The Agony of Kosovo

The agony of Kosovo, Serbia’s ill-omened province, is recorded in the pages of history. Over the centuries, Kosovo was transformed from an ethnically homogeneous center of the Serbian medieval empire to an embattled region populated predominantly by ethnic Albanians demanding independence. To appreciate the position of the Serbs, imagine Hispanics controlling large areas of Texas or California and demanding independence, while at the same time engaging in guerrilla actions against local police and state officials. To understand how the Kosovo situation evolved, we must turn to history.

Although the largest state in the Balkans for over 100 years, Serbia left a legacy which is known mainly to the historians. Art historians have written volumes about its Christian monuments, mainly the many churches and monasteries with their impressive frescos. Two of the monasteries (Sopocani and Studenica) have been declared “World Art Treasures.”

Medieval Serbia was a part of the international community, actively involved in matters of political, military, and cultural importance. Serbian royal courts communicated on levels of respect and honor with Venetian Doges, Hungarian Kings, Bulgarian Tsars, and Byzantine Emperors. Unlike many of these, however, Serbian emperors did not build fortresses or ostentatious castles and palaces in which to enjoy the fruits of this world. But all of them felt duty-bound to build at least one church or monastery. Some built many. Pre- World War I archeological findings show that as of 1912, some 1300 monasteries, churches, and other Serbian monuments existed in Kosovo and Metohija (after a Greek word signifying monastery property). In the domestic political sphere, medieval Serbia’s outstanding achievement is Tsar Dusan’s Code of Laws, studiously prepared over a period of about six years (1349-1354). It is among the leading law systems of the world. Defeated by the Ottoman Turks in the famous Battle of Kosovo in 1389, Serbia soon thereafter fell under Turkish colonial rule, and remained so until its resurrection in the 19th century.

In Serbia’s heyday, the Serbs and the few Albanians among them lived in harmony under similar conditions and patterns of life. In those days, the Albanians were mainly Christian. In the centuries after the defeat at Kosovo, and even while Albanians were converting to Islam, it was still not unusual for Albanians to visit Serbs on religious holidays and to bring a sick child to a Serbian church for prayers. As they became surrogates of the Turks and enjoyed increased advantages, however, they became more violent toward the Serbs. This was especially true in the 18th and 19th centuries. The 19th-century reports of French, Russian, Austrian, and Serbian consuls in the Kosovo area contain graphic accounts of atrocities committed by the Albanians.

The Serbs look upon the 415 years of foreign subjugation, from the Battle of Kosovo to the First Serbian Uprising in 1804, as a dark age. That period reveals a story of a people subdued by and subject to two mighty empires, the Ottoman and the Habsburg. It is a story of hardship and sacrifice, fortitude, and patience, in which a proud people endured foreign rule and ultimately re-emerged as a free nation.

Among the factors that shaped the Serbs’ future were the Serbian Orthodox Church, mass emigrations (usually led by its patriarchs), the epic poetry that gave Serbs a sense of their history in an era in which literacy and written records were rare, the existence of an autonomous Serbian nation in Montenegro led by its warrior prince-bishop, and service in the military of several countries (Turkey, Austria, Russia) which was to prove invaluable when the time for armed uprising arrived. (It should be noted that Serbs fought for the United States in its first foreign war. In the Barbary wars of 1805, 12 Marines and a mixed company of Serbs and Greeks, commanded by Serbian Captain Luka Ulovic, took the Libyan fortress town of Derna.)

An analysis of early Turkish census records shows that the ethnic picture in Kosovo and Metohija did not change much in the 14th and 15th centuries. But toward the end of the 17th century and in the first half of the 18th, conditions for the Serbs became much worse, as more Albanian tribes were pushed by the Turks to move into Kosovo. In two migrations (I690-I691 and 1736-1739), over 200,000 Serbs, led by Patriarchs Arsenije III and Arsenije IV, settled in lands on the frontier (the famous Krajina) given them by the Austrians in return for their help against the Ottoman Turks. The situation became still worse after the Turks abolished the Serbian Patriarchate in 1766. In the following decades, the number of Albanians converting to Islam grew, and the Serb populations diminished further. In a pre-World War I publication, Serbian historian Jovan Cvijic estimated that between 1876 and 1912 about 150,000 Serbs were forced to leave Kosovo.

