Post by engers on Nov 27, 2007 5:23:26 GMT -5
2007-11-23 With both outlawed ethnic Albanian and Serbian paramilitary units armed and patrolling the borders in Kosovo and Macedonia ahead of the official end of internationally mediated talks on Kosovo's status on 10 December, renewed conflict seems inevitable.
Frustrated with the stalemate over the status of Serbia's province of Kosovo, outlawed ethnic Albanian and Serbian paramilitary units have begun patrolling the area "defending borders" - not only in Kosovo, but in Macedonia as well, confirming fears of a renewal of armed conflict.
With the latest round of negotiations between Kosovo Albanians and Serbia having failed and independence prolonged due never-ending disputes among western countries and Russia, it seems that Kosovo and Macedonian war veterans view another armed conflict as the best and perhaps only solution.
In mid-October, the outlawed Albanian National Army (ANA) began openly patrolling towns in northern Kosovo on the Serbia border, establishing checkpoints on Kosovo's important highways, inspecting passing vehicles. They claim that patrolling the provincial towns and roads represent a preventive measure to thwart a potential Serb incursion into the area.
Meanwhile, Kosovo Serb minority representatives say that the ANA is planning attacks on their enclaves in the province. The Serb National Council (SNV) of Northern Kosovo said it had information that the ANA was planning an attack on the Serb part of the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica.
A quick reaction to these claims came from the recently founded "Tsar Lazar's Guard," a group that also, according to Kosovo media, has organized patrols in Serbia, near the Kosovo border. Media quoted local residents as saying that they had seen groups of uniformed and armed men in the area.
In May, the Movement of Veterans of Serbia (PVS) - a minor extremist party with a single seat in the Serbian parliament - organized the Tsar Lazar's Guard paramilitary unit, comprised of war veterans from across Serbia who fought in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo in the 1990s. The unit is said to have 5,000 troops. Symbolically, the group was named after a Serbian noble who fought and died at the Battle of Kosovo in1389.
Dozens of veterans pledged their allegiance to the unit in the Serbian city of Krusevac, promising to fight to the death to prevent Kosovo from being handed over to ethnic Albanians.
The international community has listed both the ANA and Tsar Lazar's Guard as terrorist groups.
So far, there have been no reports that two units have clashed. However, they blame each other for provocations in the form of launching border patrols. The ANA says it is certain that Serbia will invade Kosovo again, and this time they will be prepared, while Tsar Lazar's Guard" is calling for protection of the Serbian minority there.
Kosovo has been under UN administration since 1999, following a NATO bombing campaign that drove out Serb forces accused of ethnic cleansing. Several rounds of UN-sponsored talks in Vienna since February 2006 achieved little result, with the Serbian and Kosovo delegations refusing to budge from their original positions.
Some 100,000 Serbs live in separate areas guarded by NATO peacekeepers in the restive province. Serbian officials estimate that about 200,000 Serbs have left their homes over the past seven years and settled in Serbia proper and throughout the Europe.
Propensity for violence
The UN and NATO see the ANA as a loosely organized terrorist group comprised of people who have shown in the past their propensity for brutal violence that does not have the backing of the majority of local people.
Serbian and Kosovo media speculate that the ANA now has over 12,000 members, including intellectuals, students, farmers and former fighters all frustrated with provincial "leadership's soft approach regarding independence talks."
The group grew out of the insurgent Macedonian ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA), whose former commanders are now members of the Macedonian parliament, and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA,) whose commanders are now ruling Kosovo. Neither Kosovo nor Macedonian ethnic Albanian leaders openly support the ANA's goals and have distanced themselves from the groups.
The ANA, formed after the 2001 peace framework in Macedonia, calls for the unification of ethnic Albanian areas of the Western Balkans, including the western part of Macedonia and southern Serbia, and currently operates in Kosovo and Macedonia.
Only the Serbian Defense Ministry responded to the ANA's claims, saying that the Serbian Army would respond "at the speed of lightning" to any attempts of violence in the country's south.
The NLA, whose political leaders have been damned as traitors by the ANA, launched a rebellion against Macedonian forces in January 2001, demanding greater rights for the republic's 25 percent ethnic Albanian minority.
But the group, who controlled a swathe of territory along Macedonia's northern and western borders with Kosovo and Albania, laid down its weapons, gave up secession and signed a peace agreement with the Macedonian government.
After the deal was inked, NATO in August 2001 sent in some 3,500 troops to conduct operation "Essential Harvest," with the goal of disarming the NLA and destroying its weapons. During the 30-day mission, NATO troops, with logistical support from Macedonian forces, confiscated more than 3,800 rifles, mortars, howitzers and a tank from ethnic Albanian rebels.
However, the signing of the peace agreement did not satisfy some radical ethnic Albanians, who continued with a small-scale armed rebellion. Since late 2001, the ANA has claimed responsibility for at least a dozen attacks on government infrastructure, including courts, the transportation network and former interior minister Ljube Boskoski, who is currently on trial for war crimes against Albanians committed in 2001.
