, Ikonomi said.
"Albania is going through crisis after crisis," she said. "We do not have shelter for these people, and the government has to pay more attention to them."
Albanians in Albania proper are closest in ethnic connection to the Kosovo Albanians. Out of solidarity for people with whom they share blood connections, the country recognized the sovereignty of Kosovo as an independent country in 1991, according to The Chicago Tribune.
But that is a position the rest of the international community holds as untenable. March said,.
"It is not a simple cultural problem, I admit," he said. "They should be granted political autonomy to the extent that they don't have to be under the Serbs."
But people such as March did not see any peace efforts progressing with Milosevic in office.
"How can people feel safe when Milosevic is in power?" March said. "There can be no solution under Milosevic. He has to be put out of the way."
Ikonomi agreed Milosevic's departure would help a lot but still maintained that Kosovo could not exist within Yugoslavia. She warned that Albanians from over Europe would be prepared to join the KLA if any peace attempts were not made soon.
Given a chance, though, ikonomi said she would get rid of all hard-line politicians in the Balkans and start again with democratic reformists.
Ikoniom wished the Balkan mentality of patriarchy and revenge, which she holds to be a contributing factor for the self-destruction, could be transformed by a greater spirit of democracy that one finds in Western Europe.
"We are killing ourselves for a stupid thing," she said. "Let people speak their language, live their life. What is the point of going back to history, of wanting to control someone?"
The 16-member NATO has authorized what it called an activation order for possible punitive bombings against Serbia. But Serbian president Milosevic can escape airstrikes if he compiles with these conditions.
Serbian troop withdrawal to the troop level before the fighting started in February.
Unhindered rehabilitation of Kosovo Albanians in Karavani
Removal of anti-aircraft missiles in Serbia, deployed as a hindrance to possible NATO sanctioned air strikes
Unarmed NATO reconnaissance flights over Koso
flights over Kosovo.
Allow for a
- Allow for a monitoring force in Kosovo.
History of Balkan conflict stretches through centuries
According to articles in The New York Times, it was in Kosovo that the Serbian Slavic Orthodox Christian empire was ousted by the invading Turks. In a decisive battle in 1389, called the "Battle of Blackbird Field," Serbian Prince Lazar was defeated by Ottoman Turks who laid the foundation for a 500-year Turkish rule in the Balkans that was to make the Kosovo defeat a piece of Serbian folklore.
Memories in the Balkan have roots in the deep past.
The Turks were practical rulers, said Marc Greenberg, associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures. They were less interested in maintaining a pan-Muslim empire than in exploiting the economic resources of the region. A religious divide separating Christian and Muslim Europe was born, and a permanent wound that has been inflamed by unscrupulous propaganda was inflicted, he said.
When Joseph Tito, the communist leader of the former Yugoslavia banded together the Balkans, he followed the same principle of regional-autonomy-under-one umbrella rule. The former Yugoslavia was carved into six autonomous republics, and Kosovo was made an autonomous Serbian province in the revised Yugoslav Constitution of 1974, said Bill March, assistant professor of Slavic languages and literatures.
The republics and the provinces sent representatives in what was a collective federal presidency.
According to The Chicago Tribune, the relative freedom that these republics and provinces possessed began to be threatened by the rise of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. In the 1980s, Milosevic was a fast up-and-coming communist leader.
In 1869, Milosevic ended Albanian autonomy, dismissed its parliament and imposed direct rule from Belgrade. Instruction in the Albanian language was
abolished, prompting a continuing research of propagation and sec.
boycott of universities and secondary schools, the Tribune reports.
After the breakup of communist Yugoslavia, Kosovo remained a province of Serbia, the largest Yugoslav republic, but Kosovo's self-governing status was abolished. The loss of
autonomy led to the birth of the Albanian Kosovar separatist movement. In underground elections held in 1992, Albanian Kosovars, under the stewardship of Ibrahim Rugova, set up a parallel government, according to newspaper reports.
The biggest jolt that Albanian Muslims received was when the Dayton peace accords of 1995 failed to mention the Kosovo problem, she said.
Even though Rugova lobbed intensely with Western governments to look into the problem, nobody cared, said Dhurata Ikonomi, Tirana, Albania, graduate student.
Tired of Rugova's pacifist efforts, militant Kosovo Albanians from the province and outside formed a militant separatist force called the Kosovo Liberation Army, said the BBC World Service.
Struggle between the Kosovo militants and the Serbian police has led to bloodshed and a massive refugee problem.A Feb. 28 Serbian crackdown on the KLA has led to almost 100 people being reported killed and almost 300,000 rendered homeless, the BBC added.
Reacting to the situation, NATO authorized punitive airstrikes against Serbia on Oct 12 and warned Milosovec that if it did not comply with certain conditions, Serbia would be bombed. The deadline has been indefinitely extended subject to Serbian attempts to allow the Kosovo Albanians to return home and reduce the troop presence in the province.
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