"(There is a growing tendency among foreign observers) to identify
the criminal with the honest, the vandal with the civilized, the
mafiosi with the nation.''
Former Albanian President Sali Berisha
"They were terrorists in 1998 and now, because of politics, they're
freedom fighters"
Jerry Seper, quoting an anonymous "top drug official" who refers to
a 1998 State Department report, in the article "KLA Finances War
with Heroin Sales", Washington Times, May 3, 1999
"The Albanian villages are much better, much richer than the Serbian
ones. The Serbs, even the rich ones, don't build fine houses in
villages where there are Albanians. If a Serb has a two-story house
he refrains from painting it so that it shan't look better than the
Albanian houses."
Leon Trotsky, War Correspondent for "Pravda", reporting from the
Balkan Wars, 1912-3
"When spring comes, we will manure the plains of Kosovo with the
bones of Serbs, for we, Albanians, have suffered too much to
forget."
Isa Boletini, leaving the Ambassadors Conference in London, 1913
"Instead of using their authority and impartiality to restrain
terrorist gangs of Albanian extremists, we face the situation in
which the terrorism is taking place under their auspices, and even
being financed by United Nations means"
Milosevic, March 2000
"Getting history wrong is an essential part of being a nation."
Ernest Renan, French historian
"We spent the 1990's worrying about a Greater Serbia. That's
finished. We are going to spend time well into the next century
worrying about a Greater Albania."
Christopher Hill, Ambassador to Macedonia, 1999
"There is no excuse for that, even if the Serbs in Kosovo are very
angry. I accept responsibility. One of the most important tasks of a
democracy is to protect its minorities."
Milosevic to Ambassador Hill who reported to him about atrocities in
Kosovo
"I am like a candle. I am melting away slowly, but I light the way
for others."
Adem Demaci, political representative of the KLA
BEFORE
The founding fathers of the KLA were Ibrahim Rugova, the pacifist
president of the self-proclaimed "Kosovo Republic", established in
1991 - and Slobodan Milosevic, his belligerent Yugoslav counterpart.
The abysmal failure of the Gandhiesque policies of the former to
shelter his people from the recrudescently violent actions of the
latter - revived the fledging KLA outfit. Contrary to typically
shallow information in the media, the KLA has been known to have
operated in Kosovo as early as the attack on policemen in Glogovac
in May 1993. Its epiphany, in the form of magnificently uniformed
fighters, occurred only on November 28, 1997 (in the funeral of a
teacher, a victim of Serb zealousness) - but it existed long before.
Perhaps as long as the People's Movement of Kosovo, founded in 1982.
The historical and cultural roots of the conflict in Kosovo were
described elsewhere ("The Bad Blood of Kosovo"). Reading that
article is essential as this one assumes prior acquaintance with it.
Kosovo is a land of great mineral wealth and commensurate
agricultural poverty. It has always languished with decrepit
infrastructure and irrelevant industry. Kosovo's mineral riches
were looted by Yugoslavia for decades and both Macedonia and Kosovo
were the poor relatives in the Yugoslav Federation.
In Kosovo, more than 31% of all those over 10 years of age were
illiterate (in 1979) and its per capita income was less than 30% of
the national average. Infant mortality was 6 times that in Slovenia.
Kosovo was an African enclave in an otherwise Europe-aspiring
country. Caught in the pernicious spiral of declining commodity
prices, Kosovo relied on transfers from Yugoslavia and from abroad
for more than 90% of its income. Inevitably, unemployment tripled
from 19% in 1971 to 57% in 1989.
As a result, the Federal government had to quell 3-months long,
paralysing riots in 1981. Riots were nothing new to Kosovo - the
demonstrations of 1968 were arguably worse (and led to
constitutional changes granting autonomy to Kosovo in 1974). But
this time, the authorities, reacted with tanks in scenes reminiscent
of China's Tiananmen Square 8 years later. The hotbed of hotheads
was, as usual, the University in Pristina. Students there were more
concerned with pedestrian issues such the quality of their food and
the lack of facilities than with any eternal revolutionary or
national truths. These mundane protests were hijacked by comrades
with higher class consciousness and loftier motives of self-
determination. Such hijacking, though, would have petered out had
the cesspool of rage and indignation not been festering so
ebulliently. Serb insensitivity backed by indiscriminate brutality
led to escalation. As the years passed, calls for the restoration of
the 1974 constitution (under which Kosovo was granted political,
financial, legal and cultural autonomy and institutions) - merged
into a sonorous agenda of "Great Albania" and a "Kosovo Republic".
The Kosovar crowd was never above beatings, looting and burning. The
hate was strong.
