yugoslavias implosion

254
ChApter 3
Albanians, who confirmed the negative stereotypes held of them in
many Western countries by expelling, kidnapping, and murdering
Serbs and other non-Albanians. 446 Neither Milošević nor Koštunica
seemed willing to work with the Albanians in order to create conditions
under which the two sides could find a modus vivendi.
The Kosovar Serbs, especially those in the north, continued to be
manipulated by the Belgrade regime and used to destabilize Kosovo.
The spc, however, took a stand against all terror, including that
against Albanians. Father Sava, for instance, took a group of Albanians
into the Dečani Monastery to protect them from Serbian forces.
As the Belgrade regime became increasingly isolated, Bishop Artemije
and Father Sava worked to protect local Serbs and stop their
expulsion while constantly arguing in favor of cantonization.
The cantonization plan would have left Kosovo in a state
Dobrica Ćosić very much wanted to see. For years he had been
espousing the benefits of partition: “I see the permanent solution
to Kosmet in the division of Kosovo and Metohija and in a territorial
delimitation between Serbia and Albania.” 447 The “delimitation
between Serbia and Albania” Ćosić advocated, rather than between
Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo, fits into his definition of the Yugoslav
wars as serving the purpose of “recomposing the Balkans.”
Ćosić believed that Serbia should settle for a “third of Kosovo.” 448 In
446 A report by Human Rights Watch, “Harassment and Violence against Serbs and Roma in
Kosovo,” August 1999, Volume 11, No . 10, by Fred Abrahams, http://www .hrw .org/ ) claims
that one thousand Serbs and Roma were killed or missing after May 12, 1999 . The same
report claims that, according to KFOR, in the five months from KFOR’s arrival in Kosovo in
June 1999 until l November 1999, 370 murders were committed; of the victims, 135 were
Serbs . Between January 30, 2001, and May 27, 2001, KFOR reported 95 murders, of which
26 victims were Serbs, 7 were Roma, 2 were Bosniaks, 52 were Albanians, and 8 were of
unidentified ethnicity . The FRY government published a book, The Heroes of the Motherland,
which lists 1,002 soldiers and policemen killed between 1998 and the NATO intervention .
447 Slavoljub Đukić, Lovljenje vetra, Belgrade, 2001 .
448 In 1981, Ćosić wrote in his diary, “If we are not ready to liberate Kosovo again—which we
certainly are not—then it ought to be divided between ourselves and the Albanians .
We ought to take our parts and monasteries and leave the Albanians that which is
theirs . Otherwise we shall be sucked into a permanent war with the Albanians which