In the Balkan War of 1912, with most Albanians fighting on the side of the Turks, the Serbian army liberated Kosovo, but following the German onslaught in World War I, the Serbian forces and government in 1915 fled across the mountains of Albania to the Greek island of Corfu. From there they were to return to the homeland via the Salonika front as the final year of the war was coming to a close, which also saw the formation of the new Yugoslav state in December I9I8.

In the years before World War II, Kosovo received benign neglect, although there was some agrarian reform, mainly in the transfer of Turkish land to Albanians and Serbs. The problems facing the new national government-Croatian resistance and the devastating economic conditions resulting from the war—commanded much higher priorities than backward Kosovo.

In the summer of 1939, I visited my Uncle Peter and his wife in Kosovo (actually Metohija), where along with other war veterans he had been given land, which had to be cleared before it was arable. He told me that he did not have any difficulties with the local Albanians, some of whom I saw moving along the roads, often riding or leading donkeys. I did not see any military or police presence, although I knew that in the first years of the new state force was employed to suppress outiaws who were challenging its authority.

Uncle Peter was highly regarded and for about ten years was the village elder of an area that was populated by an equal number of Albanians and Serbs. A few days after the capitulation of Yugoslavia in 1941, an Albanian neighbor brought him a gun and 50 rounds of ammunition and said, “Peter, bad times have come, and it is possible that some bad man might come and attempt to kill you, so I brought you a gun and cartridges. If someone should come, give us a sign and we will come to defend you.” He decided not to wait around, and took 40 sheep, two horses, and wagon with half a ton of wheat to his old home in Montenegro.

When he arrived in his old village, he was made a member of the National Liberation Committee, the beginning of guerrilla action against the Axis. At that time there was not yet a Chetnik-Partisan split. At a meeting of the committee in April 1942, he posed a question about the disappearance of the former president of the regional village, who allegedly had been killed and his body thrown in a pit. The president of the committee answered that the rumor was not true, simply disinformation spread by “our enemies.” Later it was determined that the allegations were indeed hue.

On his way home, Peter was accompanied by a close relative (at that time a member of the Communist Party) of the slain man, who told Peter that he had disgraced himself with the question he posed, and had soiled the great reputation that he had enjoyed among them. In addition, he told Peter that if he had been the presiding officer, he would have killed him on the spot. Soon some of Peter’s close relatives, themselves Partisans, warned him that he was in grave danger of being killed, and that they could not help because they were not always with him.

Consequently, he fled to the nearby city of Niksic, where the Chetniks were in control. He was never in Chetnik military units but was with them throughout the civil war, and even in their withdrawal as far as Slovenia, where the Partisans captured them. No charges were ever filed against him, and he was taken back to his village in Metohija, where he rejoined his wife (she had stayed behind and had not been disturbed). After his flight to Niksic, his wagon and horses had been confiscated by the communist Partisans in Montenegro.

While I worked for the American Embassy in Belgrade (1947-1950), Uncle Peter came to see me, and my wife and I visited him in 1949. On one occasion, he told me how the communist regime had confiscated all of their guns. I asked him if the Albanians had turned in their guns. He said, yes, they had each turned in a gun—out of the nine or ten that each one of them possessed.

With the beginning of the war, Italian forces came to Albania and subsequently to Kosovo to help establish a Greater Albania. Bulgarian forces claimed parts of Kosovo and Macedonia. The result: from 1941-1945, between 70,000 and 100,000 Serbs were forced to flee, and about 10,000 were killed. Serbian Orthodox churches were plundered or destroyed. Cemeteries were desecrated. Schools were burned. After Italy collapsed, Nazi troops took over in Kosovo, and the number of anti-Serb acts increased. After the war, Tito’s communist dictatorship forbade the return of the Serbs who had fled or been expelled.

In his attempt to seize power, Tito and his communist comrades sought the help of the Kosovo Albanians, promising them self-determination. The latter, although providing almost no help, interpreted the promise to include the right to secede. Whatever he had promised, Tito would not grant secession, but sought to mollify the Kosovo Albanians by providing for autonomy within the republic of Serbia. What began as the “Autonomous Kosovo-Metohija Region” (1947) became the “Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija” (1963), only formally linked to Serbia (through amendments in 1968-1971 and the 1974 constitution). This was not a mere academic exercise in semantics, for under Yugoslav conditions it meant ascending from a faceless geographic entity to a “constituent element of the federation.” In communist jargon, Kosovo and Metohija were referred to as Kosmet.