Yugoslavia's ruling party - the League of Communists - was in the
throes of its own transformation. With Tito's demise and the
implosion of the Soviet Bloc, the Communists lacked both compass and
leader. His natural successors were purged by Tito in the 1960s and
1970s. The party wasn't sure whether to turn to Gorbachev's East or
to America's West. The Communists panicked and embarked on a rampage
of imprisonment, unjust dismissals of Albanians (mainly of teachers,
journalists, policemen and judges) and the occasional torture or
murder. Serb intellectuals regarded this as no more than the
rectification of Tito's anti-Serb policies. Serbia was the only
Republic within the Federation, who was dismembered into autonomous
regions (Kosovo and Vojvodina). "Getting back at Tito" was a strong
motive, commensurate with Serb "the world is against us" paranoia
and siege mentality. Milosevic, visibly ill at ease, surfed this
tide of religion-tinged nationalism straight into Kosovo, the
historical heartland of Serb-ism.
Oppression breeds resistance and Serb oppression served only to
streamline the stochastic nationalist movement into a
compartmentalized, though factious, underground organization with
roots wherever Albanians resided: Germany, Switzerland, the USA,
Canada and Australia. The ideology was an improbable mix of
Stalinism (Enver Hoxha-inspired), Maoism and Albanian chauvinism.
This was before Albania opened up to reveal its decrepitude and
desolation to its Kosovar visitors. All delusions of an Albania-
backed armed rebellion evaporated in the languor of Albania proper.
Thus, the activities of the Nationalists were more innocuous than
their concocted doctrines.
They defaced government buildings, shattered gravestones in Serb
cemeteries and overturned heroic monuments. The distribution of
subversive (and fairly bromide) "literature" was rarely accompanied
by acts of terror, either in Kosovo or in Europe.
Nationalism is refuge from uncertainty. As the old Yugoslavia was
crumbling, each of its constituents developed its own brand of
escapism, replete with revenant nationalist leaders, mostly
fictional "history", a newly discovered language and a pledge to
fate to reconstitute a lost empire at its apex. Thus, Kosovar
nationalism was qualitatively the kin and kith of the Serb or Croat
sub-species. Paradoxically, though rather predictably, they fed on
each other. Milosevic was as much a creation of Kosovar nationalism
as Thaci was the outcome of Milosevic's policies. The KLA's
Stalinist-Maoist inspiration was in emulation of the paranoid and
omphaloskeptic regime in Albania - but it owed its existence to
Belgrade's intransigence. The love-hate relationship between the
Kosovars and the Albanians is explored elsewhere ("The Myths of
Great Albania -Part I"). The Serbs, in other words, were as
terrified of Kosovar irredentism as the Kosovars were of Serb
dominion. Their ever more pressing and menacing appeals to Belgrade
gave the regime the pretext it needed to intervene and Milosevic the
context he sought in which to flourish.
In February 1989, armed with a new constitution which abolished
Kosovo's autonomy (and, a year later, its stunned government),
Milosevic quelled a miners' hunger strike and proceeded to institute
measures of discrimination against the Albanians in the province.
Discrimination was nothing new to Kosovo. The Albanians themselves
initiated such anti-Serb measures following their new gained
constitutional autonomy in 1974. Now the tide has turned and
thousands of Albanians who refused to sign new-fangled "loyalty
vows" were summarily sacked and lost their pension rights (the most
sacred possession of "Homo Socialismus"). Albanian media were
shuttered and schools vacated when teacher after teacher refused to
abide by the Serb curriculum. After a while, The Serbs re-opened
primary schools and re-hired Albanian teachers, allowing them to
teach in Albanian. But secondary schools and universities remained
closed.
These acts of persecution did not meet with universal disapproval.
Greece, for instance, regarded the Albanians as natural allies of
the Turks and, bonded by common enmity, of the Macedonians and
Bulgarians. Itself comprised of lands claimed by Albania, Greece
favoured a harsh and final resolution of the Albanian question.
There can be little doubt that Macedonia - feeling besieged by its
Albanian minority - regarded Milosevic as the perfect antidote.
Macedonia actively assisted Yugoslavia to break the embargo imposed
on it by the Western powers. Milosevic was not, therefore, a pariah,
as retroactive history would have it. Rather, he was the only
obstacle to a "Great Albania".
Within less than a year, in 1990, the Democratic League of Kosovo
(LDK) was able to claim a membership of 700,000 members. Hashim
Thaci ("Snake"), Sulejman Selimi ("Sultan") and other leaders of the
KLA were then 20 years of age. Years of Swiss education
notwithstanding, they witnessed first hand Kosovo's tumultuous
transformation into the engine of disintegration of the Yugoslav
Federation. It was a valuable lesson in the dialectic of history,
later to be applied brilliantly.
The leader of the LDK, the forever silk scarfed and mellifluous Dr.
