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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 07/04
Again, the Visible Hand: Slobodan Milosevic's Manipulation of the Kosovo Dispute
May 6, 1998
Abstract
Kosovo, an impoverished region at the southern tip of Serbia, is drawing ineluctably closer to war with each passing day.
By night, men smuggle guns and ammunition from Albania to an Albanian militia determined to wrest Kosovo away from Serbia. The militia's fighters, angered by years of Serbian police violence against Kosovo's 90-percent Albanian majority, have killed Serbian police officers and murdered Albanians deemed to be loyal to the Serbian state.
The Serbian police attempted to neutralise the Albanian militia in March by mounting attacks on Albanian villages that left scores of civilians dead and brought a storm of international condemnation. For a time, the police hunkered down in their stations and checkpoints, while Yugoslav Army commandos entered the fray, killing several dozen Albanian arms smugglers during gun battles near the border. Over the May Day holiday weekend, however, police troops reportedly re-engaged Albanian villages with mortar fire.
