The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.63/No.2           January 18, 1999 
 
 
Imperialists Threaten To Extend Their Military Intervention In Yugoslavia  

BY ANNE HOWIE AND NATASHA TERLEXIS
PRISTINA, Kosova, Yugoslavia - Washington and other imperialist powers have stepped up their threats of military intervention in Yugoslavia. On December 29, NATO secretary general Javier Solana declared, "NATO is ready to intervene if the situation [in Kosova] requires."

The latest threats of intervention follow a renewed offensive by the Belgrade government against the Albanian majority in Kosova. Some 40 government tanks and armored personnel carriers attacked villages in the Podujevo area, in northern Kosova, beginning December 24. This assault, which continued for four days, met resistance from the Kosova Liberation Army (UCK), which is a part of the fight for Kosova's independence from the Yugoslav government in Belgrade. The attacks are occurring in villages severely devastated by the large-scale offensive of Belgrade's military forces in September and October of last year. Roughly half the homes in the now snow-covered hills of the Drenica region, for example are shelled and uninhabitable.

The decades-long struggle of ethnic Albanians in Kosova, who are 90 percent of Kosova's population of 2 million, for national self-determination took on a new urgency when the autonomous status of Kosova was revoked by the Serbian government in 1989.

As they earlier did in Bosnia, the imperialist powers are intervening in order to lay the ground for eventually restoring the domination of capitalism throughout the region of the Yugoslav workers state, and to tighten their encirclement of Russia. But they face the challenge of crushing the resistance waged by Albanian miners and other workers, farmers, and youth in Kosova and throughout the region.

Over the past month, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has been putting in place "peace monitors," eventually to number 2,000, as part of the Holbrooke agreement signed between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's president Slobodan Milosevic and U.S. government representative Richard Holbrooke, in October, under threat of NATO air strikes. In a role similar to the "weapons inspectors" in Iraq, the OSCE force is supposed to monitor the withdrawal of government troops and police from Kosova, and to oversee the return of more than 300,000 "internally displaced persons" to their homes. NATO is also building a military "extraction" force of 2,000 based in the neighboring Republic of Macedonia, ready to enter Kosova if they decide to pull out the monitors.

After the December 24 attacks, William Walker, the U.S. diplomat who heads the OSCE's team of "peace monitors," stated that "both sides have gone looking for trouble and they have found it."

Up to now, the imperialist intervention has been carried out in the name of defending the rights of the Albanian targets of Milosevic's force. Now an increasing number of "unnamed diplomatic sources" are being cited in the big-business press pointing to the Albanian resistance, and the UCK in particular, as the real problem in Kosova. The Athens weekly New Europe quotes an unnamed diplomat involved in the negotiations saying, "Frankly, there's a growing feeling that the UCK is the problem. They are rude, sneering, and uncooperative. I'm personally disgusted with their attitude and with their actions."

French defense minister Alain Richard made similar charges publicly. "The main destabilizing factor today is the rebels, not the Serbs," he stated January 1, while traveling to Macedonia to review French troops who are there as part of the so-called extraction force. "And if the clashes continue and grow, the accords will no longer be valid and we will have to go back to the threats of military pressure which existed before."

Albanians discuss NATO intervention
Many Albanians these reporters spoke with during a late- December visit to Kosova expected that the now 700-strong OSCE mission would help to protect them. However, the actual conduct of the monitors is beginning to paint a different picture for these fighters on the ground. Halit Baroni, of the Human Rights Council in Mitrovica, an industrial town near the capital Pristina, said so far 36 monitors are in place there. "But the police are still harassing Albanians," he stated. "Every day the police arrest young people." Baroni said the police go looking for youth from the nearby Drenica area, a stronghold of the UCK. "They arrest them, beat them, hold them for two or three days.... Some are held for two or three months with no contact." About 190 youth are currently "wanted" in Mitrovica, of whom 90 so far have been picked up.

The charges Albanians commonly face today are of participating in or assisting terrorism. Baroni told of a man arrested in Mitrovica while trying to send bread to the village of Skenderaj. He was charged with "assisting the terrorists." Three Albanians from Ferizaj were convicted December 26 of similar charges and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment between them. On the same day the one of the three Albanian-language dailies, Bujku, was closed down by the authorities. "We expected a better situation with the OSCE but we're disappointed with the people who are here. We don't expect anything good from them, we don't know why they're here," Baroni said.

This early experience has also raised questions about the prospect of NATO troops being deployed. "If they act like the OSCE, we have no use for them," commented Baroni.

None of the predominant political parties in Kosova are opposed to NATO intervention in the region. Ibrahim Rugova, leader of the Democratic League of Kosova (LDK) and president of the Kosovan government, which is not recognized by Belgrade, has repeated his request for a NATO military force in several European capitals in recent weeks.

Likewise, Mehmet Hajrizi, of the United Democratic Movement (LBD), a coalition of parties opposed to Rugova formed three months ago, told the Militant, "Only those who support war are opposed to an international presence here." The premier of Albania also stated in the Tirana parliament December 26 that "a NATO action would have been decisive for a peaceful solution of the Kosova problem."

The political leadership of the UCK also calls for NATO support. In a statement released December 25, the UCK General Staff called on "the international community to punish the criminal Belgrade regime." At the same time, the statement called for a lifting of the arms embargo "on the UCK, because only a strong liberation army will force Serbia to respect the cease-fire and pave the way for a just and lasting political solution to the Kosova issue."

