Albanians cautious of Serbian crisis

Albanians cautious of Serbian crisis

By Jovan Kovacic

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (Reuter): Ethnic Albanians, restive under
Serbian rule in the province of Kosovo, are steering clear of
Serbia's democratic opposition movement to avoid a new backlash
against their aspirations to autonomy.

Analysts say President Slobodan Milosevic would be handed a
excuse to both crack down harder on the Albanian majority in
Kosovo and crush Serbian opposition protests elsewhere with
police force if the Albanians openly backed his foes.

"Albanians must not give Milosevic any pretext to crack down
on Kosovo and shift the Serbian crisis into this volatile area,"
said Shkelzen Maliqi, an Albanian publicist and member of the
George Soros Open Society Foundation.

"Any (pro-opposition) play on our part would disturb the
political process in Serbia and give Milosevic an excuse to call
for homogenization of Serbs once again," Fehmi Agani, vice-
president of the leading ethnic Albanian party, the Democratic
League of Kosovo (LDK), told Reuters.

Maliqi and Agani were referring to a wave of street protests
by the opposition Zajedno (Together) coalition which has rocked
the rest of Serbia for more than 10 weeks in the biggest
challenge to Milosevic's 10-year rule.

Zajedno is protesting against the ruling Socialist Party's
annulment of opposition victories in 14 of Serbia's 18 largest
cities, including Belgrade, last November.

Some analysts fear the unrest could spread to volatile Kosovo,
where ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs nine to one, and help
Milosevic divert world attention from the streets of his capital
and silence both Zajedno and the Albanians.

When Albanian Parliamentary Party (PP) leader Adem Demaqi, who
spent 28 years in jail as a political prisoner in old Communist
Yugoslavia, sent a message of support to Zajedno last month, the
Socialists accused the Serbian opposition of consorting with
secessionists.

In 1989, Milosevic abolished the autonomous status of
impoverished Kosovo on the ground that its Albanians were
preparing to secede from Serbia. Nationalist Serbs say Kosovo is
the ancient cradle of their culture.

Kosovo's Albanians have quietly dissented ever since,
boycotting Serbian state institutions and authority in a quest
for self-rule by peaceful means.

But the tense equilibrium could be broken suddenly, diplomats
and political sources say, with new leaders like Demaqi calling
for more radical steps towards independence against a backdrop of
renewed violence against Kosovo Serbs.

Bosko Drobjnjak, Serbian information minister in the province,
told Reuters that an atmosphere for dialogue painstakingly
created last year was not welcomed by hardliners.

"This has resulted in the emergence of terrorism -- first
targeting people at random and then selecting Serbs and loyal
Albanians for assassination," Drobjnjak said.

Both Serbs and Albanians say that 15 Serbs and 14 Albanians
were killed in ethnic violence in Kosovo last year.

An obscure organization called the Albanian Liberation Army of
Kosovo (LAK) has taken responsibility for most of a handful of
killings of Serb policemen and other Serbs over the past year.

Serbian police said they arrested its leader, Avni Klinaku,
and some followers last Saturday.

In the most spectacular recent attack, the Serbian rector of
the university in Pristina, Kosovo's main city, was critically
injured in a car bombing two weeks ago.

Socialist-run state media accused Zajedno of complicity in the
attack. A Zajedno leader, Zoran Djindjic, ridiculed the
allegation and pinned the blame on radical Albanians in Kosovo.
This did not go down well in Pristina.

"I see the point he was trying to make but why blame us?"
Agani, said recalling that both Djindjic and his partner in the
Zajedno leadership, Vuk Draskovic, had hardline views towards
Kosovo autonomy.

Despite smoldering tensions, the Serbian police presence in
the crumbling streets of Pristina was low-key this week and gone
were the paramilitary assault rifles they carried as recently as
last year.