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UNMIK and KFOR: A False Pattern of National Identities beyond Ethnic Hatreds, part 2/6 : The Context in which the 1999 War Developed

2.1) International Factors

2.1.1) Military Developments: From Land Conquest to Artificial Demographics

Since modernity “was born under the stars of acceleration and land conquest” (Bauman 2000: 112), it generated a renewal of in trends of war through the deployment of new techniques and methods that became readily available with the rise of industrialization and of globalization. During this process of civilization, wartime violence became constrained by the principles of the international law of armed conflict (Cook 2000: 56). As nationalist ideas spread beyond Western countries, peoples throughout the world took up arms to liberate themselves from what they perceived as ‘foreign’ oppressors. But since least 90% of the armed conflicts after the end of the Cold War were internal (Harbom and Wallensteen quoted in Oberg and Strom 2008: 3), the notion of ‘foreign’ itself seems unsubstantiated. Yet, this epithet encompasses the very gist of secessionist movements: as various ethnic groups become culturally entrenched through institutionalized profiles, they gain a fixed identity[4] that can be powerfully reproduced, appropriated, and perpetuated notably because it had previously gained legitimacy through its institutionalization.

Ideology, therefore, buttressed ethnic cleansing, and not vice-versa. It was not the weapons of the Serbian army, but their nationalist ideology that enabled them to counter KLA attacks. Modernity does not produce genocidal plans. It merely facilitates them by enforcing a model of leadership in which ‘gardeners’ try to weed out the parts of a population they consider unfit for the realization of a grand societal plan (Bauman 1999: 113). The use of violence has become both efficient and cost-effective for masters of a new ‘artificial order’: the new functional division of labor replacing feudal ties and the substitution of technical for moral responsibility dehumanize and distance perpetrators from their victims of genocide (ibid 98, 102, 116).

2.1.2 The Paradigmatic Revolution of the Government: From ‘State Duties’ to ‘Responsibility to Protec

The provisions of the United Nations Charter had been predicated on the inviolability of national sovereignty and on a military logic that “did not envisage new types of violence” (Higgins 1993: 239). In response to human rights abuses perpetuated in the name of freedom from tyrannical governments, the United Nations shifted their position regarding the concept of political sovereignty (Steiner and Alston 2000: 835).

According to the new doctrine, states should no longer limit their actions to ‘negative’ duties, but succor nationals of other countries whose basic human rights are blatantly denied. Starting from the 1990s, the “nation-building caravan” of the UN has traversed Cambodia, Angola, Sarajevo, Pristina, Dili in East Timor guided by this new principle (Ignatieff 2003: 93-4).

However successful some of its achievements, the politicization of UN aid hampers a swift crystallization of emerging trends (Hurd 2002: 78-9). Although most Western states supported NATO’s operations in Kosovo and the interim administration that followed (www.un.org/News), the strong opposition of China, Russia, and the Non-Alignment Movement to humanitarian intervention without authorization by the Security Council suggests that the principle will at least take time to become part of customary international law (Franck 2003: 224, Gray 2004: 48-9).

2.1.3 The Balkan Wars: Discords regarding the Partition of Kosovo

The Balkan Wars complicated the triadic relationship between national minorities, hegemonic nationalizing states, and the external national homelands in which the minorities of other countries did not hold legal citizenship[5]. As such, the Balkan Wars “set the precedent in this century for massive waves of ethnic cleansing and the forced migrations of hundreds of thousands of people” (Judah 2000b: 84). To an extent, the 1999 war in Kosovo could also be construed as a repercussion of ethnic tensions that took shape during this period. Two years after Serbia and Montenegro joined forces to gain independence from the Turks, the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano and its subsequent revision deprived the Serbs of the territory of Old Serbia and the Sanjak of the region Novi Pazar (Daskalovski in Bieber and Daskalovski 2003: 16).

