The Albanian community of Kosovo, in southern Serbia, lives under a rule of terror. Despite this, Albanians at every level -- students, doctors, homemakers -- have maintained a consistent and firm nonviolent stance. Their remarkable movement could dissolve, according to commentator David Hartsough, unless it receives recognition from the international community. Hartsough is the Executive Director of PEACEWORKERS based in San Francisco. He was recently jailed for three days while on his fourth fact-finding and peacemaking mission at the invitation of the non-violent student movement.

Kosovo is an explosion waiting to happen.

Yet Kosovo also has a viable, broad nonviolent movement -- and this may offer the single greatest hope for averting a repeat of the Bosnian violence.

The two million Albanian residents of this southern province of Serbia live under appalling conditions. Some 85 percent are unemployed. They are not allowed to use school and university buildings or medical facilities, and police threaten, beat, even kill them, just for being Albanians.

In this reign of terror, no Albanian man, woman or child is safe. All police, military, courts, and media are controlled by the Serbian government.

What is historic about the situation is that most Albanians have opted for nonviolent resistance. For the past eight years, they have built a parallel school system, which meets in private homes and storefronts, health clinics, and even a parallel government which collects voluntary taxes to fund the schools and medical system.

University students have been conducting nonviolent demonstrations since last October, calling for their right to return to the buildings from which they were expelled seven years ago. In March, the authorities reached a settlement opening Kosovo school buildings from primary through university levels to all students, Albanian and Serbian, by June 30. This is a tremendous victory for the nonviolent students -- but the Serbian rector and Serbian students at the university have vowed to bar Albanian students from the University.

The students' actions have paved the way for thousands of Albanians who now demonstrate almost daily for an end to the violence of the Serbian regime.

In early March, after Serbian police killed more than 80 villagers in the Drenica region, over 100,000 people marched through the streets of Pristina, Kosovo's capital, carrying candles and pictures of Mother Theresa. The next day, 20,000 women attempted to march from Pristina to Drenica carrying loaves of bread to villagers who had fled their homes when the massacre took place. Serbian police would not allow food or medicine to get through -- personnel from the International Red Cross received death threats for trying to help the villagers.

While the people show a determination to continue nonviolent demonstrations in an attempt to wake the conscience of the international community and bring pressure to bear on the Serbian regime, the "Kosovo Liberation Army" is drawing increasing attention. These Albanians feel that the Serbian government understands only force, and their number is increasing.

Unless the international community pays more attention to the nonviolent struggle, the violent alternative is likely to appeal to more and more Albanians and Kosovo is truly an explosion waiting to happen.

The failure of the international community to heed the Albanian's urgent plea for an end to the repression in Kosovo is puzzling. President Clifton stated on his recent trip to Africa that it was a tragedy that the international community had not acted quickly enough to stop the genocide in Rwanda. It is time to act now in Kosovo.

Certainly, the danger of violence is real. Students in Kosovo will not have a National Guard to accompany them. International attention will be their only protection -- the Serbian government needs to know that the eyes of the world are upon them.

International journalists and human rights monitors should be on the scene in Kosovo. Letters of outrage should be sent to Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, and to U.S. government officials saying we cannot stand by while slaughter and "ethnic cleansing" takes place.

This conflict needs to be resolved at the international level -- and before a war rather than after. The international community needs to respond to peaceful and nonviolent movements, not just to violence and war.