Jane's Intelligence Review
March 1, 1998

Section: EUROPE; Vol. 10; No. 3; Pg. 9

Another Balkans bloodbath? - PART TWO

By: Zoran Kusovac

Concluding his study on Kosovo, Zoran Kusovac looks at thepossibilities of the Kosovo Liberation Army growing in strength, thechances of a Serb response and the ramifications that could result.

Most of the 41 press releases the Kosovo Liberation Army (Ushtria Clirimtaree Kosoves, or UCK) had issued by mid-January portray the group as a highly professional organisation which stresses its independence from political leaders. The style and language of the releases are concise and do not reveal any tell-tale details.

Most analysts discard theories that the group's leaders originate from the former Yugoslav Army (JNA). Albanian officers were purged in 1990-91; many were tried and others have been kept under close surveillance. Theories claiming involvement of ethnic Albanians who gained wartime experience in the Croatian Army can also be discarded, since their number was small and limited to the lower ranks (with the exception of Brigadier Rakhim Ademi, who successfully commanded a brigade). Although Serbian sources claimed involvement of officers from the Albanian Army in 1995, that scenario is also quite unlikely.

Another key question in predicting further developments is the growth possibility of the UCK. It certainly would have no problem in attracting recruits, with over 20,000 Albanians reaching military age every year. However, training presents a major problem: up until 1990 basic rifle training and infantry drill were provided by the JNA. Since that year, however, Albanian conscripts have not been required to serve in the JNA, and despite the popular Balkans belief that every grown man can handle a gun, it would be suicidal to use such untrained and inexperienced manpower. Large basic training camps cannot be established - either in Kosovo or in Western Europe - forcing the UCK to limit its size for the time being. Several specialised training camps had existed in Albania since the post-war rule of Albanian Communist Party leader Enver Xoxha (who died in 1985), and at least two (in Fushe Kruje and Bajram Curri) are believed to have remained well into the time of the Berisha regime; these were reportedly closed down in 1993 under US pressure. Although the present Nano government has officially acknowledged Kosovo to be a part of Serbia and stated its commitment to a peaceful solution, it is possible that unconfirmed reports of a training camp in Lhibrazd may be true. Even so, that would appear to be more a result of anarchy than official support by the Albanian Government, and in military terms the significance of such a camp would be negligible.

Until the spring chaos in Albania, Kosovo Albanians could only count on a limited number of weapons. The reserves of the Kosovo Territorial Defence had been taken away after riots in 1981 and supplies were limited. However, the wide availability of weapons after the conflict started in former Yugoslavia brought a steady trickle to Kosovo, most being sold by the Serbs themselves. Following the February/March 1997 looting of Albanian Army barracks and depots, weapons became even more readily available. The current price for a Kalashnikov is barely US$300, and the most conservative estimates of Albanians' stocks now start at 25,000 hidden AK assault rifles. Also available are anti-tank weapons, rifle and hand grenades and even small-calibre mortars and anti-aircraft guns.

The Serbs

The Serb side makes up with organisation and support what it lacks in numbers. The Serbian Interior Ministry (Ministarstvo unutrasnjih poslova, or MUP) maintains a regular presence in Kosovo of 13,000 policemen armed with paramilitary equipment, including APCs and armed helicopters. However, it can muster a much larger force, with some 21,000 Kosovo Serbs officially being part of police reserves and issued with weapons. An estimated 25,000 regular and reserve police reinforcements can be transferred from Central Serbia within 72 hours.

The Yugoslav Army (Vojska Jugoslavije, or VJ) maintains 6,500 troops in the province, mostly in border areas and in four large garrisons. Tactical deployment plans provide for a first-wave reinforcement of a further 10,000 troops from the Nis, Uzice, and Leskovac Corps (including 4,000 reserves), all of whom are theoretically available for actions in Kosovo. In practice the army has shown a reluctance to interfere in Kosovo, which is seen as a political and internal question and therefore the responsibility of the police. This approach may be a display of gratitude of sorts for the fact that the UCK has so far avoided attacking the army - a clever move on its part, since it can claim to be fighting not the institutions of the state per se, but those which are actually responsible for the repression in Kosovo: the police.

The third, most unpredictable, element of Serb forces are the paramilitaries and volunteers. Although most militias that operated in Croatia and Bosnia have been disbanded or simply faded into obscurity, at least two could be expected to reappear in Kosovo if their masters decide to act. The best organised militia, currently dormant but according to latest reports 'warming-up' for action in Kosovo, is the Serb Volunteer Guards (Srpska dobrovoljacka garda, or SVG), better known as the Tigrovi (Tigers) and run by Zeljko 'Arkan' Raznatovic. Numbering up to 400 fierce cadres with combat experience and an alleged record of ethnic cleansing, the Tigers could be used for actions which neither the police nor the army would accept or be associated with. The only other organisation in Serbia that could readily muster a militia is Vojislav Seselj's extreme right Serb Radical Party.

