ABROAD

BELGRADE Force of Destruction

The central government is being forced to confront a situation in the southern region of Kosovo that is disrupting the multinational, multi-lingual, and multi-religious balance of this heterogeneous country. Kosovo has a militant and growing majority of ethnic Albanians, who are clamoring for status as an independent state, or even union with their hyper-Communist ancestral land. The most recent danger sign, from the point of view of the Communist authorities here, is the expulsion of Serb and Montenegrin inhabitants of Kosovo, often by acts of terror and sabotage, from their farms and from their factory and white-collar jobs. During the Turkish rule of the Balkan peninsula, Moslemized Albanians were implanted in the historical and cultural homeland of the Serbian people. As a result of the First and Second Balkan Wars, in 1912 and 1913, the kingdom of Serbia recovered Kosovo, and in 1918 it became part of the Yugoslav republic. After the Second World War, during a honeymoon between the Belgrade Communist leaders and Enver Hoxha, the dictator of Albania, Kosovo was granted autonomy under Serbian jurisdiction. In time, the Albanians took over the local parliament and the local Party central committee, while Belgrade turned a blind eye to all this. Prodded by the armed forces, Belgrade has now set up a program to stem the flight of the Serbs and repatriate those who have already fled. Admiral Petard Simic put the situation in dramatic terms, saying that further hesitation would be “intolerable,” and that if things continued to get worse, Kosovo could be considered “the point of departure for the destruction of Yugoslavia.”

BELGRADE Force of Destruction

The central government is being forced to confront a situation in the southern region of Kosovo that is disrupting the multinational, multi-lingual, and multi-religious balance of this heterogeneous country. Kosovo has a militant and growing majority of ethnic Albanians, who are clamoring for status as an independent state, or even union with their hyper-Communist ancestral land. The most recent danger sign, from the point of view of the Communist authorities here, is the expulsion of Serb and Montenegrin inhabitants of Kosovo, often by acts of terror and sabotage, from their farms and from their factory and white-collar jobs. During the Turkish rule of the Balkan peninsula, Moslemized Albanians were implanted in the historical and cultural homeland of the Serbian people. As a result of the First and Second Balkan Wars, in 1912 and 1913, the kingdom of Serbia recovered Kosovo, and in 1918 it became part of the Yugoslav republic. After the Second World War, during a honeymoon between the Belgrade Communist leaders and Enver Hoxha, the dictator of Albania, Kosovo was granted autonomy under Serbian jurisdiction. In time, the Albanians took over the local parliament and the local Party central committee, while Belgrade turned a blind eye to all this. Prodded by the armed forces, Belgrade has now set up a program to stem the flight of the Serbs and repatriate those who have already fled. Admiral Petard Simic put the situation in dramatic terms, saying that further hesitation would be “intolerable,” and that if things continued to get worse, Kosovo could be considered “the point of departure for the destruction of Yugoslavia.”