Kosovo's Post-independence Inter-clan Conflict - HUMSEC

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HUMSEC Journal, Issue 2 Kosovo’s Post-independence Inter-clan Conflict It is not clear whether Anton Cetta envisioned the reconciliation process to be a step towards a long-term solution to the blood feuds. The besa, in theory at least, is a short, timebound truce. It is likely that “the need for unity in the emergency circumstances of the Serbian takeover” of Kosovo, rather than a true commitment to completely do away with the practice of blood feuds, dictated Cetta’s appeal. 14 The truce turned out to be short-lived. After the 78-day North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing of Kosovo and Serbia in 1999, cases of blood vengeance began reappearing. In the first four years after the war, the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms in Prishtina recorded approximately 40 blood feud murders. 15 According to the Council’s President, Pajazit Nushi, many people who agreed to besa in the 1990s have “restarted the old family blood feuds.” 16 By December 2004, the number of blood feud murders reached 70, the majority of which had taken place in the mountainous regions of Dukagjini in the West, an area that includes the towns of Decan, Klina and Peja. 17 The abovementioned explanation of Anton Cetta’s reconciliation movement corresponds to Lewis Coser and Georg Simmel’s causal explanations of social conflict. 18 The scholars hypothesize that in the presence of a common enemy, conflicting groups are likely to disregard their differences and unite against the common enemy. However, once the common threat is no longer a part of the equation, conflicting groups are likely to resume their confrontational behavior. In this respect, while the first eight years of post-war Kosovo have already seen a sharp increase in the number of blood feuds, the question whether this trend will continue after Kosovo’s independence is a legitimate one. Coser and Simmel’s theories would suggest a high likelihood for the escalation of blood feuds. After Kosovo’s independence, neither Serbia nor the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) would constitute a common enemy for the feuding clans. Hence, in the absence of a common enemy, inter-clan tensions are likely to resume. One could argue, however, that Serbia, the principle enemy, was minimized with the end of the 1999 war. However, such limited interpretation of the situation between 1999 and 2007 omits the role of UNMIK, which could be perceived by clans as a “quasi-enemy.” International oversight of Kosovo politics prevents clans from maximizing their wealth, power and status. While UNMIK is not literally an enemy, its presence and steering of Kosovo in directions according to UNMIK’s own liking 14 International Crisis Group, Kosovo after Haradinaj, at p. 10. 15 Quoted in Bytyci, Fatos, Blood Feuds Revive in Unstable Kosovo. 16 Quoted in Bytyci, Fatos, Blood Feuds Revive in Unstable Kosovo. 17 Flottau, Renate, Kosovo: A Prime Minister with a Kalashnikov, Center for Research on Globalization, 1 May 2007. Available online at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=FLO20041213&articleId=332. 18 See Coser, Lewis, The Functions of Social Conflict, Free Press, Glencoe, IL, 1956, and Simmel, Georg, Conflict, Free Press, Glencoe, IL, 1955. 116
HUMSEC Journal, Issue 2 Kosovo’s Post-independence Inter-clan Conflict have allowed clans to perceive the enemy as both UNMIK and Serbia. III. Theoretical Frameworks Based on studies of Central Asia, Katheleen Collins offers one theoretical framework of clan politics. She defines clans as “informal identity organizations with a kinship basis”. 19 A clan, therefore, embodies both an identity and an organization. Kinship lies at the core of clan identity and defines intra and inter-clan relations. Both immediate or more distant kinship ties connect the many individuals who form a clan. A few clan elites or elders constitute the clan’s core, and kinship ties extend vertically and horizontally to form an extended family. 20 Clan members and the many sub-clans depend on the patronage of the clan elders. 21 A sense of shared identity, belonging, and mutual solidarity binds clan members. Within the clan, economic interdependency further reinforces a shared clan identity. In the presence of a shared external threat, balance of power among the major clan factions, and a trusted leader, clans are likely to form informal pacts on which to rely in case of outside threat. Clan pacts unite to support regimes favorable to their interests, and those that allow for distribution of resources and power among the clans. Collins calls this process clan balancing. 22 Furthermore, during inherently unstable transitions to democracy, clan politics emerge, pervading formal regimes and weakening their durability. Through their informal rules of law, clans can pervade, transform, and undermine the formal regime. Clans do so through kinship-based patronage and “crowding-out” of formal institutions. 23 Jobs, for example, are given out on the basis of kinship, not merit. Informal clan-based institutions become the means of politics, in which clans crowd out non-clan forms of political participation. This makes clan politics inherently exclusionary and non-transparent. Since shared identity and in-group solidarity are at the core of clan formation, clans could be interpreted as identity groups. It is, therefore, useful to apply the ethnic conflict literature to the case of inter-clan tensions in Kosovo in order to better understand the nature of interclan relations post independence. 19 Collins, Kathleen, Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005, at p. 24. See also Schatz, Edward, Reconceptualizing Clans: Kinship Networks and Statehood in Kazakhstan in: Nationalities Papers (Volume 33, Issue 2), 2005. 20 Collins, Kathleen, Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia, at p. 25. 21 Baker, Berit, Behind Closed Walls: Changing Household Organization among the Albanians in Kosovo, Peja, Kosovo, 2003, at p. 93. 22 Collins, Kathleen, Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia, at p. 50. 23 Collins, Kathleen, Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia, at pp. 52-53. 117
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