Download Kosovo and the International Community

Kosovo and the International Community:
A Comparative Study
Maklen Misha, 9748415
Master Thesis
English Language and Culture, University of Utrecht
Supervisors: Dr. W. Philip and Dr. F.H. Baudet
April, 2006
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Acknowledgements:
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all the people who have
helped and supported me during these months of writing. First and foremost I would like
to thank my first supervisor, Dr. Floribert Baudet for the invaluable counsel and
commentary he provided as well as for helping me move beyond the preconceptions and
prejudices which are bound to play a role whenever an Albanian writes on the subject of
Kosovo. I would also like to thank my other supervisor, Dr. William Philip not only for
his help and counsel during the months it took me to finish my thesis, but also for turning
what were some of my phobias (by which I mean syntax and grammar) into interesting
and attractive subjects. A heartfelt thanks also goes to Madames Bernadette de Zeeuw
and Ria van Laaren for all their help during these months. And last, but certainly not least
I would like to thank my dear friend Diane ‘Pilives’ Eerdmans, my ‘companion in
suffering’ during our years of studying, for all her support.
Maklen Misha
April, 2006
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I
ntroduction
It is commonplace in Albania to hear people say that Albania is a bridge
between the East and the West. The same metaphor, one could say, extends to the
whole Balkan region situated as it is between Europe and Asia. The Balkans have been a
meeting or clashing point for many of the great civilizations of these two continents long
before the region got its present name and because of this strategic position the Balkans
have always attracted the interest of the Great Powers of Europe and Asia. Needless to
say all these powers exerted their cultural, religious, economic, and military influence on
the people of the Balkans making the region into what it is today: a ‘melting pot’ of
different cultures, and people who unfortunately have persistently refused to ‘melt’. It
would seem, if history is anything to go by, that the only periods when the Balkan people
have managed to live in peace alongside each other were those when the whole peninsula
was under the control of an empire or power who managed to suppress the rivalries of the
different ethnic, and religious groups inhabiting it; and whenever that empire’s power
waned those rivalries raised their heads once again.
Events following the decline (and eventual fall) of the Ottoman Empire in the
19th, and early 20th centuries, as well as the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s
followed the same pattern. To make matters worse the decline of one power usually
attracts the attention of the others eager for a share of the spoils. The decline of the
Ottoman Empire from one of the major powers at the end of the 17th century into the
‘sick man of Europe’ by the 19th century, attracted the interest of its two traditional rivals
the Austrian, and the Russian Empires who saw the Balkans as a potential area for
territorial expansion or as an area where they could expand their influence. Each of these
powers tried to achieve its objectives in part by buying the loyalties of one or more of the
Balkan people and playing them off against one another. Thus Russia claimed and
obtained the role of the defender of the Slavic, and Orthodox populations; Austria
3
advertised itself as the defender of the Catholic populations, and the Ottoman Empire
could generally rely on the support of the Muslim populations. It goes without saying
that the remaining Great Powers of the time were bound to take an interest in matters
involving Russia, Austria – Hungary, and the declining Ottoman Empire, thus adding
their weight behind any decision reached with regards to the Balkans. Such interference
in the affairs of the Balkan people only served to worsen the relations between the
different ethnic and religious groups, and to exacerbate the tensions that already existed
due to the competing aspirations of the Balkan states, and people who were emerging
from close to five centuries of Ottoman rule. One could safely say that many of the
conflicts that have taken place in this region during the 20th century stem from the time of
the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, and from the decisions imposed by the Great
Powers on the people of the Balkans. This holds true in the case of Kosovo as well,
which despite its Albanian majority was recognized as Serbian by the Conference of
Ambassadors in London for reasons which will be discussed in the course of this study.
Kosovo seems like the perfect example of a decision by the Great Powers that came to
haunt them later, almost a century after the Conference of Ambassadors in 1913
recognized the Serb claim to that land, forcing the International Community (the Great
Powers were to all effects and purposes the International Community of their time) to an
unprecedented intervention against the Serbs in 1999.
This seeming reversal of Great Power policy is the main reason why I chose the
analysis, and comparison of these two moments in the history of Kosovo, and the role
played in them by the Great Powers as the subject of my thesis. The two key moments for
Kosovo in the course of the previous century consisted in its liberation or conquest
(depending on one’s point of view) by the Serbs during the First Balkan War, and the
recognition thereof by the Great Powers; and the NATO intervention of 1999 (again one
could call it a liberation or conquest although the positions have been reversed) which
seems to have brought to an end the Serb domination of Kosovo, although formally,
according to resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council, Kosovo is still part of Serbia.
At a first glance such a comparison might look a rather strange, since the two
moments in question are so far removed in time, but I think that there are enough grounds
for making such a comparison viable. The aim of this analysis is to explain how the
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international politics as related to the Kosovo case (and to the Balkans in general) have
changed in the time span that divides the two moments in question, and to find out what
changes can account for the different outcomes. In order to achieve this I have made use
of the so-called parallel case-oriented strategy which involves cases that appear similar
but experience different outcomes.1 As the definition of the strategy suggests the first
thing one must do when beginning such an enterprise is to show that the cases in question
are indeed similar and comparable. If I were to name the first case, case A and the second
case B than the formula of the analysis would be: A is similar to B and yet A has X as an
outcome, while B has Y as its outcome. What factors can explain the differences between
X and Y?
It must be said too that the cases are viewed as configurations or combinations of
factors, and the elements of each case must first be analyzed, and then compared to those
of the other enabling one to identify the elements responsible for the different outcomes,
and to explain how those differences have made the differing outcomes possible. Just as
the cases themselves are seen as the combinations of a number of factors so are the
outcomes or rather the changes in the outcomes the result of differing combinations of
conditions and elements. It is by identifying these changes that one can than provide an
explanation.
So let us proceed to the cases in question. In both moments there was a conflict
between the Serbs, and Albanians about Kosovo where the nationalist ideologies of the
two people clashed directly. As far as Kosovo’s role as a source of conflict goes nothing
much has changed. Both people continue to see each other as sworn enemies. Kosovo
itself continues to be at the heart of this enmity, and it is just as important to both
Albanians and Serbs now as it was at the beginning of the 20th century. It must be
stressed however that in 1912-13 the conflict about Kosovo took place within the broader
context of the First Balkan War and the Albanian – Serb confrontation involved many of
the Albanian inhabited areas of the Balkans, while in 1999 although the conflict once
again took place within the broader context of another “Balkan War,” it was mostly
confined to the Serbs and the Albanians of Kosovo.
1
For a detailed account of the methodology look at Charles C. Ragin, The Comparative Method (London:
University of California Press, Ltd. 1987).
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Both the Serb conquest/liberation of Kosovo in 1912 – 1913 and the
counterinsurgency campaigns of the 1997-1999 conflict show remarkable similarities in
the tactics used by the Serb army in order to subdue the Albanian population of the
province. Both were characterized by large scale expulsions, massacres, rapes,
plundering, and other such activities that have come to be known as ethnic cleansing, as
described for instance in the report of the first commission on the Balkans founded by the
Carnegie Endowment in 1913, and as reported by the media, and a host of NGOs, and
human rights organizations in 1999. In both these moments the International Community
took an interest in Kosovo and the Balkans, and played a very important role in
determining the outcome of the conflict. And yet the ways in which the International
Community reacted could not have been more different. In the Conference of
Ambassadors in 1913 the crimes that had been committed and the Albanian claims hardly
played a role in the considerations of the statesmen gathered to decide on the future of,
among other things, Kosovo. Cold calculations based on their interests, ambitions, and
the desire to preserve the balance of power and peace and security in Europe were all that
mattered. In 1999 on the other hand the Serbs were broadly perceived as being a threat to
the peace and security of Europe because of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and because
of the aggressive nationalist policies of the Milošević regime. This, combined with the
crimes committed by the Serbs in all of these wars served to mobilize the International
Community (or to be more precise the West), and led NATO to intervene in order to
bring the conflict to an end.
For all of NATO’s statements to the contrary, the intervention in Kosovo was
perceived as being anti – Serb, and pro – Albanian. As far as most people in Kosovo and
the Balkans are concerned that was indeed the case. Naturally, while looking at these two
moments a question comes to mind: why? Why such a reversal and why such different
outcomes?
Has something changed in the relations between Serbs, and Albanians?
Obviously not: the position of the Serbs and Albanians on Kosovo has not changed one
iota. I suggest that in order to find an answer to these question, one must look at the
changes that have taken place in international politics or to be more precise at the rules
that govern international relations in the post-Cold War era; and at the changes that have
taken place in the policy of the International Community vis-à-vis the Balkans in general.
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I intend to do this by providing the reader with the necessary information on these two
moments in the history of Kosovo, their historical background, and the international
response to them in order to ascertain what brought about such a drastic change of policy.
The first chapter in the study will be a short summary of the history of Kosovo up
to, and including the First Balkan War in order to enable the reader to come to a better
understanding of the issues which will be discussed as well as of the competing claims of
the Albanians, and Serbs on Kosovo. It will also discuss the international situation of the
time, and the reasons behind the decision of the Great Powers to recognize Kosovo as
Serb as well as shed some light on the policy of the Great Powers with regard to the
Balkans.
The second chapter will provide a brief summary of the history of Kosovo as part
of Serbia (and later Yugoslavia), and of the events that led to the conflict of 1997 – 1999.
Once again the emphasis will be on the Albanian – Serb rivalry and on how this rivalry
and the situation in the Balkans in general was perceived by the International Community
(read: the West) which was finally forced to intervene.
And finally, the third chapter will try to analyze and compare the Great Power
politics (or international politics as they are called now days) in 1912 – 1913 and 1999,
trying to shed some light on the changes that have taken place in the course of the 20th
century which can explain the different outcomes of these two moments.
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C
hapter 1
If one were to believe Albanian and Serb claims, one would get the
impression that they have been at each other’s throats for the best part of
their history. This ancient enmity between the two people however is strangely enough a
rather recent invention. Naturally as all neighboring people in the world the Albanians
and Serbs have had their share of divergences and conflicts, but it was only in the 19th
century that they came to see each other as natural born enemies. Indeed one can trace
the roots of many of the problems that continue to plague the Balkans back to this
historical period.
The 19th century was a century of decline for the Ottoman Empire which had
ruled the Balkans (Kosovo included) for almost five centuries. In the course of the 18th
century this empire, once the greatest power in Europe, had been engaged in an endless
series of wars against the Russian and Hapsburg empires which had gradually eroded the
ability of the Sublime Porte (as the Ottoman administration was referred to) to effectively
control its European possessions. To make matters worse these internal problems were
accompanied by an increasing inability on the part of the Ottomans to confront the other
European Great Powers on an equal footing. Thus internal weakness led to defeat on the
field of battle and defeats led to ever greater internal problems, be they social or
economical. The combination of these internal and external factors weakened the
Ottoman Empire so much that by the 19th century it was derisively being dismissed by
the European Great Powers as the “sick man of Europe”. In fact the once mighty empire
had become so weak that it owed its very existence to the goodwill of the European Great
Powers, who fortunately for the Ottomans were intent on maintaining the balance of
power in Europe. The survival of the Ottoman state was deemed important enough to the
maintenance of the equilibrium for the other Powers to continually thwart Russia’s (and
to a lesser extent Austria’s) attempts at destroying it. But the 19th century marked the
emergence of another threat to the Turkish state which the Great Powers could do nothing
to stop, which was the spread of nationalist ideas amongst the Porte’s subject
populations.
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Nationalist ideology entailed quite a radical solution to the problems of these
populations: freeing themselves from the Empire and creating independent nation states.
And it was not by accident that these ideas spread first among the Christian populations
of the Balkans such as the Serbs. Not only were the Christians more open to Western
European ideas such as nationalism, but because of their religion they also enjoyed the
support of several Great Powers, especially that of Russia and Austria. Furthermore the
Christian populations of the Balkans had also managed to retain some rudimentary form
of identity even after five centuries of Ottoman rule thanks mainly to the role of their
churches. But in any case given the social organization of the Ottoman Empire, based on
the so-called millet system in which religion and not ethnicity was the basis of
identification, it would have been impossible for any Christian people to identify
themselves fully with an Islamic empire that saw them as second class citizens.
The guiding principle of nationalism however required that the political unit, the
nation state, coincide with the ethnic one, something that was difficult to achieve in the
Balkans given the demographic composition of the peninsula. The fastest way to achieve
the ethnic purity which the nation state envisaged was by forcing other ethnic groups out
of the territory of the state (in other words by ethnically cleansing the territory) when
they could not be assimilated. Most Balkan states enforced similar policies especially visà-vis their Muslim populations (but not only) wherever they could. Unfortunately for
Albanian – Serb relations both people claimed areas with mixed Albanian and Serb
populations such as Kosovo – the Serbs also laid claim to purely Albanian areas – and the
pursuit of the nationalist principle of ethnic homogeneity was bound to create conflict
between the two people. In this conflict the Serbs enjoyed a number of advantages on the
Albanians. They had been able to gain autonomy and independence much earlier than the
Albanians and they enjoyed a far greater degree of Great Power support than the
Albanians ever did.
In fact with the exception of the Montenegrins who had traditionally enjoyed
some form of autonomy, the Serbs were the first Balkan people to rebel against Ottoman
rule and attain autonomy from the Turkish state. The rebellion began in the Pashalic of
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Belgrade in 1804 and it was led by Djordje Petrović, also known as Karadjordje.2 At first
the aim of the rebellion was not so much independence or autonomy as an end to the
misrule of the dahi, a group of senior janissary officers who refused to obey the Porte and
dealt with the territories under their control as if they were their personal fiefs. However,
thanks to Russian influence and support the rebellion soon turned into a fight for
independence.3
The Russians had long pursued a policy aimed at supporting the rebellions of the
Orthodox and Slavic people of the Balkans. They had traditionally seen the Ottoman
Empire as a sworn enemy and had projects on its possessions; projects in which the
Balkans figured prominently. The enmity between these two powers dated back to the
late 17th century when Russia and the Ottoman Empire begun a series of wars aimed at
controlling the strategically important Black Sea littoral.4 Control of the Black Sea
(which had long been an Ottoman lake) was important to the Russians, but the ultimate
ambition of the Tsarist Empire was to secure an outlet in the Mediterranean Sea. The only
way in which Russia could secure such an outlet was by dominating the Balkans which
were part of the Ottoman Empire. This is one of the main reasons why Russia has
historically shown an interest in the Balkans.
The other reasons related to Russia’s position as the main Orthodox and Slavic
power in the world. In 1774, by the terms of the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji Russia
gained the right to speak on behalf of the entire Orthodox population of the Ottoman
Empire thus setting the stage for the Russian policy vis-à-vis the Balkans in the 19th and
early 20th centuries.5 The ideas of Pan-Slavism, which advocated solidarity among Slavic
people were an additional motivation for the Russians to support the Serb rebellion.
As many other Balkan people were to learn later however, for the Great Powers
their own interests came first, naturally, and the people of the Balkans were simply pawns
in a game they could not yet influence or control in any way. The Russian support for the
national movements of the Balkan Orthodox populations was ultimately motivated by a
2
Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans: 18th and 19th centuries, vol.1 (Cambridge University Press,
1983) 195. All subsequent quotations are from this edition.
3
Ibid. 195-197
4
Nicholas V. Riasnikovsky, The History of Russia, (Oxford University Press, 1993) 219. All subsequent
quotations are to this edition.
5
Jelavich 69.
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desire to achieve their own aims. In 1806 after the Russian annexation of Georgia, the
Russian and Ottoman Empires started another war6 and because of this new development
the Russians increased their support for the Serbs. In 1807 they offered the Serbs the
‘carrot’ of independence if they joined the Russians in their war effort.7 By 1812
however, faced with the danger of a French invasion and in need of a quick agreement
with the Ottomans which would allow them to concentrate all their efforts on repelling
the French, the Russians signed the Treaty of Bucharest which among other things
provided for the full reoccupation of Serbia by the Ottomans.
In 1813 three Ottoman
armies converged on Serbia thus bringing to an end the first Serbian Revolution.8
Nevertheless by 1815 the Serbs begun another rebellion led by Miloš Obrenović who
thanks to a more careful diplomatic and military strategy managed to gain some level of
autonomy for the Serbs.9 In the course of the 19th century Serbia’s autonomy and power
would gradually increase until 1878 when it became formally independent; by that time
Serbia was also the most powerful of the Balkan states.
