Alessio Vinci: Kosovo bus attack and relations between ethnic Albanians and Serbs

Alessio Vinci

February 16, 2001
Web posted at: 4:42 PM EST (2142 GMT)

Q: What was the cause of explosion in Kosovo today?

Vinci: The cause of the explosion was a bomb that was put in a ditch near the road that is used and controlled by KFOR to move north or south in Kosovo. KFOR does not know yet who placed the bomb or what the motive behind it was. However, they are pointing out the fact that since all the people that were escorted by KFOR on the bus were Serbs, they believe that the explosion was ethnically motivated. It is easy to assume that the attack was triggered by ethnic Albanians because all of the passengers on the bus were Serbs.

Q: What efforts are being made to treat the injured?

At the time of the attack, this convoy was escorted by KFOR troops. Seven people died and 10 were severely injured. They were taken by helicopter, I understand, to hospitals in the region. I believe that those 10 severely injured are being treated at military hospitals, including the U.S. military barracks of Camp Bondsteel. Other, perhaps lightly injured people, are being treated in local hospitals nearby where the explosions took place. But several of the severely injured, I understand, were taken by helicopter to bigger hospitals away from the area where the explosion happened

Q: What is the source of conflict between the ethnic Albanians and the Serbs?

The clashes between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in the region of Kosovo date centuries back. But in more recent history, Marshall Tito, who was the long- lasting communist ruler in Yugoslavia, had granted Kosovo autonomy. In 1989 when Slobodan Milosevic was about to begin his ascent to power, he revoked that autonomy. In the last decade, the lives of the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo under Serb rule have been very hard because their lives were conditioned by Serb authorities. Albanian universities were shut down. The police force was made almost exclusively of Serbs, and there were a lot of clashes between the two ethinic groups. What the ethnic Albanians want, of course, is independence, not just autonomy. This is something the Serbs do not want to grant. Therefore, in the last decade there have been many clashes between the two ethnic communities. In 1998, after ethnic Albanians provoked Serb policeman, a unit of Serb policemen entered a village and killed a few dozen members of a family of ethnic Albanians. That basically prompted an escalation of violence between the two ethnic communities, which then was followed by the intervention of the international community, which sent some international monitors into the region to try to mediate the situation. Eventually, when the monitors left Kosovo, then NATO intervened militarily in order to prevent Serb policemen from killing ethnic Albanians. They want independence. And back then, they had what little autonomy they had revoked by the Serbs.

The situation today is a lot more complex, of course, after the bombing campaign because the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have achieved a defacto autonomy because the Serbs are no longer in control of the province. However, the regime in Serbia is different because there has been a revolution and there have been new elections and there are pro-democracy western approved leaders here in Belgrade today. Therefore, these leaders are more keen in communicating with the ethnic Albanians than the old leaders. And so, the ethnic Albanians now see that because Milosevic is no longer in charge in Serbia, they no longer have an excuse of why they want to achieve independence.

AUDIO Alessio Vinci, Belgrade Bureau Chief: Revenge attacks 440kb/40 sec. AIFF or WAV sound Major Tim Pierce of KFOR: The coach was completely destroyed 279kb/25 sec. AIFF or WAV sound     ALSO Seven dead in Kosovo bus attack Serbia violence condemned at summit Gunmen shoot at Serb minister     MESSAGE BOARD Peace in the Balkans

The international community has made very clear that they never really have backed independence, and they do not back independence now. And the Albanians have seen, after the revolt in Yugoslavia, their hopes of independence fade away forever. And some of those attacks, like the one we have seen today, may be interpreted as a message from some ethnic Albanian extremists to the international community and to Serbs that they are in no mood to negotiate any kind of agreement that is short of full independence. Therefore, there is definitely an attempt by the new leadership to try to bring the ethnic Albanians on board and try to perhaps discuss some sort of long-lasting agreement between Serbs and ethnic Albanians. That is very hard to achieve because of clashes still taking place between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in the Presevo valley, which is the valley that separates Kosovo from Serbia proper. Also in the Presevo valley there are some villages which are majority ethnic Albanian, but there is a group of Albanian extremists who have occupied several villages in the valley which is in Serbia, and the ethnic Albanians in these villages want to unite those villages with the rest of Kosovo, which now is not under the control of Serbia. Therefore, there are, as we speak, almost on a daily basis, clashes and exchanges of fire, even people getting killed. It is not on the same level that it was in 1998 before NATO intervened, but certainly peace between the two ethnic communities is still far away.

Q: Leaders in the region recently announced a reaffirmed commitment to a "multi-ethnic and undivided Kosovo." What has been the response of ethnic Albanians and Serbs?

Vinci: Ethnic Albanians and Serbs alike in Kosovo realize that right now a multi-ethnic society in Kosovo is not possible. The memories of what happened in 1998 are too fresh, and the memories of the bombing campaign are too fresh. So I think that everyone realizes that right now the only real solution for Kosovo is the international presence of not only a military force in KFOR, but also an international civil presence in the form of a United Nations administration. Therefore, right now, despite the calls for a multi-ethnic Kosovo, the only thing that international community is able to do, at this point, is try to keep those two communities apart. Mind you, there are several thousand Serbs that remain in Kosovo despite the fact that 150,000 Serbs have fled the region once NATO and the ethnic Albanians returned to Kosovo. Those who remain there must live under constant security and protection from KFOR because if there were to be one Serb driving or walking alone in an area where there are no Serbs or no troops, he would be probably killed instantly, as has happened many times, and it will happen again in the future.

Another good example is the divided city of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo. The north part of the city is totally Serb and the southern part of the city is totally ethnic Albanian and in between there is the Ibar River. The bridge linking these two sides of the city is completely controlled by NATO. It is filled with U.N. policemen and covered with barbwire. It's a defacto border, if you will, between the two communities. People cannot go across back and forth, and there have been several clashes that have erupted between ethnic Albanians and Kosovo Serbs. There have also been clashes between ethnic Albanians and KFOR troops because the ethnic Albanians are frustrated over the fact that the KFOR troops are, in this case, seen protecting the Serbs. So it is a very tense situation there, but you cannot compare it to what it has been in the past.

Vinci: It seems the more the two communities try to speak about peace, there seems to be on both sides extremists. And this time, perhaps more on the Albanian side, extremists that try to spoil the situation. For example, in the Presevo Valley, the new Serbian government has made incredible effort in trying to reach out to the ethnic Albanian communities to try to mediate the situation. The Serbian deputy prime minister has even put forward a proposal where he guarantees some degree of autonomy and some degree of self-government in that region, provided that the ethnic Albanian separatists move out from this region. This plan has even been approved and accepted in principle by the international community by the governments of NATO and by other governments. There were even talks yesterday at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Vienna, where most of this proposal was presented, that perhaps talks would resume between the ethnic Albanians and the Serbs in that region. So every time they move one step closer to peace, there appears to be an event--in this case an explosion and the killing of several Serbs-- that puts everything into question again. One wonders how much longer this will really last and if peace is really in grasp, or if it may take decades. One thinks of Cyprus and Northern Ireland where we are still discussing the types of problems that were taking place 20, 30 or 40 years before, with little progress in some instances.

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January 12, 2001

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
KFOR
Serbia Information Ministry
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