The clashes between Macedonian security forces and the ANA have intensified since August, when ethnic Albanians attacked a police station and police patrols near the border with Kosovo, the stronghold of Albanian guerrillas during the 2001 conflict.
Then in early November, Macedonian security forces launched operation "Mountain Storm," clashing with ANA militants, though Macedonian officials said that the operation was carried out against alleged armed Albanian criminals, not insurgents.
After the operation, a until now unknown Kosovo-based "Political Advisory Body of the Kosovo Liberation Army" issued a statement taking responsibility for the shootout, claiming that its members were forced to "protect endangered Albanian nationals in the Serbia-Macedonia region."
Police said eight gunmen were killed and 12 others arrested, while an impressive amount of weapons were seized. KFOR, NATO's 16,000-strong force in Kosovo, has increased its troop level on the Kosovo side of the border since the start of the Macedonian operation.
However, ethnic Albanian Macedonian lawmaker Rafiz Aliti, former NLA commander and an official from the opposition Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) party, told parliament earlier this month that not only Macedonian security forces were involved in the clashes, but some paramilitary units as well. He said that villagers witnessed that some involved in operation "Mountain Storm" were speaking Serbian and had uniforms that some recognized as those worn by Tsar Lazar's Guard.
Insurgency inevitable
Whichever decision is made regarding Kosovo's status, whether the province is granted independence or not, the authorities will have difficulty preventing ethnic insurgency. In interviews with western media outlets, unnamed diplomats involved in the status process admit that some level of armed conflict is inevitable, but hope that KFOR will manage to control it.
If independence is granted, there is a fear that Serbian paramilitary forces could intervene under the guise of protecting the Serb minority. On the other hand, Albanians will settle for nothing less then full independence, and their frustration will be taken out on the Serb minority and the international community if their demands are not met.
Tsar Lazar's Guard has threatened to attack UN and NATO forces and buildings in Kosovo if the province is granted independence from Serbia. At the same time, the ANA has already claimed responsibility for several attacks against Macedonian government institutions since 2002 and attacks on UN and Serb enclaves in Kosovo, and anything short of independence will likely result in more attacks.
On 21 November, commander of Tsar Lazar's Guard, Hadzi Andrej Milic, sent invitations to Serbian lawmakers to go to the war. He informed Serbian lawmakers that "members of the unit would gather on November 28th at Merdare, the administrative border crossing to Kosovo, to set up their headquarters in order to symbolically start the new war for the liberation of Kosovo."
Bosnian media reported that in early November, the Guard held a line-up ceremony in the eastern Bosnian city of Rogatica, near the Serbian border, with 200 Bosnian Serbs joining the unit, prepared to go to Kosovo for a new war.
Meanwhile, world powers seem to be unable to find a sort of compromise that would not result in violence.
Granting Kosovo independence, which seemed to the EU and the US a much easier task a couple of years ago, has been jeopardized by Russia, Serbia's long-time ally, which had refrained earlier on from interfering in the status talks.
However, in June, Russia used its veto rights to prevent the adoption of a UN Security Council resolution granting Kosovo gradual independence, assuring Belgrade that nothing would happen without their approval.
It is clear now that Kosovo's status has become yet another instrument in a diplomatic war between Russia and the west. Russia, with its ties to the Serbia, remains the main strategic foreign investor in the country.
Meanwhile, on 7 November, in a surprise move, the EU initialed a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) - the first step for western Balkan nations toward EU accession - with Serbia. It was a move viewed by most keen observers as an attempt to appease Serbian authorities regarding Kosovo.
"This marks a real turning point for Serbia…now Serbia has to go the last mile and achieve full cooperation," EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told reporters.
However, in early 2006, the EU froze SAA talks with Serbia after authorities there failed to arrest top war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general charged for the worst atrocities in Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, believed to be hiding in Serbia.
The animosity between the EU and Russia has now moved to the streets of Kosovo – a situation best illustrated during Kosovo's 17 November parliamentary elections, which the Kosovo Serbs boycotted.
In the city of Kosovska Mitrovica, divided along ethnic Albanian and Serb lines by the river line, it was a very busy day. The Serbs, boycotting the elections, held a market day in which vendors sold shirts and stickers printed with the likenesses of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ratko Mladic. On the other side of the river, posters bore the photograph of a smiling US President George W Bush.
The winner of the election was Hasim Taci, former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK). His Democratic Party of Kosovo (DPK) won 35 percent of the votes, followed by President Fatmir Seidiu's Democratic Alliance of Kosovo (DAK) with 22 percent.
After the results were published, Taci promised to declare independence unilaterally on or shortly after 10 December, when the ongoing, internationally mediated negotiations on the province's final status are due to end.
For additional information on Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia, and to order a Special Report on the region, contact ISA Executive Director Anes Alic in Sarajevo.
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