The Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is up to his old tricks — tricks that cause great bloodshed and homelessness.
He has yet again stirred up nationalistic Serb feeling in an area where there is a significant non-Serb population. In the past it has been Slovenia, then Croatia, then Bosnia. Now it is the province of Kosovo which has a population of ethnic Albanians. The pattern continues. Mr Milosevic vows that certain territory is and will always be part of greater Serbia. He stirs up violence and refuses to yield either in the form of giving territory up or giving local populations greater autonomy. Then follows international pressure. Then Mr Milosevic becomes an indispensible figure in a “”peace process”. Eventually there is a peace, at a huge cost in human suffering. Invariably, the peace settlement requires some sort of compromise on the part of the Serbs that should have been given before the bloodshed. But Mr Milosevic wins because he has deflected attention from the woeful economic performance of his Government with the classic tactic of the totalitarian — to focus attention on an outside force in order to bolster political support at home.
Must it happen again in Kosovo? Surely, it is not beyond the wit of the international community to show Mr Milosovic that his old tricks will not work this time.
Trouble has been inevitable since 1989 when Kosovo’sAlbanian majority lost their autonomy and found themselves subject to a police state controlled from the Serbian capital Belgrade. Under great provocation, some formed the Kosovo Liberation Army and resorted to arms.
That gave Mr Milosevic the excuse to use excessive force in return. Mr Milosevioc supported the killing of dozens of Albanian villagers by Serbian police. It has resulted in an international crisis, with international community threatening sanctions if he fails to act positively in the next fortnight.
He now has to decide between escalating the violence or to negotiate seriously. If he negotiates, he has to consider seriously giving the province complete independence.
For several years before the current killing spree, the Albanians cut off all relations with the Serbs and created their own parallel state as a prelude to a full independence. The Serbs, meanwhile, refused to let the province go, citing their attachment to the land of the first Serb rulers and the seat of the Serb Orthodox Church. Despite the Serb official position, on the ground Serbs were voting with their feet, leaving the province. Only the repressive police presence has prevented a wholesale Albanian takeover.
Mr Milosevic must somehow break from the sorry history of the Balkans. It has been a history of incessant territorial squabbles fought by force and based on claim and counter-claim over real or imagined wrongs of past disputes. In the late 20th century, with a range of international organisations in place, a non-violent solution based on self-determination must be found.
If not, the force should come from the international community upon Mr Milosevic and Serbia and not from Serbia on Kosovo. Strong international action is likely to be more effective this time because after past wars, the Serbian people are less likely to put up with Mr Milosevic’s tricks yet another time and he must realise it.