Kosovo occupied an important place in the Serb nationalist discourse. The Serbs
saw Kosovo as the heartland of their medieval empire, Serbia’s Golden Age. When
reading the works of Serb historians one often gets the impression that Kosovo had
always been Serbian. In fact it was only in 1216 that the Serbian King Stephan the First
Crowned managed to conquer the whole of Kosovo.10 Until the 13th century Kosovo had
been under Byzantine or Bulgarian control. Nevertheless Kosovo was quite important to
medieval Serbia for its mineral wealth as well as for its strategic position. Another factor
which amplified Kosovo’s importance to the Serbs relates to the Serbian Orthodox
Church whose Archbishopric and Patriarchate were located in Kosovo. And finally there
was the Battle of Kosovo of 1389 which sealed the destiny of the medieval Serb state
thus making it a crucial and determining moment in the history of the Serbs. In truth the
decisive battle between the medieval Serb kingdom and the Ottoman Empire had taken
6
Riasanovsky 308.
Jelavich 197.
8
Ibid. 202.
9
Guido Franzinetti, I Balcani: 1878-2001, (Roma: Carocci editore, s.p.a, 2001) 16.
10
Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History, (London: Papermac, Macmillan Publishers, Ltd. 1998) 44. All
subsequent quotations are from this edition.
7
11
place some 28 years earlier in Maritsa.11 The Battle of Maritsa marked the last time the
Serbs were able to offer a really strong and united resistance to the Ottoman advance into
their territories. In the aftermath of this battle the Serbian Kingdom disintegrated and its
possessions fell into the hands of several feudal lords. Parts of Kosovo itself fell under
the control of an Albanian – Serbian family, the Balsha or Balsić, while the future hero of
the Battle of Kosovo, Lazar Hrebljanović managed to retain control of northern Serbia
and the east of Kosovo12. This was more or less the situation in the former Serb Kingdom
at the time of the Battle of Kosovo which dealt the Serb state its death blow.
Not much is known of the Battle itself. It took place on the 15th of June 1389 in
Kosovo Polje (Albanian: Fushë Kosova) in the vicinity of Pristina, the present day capital
of Kosovo. The strange fact about this battle is that although the Serbs have come to see
it as a defeat, the outcome was more of a draw.13 What is known is that the opposing
forces were not made up of just Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Turks. Albanians, Bosnians
and Hungarians fought on the Serb side and many Christians, including Serbs, fought on
the Ottoman side.14 The fighting continued all day with both sides suffering grievous
losses. Both Lazar and Murad (the Ottoman sultan) were killed. After the battle Lazar’s
son and heir, Stefan Lazarević was forced to become an Ottoman vassal. The Serbs
managed to retain some sort of sovereignty through alliances and vassalage until 1459
(70 years after the Battle) when Smederevo, the last fortress held by the Serbs fell to
Mehmed the Conqueror without a fight.15
As can be seen from even such a short description of the Battle of Kosovo, this
event was neither the most significant battle the Serbs fought and lost against the
Ottomans, nor did it immediately bring the existence of the Serb state (or what was left of
it) to an end. And yet the Battle of Kosovo has gained mythical proportions in Serbian
history and it has become the cornerstone of Serb nationalism. In order to achieve this the
myth had to undergo quite a radical transformation from the folk epic of the middle ages
singing of the participants in the Battle and their deeds, into the national myth of the
11
Tim Judah, Kosova: Luftë dhe Hakmarrje, trans. Majlinda Raxhimi-Nishku (Koha & ShLK, 2002) 5. All
subsequent quotations are to this edition.
12
Judah 6.
13
Ibid. 9.
14
Malcolm 59-62.
15
Ibid. 90-92.
12
Serbs focusing on the destiny of the Serbs as a nation.16 The idea of returning to Kosovo
was inherent in the myth; it was to be the reward for what the Serbs had suffered under
Turkish rule and for the preservation of their religion in the face of an Islamic onslaught.
Religion and the Serb Orthodox Church were to play a very important role in the Serb
struggle for independence as well as in the Serbs’ emotional attachment to Kosovo; the
fact that in the Serbian case religious affiliation and ethnicity coincided made religion
central to the Serb’s national identity as the only element that distinguished the Serbs
from their Slavic brethren who spoke the same language, but belonged to different
religions. One could say that Serb nationalism is based on the assumption that there
exists a great clash of civilizations manifested mainly in the conflict between Islam and
Christianity in which the Serbs have been assigned a central role as defenders of
Christendom (although in the Serb nationalist discourse the Catholics are also seen as
enemies). Inherent in such an interpretation of history was the belief that all Muslims
were enemies and those Balkan people who had renounced Christianity in favor of Islam
were traitors as well.17 Involved in a struggle against the most powerful Islamic power as
they were this interpretation of history was quite useful in mobilizing the Serb masses
against the Turks. It was also to serve as the ideological justification for the further
expansion of the Serb state.
In 1844 Ilija Garašanin, who was Serbia’s prime minister at the time drew up the
so called Nacertanije, a document which clearly elaborated the expansionist aims of the
new state. These aims included the unification of all Serb inhabited lands into one state
which was to consist of Serbia proper, Bosnia – Herzegovina, “Old Serbia” (i.e. Kosovo,
Macedonia), Montenegro, Vojvodina and the north of Albania.18 These are the territories
commonly referred to as Greater Serbia and this document was to become the blueprint
of the Serb expansionist policy in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
16
Ger Duijzing, Religion and the Politics of Identity in Kosovo, (C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, Ltd. 2000).
184. All subsequent quotations are from this edition.
17
Dimitrije Bogdanović, The Kosovo Quest-Past and Present, Spring 2005.
<http://www.srpska-mreza.com/bookstore/kosovo/kosovo12htm>.
18
Jelavich 244-245.
13
As one might have expected the document was not well received in Albanian
quarters. For Muslim Albanians the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of
the new Christian Balkan states was bad news. The Albanians, the majority of whom
converted to Islam during the centuries of Ottoman rule had enjoyed a privileged status
within the Ottoman Empire and they identified with the Porte much more than any of the
Christian people of the Balkans. The reasons for this are to be found in the social
organization of the Ottoman state and the millet system which divided the population of
the empire along religious lines. Thus there was a Muslim, an Orthodox and a Catholic
millet. The Muslim millet held a privileged position in this arrangement. They paid much
lower taxes than the Christian populations for which the fiscal burden was at times
unbearable19 and the Muslims could also move up the social ladder in the Empire. As the
Ottoman state started to decline however this privileged status of the Albanians and
indeed the very survival of the Albanian people and the existence of their territories came
under threat. Indeed one could say that if the rise of nationalism and the movement for
self-determination amongst the Serbs had been a reaction to Ottoman misrule, the birth of
the Albanian national movement was a direct consequence of the threat posed by the
nationalist and expansionist policies of its neighbors.
Initially however, the Albanians reacted to the threat posed by the aggressive
foreign policies of the Christian states of the Balkans (such as Greece and Serbia who
coveted Albanian inhabited territories) by moving closer to the Porte which guaranteed
them the best protection. (Even if the Albanians had wanted to create an independent or
autonomous entity, in order for it to succeed it would have needed the “sponsorship” of
one or more of the Great Powers, which the Albanians did not have) However, as the
Sublime Porte’s ability to offer protection waned so did the tensions between the
Albanians and the Turkish authorities increase eventually leading to the Albanian
national movement for independence.
19
Arben Puto and Stefanaq Pollo, The History of Albania, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981) 90.
All subsequent quotations are from this edition.
14
The road to independence was particularly difficult for the Albanians. As has
already been mentioned the privileged status the Albanians enjoyed in the Empire made
them reluctant to turn against the Ottomans. Furthermore the Albanians were hopelessly
divided. Although the majority of them were Muslims a considerable portion of the
Albanians were still Christians, both Orthodox and Catholic. The Muslims themselves
were divided into a Sunny majority and a quite significant Bektashi minority and as if
these divisions had not been enough the Ottomans had also made sure that unification
would be difficult by dividing the Albanian lands into four vilayets (administrative units
in the Ottoman Empire) each with its own administration. Add to that the divisions
imposed by the mountainous terrain they lived in and the very fractured structure of
Albanian society and one begins to get the picture.
But as history has often shown there is no better way of uniting a people than
threats from the outside. The major threat the Albanians were faced with was the very
real possibility that their lands were going to become bargaining chips in the dealings of
the Great Powers and that their Balkan neighbors would be awarded Albanian territories.
Kosovo and the north of Albania were some of the territories more at risk which might
help explain why Kosovo became the military and political centre of the Albanian
movement for autonomy and later for independence. And as it turned out, the Albanians’
fears were justified.
In June 1876, in the aftermath of rebellions in Bosnia and Bulgaria, Serbia and
Montenegro went to war against Turkey aiming to occupy the Sandžak of Novi Pazar (the
region to the north of Kosovo which stood as a wedge between the two countries) and
then to march into Kosovo.20
However, the rebellions were crushed and the Serb
attempts proved unsuccessful, forcing them to sign an armistice in November. The Serb
fortunes were to change a short time later when Russia went to war against the Turkish
Empire in April 1877. At the Russian’s request the Serbs decided once again to wage
war against the Ottomans.21 By this time the Ottoman army was tied down fighting the
Russians in Bulgaria and was in no position to defend Kosovo. The Serbs were thus able
to capture significant portions of Kosovo including Gjilane, and even Pristina, but had to
20
21
Malcolm 208-209.
Ibid. 209.
15
stop short of invading the whole province when the Russians and the Ottomans signed an
armistice on the 31st of January 1878. In March of 1878 Russia and Turkey went on to
sign the San Stefano Treaty which foresaw the creation of an enormous Bulgarian state
(which would have incorporated large swathes of land inhabited by Albanians) and would
have also awarded Serbia and Montenegro with parts of Kosovo and northern Albania.22
The Russians had hoped to secure complete control of the Balkans through the influence
they could exercise on these Slavic and Orthodox states and to counter in this way the
Austrian threat in the Balkans. Such an outcome however was unacceptable to most other
Great Powers.23
The future of the possessions of the Ottoman Empire had long been at the core of
Great Power diplomacy – the so-called Eastern Question – and although Russia and
Austria were the powers with more at stake in the Balkans the other Great Powers were
bound to take an interest as well. For Austria the Treaty of San Stefano would have
meant the end of its involvement in the Balkans.24 Given the fact that the Hapsburg
Empire possessed no colonies, it had turned all its attention to the Balkans as the only
area where it could expand in its Drang nach Osten. On the other hand the Austrians also
saw the preservation of the Ottoman Empire as the best way of checking Russian power.
Metternich for instance saw Turkey as “a natural frontier which never claims our
attention or dissipates our energies. We look upon Turkey as the last bastion standing in
the way of another power”25 and the Austrian position had not changed much since
Metternich’s time. Strangely enough these very same reasons were valid for the Russians
as well. In the event of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire Russia might very well
have found itself flanked by a much more powerful neighbor than the Ottomans.
Great Britain also had no interest in allowing Russia to gain control over the
Balkans; a move which would have ensured the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Much in the
22
Ibid.
Misha Glenny, The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, (London: Granta Books, 2000)
143. All subsequent quotations are to this edition.
24
Glenny 143.
25
Norman Rich, Great Power Diplomacy 1814-1914, (McGrow Hill, 1992) 47. All subsequent quotations
are to this edition.
23
16
same way as the Austrians, the British too had traditionally seen the Ottoman Empire as a
kind of buffer between Russia and in the British case, the land and sea routes to India.
Furthermore in November 1875 Britain had acquired the controlling shares in the Suez
Canal26 which was another reason for the British opposition to the San Stefano Treaty. If
Russia controlled the Balkans through its client states then who was to stop them from
taking the rest of the Ottoman Empire as well or at the very least exercise complete
control over it? And if the Russians managed that that would in turn have meant the
encirclement of India, the jewel on the British crown.
Russian control of the Balkans would also have endangered the balance of power
on which peace in Europe depended. Indeed the very fact that the Russians managed to
go to war against the Ottoman Empire in the first place, without encountering any serious
opposition from the other Great Powers was strange. The same reasons that motivated the
objections to the San Stefano Treaty had been valid before the Russo-Turkish War of
1877 as well. It was because of smart Russian diplomacy and propaganda that the Tsarist
Empire managed to neutralize Britain and Austria–Hungary.27 In the case of Britain,
reports of Turkish excesses during the suppression of the Balkan rebellions caused a
public outcry that made it impossible for the British government to intervene in favor of
Turkey. Austria on the other hand concluded a deal with the Russians which allowed
them to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina in return for their neutrality during the RussoTurkish War;28 this in turn secured German neutrality as well. The Russians however
made a serious mistake with the San Stefano Treaty by infringing on the interests of
almost all the other Powers. For these reasons the Treaty of San Stefano could not be
implemented and the Russians had to agree to a revision since all the other Powers were
in favor of it.
In 1878 the Congress of Berlin was called in order to revise the Treaty and to deal
with the Eastern Question once and for all.29 The Congress reduced the size of Bulgaria
and recognized the independence of Serbia, Montenegro and Romania. It also decided to
award Serbia and Montenegro with Albanian territories, but perhaps more importantly it
26
Rich 222.
Ibid. 222-223.
28
Joseph Swire, Shqipëria: Ngritja e një Mbretërie, trans. (Tirana: Dituria 2005) 73-75. All subsequent
quotations are to this edition.
27
17
recognized Austria’s right to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina and to garrison the sandzak
(an Ottoman administrative unit) of Novi Pazar, simply known as the Sandzak, which lies
between Serbia and Montenegro.30 This was significant for two main reasons. In the first
place it separated Serbia from Montenegro and secondly it thwarted Serbia’s ambitions of
joining all the Serbs in one state. And the Serb claim on parts of Bosnia was much more
valid than the one they had on Kosovo where the majority of the population was
Albanian. In compensation, the Austrians allowed the Serbs to expand in a southerly
direction as long as they did not attempt to secure an outlet on the Adriatic Sea.31 One can
but wonder what the history of Kosovo would have been like had the Serbs been allowed
to unite with their brethren in Bosnia and Montenegro. As it turned out, this Austrian
action made sure that the Serbs put even more effort into securing Kosovo and access to
the Adriatic through northern Albania.
The terms of the San Stefano Treaty and the Congress of Berlin which (among
other things) discussed the future of Albanian inhabited territories, were to serve as the
spark which ignited the Albanian national movement, known in Albanian as Rilindja
Kombëtare or the National Renaissance. However, it would be misleading to suggest that
by this time the Albanians had reached such a level of national emancipation as to ask for
autonomy or independence right away. The idea of an autonomous Albania had already
been in circulation before the Congress of Berlin, but it had won little ground in Albania
itself. The frequent rebellions of the Albanians were motivated more by an opposition to
the centralizing reforms of the Ottomans than by a desire for autonomy or independence.
The imposition of taxes, conscription and disarming were particularly bitterly opposed.
But the nature of the Albanian opposition to the Turks was beginning to change.
In 1876 there had already been revolts in the north of Albania, which had led the
Russian consul in Shkodra to write that “it is difficult to foresee the result of the
rebellion; but whatever it might be Europe will soon have a new question to consider: the
Albanian question”32. The rebellion the consul was commenting on stopped when Serbia
and Montenegro launched their invasion of Kosovo in 1878, but the relations between the
29
Glenny 144.
Rich 227.
31
Swire 55.
32
Pollo and Puto 117.
30
18
Porte and the Albanians were not to remain peaceful for long. In order to counter the
decisions of the San Stefano Treaty several defense committees were created of which
the most important was the Central Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the
Albanian People in Istanbul.33 This committee called an assembly of Albanian leaders in
Prizren on the 10th of June 1878 which agreed to create the so-called Albanian League of
Prizren.34 The main task of the League was to be the protection of Albanian territories.35
Initially the relations between the League and the Porte seem to have been friendly. After
all, the League’s refusal to hand over any Albanian territories to either of Albania’s
neighbors benefited the Turks, leading many to believe that it was nothing more than a
tool of the Porte. The break came when the Ottoman Empire, under pressure from the
Great Powers (who had threatened to occupy the port of Smyrrna (Izmir) in Asia Minor if
the decisions of the Congress of Berlin were not implemented) tried to force the League
into handing over the Albanian town of Ulqin to Montenegro.36 The Berlin Treaty agreed
upon at the end of the Congress of Berlin had initially decided that Montenegro would
receive the Albanian districts of Plav, Gucia, Kuç and Triepsh.37 The resistance of the
League and Turkish objections forced the Powers to alter their plans several times until
eventually they decided to award Montenegro the Albanian town of Ulqin which was just
as Albanian as the previously mentioned districts.38 This time however, faced with the
prospect of the occupation of Smyrna the Porte sent an army of 30,000 men against the
Albanians.39 The League resisted for two months with an international naval squadron
offshore who had orders to attack the Albanian forces if they did not hand over the town
and Turkish troops attacking them on land. Eventually the resistance was broken and
Ulqin was handed over to Montenegro. This was to be a watershed moment in Albanian
history. Whereas up to this moment the League had been motivated by self- defense and
not by a desire to upset the status quo in the Empire after the events in Ulqin the leaders
of the movement came to the conclusion that the relations between Albania and the Porte
33
Ibid.