In all but name, the 1974 constitution made Kosovo a separate republic (a republic within a republic). This incongruous situation enabled the autonomous province to veto proposed legislation in the Serbian parliament that had nothing to do with Kosovo or Vojvodina, the other autonomous province where Serbs were in a majority. Moreover, the Serbs in Kosovo could not invoke the minority rights provisions of the constitution. Ethnic groups that had their own republic were by definition not minorities, and hence could not invoke those provisions even if they should find themselves minorities, as the Serbs did in Kosovo.

Even before the 1974 constitution, the Kosovo Albanians persecuted the Serbs. They desecrated their churches, stole or destroyed their property, employed duress to get them to sell their holdings, and engaged in other acts designed to force them to leave Kosovo. Even Serbian professionals with whom the Albanians were satisfied were told, as a condition of their continued employment, that they must learn Albanian. Many of those Serbs, nearing retirement, refused. Moreover, in ten years (1971-1981), the Kosovo Albanians brought in from Albania 240 university teachers, along with textbooks in Albanian. They imported movies, arranged for Albanian TV and radio hookups, as well as sports and cultural visits. In addition, there was in the years after World War II a large immigration from Albania, somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000. Most Serbs insist that Tito encouraged this, and even party comrades, while avoiding precise proof, maintain that he wanted to change the ethnic composition of Kosovo.

During the Second Yugoslavia, Kosovo was ruled by the Communist Party of Kosovo, part and parcel of the Yugoslav Communist Party. In its early years, Tito’s regime had many difficulties with Albanian nationalists, one of whom came into the office of Miladin Popovic, the actual founder of the Albanian Communist Party, and shot him in cold blood. The Albanian nationalists were put down and communist rule solidified. Still, the Yugoslav party continued to have many troubles with the Albanians, this time with the party comrades.

Tito and his associates had proceeded on the assumption — erroneous as it turned out—that providing increased autonomy and greater economic assistance to the Kosovo Albanians would make them loyal citizens of Yugoslavia. With slightly more than 15 percent of the Yugoslav population, Kosovo was allocated up to 30 percent of the Federal Development Funds. But Kosovo was able to cover less than ten percent of the needs of the province. The remainder was provided from funds of the federation or the republic of Serbia.

Following Tito’s death in 1980, the Kosovo Albanians in 1981 launched demonstrations in favor of a republic and outright annexation to Albania. These were put down with some bloodshed, followed by measures designed to curb similar actions in the future. In 1974, a Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) group had been discovered, and a “movement for the National liberation of Albania” had surfaced in 1976. At the same time, the Kosovo Albanians continued anti-Serb actions. Today those acts would be called “ethnic cleansing,” and the Serbs painfully point out that in the past 20 years no Kosovo Albanian leader has admitted or apologized for the persecution.

During the 1980’s, before Slobodan Milosevic became the principal actor, the Yugoslav Communist Party leadership spent much time on the Kosovo problem. For example, in May 1987, at an “ideological” plenum of the Central Committee, one member expressed his exasperation: “If we cannot quickly overcome genocide . . . then I see as the only way out an urgent convoking of an extraordinary Congress of the League of Yugoslav Communists and the calling of free elections with multiple candidates, so men can come to the top who can bring an end to genocide.” The next month, the Central Committee and the Presidency of the Party took the position that “the most difficult part of the problem of Kosovo and the whole of Yugoslav society is to be found in that the policy of the [League] is not being implemented.” Moreover, they said that “the pressure on the Serbs and Montenegrins must be stopped with all the means of our socialist self-management system.”

Two years earlier, the Bar Association of Serbs, in letters to the Serbian and Yugoslav parliaments, demanded action against the “illegal and unconstitutional acts” of the Kosovo Albanians. Similar letters were sent to all other federal bodies. The letters spoke of failures to nullify real estate sales made under duress, the damaging of cultural and historical monuments and cemeteries, and policies that forced Serbs, Turks, Gypsies, and others to leave Kosovo. While parliaments admitted that the problems existed, no successful actions were taken to remedy them.

