October 30, 2004

ERP KiM Newsletter 30-10-04

October 29 2004
Vecernje Novosti

Nebojsa Covic Requests to be Determined How International Community Keeps Duties It Took Over in Kosovo

All Signed Papers Under Magnifying Glass

UNMIK has not Honored Almost Single Obligation it Took Over/ Urgent Analysis of All Documents Signed Between Belgrade and International Community, From Kumanovo Agreement until Common Document in November 2001

-All documents regarding Kosovo need to be checked again and analyzed thoroughly, starting from military-technical Kumanovo Agreement through 1244 Resolution with the following annexes, the unavoidable, so-called Common Document, signed in 2001 between Belgrade and UNMIK, to series of other documents evidenced in CCK, says Nebojsa Covic, chief of this body. Announcing that by himself, he will make in public a detailed analysis of all those documents, Covic adds:

-The aim of my request is a thorough analysis of everything what the documents were foreseeing to be done, who did what and who has not fulfilled obligations. Since we are about to finish the analysis, I can already tell you that UNMIK has implemented nothing from what had been signed, or it did a very few things. It is our obligation to insist on the documents because they are official papers, supported by UN SC. Therefore, UNMIK must either implement it, or request an official dismissal of those documents. As the things look by now, it seems to me that they want to push them under a rug.

Will you raise this initiative by yourself or be supported by other states officials?
-CCK will do it and I am glad that everybody has realized now that it still exists. It is good already that one speaks of its reorganization and inclusion of all. We need a serious discussion on Kosovo because we are facing a dangerous stance of ignorance of K-Serbian boycott in the past elections and the message it had. We must not accept obvious international attempt to identify formal Serb figures to sit in Kosovo Parliament and give it a false legitimacy. Due to all, I hope that next week, all of us would have a clear position on everything important and especially agree on reconsideration of howUNMIK has honored obligations it took over by signing the documents.

Have you tried, being in position of CCKs chief, to appeal with the Serbian Prime Minister and President to reach an accord about (un)acceptance of Serb mandates, or these two will remain with divided opinions?
-I do not want to be exclusive, but I think that there is no need to agree about anything concerning this. On the basis of the 0,3 turnout, it is clear that the Serbian representatives should not enter the Parliament. We must have a clear position on this, as it has been already clear that internationals and Albanians are trying to legitimize mandates of those who received less than 1% of votes. If Belgrade accepts something like it, would mean acceptance of a severe violation of K-Serbs will. It would be a pure antidemocratic act.

If any of those 10 Serb representatives enter the Parliament, what would be consequences for a dialogue on the provinces status? Will it influence further marginalization of Belgrade?
-Our people have never been more homogeneous than they are now, since almost no Serb took part in the elections. By this, K-Serbs made themselves very clear that they want Belgrade to advocate them in future. It means: authorities of Serbia and states union.

In spite of all, it seems that international community is trying to blame Belgrade for K-Serbian non-participation and discredit it
-No one has right to do so. The Albanians had not been participating in elections for years, but no one had punished them. For the very first time, K-Serbs did not want to run for the elections. Hence, I have no dilemma at all: those who need to take seats in the Assembly must be aware that they are advocating only themselves. And Belgrade will has to be asked. Everybody knows it, no matter how strongly they were trying to speak and prove an opposite.

D.V.

Politika daily, Belgrade
October 21, 2004

WHY INTERNATIONAL GUARANTEES FOR KOSOVO WERE NOT RECEIVED

Against our own interests

Slobodan Samardzic
Political advisor to the
Prime minister of the Government of Serbia

If Serbia is now convinced that it is conducting a peacetime policy that threatens no one and protects its own interests, and if no one today questions that this is true, then why give up on our own program for resolving the difficult situation in Kosovo and Metohija

In recent days we have been witness to attempts to show our public what should not be done, as well as what should be done on the international scene with respect to Kosovo and Metohija. With the call to Serbs to vote in the elections on October 23 by Serbian president Boris Tadic goes logistical PR support that is supposed to convince the public that the previous efforts of the Serbian Government, inasmuch as there were any, have simply not yielded results. The attempt to establish a new state policy is accompanied by a campaign of criticism of previous attempts to ensure guarantees for the survival, a peaceful life and return to Kosovo and Metohija for the Kosovo Serbs.

To this day, Serbia and the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija really have not gotten international guarantees that Resolution 1244 will be implemented with respect to its provisions addressing the realization of rights and freedoms, first of all, of freedom of movement, as well as the right of all displaced residents of the province to return to their homes.

The international community was responsible for providing such guarantees, especially after the March pogrom against the Serbs, which showed the whole world, at least temporarily, the wretched situation and the tragic failure of the UN mission in Kosovo and Metohija. At that time, the Serbian Government undertook two important actions:

First, it channeled the natural emotional reaction of the citizens of Serbia toward peaceful protest against the most recent wave of ethnic cleansing.

Second, it offered a concrete plan to domestic and international factors that should be used to resolve the provinces most difficult problem the survival of its multiethnic composition. It should not be forgotten that both these actions were well received on the international scene.

What followed since the end of April, when the Serbian Assembly unanimously adopted the Government Plan, was neither passivity nor diplomatic narrow-mindedness of our participants in acting upon the Plans international promotion. On the contrary, not a day passed that the representatives of Serbia did not work on international acceptance of this approach.

