BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS
"More than 10,000 people marched today in downtown Pristina for freedom and independence of Kosovo," said Albin Kurti in a telephone interview from Pristina, Kosovo's capital, April 16. Kurti is the international officer of the Independent Students Union at the University of Pristina, one of the main groups that has organized mass protests demanding national rights for Albanians. It was the seventh demonstration in eight days for self-determination of the Albanian nationality there. This latest series of mobilizations began April 9, when tens of thousands filled Pristina's downtown area after a two-week lull in public rallies.

At the same time, Belgrade has been building up its special forces occupying Kosovo. Clashes between Serb police and army units and Albanians supporting independence have continued in the Drenica region and in areas near the Kosovo- Albania border. At least 85 Albanians, one third of them children, were killed in brutal assaults by Serb police in Drenica February 28 and March 5. Over a dozen Albanians have been killed since.

Washington pushed through the United Nations Security Council a resolution imposing an arms embargo on Belgrade March 31, but failed to get acceptance for tougher sanctions because of opposition from Moscow. The U.S. rulers have since continued to try to take advantage of the conflict to deepen imperialist intervention in Yugoslavia, under the guise of supporting national rights for Albanians in Kosovo. Their aim is to reimpose capitalist social relations throughout Yugoslavia and tighten the imperialist encirclement of Russia.

In early April, NATO forces announced plans to arrest chauvinist Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic - indicted by an international tribunal in The Hague on "war crimes" - and waged a raid in a factory in Pale, Bosnia, that had been used by Karadzic as his headquarters in the past.

Noontime rallies
"Tens of thousands of people have been marching in the center of Pristina and many other cities of Kosovo every day for the last week, between noon and 12:30 p.m.," said Kurti. "We are demanding an end to the terror by the regime in Belgrade, withdrawal of the special police and army forces, an end to the siege of Drenica and other regions that has been going on for nearly three months, and independence."

The noontime rallies have been called by a protest committee set up by the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), other political parties, the Independent Trade Union of Kosovo, and youth and other organizations. The LDK is the main political party among Albanians in Kosovo.

Kurti said the Independent Students Union has its own protest council, which has not called separate demonstrations this month. "We are waiting to see if Serbian authorities will abide by the agreement they signed to reopen high schools and the University of Pristina to Albanians," he said. "They are supposed to return three university buildings to us by the end of this month. We are still skeptical. If they renege we'll organize new mobilizations."

Serb authorities signed the education agreement March 23 and gave the keys of the Institute of Albanian Studies to Albanian professors March 31. The accord, scheduled to be implemented in phases by June, would end the ban on Albanian- language instruction at state high schools and the university system, in place since the early 1990s.

The ban was imposed by Belgrade after the regime of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic revoked Kosovo's autonomous status in 1989. Since then, Kosovo - a region formally part of the Republic of Serbia, with 90 percent of its population of 2.1 million being Albanians - has been ruled under a state of emergency. The overwhelming majority of Albanians have been fired from state administration, health care facilities, schools, and industry for refusing to sign "loyalty oaths" to Serbia.

Since the beginning of April, Belgrade has been deploying additional forces and weaponry into the Drenica region. Serb forces have also continued to raid and loot homes of Albanians in the area. Authorities are not permitting some 20,000 of the 65,000 inhabitants of the mountainous region who fled after assaults in early March to return to their homes. The police have ordered bakeries, flour factories, and other small businesses by Albanians to shut down in a number of villages and have been preventing many Albanian farmers from working in the fields. Heavy shooting by pro-Belgrade Serbs, as well as army and police forces, has been reported at the Bablloq village in the Drecan region near the Albanian border April 13 and other areas.

Serbian authorities are claiming their forces are trying to protect Serb civilians and police who are under assault by Albanian "terrorists." State media in Belgrade pound on the recent evacuation of a handful of Serb families from the Drenica region, the yet unresolved killings of six Albanians in Klina who were presumably loyal to Belgrade, and the alleged rape of a girl by "masked Albanians." The state- controlled media reported April 14 that a Serb policeman was wounded in a grenade attack on a police station at the Stanovic I Ulet village on the Pristina-Mitrovica road.

Serb police in Pristina have blocked demonstrators but have refrained from attacking the protests. The situation is different in towns other than the capital. Cops reportedly beat several protesters after a march by Albanians in Mitrovica on April 9.

On the eve of that day's marches, Belgrade state TV called the demonstrators "clowns" and "parrots" who are "blindly loyal to their foreign sponsors."

The Serbian regime has been trying to capitalize on calls that amount to direct imperialist military intervention by pro-capitalist forces among Albanians. In an article in the March 14 New York Times, for example, Veton Surroi, publisher and editor-in-chief of Koha Ditore, one of the main Albanian-language dailies in Kosovo, said: "Only the credible force of military action will force Mr. Milosevic to listen. In the weeks to come, Mr. Milosevic needs to be surrounded by soldiers, NATO troops must be positioned along the `Yugoslav' borders with Macedonia, Albania and Bulgaria. Naval carriers should be stationed along the Montenegrin coast."

Many student leaders and working people among Albanians fighting for independence do not share these views.

Bosnia: U.S. troops deepen intervention
Meanwhile, Washington has taken further steps to deepen its intervention in neighboring Bosnia, where 8,500 U.S. troops dominate the 34,000-strong NATO force that has been occupying that republic since late 1995.

Special forces teams from the United States, the Netherlands, and Britain have been training for weeks to seize Karadzic, reported the April 12 New York Times.

On April 2, hundreds of NATO soldiers and 50 armored personnel vehicles swept into Pale, a stronghold of pro- Belgrade Serbs near the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, and surrounded Karadzic's house and former offices for several hours. In the raid, troops burst into the Famos car-parts factory, which Karadzic has used as his headquarters, and confiscated 10 rifles and 1,500 rounds of ammunition. Six days later, NATO troops arrested two other Bosnian Serbs associated with Karadzic who have also been indicted by the imperialist "war crimes" tribunal in The Hague.

NATO commanders have estimated that they would need 800 troops backed by helicopter gunships and armor to seize Karadzic, whose whereabouts are not known. NATO officials say the assault force would take between 20 and 40 casualties. It is a figure some of the imperialist powers with troops there, particularly Paris, say is unacceptable.

Carlos Westerndorp, who was foreign minister in Madrid under the former administration of Socialist Party premier Felipe González in Spain, said he expects Karadzic to be in The Hague "within a month, either because he goes voluntarily or because he is arrested." Westendorp is the so- called international civilian administrator for Bosnia charged with overseeing the implementation of the Dayton accord - the treaty Washington forced the warring regimes in Yugoslavia to sign in 1995 paving the way for the NATO occupation.

At Washington's urging, Westendorp and his aides have recently taken over the administration of the republic, firing local officials who do not abide by NATO's "rules" and issuing a host of regulations on currency, license plates, and passports. "Mr. Westerndorp, the High Representative, has transformed the post, once largely ceremonial, into that of a governor general who runs a protectorate," said an article in the April 10 New York Times.

Croatian president Franjo Tudjman said recently that history will place Westendorp alongside Spain's deceased dictator Francisco Franco as "a savior of Western civilization."  
 
 
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