Ibid. 118.
35
Glenny 153.
36
Pollo and Puto 123.
37
Swire 57.
38
Ibid. 57-61.
39
Ibid. 60.
34
19
had to change40 and that autonomy for a single Albanian entity comprising all four
vilayets would be the solution to their problems. Such a decision was not easy to reach
though.
A considerable number of the Albanian Muslims in the movement saw
themselves as faithful subjects of the sultan and resisted any move that might lead to the
break up of the Empire. Furthermore the European powers of the time with the exception
of Russia were also against upsetting the status quo. The more progressive leaders of the
League however envisaged an autonomous Albania consisting of the four Albanian
vilayets (what is also known as Greater Albania), governed by Albanians, but that would
remain part of the Ottoman Empire. This more radical group did manage to gain the
upper hand, thanks mainly to the actions of the Porte and by 1880 the League of Prizren
had declared itself the provisional government of Albania.41 Their success however did
not last long. By 1881 the Porte decided that the League had gone too far with its actions
and that a military solution was needed. Several battles took place in Kosovo, but
eventually the Turkish authorities managed to defeat the League. Nevertheless although
the League did not last long, it had succeeded in sowing the seeds of the Albanian
national movements. The demands of the League on the unification of the Albanian
vilayets and autonomy would remain a constant Albanian demand until 1912 when
Albania gained its independence.
Another achievement of the League which was to remain a constant in Albanian
nationalist ideology was the secular nature of the movement. Aware of the divisive
potential the affiliation to four different religions entailed, the League made a point of
stressing the ethnic factor as central to the Albanian national movement. In this aspect
Albanian nationalism differed radically from that of, for instance, the Serbs. The League
also showed clearly the importance of Kosovo to the Albanian struggle for national
recognition. This importance was not the result of some romanticized and mythical
reading of history as in the case of the Serbs. The Albanians of Kosovo had played a
major role in the League and they were to play just as important a role in the future
rebellions of the Albanians against the Turks. Although much of the more progressive
40
41
Glenny 153-154.
Pollo and Puto 124-127.
20
intellectual impulse of the Albanian national movement came from intellectuals and
leaders from the south of Albania or from the Albanian colonies abroad, Kosovo was the
centre of the Albanian national movement and most of the military muscle was provided
by the Albanians of Kosovo.
The defeat of the League had dealt a serious blow to the Albanian national
movement, but it did not mean the end of the Porte’s problems in the Albanian lands.
The underlying reasons that had led to the beginning of the Albanian national movement
were still present. The creation of the League after all had been a reaction to increased
Great Power interference in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire (or to be more
precise the internal affairs of the Albanians) and in the years after 1881 this interference
intensified.
These were also times of change for the Ottoman Empire itself. In 1908 a Young
Turk regime was installed in Istanbul. The Young Turks represented a movement whose
aim was to modernize the empire and unify it on the basis of an Ottoman nationality.42
Initially the Young Turks enjoyed the support of the Albanians, especially those of
Kosovo who had been tricked into believing that the new regime would respect the
sultan’s rights and would grant the Albanians their old privileges, such as the right to bear
arms, exemption from conscription, etc.43 In fact the aims of the Young Turks were the
exact opposite to those of the Albanians.
As soon as they came to power the Young Turks showed a determination to
implement the modernizing reforms, which the Albanians so resented. The annexation of
Bosnia Herzegovina by Austria in 1908 diminished the confidence of the Albanians in
the new regime even more; it was seen as a sign that the Young Turks were speeding up
the break up of the empire,44 with all the consequences that such an event entailed for the
Albanians. Several rebellions against the collection of taxes took place in Kosovo in
42
Malcolm 236.
Ibid. 237-238.
44
Ibid. 240.
43
21
1909 and 1910 and were crushed by the Turkish army. The Turkish actions, however,
achieved anything but peace.
In the spring of 1912 the general revolt of the Albanian national movement finally
started in Western Kosovo.45 By July the rebels had already taken over most of Kosovo
and assembled thousands of troops there. The Albanian rebels then presented the Turkish
authorities with a list of demands, known as the Fourteen Points of Hasan Prishtina, many
of which closely resembled the demands of the League of Prizren, and after receiving no
reply from Istanbul marched on Skopje, the capital of the vilayet which they took on the
14th of August,46 On the 18th of August the Turkish government which in the meantime
had to deal with a revolt in Yemen and a war against Italy, afraid that the rebels might
march on to Salonica to free and restore to power the sultan, finally agreed to the
demands of the Albanians.47 After more than three decades of struggle the Albanians had
finally obtained national recognition and autonomy within the Ottoman Empire. The
success did not last long however.
The Albanian rebellion had clearly shown the weakness of the Ottoman Empire, a
fact that was not lost to the Albanians’ Balkan neighbors. All the newly independent
Balkan states nurtured expansionist ambitions on the Ottoman Empire’s European
territories, which included Kosovo. The Albanian rebellion provided these countries with
the perfect opportunity to realize their plans although a war against the Ottomans went
against the interests of all the Great Powers with the exception of Russia.48 The Ottomans
were weakened and the Albanians were also exhausted. Serbia had at different times
encouraged the Albanian rebellion in order to achieve precisely the aforementioned
situation, while on the other hand Serbia and the other Balkan powers had gone as far as
to threaten to go to war against the Ottomans if they granted the Albanians autonomy.49 A
prolonged Albanian struggle against the Turks was favorable to the realization of these
45
Ferdinando Saleo, Shqipëria: gjashtë muaj mbretëri, trans. Virgjil Muçi (Tiranë: Shtëpia e Librit dhe
Komunikimit, 2000) 32-33. All subsequent quotations are to this edition.
46
Ibid.
47
Ibid. 248.
48
Glenny 224.
49
Pollo and Puto 144.
22
countries’ expansionist plans. The international situation at this time also played into the
hands of the Balkan states.
After the Austrian – Hungarian annexation of Bosnia, Russia had become
reluctant to preserve the status quo in the Balkans.50 Although worries of a possible war
against Austria about the Balkans always played a role in their considerations, in the
aftermath of the Italian – Turkish War of 1911, the Russians decided to actively help
create and support an alliance of the Christian states of the Balkans against the Ottomans.
This however was not so easy to achieve since the claims of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece
clashed in Macedonia.51 After some persuading though a treaty between Bulgaria and
Serbia was signed in March 1912, while negotiations between Serbia, Montenegro,
Greece and Bulgaria continued until two days before the commencement of hostilities
(ibid).
On the 8th of October 1912 Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire and
attacked the north of Albania.52 A week later the Balkan alliance launched an offensive
on different parts of the Ottoman Balkans. The Serb Third Army was assigned the task of
occupying Kosovo. On the 22nd of October it had reached Pristina, on the 31 Prizren was
captured while the Montenegrin army had already occupied Peja/Peč on the 30th. The
conquest of Kosovo was accompanied with large scale massacres and expulsions of
Albanians. Reports in the European press estimated the number of Albanians killed in the
six week war at 20,000.53 A Danish journalist in Skopje reported that 5000 Albanians had
been executed in Pristina alone while the Commission on the Balkans of the Carnegie
Endowment concluded that there had probably been a systematic policy at work: “Houses
and whole villages reduced to ashes, unarmed and innocent populations massacred…such
were the means that were employed and are still being employed by the Serb and
Montenegrin soldiery, with a view to the entire transformation of the ethnic character of
regions inhabited exclusively by Albanians.”54 And the list goes on and on. As in most
other matters the Serbs and the Albanians disagree on the number of victims as well. The
Albanians of course claim that the numbers of the victims were much higher. As for the
50
Swire 84-85.
Glenny 226.
52
Ibid. 229.
53
Malcolm 253.
51
23
Serbs, well I did not manage to find a single source that so much as mentioned numbers
of Albanian victims. Only in “The Kosovo Chronicles” by Dušan Bataković (one of the
leading Serb historians) did I find something resembling an admission that atrocities were
committed, but even in this case the author claims that the Albanians bear the
responsibility for what happened to them because of their resistance to the Serb army and
because of crimes committed by them in the past against Serb civilians.55 One notable
exception is the denunciation of a Serb Social Democrat who was serving as a reservist
during the war and described the advance of the Serb army into Macedonia. He noted that
he came across: ”…entire Albanian villages had been turned into pillars of fire…” and
further on he goes on to describe how in the centre of Skopje there lay “heaps of
Albanian corpses with severed heads.”56 True, the author is describing the situation in
Macedonia, but if the aforementioned reports are anything to go by, there is no reason to
believe that the Serbs behaved any differently vis-à-vis the Albanians of Kosovo.
When Kosovo had thus been ‘liberated’ the Serbs decided to ‘liberate’ the north
of Albania as well and reach the Adriatic coast. Reaching the Adriatic and securing a sea
port had long been one of the priorities of landlocked Serbia who was otherwise
dependent on Austria – Hungary or the Ottoman Empire for its arms supplies (. At the
same time preventing Serbia from securing this, had long been a priority of the Austrian –
Hungarian Empire whose only outlets to the sea were also in the Adriatic.57 There had
long existed a rivalry between Serbia and the Austrian – Hungarian Empire and both
powers saw each others as a real threat. As mentioned earlier Austria – Hungary’s
occupation and subsequent annexation of Bosnia – Herzegovina had thwarted the
Serbia’s projects of uniting all the Serbs in one state and the Austrian – Hungarian
garrisoning of the Sandzak region which separates Serbia from Montenegro was seen in
much the same light. For the Austrian – Hungarian Empire Serbia was a threat because it
served as a magnet for all sorts of Slavic nationalist movements which threatened the
very existence of this multiethnic empire. Furthermore Serbia was seen as a Russian
satellite which meant that a strong Serbia would only increase the Russians’ influence in
54
Ibid. 254.
Dušan Bataković, The Kosovo Chronicles, 2005,
<http://www/snd-us.com/history/dusan/index.htm>.
56
Glenny 234.
55
24
the Balkans to the detriment of Austria – Hungary’s plans. That is why the Austrian –
Hungarian Empire tried to win over the support of the Albanians whom it intended to use
as a buffer against a Slavic expansion in the Balkans.
Another lesser power, Italy also considered Albania as strategically important.
After all control over Albania would have secured Italy’s total control of the Adriatic Sea
as well as serve as a springing board for further expansion into the Balkans.58 It was for
these reasons that the Italians were also opposed to a Serb controlled northern Albania.
Russia on the other hand had an interest in the successes of the Balkan allies.
As has been mentioned previously the Eastern Question had already been one of
the main concerns of Great Power diplomacy in the 19th century. The First Balkan War
though had radically changed the political reality of the Balkan Peninsula by effectively
removing the Ottoman Empire from Europe, but the interests of the Great Powers on the
Balkans remained the same. The Balkan allies had indeed gone to war against the wishes
of the Great Powers, but they did need the Great Powers’ approval if they were to keep
what they had gained from the war. In order to address these issues the Conference of
Ambassadors (of the Great Powers) was called in London on the 12th of December 1912
and it was presided by the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Gray.59
The Albanian question was at the centre of discussions since both Italy and
Austria – Hungary were against the partition of Albania by the Balkan allies while Russia
and France were in favor60. Three issues relating to the Albanian question were the focus
of the discussion: the international position of Albania, the organization of the new entity
and the establishment of its boarders.61 In the end the Conference decided to recognize
Albania’s independence (although the Albanians had already proclaimed their
independence on the 28th of November 1912) but the new state would have to be under
international control for at least a year. The third issue relating to the boarders of the new
state was the most sensitive one. For all the objections of Austria – Hungary the
Conference decided that the establishment of the boarders of the new state could not be
57
Saleo 46.
Ibid. 17-18.
59
Pollo and Puto 149.
60
Saleo 46.
61
Pollo and Puto 150.
58
25
handled separately from the consequences of the First Balkan War.62 The Balkan allies
were to be rewarded at the expense of the Albanians. Thus the Serbs were forced to
relinquish the north of Albania, but they did receive Kosovo and other Albanian lands to
the east of the present day boarder between Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia. The Great Powers did not take into account at all the crimes and ethnic
cleansing that had taken place in Kosovo. Maybe because the Albanians were seen as a
Muslim people, there was no outcry at the crimes committed against them, as there had
been in the case of the Bulgarians some decades earlier (on the other hand, barely a
decade later no European Great Power would lift a finger to stop the Armenian genocide,
a fact that shows that considerations of human rights rarely played a role in the decision
making of the Powers, unless doing so suited their interests as well, as in the case of the
Bulgarian rebellion). Furthermore the ethnic composition of the territories granted to the
Balkan powers was not taken into account either. That however was to be expected since
the decisions of the Great Powers were not motivated by a quest for a right solution to the
problems of the Balkans. At this time the majority of Kosovo’s population was Albanian
and had the principle of ethnicity or nationality been followed, Kosovo should have
become part of the Albanian state. It was partly because of this reason that Britain
objected to Serbia’s annexation of north Albania.63 But instead, the Conference handled
the Albanian question in much the same way as the Great Powers had dealt with Africa
with all the consequences that that entailed. Thus, the Albanian state the Conference
recognized comprised roughly half of the Albanian population and territory. Albanian
nationalist circles still refer to the Republic of Albania as “London’s Albania” and just as
the Serbs had dreamt of avenging Kosovo so did the Albanians start to nourish the same
dream.
62
63
Ibid. 152.
Malcolm 256.
26
C
hapter 2
To the general public in the Western world the Kosovo war of the
1990s must have come as a surprise, but in fact, as most of the media and
politicians were quick to point out, this latest Serbian – Albanian conflict had a long
background. The decision of the London Conference of Ambassadors of 1913 to
recognize Kosovo as a part of Serbia basically made sure that Kosovo would continue to
be a source of friction and conflict between the Serbs and Albanians. One can simply sum
up the history of Kosovo as a part of Serbia (and later Yugoslavia) as a long conflict of
varying intensities, punctuated by periods of peace. Many people would not agree with
such a definition, but many Albanians (including myself) and Serbs seem to believe in it.
During the conflict of the 1990s both sides continually pointed out to injustices suffered
at the hands of the other at several moments following 1913. This new set of grievances,
be they real or simply perceived as such, did not replace the older complaints stemming
from the centuries of Ottoman rule; they were simply added to one another thus
reinforcing the view that the two people were eternal enemies. It is the purpose of this
chapter to look into these issues and attempt to provide the reader with a clear
understanding of the history of Kosovo from the moment it became a part of Serbia until
the NATO intervention of 1999 and to shed some light on the policy of the International
Community vis-à-vis Kosovo.
One can say that the Albanians of Kosovo ended the 20th century much in the
same way they started it: fighting for self-determination. The Ottoman Empire was
simply substituted by the Serbian Kingdom and later by the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes which later still became known as Yugoslavia. The status of the Albanians
in the new “empire”, however, was that of second (or even third) class citizens, a drastic
change from the privileged status many Albanians had enjoyed under the Ottomans. For
the Muslim Albanians, the very religion that had guaranteed them first class status in the
Turkish state became the basis for discrimination by the Serbs, although it must be said
that Catholic Albanians did not fare much better.
27
In the previous chapter I have already described the way in which the Serbs dealt
with the Albanians when they first conquered Kosovo with the aim of changing the
demographic balance of the province and of subduing the Albanians. This Serb policy
was to continue and intensify after the annexation of Kosovo. Thus several massacres
took place after the fighting had ended, as for instance in Ferizaj (Serbian: Uroševać)
where the Serb commander invited the population to return to their homes in peace and
then proceeded to execute 300 – 400 men.64 Forced conversions of Muslims and
Catholics into Orthodoxy also took place all over Kosovo, with the Albanians being
offered a choice between death and torture or conversion. In December 1912 the Serb
King placed the region under military rule and enforced a number of draconian measures
in order to control the situation; measures which allowed for the deportation of whole
villages and made “the decision of the police authorities …sufficient proof of the
commission of crime.”65 Albanian resistance in the form of small rebel groups, known as
kaçaks, however, did continue provoking a brutal reaction on the part of the Serbs. The
conditions that reigned in Kosovo forced many Albanians to emigrate from Kosovo into
Albania, Bosnia or Turkey. Had this situation continued the Serbs might well have
achieved their goal of “Serbianizing” Kosovo, but the Albanians were saved by the start
of the First World War.
