The Role of the Church in the Kosovo Crisis

After the Dayton peace accords in 1995, terminating the civil war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, the attention of the world turned to Kosovo. The international agreement terminating the Bosnian War ignored the problems of Kosovo, where the Albanian majority claimed independence. As their complaints were not addressed, the Kosovars turned from a policy of passive resistance of their moderate leadership to guerilla tactics and violent acts against the Serbian authorities conducted by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Their activities prompted the State Department to label them a "terrorist group" in February 1998. A year later, however, the Western powers invited the KLA, not the previous moderate leaders, to represent Kosovo at Rambouillet.

As our subject is the role played by the Serbian Church under the leadership of Patriarch Pavle, we will stress its activities here. Among the spokesmen we must single out Bishop Artemije of the Raska-Prizren Diocese, who has been particularly articulate in expressing the views of the church in Kosovo. We must also mention Father Sava of Decani, who speaks English, commands the computer, and has played a crucial role in outreach.

The church assembly convened in Prizren in August 1997 criticized the activities of the Serbian special forces as well as of the Albanian KLA. As for the KLA aim of independence for Kosovo, they warned that this "would immediately produce large scale instability in the whole region, resulting in a disastrous multiethnic war." The church urged that ethnic Albanians would be able to find a satisfactory status in a "democratic Serbian state." They recognized that this ideal was far from the Milosevic regime.

By 1998, the conflict was in full force. Church spokesmen repeatedly criticized the excessive use of force by the Milosevic police and paramilitaries in Kosovo, but also denounced the KLA, which had started murdering Serbian policemen and ethnic Albanians who they thought were cooperating with Serbian authorities. They strongly condemned the role of the KLA in abducting civilians. Three months before bombing started, the KLA clearly had already declared war on the Serbs in Kosovo.

In February 1999, the international community called a meeting in Rambouillet, outside Paris, to stop he conflict. The negotiators were dealing with the self-appointed KLA leaders and representatives sent by Milosevic. As the representative of the Patriarch, Bishop Artemije tried to reach the negotiators. He tried to represent the viewpoint of the local Serbian population and the church in this ecclesiastical center, even to be an observer, but was rebuffed by Milosevic and by the diplomats. The church delegation got as far as Paris, where it was received by a staff member of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Here they presented a plan for the cantonization of Kosovo, based on respect for ethnic distribution and cultural heritage. They proposed