Over a hundred years later, the territorial division imposed by Milosevic excluded “at least half of the Albanian nation and half of the autochthonous territories populated overwhelmingly by Albanians” from citizenship to the Albanian state (Kuci 2005: 340). The wars that resulted from the territorial fragmentation of former Yugoslavia were “not about secession per se but about the boundaries and the ethnic composition of the successor state” (Horowitz in Moore 2003: 190). If national identity is defined by a territorial component (Smith 1991: 40), then territorial disputes can become embedded in a national consciousness defined as antagonistic to an imagined group deemed as ‘the invader.’ I will focus on this idea later, in Chapter 3.

2.2 The Failed Yugoslav State: A Question of Incomplete Modernity?

Kosovo is today an independent state in the Balkans. All of its borders are the result of political accords and topography (Malcolm 1998: xxxv). Albanians account for 88% of the population, while Bosniak, Gorani, Roma, Turk, Ashkali, and Egyptian minorities make up the rest (www.cia.gov). The history of the region illustrates a pattern of domination in which the two main ethnic groups, Albanians and Serbs, constantly tried to impose their nationalist principles while ruling Kosovo.

Ethnic hatreds in Kosovo sprang up for the first time during the decline of the Ottoman Empire, a period that coincided with the emergence of nationalism (Hagen 1999: 52). During the 1912-1913 Balkan Wars, Serbian troops in Kosovo coalesced to drive the Turks out of the region. A new Serbian-led government replaced the Turkish administration in 1913. Austro-Hungary occupied the region during World War I, but withdrew in 1918. After Mussolini’s invasion of Albania in 1939, Kosovo became an Italian protectorate; the Italian dictator created an ephemeral ‘Great Albania’ through the brief annexation of Kosovo and Montenegro to the country (Dérens 2001: 601). At that time, Albanians cooperated with Nazis and employed Nazi tactics against the Serbs. In 1945, Kosovo became a province of Yugoslavia. The 1946 Yugoslav constitution labeled Albanians as a ‘nationality’ instead of a ‘nation’: they were thus constitutionally denied the option to form a republic (Rogel 2003: 171). Since Tito favored decentralization, Kosovo was ruled by a local Communist Party until 1966. Ironically, Kosovo lost its autonomy in 1966, when it was annexed to socialist Yugoslavia (Daskalovski in Bieber and Daskalovski 2003: 17).

After the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution, Serbs and Montenegrins witnessed a severe loss of status as the administration became exclusively ‘Albanized.’ Since ethnicity was the only criterion to determine the cleavages in the undemocratic League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the 1974 Constitution was built on the premises set by regional actors each trying to advance their nationalist and ethnic interests; the document portended a shift of the Yugoslav population from Yugoslavism (Kofos and Veremis 1998: 132). In actuality, the Constitution institutionalized a form of national politics organized along ethnic cleavages and encouraged the expansion of ethno-nationalism (Malesevic 2006: 174-5). The slogan of ‘brotherhood and unity’ of all ethnicities received a high rank in the ideological scheme of the Yugoslav Federation and its Constitution and was incorporated into the national identity during late socialism (Godina 1999: 413-7). The oppression of Albanians increased in the early 1980s.

Kosovo was under police rule throughout the following decade: during this period, 584,373 Kosovo Albanians were arrested, harassed, or interrogated (Mertus 1999: 46). The 1981 anti-Albanian sentiment “spawned the Serbian national awakening that brought Slobodan Milosevic to power” (Ramet, 1996: 356) in 1987. Milosevic gained control over Kosovo, Montenegro, and Vojvodina fraudulently in 1990. One year later, he stopped the constitutional rotation of Presidency. The United States, the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe first opposed any territorial fragmentation of Yugoslavia; their conformist approach to self-determination consolidated Milosevic’s power (Kuci 2005: 337). Imposing economic ‘emergency measures’ on Kosovo, Milosevic replaced Albanian functionaries with Serbs (Vickers 1998: 246-7) and Serbianized Kosovo by bringing Serb settlers into the region.

