Swedish
KFOR General Warns About Total Ethnic Cleansing of
Serbs
By
Anders
Brännström
May 18, 2004
Translated article from the
Swedish Daily Dagens Nyheter of May 3,
2004
"Do not abandon
Kosovo!"
Unless the Serbian minority is protected by a strong
international military force, the part of the Kosovo
Albanian population that is prone to violence will
ethnically cleanse anything Serbian out of Kosovo as soon
as it gets an opportunity. Until the violent riots in
March, the external world believed that the situation in
Kosovo had become stabilized. There were plans to
strongly reduce the peacekeeping KFOR troops. Thanks to
the disarmament not having gone very far, it was possible
to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Serbs.
Brigadier Anders Brännström, until recently
brigade commander in Kosovo, writes that an international
force must remain.
Last Friday I returned to Sweden after serving as
brigade commander in Kosovo. During the last six months,
Sweden has been responsible for the Multinational Brigade
Centre &endash; MNB (C) -, one of four brigades in KFOR,
the military force in Kosovo. This is the first time that
Sweden has been in charge of a brigade reporting directly
to a NATO staff.
By this article I want to explain the radical change
that occurred during my time in Kosovo. I am not a
politician and this is not a political brief. My
responsibility has been security. This is a field where I
see myself as being well informed after my Balkan
missions. Apart from the recently finished mission I was
commander of the Swedish batallion in Kosovo in 2000.
Before I continue the argument I would like to comment
on what I write about the Kosovo Albanian population. It
is important to clarify this part of the analysis in
order not to get misunderstood.
The absolute majority of Kosovo Albanians are of
course &endash; like in other parts of the world &endash;
honest citizens who aspire to a good life for themselves
and their families. I have many good friends among Kosovo
Albanians. And I can testify that that friendship is
often warmer and more intense then with many of my
Swedish friends. We must, however, not disregard the a
genuine and encompassing suspicion and aversion against
Serbs is found in the Kosovo Albanian population. And let
me, for the sake of completeness add that a corresponding
suspicion, aversion and in addition fear of Kosovo
Albanians is found in the Kosovo Serbian population.
When I travelled to Kosovo in October last year I
believed &endash; as did the entire international
community &endash; that the situation in Kosovo was
stable. Everybody deemed that Kosovo was ripe within a
near future to live in a multiethnic society where the
different population groups could live together. It was
therefore planned to reduce KFOR drastically, to reduce
the international police force correspondingly and to
hand over power and competences to local
institutions.
On 17 March that illusion was broken very clearly and
brutally.
As a complete surprise to the entire international
community, riots broke out all over Kosovo. Kosovo
Albanian crowds burnt Serbian churches, hospitals and
houses in the Serbian parts of cities and villages. Women
and children were forced to abandon their burning homes
and flee for their lives. KFOR succeeded in preventing a
total ethnic cleansing, but the damages were nevertheless
vast all over Kosovo. Miraculously, no KFOR soldier was
killed in the riots.
In hindsight, it is rather embarrassing that we could
be this naive. How could we believe that Kosovo &endash;
after all that had happened through history &endash;
would be ripe already now for its different population
groups to live in harmony with each other?
A positive consequence of what happened it that we
discovered the frailty of the project in time. If we had
had time to disarm even further, it would not have been
possible to prevent the ethnic cleansing. Some 100,000
Kosovo Serbs and other minority groups would might in
that case have been either dead or assembled in refugee
camps, with which Balkan history is replete.
I would like to summarize my analysis of the new
situation in Kosovo in four points.
1. Kosovo is not sufficiently ripe to become a
multiethnic society within any near future. This was made
very evident by what happened on 17-19 march this
year.
2. The contradictions and the hatred are so strong
that this situation will remain the same for many years.
It is quite obvious that we must count with decades until
a different situation can be expected.
3. Kosovo Serbian lives and Kosovo Serbian property
must be protected by a strong military organization.
Existing alternatives are either an international force
like KFOR or the army of Serbia-Montenegro. Under present
political conditions, the latter alternative is hardly
implementable.
4. Unless the Serbian minority is protected by a
strong military organization, the violence prone part of
the Kosovo Albanian population will cleanse everything
Serbian from Kosovo at the first opportunity.
In my analysis I refer to the part of the Kosovo
Albanian population that committed the deeds on17-19
March. The UN estimates that there were at least 50,000
people who created the disturbances more or less
spontaneously. These are people whose hate of the Serbian
population is so great that they will use any means. If
this group is permitted to further plan and coordinate
its deeds, the destruction would no doubt become even
greater.
The conclusion of my analysis is that as long as the
international community is not ready to permit ethnic
cleansing in Kosovo, a strong international force must be
present in the area.
I started by stating that I am no politician; and that
is certainly true. I nevertheless wish to conclude this
article by using a citizen´s perspective to indicate
some possibilities that might be used by skilled and
courageous politicians.
- If the international community chooses to continue
protecting Kosovo Serbs against ethnic cleansing, would
it not be a good idea to attempt to cooperate with
Serbia-Montenegro in these issues?
- Would it not thereby be possible for
Serbia-Montenegro to enter European cooperation in other
ways too?
- Would not that provide an opportunity for
Serbia-Montenegro to deal with some of the negative
effects of the Milosevic era and perhaps even become able
to neutralise some of its radical politicians?
I am completely convinced of the relevance of this
analysis of the security situation of the Kosovo Serbian
minority population in Kosovo.
The question is whether there is political courage to
constructively manage and exploit the opportunities
created by the entirely new situation in Kosovo.
Unauthorised translation from
Swedish by Håkan Wiberg, TFF Board
member
©
TFF and the author
2004
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