“The statements and threats by European Union
commissioner VAN DEN BROEK and foreign secretary ROBIN COOK
are imprudent: they focus on the actors, not on the
problems. When BENJAMIN GILMAN, chairman of the US House
International Relations Committee talks about sanctions,
sending “NATO and UN troops” to the region and supports
“independent Kosova,” there is even more reason for
concern.

They speak the language of power and violence, not of
understanding and dialogue. And it is likely to harm the
Kosovo-Albanians.

“The tragic truth is that since 1990, neither the
United States, the OSCE nor the EU and its members have
developed any policies to help the Serbs and Albanians avoid
the predictable showdown we now witness in Kosovo.

There is much talk about conflict prevention, early warning,
preventive diplomacy and non-military security. The second
tragic truth is that there has been very little intellectual
innovation since the so-called end of the Cold War. No new
organisations have been created, geared to handle the new
conflicts. Governments still seem unaware that their
diplomats must be trained in conflict understanding and
management – as anyone dealing with legal issues must be
trained in law. And global media still focus on violence,
not on underlying conflicts or possible solutions,” says DR.
OBERG who, during the last six years, has been personally
engaged with a TFF team of experts in conflict-mitigation
between Serbs and Albanians at government as well as NGO
level.

Regrettably recent events in the Kosovo province of
Yugoslavia confirm the early warnings by many
independent voices, including the TFF since 1992 and,
latest, our PressInfo from August 1997:

“The Serbs and Albanians have proved that they themselves
are unable to start and sustain a dialogue process towards
conflict-resolution and reconciliation. International
attempts, lacking analysis as well as strategy, have failed,
too. The overall situation has deteriorated and violence is
escalating, slowly but surely. It simply cannot go on like
that in the future, and go well. New thinking should be
applied sooner rather than later.”

Following is Dr. Oberg’s assessment of why the Kosovo
situation is dangerous:

“The Kosovo-Albanian leadership which supports
pragmatic rather than principled non-violence and wants
international involvement is rapidly being undermined by a
“Kosova Liberation Army” whose violence suits the Belgrade
authorities’ repression well, and vice versa. The Albanians
proclaimed their independent state “Kosova” in 1990. They
hoped that the Dayton process would include them and that
the international community would not recognise Yugoslavia
with Kosovo inside it. Since both assumptions turned out to
be wrong, the Kosovo-Albanian leadership has not been able
to devise a new policy and strategy for stepwise achievement
of their longterm goal.

The Serbian leaders refuse any international
governmental involvement in what they consider an internal
affair of Yugoslavia. But that is no longer a viable
argument. The increasingly violent situation in the Kosovo
region threatens inter-national stability. Yugoslavia is
eager to become an integral part of the international
community and seeks much needed investments and loans; it
can hardly have it both ways.

Thus, the Serbian and Albanian leaders share three things:

1) a policy with mutually exclusive positions
2) an inability to get an sustained, orderly dialogue
going
3) an increasing, perceived need to use violence.

Thus, over time the Albanian side has gotten stuck with
symbol policies of their independent state. The Serb side is
equally stuck with nothing to offer but repressive policies
within Yugoslavia. In short, a vicious circle.

In this situation it is counterproductive to issue
warnings, threats or judgments – as has been done the
last few days by Western diplomats in general and Hans van
den Broek, Robin Cook and Benjamin Gilman in particular.
Since the Yugoslav tragedy began in 1991, the US and the EU
have proven remarkably incapable at analysing the conflicts
and the complexities of the Balkans. Their policies are
better characterised by nationalism and double standards
than by “common” policies or statesmanship.

Do these diplomats seriously want us to believe
that new economic sanctions against the 10 million people in
Yugoslavia (of which 2 million Kosovo-Albanians) will make
ordinary Serbs reconciliate with the Kosovo-Albanians or
that they will make the Yugoslav leadership including
President Milosevic initiate negotiations? Will Milosevic
believe the West is really angry with him when it has made
itself quite dependent upon his co-operation in the –
fragile – implementation of the Dayton Agreement?

How many billions of dollars are the sanction-advocates
willing to set off to compensate the trade partners who will
be barred from trading with Yugoslavia – has, for instance,
not Macedonia suffered enough under the former
sanctions? How do sanction advocates think
secession-prone Montenegro will react to being victimised
once again?

Statesmen wanting to prevent violence would address
the problem and ask: how can we help solve it? They
would need facts, analyses, and some basic knowledge about
conflicts as well as history and psychology – in short
understanding – before making proposals.

Not so Gilman, Cook and van den Broek. Conscious
about past conflict management blunders, they skip
listening, knowledge and analysis, play it tough, apportion
guilt, talk down, point fingers, and offer lectures on
civilised behaviour. They pretend to know the ideal solution
and threaten punishment in a tone you would use only to
people you fundamentally don’t respect. By attacking the
actors, they help solidify their locked positions and
harden the attitudes.

And so they continue the history of European and
American arrogance in the Balkans. If violence
increases, they may turn the blind eye to the tragedy.
Alternatively, they may exert a – self-appointed – moral
obligation to intervene militarily arguing that this is the
only way to make these people understand noble Western
motives as well as intellectually and morally superior
conflict-management…

But this is not the only way; it’s the worst way.
In the PressInfo 35 we suggest other options. But a scenario
along these lines can no longer be excluded,” ends Dr.
Oberg.

You will find the relevant links to Yugoslavia and the
Kosovo province at our website –
http://www.transnational.org

March 5, 1998