Serbia Has Lost Kosovo, Albanian Leader Tells Belgrade

By RICHARD BOUDREAUX

Nov. 1, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia — The elder statesman of Kosovo’s independence movement ventured Tuesday to what was once the enemy capital and, in two packed lecture halls and a television phone-in show, demanded that Serbia drop its claim to his predominantly ethnic Albanian province.

The whirlwind visit here by Adem Demaci would have been unthinkable before the ouster of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic nearly four weeks ago. Even 16 months after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombed Milosevic’s troops out of Kosovo province, it seemed risky.

But the Kosovo Liberation Army’s former political spokesman suffered nothing more than mildly hostile questioning as he opened the first high-profile contact between Serbs and ethnic Albanians from Kosovo since the war--one that could lead to official talks on the province’s future.

Kosovo is nominally a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s dominant republic, but has been under U.N. administration since the war. A slate of ethnic Albanians led by Ibrahim Rugova, a moderate who favors secession, won control of the majority of local governments Saturday in Kosovo’s first free elections.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, who replaced Milosevic last month, refused to recognize the elections because Kosovo’s dwindling Serbian minority boycotted the vote. During a visit to Norway on Tuesday, Kostunica said an independent Kosovo would be “very dangerous for stability in the region.”

But Kostunica said he was “open to all sorts of contacts” with Kosovo Albanians because “enemies need to talk” and understand each other.

It was with that aim that Demaci came to Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, at the invitation of a Serbian businessman. Although he holds no official position in Kosovo, Demaci speaks with the authority of a man who served three prison terms totaling 29 years for espousing independence.

The slight, white-haired Albanian--who shed his combat fatigues for a dark brown suit, white shirt and red tie--looked dapper as he bounced from a university auditorium to a downtown media conference center to a TV studio.

Demaci delivered his version of the bloody independence struggle--the first by a Kosovo Albanian allowed on television in Serbia, where the media under Milosevic portrayed the KLA as a band of terrorists.

“Ours was an uprising of desperate people, who for 10 years were trying to change things in a peaceful way,” he said on BK Television, a private network that reaches all of Serbia. Fighting broke out in 1998, he said, after Serbian “crimes” against ethnic Albanians--who were stripped of limited self-rule--became “unbearable.”

“Albanians had no other option” but to take up arms, he said in answer to a viewer’s question.

The rebellion prompted Milosevic’s forces to launch a murderous campaign that expelled hundreds of thousands of Albanians from Kosovo. Eleven weeks of NATO bombing last year allowed the Albanians to return to the province under the protection of NATO-led troops.

Although the U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the conflict promised only “substantial autonomy” for Kosovo after a period of international supervision, Demaci insisted Tuesday that “Kosovo is lost for Serbia.”

“In essence, Kosovo has seceded,” he said on television, urging Serbs to accept the will of the province’s ethnic Albanian majority or face the risk of new conflict. “We breathe freely.”

The hourlong program was extended by 17 minutes to handle calls from viewers.

At an earlier lecture, Demaci congratulated Serbia’s democrats for the peaceful uprising that forced Milosevic to recognize his defeat in the Sept. 24 presidential election.

But his voice rose to a shout as he added: “It’s not enough to remove one man. This man left behind a military-police complex and a destructive nationalist mentality.”

Zlatomir Popovic, a Serbian journalist, challenged Demaci to justify how Albanians can “demand to take someone else’s territory on the basis of their ethnic majority.”

“You’re still thinking Serbian,” Demaci said in retort. After taking Kosovo from the Albanians, he said, Serbs assumed “a right to kill whomever [they] wanted to.”

“I don’t condemn you. I just feel sorry for you,” he said.

Another Serbian journalist asked when she could feel safe walking the streets of Pristina, Kosovo’s capital.

“When Belgrade acknowledges our freedom,” Demaci replied.

Radio Television Serbia, the state-run network, gave the lecture prominent coverage on its evening newscast and included Demaci’s call for the immediate release of the estimated 800 Kosovo Albanians held in Serbian jails.

Bogoljub Karic, a media tycoon who owns BK Television and was close to Milosevic, organized Demaci’s one-day visit and sent a car to bring him here from Pristina. Karic told reporters that Serbs should forget about pressing their claim to Kosovo for “the next 50, 100 years” and work with the Albanians to create security for the Serbian minority.

“Nothing is lost,” he said, citing the example of Hong Kong. “Hong Kong was outside China for 99 years. Now it’s Chinese again.”