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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 07/04
Southern Serbia's Fragile Peace
December 9, 2003
Abstract
The Albanian-majority Presevo Valley in southern Serbia is one of the few conflict resolution success stories in the former Yugoslavia. Yet tensions linger, and a series of violent incidents in August and September 2003 demonstrated that the peace can still unravel. Serbia's stalled reform process is preventing the political and economic changes that are needed to move forward on many critical issues in the area, and there is a general sense among local Albanians that peace has not delivered what it promised: an end to tensions with Serb security forces and prosperity.
In 2001 the international community - NATO, the U.S. and the OSCE in particular - working in close cooperation with Belgrade authorities, successfully negotiated an end to an armed Albanian uprising in the valley. Sporadic incidents still occurred there until March 2003. Then in August 2003 eight separate attacks, many against the army and moderate Albanians, broke five months of relative calm. The following month, Albanian guerrillas a short distance away in neighbouring northern Macedonia - some of whom may have crossed from Presevo - fought two separate actions against Macedonian security forces, while yet another attack was launched against the army inside southern Serbia. Cross-border flows of refugees and possibly also fighters, combined with claims from the shadowy Albanian National Army (AKSH) of responsibility for two of the attacks in Serbia and both incidents in Macedonia, refocused attention on the valley.