Ibrahim Rugova, compared himself openly and blushlessly to Vaclav
Havel and the Kosovar struggle to the Velvet Revolution. This turgid
and risible analogy deteriorated further as the Kosovar Velvet was
stained by the blood of innocents. Dr. Rugova was an unfazed dreamer
in a land of harsh nightmares. The Sorbonne was never a good
preparatory school to the academy of Balkan reality. Rugova's ideals
were good and noble - Gandhi-like passive resistance, market
economics, constructive (though uncompromising and limited to the
authorities) dialogue with the enemy. They might still prevail. And
during the early 1990s he was all the rage and the darling of the
West. But he failed to translate his convictions into tangible
achievements. His biggest failure might have been his inability to
ally himself with a "Big Power" - as did the Croats, the Slovenes
and the Bosnians. This became painfully evident with the signature
of the Dayton Accord in 1995 which almost completely ignored Kosovo
and the Kosovars.
True, the West conditioned the total removal of sanctions against
Yugoslavia on its humane treatment of its Albanian citizens and
encouraged the Albanians, though circumspectly, to stand for their
rights. But there was no explicit support even for the re-
instatement of Kosovo's 1974 status, let alone for the Albanians'
dreams of statehood. In the absence of such support - financial and
diplomatic - Kosovo remained an internal problem of Yugoslavia, a
renegade province, a colony of terror and drug trafficking. The
Kosovars felt betrayed as they have after the Congress of Berlin and
the Balkan Wars. Perhaps securing such a sponsor was a lost cause to
start with (though the KLA succeeded where Rugova failed) - but then
Rugova misled his people into sanguinous devastation by declaring
the "Kosovo Republic" prematurely. His choice of pacifism may have
been dictated by the sobering sights from the killing fields of
Bosnia - and proved his pragmatism. But his decision to declare a
"Republic" was pre-mature, self-aggrandizing and in vacuo. The
emergence of a political alternative - tough, realistic, methodical
and structured - was not only a question of time but a welcome
development. There is no desolation like the one inflicted by
sincere idealists.
In 1991, Rugova set about organizing a Republic from a shabby office
building and the opposite "Cafe Mimoza". His government constructed
makeshift schools and hospitals, parallel networks of services
staffed by the Serb-dispossessed, capitalizing on a sweeping wave of
volunteerism. Albania recognized this nascent state immediately and
international negotiators (such as Lord Owen and Cyrus Vance)
conferred with its self-important figurehead (for instance, in
September 1992). Successive American administrations funnelled money
into the province and warnings against "ethnic cleansing" were flung
at Yugoslavia as early as 1993. Internally, Serb extremists in both
Belgrade and Pristina prevented Serb moderates (like then Yugoslav
Prime Minister Milan Panic) from re-opening the schools of Kosovo
and reducing the massive, Northern-Ireland-like Serb military
presence in it. An agreement signed in 1997 by both Rugova and
Milosevic to abolish the parallel Albanian education system and re-
open all the educational facilities in Kosovo was thus frustrated.
Kosovo fractured along ethnic lines with complete segregation of the
Serbs and the Albanians. To avoid contact with the Serbs was an
unwritten rule, breached only by prominent intellectuals. The
"Kosovo Republic" was far from advocating ethnic cleansing or even
outright independence (there were powerful voices in favour of a
federal solution within Yugoslavia) - but not far from re-inventing
an inverted version of apartheid.
It faced the ubiquitous problem of all the other republics of former
Yugoslavia - not one of them was ethnically "pure". To achieve a
tolerable level of homogeneity, they had to resort to force. Rugova
advocated the measured application of the insidious powers of
discrimination and segregation. But, once the theme was set,
variations were bound to arise.
Though dominant for some years, Rugova and the LDK did not
monopolize the Kosovar political landscape. Following a poll in
1998, boycotted by all other political parties, which resulted in
the re-election of Rugova as president - the disenchanted and
disillusioned had plenty of choice. Some joined the KLA, many more
joined Rexhep Qosaj's (Qosje) United Democratic Movement (LBD). The
political scene in Kosovo in the 1980s and early 1990s was vibrant
and kaleidoscopic. Adem Demaci - the Marxist ideologue of the KLA, a
long time political prisoner and the founder of the "revolutionary
Movement for the Merger of Albanians" in 1964 - established the
Parliamentary Party of Kosovo (PPK) before he handed it over to
Bajram Kosumi, a dissident and another venerable political prisoner.
The PPK was co-founded by Veton Surroi, the English-speaking, US-
educated, son of a Yugoslav diplomat and editor of Koha Ditore, the
Albanian language daily. The Albanians are not a devout lot, but
even Islam had its political manifestations in Kosovo.
