The Kosovo tragedy

If reports of NATO missile and air strikes fail to give us an idea of the depth and magnitude of the human suffering that the war in Kosovo is bringing to the common people of the area, the statistics that enumerate an endless stream of refugees that the war sends flowing into neighboring countries and territories may surely provide us with a better picture.

To be sure, precise day-by-day statistics on refugees are hard to obtain. It is natural to expect, though, that as the allied assault on targets in and around Kosovo escalate and Serbian forces and paramilitary units step up their campaign to "cleanse" Kosovo of their ethnic Albanian adversaries, the outflow is bound to mount.

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees, however, estimates that as of Friday, more than half a million ethnic Albanian Kosovars have fled their homeland to find refuge in surrounding territories.

So far, Albania has had to bear the brunt of the burden of the exodus, with hundreds of thousands of refugees -- estimates put their number at anywhere between 80,000 and 100,000 -- seeking shelter in that country's northern areas. For neighboring Macedonia and Montenegro, the refugee problem has begun to put a strain on their limited resources that is almost too heavy to bear. And inside Kosovo itself, an estimated 260,000 have been displaced.

Obviously, all this is creating a human dimension to the war in Kosovo that neither Yugoslavia's neighbors nor other countries on the European continent can ignore, for unless measures are taken to tackle this problem with swiftness and competence, the destabilizing effect that the Kosovo refugee problem creates could eventually send ripples to much of the rest of Europe.

In the final analysis, it is the Serbian leadership in Belgrade that must bear the responsibility for setting off this tide of forced human migration. Whatever argument Belgrade may be trying to make to justify its campaign to "cleanse" Kosovo of its ethnic Albanian population, no rationalization can justify the brutality that Serbian military and paramilitary personnel have been committing against local civilians in the area.

Accounts given by refugees make mention not only of ethnic Albanian citizens in Kosovo being herded off into camps and being randomly shot, or of houses and villages being pillaged and burned. Systematic efforts appear to be underway to wipe out the entire ethnic Albanians as a population group in President Slobodan Milosevic's "Greater Serbia".

The willful killing of ethnic Albanian civic leaders over the past weeks indicates that such allegations seem to be well founded on truth. Last Monday alone, five prominent ethnic Albanian citizens were seized and shot during house-to-house searches by Serbian troops; one of the most prominent victims being Fehmi Agani, who took part in the peace negotiations in Rambouillet, France, last month. Another prominent victim was Baton Haxhiu, chief editor of the leading newspaper Koha Ditore in Pristina, which acts as a champion for the ethnic Albanian cause in Kosovo.

For Indonesians, there is a powerful lesson to be learned from the Kosovo war. Much more even than Yugoslavia, Indonesia is a hugely diverse nation -- ethnically, culturally and religiously. Events in Maluku, Kalimantan and elsewhere have already taught us that without wisdom and restraint, even the most innocent arguments can escalate into conflict, with possibly the most serious consequences for the nation.

Yugoslavia provides a good case for Indonesians to reflect on. Looking back on our most recent experiences in Ambon and Kalimantan, we can say that unless we learn to exercise wisdom and restraint in dealing with our differences, and learn to control our narrow group loyalties and interests, it may not be so difficult at all to imagine a tragedy similar to that of Yugoslavia occurring in Indonesia.