yugoslavias implosion

The collapse of the Albanian state in the spring of 1997 (following
the collapse of several pyramid schemes, which incited popular
anger and prompted armed insurgents to take to the streets demanding
the resignation of President Berisha) alarmed the Kosovo Albanians,
who felt that they had lost the moral and political support of
their mother country. The events in Albania also increased international
concerns regarding the stability of the region. The international
community, especially the United States, was determined not
to allow a repetition of what had happened in Bosnia. On May 22,
1997, u.s. secretary of state Madeleine Albright stressed the resolve
of the United States to prevent Bosnia and its neighbors from being
turned into an international center of narcotics trafficking.
The increasingly frequent European and u.s. delegation visits to
Pristina led to no concrete proposals for solving the crisis, and the
Serbs remained impervious to diplomatic pressure. The efforts of the
international community to bring the two sides to a negotiated settlement
through mediation bore no fruit. The European Union, particularly
Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium, tried to have a large
number of Albanians repatriated to Kosovo. The German government
signed an agreement with the fry to repatriate 130,000 people,
most of them Albanians, to Kosovo, and similar arrangements
were made by other governments. The outbreak of major fighting in
Kosovo in 1998 prevented such arrangements from being carried out.
Several groups of Albanians returned in spite of the Serbian government’s
reluctance to have them back.
The international community did not have a clear understanding
of the Kosovo issue. Between 1992 and 1998, the international
community favored internal self-determination and preservation of
the territorial integrity of fry. In fact, the United States was explicitly
against Kosovo’s independence. Rugova was confronted by u.s.
reluctance to support Kosovo independence in a 1997 visit to Washington,
d.c. Discussing Secretary Albright’s meeting with Rugova,
223
ChApter 3