The 1981 demonstrations gave rise to the Popular Movement for Kosovo
(LPK). Apparently, it gave rise to the KLA, probably in 1993,
possibly in Pristina. Whatever the circumstances, the KLA
congregated in Decani, the region surrounding Pristina. Two years
after the Golgovac attack - it tackled a Serb border patrol (April)
and a Serb Police Station (August) in 1995. Light weapons and a
crude bomb were used. The Serbs were not impressed - but they were
provoked into an escalating series of ever more hideous massacres of
Albanian villagers (the turning point might have been the slaughter
by the Serbs of the Jashari clan in Prekaz). Machiavellian analysts
ascribe to the KLA a devilish plot to provoke the Serbs into the
ethnic cleansing that finally introduced the West to tortured
Kosovo. The author of this article, aware of the Balkan's lack of
propensity for long term planning and predilection for self-
defeating vengeance - believes that, to the KLA, it was all a
serendipitous turn of events. Whatever the case may be, the KLA
became sufficiently self-assured and popular to advertise itself on
the BBC as responsible for some of the clashes - a rite of passage
common to all self-respecting freedom fighters.
The selection of targets by the KLA is very telling. At first it
concentrated its fiery intentions only upon military and law and
order personnel. Its reluctance to effect civilians was meritorious.
A subtle shift occurred when the Serbs began to re-populate Kosovo
with Serbs displaced from the Krajina region. Alarmed by the intent
- if not by the execution (only 10,000 Serbs or so were settled in
Kosovo) - the KLA reacted with a major drive to arm itself and by
attacking Serb settlements in Klina, Decani and Djakovica and a
refugee camp in Baboloc. The KLA attacks were militarily
sophisticated and co-ordinated. Serb policemen were ambushed on the
road between Glogovac and Srbica. The Serb counter-offensive
resulted in dozens of Albanian victims - civilians, men, women and
children (the "Drenica Massacre"). The KLA tried to defend villages
aligned along a Pec-Djakovica line and thus disrupt the
communications and logistics of Serb Military Police and Special
(Ministry of Interior) Police units. The main arena of fighting was
a recurrent one - in the 1920s, Albanian guerillas, based in the
hills, attacked the Serbs in Drenica.
What finally transformed the KLA from a wannabe IRA into the
fighting force that it has become was the disintegration of Albania.
History is the annals of irony. The break-up of the KLA'a role model
- led to the resurgence of its intellectual progeny. The KLA
absorbed thousands of weapons from the looted armouries of the
Albanian military and police. Angry mobs attacked these ordnances
following the collapse of pyramid investment schemes that robbed one
third of the population of all their savings. The arms ended up in
the trigger-happy hands of drug lords, mafiosi, pimps, smugglers and
freedom fighters from Tetovo in Macedonia to Durres in Albania and
from Pristina in Kosovo to the Sandzak in Serbia. The KLA was so
ill-equipped to cope with this fortuitous cornucopia - that it began
to trade weapons, a gainful avocation it found hard to dislodge ever
since. The convulsive dissolution of Albania led to changes in high
places. Sali Berisha was deposed and replaced by Rexhep Mejdani, an
even more sympathetic ear to separatist demands. Berisha himself
later allowed the KLA to use his property (around Tropoja) as
staging grounds and supported the cause (though not the "Marxist-
Leninist" KLA or its self-appointed government) unequivocally.
At a certain stage, he even accused Fatos Nano, his rival and the
Prime Minister of Albania of being the enemy of the Albanian people
for not displaying the same unmitigated loyalty to the idea of an
independent Kosovo, under Rugova and Bujar Bukoshi, Rugova's money
man (and Prime Minister in exile). The KLA was able to expand its
presence in Albania, mainly in its training and operations centres
near Kukes, Ljabinot (near Tirana) and Bajram Curi. Albania had a
growing say in the affairs of the KLA as it recomposed itself - it
was instrumental in summoning the KLA to Rambouillet, for instance.
This armed revelry coupled with the rising fortunes of separatism,
led Robert Gelbard, the senior US envoy to the Balkan to label the
KLA - "a terrorist organization". The Serbs took this to mean a
licence to kill, which they exercised dutifully in Drenica.
Promptly, the USA changed course and the indomitable Madeleine
Albright switched parties, saying: "We are not going to stand by and
watch the Serbian authorities do in Kosovo what they can no longer
get away with in Bosnia".
This stern consistency was followed by a tightening of the embargo
against Yugoslavia and by a threat of unilateral action. For the
first time in history, the Kosovars finally had a sponsor - and what
a sponsor! The mightiest of all. As for Milosevic, he felt
nauseatingly betrayed. Not only was he not rewarded for his role as
the Dayton peacemaker - he was faced with new sanctions, an
ultimatum and a direct threat on the very perpetuation of his
regime.
