Tensions still run high in Balkans

By Batuk Gathani

BRUSSELS, NOV. 27. NATO officials said on Monday that Albanian separatists had turned over the bodies of three Serbian policemen to the KFOR force in Kosovo. The policemen were killed in clashes between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in the so-called ``ground safety zone'' in south-eastern Serbia earlier last week.

The exchange of bodies was conducted with the help of the Red Cross and KFOR command within the parameters of ``military technical agreement'' between NATO and the Republic of Yugoslavia.

The sad irony is that five years after the Dayton peace agreement and six weeks after the fall of Mr. Slobodan Milosevic and the advent of a democratic administration headed by the President, Mr. Vojislav Kostounica, the rising ethnic violence and widening chasm of divide between ethnic Albanians, mainly Muslims and Orthodox Christians, poses many questions about peace in the Balkans.

Western powers are still trying to secure the arrest of Mr. Milosevic, whose shadow, despite the collapse of his power and authority, has - according to Western analysts - ``menacing tone'' over the Balkans. What the Western analysts fail to understand is that Mr. Milosevic still personifies Serbian national aspirations and his popularity has not diminished.

At the weekend party congress of the Socialist Party which comprises former hardcore Serb communists and nationalists, Mr. Milosevic was greeted with long applause and re-elected the party's leader, after he accused his political opponents of being Western stooges.

Western commentators find it hard to believe that the leader who has lost three wars in the Balkans, devastated Yugoslavia's economy and made himself an international outcast, was re-elected leader of his party. The pro-Milosevic Serbian nationalists argue that he, like the Iraqi President, Mr. Saddam Hussein, and the Cuban leader, Mr. Fidel Castro, is a mere victim of Western conspiracy.

The current spectre of rising political extremism and violence between ethnic Albanians and Serbs is again causing concern as it poses challenges to the new leadership in Yugoslavia. The ground reality, according to the peacekeepers, is that the ethnic divide and hatred between senior politicians is as wide as ever.

Last week, Mr. Kostounica, in a letter demanded that the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo curb violence and political extremism unleashed by ethnic Albanians, who are demanding a separate Muslim state in the region which can be merged with Albania to create ``Greater Albania''. The NATO powers, Serbs or the Russians cannot accept such an arrangement as there is little willingness all round to ensure that post-war boundaries in the Balkans are not disturbed. But tension remains high in the region despite last year's peace deal which ended NATO's arbitrary bombing of Yugoslavia. Kosovo's ultimate political status remains unresolved with sporadic eruption of ethnic violence.

European Union Governments are watching the unfolding scenario in the Balkans generally and Kosovo particularly. Kosovo, with an area of 4,203 sq.miles, is almost the size of Tripura. Kosovo has a population of over 20 lakhs, which is predominantly of Albanian origin. There is also a prosperous and influential minority of less than one lakh Serbs. When Yugoslavia was a federation of communist states, Kosovo enjoyed the status of an autonomous province within the Serbian republic.

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