Possible scenarios

The most significant result of last November's Lausa ambush is psychological: both sides are now exaggerating the strength of the UCK. Uncertain as what to do and without clear political guidance, the Serbian Interior Ministry withdrew most of its forces from possible hot-spots in and around Drenica. The Serbian authorities decided to move a small commercial ammunition plant from Srbica (Skenderraj) in central Drenica to a safer location. This in turn fuelled claims of 'free territory' that are completely unfounded. There is no doubt that the MUP has the manpower and resources to maintain a heavy presence in every part of Kosovo, but its decision to keep a low profile reflects the lack of clear policy and is indirectly an admission that Serbian Interior Ministry troops are neither trained nor prepared to tackle a widespread terrorist or guerrilla opposition, even less so an intifada-style popular movement.

There are clear signs that Serb politicians are putting pressure on the MUP to act, but from the two actions it undertook in Drenica in late January it is obvious that a method to counter the UCK has not been found. On these two occasions strong Serb police columns, using APCs and up to 100 armed policemen, surrounded houses at the edges of hamlets at dawn and raked them with concentrated fire for several hours, killing at least one and wounding several civilians. They then raided the houses and arrested all males over 16, but apart from capturing several rifles they could not claim any success in preventing UCK activities. It is now believed that the Serb Interior Ministry has realised the futility of such an approach and decided to discard it.

The reduced police presence has in turn encouraged the local Albanian population in and around Drenica to overestimate their strength and significance. Drenica has an area of approximately 1,200 km2, with the population there of some 60,000 being 95 per cent Albanian. The region, which is hilly with sparse woods and poor cover, is accessible by six routes. It is totally unfeasible as a serious guerrilla base: the main road connecting central Kosovo withthe Metohija region and Montenegro cuts the region in two, and Serbia would certainly not tolerate any interruption of regular traffic. Furthermore, the northern border of Drenica is Serbia proper, offering no possibility for strategic retreat. UCK claims therefore have to be viewed more as a 'flag-waving' operation, boosting Albanian morale and forcing the Serbs to make a move: a daring but politically smart tactic, for whatever move the Serbs choose, they cannot win.

Most armed men who appear in Drenica at night are almost certainly over-zealous local youths who believe themselves to be Kosovo liberation fighters but are not in fact engaging in combat. Thus for the time being the organised wing of the UCK has no obligation but reaps the fruit of public awareness. If the Serb side does not act, it actually strengthens the UCK cause: currently by any definition the UCK is a terrorist organisation, even if for political reasons everybody but the Serbs is cautiously avoiding the use of the term. However, if it can lay claim to openly carrying weapons in even a limited area, the UCK can legitimately claim to be a guerrilla movement with all the political advantages of such a status. The UCK does not appear on the official US State Department list of foreign terrorist organisations, and threat of its inclusion on the list is currently the only US sway over radical Albanians. After two explosions on Macedonian territory at the turn of the year, for which the UCK claimed responsibility, a clear warning was issued by Robert Gelbard, the top US envoy for former Yugoslavia. This political haggle over the UCK's 'legal status' could prompt the Serb side to set up an attack, possibly gruesome and involving civilian victims, hoping to pin it on the Albanians and thus earn them official terrorist status. This possibility has to be taken seriously; there is no moral restraint of any sort and precedents are plentiful all over former Yugoslavia.

Should the Serb side decide to act, it will be practically forced to make a wrong move: if it uses the police force, which is untrained in counter-insurgency and never had any self-restraint, it is bound to make a mess and kill civilians, turning international public opinion against Serbs - once again. If it uses the army it risks creating an internal opposition - a 'mothers' movement' opposed to the use of conscripts for in-country fighting - which proved surprisingly unpleasant and annoying in 1991-92 and forced the army to rethink its tactics. If the authorities were to give the green light to the militias, their actions would inevitably bear a clear stamp of easily recognisable brutality, creating even more animosity against the Serbs.

In any such development Albanians would be in a much less hampered position. They already enjoy international compassion as victims of brutal oppression, and the only way they can lose is by messing it up themselves. Despite some nonsensical ideas spread from time to time by armchair strategists in the local Albanian language press, which claim 'freedom would be worth 100,000 lost lives', no sensible Albanian has any misconception about the amount of blood that an open confrontation with the Serbs would spill. For them the best tactic is to keep up the pressure without causing a full-scale war.