Bujar Dugolli, president of the Independent Students' Union of the University of Kosova, stated, "It is not the duty of NATO to get independence for us. But it should stop the regime in Belgrade, and Milosevic." At the same time, Dugolli said "there are a lot of diplomats who treat Milosevic as a partner for peace, a partner for negotiations." Dugolli is also aware that the imperialist powers involved in the NATO operation do not act out of support for the rights of Albanians. "You can't say that there's no NATO interest. This is not just about Kosova. Everyone knows NATO wants to stop Russia having influence in the Balkans."

Evolution of independence struggle
Dugolli described the development of the current struggle as the evolution of the protests which the students sparked, beginning November 1997, demanding Albanian students be given access to university buildings they had been evicted from and education in their own language. "At the same time as we were demanding the freeing of the university buildings, we were warning that this was the last chance to do anything concrete. The international community didn't do anything, their support was just verbal, not enough to stop the conflict. We began to organize self-defense and this became a liberation movement of Albanians. During this time the UCK has become the main military and political factor in Kosova, the only force defending Albanians, and also defending Muslims, Serbs, and Montenegrans not implicated in the war."

The students' protests ceased in March 1998. "After the massacres began, the air was politicized by the fumes of burning children. We breathe that air too. Release of the university facilities is not very important at the moment. We are sure we will get them back, because we built them, they are ours," Dugolli said. He noted many university students have gone back to their home villages to volunteer.

Many workers have been joining the UCK, said Agim Hajrizi, president of the Union of Independent Trade Unions of Kosova, though this is not being organized by the union. Giving the example of the Ferronickel and munitions plant in Skenderaj, Hajrizi said that the Albanian workers there were first dismissed from their jobs in 1991. Then in 1997 their homes were destroyed. "They have been forced to go to the UCK to protect what they have left," he noted.

Securing the ability of 300,000 refugees to return was touted as a major achievement of the Milosevic-Holbrooke agreement. But the reality isn't so simple.

Baroni described the situation in Mitrovica, "an industrial town with all the workers fired." At the height of the government offensive, the population of 120,000 -85 percent of whom are Albanian - swelled to around 168,000 people. Baroni explained that while some of the refugees had returned to their villages since the cease-fire, many have nowhere to go. More than 780 houses were destroyed in 20 villages in the area, and many more damaged. Thousands of Albanian families in towns like Mitrovica are hosting displaced people from the countryside. The commander of the UCK brigade in the village of Llausha, in Drenica pointed out that 220 houses had been destroyed there, so "half the village is not here."

At the UCK guardpost just outside Llausha, just one kilometer from the nearest Serbian government forces, we spoke to commander Geqi of the 119 Brigade, 1st Battalion. This is a farming area where most families used to have members working in industry. Now they survive with subsistence farming and aid from relatives abroad. The main factory in the area is now a base for the Belgrade government army. In this hard-hit village, as in the whole area, there is substantial evidence of the defense that has been built since the first assault in March. While the main roads are controlled by the Belgrade government's forces, the Albanian flag can be seen flying from hilltops, marking posts of the UCK. Outsiders traveling in the area need permission both from the Belgrade government authorities and from the UCK.

People in the villages have no problem pointing out the location of UCK units. The 119 Brigade is made up of the sons and a few daughters of the farmers and workers in the Llausha area. "The people who live here are all soldiers," said Geqi. He testified to the renewed buildup of Belgrade's forces. "We have been hearing shooting since early December. Milosevic was the first to sign the cease-fire, but he is the one bringing back forces. They were just hidden from the asphalt road." The rebel soldier added, "We are here and we haven't anywhere else to go. We will respond with all we have." Geqi stated that the UCK can take care of defense and called on NATO to remove Milosevic.

Self-determination is a necessity
For the trade unions in Kosova, too, the resolution of the fight for self-determination is seen as a precondition to resolving other questions facing working people. "Serbia is an occupier - it is impossible to continue without a political solution," said Hajrizi of the Union of Independent Trade Unions of Kosova. He said 150,000 workers have been dismissed from their jobs since 1989. Of the 38,000 union members who do have some kind of work, most have not been paid for months. At one construction site in Podujevo, workers are paid in building materials.

In the recent military offensives, many factories have been occupied by Belgrade's military forces. Many union members have been killed on the way to work or abused at army checkpoints on their way.

Despite the continued threat of air strikes by NATO, several drafts of a "peace plan" pushed by the U.S. government have been rejected by the Milosevic regime as well as by several Kosovar leaders of political parties involved in the negotiations. With the increase in sporadic fighting, European Union envoy Wolfgang Petritsch along with diplomats of the Contact Group - made up of representatives of the governments of the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy - have been in Kosova since December 19 pressuring Albanian leaders into renewed negotiations with the regime in Belgrade. While rejecting Albanians demand for independence of Kosova, Petritsch called on the UCK to "renounce violence if it wants to join talks."

The struggle of the Albanians in Kosova is directly tied to the struggle of the Albanians in the neighboring Republic of Macedonia for national rights. Albanians in Macedonia are an oppressed nationality constituting a third of the population there, concentrated in areas near Kosova. Arben Xhaferi, president of the Democratic Party of Albanians (PDSH) told Reuters on December 17, "We are asking for progress on rights, in matters of education, language, and employment." The PDSH participates in the recently elected coalition government. "If there is no progress," Xhaferi warned, "we could face the same situation as in Kosova. I will begin to lose my credibility and my function in society, just like Rugova has" in Kosova.

On December 29 Macedonia's parliament passed an amnesty law under which Alaidin Demiri, mayor of Tetovo, and Rufi Osmani, mayor of Gostivar, as well as the presidents of both city councils are to be released from prison. They had been convicted in 1997 of defying a law by the Macedonian government that prohibited flying the Albanian flag publicly. Thousands of Albanians who see this flag as a symbol of their national identity and dignity protested this law.

Bobbis Misailides contributed to this article.  
 
 
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