Among examples cited by the president of the Bar Association were the remarks of onetime minister of defense and close ally of Tito, General Nikola Ljubicic, to a joint meeting of the presidency of Serbia and the Party Central Committee of Serbia: “Some things that are happening are so drastic that I simply ask myself how we can tolerate that in a legal state.” He proceeded to tell of an Albanian who moved into a Serbian house and moved the old lady out. When her son came to investigate, he found her sitting on a stump outside. He was forced to take legal action over two or three years, and he won. But when a militiaman came to carry out the order of the court, the Albanian said that he had a machine gun and warned, “Whoever approaches will be mowed down!” This prompted Ljubicic to ask: “What kind of state are we?”

The president of the Bar Association referred to Serbia’s “crippled constitution” which does not permit Serbia to exercise its governmental authority on the territory of its provinces, and argued that federal bodies which have authority are quiet while “open enemies of Yugoslavia escalate their evil deeds.”

The persecution was of such a nature that even Serbian communist officials left Kosovo. My two cousins, who were orphaned early in World War II, were reared in Kosovo by Uncle Peter and his wife, who had no children of their own. The youngsters were courted by party authorities, and when they reached age 18 were inducted as members. The older of the two, the young man, first became a teacher and later a local party secretary. When I was doing research in Belgrade during several summers in the 1970’s, he came several times to see me. On one occasion, I asked him how he got along with the Albanians. His answer: “I get along well with them, but I always carry a revolver.” In the early 1980’s, he and his family moved to Belgrade.

Slobodan Milosevic, who became head of the Serbian communists in 1986, went to Kosovo to investigate in 1987, and there he uttered the famous phrase: “No one will beat you again.” In the past, I have written that—despite that rhetoric—he let two years pass before taking action. My subsequent research reveals that steps were taken in 1988 toward amending the constitution of Serbia. It is not clear where the initiative originated, but it is obvious that adherence to constitutional procedures was scrupulously followed.

The first step was to amend the Yugoslav Constitution, thus permitting Serbia to change its constitution with respect to the status of the autonomous provinces within it. This was done in late 1988. Two key sentences serve to explain that need: “The Socialist Republic of Serbia . . . should be able to carry out indispensable functions on the whole of its territory.” And: “The right of the Serbian people to form its state, as other peoples of the Socialist Federated Republic of Yugoslavia, was not accomplished because the constitutional principle that the provinces are integral parts of the Socialist Republic of Serbia was not consistently realized in practice.” With this act, the republics recognized the validity of one concern of the maligned “Memorandum” of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Deceitfully, Slovenia and Croatia were later to blame the breakup of Yugoslavia on Serbia’s actions concerning Kosovo.

To amend Serbia’s constitution, the consent of the provinces was also necessary. Vojvodina gave its consent in February 1989 and Kosovo in March. The amendment takes away the right of provincial assemblies to veto acts of the Serbian parliament, because it says that the latter has the right to amend the constitution. But there are three conditions. The provinces may give their opinions; if they are rejected a six-month waiting period ensues; and if they are still rejected, the provincial assemblies may force a referendum.

The new Serbian constitution of 1990, did not, as widely alleged, revoke Kosovo’s autonomy. It reduced it to the 1963 level, which was still considerable, but the Albanians rejected the decrease and engaged in civil disobedience. They refused to participate in all governmental institutions—schools, police, medical facilities—and set about creating their own informal ones. They even went on strikes in governmental enterprises, which resulted in firings. In the end, they proclaimed Kosovo an independent state. These acts prompted the Belgrade government to establish a military presence—which the Albanians dubbed “occupation”—in the province.

Milosevic repeatedly indicated that he was ready for a dialogue in order to find a solution. The only thing he was not willing to negotiate was secession, while the Albanians indicated that they wanted to negotiate nothing else. In the past two years, the more militant Albanians formed what they called the “Kosovo Liberation Army” (LAK), which by their own admission has resulted in the murder of over 50 Serbian officials as well as 20-odd “disobedient Albanians.” (It should be noted that the Albanians celebrated the killing of each Serbian policeman.) In March 1998, Serbia retaliated. A few days before that happened, U.S. Balkan envoy Robert Gelbard described the LAK as a “terrorist organization.” However, the United States took the lead in condemning the Serbian actions against the “LAK terrorists,” demanding a military withdrawal.

It needs to be noted that the ethnic composition of Kosovo, while predominantly Albanian, is more complex than that usually mentioned in the media, i.e., 90 percent Albanian and 10 percent Serbian. Although the Albanians boycotted the 1991 census, it is estimated that there are between 1.6 million and 1.8 million of them, or a little less than 82 percent. As of early 1998, a large number of these were living abroad (200,000 in Germany; 260,000 in Italy; 130,000 in Switzerland; and 200,000 in the United States). There are about 200,000 Serbs living in Kosovo. But there are also other minorities: about 150,000 Gypsies, who are Muslims; 50,000 Turks, who are pro-Serb; 30,000 to 50,000 Slav Muslims, who are also pro-Serb.

