BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
More than 50,000 people marched in the streets of Pristina, Kosovo, March 2 to protest the slaughter of 24 ethnic Albanian villagers during a sweep by Serbian cops and paramilitary units. The protesters chanted, "We want peace." Police charged them with water cannons, tear gas, and batons, injuring many civilians.

The next day another 50,000 people assembled in Likosane, Kosovo, to bury the slain villagers, chanting "UCK! UCK! UCK!" - the Albanian acronym for the Kosovo Liberation Army. The bodies were draped in Albanian national flags, reflecting an upsurge in the struggle to establish an independent state in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. Albanians make up 90 percent of the 2 million people there. The UCK, which is waging an armed struggle for independence, has organized a series of attacks against Serb authorities in recent months.

The Serb forces, backed by helicopters, launched a two-day military assault February 28 in response to an attack by UCK rebels near the village of Likosane. Two policemen and five guerrillas were killed in the confrontation. "We were in the room trying to protect ourselves when a helicopter opened fire on the village," said Sefer Nebiu, who was wounded. "Armored personnel carriers began to shoot and finally the police units arrived, all with heavy weapons."

Peasants in Qirez said Serb helicopter gunships shot at farmers running for cover and machine-gunned houses February 28. Armored personnel vehicles demolished several buildings and sprayed their town with gunfire. Serb cops then blocked off Drenica, the region where the villages were attacked and where the UCK has set up guerrilla bases. Explosions could be heard in the hills March 1, according to a London Financial Times article.

The Balkan powder keg in Kosovo has ignited over Belgrade's attempts to stifle demands for independence expressed by many ethnic Albanians there. Kosovo was granted autonomy in 1974 following protests demanding a republic. In 1990 the Serbian government dissolved Kosovo's parliament after stripping the province of its autonomy the year before. Albanians overwhelmingly backed a referendum on independence in 1991. Belgrade responded by shutting down schools teaching in the Albanian language - from elementary schools to Pristina's university - that same year.

Pro-independence forces growing
In 1992 Ibrahim Rugova was elected president of the Republic of Kosovo. Rugova and his Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) declared Kosovo an independent republic and set up a parallel government to the Serbian regime, with a system of separate taxation, health care, and education.

The recent upsurge has spurred divisions within the LDK. Hydajet Hyseni, an LDK vice president, said it was time to abandon Rugova's nonconfrontational approach and adopt a more active policy that would bring more people into the streets. "We cannot be satisfied with our results or the attitude of the international community," Hyseni declared. "The militant tendency among Albanians is the consequence of unproductive policies in Kosovo." He said the attacks by the UCK were justifiable against a brutal occupying army.

The UCK was founded in 1992 with the aim of fighting for independence and to establish a closer relationship with Albania. Some of its leaders fought in the 1992 - 95 war in Bosnia against the chauvinist Serb forces. They launched their first armed attack in 1993, but only began to organize regular and sustained actions in 1997. The group's operations have included assassinations of Serb officials.

Support for the rebel force has steadily grown, including among local leaders of the Democratic League of Kosovo. Many Albanians refer to the hills and areas surrounding Lausa - 50 miles from the capital Pristina - as "liberated areas."

On November 25 UCK fighters fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons on Serbian police who came to collect taxes from peasants in the village of Vojnik. The next day the cops returned, firing at random into farmhouses, a shop, a mosque, and a school where an Albanian teacher, Halit Geci, was killed.

Three days later 20,000 people attended Geci's funeral. During the assembly three UCK members wearing army fatigues and carrying submachine guns jumped onto the platform to address the crowd. They called for armed struggle against the Serb repression, and received a thunderous ovation and chants of "UCK! UCK!"

"Sufferings are not strange to us," remarked one of Geci's relatives. "But finally there are young men who think differently. I don't know who they are or what they do, but it is clear that the oppression is no longer bearable."

One month after the mass funeral some 10,000 Albanians marched in Pristina December 25 - the second day of protests - demanding the right to study in Albanian-language universities that had been closed down by Belgrade. That same day assailants launched two attacks on Serb police, exploding hand grenades near a police station and firing shots at the cops.

One week before these protests, a court composed of four Serb judges and one Albanian sentenced 15 Albanians to prison terms of 4 to 20 years on charges of terrorism. During the nine-week trial the men were found guilty of belonging to the Kosovo Liberation Army. The defendants said confessions were extracted through torture.

"People want peace," said Alban Neziri, a 23-year-old student activist who was one of two men found innocent and released in those proceedings. "But when there is no other way to achieve liberation from our occupiers, then I would certainly take up arms for my state," he added.

Belgrade jittery over mass actions
The Stalinist regime in Serbia is nervous about the mounting political instability. Serbian defense minister Pavle Bulatovic told the Yugoslav parliament March 2 that there would be "no talks with terrorists in Kosovo."

The government was rocked earlier by a nine-week wave of daily mass demonstrations in the capital Belgrade that began in late 1996 and spread to 30 other cities. The protests forced the Serbian government to concede municipal elections to the opposition electoral coalition in 14 of the republic's 19 largest cities.

The protest actions in Kosovo were in part inspired by the armed rebellion a year ago in the neighboring Albanian workers state, against the U.S.-backed regime of former president Sali Berisha. Tens of thousands of working people and other rebels took control over several cities in the southern half of the country in early 1997.

Berisha's Democratic Party was soundly defeated in elections June 29 and July 6, conducted under the boot of an Italian-led military occupation force. Most of the Italian and other foreign troops that occupied Albania left the country by mid-August. Washington had organized its naval forces off the Adriatic coast of the Balkans in response to the revolt by the workers and peasants in Albania.

U.S. Balkan envoy Robert Gelbard, who visited Pristina during the last week of February, denounced the Kosovo rebel group as a "terrorist organization."

Ending the UN "peacekeeping mission" in the neighboring republic of Macedonia on schedule in August "is a mistake," the New York Times warned in a March 2 editorial. The reason? "A violent group of ethnic Albanians, the Kosovo Liberation Army, has stepped up its terrorist attacks in Kosovo and claimed credit for two recent bombings in Macedonia."

The big-business daily hinted at military intervention in Serbia, calling for "new peacekeepers, possibly under the auspices of NATO" to replace the 1,000 imperialist troops scheduled to leave in August. "Events in Kosovo," the article asserted, "are a more direct danger."  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home