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The Nonviolent Movement in Kosovo and Yugoslavia

The world largely ignored the efforts of peace activists in Yugoslavia until the war became inevitable. Here's what you probably missed.

a guest column by David Hartsough
May 18, 1999

The world lost a crucial opportunity to respond to the massive nonviolent movement in Kosov@ and Yugoslavia before the conflict erupted into the tragic war which is engulfing the entire area. Since the media did very little to tell about the nonviolent movement which was taking place, I would like to share some of the highlights.

First, some background: In the 1974 Yugoslav constitution Kosov@ was granted autonomy. (Kosovo is the Serbian spelling, Kosova the Albanian spelling, and Kosov@ is considered a neutral compromise.) The 90 percent ethnic Albanian population lived almost as first class citizens along with Serbs, who made up 10 percent of the region's population. Albanian and Serbian were the official languages and both were taught in schools and at the university. Most of the key positions in the society were held by Albanians. The rights of all people were guaranteed regardless of nationality.

Then in 1989 and 1990 Slobodan Milosevic abolished Kosov@'s autonomy and subsequently the Kosov@ parliament, and most Albanians in the area were fired from their jobs. These included teachers, professors, judges, media workers, medical workers, and police.

In response to this tragic affront to their status as citizens of Yugoslavia, the ethnic Albanian population began large scale, sustained nonviolent struggle demanding their rights as citizens and a return to the autonomy guaranteed under the 1974 constitution. This nonviolent movement continued from 1989 through the spring of 1998.

It started with thousands of miners marching from the lead mines to Pristina, the capitol. Later, hundreds of miners went on a hunger strike for more than a week almost a mile underground in 120-degree temperatures. Then through 1990 and 1991, hundreds of thousands of people marched nonviolently in the streets of Pristina and the other cities of Kosov@ demanding a return to autonomy and respect for their rights as citizens.

Some of the other creative and courageous nonviolent actions included:

• half-hour general strikes called daily by the Association of Independent Trade Unions

• people lighting candles in their windows at night as a symbol of their determination to be free

• people jangling keys at demonstrations saying: “We hold the keys to unlock our prison.”

After much violence by the Serb police, hundreds of thousands participated in a “Funeral for violence” in which they carried a coffin labeled “Violence” and took it to the cemetery where it was buried.

There was heavy police repression during these encounters, and many peaceful demonstrators were killed. Thus, after 1992, the Albanians held no more large demonstrations. Instead, the focus was on building parallel institutions, another important tactic of nonviolent resistance. Their hope was to keep their spirit and culture alive, to educate their children, and obtain medical care for their people.

The professors and teachers who had been fired from their jobs set up alternative schools where thousands of students were able to continue their education even if only in makeshift classrooms in private homes and storefronts. They received no funds from the Belgrade government for salaries, heating in the winter, desks, chairs, or school supplies.

The doctors and nurses who had been fired from their jobs set up “Mother Theresa” medical clinics throughout Kosov@ where they were able to continue to give medical care to the Albanian population.

About 10,000 Albanians, mostly men, left the country, partly to resist the draft so they would not have to serve in the Serbian armed forces in the wars with Croatia and Bosnia, and also to earn income to send back to support their families, most of whom had lost their jobs.

The Albanians also elected a parallel government, since the Serbian government did not represent them. They elected a president, Ibrahim Rugova, a new parliament, and set up a voluntary taxation system to fund the schools and the parallel university. President Rugova traveled all over Europe and the U.S. trying to alert the international community about the situation in Kosov@ and of the need for support for the Kosovars' goal of self-determination and freedom.

Rugova (who had very little real power) promoted a totally nonviolent policy in relation to the Serbs. The policy, which was adhered to almost universally, was: “Do not respond to the violent provocations by the Serb police. Keep your dignity and commitment to nonviolence. Do not use any kind of violence against the Serb police or regime.”

During these years the Albanian population showed a great deal of discipline and self-restraint in the face of heavy-duty police harassment and even killings. If it achieved its independence, Rugova also promised a Kosov@ without an army so the country would not be considered a threat to its neighbors. But the situation in the makeshift schools, university and medical clinics and in the whole society was very difficult to maintain, and it seemed to many that simply existing was an endless grind.

Adem Demaci, an ethnic Albanian Kosovar who had spent close to 28 years in prison for his political beliefs, was known by many as Kosov@'s Nelson Mandela. Starting in 1996 when I first met him, he and many others in Kosov@ were calling for more active nonviolent resistance to the Serbian repression as a means of alerting the international community to the seriousness of the situation and the need to support their struggle and intervene with moral, social, economic and political pressure to help change the situation before it exploded into violence and war. They invited the international community to come and accompany them in their nonviolent movement. They hoped we could be the eyes, ears and conscience of the international community, and perhaps even give some protection to the Albanian people in their nonviolent resistance.

