Introduction

Even in the midst of the liberation of Eastern Europe from communist dictatorship and one-party rule, in the southern Yugoslav province of Kosovo during 1989 a wholly different picture was unfolding. Under the bland bureaucratic euphemism of "political differentiation," the government of the republic of Serbia and the federal government of Yugoslavia initiated a purge against ethnic Albanians who constitute more than eighty-five percent of the population of the province. The purge began in 1988 as an accompaniment to political moves aimed at altering the status of Kosovo from that of an "independent" province with its own constitution and special status within the Yugoslav federation—a political recognition of the ethnic composition of Kosovo—to that of a wholly subordinate province within the republic of Serbia. The purge by Yugoslav authorities erupted in 1989 with mass arrests and detentions of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, widespread firings of ethnic Albanians from their jobs solely on account of their ethnic background, and indiscriminate killings of persons taking part in public demonstrations.

Heavy-handed emergency measures undertaken by the Serbian government and the Yugoslav federal government against Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority show no sign of abatement in 1990. On January 24, 1990, for example, riot police and troops broke up a protest in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, with water cannon and tear gas. Several ethnic Albanians were reported killed by the Yugoslav security forces in disturbances over the weekend of January 27-28, 1990, that indicate that ethnic Albanians are turning more frequently to violent means of protest.

The Serbian government continues to jail ethnic Albanians for peaceful protest, and to fire ethnic Albanians from leading positions in government and industry, replacing them with Serbs brought in from outside Kosovo. One Western diplomat remarked that rather than trying to reach an accommodation with the ethnic Albanian majority, it appears that the Serbian government, supported by its own state security apparatus as well as that of the Yugoslav federal government and army, aimed to establish tight control over Kosovo, with all the human rights abuses that such control tends to engender.

The government of Serbia and the Yugoslav federal government have maintained that such measures are necessary for the protection of non-Albanian ethnic minorities living in Kosovo, principally Serbs and Montenegrins (together with Roma, Turks, and other minority groups), constituting somewhere under fifteen percent of Kosovo's population. They have also said that these measures aim to squelch ethnic Albanian separatism, before a movement becomes entrenched and perhaps even takes up arms in favor of a fully independent Kosovo, or a Kosovo removed from Yugoslavia and somehow incorporated into a so-called "Greater Albania" with neighboring Albania, which the Yugoslav authorities accuse of fostering ethnic Albanian separatism. Both Serbian nationalists and ethnic Albanian nationalists have brought into the discussion other considerations as to why one ethnic group or the other "deserves" to occupy or, at least, politically control the province, generally to the detriment of other ethnic groups. Usually these amount to saying, "our ancestors bravely fought the battle of X," for or against the Turks, a half-dozen centuries before.

Insofar as these claims are offered, directly or indirectly, as a justification for abusing the human rights of persons of other ethnic groups, the Helsinki Watch and the IHF have no sympathy for them. It would appear that such claims, because they often amount to a demand for "ethnic purity" in a given region, almost always tend toward the violation of human rights. In the Balkans, at least, the land is too small and the nationalities too many for it to be otherwise.

Knowledge of the history of a region and its peoples is generally a prerequisite to arriving at an equitable solution to ethnic conflict. The experience of the mission, however, with respect to the Serbian-Albanian conflict over Kosovo and, indeed, with respect to all the ethnic conflicts that wrack Yugoslavia has been that history has been used as either an opportunity merely to express resentment toward other ethnic groups or to excuse their mistreatment. The constant invocation of history to bolster ethnic nationalism has impeded, rather than furthered, the search for lasting and equitable political solutions to ethnic strife in Yugoslavia, and particularly the conflict over Kosovo. If these observations seem far afield for a contemporary human rights report, they are offered because of the number of situations in which, in response to an allegation of specific human rights abuse occurring in 1989, the mission was treated to a historical lecture beginning in the eleventh century and ending with the Nazis.

