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DAY OF WHITE SHIRTS

On Wednesday, October 1, a powerful police presence, with long clubs, shields and teargas, broke up a peaceful demonstration by Albanian students attempting to force Serb authorities to allow them back into the University of Pristina. About twenty thousand students gathered that morning around their headquarters in the community of Velanija, on a hill overlooking the city. According to orders from the demonstration organizers, the Union of Albanian Students of Kosovo, the students were all wearing white shirts. The plan was to walk in a long procession into the center of the city, to visit university buildings, and to return to Velanija by early afternoon. However, the men in blue had other plans.

At a crossroads at the foot of Velanija, cordons awaited the students. For about an hour, the students and the police stood facing each other in a strange silence. Then, a little after twelve, the order was issued for action. Already experienced after winter training in Serbia, the police acted quickly, brutally and efficiently. Teargas was fired, and the procession was broken into smaller groups, all of which were directed toward the center, where they were awaited by further cordons. In one hour's time, the streets of Pristina were desolate. For now, it is known that those arrested included the Dean of the Albanian Parallel University, Ejub Statovci, President of the Students Union, Bajur Dugoli, as well as member of the Presidency of the Union, Driton Ljajci, Spokesman Albin Kurti and several more protest participants. Similar news about arrests are being heard from other cities in Kosovo.

WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE: Even though they were scheduled for Wednesday, student protests in Pristina and six other cities had begun ten days before. Every evening at 8 o'clock, thousands of young people crowded on the left side of Vidovdanska Street in Pristina, better known as the corso. They marched at a snail's pace from the Regional Committee building to Hotel Grand and back, holding hands and gossiping. On the other side of the street, the occasional pedestrian scurried by in a hurry. The police stood at the side, ``directing traffic'' in a manner already seen in Belgrade this past winter, occasionally asking for I.D. and sometimes interfering. At half past nine, the crowd would disperse throughout local cafes, while the police would sit down for a beer at the cafe in the first floor of the SPS building.

This scene was reenacted nightly from the time the leaders of the Students' Union first announced the protest with the demand that they immediately be permitted the use of university facilities from which Albanians were thrown out six years ago. The students announced that they would not back off from their demands until all university buildings were ``liberated.'' The police also trained for October 1 for the above described actions: first, on Wednesday, September 24, traffic was permitted on the corso by closing off side streets, and by forcing cars to pass through the crowds (according to a twenty year custom, Vidovdanska Street had been closed off to traffic from 6 to midnight), while street lighting was shut off during student processions. As the poet, Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj writes: ``You stumble and draw a bit of blood / Oh how unpleasant it is in the dark.'' Still, from the behavior of the police during these training periods, it was clear that they were issued orders to avoid situations which might lead to serious unrest. The degree to which control of the situation was top priority was evidenced by the presence of the local chief of state security, Misa Lakovic, who was seen every evening, personally ordering his men on the street, while Police General Obrad Stevanovic, Commander of the Special Unit, was also observed. Thus, despite daily beatings and arrests (especially targeted were members of the editorial board of the independent journal Koha Ditora), it could be said that the police, by comparison with their usual Kosovo standards, were this time behaving more like Mother Teresa.

THE LOCAL PERSPECTIVE: Serb authorities were not the only ones who looked upon the student preparations with worry. The leaders of the Democratic Federation of Kosovo, headed by Ibrahim Rugova (who had been the uncontested leader of the Kosovo Albanians for the past seven years) looked on at the marchers with equal trepidation. In September of last year, Rugova signed an agreement with Slobodan Milosevic regarding the return of Albanians to schools and faculties. However, that agreement was never implemented mainly because, as it is claimed here, of intentional difficulties and obstructions created by Serb authorities, as well as other circumstances. First of all, the international community, which Rugova expected would exert pressure on Milosevic, was too busy with implementing the Dayton Agreement to pay attention to this problem; then, the Chief of the Albanian Negotiations Team and Rugova's Advisor on Education, Dzavit Ahmeti, had died in a car crash... In the meantime, it began to look like the problem of education, which like every other problem in Kosovo is of a state nature, would not be solved until a more general agreement on the status of Kosovo in relation to Serbia and FRY is reached.