On the 29th of July 1914 Austria – Hungary begun its attack on Serbia,66 thus
setting in motion a chain reaction that would ignite a pan–European conflagration.
Although the Serbs put up a stiff resistance against the Austrians, once Germany and
Bulgaria joined in the fighting the Serb position became hopeless and the Serb army was
forced to retreat through the north of Albania leaving behind thousands of dead and
prisoners of war. Austria – Hungary and Bulgaria then proceeded to conquer Kosovo
where they were welcomed as liberators. Many Albanians did remember the Austrians
with sympathy because of the Austrian support for their national movement.
Furthermore, the Austrian and Bulgarian occupation gave the Albanians of Kosovo a
breathing space in which they managed to reverse to some extent many of the anti –
Albanian policies that the Serbs had tried to enforce in the region.
64
65
Malcolm 254.
Ibid. 257.
28
Unfortunately for the Albanians the fortunes of the war soon turned against the
Central Powers and by October 1918 the Austrian troops were forced to retreat from
Kosovo. By the end of October a combined French – Serbian army had occupied the
whole of Kosovo thus bringing it back under Serb rule. Once again the Serb Army
engaged in massacres of the Albanians, as for instance in Gjakova (Serbian: Djakovica)
where 800 men and women were massacred.67 Although the Serbs had once more
emerged victorious in Kosovo this whole episode should have taught them a lesson. Their
policies in Kosovo had worsened the Serb – Albanian relations to such an extent that in
the future the Albanians would be willing to support any foreign power which offered
them the prospect of liberation from Serb rule (the guiding principle of the Kosovo
Albanians seems to have been “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”). The same pattern
would indeed be repeated during the Second World War as well as during the conflict of
the 1990s.
The end of the First World War meant also the end of the Serb Kingdom as a
separate entity. On the 1st of December 1918 the South Slavs were united in the Kingdom
of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (henceforth Yugoslavia for simplicity’s sake).68
Kosovo itself remained a part of Serbia. The creation of Yugoslavia fulfilled the Serb
dream of uniting all the Serbs in one state. Initially the Croats and Slovenes also
supported the new kingdom which they saw as the best way of guaranteeing their
security. For the Albanians though, the Yugoslav Kingdom was nothing more than an
euphemism for Greater Serbia. The fact that up to four fifths of the state administration
was controlled by the Serbs69 and the fact that Kosovo itself remained under direct
Serbian rule gave credence to this Albanian belief.
The situation of the Albanians in the new kingdom did not improve much. Indeed
it would not be too far fetched to say that they were the most discriminated of all the
66
Glenny 312.
Judah 43.
68
Glenny 367.
69
Branka Prpa-Jovanovic, Krijimi i Jugosllavisë: 1830-1945, Makthi Etnik i Jugosllavisë, ed. Jasminka
Udovicki and James Ridgeway, trans. Arben Kallamata, (Tirana: Albin 1998) 48. All subsequent quotations
are from this edition.
67
29
people of Yugoslavia. First of all they were not recognized as a minority on the grounds
that the Albanians of Kosovo were really Albanian speaking Serbs.70 This denial of
minority status made it easier for the Yugoslav authorities to neglect fulfilling the
obligations provided for in the “Treaty for the Protection of Minorities” which
Yugoslavia had signed in 191971. Under the terms of the treaty Yugoslavia was obliged to
provide education in the local languages if the population spoke a language other than
Serbian–Croat and to guarantee “full and complete protection of life and liberty to all the
inhabitants of the kingdom without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race or
religion.”72 The treaty however, was completely disregarded when it came to the
Albanians. Education for instance was only in Serbian or Turkish while even the
Albanian schools that had been set up during the Austrian occupation were closed
down73.
Furthermore, the authorities undertook a host of measures aimed at making life
difficult for the Albanians, with the final aim of changing the demographic composition
of Kosovo. For instance, the Albanians were constantly harassed in order to force them to
emigrate from Kosovo. The confiscation of land under the guise of an agrarian reform
was one such form of harassment. On the other hand the Yugoslav authorities began
implementing plans for the colonization of Kosovo by Serbs and Montenegrins.
The Albanians replied to these measures in their traditional way, by fighting.
Resistance to the Serb occupation had never ceased altogether, but the measures the
Yugoslav authorities were trying to impose gave the resistance (the so-called kaçak
movement) a new impetus. The centre of the resistance was the Drenica region, in the
heart of Kosovo, although much of the support came from Albanian Kosovan leaders
based in Albania. The demands of the kaçaks included self-government, an end to the
confiscation of land and the colonization program, an end to the killing of Albanians, the
opening of Albanian schools and that Albanian be made an official language.74 The
Yugoslav authorities responded by brutally cracking down on the rebels and on the
Albanians in general. One tactic the authorities used consisted in arming the local Serbs
70
Malcolm 268-269.
Ibid.
72
Ibid.
73
Ibid.
71
30
and creating armed bands in order to assist the army in its counterinsurgency operations;
a tactic which served to worsen the already tense interethnic relation in Kosovo even
further (these same tactics would also be used during the war of the 1990s with much the
same result).
The kaçak movement lasted until the mid 1920s, (although sporadic incidents
continued during the whole interwar period) but it eventually proved unsuccessful. Not
only were the Albanian insurgents no match for the well armed Yugoslav Army, but the
political changes that took place in Albania proper with the coming to power of Ahmet
Zogu (the future, self-proclaimed king of Albania who counted the leaders of the kaçaks
among his sworn enemies) were also detrimental to the struggle of the Albanians of
Kosovo. As for the Powers, they were conspicuous by their absence.
The kaçak insurgency provided the Yugoslav authorities with the perfect
justification for enforcing ever more dramatic measures in Kosovo. These included for
instance, the internment of the families of the rebels, including the families of rebel
leaders who had been urging restraint on their followers. This move seems to have been
designed to achieve anything but a peaceful end to the insurgency. In fact this might have
been the real aim of the Serb authorities. As the British envoy in Durrës Albania,
reported: “This passive attitude does not suit Serbia as it gives no excuse for harsh
measures. Consequently they have now laid hands on women, which they know no
Albanian mountaineer will endure.”75 For all its failures however, the kaçak movement
had at least made clear that the Albanians had not accepted Serbian rule; it had also to
some extent obstructed the colonization program.76
In any case after the end of the insurgency the Serb authorities renewed their
effort aimed at addressing the demographics of Kosovo more vigorously. They took a
two pronged approach. On the one hand the authorities tried to increase the Serbian
population of Kosovo, (through the colonization program) on the other they did
everything to force the Albanians to emigrate. The colonization program was justified as
part of the general agrarian reform,77 but it was clear that in Kosovo the effort was
74
Ibid. 274.
Ibid. 275.
76
Ibid. 278.
77
Ibid. 278-280.
75
31
directed mainly against the Albanians. The lands granted to the Serb and Montenegrin
colonists were often confiscated from the Albanians and it was official policy to allow
Albanians who had thus been dispossessed only 0,4 hectares of land per family member.
The aim of this policy is illustrated by a Serbian document which states that: “This is
below the minimum for subsistence. But this is and has been our aim: to make their life
impossible and in that way to force them to emigrate.”78
As this document shows, serious attempts were being made to force the Albanians
to leave Kosovo. Many distinguished Serb scholars and academics contributed their ideas
on how to achieve this. Vasa Ĉubrilović, a respected history professor at Belgrade
University suggested the mass expulsion of all the Albanians, arguing that “at a time
when Germany can expel tens of thousands of Jews…the shifting of a few hundred
thousand Albanians will not lead to the outbreak of a world war.” The way in which he
proposed to achieve this was as follows:
The law must be enforced to the letter, to make staying intolerable for the
Albanians…such as punishment for smuggling, for cutting the forest, for damaging
agriculture, for leaving dogs unchained…any other measure that an experienced
police force can contrive. From the economic aspect: the refusal to recognize the
old land deeds…the requisitioning of all state and communal pastures…dismissal
from state, private and communal offices…When it comes to religion, the
Albanians are very touchy. Therefore they must be harassed on this score too. This
can be achieved through the ill-treatment of their clergy, the destruction of their
cemeteries…There remains one more means, which Serbia had employed very
successfully after 1878: secretly burning down Albanian villages and city
quarters.79
Many of these measures were indeed carried out at the time. In fact the plans for
removing the Albanians from Kosovo went even further. Starting from 1933 the
Yugoslav and Turkish governments started discussing the possibility of deporting huge
78
79
Ibid. 283.
Ibid. 283-284.
32
numbers of Albanians to Turkey. In an agreement reached in 1938 the Turks agreed to
take in 40,000 families. No one knows the exact number of the Albanians that fled
Kosovo in the interwar period, but the figures provided by Noel Malcolm, of between
90,000 and 150,000 seem credible.80 Had the Serbs been given the opportunity to
continue with these policies they might have achieved a Serb majority in Kosovo, but the
Albanians were saved by the start of the Second World War and the occupation of
Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers. The tables had once again turned.
The Second World War was a particularly bloody period in Yugoslav history.
The memories of this war and the emotions these memories brought with them were one
of the main instruments the nationalist leaders of the Yugoslav people used in order to
mobilize their respective nations during the wars of the 1990s.
From 1941 when
Yugoslavia capitulated, until the end of 1944 the people of Yugoslavia were engaged in a
war of resistance against the Axis Powers as well as in a civil war that pitted the different
ethnic groups against each other.
For the Albanians of Kosovo, though, the arrival of the Axis armies was good
news. On April 1941 all Yugoslav resistance in Kosovo had ceased81 and the Axis
Powers proceeded to partition Kosovo among themselves. Germany kept the mineral rich
area of Mitrovica, the Bulgarians took part of eastern Kosovo, while the rest was joined
to Albania, thus creating for the first and only time in history a Greater Albania (Albania
proper had been conquered by Italy in 1939, but it was still in theory a separate kingdom
ruled by the King of Italy). As the Axis Powers had expected, the creation of Greater
Albania effectively prevented any resistance on the part of the Kosovo Albanians against
the new occupiers; it also provided the Albanians with an opportunity to reverse some of
the policies that the Serbs had enforced during the interwar period.
One of the main aims of the Albanians was the removal of the Serb and
Montenegrin colonists (the Serbs and Montenegrins are viewed by the Albanians as one
and the same people) from Kosovo. Attacks on Serbs and Montenegrin villages had
80
81
Ibid. 285.
Glenny 484.
33
already been taking place before the cessation of hostilities between the Axis Powers and
the Yugoslav Army, but the situation for the colonists only worsened in the following
period. Thus an Italian officer noted that most Montenegrin colonists from the area of
Peja (Serbian: Peć) had been expelled within days of Yugoslavia’s surrender albeit with
the consent of the German authorities. Estimates place the number of people expelled
within the first three months of occupation at 20,000.82 Estimates of the total number of
people expelled range from 30,000 to 100,000 while the number of Serbs and
Montenegrins killed ranges from 3,000 to 10,000.83 What these numbers tell us is that the
Albanians behaved in just as disgusting and abhorrent a manner as the Serbs had when
they had the chance; this should also have been a lesson for the NATO forces who took
control of the province in 1999.
This numbers also tell us that the military activities of the Albanians of Kosovo
were mainly directed against the Serbs and not the Germans and Italians. This was in
striking contrast to Albania proper where the Communist partisans and several nationalist
groups had resisted the occupation of their country by the Italians and the Germans from
the very beginning. That does not mean however that the Kosovan Albanians
sympathized with Nazism or Italian Fascism as the Serbs were to claim in the late 1980s
and the 1990s. I have met former members of the Kosovan Albanian SS “Scanderbeg
Division” during my travels to Kosovo and they had only words of praise for the
Germans and even Hitler which several of them called a “great man”. None of them
however had any knowledge whatsoever of the Holocaust or any other crimes committed
by the Nazis throughout occupied Europe. These were simple, illiterate peasants whose
only motivation for collaborating with the Nazis was a desire to get rid of Serb rule as
well as avenge wrongs suffered in the past. The Axis occupation was perceived as a
liberation of sorts by them much in the same way the Austrian occupation was perceived
during the First World War (and in the same way NATO’s occupation was to be
perceived in 1999). And after all compared with the decades of Serb rule the situation for
the Albanians of Kosovo had greatly improved. The Italians for instance, who controlled
most of Kosovo allowed the establishment of Albanian schools, the use of Albanian in
82
83
Malcolm 293-294.
Judah 50.
34
the administration and the raising of Albanian flags.84 They also allowed the Albanians to
bear arms; a wise move if one considers the problems the disarmament campaigns had
caused to the Turkish and Serb authorities.
In any case, it would have been almost impossible for the Albanians of Kosovo to
cooperate with any of the Yugoslav resistance movements. In the first place the
Albanians did not feel as if they belonged in Yugoslavia so it would have made no sense
for them to strive for its liberation and restitution. Secondly, the main resistance
movements, both the Communists led by Tito, and the Serb nationalist Četnik movement,
were perceived as Slav (read: Serb) dominated. As far as the Četniks were concerned the
Albanians’ assessment of the movement’s character was right. The leaders of this
movement were diehard Serb nationalists who advocated the restitution of the prewar
Yugoslav Kingdom, dominated by the Serbs or the creation of a Greater Serbia and the
cleansing of all the Muslims from it.85 And in any case the Četniks were not above
collaboration with the Germans either.
The Communists on the other hand seem to have suffered from bad publicity in
Kosovo although their program seemed designed to attract the Kosovo Albanians. They
envisaged a federal Yugoslavia and equality between its nations, criticized the
colonization program and advocated greater rights for the Albanians of Yugoslavia.86
Nevertheless the Communists were also viewed as simply a Slavic movement whose
ultimate goals were incompatible with those of the Albanians.
Nevertheless, the Communists did persist in their efforts to win the support of the
Albanians. They realized that Albanian nationalism was the main obstacle they were
facing in Kosovo and for that reason they did make some concessions to the Albanians.
Thus in the Conference of Bujan (in the north – east of Albania) of 1943 – 1944, they
issued a declaration offering the Albanians of Kosovo the prospect of secession from
Yugoslavia after the war.87 As it turned out after the war, the Communists never intended
84
Jasminka Udovicki, Shkëlqimi dhe Rënia e Idesë Ballkanike, Makthi Etnik i Jugosllavisë, ed. Jasminka
Udovicki and James Ridgeway, trans. Arben Kallamata, (Tirana: Albin 1998) 31. All subsequent quotations
are from this edition.
85
Malcolm 298.
86
Ibid. 300.
87
Judah 53.
35
to keep this promise, and in any case doing so would have alienated the Serbs from
whom the Communists drew much of their support.
In any case, even though the Communists never enjoyed any widespread support
in Kosovo some Albanians did join their ranks, believing that they were ultimately
fighting for a united Albania. And as was to be expected, once it became clear that the
new rulers of Yugoslavia had no intention to keep their promise, these Albanians turned
against them. The most significant clashes took part in Drenica, where 8,000 Kosovan
Albanians under the command of the Partisan commander Shaban Polluzha, who were
joined by a further 20,000 Albanians fought against Yugoslav Partisan units. The
rebellion was eventually suppressed, but sporadic incidents continued until the 1950s.88
Estimates of the number of Albanians killed during the war, most of whom were killed in
1944-45 when the Communists brought Kosovo once more under Yugoslav rule, range
from 3,000 to 25,00089 (and as these figures suggest the figures are highly disputed). The
end of this rebellion marked the beginning of a new phase in Kosovo’s history, as part of
Tito’s Yugoslavia.
Many Albanians have come to see Tito with real sympathy as a benevolent leader
who gave them more rights then at any other time in Yugoslavia’s history. In fact during
the first decades of his rule Tito was nothing more than a typical Stalinist leader who
employed many of the same policies that have made Stalin notorious in order to stay in
power. Mock trials, arrests, beatings, executions, concentration camps, these were some
of the methods Tito employed in order to consolidate his power and the Albanians were
for a long time amongst the people at whom these methods were aimed. The shape of
Communists Yugoslavia or Tito’s Yugoslavia was established in the Jalce Conference of
November 1943, in a meeting of the so-called Second Anti-Fascist Council for the
National Liberation of Yugoslavia. In this meeting the Communist leadership decided
that the new Yugoslavia would be a federation based on the slogan “Brotherhood and
Unity”; a federation which at least in theory recognized the right to self-determination
88
89
Malcolm 312.
Judah 50.
36
and secession to all its people.90 This right however, did not extend to the Albanians in
the federation.