Nonetheless, the position of the Helsinki Watch and the IHF is that the peaceful expression of such nationalist views is protected by the norms of international human rights. This protection covers ethnic Albanians in Pristina, Kosovo, and Serbs in Belgrade alike. It covers their peaceful nationalist expression even if they urge separatism or, as has too often been the case in Yugoslavia of late, make statements about other ethnic groups which are considerably more ugly than mere separatism. The Helsinki Watch and the IHF do not take any position on the goals espoused by persons partaking of liberty of expression, although the actions so advocated may violate the human rights of others and would thereby require action by responsible authorities. In particular, the Helsinki Watch and the IHF do not adopt any position on the constitutional changes brought about with respect to the status of Kosovo province in the Yugoslav federation. The matter of its status is a political question, although the human rights of all individuals, of whatever ethnic group, must be protected under any set of political or legal arrangements.

The foregoing is one instance of a larger view that human rights attach to individuals, and not to groups. In the view of the Helsinki Watch and the IHF, there is no special "human right" which would reserve Kosovo, or its political and legal institutions, for either the ethnic Albanian nationality or the Serb nationality, taken as groups. Human rights attach to individual human beings in virtue of being human, and not in virtue of belonging to a tribe, a nationality, or an ethnicity.

This is not to say that there are not human rights attached to an individual's expression of identity, including use of language, customary dress, religion, and so on. There are such rights, but they attach to individuals. There are undoubtedly a number of alternative political and legal arrangements which, if scrupulously carried out, would preserve the human rights of all persons living in Kosovo; some of these would maintain Kosovo as an independent province and others would not. It is an important political question for all of Yugoslavia, but the norms of international human rights do not mandate a particular outcome.

The political course pursued by the Serbian government and the Yugoslav federation, however, has not lead to the scrupulous protection of human rights. Of the two reasons offered by Yugoslav authorities for their actions in Kosovo, one, the suppression of separatist and nationalist expression, if peacefully expressed, is a flat violation of the human right of free expression. The second, the protection of non-Albanian ethnic minorities living in Kosovo, is a legitimate human rights goal of a government, but not in the way pursued by the Yugoslav authorities. Indeed, the political actions pursued by the Yugoslav government make it plain that the real goal is simply the establishment of hegemony over Kosovo, for reasons of pure nationalism. The protection of minorities in Kosovo is largely a pretext offered to the international community.

The protection of ethnic minorities from abuse by other ethnic groups, whether the majority or another minority, is an affirmative human rights obligation of any government. In truly extreme circumstances, that protection may require more than the ordinary criminal justice apparatus of the state—where, for example, one or another party is armed with extraordinary military weapons such as mortars or tanks which are beyond the capability of a police force to oppose. Such circumstances, under very rare circumstances, may justify the imposition of a state of emergency, always as provided for and limited by international human rights law. It is obvious, however, that a government may act in bad faith to use this power to oppress a particular minority group, or allow a local government to oppress a particular minority group, in the name of protecting another, rather than being the imposition of impartial state authority within the confines of the rule of law for the protection of all. Such a suspicion of bad faith deepens when, as in the case of Kosovo, the state authority—here the Serbian government acting with Federal authorities—represents only one ethnic party to the conflict. In any case, however, the protection of the human rights of members of one ethnic minority may not be pursued by the systematic abuse of those of another, which, as detailed in subsequent chapters, is the course of action currently undertaken by the Yugoslav authorities. The current solution of the Serbian government and Yugoslav federal government to pursue a massive purge of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo is unacceptable.

The attitude of Serbian authorities in essence is that ethnic Albanians in Kosovo are to be punished, as an ethnic group, for alleged abuses against the Serbs. It is a frightening example of the power of a one-party dictatorship, the full weight of a police state controlled by one ethnic minority, unleashed against another ethnic minority. The chapters that follow document specific forms of oppression against ethnic Albanians in 1988 and 1989. The discussion also covers allegations of abuse by ethnic Albanians against minority groups in Kosovo and, more particularly, the failure of the Kosovo government to protect non-Albanian minorities against abuse. The report ends with recommendations for United States foreign policy and the European community.

©Human Rights Watch 1990