All these scenarios, however, have a fundamental weakness: they always count on logical behaviour and sensible reactions. In a region where every move in the pattern of destruction has been at least contrary to common sense, no sense should be applied. Therefore, the worst-case scenario could well develop quickly and uncontrollably from a seemingly innocent situation: an action by the police or army gone wrong, with victims on the Serb side or Serbs surrounded and unable to extricate themselves, could quickly be exploited by nationalist extremists in Belgrade.

Having lost the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and with nobody taking the blame or being sacrificed, the Serbs are still rancorous. Many see Kosovo as the only remaining way of seeking redress for their past defeats, and the right-wing opposition - which is very strong but unrepresented in the government - could see it as their only chance to topple president Slobodan Milosevic. He, in turn, may want to use popular unrest to get rid of Milo Dukanovic, the newly elected president of the second federal republic of Montenegro, and the only way he could do that is by arousing the mob on the issue of Kosovo.

If tens of thousands take to the streets claiming revenge and Albanian blood, no politician could (or would want to) stop them. Weapons are simply everywhere, and uncontrollable killing and looting in Kosovo would create a wave of probably no less than half a million refugees. With Serbia and Montenegro on two sides and impassable mountain ranges towards Albania on the third, their only way out would be to Macedonia, which would have neither the resources nor the courage to prevent them from entering. (A call for the creation of an internationally secured 'humanitarian corridor' for the flight of Albanian refugees from Kosovo into Albania through Macedonia, made in late January by Macedonia's President Kiro Gligorov, proves that fears of such an exodus are well founded.) However, such an influx would undoubtedly prompt both the Macedonian majority and the Albanian minority - some 25 per cent of the population - to react, starting a civil war that would disintegrate the country in no time. Further speculations could include Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania stepping in to snatch whatever territory they can, or Turkey possibly coming in to finally take the fight to the Greeks. Meanwhile in Bosnia Muslims might exploit the situation to overrun the puny Serb entity there, while Croatia might in turn prove unwilling to be left without any spoils - a nightmare scenario indeed, but not impossible at all.

What can the world do?

The only consistent pattern in the whole conflict in former Yugoslavia has been that of the behaviour of Serbian, now Yugoslav, President Milosevic. A notoriously inept strategist but a master tactician, he has always bullied his opponents until almost passing the point of no return, but always just until - never overstepping the thin line. Nothing has changed in his ways, and he is still in full control of the Serb side - to the degree that anyone can be in control. His record shows that he can accept even the most bitter defeat if he is left with a psychological outlet to exploit and present to his people as great victory. However, to force him to concede such defeat he has to be put under immense pressure, and if the pressure is really strong and well co-ordinated it always works - no matter how bad the deal for Milosevic is.

What this inevitable deal will entail is a matter of realpolitik. It can range from giving wide autonomy to Kosovo while keeping it officially a part of Serbia, to making it an semi-autonomous federal territory, to granting it the status of fully fledged republic within Federal Yugoslavia.

Each of these concepts has inherent advantages and disadvantages. The extreme Serb stand is that Kosovo already has enough autonomy and no further concessions can be made. A more realistic Serb approach (but called for by politically insignificant figures from the opposition and among Kosovo Serbs) allows for talks but asks for pre-conditions that are not acceptable to most Albanians. The extreme Albanian political position is full independence for Kosovo, but as this is obviously something the international community does not seem ready to back, the next best solution is, they claim, upgrading Kosovo to the status of Serbia and Montenegro, thus making it the third republic in the federation. This idea is fiercely opposed by the Serbs, but should it ever come into serious consideration it would be as vehemently opposed by Montenegro, where newly elected President Milo Dukanovic realises the position of his weakling republic would be jeopardised by expansion of the two-member federation to include a third element. In that case Dukanovic, another cunning Balkans aficionado of realpolitik, would lose his exclusive sway in the federal parliament - and his past record clearly proves him unwilling to give up any power he holds.

Another potential threat to Kosovo is - paradoxically - Iraq. As was clearly demonstrated to all who cared to notice during the 1990-91 Gulf War, the Serbs always try to use to their advantage the fact that the world is focused on a major international crisis elsewhere. Should renewed tension over Iraq continue or lead to a major armed action, Slobodan Milosevic may decide to act rashly, hoping the USA and NATO would be too busy in the Gulf to notice or act in time. The new Iraqi crisis coincides with preparations for Albanian elections in Kosovo scheduled for 22 March. With the expected results likely to end the exclusive domination of Ibrahim Rugova's LDK and lead to the creation of at least nominal opposition, the Serbs might lose the possibility of claiming that the Albanian population has no real say over Kosovo. Thus, whatever may happen in other hot-spots, the West should under no circumstances forget Kosovo. No one can predict what will happen in this unpredictable region, but, as always in the Balkans, it is likely to happen in the spring.

Zoran Kusovac is an expert on the Balkans who has covered the wars in Croatia
and Bosnia. The first part of this article appeared last month.