In 1945 Kosovo and Vojvodina (the region inhabited by Yugoslavia’s Hungarian
minority) were granted the status of autonomous regions within the Republic of Serbia,
but this new status did not mean much in reality. The overwhelming majority of the
positions in the state and security apparatus continued to be controlled by Serbs and
Montenegrins which meant that the Albanians continued to be second class citizens. The
Albanians of Kosovo did feel betrayed, but there was not much they could do since even
Albania proper was at the time contemplating joining Yugoslavia and Bulgaria in a
Balkan Federation. Kosovo and Albania would then have been united in one republic
within the framework of the federation (however correct or incorrect it might be, this is
the view held by most Albanians).
On the other hand Tito also took some measures aimed at placating the grievances
of the Albanians of Kosovo. In 1945 he issued a provisional decree banning the return of
Slav colonists to Kosovo.91 The Serbs have often criticized Tito for this decision, but in
reality most of the colonists were eventually allowed to return to Kosovo. Another
measure aimed at satisfying Albanian demands related to the use of the Albanian
language. The opening of Albanian schools was allowed and Albanian was given an
equal status with Serbian-Croat in official and legal matters.92 In this way Tito satisfied
what had been a constant demand of the Albanians since the times of the League of
Prizren.
Due to a lack of teachers in Kosovo where the absolute majority of the population
was still illiterate, some 50 teachers were recruited from Albania.93 This emphasized the
good relations that existed between Yugoslavia and Albania at the time. In fact the
Communist Party of Albania had largely been a product of the Yugoslav Communist
Party and the Albanian Communists continued to be subservient to the Yugoslavs for a
few years after the end of the war. The good relations between the two countries however
90
Judah 54.
Malcolm 317.
92
Ibid. 318.
93
Ibid.
91
37
were not to continue for long and the fluctuations in these relations would often influence
the way in which the Yugoslav authorities treated their Albanian population.
In 1948 the Cominform, the successor to the Communist International expelled
Yugoslavia from its ranks94. The plans for a Balkan Federation which would have turned
Tito into a regional leader, thus challenging the position of Stalin were one of the main
reasons for this break. Enver Hoxha the leader of the Albanian Communists saw his
chance for breaking his dependency from Tito, whom he criticized among other things,
for his policies in Kosovo.95 It was ironic that Yugoslavia should break with its
traditional ally, the Russians, and that the Russians should now support Albania, whose
creation they had tried so hard to prevent.
Yugoslavia’s break with the Soviet Union meant that Yugoslavia achieved a
privileged position with the Western Powers. For much of the duration of the Cold War
Yugoslavia was actively supported by the West, especially the USA. The Albanians of
Kosovo were simply not important enough for the West to intervene in their favor. On the
other hand, at this time relations between Albania and Yugoslavia turned sour and the
Kosovan Albanians were to suffer because of this. Thus the collectivization program
which was bound to be unpopular in a mainly rural area such as Kosovo was speeded up.
Furthermore the Yugoslav Communists now begun to view the Albanians of Kosovo with
suspicion and started a campaign of oppression aimed at neutralizing any nationalist
activity among them.
These campaigns were conducted by the Yugoslav Secret Police, the ”Udba” led
at the time by Aleksander Ranković who was also the Minister of Interior. Ranković was
a Serb who viewed the Albanians as a people not to be trusted. It was he who initiated
some of the worst campaigns of oppression in Kosovo,96 which entailed police raids, the
cordoning off of whole villages, the beating of Albanian men under interrogation, trials
of Albanians accused of spying and so forth. Only Milošević enjoys more notoriety
among the Albanians of Kosovo than Ranković.
The conditions that reigned in Kosovo forced many Albanians to emigrate. The
authorities also did their part in encouraging the Albanians to leave. The Serb ideas of
94
95
Ibid. 320.
Ibid.
38
changing the demographic composition of Kosovo by forcing the Albanians out had not
simply vanished. Čubrilović for instance, the same Čubrilović who had proposed the
mass expulsion of the Albanians in the interwar period, continued to be an influential
person in Serbia, and he continued to advocate the same policies.97 The Yugoslav
authorities in the 1950s also seem to have resolved to enforce the same policy. Of course,
in the aftermath of the Holocaust, this could not be done in the same brutal fashion as
before. A more subtle approach was needed.
As in most other Communist countries, the Yugoslav authorities had also imposed
restrictions on religion. While this was taking place the authorities also started to
encourage the Muslims to identify themselves as Turks by nationality.98 The Kosovo
authorities came under pressure from Serbia to encourage this process. The aim of all
these became clear in 1953 when Yugoslavia signed a treaty with Turkey and Greece,
which permitted the emigration of Yugoslav “Turks” to Turkey.99 The number of
Albanians who left Kosovo in this manner has been estimated at 100,000 although exact
numbers are hard to come by since many of those who left Yugoslavia were indeed Turks
or Muslim Slavs.
For the Albanians these were probably the hardest times they had to go through in
Tito’s Yugoslavia. Not only had they to suffer under the heavy handed actions of the
security forces, but their economic situation at the time was also very difficult. The
Albanians of Kosovo were very much a rural population (and still are) and the
collectivization program had left many of them without their traditional means of
subsistence. The Serbs and Montenegrins continued to dominate the administration and
the public sector. Although a mere 27 per cent of the population they occupied 68 per
cent of the administrative positions in Kosovo.100 The rapid growth of the Albanian
population of Kosovo, which still has the fastest growth rate in Europe, meant that ever
greater numbers of people could not find employment. This in turn meant that the
population of Kosovo became relatively poorer when compared to the other parts of
Yugoslavia. For instance incomes in Slovenia were three times higher than in Kosovo in
96
Judah 34-36.
Malcolm 322-323.
98
Ibid. 322.
99
Ibid.
97
39
1946 and five times higher in 1964.101 Most of the industry of Kosovo consisted in
mining and exporting of minerals to other areas of Yugoslavia, whose finished products
would then be sold in Kosovo. Most observers have the habit of referring to an ancient
enmity between the Serbs and Albanians as the cause of the Kosovo tensions, but
economical factors played just as important a role in alienating Kosovan Albanians from
the Serbs.
In 1963 Kosovan Albanians had to suffer another blow, this time a constitutional
one. As if to add insult to injury the Constitution of 1963, which granted Kosovo the
status of autonomous province, completely eliminated the status of Kosovo at the federal
level and made it a function of the internal arrangements of the Republic of Serbia.102
But, although at the time it must have seemed impossible, things were about to take a turn
for the better for the Albanians.
The Albanians were not the only people in Yugoslavia who were not satisfied
with the federal arrangements. The richest republics, Slovenia and Croatia had long been
asking for a more decentralized system especially when it came to decisions on the
economy. Tito seemed to be in favor of a more decentralized Yugoslavia as well and the
principle of decentralization was to extend to the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and
Vojvodina as well. During high level meetings in 1968 the Constitution of 1963 was
amended and the provinces were granted all the prerogatives of the republics, apart from
those tasks which were the concern of Serbia as a whole. These changes were preceded
by the dismissal of Ranković, the much feared head of the Udba, and concessions to the
Albanians.103 It was to be the beginning of the “honeymoon” between the Kosovan
Albanians and Yugoslavia.
The international situation at the time also helped the Albanians of Kosovo. In the
aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Tito, worried about a possible Soviet
intervention in Yugoslavia, needed all the friends he could get. Enver Hoxha had also
100
Ibid.
Ibid.
102
Ibid. 324.
103
Ibid.
101
40
broken away from the Soviet block and was also afraid of a possible Soviet invasion of
his country. Thus the perfect conditions existed for a rapprochement between the two
countries.104 The Albanians of Kosovo benefited the most from this thaw in relations
while it lasted.
In 1968, following the November demonstrations in Pristina, the authorities
authorized the opening of the University of Pristina. This was to be a very important
development for the Albanians of Kosovo. The nationalist elite of Kosovo which would
lead the Albanians during the 1990s were mostly educated at this university. During the
demonstrations of 1968 there were also calls for Kosovo to be made a republic. As one
Albanian Communist leader pointed out, 370,000 Montenegrins had their Republic, while
1.2 million Albanians were denied it.105 There were two main reasons however behind
the Yugoslav authorities’ refusal to grant Kosovo such a status.
One of the reasons related to the Yugoslav constitution which regarded the
Albanians as a nationality, defined as part of a nation separated from its own motherland,
in this case Albania. Only nations had the right to form republics in Yugoslavia. A more
relevant reason however related to Serbia. Granting Kosovo republic status would have
been seen by them as the first step towards Kosovo’s secession from the federation,
something that was simply unacceptable to most Serbs. But in any case even though
Kosovo was not made a republic the Albanians’ status within the federation continued to
improve.
A new constitution in 1974 gave the two autonomous provinces, Kosovo and
Vojvodina, a status almost equivalent to that of the republics (but not the right of
secession). The two provinces were to enjoy direct representation at the federal level and
they also won the right to make their own decisions on the economy as well as in some
areas of foreign policy.106 But, although under this constitution Albanians of Kosovo
won more rights then at any other time in Yugoslavia’s history, this new arrangement did
not fully satisfy their demands. The new nationalist elite of Kosovo could not be satisfied
with the status of autonomous province. There were ever increasing calls for Kosovo to
be made a republic (although part of this elite, especially the Albanian Communist
104
105
Ibid. 325.
Ibid.
41
leadership of Kosovo seems to have been satisfied with autonomy). The economical
situation in Kosovo also contributed a further list of Albanian complaints. The opening
of the University of Pristina meant that ever greater numbers of Albanian professionals
were now competing with the Serbs for a limited job market. Although the imbalance in
the public sector was to some extent corrected in favor of the Albanians, there were
simply not enough jobs in order to satisfy the demands of both communities thus leading
to a further polarization of Kosovo.
As was to be expected the Serbs also had their own complaints concerning these
new developments. The Albanians were not the only ones forced to leave Kosovo in
search of a better future. Many Serbs were also forced to emigrate, mainly for economical
reasons, but not only. There was also some evidence of the Serbs leaving Kosovo because
of harassment by the Albanian authorities. Other Serb complaints related to the status of
Kosovo as an autonomous province. The Serbs were not enthusiastic about the
decentralization of the federation to begin with and they viewed the autonomy of Kosovo
and Vojvodina as an attempt to curtail the power of Serbia within Yugoslavia. I can only
speculate on Tito’s intentions for taking such a step, but granting Kosovo and Vojvodina
autonomy and not doing the same for the Serb inhabited areas of Bosnia – Herzegovina
or Croatia, makes this Serb complaint seem credible and in time the Constitution of 1974
came to be seen as another injustice suffered by the Serbs. However, as long as Tito lived
nothing could be done about these Serb grievances, but in the 1980s, after Tito’s death, a
new generation of nationalist leaders would come to the fore in Serbia (and the other
federal units) which would harp on these complaints thus setting the stage for the carnage
of the 1990s.
The Constitution of 1974 was at the time viewed by most observers as an
excellent example of how a multiethnic state should be organized. But in fact, this
constitution had more or less sealed the destiny of Yugoslavia and made sure that the
federation would not survive the death of Tito. The decentralization process had basically
paralyzed the federal system. All eight federal units were now led by leaders that cared
106
Ibid. 327.
42
more about the entities they represented than the federation as a whole. In time, as one
observer as noted, Tito was transformed into the only functioning institution in the
federation.107 And as was to be expected when Tito died in 1980, he left behind a power
vacuum. The main decision-making institution at the federal level was the federal
presidency, made up of representatives from all eight federal units (the six republics plus
the two provinces) who found it increasingly hard to agree on anything at all. This
institutional crisis coincided with a deteriorating economical situation. As has been
mentioned before, Yugoslavia had enjoyed good relations with the West and it had been
able to borrow from Western countries in order to maintain the high living standards that
set it apart from the rest of the Communist countries. Bad investments combined with an
ever increasing fiscal burden due to the rocketing foreign debt which reached 23 billion
dollars in 1980 (compared to 17 billion in 1979 and 6 billion in 1975)108 led to an
increase in inflation and in the cost of living which meant that the dissatisfaction with the
federation became ever greater in the 1980s.109 In this situation the leaders of the federal
units resorted to using a radical nationalist propaganda as the most effective way for
mobilizing their populations and achieving their goals thus setting the federation on the
road to disintegration.
Kosovo remained the least developed part of Yugoslavia although the federation
had pumped billions of dollars into its economy. Most of the money had been invested in
mining which was Kosovo’s main industry. These products however would then be sold
at artificially established low prices to the other more developed regions thus leading to
Albanian complaints that Kosovo was being exploited in order to keep the economy of
the rich republics going. These were also times of an increasing political awareness for
the Albanians of Kosovo. The elite of the Albanians had to some extent started to
integrate in Yugoslavia, but as has already been mentioned, they were not satisfied with
the status of Kosovo, which these elites saw as confirmation that the Albanians remained
very much second-class citizens. As for the rest of the population, it would be hard to
107
Mirko Tepavac, Jugosllavia e Titos, Makthi Etnik i Jugosllavisë, ed. Jasminka Udovicki and James
Ridgeway, trans. Arben Kallamata, (Tirana: Albin 1998) 69. All subsequent quotations are from this
edition.
108
Tepavac 73.
43
judge what they felt about the federation at the time, but the fact remains that there were
almost no mixed Slav – Albanian marriages, which are always a good indicator of the
inter-ethnic relations in any country. And as events were to show the Albanians had their
grievances and these grievances were coming to a boiling point.
In March of 1981 the student of the University of Pristina begun to demonstrate
against the poor living conditions in the University. Initially the students were demanding
better conditions, but not long afterwards the protests assumed a political dimension as
well when the students started shouting slogans such as “Kosovo – Republic!” and even
“Unification with Albania!” The police intervened, but did not manage to stop the
demonstrations. In no time the protests spread all over Kosovo forcing the authorities to
bring in the tanks and special police forces from Serbia, as well as enforce a curfew and a
general state of emergency. Thousands of Albanians were detained and many had been
killed although there is disagreement on the figures. The authorities claimed that 9
demonstrators had been killed, while Albanian sources insisted that up to 1000 people
had lost their lives.110
The protests did not achieve much besides a change in the Communists leadership
of Kosovo, but their long term effect was much greater. In the first place the
demonstrations had shown that the Albanians had not given up on their demand for more
power within the federation. The actions of the police contributed to a further alienation
of the Albanian populations, although it must be said that most of the authorities and
police forces that suppressed the demonstrations were themselves Albanians. Many of the
future nationalist leaders of the Albanians of Kosovo participated in these demonstrations
and many of them were imprisoned and received jail terms. But the demonstrations and
their suppression had a much greater effect on the relations between the Serbs and
Albanians.
For the Serbs these protests only confirmed their fears that the Albanians were
bent on secession; as for the Albanians, the Serbs were once again seen as the main
obstacle on the road to republic status. Both parties started a series of publications
109
Slavko Curuvia and Ivan Torov, Marshimi drejt Luftës, Makthi Etnik i Jugosllavisë, ed. Jasminka
Udovicki and James Ridgeway, trans. Arben Kallamata, (Tirana: Albin 1998) 74. All subsequent quotations
are from this edition.
110
Malcolm 335.
44
dealing with the history of Kosovo, usually seen in a nationalistic light and what Noel
Malcolm has called a “culture of war” started to emerge. Serb complaints about alleged
Albanian crimes against and harassment of the Kosovo Serbs during the 1970s and 80s
(as well as during the Second World War) received ever more media coverage and
support by distinguished Serb scholars and politicians. The best known example of this is
probably the Memorandum of the Serb Academy of Arts and Sciences, known by its
acronym SANU, which claimed that a strong Yugoslavia had been built at the expense of
Serbia. This document also alleged that the Albanians had engaged in a “physical,
political, juridical and cultural genocide” in Kosovo and echoed other Serb complaints,
such as the claim that 200,000 Serbs had left Kosovo in the preceding two decades,
although these figure was exaggerated and many Serbs had left because of the poor
economical conditions and not because of Albanian harassment. The Memorandum
concluded that the “integrity of the Serbian people must be the overriding concern of
future (read: Serb) policy.111 References to the ancient enmity between the two people
became common and the myth of Kosovo became active once more. It was in this
situation of accusations and counter-accusations, of claims of victimization and national
martyrdom that Milošević came to power in Serbia.
Milošević’s rise to power begun quite accidentally. On the 24th of April 1987
Milošević went to speak to a crowd of angry Serbs in Kosovo Polje (Albanian: Fushë
Kosovë) who were protesting about the situation of the Serbs in Kosovo. The crowd had
asked to speak to the Serbian Party President, Stambolić, but afraid of the reception he
might receive, Stambolić sent Milošević instead.112
During the meeting between
Milošević and the spokesmen of the Serb crowd there were clashes between the Serb
protesters and the police who used batons to disperse the protesters. Milošević broke off
the meeting and addressed the crowd, uttering the phrase that made him a hero to the
Serbs: “No one should dare to beat you!” Afterwards he went on to hold an eloquent
speech in defense of the rights of the Serbs which was received with enthusiasm by the
111
112
Malcolm 340.
