The “ethnic Cleansing” in Kosovo
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Many cases in our history have served as a proof of the complexity of human nature and psychics. One such conundrum is how can two people, who have a relationship, based on friendship, mutual love and help, and above all, willingness to conserve it, become fierce enemies, ready to kill each-other; how can two neighbors, who are as close as siblings, start destroying each-others property and future; how can a family, living in harmony and love come to the breaking point; moreover, how is it possible that people, belonging to one nation and living in the same territory, lose their humanity to a point of committing atrocities against one-another? Yet, it is possible and people have often witnessed such a phenomenon. Unfortunately, there has been a proliferation of such cases during the last century. Interestingly, however, such people are neither primitive nor cruel in general. The answer is not insanity, as well. The clue can be found by looking at the larger picture – searching for something which both incorporates the relationships between agents with different relations and has the potency to generate such a potent change. Indeed, there is one such term, able to explain this phenomenon – namely, ethnicity, which has proven its persistence and power to define peoples way of thinking, their action and relations with one another. However, the unpredicted resurgence of ethnicity was paralleled by a number of terrible ethnic conflicts. Moreover, instead of disappearing, such conflicts have become even more extreme. The result in this case is “ethnic cleansing”, i.e. “the systematic elimination of an ethnic group or groups from a region or society, as by deportation, forced emigration, or genocide.”(“The American Heritage Dictionary”).
In fact, when dealing with this topic there is no better example of ethnic conflict than the Kosovo case, which triggered different international and Balkan processes, a lot of scholarly work, as well as attracted the attention of international organizations and media, but above all, led to the coining of the term itself. However, to offer a plausible and comprehensive explanation, of why such an event could happen, a person has to consider many different factors, because ethnicity represents a complex combination of factors, which can define our actions to a great degree. A change in one of these factors can affect the rest, which eventually is able to transform our ideas and very actions. Thus, to identify the possible causes of the event, we should examine the social environment and search for crucial changes and tendencies, as well as respective combinations of more than one factor, giving rise to such a conflict, and above all -to such speed and strength, which eventually can result in massacres of such magnitude.
In fact, most often there is not one single reason causing ethnic conflicts to emerge but more, with one affecting the other. Moreover, they just do not happen out of the blue, but gradually the tension between groups intensifies, finally leading to individual clashes. Yet, for this situation to expand all over a country there should be some major event, triggering this ethnic cleansing. This happened in Yugoslavia and more specifically in Kosovo during the 1990s. There were different conditions, which contributed to the outburst of open confrontation, mainly inside, as well as a number of factors, which transformed it into genocide, yet, there is one crucial event which ignited the resulting armed conflict. In fact, the disintegration of the SFRY (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) undermined regional stability and revealed that the socialist “melting pot” was an illusion. Nevertheless, there are some specific circumstances which are responsible for the exact way it happened. Thus, it is important to delineate the significance of these additional factors if we aim at understanding not only why this conflict happened but also how to determine and prevent future ones.
To start with, it is clear for most people why Yugoslavia disintegrated. Certainly, the inherent flaws in the communist system could not be ignored forever. It was also not a surprise that it fell apart after the Cold War. The peculiarity in this case is the cause of the ensuing violence, especially in the cases of Bosnia and Kosovo. When examining the state of affairs in SFRY, we uncover that the problem is based not so much on totalitarianism and its defeat as on the clash between the sovereign ambitions of the constituent parts and strong Serbian nationalism, characterizing the period after the death of Tito, i.e. – the leadership of Milosevic. Certainly, the system could not continue to exist in the old way, as it first included different nationalities, which wanted independent development, and second – the so-dreamed of common Yugoslav identity was, in fact, never achieved. It is extremely difficult for people, with different histories, religion and cultural experience, to have one world view, common aims and idea, and consequently – common policies and agendas. Though, we can find examples of multinational communities who handle this problem more successfully – the USA, Switzerland, even Canada. It does not mean that there have not been problems in these countries, yet, they have not disintegrated. But even if the state cannot survive the pressure, it can follow quite more peaceful break-up, i.e. the “velvet divorce” (the break-up of the CSFR).
Thus, there exist other reasons for the genocide. One of these is that the different ethnic groups had unequal rights. Usually, when the status between people is not the same, with some having more privileges and rights than others, these groups cannot coexist peacefully and they will try to change the status-quo. Besides, when the authorities do not allow their inclusion in the dominant group, it becomes even harder for those left outside to fight with maltreatment. It is exactly what happened after the “election” of Milosevic – he pushed to the extreme the idea of collectivistic nationalism, which was based on the principle of “one nation- one state” and the Muslim ethnic Albanians were never incorporated in it. Yet, his excessive nationalism and even neo-Stalinism could neither allow the break-up of the federation into independent states, nor its transformation into a confederation. He was obsessed by the idea to conserve the federation at any cost, especially Serbian dominancy. This positively clashed with the plans of the other constituents, and chiefly with the desire of Kosovo, and more or less of Vojvodina, for independent status, not only in the federation but also in Europe at large. Having such a mind set, Milosevic could do only one thing to achieve his purposes, which was largely to use power to suppress the rest. Of course, his intentions could be checked in the very beginning, if