BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS
The United Nations Security Council approved an arms embargo against Yugoslavia March 31 on Washington's initiative, under the guise of supporting the struggle for national rights of Albanians in Kosovo.

The government of China abstained from the vote. Shen Guofeng, Beijing's deputy ambassador to the UN, said the decision "may create a bad precedent and have wider negative implications."

"We fully recognize that the security of the region affects broader international interests, and that deterioration of the situation in Kosovo constitutes a threat to international peace and security," stated U.S. ambassador to the United Nations William Richardson.

Washington's interests in the region include deepening NATO intervention in the Balkans to restore capitalism in Yugoslavia, Albania, and other workers states; tighten the encirclement of Russia in the east; and maintain U.S. hegemony in Europe. This is tied to expanding NATO into Eastern and Central Europe and repositioning U.S. forces closer to the Russian border.

The UN Security Council resolution also calls "upon the Kosovar Albanian leadership to condemn all terrorist action, and emphasizes that all elements in the Kosovar Albanian community should pursue their goals by peaceful means only."

Fehmi Agani rejected this call. Agani is part of a 15- member advisory council established March 24 from representatives of political parties and other organizations among Albanians in Kosovo to set the agenda for possible negotiations with the regime of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. He also rejected another demand for unconditional talks with Belgrade. "We cannot accept the regime of terror and the condition to hold talks under such a regime," he said.

"This kind of resolution won't solve the problem or bring peace," said Albin Kurti, international officer of the Independent Students Union of the University of Pristina in a telephone interview from Pristina April 2. "The Serbian police must end their siege, withdraw their special forces, and stop repression against Albanians before any negotiations." The student group has been one of the main organizers of mass mobilizations in Kosovo demanding national rights for Albanians.

Kosovo is a region where 90 percent of the population is Albanian and 8 percent is Serb. Other inhabitants are Turkish, Gypsies, and other nationalities. It is formally part of the Republic of Serbia. Under the formerly federated Yugoslavia, Kosovo had autonomy and was self-governed. The Milosevic regime revoked Kosovo's autonomous status in 1989 and imposed a state of emergency that has been in place ever since. Instruction in Albanian was banned at high schools and colleges and most Albanians were fired from state administration, hospitals and clinics, and industry for refusing to sign "loyalty oaths" to Serbia. Faced with a new wave of mass protests for national rights that erupted last fall, Belgrade responded with brutal repression under the pretext of fighting "terrorism" by the Kosovo Liberation Army, a guerrilla group. Eighty-five Albanians were killed in the Drenica region in two assaults by Serbian police forces February 28 and March 5, and 19 are still missing.

On March 24 two more Albanians were killed in another Serb police attack in the village of Gllogjan in the Decan municipality of western Kosovo, near the border with Albania. A few days later 17-year-old Hime Haradinaj also died from wounds he suffered during that assault. A Serb policeman was also killed in this incident.

While the wave of mass protests for self-determination that swept Pristina, Kosovo's capital, since early March have subsided for the moment, about 30,000 people turned out for the funerals of the Albanians killed in Gllogjan March 27.

Meanwhile, Albanians were allowed access to the Institute of Albanian Studies associated with the official University of Pristina on March 31. This was the first step toward implementing an accord between Belgrade and Albanian leaders that would end the ban on Albanian-language instruction in state high schools and the university system. "Three other university buildings and the high schools are supposed to be returned in April," Kurti said. "We are still skeptical on whether this will happen. Milosevic has reneged previous promises many times." The agreement is supposed to be implemented in phases by June 30. The two sides could not agree on a common teaching program, so classes in Serb and Albanian will be taught at different times and with separate curricula.

Pro-Belgrade Serbs are opposed to the accord and have organized repeated protests against it. They have taped placards reading "treason" outside university walls. "If this agreement is implemented there will be no Serbs left in this university by next school year," said Serb student leader Zivojin Rakocevic. Serb professors packed up and left the premises of the Institute of Albanian Studies once keys to the building were returned to Albanians.

In Belgrade the government devalued the dinar, the Yugoslav currency, by 20 percent on April 1. "This may be tied to fears that more UN sanctions may be in the offing after the arms embargo was imposed," said Zorica Trifunovic in a telephone interview from Belgrade that day. Trifunovic is part of Women in Black, most of whose members are Serbian. The group supports the struggle for self-determination for Albanians. "Prices of many items will now rise again and working people will pay for the most part." Trifunovic is opposed to such sanctions, like most people in Serbia. A three-year UN embargo that ended in 1995 had crippled the Yugoslav economy.

The Russian government voted for the UN arms embargo after a reference in the resolution stating the situation in Kosovo constituted "a threat to international peace and security in the region" was deleted. Moscow had previously campaigned against the arms embargo and opposes economic and other sanctions on Belgrade pushed by Washington.

In Moscow, Russian president Boris Yeltsin's spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky sought to ease Belgrade's concerns with the Russian vote at the United Nations. Moscow has sold weaponry to Yugoslavia until recently. "These sanctions should not be seen as punishment for Yugoslavia," Yastrzhembsky said April 1. "We see no danger of full-scale armed clashes in Kosovo. We think there is every possibility that Belgrade and political leaders of the Albanian minority will find a way out of this situation by means of a political dialogue with the help of the international community."

The pro-capitalist government in Moscow has come into increasing conflict with Washington over expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe; U.S. policy on Iraq; and U.S. attempts to not only dominate the oil in the former Soviet republics of the Caspian Sea region, but to establish a stronger regional line of influence and pressure across the southern flank of Russia, from the Caspian all along the Silk Road.

Inside the United States, a number of capitalist politicians and pundits have been more candidly speaking about the aims of U.S. foreign policy regarding NATO expansion. "Considering the UN's inability to conduct any sort of military operation; and Russia's internal instability, as well as its willingness to sell weapons to Iraq, Iran, and China; and its ex-Communist foreign and defense ministers allying themselves with Saddam Hussein, it is imperative the we strengthen NATO," wrote Caspar Weinberger, chairman of Forbes, in the March 23 issue of the magazine. Weinberger was U.S. secretary of defense between 1981 and 1987 under the Ronald Reagan administration.

"Russian opposition should be overcome or ignored," Weinberger said. Washington can't allow "our foreign policy to be set by Russian, French or Chinese objections -and our unwillingness to counter them. This is not why we fought - and won - the Cold War."  
 
 
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