Moderates Key to Kosovo Peace

Looking at wall after wall of gaping holes ringed by soot and shrapnel splatter marks, it is hard to see a way out of Kosovo’s war.

There is so much ruin, so many lives given up to anger and fear, that just talking about compromise can be dangerous.

Adem Demaci, the fiery political voice of the Kosovo Liberation Army, insists that only independence can stop the fighting. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is just as adamant that Kosovo will never leave Serbia.

Both sides are lined with extremists pushing to make the other back down. The ethnic Albanians themselves are badly split among those who demand full independence and some who are willing to settle for something.

A few moderates still dare to hold the middle ground, and they appear to be the Serbian province’s best hope for peace.

Fehmi Agani, a soft-spoken sociology professor, is one of the ethnic Albanians’ lead negotiators and one of the few who is not afraid to speak publicly of compromising on Kosovo’s demand for independence.

He has met with foreign diplomats 10 times and sat across from Serbian negotiators only once, which is more than enough to anger many of his own people.

“They ask: ‘Are you going to negotiate with those people who have been committing war crimes, who have been killing and torturing?’ ” Agani said in an interview in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina.

“You can imagine what we say: ‘That’s reality. But we cannot afford the status quo. We have to negotiate. We have to change something.’ ”

Although Milosevic has withdrawn some special police and army units under threat of NATO airstrikes, sporadic fighting continues in Kosovo.

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that up to 50,000 ethnic Albanians are still camped out in the cold, too afraid to go home. Shelling has driven more people from their homes in recent days.

The 16-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization has given Milosevic until Tuesday to show that he is meeting demands for a withdrawal, or face airstrikes.

“We have seen great progress, but we are still far from adequate compliance,” a NATO official who declined to be named told reporters in Brussels on Friday. “We still believe Milosevic is able to go faster and do more.”

The allies’ U.S. commander, Gen. Wesley Clark, and German Gen. Klaus Naumann are due today in Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, on yet another trip to pressure Milosevic, but NATO’s threat appears to be fading.

NATO leaders have also said privately that they do not want to let separatist guerrillas orchestrate a new crisis to draw in Western air power and tip the balance against Milosevic.

While foreign diplomats such as U.S. envoy Christopher Hill try to nudge Milosevic and Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians closer to a compromise, the fighters are digging in for a longer war.

“We will try to convince the Serbian regime that it is not possible to convince the Albanians to be any kind of colony of Serbia or Yugoslavia,” Demaci, the guerrillas’ chief political ally, said in an interview.

“I am afraid, for that, we need time. I am afraid, for that, we need more bloodshed. And I am afraid we will have new fighting between Serbs and Albanians,” he said.

Ibrahim Rugova, a pacifist elected as Kosovo’s president in a 1992 vote that Serbian authorities tried to stop and never recognized, called on NATO on Friday to send ground troops to protect his people.

But many of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians are growing tired of foreign threats and pressure that reject their demand for independence.

“The proposals of the Americans and the proposals of the Serbian regime have very, very little difference,” said Demaci, who may yet be undercut by more moderate leaders.

The moderates are willing to settle for a transition of three to five years during which Kosovo will remain part of Yugoslavia, but as a third republic within the federation, said Agani, an ally of Rugova and a founding member of the pacifist leader’s party.

Kosovo would later stay in a single market with Yugoslavia, maintain a common defense, foreign policy, customs policies and other negotiable links, he added.

“In my personal view, if this compromise were accepted, Serbs would not feel a great loss,” Agani added. “There would be no boundaries. They would have a common market, and that’s the primary interest in Serbia--free circulation for people and goods.”

That offer is already on the table, with qualified support from the main force of KLA guerrillas, but Milosevic has rejected it, according to Agani and other ethnic Albanian leaders.

“Serbia insists that Kosovo remains within Serbia and Yugoslavia, even more within the legal framework of Serbia with far less autonomy than Kosovo used to have in previous years,” Agani said.

If Milosevic would risk making Kosovo the third Yugoslav republic, ethnic Albanians might change their minds and decide to stay, Agani suggested.

“But if this transitory model fails, then why should we stay together?” he asked. “It would neither be in the Albanian nor Serbian interests to pursue such a model.”

Demaci and the KLA consider that sort of talk too soft, and Demaci says he will not join Agani’s negotiating team when it tries to strike a deal with Milosevic in the coming weeks.

However, Demaci, a former Marxist-Leninist who spent 29 years as a political prisoner for his independence struggle, insisted that the two Albanian camps are really not that far apart.

Milosevic is not the only worry for negotiators. They have to keep looking over their shoulders because the guerrillas now providing the muscle for the independence movement are also split.

Ahmet Krasniqi, who was defense minister in Kosovo’s self-styled government in exile in neighboring Albania, was assassinated outside his home in Tirana, the Albanian capital, on Sept. 21. Some reports suggested that he was a victim of separatist infighting.

Krasniqi was believed to be commander of a rival group to the KLA, which may have ordered him killed, according to reports at the time. Others pointed to Serbia.

As the West presses to get serious peace talks going, Demaci and the KLA are trying to form their own government to challenge Rugova.

But Maliqi said the past eight months have proven that the KLA was never a proper army and that by fighting to a loss, the guerrillas missed their chance to join a coalition with Rugova.

It is a dangerous thing to say, like the word compromise, in the wrong places. But other ethnic Albanians are speaking out against extremists too, he said.

“Any of us who talk openly have been exposed to various threats,” Maliqi said. “Of course, there are moments when you may be scared.

“Those moments pass, but the idea that you have to do something to save the situation remains,” he said.