Volatile Kosovo Looks to Albania : Yugoslavia: Promise of democracy across the border could be a stronger lure than ethnic ties.

For decades the Serbs of Yugoslavia have warily eyed cloistered Albania, accusing their Stalinist neighbor of sending spies and infiltrators to incite separatism among ethnic Albanians in the border province of Kosovo.

Now, Albania may be unleashing a more powerful force that could attract the support of Kosovo Albanians: democracy.

Albania’s tentative steps toward reform have sparked new hope in the West that the last hard-line holdout of Eastern Europe may be softening. But for Yugoslavia, the prospect of a more liberal Albania strikes another match near the ethnic tinderbox of Kosovo.

The Serbian Communist Party leader, Slobodan Milosevic, rose to power by stirring fear among fellow Serbs that Albanians were plotting to join Kosovo to a greater Albania. More than 1.7 million ethnic Albanians live in Kosovo, and they far outnumber the 200,000 Serbs in the province, the poorest part of Serbia.

Kosovo Albanians used to dismiss the accusations of separatism as ludicrous, arguing that many of them are in Yugoslavia because their parents sought to escape repressive rule at home.

But if Albania follows through on its promises of freer travel, respect for human rights and new ties with Western governments, Milosevic’s purported fears of Albanian unity could become a prophecy.

“If Albania advances and we stay in the same place, if there continues to be no democracy in Kosovo, the chances are that people will choose to go elsewhere,” said Ibrahim Rugova, leader of the Democratic Alliance, the opposition party widely supported by Kosovo Albanians. “The Serbian government refuses to see reality.”

Kosovo has been the scene of recurring violence since March, 1989, when Serbia stripped it of the autonomy provided by the 1974 constitution. Milosevic engineered the change to assure fellow Serbs that the historic province would never be lost to Albania.

Kosovo was the site of a heroic battle fought by Serbian warriors in 1389. Serbia lost but slowed the Ottoman Turks’ advance into Europe. To Serbs, Kosovo symbolizes the greatness of the medieval kingdom they were never able to restore after 500 years of Turkish occupation.

By flexing Serbia’s muscle in Kosovo, Milosevic elevated Serbian national pride and won the loyalty of his fellow Serbs, who account for 9 million of Yugoslavia’s 23 million people.

The price has been continual ethnic confrontation and repeated states of emergency and martial law.

With the new allure of a more acceptable Albanian homeland, some Kosovo leaders and Western political attaches worry that continued repression of the majority Albanians could drive them toward a secession movement never seriously entertained before.

Kosovo Albanians are agitating for republic status within Yugoslavia, arguing that the nation of six republics and two provinces has been defined by ethnic differences since its formation in 1918. Albanians are the third-largest Yugoslav ethnic group after Serbs and Croats, and they believe they should not be deprived of the status afforded smaller national minorities in Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro.

Serbia, Rugova said, has relegated Kosovo to colonial status and misused federal funds earmarked for provincial improvements.

Rugova lives on the seventh floor of a 12-story building in which the elevators have been broken for years, the entryway reeks of urine and broken lighting has resulted in total darkness in the stairwell.

Prefabricated concrete tenements are scattered randomly among this provincial capital’s ramshackle cottages, strung together by lines of faded laundry, the signal flags of poverty.

The streets teem with idle youths, the result of a burgeoning birthrate twice as high as the rest of Yugoslavia, compounded by unemployment that Serbian officials peg at 36% but that Albanians contend is much higher. Squads of Serbian police patrol the sidewalks day and night, moving loiterers along to prevent spontaneous demonstrations.

Rugova, a respected writer and intellectual, said the Serbian police are trying to bait Albanians into confrontation in order to postpone multi-party elections.

Serbia is the only Yugoslav republic that has not had or scheduled free elections this year. By all accounts, Serbia would lose control of Kosovo to the Albanian majority in a fair and open ballot.

Western pressure has been applied on the capital of Belgrade to lift the state of siege in Kosovo and to end the one-party rule that persists in Serbia and on the national level.

Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Markovic promised nationwide elections this year, and this will force Serbia to hold a multi-party republic ballot before the national election. This has turned the Kosovo confrontation into a volatile waiting game, with both sides holding back from setting off the looming clash.

An uneasy calm has been maintained for the past three months amid alleged atrocities that testify to the backwardness and brutality of the impoverished region.

Vladimir Stambuk, a leader of Milosevic’s Serbian Socialist Alliance, said Albanians are trying to drive the remaining Serbs out of Kosovo by means of intimidation ranging from rape to house-burning.

Jashar Kabashi, an Albanian professor of English at Kosovo University, accused the Serbian police of beating Albanian protesters, jailing activists without charge and segregating schools in order to arrange “accidents” that affect only Albanian children, including a mysterious poisoning incident in March.

In Belgrade, officials see the Kosovo strife as the result of foreign interference.

Stambuk said the reduction of Kosovo’s status was necessary to stop infiltration of Albanian government agents sent to incite a secessionist drive.

Serbia reacted with indignation when two American politicians, one of them Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo), told a cheering crowd of 10,000 Albanians in Pristina in late May that the U.S. Congress is behind them. An official protest was made to the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, and the Serbian press accused the United States of meddling.

Diplomatic sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said Serbia has lately whipped up an anti-American campaign in an attempt to create a foreign scapegoat for domestic failures. They cited the attempt to assert Serbian will over Kosovo, and said it will collapse with free elections.

“We are not afraid of elections, but constitutional reforms are needed first,” Stambuk said.

Those changes, which would subjugate Kosovo to Serbian rule, are embodied in a draft constitution the Serbian leadership plans to present within weeks.

Under the restrictions invoked last year, Kosovo no longer has veto power over constitutional changes. Their presentation is likely to be taken by Albanians as a declaration of war.

Albanian political leaders like Rugova and local newspaper editor Veton Surroi have appealed to Kosovo’s majority to stay calm and wait out the Serbian standoff on elections.

“We have in the past been very brave and very emotional; now we are learning how to be patient,” said Surroi, who nevertheless fears an explosion of violence when Serbia moves to protect its control over Kosovo.

“There will be more confrontation,” Surroi said, adding that he can see no willingness to compromise by the Serbian leadership.

Tony Selmni, an ethnic Albanian who emigrated to Canada 14 years ago, was in Kosovo recently to visit relatives. He and his Canadian-born wife, Miliana, said Albanian friends and relatives are fearful of an explosion of violence once the gauntlet of constitutional change is thrown down.

Selmni said he was told that Serbian secret police have been burning files in fear of an imminent uprising.

“It’s going to be a bloody battle,” his wife predicted, “but eventually these people (the Albanians) are going to win.”

Times staff writer Carol J. Williams, based in Hungary, was recently on assignment in Yugoslavia.