The KLA mushroomed not because it attacked Serbs (very sporadically
and to a minuscule effect). It ballooned because it delivered where
Rugova didn't even promise. It delivered an alliance with the USA
against the hated Serbs. It delivered weapons. It delivered hope and
a plan. It delivered vengeance, the self-expression of the
downtrodden. It was joined by near and far and, by its own
reckoning, its ranks swelled to 50,000 warriors. More objective
experts put the figure of active fighters at one fourth this number.
Still, it is an impressive number in a population of 1.7 million
Albanians. During the war, it was joined by 400 overweight
suburbanites from North America, Albanian volunteers within an
"Atlantic Brigade". It also absorbed Albanians with rich military
experience from Serbia and Croatia as well as foreign mercenaries
and possibly "Afghanis" (the devout Moslem veterans of the wars in
Afghanistan, Lebanon and Bosnia).
The influx of volunteers put pressure on the leadership - both
organizational and pecuniary. The KLA - an entrepreneurial start up
of insurgency - had matured into a national brand of guerilla. It
revamped itself, creating directorates, offices and officers, codes
and procedures, a radio station and a news agency, an electronic
communications interception unit, a word of mouth messenger service
and a general military staff, headed since February 1999 by "Sultan"
and divided to seven operational zones. In short, it reacted to
changing fortunes by creating a bureaucracy. Concurrently, it armed
itself to its teeth with more sophisticated weapons than ever before
(though it was still short of medical supplies, ammunition and
communications equipment). The KLA now had shoulder-fired anti-tank
rocket launchers (like the German "Armburst"), mortars, recoilless
rifles, anti-aircraft machine-guns and automatic assault rifles.
Some of the weapons were even bought from Serb army officers or
imported through Hungary. All this required a financial phase
transition. That the KLA has benefited, directly and knowingly, from
money tainted by drug trafficking and smuggling of both goods and
people across borders - can be in little doubt. But I find the
proposition that the KLA itself has traded in drugs unlikely. The
long-established Albanian clans which control the "Balkan Route" -
the same clans that faced down the fearsome Turkish gangs on their
own turf - would have never let an upstart such as the KLA take over
any of their territory and its incumbent profits.
The KLA might have traded weapons. It might have dabbled in
smuggling. It might have received donations from drug lords. In
this, it is no different from all major modern guerilla movements.
But it did not peddle drugs - not because of moral scruples but
because of the lethal competition it would have encountered. That
the KLA had to resort to such condemnable methods of financing is
not surprising. Rugova refused to share with it the funds abroad
managed by Bujar Bukoshi on behalf of the "Kosovar People". It had
no other means of income and, as opposed to Rugova, it could act
only clandestinely and surreptitiously. The West was no great help
either - contrary to the myth spun by the Serbs.
Another source of income was the 3% "War Tax" levied on 500,000
Kosovar Albanians and their businesses in the diaspora (though most
of it ended up under Bukoshi's and Rugova's control). Officially
collected by the People's Movement of Kosovo, the ultimate use of
the proceeds was the sustenance of the shadow republic. The KLA made
use of the voluntary and not so voluntary donations to the Swiss-
based fund "Homeland Calls" (or "Motherland is Calling").
The USA - the pragmatic superpower that it is - began to divert its
attention from the bumbling and hapless Rugova to the emerging KLA.
The likes of Gelbard and, his senior, Richard Holbrooke, held talks
with its youthful political director, Hashim Thaci - suave, togged
up and earnest, he was just what the doctor ordered. To discern that
a showdown in Kosovo was near required no prophetic powers. The KLA
might come handy to espy the land and to divert the Serb forces
should the need arise.
"The Clinton administration has diligently put everything in place
for intervention. In fact, by mid-July US-NATO planners had
completed contingency plans for intervention, including air strikes
and the deployment of ground troops. All that was missing was a
sufficiently brutal or tragic event to trigger the process. As a
senior Defence Department official told reporters on July 15, 'If
some levels of atrocities were reached that would be intolerable,
that would probably be a trigger.'" - wrote Gary Dempsey from the
Cato Institute in October 1998. The author of this article published
another one in the "Middle East Times" in August 1998 in which the
Kosovo conflict was delineated in reasonably accurate detail ("The
Plight of the Kosovar"). The article was written in April 1998 - by
which time the outline of things to come was plain.
All along, the KLA prepared itself to be a provisional government
in-waiting. It occupied regions of Kosovo, established roadblocks,
administration, welfare offices. Its members operated nocturnally.
The Serb reaction got ever harsher until finally it threatened not
only to wipe the KLA out of existence but also to depopulate the
parts of the province controlled by it. In September 1998, NATO
threatened air strikes against Serbia, following reports of a
massacre of women and children in the village of Gornje Obrinje.
This led to the October 20th agreement with Belgrade, which
postulated a reduction in the levels of Yugoslav troops in the
province.