Starting in the fall of 1997, university students demanded the right to go back to their schools to learn in the Albanian language and to use their own curriculum rather than the one dictated by the Milosevic government. That autumn, 20,000 university students and their professors participated in a nonviolent demonstration. After walking for about 10 minutes, helmeted police in riot gear, driving armored personnel carriers, and armed with a tear gas cannon blocked the protesters' progress. When stopped, the students stood in total silence for about 40 minutes. No stones, eggs, or epithets were thrown. None of the students was armed. But without warning, the police began attacking, beating up and arresting the student leaders, and firing hundreds of rounds of tear gas to disperse all the others.

But the students didn't give up. They continued their nonviolent demonstrations and invited other concerned people from around the world to come and witness or participate in their nonviolent demonstrations. They hoped internationals would, by their very presence, help prevent police violence and communicate their cause to others around the world. They hoped to inspire the international community to support their nonviolent movement before it exploded into violence. When the international community discovered the oppressive situation in Kosov@, perhaps it would organize to challenge the Milosevic regime in the same way it responded to the apartheid regime in South Africa.

It might have worked, but by the time the world began to notice, it was too late. In March of last year, the Yugoslav government finally signed an agreement to allow Albanian university students back into the university buildings. But by that point the violence between the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) and the Serb police was beginning to escalate out of control and overtake the nonviolent movement.

After the first Serbian massacre in Drenica, hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians were again demonstrating in the streets calling on the international community to wake up and intervene before Kosov@ exploded into war. They organized massive nonviolent acts of resistance to Serb violence against them: On one day 100,000 people marched through the streets of Pristina carrying candles and pictures of Mother Theresa, ending with an interfaith service at the Catholic church for the 46 people who had been killed in the massacre. Another day, 20,000 women attempted to carry bread about 30 miles into the mountains to feed thousands of refugees who had fled there (Serb authorities had cut off the transport of food and medicine into the area).

In Serbia, also there had been large scale nonviolent demonstrations which were effective at changing the oppressive status quo. In the winter of 1996 and 1997 elections were held for various city governments in Yugoslavia. Milosevic's opposition won the mayoral elections in Belgrade and a majority of the cities in Serbia. When Milosevic voided these election results, 1.5 million Serbs took to the streets demanding that their candidates be allowed to take office. They demonstrated nonviolently in the bitter cold for 87 days before Milosevic finally gave in.

But violence begets international attention far better than does nonviolence. The world had given very little support to either the nonviolent movement of the Albanians or the Serbian democratic movement. It was not until the KLA began killing Serb police and the Serb police and military stepped up their terror that the international community finally began to take notice. The combination of the violence by the KLA, the Serb police and the Serb military, and the NATO bombings has driven the nonviolent and democratic forces in both Kosov@ and in Serbia to the sidelines.

The international community must learn the importance of responding to nonviolent movements before the situation escalates into violence and war as it has in Kosov@. There are nonviolent movements in progress in Tibet, Burma, East Timor, Tabasco and Chiapas in Mexico, and elsewhere. The religious community, the peace community, and governments need to respond to these nonviolent movements. We need to listen to the concerns, needs, and problems. We can help give international attention to these movements. We can work to bring moral, social, economic and political pressure to bear as we did successfully in South Africa.

We should be concerned about oppression and dictatorship and apartheid and ethnic cleansing. But one hopes we have learned not to fight fire by pouring gasoline on it, or to deal with violence by inflicting more violence. In the same way Amnesty International brings pressure to bear on behalf of political prisoners, our churches could adopt nonviolent movements in other parts of the world. We can bring those places and people into our prayers, visit them and get to know them, and help amplify the voices of the people in the nonviolent movements to the rest of the world. We can accompany them when they request our presence as we did with Witness For Peace in Nicaragua.

If the world can learn the crucial lesson of the need to listen to nonviolent movements before, not after they erupt into violence and war, the courageous and determined nonviolent movement of the Kosovars will not have been in vain.

David Hartsough is the Executive Director of Peaceworkers. He has worked in Kosovo and Yugoslavia over the past three years. In March of 1998, after accompanying Albanians in their nonviolent demonstrations in Kosov@, he was arrested, jailed and later expelled from the country by the Yugoslav authorities. This article will be published by Sojourners magazine in July.

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