Judah 52-53.
45
crowd. It was on that day that Milošević understood the power of nationalism; and it was
also on that day that he understood that Kosovo offered him the best chance of coming to
power. In the aftermath of the meeting of Kosovo Polje, Milošević by playing the
nationalist card and by harping on the emotional attachment of the Serbs to Kosovo
managed to overthrow his former boss and mentor Stambolić and assume power in Serbia
by becoming president of the Serbian League of Communists.113
Milošević had thus exploited the grievances of the Serbs in order to come to
power and he was widely seen by the Serb public as the person who could solve their
problems. The two main complaints of the Serbs related to the position of Serbia in the
federation and the alleged discrimination of the Serbs who did not live within Serbia,
especially in Kosovo. In order to address these complaints, a sin non qua if Milošević
wanted to increase his power, he needed to change the relations between Serbia and the
federation. Milošević started doing this by removing the autonomy of Vojvodina.
In order to achieve this he instigated protests by the Serbs of Vojvodina, who
demanded the resignation of the Communist Party leadership in the province. This was
relatively easy to do since the majority of Vojvodina’s inhabitants were Serbs.
Furthermore these staged protests were widely perceived in the West as anti-Communist,
thus making sure that there were no international complications for Milošević. The next
step for Milošević was to install his supporters in Montenegro’s leadership, which was
achieved in a very similar way as in Vojvodina and without many difficulties. Next on
his list was Kosovo.
Taking away the autonomy of Kosovo which was overwhelmingly Albanian was
much harder to achieve. The way in which Milošević went about doing this however was
very similar to what he had already done in Vojvodina. The first step was to remove the
leadership of the Party in Kosovo and replace them with more compliant figures.114 This
move caused mass protests by the Albanians, but Milošević countered this by holding
mass rallies in Belgrade which gave legitimacy to this move. He then proceeded to
amend Serbia’s constitution and limit Kosovo’s autonomy. Thus Serbia got control over
Kosovo’s police, courts, civil defense, economic and educational policy, as well the
113
114
Malcolm 342.
Ibid. 343.
46
power to choose an official language. The Albanians protested vehemently, but the Serbs
responded by sending in troops, enforcing a state of emergency and arresting hundreds of
people who had taken part in the protests. Then on the 23rd of March 1989 the
constitution was amended, thus reducing Kosovo’s autonomy to a mere token.115 This
move caused mass protests by the Albanians, but as usual the police reacted in a heavy
handed way, by killing tens and arresting thousands. Milošević had triumphed, at least in
the short term.
By getting control of the two provinces and Montenegro Milošević controlled
four of the eight votes in the federal presidency, a situation which the other republics
could not accept. Furthermore there were fears that Milošević was planning to follow the
same policy in Croatia and Bosnia as well. Events were to prove these fears true and it is
for this reason that one can safely say that the wars of the disintegration of Yugoslavia
begun in Kosovo. These wars, first in Slovenia and then in Croatia and Bosnia, brought
Yugoslavia once more to the attention of the International Community. The international
situation though had changed dramatically since the times when the West was ready to
forgive Yugoslavia anything as long as it remained out of the Soviet sphere of influence.
With the end of the Cold War Yugoslavia had ceased to be a factor of strategic
importance for the West. The cheap loans that had kept the Yugoslav economy going
had dried up and the failed transition to democracy meant that the West was ever less
supportive of the country. But at the same time, although in 1990 the CIA had already
warned of the possible disintegration of Yugoslavia,116 the Western powers were caught
unprepared by the wars and simply reacted to the events, rather than trying to prevent or
influence them in any way.
Initially the West was adamant that Yugoslavia should remain intact. Soon
afterwards however, because of the situation on the ground the West decided to recognize
the independence of the breakaway republics. One thing that had changed in the
meanwhile was that the Serbs were by then widely perceived as the aggressors. Slovenia
was the first of the republics to break away: then came Croatia. The images of Dubrovnik
in flames and of the carnage in Vukovar led the West to recognize Croatia’s
115
Ibid. 343-344.
47
independence, but if this was meant to stop the war in Yugoslavia, the West was in for a
surprise. Croatia’s independence put Bosnia before an impossible choice: independence
(which entailed war with the Serbs) or remaining part of the Yugoslav Federation (which
entailed submission to the Serbs), or as the former Bosnian president Aliya Izetbegović
put it, “a choice between leukemia and brain tumor.”117 Bosnia chose independence and
we all know the consequences of that. 200,000 plus killed or murdered, concentration
camps, rapes, tortures, ethnic cleansing and so forth. The International Community
proved unable to stop the wars, although they imposed sanctions on Serbia and even
intervened militarily. It was only in 1995, when the Bosnian Serbs were starting to lose
ground to the Muslim-Croat forces and after NATO had started to attack the Bosnian
Serb forces from the air that the three parties were forced to come to the negotiating
table.
Milošević played an important in the war, as well as in ending it. He had done
much to incite the violence, support the Bosnian Serbs and he also represented the
Serbian interests in the Dayton peace talks which brought the war to an end. The irony
was that Milošević emerged as a factor of peace in the Balkans while he was probably
more responsible than anyone else for starting the war.
While the rest of Yugoslavia was in flames, the situation in Kosovo remained
relatively quiet. There had been demonstrations until the spring of 1990, but after these
had stopped the province seemed strangely peaceful. It seemed as if the Albanians had
accepted the new situation which had turned Kosovo into nothing less than a Serbian
colony. Many people found this hard to understand, given the martial record of the
Albanians. The Serbs enforced a whole range of measures aimed at consolidating their
control of the province and making life hard for the Albanians. The police, the health
system and the media were put under Serb control, the University of Pristina was also
completely controlled by the Serbs and the Albanian pupils had to study under the same
education program as in Serbia. Most Albanians who held jobs in the public sector where
fired (up to 100,000) and there was continual police harassment. Albanians would be
116
Makthi Etnik i Jugosllavisë, ed. Jasminka Udovicki and James Ridgeway, trans. Arben Kallamata,
(Tirana: Albin 1998) 4. All subsequent quotations are to this edition.
48
called to appear for “informative talks” by the police and would then be beaten and
tortured, sometimes resulting in death.118
The authorities also took some measures aimed at changing the demographic
composition of Kosovo, such as banning the sale of Serbian houses and land to the
Albanians and as the wars in Croatia and Bosnia went on the authorities also started to
settle Serb refugees in Kosovo. To make a long story short, the Albanians had lost
everything they had gained in the previous five decades and the Serbs had effectively
enforced a colonial system in the province. So how can one explain this Albanian
passivity in the face of a brutal discrimination by the Serbs?
Well, there were practical reasons for this. The Albanians were simply not
prepared for a war. They did not have any weapons and in any case before the war begun
in Croatia, any war they might have started would have been a war against the mighty
Yugoslavia and would have not been supported by the International Community. But
there was also another more important reason: the Albanians had chosen peaceful
resistance as the way to achieve their aims. This was the merit of the Democratic League
of Kosovo and its leader, Ibrahim Rugova who is also known as the Gandhi of the
Balkans.
The League, known by its Albanian acronym LDK, was founded on December
1989.119 From the beginning the LDK decided that any armed resistance would have
been suicidal and that they stood a better chance of success if they presented the situation
to the world as one of aggression by a Communist regime and mainly a problem of
human rights violations. The LDK judged that Kosovo’s demography and Western
support would eventually force the Serbs out of Kosovo. They also realized that for as
long as the Belgrade regime treated Kosovo as a colony, the future of Serbia itself would
remain inextricably linked to the Kosovo issue: Serbia would never become a proper
democracy and it would never be fully accepted by the International Community as long
as the human rights violations in Kosovo continued. That is not to say that Rugova did
117
Ejub Stitkovac and Jasminka Udovicki, Bosnja dhe Herecegovina: Lufta e Dytë, Makthi Etnik i
Jugosllavisë, ed. Jasminka Udovicki and James Ridgeway, trans. Arben Kallamata, (Tirana: Albin 1998)
All subsequent quotations are from this edition. 170
118
Judah 84.
119
Ibid. 84.
49
not believe in peaceful resistance, because he did, but these were the arguments used to
convince the ordinary Albanians that starting a war would not have been in their interest.
At the same time the LDK needed to show the world that the Albanians had not
accepted the authority of the Serb regime and that the Albanians were ready for
independence. That is why the LDK begun setting up a parallel system of governance in
Kosovo. This system, financed by a voluntary tax on the earnings of Kosovo Albanians,
consisted of a parallel parliament, a government in exile, an education and health system.
The education and health systems were probably the most important achievements of the
LDK since both the public health and educational systems were completely controlled by
the Serbs. On the other hand, the LDK also tried to show to the world what was going on
in Kosovo and attract Western support. However, given the circumstances the LDK’s
experiment was bound to fail. The West never offered them anything more than moral
support. The position of the International Community on Kosovo was that it was an
integral part of Serbia, which meant that there was no support for the Albanians’ (and the
LDK’s) demand for independence.
In any case, in the first half of the 1990s the International Community had its
hands full in Bosnia and Croatia. They wrongly assumed that Kosovo would remain
peaceful indefinitely and that they could deal with any problems when they presented
themselves. It was partly for this reasons that the West completely ignored Kosovo
during the Dayton peace talks in 1995. This was a severe blow to the LDK and its policy
of peaceful resistance. Although Dayton was meant to bring to an end the war in Bosnia
and Croatia, the Albanians had hoped that there would have been some discussions on the
future of Kosovo as well. In the meantime the LDK had to face an ever growing
opposition from more radical groups in Kosovo who were calling for armed resistance.
The message these groups and most Kosovo Albanians got from Dayton was that only
brute force could achieve the Albanians’ aims and that as long as they remained peaceful
the world would do nothing to help them.120
Starting from 1996 an organization known as the Kosovo Liberation Army or
simply the KLA (known in Albanian by its acronym UÇK) started organizing small scale
attacks on the Serb authorities and police and Albanian collaborators. The news of the
120
Ibid. 125-126.
50
emergence of this organization caused confusion among the Albanians, Serbs as well as
the International Community, but in any case it was thought that the KLA could not do
more than organize a few terrorist type attacks. No one expected the situation to escalate
as quickly as it did. Neither did the KLA.
The KLA however was helped by the events that took place in 1997 in Albania
however, where the country fell into anarchy following the collapse of the financial
schemes where most Albanians had invested their savings. Beginning from March of
1997 the Albanian Army disintegrated and angry crowds looted hundreds of thousands of
weapons and tons of ammunition from the army depots. Large quantities of these found
their way to Kosovo, thus solving the KLA’s biggest problem: securing weapons in order
to carry out their war. By the spring of 1998 thanks in part to the heavy handed response
of the Serb police and armed forces to the KLA provocations the situation in Kosovo had
flared up into a fully fledged war thus finally drawing the attention of the International
Community on the situation in Kosovo. The irony of it all is that without the KLA (which
was in many respects a modern kaçak movement) and its use of violence instead of
politics, the situation in Kosovo would have probably remained the same as in the early
1990s.
Part of the KLA strategy from the beginning seems to have been to draw NATO
into the conflict. Most Western politicians and statesmen insisted that they would not
support the KLA’s goal of an independent Kosovo (let alone creating a Greater Albania,
which initially was the stated goal of the KLA). But the KLA had learned its lesson from
the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. When the war in Croatia broke out the Western countries
had insisted that the integrity of Yugoslavia had to be preserved, but they had eventually
changed their mind. Most of the KLA leadership believed that the West would probably
come to the same conclusion on Kosovo as well and if they did not, well, the KLA would
have to fight out to the end. The KLA had plans for a long drawn out war as well, but
51
they hoped that the brutal actions of the Serb forces would force the West to intervene in
order to stop the war.121 And the Serbs duly obliged the KLA.
A string of massacres which received a lot of publicity and media coverage in the
West forced the USA and the European Union countries to get ever more deeply involved
in the Kosovo conflict. With the experience of Bosnia in mind none of these countries
could afford to turn a blind eye to Kosovo. Furthermore, the Kosovo conflict carried with
it the potential of destabilizing Macedonia as well, which was the nightmare scenario for
the West. A conflict in Macedonia, which also has a large Albanian minority, could
potentially have drawn other Balkan countries and more significantly Greece and Turkey,
into the conflict. Negotiations and sanctions failed to find a solution. In the meantime the
KLA kept on provoking the Serb forces and the Serb forces kept on killing innocent
Albanian civilians, burning whole villages and expelling people from their houses.
The turning point came in January 1999 when 45 Albanian civilians were killed in
the village of Raçak. The Kosovo Verification Mission of the OSCE, whose competence
it was to observe and report on the human rights violations in Kosovo blamed the Serb
Army for the massacre.122 One month later, under intense international pressure, both the
Serbs and Albanians were forced to come to the negotiating table in Rambouille, in the
vicinity of Paris. The Conference of Rambouillet itself is beyond the scope of this paper,
but suffice it here to say that the Albanian delegation signed the agreement on the table,
while the Serb delegation refused. The Serb refusal then opened the way for NATO to
intervene and 78 days later the Albanians of Kosovo found themselves once more free of
Serbian rule and closer to realizing their goal of independence than at any other time in
their history.
For a detailed account of the rise of the KLA and its strategy look at Tim Judah’s Kosovo: War and
Revenge, (Yale Nota Bene, 2002).
122
Ibid. 193-194.
121
52
C
hapter 3
The previous chapters dealt with two decisive moments in the
modern history of Kosovo which, although similar in many respects, had
very different outcomes. The first moment was that of the conquest/liberation of Kosovo
by the Serbs during the First Balkan War, which sealed its destiny for the best part of the
20th century. The second dealt with another important moment in 1999, some 87 years
later, at the end of what has sometimes been called the Third Balkan War, when Kosovo
was once more liberated, this time from Serb rule or as the Serbs probably see it,
conquered from them. In both cases there was a conflict between the Serbs and Albanians
and intervention or interference from the International Community. In both cases the
conflict between the Serbs and Albanians was characterized by gross violations of human
rights, massacres, expulsions, torture, rape and so forth, as reported by the First
Commission on the Balkans founded by the Carnegie Endowment in the first moment,
and by the UN, the OSCE and the media in the second. In both cases these crimes were
mainly perpetrated by the Serb authorities and army who were in a much stronger
position than the Albanians (the differences were quantitative rather than qualitative in
nature) and yet the International Community responded in very different ways to these
conflicts. In the aftermath of the First Balkan War the crimes committed by the Serbs
hardly played a role in the decision - making of the Great Powers who recognized the
Serb claim on Kosovo while in 1999 the International Community intervened in favor of
the Albanians in order (among other things) to stop the Serbs from committing any more
crimes. So how can one account for these very different responses and outcome to what
is basically the same conflict? Not much has changed in the relations between the Serbs
and the Albanians that much is clear. That is why in order to find the answer to that
question one must look at the International Community, to their perceptions of the
conflict and the Balkans in both cases and to the rules or rather to the changes in the rules
of international politics that have taken place between 1912 and 1999.
The logical starting point for any analysis attempting to provide an explanation
for this must be the rivalry between the Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. After all it was
due to their conflict that the International Community became involved in Kosovo, which
53
otherwise would in all probability have remained a quiet backwater in a corner of the
Balkans. As shown in the previous chapters the rivalry between these two neighboring
people goes back a long way. Both Albanians and Serbs have claimed Kosovo as their
own since the late 19th century and the passage of time has not brought about a great
change to these claims. The Albanians claim it because, as the argument goes, they are
and have always been the majority in Kosovo and the Serbs claim it because of historical
and spiritual reasons. Kosovo was the heart of the medieval Serb Empire, it was the
centre of the Serb Orthodox Church and most importantly of all for the Serb nationalist
discourse it was the scene of the Battle of Kosovo. In their eyes the Albanians were
latecomers who profited from the misfortunes of the Serbs during the centuries of
Ottoman rule in order to gain the majority in Kosovo. Both people believe in their
respective claims and in the name of these beliefs, as well as for economical and social
reasons, they have time and again fought each other.
The dynamics of their conflict since 1912 have also been the same. The Albanians
would rebel against Serb rule and the Serbs would crack down on them heavy handedly.
The tactics used by the Serb Army in 1912 and those used by Slobodan Milošević in the
1990s were basically the same. The perception the Serbs and the Albanians of Kosovo
have of each other have also remained the same. Ethnic and religious differences have
reinforced the view that history has meant them to be enemies. There is a lot of hatred
between the two people and if there have been periods of peaceful coexistence these have
been imposed on them, as for instance during Tito’s rule when nationalism was harshly
suppressed. Nevertheless there are some changes as well.