The KLA was all but ignored in these events. Rugova was not. He was
often consulted by the American negotiators and treated like a head
of state. The message was deafeningly clear: the KLA was a pawn on
the chessboard of war. It had no place where the civilized and the
responsible tread. It had no raison d'etre in peacetime. It reacted
by hitting a number of "Serb collaborators" (mostly of Gorani
extract - Muslim Slavs who speak a dialect of Albanian). One of the
disposed was Enver Maloku, Rugova's close associate.
On January 15, 1999, in the village of Racak, someone murdered
scores of people and dumped them by the roadside. The KLA blamed the
Serbs. The Serbs blamed the KLA and William Walker, the head of the
OSCE observer team. The media reports were inconclusive. While
everyone was fighting over the smouldering bodies, NATO was
preparing to attack and Walker withdrew his observer team from
Kosovo into an increasingly reluctant and enraged Macedonia. Faced
with sovereignty-infringing and regime-destabilizing demands at
Rambouillet, the Serbs declined. Under pressure and after days of
consultations, the Albanian delegation accepted the dictated draft
agreement hesitatingly. In the absence of the predicted Serb
capitulation, "Operation Allied Forces" commenced.
Rambouillet was a turning point for the KLA. Evidently on the verge
of war, the USA reverted to its preferences of yore. The KLA, a more
useful ally on the ground in battle, took over from the LDK as the
US favourite. At the behest of the United States, KLA
representatives not only were present, but headed the Kosovar
negotiating team. Thaci took some convincing and shuttling between
Rambouillet, Switzerland and Kosovo - but finally, in March, he
accepted the terms of the agreement with a sombre Rugova in tow.
These public acts of statesmanship: negotiating, bargaining and,
finally, accepting graciously - cemented the role and image of the
KLA as not only a military outfit but also a political organization
with the talent and wherewithal to lead the Kosovars. Rugova's
position was never more negligible and marginal.
AFTER
"The KLA will transform in many directions, not just a military
guard. One part will become part of the police, one part will become
civil administration, one part will become the Army of Kosovo, as a
defence force. Finally, a part will form a political party."
Agim Ceku, KLA CDR
The Western media hit a nadir of bias and unprofessional sycophancy
during the Kosovo crisis. It, therefore, remains unclear who pulled
whose strings. The KLA was seen to be more adept at spin doctoring
than hubris-infested NATO. It started the war as an outcast and
ended it as an ally of NATO on the ground and the real government of
a future Kosovo. It capitalized ingeniously on Rugova's mysterious
disappearance and then on his, even less comprehensible, refusal to
visit the refugee camps and to return to liberated Kosovo. It
interfaced marvellously with both youthful prime ministers -
Albania's Pandeli Majko and Macedonia's Ljubco Georgievski. This
new-found camaraderie ended in a summit with the latter, organized
by Arben Xhaferi (Dzaferi), an influential Albanian coalition
partner in Macedonia (and, many say, Thaci's business partner in
Kosovo). Georgievski, who did more for Macedonia's regional
integration and amicable relationships with its neighbours than all
the previous governments of Macedonia combined - did not hesitate to
shake the hand of the political leader of an organization still
decried by his own Interior Ministry as "terrorist".
It was a gamble - bold and, in hindsight, farsighted - but still, a
gamble. Rugova himself was not accorded such an honour when he
finally passed through Macedonia, on his way to his demolished
homeland.
During the war, the KLA absorbed new recruits from Macedonia (many
Macedonian Albanians died in battle in the fields of Kosovo), from
Germany, Switzerland, the USA, Australia and some Moslem countries.
In other words, it was internationalized. It was equipped (though
only niggardly) by the West. And it coped with the double task of
diplomacy (Thaci's famous televised discussions with Madeleine
Albright, for instance) and political organization. It was engaged
in field guerilla warfare and reconnaissance without the proper
training for either. Add to this tactical military co-ordination and
the need to integrate a second, Rugova and Berisha sponsored Armed
Forces of the Republic of Kosovo (FARK) and the KLA seems to have
been taxed to its breaking point. Cracks began to appear and it was
downhill ever since. Never before was such an enormous political
capital wasted so thoroughly in so short a time by so few.
One must not forget that victory was not assured until the last
moment. The West's reluctance to commit ground troops to the
escalating conflict - as mass expulsions cum sporadic massacres of
the indigenous population by the Serbs were taking place - was
considered by many KLA fighters to have been a violation of a "Besa"
(the sacred Albanian vow) given to them by NATO.
Opinions regarding the grand strategy of conducting the war differed
strongly. The agreement with Milosevic that ended the war did not
mention any transition period at the end of which the Kosovars will
decide their fate in a referendum. It felt like betrayal. At the
beginning, there was strong, grassroots resistance to disarmament.