What is the solution? When I posed that question in 1981 to Serbian dissident Milovan Djilas, he replied, “There is none.” Nevertheless, in recent years several solutions have been suggested.

The first of the proposed solutions, supported by Serbia’s leading novelist and onetime president of Yugoslavia, Dobrica Cosic, and some of his colleagues, would divide Kosovo so that the Albanians could form their own small state or join Albania. The Serbs would seek to save as many as possible of their Christian monuments. The main argument in favor of this plan is to prevent a far greater future problem: the growing number of Albanians (compounded by their high birthrate) who have moved into Serbia proper, well beyond the boundaries of Kosovo. Under the separation scheme, once the boundary line was drawn, Albanians on the Serb side would have to move out, and the Serbs on the Albanian side would move to Serbia. It is impossible to estimate the extent to which the Serbs of Serbia support this proposal. It is, however, rejected by the Milosevic government, as well as by the Serbian Resistance Movement in Kosovo, mainly on the ground that it would set a precedent for other parts of Yugoslavia to demand secession. In the past, some Kosovo Albanians have supported partition.

A second solution, proposed by some Kosovo Serbs, would involve the “regionalization” of Serbia, dividing it into some 10 or 12 regions in the hope of enhancing local sovereignty and the economic well-being of each. Under that proposal, Kosovo would be one region and Metohija another, even though until 1945 Metohija was part of Montenegro, and 60 percent of its properties were owned by the Serbian Orthodox Church. This proposal seems to have little support.

A third proposal would divide Yugoslavia into three federal units—Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo. This proposal seems to have significant support among some Albanian leaders, because they see it as an important step toward independence. Serbia, however, is unlikely ever to accept such a status.

A fourth proposal, and the one that seems to have the most to recommend it, would provide broad autonomy for Kosovo, but would not create a “state within a state,” as the 1974 constitution effectively did. Belgrade has more than once indicated that it was ready to agree to autonomy equivalent to that enjoyed by minorities in Corsica (France) and in Tyrol (Italy). But Albanians would have to forget about their dream of independence, which few seem willing to do.

In May 1998, there was an American-brokered meeting between Milosevic and the seemingly moderate Kosovo leader, Ibrahim Rugova, designed to launch a peace process. Meetings of the two negotiating teams have either not taken place or have accomplished nothing, mainly because the LAK has continued and even increased its guerrilla actions. The negotiations, if they take place, will be long and arduous. As of this summer, Rugova has had little success in calming the partisans of the Kosovo Liberation Army, who seem to have no interest in a peaceful solution.

America’s Contact Group partners were somewhat upset when President Clinton’s agent, Richard Holbrooke, tried to find someone who represents the LAK, even posing with one of the warriors who held gun in hand (without his consent, he told the Serbs), particularly when the United States had recently called the movement “terrorist.” In any event, he failed to find a military or a political chief of the loosely organized rebels.

The Contact Group for a time flirted with the use of NATO air strikes against the Serbs, but the futility of such a move soon became apparent, particularly since there was division in NATO, in addition to Russia’s opposition. There have been indications that the United States would favor independence for the Kosovo Albanians were it not for the fact that this could cause boundaries all over the Balkans to unravel. First, there is Macedonia, with an Albanian minority (between 20 and 30 percent) who have no autonomy and who would likely join an independent Kosovo, with both very likely becoming part of a Greater Albania. Consequently, the very existence of Macedonia would be in question. Secondly, if Kosovo were to leave Yugoslavia, no valid arguments could be raised against the dismantling of the Bosnian state, created by the Dayton Accords. The Bosnian Serb republic would join Yugoslavia and the Croatian part (Herceg Bosna) would become part of Greater Croatia. What then would become of the Muslim state around Sarajevo that the Clinton administration did so much to create?

One thing seems certain: unless the Yugoslav forces can put an early end to the LAK insurgency (to be followed by negotiations), all sorts of Balkan dominoes will fall, an outcome that few would want to contemplate. On the other hand, given the way that the West has mismanaged the whole Yugoslav question, no one should be surprised if that comes to pass.