However, the students were not prepared to wait that long. The first crack in Rugova's monopoly over decision-making appeared in May of this year, when the leadership of the Union of Albanian Students was suddenly replaced. A new presidency, headed by Bujar Dugoli, was far less ready to heed the advice of Rugova on patience and tolerance. Students had enough of exams and workshops in sheds, basements and private apartments, without the minimal necessary conditions, and rumors began circulating about going out into the streets. The problem is that all students' disturbances in Kosovo for the last thirty years have regularly ended in bloodshed. The last time, in 1991, there were at least eight dead in Djakovica. Warning about bomb threats, and aware that the international community would not support any kind of general revolt by Albanians, Rugova continued to call for patience.

WHERE IS THE MONEY: Those calls would have had far greater weight had Rugova managed to get anything more than a signature from Milosevic in an agreement that is in, any case, very unclear. Along with that, his position within the Albanian Movement for an Independent Kosovo was subject to attack simultaneously from two sides: from one side, Adem Demaci, leader of a small Parliamentary Party, ``the Mandeal of Kosovo'' who had spent more than a quarter of his life in prison, was being more adamant than ever in expressing his ambitions about handling the movement. At the same time, Bujar Bukosi, who heads the Kosovo Government in Exile, began attacking the ``Ghandiesque methods'' of Rugovi from Switzerland, and calling on greater resistence against the ``Serb occupiers.'' Rugova's inability to explain the appearance of the mysterious ``Liberation Army of Kosovo,'' which in recent years has accepted responsibility for a string of attacks on Serb police and for the attempted assassination of the ``legal'' University Dean Papovic, further undermined his credibility. Finally, the scandalous discovery by Koha Ditore that millions of German marks collected by ``patriotic taxing'' of Kosovo Albanians had ended up in the pockets of several Rugova advisers, lead to the reassessment by many of the way the parallel Albanian state was being run.

THE RATING OF DEMACIJEV: Not a single one of these factors, taken on its own, would have been serious enough to bring into question the uncontested role of DSK, which, with the aid of a party mechanism, continues to have a firm hold on Albanian villages. However, in the cities, the student protest began to act as a catalyst for all those to whom the monopoly that Rugova holds over decision-making began to appear as unbearable as the bullying of the Serb authorities. The students brought their enthusiasm and decisiveness into the moribund Kosovo knot, awakening hope in others that something after all could be changed. Demaci immediately realized his chance, and began marching with the students from day one. Thus, from the beginning of the marches, his rating began to rise, while Rugova's kept dropping. At the same time, Bukosi began criticizing Rugova's indecisiveness more sharply over satellite television, which is transmitted from Tirana.

The counter-attack of the President of DSK began on Friday, September 26, five days before the official beginning of the protest. At a regular press conference in the party center, Rugova, who, even in previous talks with student representatives, had not expressed enthusiasm for their idea, appealed to the students to postpone their demonstrations at least until after the second round of the presidential elections in Serbia. The students answered somewhat undiplomatically that they were not ``a political organization'' and that, in keeping with that, they do not feel obligated to listen to political leaders, not even Rugova. Such an answer shook the Albanian political scene at its roots, where the patriarchal principle of subordination largely defines the rules of the game. The unthinkable happened: the father of the nation called on the ``children'' to listen, and they told him to mind his own business and to leave them be.

