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.