Many Kosovars felt that the advantage obtained should be pressed to
the point of independence or at least, a transition period.
Then, when the dust settled, the spoils of war served to widen the
rifts. Internecine fighting erupted and is still afoot. The
occasional murder served to delineate the territories of each
commander and faction within the strained KLA. Everything was and is
subject to fluid arrangements of power and profit sharing - from
soft drink licences, through cigarette smuggling and weapons dealing
and down to the allocation of funds (some of them still of dubious
sources). The situation was further compounded by the invasion of
criminal elements from Albania proper. The Kosovar crime clans were
effected by the war (though their activities never really ceased)
and into the vacuum gushed Albanian organized and ruthless crime.
But contrary to media-fostered popular images - crime was but one
thread in the emerging tapestry of the new Kosovo.
Other, no less critical issues were and are demilitarization and
self-government.
Albanians and Serbs have more in common than they care to admit.
Scattered among various political entities, both nations came up
with a grandiose game plan - Milosevic's "Great Serbia" and the
KLA's "Great Albania". The idea, in both cases, was to create an
ethnically homogeneous state by shifting existing borders,
incorporating hitherto excluded parts of the nation and excluding
hitherto included minorities. Whereas Milosevic had at his disposal
the might of the Yugoslav army (or, so he thought) - the Albanians
had only impoverished and decomposing Albania to back them. Still,
the emotional bond that formed, fostered by a common vision and
shared hope - is intact. Albanian flags fly over Albanian
municipalities in Kosovo and in Macedonia.
The possession of weapons and self-government have always been
emblematic of the anticipated statehood of Kosovo. Being disarmed
and deprived of self-governance was, to the Albanians, a humiliating
and enraging experience, evocative of earlier, Serb-inflicted,
injuries. Moreover, it was indicative of the perplexed muddle the
West is mired in - officially, Kosovo is part of Yugoslavia. But it
is also occupied by foreign forces and has its own customs,
currency, bank licensing, entry visas and other insignia of
sovereignty (shortly, even an internet domain, KO).
This quandary is a typically anodyne European compromise which is
bound to ferment into atrabilious discourse and worse. The Kosovars
- understandably - will never accept Serb sovereignty or even Serb
propinquity willingly. Ignoring the inevitable, tergiversating and
equivocating have too often characterized the policies of the Big
Powers - the kind of behaviour that turned the Balkan into the
morass that it is today.
It is, therefore, inconceivable that the KLA has disbanded and
disarmed or transformed itself into the ill-conceived and ill-
defined "Kosovo Protection Corps" (headed by former KLA commander
and decorated Croat Lieutenant General, Agim Ceku and charged with
fire fighting, rescue missions and the like). Thousands of KLA
members found jobs (or scholarships, or seed money) through the
International Organization for Migration (IOM). But, in all
likelihood, the KLA still maintains clandestine arms depots
(intermittently raided by KFOR), strewn throughout Kosovo and
beyond. Its chain of command, organizational structure,
directorates, operational and assembly zones and general staff are
all viable. I have no doubt - though little proof - that it still
trains and prepares for war. It would be mad not to in this state of
utter mayhem. The emergence of the "Liberation Army of Presevo,
Medvedja and Bujanovac" (all towns beyond Kosovo's borders, in
Serbia, but with an Albanian majority) is a harbinger.
Its soldiers even wear badges in the red, black and yellow KLA
colours. The enemies are numerous: the Serbs (should Kosovo ever be
returned to them), NATO and KFOR (should they be charged with the
task of reintegrating Serbia), perhaps more moderate Albanians with
lesser national zeal or Serb-collaborators (like Zemail Mustafi, the
Albanian vice president of the Bujanovac branch of President
Slobodan Milosevic's ruling Socialist Party, who was assassinated
three months ago). Moreover, the very borders of Kosovo are in
dispute. The territory known to its inhabitants as "Eastern Kosovo"
now comprises 70,000 Albanians, captives in a hostile Serbia. Yet,
"Eastern Kosovo" was never part of the administrative province of
Kosovo. The war is far from over.
In the meantime, life is gradually returning to normal in Kosovo
itself. Former KLA fighters engage in all manner of odd jobs - from
shovelling snow in winter to burning bushes in summer. Even the
impossible Joint Administrative Council (Serbs, Albanians and
peacekeepers) with its 19 departments, convenes from time to time.
The periodic resignation of the overweening Bernard Kouchner aside,
things are going well. A bank has been established, another one is
on its way. Electricity is being gradually restored and so are
medical services and internet connections. Downtown Pristina is
reconstructed by Albanians from Switzerland.
Such normalization can prove lethal to an organization like the KLA,
founded on strife and crisis as it is. If it does not transform
itself into a political organization in a convincing manner - it
might lose its members to the more alluring pastures of statecraft.