During the conflict of 1998-99 the Albanians were dealing with a very different
Serbia than in 1912, when the Serb Kingdom had enjoyed the full support of Russia and
France, two of the Great Powers of the time. In 1998-99 on the other hand Serbia had
been weakened economically by years of fighting and sanctions imposed on it and more
importantly of all by that time Serbia had already become a pariah in the eyes of the
International Community because of the crimes committed in Croatia and Bosnia and
also because of these wars it was perceived as the main threat to the stability of the
Balkans. Even the Russians, Serbia’s traditional allies, were no longer able or willing to
offer Belgrade their unreserved support. It would have also been hard for the ordinary
54
Serbs in the 1990s to support Serb rule in Kosovo with the same zeal and enthusiasm they
had greeted Kosovo’s incorporation in Serbia in 1912 and the abrogation of its autonomy
in the late 1980s. By 1998 due to a number of factors, the Serbs although still very much
emotionally attached to Kosovo, had started to realize that the price they had to pay for
keeping Kosovo was probably too high. The demographic balance had radically shifted
in favor of the Albanians who made up some ninety percent of the population in the
province and try as they might the Serbs had proved powerless to change that in their
favor. Indeed there were fears, in my view unfounded that within a few decades there
would have been more Albanians than Serbs in the rump Yugoslavia.
During the 1990s it had also become clear that the future of Serbia itself was
inextricably linked to the Kosovo question. It just seemed impossible for Serbia to
become a proper democratic country and to be integrated in Europe for as long as the
problem of Kosovo had not been solved. It was because of these considerations that the
Serbs’ attitude on Kosovo begun to change by the late 1990s. Slowly the idea that
something had to change in Kosovo, for the better or the worst, started to win some
ground in Serbia. That is not to say that the Serbs supported the Albanians’ aim of
independence however, far from it. In fact so strong was the Serb attachment to Kosovo
that many ordinary Serbs seemed to have no qualms with Milošević’s policy of cracking
down on the KLA by killing civilians and burning whole villages and even his policy of
expelling the Albanians from Kosovo. In any case if the Belgrade regime and those who
supported such policies had hoped to solve the Kosovo problem in this way, they were
gravely mistaken.
The conflict in Kosovo came after years of war in Croatia and Bosnia which had
shocked the public opinion especially in the West with their brutality. The West still
nourished feelings of guilt for not being able to prevent or stop in time the wars in
Croatia and especially in Bosnia. That is why, by trying to solve the Kosovo problem by
force instead of negotiation, the Serb regime that had already been perceived as the
aggressor in the aforementioned wars, further undermined its own position and basically
turned Serbia into an outcast. This was exactly what the leadership of the Albanians of
Kosovo had hoped for.
55
It should be said that by 1998-99 important changes had taken place among the
Albanians of Kosovo as well. In 1912 the Albanians of Kosovo had suffered from the
lack of a political leadership. The leaders of the resistance to the Serb occupation during
the First Balkan War as well as in the period between the two world wars had been
military men or local lords who had never been able to present a united front to the Serbs
in Kosovo. Furthermore they had never been able to gain any significant support from
any of the Great Powers, whether because of their religion or because of they were
perceived as supporters of the Turks. In 1998-99 the situation was very different. During
the period when Kosovo had been autonomous, the Albanians had been able to create
their own national elite. The role of the University of Pristina in this development has
already been noted. It was this elite that was able to clearly formulate the aims of the
Albanians of Kosovo and provide them with an adequate political leadership after
Milošević took away Kosovo’s autonomy and reduced Kosovo to a mere Serbian colony.
This new leadership was mature enough to realize that the Albanians would not
stand a chance in an armed confrontation with the Serbs. They realized that the only way
for the Albanians to gain self-rule was by winning the support of the International
Community. The way in which they went about achieving this showed very clearly how
politically sophisticated the Albanians of Kosovo had become. The mere fact that the
LDK was led by Ibrahim Rugova, a Sorbonne educated professor of literature, was
enough to show how far the Albanians had come from the times when only the guns did
the talking. It was Rugova who formulated the policy that would bring the Kosovan
Albanians’ problem to the attention of the International Community. He correctly
understood the international situation at the time and realized that the best way to gain
support for the Albanian cause was by presenting the situation as one of human rights
violations by a chauvinistic, Communist regime. His policy of peaceful resistance, the
product of idealistic and pragmatic considerations, did indeed achieve much in this
respect. In the absence of a violent Albanian resistance the actions of the Belgrade
regime in the province appeared to be simply malicious and gave many political leaders
in the West the impression that Milošević had imposed an apartheid regime in Europe,
which was to some extent the case. As many Serbs have since complained, by falling into
this trap, the Milošević regime made sure that any complaints the Serbs had had about
56
discrimination and abuse at the hands of the Albanian authorities of the Autonomous
Province of Kosovo in the 1970s and 80s were completely forgotten.
In any case, for all the actions and claims of the Serbs and Albanians their success
or failure in Kosovo remained to a large degree dependent on the support or lack of
support by the International Community. In 1912 the Serb Kingdom had been able to
conquer/liberate Kosovo, but they still needed the support of Russia and France and the
approval of the other Great Powers in order for the conquest to be recognized. In the
same way, in 1998-99 the Albanians needed the support of the International Community
if they were to have any hope of success in Kosovo. That is why one must concentrate on
the International Community in order to explain the different outcomes to these two
moments in the history of Kosovo. And, as anyone who has even some basic knowledge
of history and of the Balkans knows the international politics and the importance of the
Balkans and Kosovo to the International Community have changed radically in the course
of the 20th century. The question is how these changes have affected Kosovo.
The recognition of the Serb conquest of Kosovo during the First Balkan War by
the Great Powers was one of the last episodes in a period of international relations which
stretched back to the beginning of the post-Napoleonic era in the early 19th century and
which would come to an end with the First World War in 1914. In the aftermath of the
Napoleonic Wars the Great Powers set up the so-called Concert of Europe whose main
aim was to maintain peace and security in Europe through the co-operation of the powers.
Any decisions or disagreements between the Great Powers were to be solved in concert
through negotiations and consultations. This would also be the way in which decisions
on possible territorial rearrangements would be made, by agreement between the powers
and not by applying the principle of nationality or ethnicity.123 When dealing with the
Balkans, and the Ottoman Empire in general for that matter (the so-called Eastern
Question) the Great Powers found it hard to come to terms with each other because of the
strategic importance of the region and also because the Balkans were the area in which
the interests of Russia and Austria-Hungary clashed directly.
123
Rich 31-38.
57
Russia, because of the sympathy it enjoyed among the Orthodox and Slavic
populations of the Balkans and because of its geographical location, was the country
better placed to take advantage of the weakness of the “Sick Man of Europe” but doing so
would undoubtedly have taken Russia into a collision course with the other Great Powers.
The Austrian-Hungarian Empire also saw the Balkans as a potential area for expansion,
but due to its internal weakness, the actions of the Dual Monarchy were confined mostly
to thwarting Russia’s attempts at increasing its dominance and influence in the Balkans.
In this the Austrians were for quite some time supported by Great Britain and France who
had gone to war against Russia in Crimea in order to prevent the destruction of the
Ottoman Empire, and by Germany who saw in Austria its only reliable ally. Faced with
such strong opposition to their expansionist plans the Russians resorted to controlling the
Balkans by proxy. In this the Russians were greatly helped by the situation that reigned
in the Balkans.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries the Balkans had witnessed the emergence
of independent states with radical expansionist nationalist ideologies who also entertained
their own ambitions of expanding at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. Both Russia
and to a lesser extent Austria resorted to supporting these emerging Balkan powers in
order to further their own influence. By the end of the 19th century the Serbs were
probably Russia’s main ally in the region and the Serb expansion in the Balkans was
viewed by the Tsarist Empire as a way of increasing its own influence in the area, to the
detriment of the Austrians. Seen in this light the recognition of the Serb claim to Kosovo
and its subsequent annexation does not seem as strange any more. The Serb Kingdom
was a much greater and consolidated power than the Albanians and, also because of this
they enjoyed more Great Power support than the Albanians did. Another factor that
helped the Serbs was the recognition by the Powers of the right of conquest which was
one of the main pillars of the international system of the time. The Serb had emerged
victorious from the First Balkan War and this fact had to be taken into account by the
Great Powers.
Furthermore, by 1912-13 even Great Britain had come to see the Central Powers
(Germany and Austria) and not Russia as the greatest threat to European security.124 The
124
Ibid. 446-448.
58
creation of a strong Serbian state on the southern boarders of the Central Powers, as the
argument went, was just a way of checking their power. But even Austria and Italy, the
two powers that had more to lose from a Slavic expansion in the Balkans were mainly
concerned with the littoral of the Adriatic Sea and not so much with the hinterland of the
Balkans. The Austrians and Italians were able to obtain an independent Albania (Albania
was at the time referred to as the child of Austrian diplomacy with Italy acting as the
midwife) and thus prevent Serbia from securing an outlet in the Adriatic. As for Kosovo,
well you win some and you lose some.
It was in this way that Kosovo came to be a part of Serbia. The Albanians have
long seen the decision of the London Conference of Ambassadors as one of the greatest
injustices ever done to any people. This was also the reason why most ordinary Albanians
saw the NATO intervention of 1999 as nothing more than the rectification of an historical
injustice suffered by them in 1912-1913. Had they paid any attention to the dynamic of
the events that resulted in the intervention however, they would have realized that the
rectification of historical injustices was the last thing on the minds of the Western
statesmen responsible for the intervention, far from it. If there was one thing the West
tried to prevent in the Balkans, it was the change of the boarders established in the
aftermath of the First Balkan War and the First World War. This, they feared, given the
situation in the Balkans, where every country and ethnic group nourishes dreams of being
“greater” would open a Pandora’s box and greatly threaten the security of the whole
region. But intervene they did and although none of the powers of the International
Community supported the Albanians’ aim of an independent Kosovo, they must have
realized that if the Serb army and police left Kosovo as a result of the intervention, there
would probably be no going back, at least not as far as the Albanians were concerned. So
how can one explain this apparent contradiction between the insistence of the West to
prevent the change of boarders in the Balkans on the one hand and the intervention which
basically made sure that there would be a change of boarders on the other?
Once again one must look at the overall situation in the international relations in
the 1990s and the general situation in the Balkans. The conflict in Kosovo came after
years of wars in the former Yugoslavia that the International Community, or to be more
precise the West, had proved unable to prevent. As has previously been mentioned,
59
because of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, the Serbs had already been stigmatized as the
aggressors, thus making it easier for the West to identify more with the Albanians who,
also because of the leadership of Rugova and his pacifist resistance, were seen as a
people suffering under the oppression of what was perceived as the last Communist
bastion in Europe (besides Byelorussia).
On the one hand, because of the Communist character of the Serb regime and
because of Serbia’s traditional ties to Russia, one can say that the actions of the West (led
by the USA) were motivated by geo-political considerations. The Cold War might have
been over, but it was not so easily forgotten. The USA and the West in general, as the
victors of that war were simply trying to press home their advantage and remove the last
vestiges of Communism from Europe. Furthermore, by weakening Milošević and Serbia
the West was also diminishing Russian influence as such in the Balkans. Milošević’s
relations with Boris Yeltsin (the president of the Russian Federation at the time of the
intervention) might not have been good, but Russia did nevertheless see what was left of
Yugoslavia as its only remaining partner in a region that had traditionally occupied an
important place in Russia’s geo-political considerations. With the benefit of hindsight,
given the role of the West, especially the USA in the revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine,
one can safely assume that the aforementioned geo-political considerations did play a role
in the decision-making of the Western statesmen. In other words, what had happened
was that the positions of the Serbs and Albanians of Kosovo vis-à-vis the Great Powers
had been reversed. If in 1912-1919 as well as during the Second World War, the
Albanians had chosen their allies on the loosing side (Turkey, Germany, Austria), in the
1990s it was the Serbs who chose the wrong allies (although if one were to judge the
worth of one’s allies by the help they provide, especially in times of war, one can say that
Milošević and Serbia had no allies at all).
Another consideration that weighed heavily in the minds of Western leaders and
that undoubtedly did play a part in bringing about the air-strikes, related to Western fears
that if the conflict in Kosovo was allowed to escalate, it had the potential to destabilize
the whole region. First of all Albania proper was just emerging from a long period of
total chaos following the rebellion of 1997. In September of 1998 there was a coup
attempt in Tirana led by the ousted Albanian president which was also supported by
60
Kosovan Albanians, which as rumors in Tirana had it at the time, were loyal to the
Kosovan Albanian prime minister in exile. This was probably seen as the first signal that
Western fears of a much larger conflagration in the Balkans were being proven true.
Furthermore if the war in Kosovo dragged on, the considerable Albanian minority in
Macedonia (a quarter to a third of the population) who nourished its own grievances
would sooner or later join their Kosovan brethren in their fight. KLA statements,
claiming that the KLA was fighting for the unification of all Albanian lands did nothing
to diminish these fears. The threat emanating from Macedonia was taken very seriously
indeed. Parts of Macedonia had long been claimed by Serbia, Albania, Greece and
Bulgaria and it was thought that all these countries would in one form or another
intervene if there was a war in Macedonia, but more importantly there were fears that
Turkey would not have simply stood by in case of a Greek intervention in Macedonia.
Thus the Kosovo conflict could conceivably have caused a Balkan war on a much greater
scale than the wars in the former Yugoslavia as well as a war between two NATO
member countries125. These fears and the aforementioned geo-political considerations
did undoubtedly influence the West into taking a more active role in Kosovo.
For all the fears and geo-political considerations of the West however it would
have been hard for NATO to go to war only on these grounds. Such an action would
simply have been unacceptable and illegal. After all the UN Charter guarantees the
inviolability of boarders of the UN’s member states as long as these states do not engage
in an aggressive war or as long as they do not directly threaten the security of other
countries. Kosovo, for all its destabilizing potential was simply an internal matter of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and according to the UN Charter as long as Yugoslavia
did not attack another country no one had the right to intervene, at least not without
receiving the blessing of the UN Security Council. The sanctity of the sovereignty of
states has been the main organizing principle of the international law system since the
times of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, but in the 1990s this doctrine was being
challenged by what has sometimes been called the “internationalization of Human
Rights.”
James A. Baker, “Flashpoint in the Balkans: Drawing the Line in Macedonia”, Los Angeles Times,
30/04/1995. <http://www.hri.org/news/forpapers/95-04-30.frp>.
125
61
The doctrine of human rights has played a significant role in the course of the 19 th
and 20th centuries. Many of the struggles and wars fought during these centuries were
fought in the name of such rights (one has but to remember the anti-colonialism wars of
the 1950, 70s and 80s) and they have steadily gained in importance as illustrated by the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the UN in 1948 and a host of other
declarations and conventions.126 For most of this time (before and after the foundation of
the UN) however the way in which a government treated its subject populations was
considered a matter of sovereign domestic jurisdiction and the International Community
and individual states were considered to be under international legal obligations not to
intervene in such matters. The role of the UN for instance consisted in setting the
standards for the member countries to follow.127 Human rights were not considered as a
subject of legitimate international concern. Seen in this light it becomes clearer why the
Great Powers of 1912-13 did not even take into account the crimes of the Serbs in
Kosovo when they made the decision on the future of the province.
In the aftermath of the Second World War however human rights gradually
became more important at an international level (because of the crimes committed by the
Nazis it became clear that something had to change) and from then on there has been a
gradual shift in focus from standard setting toward implementation, but unfortunately the
International Community still does not have the legal instruments for enforcing these
rights, with the exception of those cases when a government in engaged in genocide. The
main obstacle standing in the way of universal implementation was of course
sovereignty, and the rights which flow forth from this concept.
In the post-Cold War international system however, there has been a more
determined effort aimed at limiting the power of sovereign states in cases of severe
human rights abuses. In other words there should be limits to what a government can do
to the population or populations living within their territory without facing the risk of
international intervention or interference. The increasing importance of human rights in
international politics was clearly shown by the efforts to create an International Criminal
Court, for instance. The creation of the court clearly illustrates another important aspect
126
Jack Donnelly, What Are Human Rights, 21 March, 2006.
<http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/hrintro/donnelly>.
62
of the human rights doctrine: governments can be held accountable for abusing the
human rights of their subjects.
