Dejan Anastasijevic of the Belgrade weekly "Vreme", looks at the political stance of President Milosevic towards the Kosovo crisis in the July 11, 1998, issue of this magazine.

Nine years after Milosevic's historical speech at Gazimestan (Kosovo), Serbia obviously does not have the strength to face the essence of the Kosovo problem. To sucessfully cover up and obfuscate it, some kind of social game was made up, with the goal to prevent any logical discussion about this subject. This game revolves round the word "terrorism," and is quite readily played by both the regime, and the opposition, by the regime and non - regime media. As the entry chip, the players must loudly and clearly state that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is a terrorist organization, while the ante is raised by the unreserved condemnation of the "terrorism of Shiptar separatists," or the same unreserved pathos in relation to "innocent victims of the repression." It went as far as an attempt to force the word "terrorist" through legal means, as a prerogative to designate a killed Albanian, even if a child or a pregnant woman were in question.

Terrorism does not have a clearly accepted legal definition: when the papers state that somebody has been convicted of terrorism, what is usually in question is a criminal act of armed rebellion, criminal act of murder, kidnapping, instigating general danger and similar. Croatian jails are full of Krajina Srbs accused of being terrorists. So, what is in question is a political qualification, which the larger part of serious media publishers in the world have stopped using, except under quotation marks. There are practical reasons involved: somebody you qualified as a terrorist today, could become a chief of state tomorrow.

Insistence at the question of terrorism is an attempt to reduce the Kosovo stew, which has been simmering for decades and which Milosevic has finally spiced up, to a single ingredient. The game is cute enough because it also easily stretches the discussion as far as it would go, towards Blck Panthers and Red Brigades, Kurds and the Irish, Tamils and Algerians, as long as it is as far away from the current spot as possible.

While at the spot itself, during the first six months we already have over three hundred dead, no matter how we decide to call them. It is beyond doubt that killings of a village forester, postman or revenue collector constitute a terrorist act.

The problem lies in the fact that a belief crept in that the KLA will disperse just at the magic uttering of this word, or at least that the whole problem could be solved "by the means of a legal state." What is usually meant under these means is police repression, even though it was brutal police actions in October and March that have lead to sudden upsurge in popularity of the Kosovo Liberation Army and its transformation into a serious armed force. Along with this story comes not much less naive conviction that by sticking this label, the great powers, among whom each has a problem with its "own" terrorism, will immediately and without reservations support the FRY position.

Similar games with terms were played at the beginning of the war in former Yugoslavia, during which, according to different patriotic media, "Ustashi combatants" and "jihad warriors" fought "serbochetnik hordes." In the meantime, "awakened vampire NDH" and "Alija's coffee mug state" have almost completely normalized their relations with the "so called FRY," while those who have up until recently refused to wear checkered shirts and drink beer from green bottles have become the main supporters of good neighbourly relations and regional cooperation.



Source: Belgrade weekly "Vreme'" July 11, 1998