The local and general elections so laboriously (and expensively)
organized in Kosovo are the KLA's first real chance at
transformation. It failed at its initial effort to establish a
government (together with Qosaj's Democratic Union Movement, an
umbrella organization of parties in opposition to Rugova and with
Hashim Thaci as its Prime Minister). Overruled by UNMIK (United
Nations Mission In Kosovo), opposed by Berisha's Democratic Party,
recognized only by Albania and the main Albanian party in Macedonia
and bereft of finances, it was unable to imbue structure with
content and provide the public goods a government is all about. The
KLA was so starved for cash that it was unable even to pay the
salaries of its own personnel. Many criminals caught in the act
claimed to be KLA members in dire financial straits. Ineptitude and
insolvency led to a dramatic resurgence in the popularity of the
hitherto discarded Rugova. The KLA then failed to infiltrate
existing structures of governance erected by the West (like the
Executive Council) - or to duplicate them. Thaci's quest to become
deputy-Kouchner was brusquely rebuffed. The ballot box seems now to
be the KLA's only exit strategy. The risk is that electoral loss
will lead to alienation and thuggery if not to outright criminality.
It is a fine balancing act between the virtuous ideals of democracy
and the harsh constraints of realpolitik.
At this stage and with elections looming, Hashim Thaci sounds
conciliatory tones. He is talking about a common (Albanian and Serb)
resolution of the division of Mitrovica and the problem of missing
persons. But even he knows that multi-ethnicity is dead and that the
best that can be hoped for is tolerant co-existence. His words are,
therefore, intended to curry favour with the West out of the
misguided and naive belief that the key to Kosovo's future lies
there rather than in the will of the Kosovar people. Western aid is
habit forming and creates dependence and the KLA consumed a lot of
it. Politically, the KLA has not yet pupated. Recently, it has
embarked on a spate of coalition-forming, initially with Bardhyl
Mahmuti of the Democratic Progressive Party of Kosovo (PPDK) - the
former KLA representative in Western Europe. It seeks to marry its
dwindling funds and seat at the West's banquet with the reputation
and clout of the PPDK's local dignitaries.
This coveted and negotiable access to Western structures of
government bears some elaboration. Kosovar parties and individuals
present at the Rambouillet talks were entitled, according to the
Rambouillet Agreement and UN General Resolution 1244, to serve,
together with UNMIK delegates, on a Kosovo Transitional Council
(KTC).
Thus, when KTC was formed in the wake of Operation Allied Force, it
was made of Rugova's LDK, Thaci's KLA, and Rexhep Qosaj's (Qosje)
Democratic Union League. There was a token Serb and two independents
- the aforementioned Veton Surroi and Blerim Shala, editor-in-chief
of the Pristina weekly Zeri.
Many newly-formed political parties, such as Mahmuti's were left out
of the KTC and the Executive Council (which is made of one
representative of each of the four largest Kosovar political parties
plus four representatives from UNMIK). This - a seat at the
cherished table - seems to be the only tangible asset of the KLA.
But it came at a dear price. The Executive Council virtually
paralysed Thaci's self-proclaimed and self-appointed government,
absorbing many of its ministers and officials with lucrative offers
of salaries and budgets. Thaci himself had to give up a part of the
plethora of his self-bestowed titles. This move again proves Thaci's
simplistic perception that to win elections in Kosovo one needs to
be seen to be a friend of the West. I have no doubt that this photo-
opportunity brand of politics will backfire. The KLA's popularity
among the potential electorate is at a nadir and it is being accused
of venality, incompetence and outright crime. A lasting
transformation of such an image cannot be attained by terpsichorean
supineness. To regain its position, the KLA must regenerate itself
and revert to its grassroots. It must dedicate equal time to
diplomacy and to politics. It must identify its true constituency -
and it is by no means UNMIK. Above all, it must hone its skills of
collaboration and compromise. Politics - as opposed to warfare - are
never a zero sum game. The operative principle is "live and let
live" rather than "shoot first or die". A mental transformation is
required, an adjustment of codes of conduct and principles of
thought. Should the KLA find in itself the flexibility and
intellectual resources - rare commodities in ideological movements -
needed to achieve this transition, it might still compose the first
government of an independent Kosovo. If it were to remain
intransigent and peevish - it is likely to end up being barely a
bloody footnote in history. Return
Narcissists, Group Behaviour,
and Terrorism
Interview with Sam Vaknin
Published in "The Idler"
Sam Vaknin is the author of 'Malignant Self Love - Narcissism
Revisited', owner of the Narcissistic Abuse Study List, and
webmaster of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder Topic in
Suite101. He is also an economic and political analyst for United
Press International (UPI).