His plans partly succeeded also because approximately 300,000-400,000 Albanians fled Kosovo between 1990 and 1995 (Ramet 1996: 356). After the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia dissolved in 1991, Belgrade proclaimed a new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia consisting of Serbia and Montenegro (Amnesty International 1998: 35). In the meantime, a self-proclaimed parliament of the ‘Republic of Kosovo’ declared independence and drafted the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo (www.balkan-archive.org.yu).

New political opportunities arose for Albanians to promote their nationalist goals (Kuci 2005: 348). In 1992, Ibrahim Rugova was elected president of Kosovo by 99.6 % of the voters (www.savekosova.org). Despite his popularity, Rugova did not acquire any national or international amendments on behalf of the disgruntled Albanian population (Reitan 2000: 74). Kosovo Census Data: 1939, 1961, 1981, 1991

Source: Vuckovic and Nikolic in Mertus 1999: 315-6. On the contrary, the Kosovo National Movement radicalized in 1995. It adopted a new denomination: the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). KLA’s organization was prompted by several international factors, among which the Dayton Agreement and the Rambouillet Accord played a crucial role.

New political opportunities for action arose for the KLA in 1997. These will be more broadly discussed in the next section. The internal armed conflict broke out in January 1998, when Yugoslav forces “tortured and summarily executed” forty-five Albanians in Racak (Human Rights Watch 1999: 66). Between 5 and 7 March 1998, the Jashari family was killed in Prekaz by Serbian troops. In an act of revenge, the forces searched for the perpetrators of ethnic crimes supported by KLA’s leader Adem Jashari. Twenty-three Albanians were killed, among which a pregnant woman and ten men whose family had no connections to the insurgent group (di Lellio and Schwandner-Sievers 2006: 513, 515-6).

In the Drenica massacres that followed in September 1998, Serbian troops destroyed three villages and killed over eighty people (Dérens and Nouvel in mondediplo.com). The void of power between the Serbian occupation and UNMIK administration was filled by the KLA (Janev in Bieber and Daskalovski 2003: 305). After the withdrawal of the Yugoslav forces, the lack of a civil authority in Kosovo caused a general state of unrest (Nardulli et al. 2002: 110).

In October 1998, the international community started peace negotiations with KLA leaders. Responding to violent attacks by Serbian troops against Albanian civilians, NATO launched air strikes on 24 March 1999. These concluded after 78 days with a Military–Technical Agreement. The ethnic cleansing campaign was aggravated after NATO bombings (Hodge 2000: 47), a fact which the U.S. tried to cover up (Chomsky, 1999: 82). 800,000 civilians fled the region during those six weeks (Woodward 2001: 332).

After the bombing ended, the retreat of Serbian troops enabled refugees to return home safely (Odgen 2000: 119). The bombing campaign, the threat of NATO’s sending ground troops, mass support for KLA activities, and the withdrawal of Russia’s support contributed to Milosevic’s capitulation (Shaw 2003: 193).

The peace agreement established an international peace-keeping operation led by the Kosovo Force (KFOR) in conjunction with the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK). While KFOR focused on military aspects, UNMIK monitored civilian activities. The occupation did not prevent further massacres, as non-Albanian inhabitants were forced to flee their homes and find shelter in Serb enclaves.

[1] Translated from Romanian by Laura.

[2] However, Bauman avoids this pitfall.

[3] This specification explains how members of the same group can be discarded as enemies: by conferring them a contingent, but not a similar, national identity to theirs and by highlighting other types of identity, the perpetrators can deny membership to some individuals belonging to their ethnic group.

[4] The identity is not fixed in social life itself, but only in written documents that tend to be disseminated on a much larger scale than any oral legends and stories based on ethnic stereotypes.

[5] For a brief analysis of the overall impact of this triadic relation in the twentieth century in Central and Eastern Europe, see Brubaker 1996: 4-7.