Belgrade Insists Army Base Must Go Ahead

Serbia and Montenegro defence officials say they intend to press ahead with plans to build a controversial military base in southern Serbia despite protests from local Albanians.

Local Albanians fear that the new base, coupled with the army’s plan to conscript locals for the first time in a decade, will jeopardise the fragile peace before it is properly established in the region.

In a statement sent to IWPR yesterday, Bojan Dimitrijevic, an adviser on army reforms at the ministry of defence, said that construction of the new base at Cepotin would continue despite the protests.

“The location of such a camp is vital for state interests,” Dimitrijevic said.

He said the new base is needed to house security forces already in the region, so that when necessary they can intervene rapidly in the security zone that divides Serbia and Kosovo. It will also bolster the local community’s sense of security.

Dimitriyevic stressed that the base would be outside the main areas populated by Albanians.

Army chief-of-staff General Branko Krga laid the cornerstone for the base in the middle of June. Situated close to the Kosovo border, between the towns of Presevo and Bujanovac, the base is designed to house 1,000 army and police troops.

Just as controversially, Krga also announced that the army would begin recruiting local Albanians.

The 70,000 ethnic Albanians who make up the majority of the population of southern Serbia – the municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja – have protested strongly. Describing the move as reminiscent of the Milosevic era, they warn that it will lead to new tensions in the region and could result in an exodus of local Albanians.

Work on the new base has begun as the area embraces a peace plan for the troubled south. From 1999 to 2001, the region was torn by armed conflict between Serbian security forces and the Albanian guerrillas of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja, UCPBM. That was sparked by the war in neighbouring Kosovo, which left the Serbian military on the losing side, and based in a region with simmering local tensions.

Shortly after the Milosevic regime fell in October 2000, a peace strategy was forged for the region. By the middle of 2001, the Albanian guerrilla army had been demilitarised, a multi-ethnic police force had been established. Local government elections were held last year.

Despite these changes, local Albanians remain suspicious of the Serbian security forces, the main instrument of repression by the Milosevic regime. At grassroots level they have not been conscripted into Belgrade’s military since 1991 – an arrangement which suited both Milosevic and the Albanians, for different reasons. Albanians refused to do national service, while the military did not bother trying to call them up.

It is therefore was unsurprising that Albanian community leaders interviewed by IWPR voiced anger at the defence ministry’s plans.

“Why is an army base needed here now, when the region requires demilitarisation, not the deployment of new army forces?” asked Skender Destani, who heads the Presevo municipal assembly. “By building a new army base, the Serbian authorities are moving back to the past. We Albanians are categorically against construction of a base in this region.”

The new leader of the Democratic Party of Albanians, Mustafa Ragimi, said, “Instead of fundamental changes in the army structures of Serbia and Montenegro in the wake of the Milosevic era, the top ranks of the army are announcing that they will start building bases on territory where a large number of ethnic Albanians live.”

Ragimi told IWPR that the base will mean southern Serbia has the heaviest concentration of military forces in all Serbia – and the region is already close to Camp Bondsteel, the US base in Kosovo.

Orhan Rexhepi, a former local commander of the now disbanded UCPBM guerrillas who now leads the Movement for Democratic Progress in the Presevo assembly, accused the Serbian government of wanting to keep the region unstable. The planned base is “pure provocation”, he said.

“You can’t build an army base while there is still no solution for the problems of ethnic Albanians in this area,” he said.

Local Albanians to whom IWPR spoke shared the concerns of their political leaders. “Who can now guarantee that these forces can be kept under control?” asked Hysen, an elderly man from Bujanovac.

General Krga’s announcement that the army will draft young Albanians has further escalated tensions, analysts say. The three leading political parties that represent Albanians have protested in unison, saying young men should not answer the call because there is still no legal provision for Albanians to serve locally, rather than being sent to military units anywhere in the country.

Nor, they say, has the army been purged of Milosevic appointees. They cite as an example the new head of the army’s security service, General Momir Stojanovic, whose name has come up at Hague war crimes tribunal hearings more than once in connection with his role in Kosovo.

Skender Latifi is a independent journalist from Southern Serbia.