ROLE OF THE FOREIGN FACTOR: It became clear that the time for jokes had passed. In Belgrade, American Mission Chief, Richard Miles met ``privately'' with Milosevic to investigate possibilities of neutralizing the scheduled protest with some concession to student demands. From what leaked, Miles was told that even the smallest concession could at the present time practically bring Seselj to power in Serbia, but that after the elections something could be done. As this argument sounded pretty convincing, Miles and other members of the international community were forced to acknowledge it. Thus, at one moment, everyone---Milosevic, Rugova and the most powerful nations of the world---found a common objective: to postpone the student protest and maintain status quo for at least several more days. The result of the founding of this ``unprincipled coalition'' was seen on Monday, September 29, when the airport in Pristina saw the arrival of a plane-full of valuable diplomatic cargo. At the head of the so-called Unified Delegation for Kosovo was Richard Miles, Chief of the American Mission in Belgrade, followed by Ian Sezu of Holland, representing the Presidency of the European Union, Ambassador Ivor Roberts of Great Britain, Raphael Gerard of Canada, Slavomir Dabrova of Poland, and ten more attaches, first secretaries and advisers. After they talked with students, they held a press conference in the garden of the American Information Center in which Miles and Sezu admitted that the mission was ``slightly unusual'' (Miles), and even ``strange'' (Sezu), and that the situation was ``serious'' (Miles) and ``explosive'' (Sezu). They said that they, of course, cannot deny anyone the right to express their wishes in a peaceful protest, but that they must express their deep concern for the ``timing'' of the scheduled student marches. Trying ahead of time to remove any impressions that they were working for Milosevic in Pristina, Miles and Sezu particularly emphasized that the idea of their visit had not been ``hatched in Belgrade'' but that their trip had instead been ordered by their chiefs in Washington and Bruxelles. They warned both sides of ``maximum alertness'' on Wednesday, sat in the plane and flew away. Still, one member of this delegation managed to admit to a VREME source that the students appear ``very adamant'' in their demands, and that the international community, even after the elections, ``has nothing much to offer'' to Milosevic in return for letting Albanians return to schools and to the university.

The same day, something that at first appeared as a rift, occurred in the student leadership: a parallel organization of students appeared, whose leaders demanded that the protests be postponed. Soon it was clear that what was happening was sheer imitation of Nemanja Djordjevic's Independent Student Movement, except that in Belgrade it had been SPS that had stood behind that organization, while here it was DSK (the Pristina equivalent of Djordjevic is Rugova's cousin). The imitation was so complete that it had the same fate as the original---only a few hours after being formed, this doubly parallel movement became a general object of derision. Once again, it became apparent that ruling parties in the territories of former Yugoslavia, despite ``insurmountable ethnic, religious and cultural differences,'' are prone to making the same moves (usually the wrong ones) when they find themselves in similar situations.

SERB SOURCES: During all this time, the authorities in Kosovo dealt with the looming crisis in the customary manner: they solemnly behaved as if nothing was happening. A source from the regional government told VREME journalists that Serbs are certain that ``Americans will easily force the Albanians to obey'' and that ``on Wednesday everything will be alright.'' The same source, however, stated that ``he was not sure whether he would send his kid to school that day,'' and that only a few days ago he had cleaned and oiled the gun which he had not carried for years now. Even though official Serb media were very reserved (on the day before the protest, Radio Pristina transmitted a program on Mount Fuji), the Service was doing its work of disinformation: constant, disturbing rumors were being circulated; first that some kind of organization of Serb and Montenegrin students was getting ready to defend the university; that the Radicals were getting ready for a counter-meeting; that upstarts who had the task of impersonating ``Kosovo protesters'' had been apprehended. After attempts at confirmation, all that proved hearsay, as was the announcement of a parade of ``military and firefighter vehicles'' which appeared in the weekly Jedinstvo. In the evening of September 30, Radovan Papovic, the Dean of the (Serb) University made a statement, calling the Albanian students ``enemy monsters.'' ``The university is a state issue, and not one of a national minority,'' said Papovic in statement read over Radio Pristina. ``If we give them the University, tomorrow they will ask for their state. Enemies with evil intentions will not be allowed to come in.''

RUGOVA-MORINA: Thus, everything was ready for action on Wednesday.

It is expected that Dean Statovic and the arrested students will get up to sixty days on the basis of the Law of Civil Disturbance. These days, Milosevic could put together some new Lex specialis with Rugova, after the example of police actions on Brankovo Bridge in Belgrade last winter, with which the student demands would partly be accepted, only for the new agreement to be obstructed...

However, that will not solve anything. After everything that happened, the political scene in Kosovo will never be the same again. Already among the Albanians of Pristina, it is possible to hear that ``Rugova was arresting students,'' while some compare the leader of DSK with the deceased Rahman Morin, ``the honest Albanian'' who broke up demonstrations in 1991. Further radicalization of Albanians, accompanied by a gradual and unstoppable weakening of Rugova's influence, appears inevitable, which opens up space for new, probably bloody conflicts. The students tried, and for now missed the target. Who is next in line---the Liberation Army?

Dejan Anastasijevic and Zoran B. Nikolic (from "Vreme", October 6, 1997)