Regular commentator of the Sarajevo weekly Svijet, ; Dr. Nijaz Durakovic, comments on the current events in Kosovo in the May 24, 1998 issue of this magazine.

Large police forces are concentrated in Kosovo, while mobilization and quick military intervention plans have been detailed to perfection. Since the Eighties, and particularly today Kosovo is in a specific ring, better said, mousetrap, around which a net of fortifications, artillery weapons, and airports is built, all waiting for a quick reaction.

Rugova and other Albanian leaders have realized quickly their hard, almost no way out situation. They realized that Milosevic is only waiting for a good cause to hit Kosovo with full force, and if necessary, burn with napalm a geostrategical plate that Kosovo is.

Realizing that in any conflict on a larger scale they would lose hundreds of thousands of people, and convinced on the Bosnian case how slow (and double faced) the international community could be, and how much time it is necessary to raise the enormous, but bureaucrtized NATO machinery, the Albnin leadership, lead by Rugova has chosen passive resistance, which many call Rugova's Gandhiism. In accordance with this choice, a (semi-legal) parallel system of authority has been gradually set up by Kosovo Albanians, as well as a parallel education system, functioning in private houses, hard, semi-legal conditions, and financed by Diaspora Albanians.

Of course, the Serb authorities know quite well about all this, but due to pragmatical reasons turned a blind eye on all this.

Having in mind that all this has been going on for a full decade and that general social and political conditions of life in Kosovo have become unbearable, that is, that Slobodan Milosevic is, again and through the well tested political methods, using the Kosovo problem for the political goal of homogenizing the nation, ; there has been a strong showing of dissatisfaction among the Kosovo Albanians with Rugova's peaceful, wait and see policies and step by step tactics. They would prefer more radical, revolutionary methods, of which some have to be characterized as terroristic. The Kosovo Liberation Army is cropping up on the basis of the hurt national pride, reawakened Pan Albanism, social distress, lack of perspective, as well as disappointment with the results of Rugova's policies so far.

In the case of a limited conflict, the West will still treat it as an internal problem of Serbia, that is Yugoslavia. Those powerful in the World will not allow that the principles of international relations are brought down over Kosovo. Recalling the NATO intervention in Bosnia simply will not do, since in Bosnia the international forces protected the borders and have intervened in an internationally recognized country. Exactly for the reasons they intervened in Bosnia, they will not intervene in Kosovo.

If by some miracle, the Western threesome (USA, Great Britain, France) decided do give more concrete support, this could not be sanctioned by the decisions of the UN Security Council, because Russia and China would definitely veto such a decision.

Also, in the case of Kosovo, there are still unclear political goals. Not only are they completely contradictory on the relation Serbs - Albanians, but it is also unknown which option prevails among Kosovo Albanians. This puts the Kosovo Albanian negotiators in a very delicate position.

So, if the Albanian leaders would opt for an armed uprising, it has to be conscious that in this constellation of forces and relations, it would bring along enormous victims on one side, and on the other, it would have to count only on its own forces, since Albania itself is too powerless, military unprepared, and with its own problems up to its neck.

That is why the OVK radicalism, as well as of all those who think that the moment has come for the creation of Greater Albania, is illusory and it could be devastating for the Albanians.



Source: Sarajevo weekly Svijet, May 24, 1998