The two doctrines, sovereignty and human rights, were bound to clash. After all
sovereignty can provide oppressive regimes of all sorts with a guarantee that they will be
allowed to carry on massacres and ethnic cleansing with impunity as long as they do not
attack another country. All that the International Community can legally do is negotiate
and try to convince such regimes through economic incentives or the threat and
imposition of sanctions to change their ways. I cannot, however, think of many instances
when this has happened. And in any case, as far as Kosovo was concerned, by 1999 it had
become sufficiently clear that Milošević had turned the negotiations into a parody and
that he had never really respected any agreement on Kosovo. Intervention was the only
choice left to the West.
Critics of the intervention have long argued that such action on the part of NATO
was bound to destabilize the entire foundation of the international system. After all if
NATO reserved itself the right to intervene, who was to stop China, Russia or any other
alliance from undertaking interventions of their own? There is validity to these arguments
of course, but at the same time this criticism begs the question: what was then to be done?
The Security Council would certainly have vetoed any attempts at bombing Yugoslavia.
For two of the permanent members of the Council, Russia and China, such action would
have been unthinkable. Human rights and humanitarian intervention in their eyes were
but a new Western ploy aimed at expanding Western influence and furthermore both
countries, because of internal reasons of their own (Chechnya, Tibet, Taiwan) were
bound to oppose an intervention (which could result in secession) that could set a
dangerous precedent for them. According to some scholars the West should have done
nothing, and supposedly this would have been much better than intervening.128 I agree
that when one judges things from the comfortable detachment of his office, this might
127
Ibid.
63
indeed seem like the best solution, but I do not think that the victims (in this case the
Albanians of Kosovo) whom the intervention was trying to save see things in this light.
And in any case, for the West though the intervention was perfectly legitimate, although
it was not sanctioned by the Security Council. It derived its legitimacy from the West’s
“common post-modern moral values.”129 As Fisher, the German foreign minister at the
time put it, “in this case history and morality trumped traditional principles of state
sovereignty and nonintervention.130
Two words in Fisher’s statement provide the key to understanding what were in
my view, the most significant reasons for the intervention: history and morality. Both
allude to the Second World War and the Europe that rose from its ashes. It was a Europe
that had repudiated wars of territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing. Europe was badly
discredited by its inability to stop the Bosnian War which was a war of expansion and
ethnic cleansing. It could simply not afford to do the same in Kosovo.
With the end of the Cold War the USA had also become much more active in the
promotion of human rights throughout the world. Indeed one could say that the
promotion of human rights had become one of the pillars of American foreign policy.
True, the Americans had often supported undemocratic and criminal regimes (and
unfortunately they still do, as for instance in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc) during the Cold
War when the USA’s main preoccupation was to contain the Soviet Union. It was
because of this legacy that the American claims that the intervention in Kosovo was
aimed at bringing to an end the human rights abuses of the Belgrade regime sounded
hypocritical to many. But with the end of the Cold War, the sole remaining superpower,
could allow itself the luxury of promoting human rights for the sake of human rights. As
one author put it: the tradeoffs between security and ethics became less stark, and a moral
foreign policy seemed more affordable.”131
Western claims that the war against Yugoslavia was being fought in the name of
human rights were in fact hard to believe for many people. Instead many have pointed out
For a detailed account of this view look at Noam Comsky’s “Nato Master of the World”, Le Monde
Diplomatique, 02 May 1999. <http://mondediplo.com/1999/05/02chomsky>.
129
Robert Kagan, “Renewing US Legitimacy”, Foreign Affairs, March/APRIL 2004. 75. All subsequent
quotations are from this edition.
130
Kagan 74.
128
64
to the geo-political interests of the West as the main casus belli. The Western claims of
intervening on humanitarian grounds, the argument went, were simply a façade behind
which hid the real, geo-political interests the Western powers had in the region. This is a
view shared by many in Serbia as well as in the rest of the world. After all wars have
traditionally been fought for territorial expansion or the expansion of influence, for geopolitical interests, for the domination of trade routes, markets and resources and as the
argument goes the attack on Yugoslavia was no different. I do agree that this was indeed
the case in the first moment in the history of Kosovo this paper deals with, but when it
comes to the intervention of 1999 I have reason to believe that such arguments belong to
the realm of conspiracy theories.
By the end of the 20th century and especially with the end of the Cold War
Yugoslavia lost most of its value to the West. Furthermore Kosovo does not have oil, it
does not control any important trade routes and it was not an important market by any
standards. As for diminishing Russian influence in the Balkans, even if the West had not
moved a finger the Milošević regime could not have survived much longer and the Serbs
now days are more EU than Russian oriented. In fact it can be said that NATO’s
intervention granted the Milošević regime a new lease on life. Of all the consideration
and alleged motivations for going to war against Yugoslavia, besides the humanitarian
ones, only the fears of the Kosovo conflict expanding beyond the boarders of Yugoslavia
seem credible. Critics have often pointed out to Chechnya or Rwanda or a host of other
conflicts and the West’s failure to intervene as proof that the West had some hidden
agenda fore intervening in Kosovo. I respectfully disagree. Intervening in Chechnya
would have been simply too costly and carried with it the risk of a Third World War.
Rwanda on the other hand, was of no strategic importance whatsoever, but furthermore it
would have been hard for the West to intervene in any case. NATO had something to
bomb in Yugoslavia and the Serbs had a lot to lose. Not so in Rwanda. Furthermore an
intervention in Rwanda would have required ground forces something neither the
Europeans nor the Americans were willing to do. The war against Yugoslavia was
fought from 5000 meters high in the air hence the risks, and the costs, were minimal.
Leslie Gelb and Justine Rosenthal, “Morality and Foreign Policy”, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2003. 4.
All subsequent quotations are from this edition.
131
65
And one must always keep in mind that the credibility of the West and NATO, as well as
NATO’s future, were at stake. Had Milošević been allowed to stick to his policies, in
defiance of Western pressure (and in light of repeated threats of NATO intervention), the
West’s and especially NATO’s reputation and standing would have received a blow from
which it would have been hard to recover. The combination of all these factors provided
the West with enough reasons for intervening; indeed it made intervention a must.
And last, but not least one must not forget the media and the public opinion which
played a greater role in this war then ever before in history. Public opinion had had some
limited influence in the foreign policy of the Great Powers as well, as for instance in
Russia (to support the Slavic and Orthodox people under Ottoman rule). But in these
cases the demands of the public mostly coincided with the ambitions of the Great Powers
as well. In 1999 the Western public pressured the politicians to intervene simply because
it was the right thing to do. The images of burning towns and villages, of crowds of
refugees and dead people lying in the streets were brought directly into the houses of
ordinary people in the West who thought of wars of this kind as something of the past.
Nothing illustrates better the increasing political dimension the media had assumed, than
this change of heart in the Western public, which had traditionally, as a rule, been
opposed to wars of any kind. And it was due to this, the so-called “CNN effect” that the
public in most Western countries increased pressure on their respective governments to
stop the bloodshed, if necessary by going to war.
66
C
onclusion
In the course of this paper I have looked at what are probably the two
most significant moments in the modern history of Kosovo and the role
played by the International Community in them. My goal was to analyze and compare
these two moments and find out the reason or reasons for their different outcomes. The
first was the conquest and annexation of Kosovo by Serbia which marked the beginning
of a troubled historical period for the Albanians and determined Kosovo’s history for the
best part of the 20th century. The second moment, following the intervention of NATO,
brought that period to an end and most probably marked the realization of the dream of
the Kosovan Albanians for an independent Kosovo to the detriment of the Serb cause. I
say probably, because even now days Kosovo continues to face a host of problems which
make the achievement of independence and the success of Kosovo as an independent
country far from certain. The dynamics of the inter-ethnic relations in the province have
not changed much. In fact the enmity between the Albanians and the Serbs continues
unabated, as shown during the March 2004 riots and the dire economic and social
situation that reigns in the province has only served to heighten the tensions. The
politicians on both sides have not helped improve the situation either. In many ways the
relations between the two people continue to be characterized by the same tensions as
during most of the 20th century and it is the presence of the International Community that
has kept the region from reverting to a crisis once more. But the UN and KFOR, with
whom the real power rests in Kosovo have also proved unable to significantly improve
the situation in the province. In fact there is a feeling among the Albanians that the
international administration has outstayed its welcome and it has become the main
obstacle the Albanians face on their road to independence.
The Serbs, who never
welcomed the “Internationals” as they are called in Kosovo, have by now come to see
them as the best guarantee of a safe life. To cut a long story short, things in Kosovo have
not turned out the way many people expected.
In any case, for all the criticism that can be leveled at the International
Community, their intervention in Kosovo in 1999 has also greatly improved the situation
in the region. In fact this (and Bosnia) was probably the first instance in the history of the
67
Balkans when the International Community has through its actions helped the people of
the region improve their lives and leave behind the legacy of ethnic hatreds and wars.
This becomes even more apparent if we compare the two moments in question. In the
19th and early 20th century the involvement of the Great Powers in Kosovo and in the
Balkans in general was a reflection of the rivalries and ambitions of these powers. The
Balkan countries and people and their rivalries were simply used, in true Realpolitik
fashion, to further the projects of the Great Powers themselves without any consideration
for the fate of the people of the region who were in any case dismissed as barbarians.
The involvement of the Great Powers at the time only aggravated the already tense
situation which existed in the Balkans and Kosovo because of the rise of nationalism and
the disintegration of empires thus turning the Balkans into the proverbial powder keg.
The intervention of 1999 also took place in a similar context as far as the Balkans
or at least the so-called Western Balkans, were concerned. Once again nationalism had
emerged as the main mobilizing power and once again there was an empire, Yugoslavia,
in the process of disintegration. Had the US, the only Great Power after the Cold War,
and the West reacted to the situation in the same way as the Powers had done in the 19th
and early 20th centuries the wars would in all probability have continued and spread
throughout the region.
But the intervention of 1999 in Kosovo (as well as the
intervention in Bosnia in 1995) was motivated more by what I would call Moralpolitik
than Realpolitik and the different outcomes are there for all to see. The Balkans are now
much more stable than they had been in years and one can say that the process of statebuilding and of the disintegration of empires that have caused so much suffering in the
region during the last two centuries is finally coming to an end. The countries of the
Western Balkans have started the slow process of rebuilding their economies and with the
prospect of EU membership within reach, these countries are now devoting most of their
energies to matters other than claims of boarder change and wars of expansion. The
human rights situation, although much remains to be done, has also greatly improved. In
this respect the intervention achieved its goals. And yet, unfortunately, it seems that the
Kosovo intervention, the first war fought in the name of human rights and morality, is
likely to remain an isolated case rather than set a precedent in international politics.
68
As has previously been mentioned the intervention in Kosovo was made possible
because of a very specific combination of factors. First of all there was the end of the
Cold War and the changes that that entailed. One of the most important changes relates to
the post Cold War balance of power or rather to the lack of it. In 1913 as well as in the
19th century, the balance of power had been at the heart of European peace and security.
The decision on Kosovo as well as on any other matters involving the interests of the
Great Powers was taken in concert. Thus in 1913 Austria and to some extent Italy
supported the Albanian claim, but in the end had to compromise with the other Great
Powers. Unilateral actions against Serbia would have had unforeseeable consequences.
And indeed the Austrian declaration of war on Serbia marked the beginning of the First
World War.
In 1999 however, with the decline and partial disintegration of Russia and its
dependence on Western aid for its economical survival, there was no balance of power to
speak of. The Russians were simply in no position to offer any effective support to Serbia
or intervene in the Balkans, let alone threaten the USA and the West with war. For the
first time in history there was an unipolar system with the US at the top which meant that
the US and by extension the West had much more freedom of action than in 1913.
Furthermore, during the intervention in Kosovo, the West was united which is not
the case today. By providing most of the military muscle and leadership during the
bombardments the US was doing the EU a favor, so to speak, as well as affirming its role
as the leader of the free world and the morality of its foreign policy. It would be hard for
the Western countries to show the same degree of cohesion and unity now days. The
divergences between the USA, Britain and some of the new NATO member countries on
the one hand and France and Germany on the other became clear for all to see in the
prelude to the Second Gulf War. Many European and NATO countries resent what they
see as American arrogance and would like the EU to have a more independent foreign
policy, whose aims, goals and instruments might not always agree with those of the US.
This has been emphasized even more strongly in the EU and USA’s dealings with Iran,
where the EU prefers the use of the so-called soft power while the US is taking the hard
line. Without at least the support of the EU, the USA would find it exceedingly difficult
to intervene however just the cause and such an intervention would lack even the limited
69
moral legitimacy of a concerted Western intervention. The EU on the other hand is
simply not able to intervene without US support and if the two main democratic powers
in the world are not able or willing to intervene, than who? Well, certainly not Russia or
China.
The Iraq War and the US War on Terrorism has harmed the cause of humanitarian
interventions in other ways too. First of all there is the loss of credibility of the USA and
certain EU and NATO countries, especially Britain. The fact that there were no weapons
of mass destruction to be found in Iraq led many to believe that the US and its Coalition
of the Willing was engaged in a war of aggression, motivated mainly by the desire to
secure Iraq’s oil. It would be easier for any governments guilty of ethnic cleansing or
crimes against humanity under threat of Western intervention to present their case as that
of a small country being bullied by the superpower. Furthermore the issues of prisoner of
war rights (Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib) and alleged torture of terrorist suspects by US
personnel have undermined the position of the US as a “beacon of democracy”
and make its claims of supporting intervention as an instrument for the promotion of
human rights seem more as a pretext for aggression. In other words, in case of an
unilateral intervention the West or NATO or the US would be accused of behaving much
in the same way as the Great Powers of pre-World War One Europe. Such criticism was
leveled at the West even during the intervention Kosovo where the interests at stake were
minimal. One can only wonder how an intervention in Sudan would be perceived for
instance; oil and anti-Islamic are but two of the words that spring to mind. In any case
even without such a loss of credibility, given the US’s failure at nation-building in Iraq
and the high human and material costs of that ongoing operation, it is doubtful whether
any Western power would be willing to undertake such an enterprise again. After all,
once the bombs stop falling, the rebuilding must start and that is where things start to go
wrong. The West has proved successful in winning the war, but not in the nationbuilding which must follow, as shown in Kosovo as well.
Even without the Iraq war however, the US and the EU would find it hard to
intervene now days. First of all the War on Terrorism has diverted their priorities (this is
especially true in the case of the US) from humanitarian interventions. Supporting
regimes whose survival depends on the oppression of Islamic radicalism, such as Egypt,
70
overrides any concerns the US might have for human rights. In other words the US can
no longer afford the luxury of a moral foreign policy to the extent it was able to do in
Kosovo. Furthermore there are clear signs that a new balance of power is emerging and
that the international system of the 21st century will in all probability be similar to that of
the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The US remains the sole superpower, economically and militarily, but its relative
power is declining. Countries such as China cannot simply be ignored any longer and any
unilateral actions on the part of the West (if one can still see the West as one block) are
bound to have a much higher political cost than in 1999. The emergence of other Great
Powers, such as China, India or Brazil and the re-emergence of Russia which was also in
a process of disintegration during the wars in Yugoslavia, would basically make such
actions impossible because of the risks they carry. The future Great Powers would
probably once again see the balance of power as the best way of guaranteeing their
security and would be forced to revert to the same old Realpolitik considerations.
Maintaining the balance would once again become the main concern, overriding all
others. And given Russia’s and China’s record on human rights and their own problems
with oppressed minorities it is doubtful whether any of them would ever agree to a
humanitarian intervention.
It is for all of the reasons mentioned above that I believe the intervention in
Kosovo was an exception, a freak of history so to say. But in any case, even if military
intervention is ruled out, human rights will still occupy a much more important place in
international relations than before. The international system is now days still in a period
of transition and the rules governing the future system have not yet been established, but
although military intervention is probably to be ruled out there are other ways of
pressuring or inducing governments into respecting the rights and guaranteeing the well
being of all their citizens, such as sanctions for instance. These may not be as effective
as military interventions, but they have thus far been successful in bringing down
authoritarian regimes in a number of countries such as Georgia and Ukraine and their
peaceful revolutions and in Turkey where the situation of the Kurds has greatly improved
as a result of pressure from the EU. Furthermore the arrests of several political and
military leaders in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, as well as the arrest of General
71
Pinochet in the UK some years ago and his ongoing trials in Chile, have clearly shown
that leaders who commit severe abuses of human rights can no longer do so with absolute
impunity. True that may seem like a distant prospect to someone in power, but the threat
is there. The important thing in any case is that because of the public opinion and the
pressure it exercises on the politicians, because of the UN and the hundreds of NGOs
who monitor human rights all over the world, human rights will continue to play an
important role in international relations, basically ruling out a return to the system of the
19th and early 20th centuries where the Great Powers dealt with territories and populations
as if they were currency without any regard for the human costs of their actions.
72
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75