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Declaration on Kosova
The burning fields and cities and the streams of refugees fleeing Kosovo are not
the by-product of a conflict between `Serbs' and `Albanians'. They are the
strategic goals of a war launched by a criminal regime against a population
fighting for national survival. The policy of emptying Kosovo of its majority
Albanian population had been systematically, meticulously prepared in advance,
and was well under way before NATO's belated intervention. It began in 1989,
with the illegal revocation of Kosovo's autonomous constitutional status, the
mass expulsion of Albanians from public employment, their exclusion from schools
and healthcare and the introduction of a regime of institutionalized violence
and apartheid. It has been accelerating ever since, slowly but inexorably, to
the extent that an estimated 400,000 Kosovars were displaced already as the Ram
bouillet negotiations took place earlier this year.
Systematic terror by Serb army, police and paramilitary units and the burning
and shredding of public records and travel documents are designed not only to
uproot the Kosovars, but to erase the memory of their presence in Kosovo. The
programme is not a new one:
Serbian policy between the two world wars encouraged the confiscation of Albani
an land, the humiliation and denationalization of the Kosovars, and systematic
colonization by Serbs. When these efforts failed to achieve Serb demographic su
premacy, more forceful measures were contemplated. Vaso Cubrilovic, the author
of The Expulsion of the Albanians, was a well-known publicist and professor of
history at Belgrade University. His proposals were submitted as a policy paper
to the Yugoslav government and seriously discussed. When the pre-war Serbian
parties were swept away by the Nazi invasion, war, andÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÔ
civil war, he offered his
services to the Communist leadership, advising them in 1944 that `The only cor
rect solution of the question of minorities (sic) is emigration.' Milosevic, the
opportunistic apparatchik turned apostle of Greater Serbia, has simply walked
the same path in reverse, and is now implementing the policies his ideological
predecessors either shrank from or were prevented by circumstances from imple
menting.
To the horrors of the killings, the destruction of entire towns and villages,
and the mass expulsions must be added what can only be described as a conscious
drive to physically eliminate the Kosovar intelligentsia and all those with po
litical experience and international contacts, including trade unionists. In
this context, we recall the murder of our brother, Agim Hajrizi, President of
the BSPK Assembly and founding member of the independent trade union, killed to
gether with his mother and twelve-year-old son. Other workers and trade-union
members, including those of our sister organization BSPK - Agrokompleksi i
Kosov‰‰s - remain unaccounted for. The refugees, already numbering some half
million, are predominantly women and children. Given the Milosevic regime's his
tory, the reports filtering in from Kosovo, and the stories told by the refu
gees, there is ample reason to fear that a super-Srebrenica is planned, or al
ready taking place.
Under these circumstances, can the trade-union movement reject the use of force
to repel barbarism? Can we fail to show solidarity with the victims? Can we cam
paign for the indictment of General Pinochet and not demand the same for
Milosevic and his henchmen? Can we abandon our political and moral responsibili
ties, our obligation to formulate independent views and to seek to influence
government policy and public opinion?
To those who reject military intervention in these circumstances, the question
must be posed: what is your answer to mass murder? And to the Western govern
ments who have finally taken action, the question must be asked: what is the de
sired political objective?
Force must be used, because the Kosovars are being systematically murdered,
herded into boxcars, expelled from their homes at the point of a gun. Many of
those who make it to the border are now being forcibly separated from their
families and dispatched unwillingly to unknown destinations. The flood of refu
gees threatens to overwhelm Kosovo's neighbours, already the poorest countries
in Europe. The immediate goal of military intervention must be to halt the
slaughter and to establish the conditions, as quickly as possible, for the re
turn of the refugees to their homes. Their lives and security must be effec
tively guaranteed, and this calls for the introduction of ground troops. There
is no alternative, unless NATO's display of force is designed to produce a
partition which would leave Milosevic in control of the `mines and monasteries'
of northern Kosovo and lock the Albanians into an impoverished southern Bantus
tan. This prospect must be rejected if we are serious about securing a demo
cratic peace and long-term stability for the region.
An international protectorate for Kosovo must be established, backed by interna
tional peacekeeping forces. Serbian police, army and paramilitary units must,
without exception, pull out of Kosovo and be prevented from returning. The
troops must have as their mandate the protection of all the peoples of Kosovo,
including the Serbs.
The use of ground forces to bring the refugees home must be backed with massive
assistance to Kosovo's neighbours Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro. Firm com
mitments must be given by NATO to the government of Montenegro, which has coura
geously refused to participate in the Kosovo bloodbath and has already been the
target of one Belgrade-backed coup attempt.The policy of organized violence and
terror against the Albanians of Kosovo has been aided and abetted by years of
confusion and prevarication on the part of Western diplomÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÔ
acy, which against all
evidence treated Slobodan Milosevic as a privileged `interlocutor' and a `factor
of stability' rather than as the chief source of instability in the tortured re
gion. Criminal policies have for too long been euphemistically reduced to
`humanitarian crises'. International arrest warrants must be immediately issued
for Milosevic and his henchmen, who must be brought as swiftly as possible be
fore the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
Any programme of action to save Kosovo must address the future of Serbia, a con
sideration which has been noticeably absent from NATO's concerns. Milosevic's
claim that he is defending Serb interests in Kosovo must be exposed, above all
to the people of Serbia, as a cynical lie. The poisonous ideology of `Greater
Serbia' was fundamental in bringing about the violent destruction of Yugoslavia,
leaving in its wake death, destruction, and shattered lives. It has made the
Serbs hostage to a regime of serial killers, buried Serbia's best traditions
(including those of the labour and socialist movements), and impoverished the
nation economically, intellectually and culturally. The dwindling core of Ser
bian democrats have many years of hard work ahead in digging themselves out from
the layers of confusion, brutality, demoralization and corruption accumulated
over the past decade, and they will need massive assistance. This, too, is our
responsibility, and it must not be forgotten.
Translated from Galeb (Zagreb), Glasilo Samostalnog Sindikata Ugostiteljstva i
Turizma Hrvatske, April 1999.
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