The question can be asked what has concretely been done to today? What is the final, or at least the effect to date, of all these activities? It is possible to turn a new page in state policy toward Kosovo and Metohija, as recently done by the Serbian president, who is dissatisfied with results. What, however, characterizes this new approach?

Two things are decisive here: first, the call to vote despite the clear position of the Serbian Government Plan which conditions participation in elections on the realization of this plan (see section 6.3 of the Government Plan); second, a list of conditions to be fulfilled under threat of an assembly boycott by future Serbian deputies the establishment of internationally recognized local Serbian government in areas inhabited by the Serbian people, which means first of all, police, judiciary, health, education and schools in Serbian hands has no connection with the Serbian Government Plan. Both these things significantly differ from the positions presented in this document.

Unlike this ad hoc policy, the Government Plan presents not only a comprehensive (on over 20 pages) but thoroughly explained strategy. As a participant in a large number of international talks, I emphasize the fact that the concept of self-government for the Serbs (in the form of territorial autonomy within Kosovo and Metohija) was not brought into question by a single word.

The problem of international diplomacy with regard to this has been how to implement this concept so that the Albanians in Kosovo also accept it. They do not accept it for the simple reason that in it they find guarantees for the survival and return of Serbs. Their rejection of the plan with the justification that it hides a platform for the division of Kosovo and Metohija has no basis in this document. This was only an obvious attempt to politically discredit the proposed plan.

Confronted with the rejection of the Albanian side in the form of an ultimatum, the international community neither accepted nor rejected the Serbian Government Plan. It attempted to replace it with the Framework for reform of local self-government in Kosovo and Metohija, a document drafted by a joint task group of UNMIK and the Provisional institutions of self-government.

This maneuver did not succeed because of the refusal of representatives of the Kosovo Serbs to participate in this task group. Namely, they unanimously accepted only the Serbian Government Plan as their own. It was clear to them that this plan was the only one that contained sufficient guarantees for their survival and the return of their compatriots. Agreement to a plan of local self-government would mean their future assimilation into an Albanian society, which is not only incapable of preventing the outpourings of enmity toward Serbs but directly reproduces such outpourings itself.

The other side of this idyll of local self-government, in which the Albanians have never been especially interested, is the assimilation of the Serbs in so-called provisional institutions of self-government (the parliament and government), which in the two and half years of their existence have shown themselves to be extremely unsuitable for the defense of the collective interests of the Serbs.

Taking all this into account, the Government Plan presented a proposal of reliable mechanisms for the protection of vital interests of the Serbs without bringing the indivisibility of Kosovo and Metohija into question. It presented a solution to a key issue of Kosovo reality the return of displaced Serbs on which the survival of the small number of those who remain ultimately depends. It is quite understandable that the Kosovo Albanians rejected the possibility of a decisive policy by Serbia based on international principles disrupting the established course of events in a situation where the departure of the Serbs from Kosovo appeared to be a historically complete process, and the international community routinely accepted this policy of accomplished facts.

Confronted with its failure in the basic purpose of its mission but also with furious pressure by the majority Albanians in the direction of independence of Kosovo and Metohija, the international community found itself in a bind. On the eve of the opening of the issue of the so-called final status of Kosovo, it now had to solve the unpleasant issue of the situation of the Serbs, that is, an issue that for the first time has a foundation in a coherent and unanimously adopted Serbian state program.

It is understood that these newly created circumstances could not completely change the previous policy of the international community in Kosovo and Metohija. However, it did much to bring that policy into question and many of its participants are aware of this. It is the intensive activity of representatives of the Serbian Government on the international plan that created a crack in the monolith of the strategy of standards before status created at the end of last year.

Parliamentary elections, scheduled for October 23, were supposed to play the role of a positively fulfilled democratic standard, contributing to so-called final status. The plan was prematurely disrupted by March events but these, as we can see, have not undermined the will for the epilogue at any price.

The fundamental question that must be asked is - why the policy of Serbia should now be reduced to the level of a desirable policy, desirable, that is, from the extremely pragmatic position of the international community. And why would it do so at a moment when the international community still gives no guarantees for an improvement in the position of the Serbs in the province. The situation in Kosovo has long since passed the phase when one could trust the international participants on their word. Concrete deeds are needed. And they are missing, since March in reverse proportion to promises and words.

The Serbian president believes that a new page should be turned. And that is his right, despite the bad effect of new internal divisions. However, in order to be convincing, he should have conceptualized his new plan, not hidden behind the existing one, which he is de facto bringing into question. What he is asking for in the quoted half-sentence is not even close to the requests of the Serbian Government Plan. In order to evaluate this in competent fashion, we need a developed concept, not a half-sentence. Based on its content, it is closer to UNMIKs Framework for local self-government than to the Serbian Government Plan. At least so it seems on the basis of the laconic half-sentence.

But it seems as if offense is the best defense. The half-sentence is juxtapositioned against a developed plan (and to my great surprise, we learned from the Serbian president himself that it was formulated by ambassador Dusan Batakovic). In accordance with this, a late new policy (voting in the election and making them conditional more or less on what is offered by UNMIKs plan) is contrary to the unanimously adopted policy that has been conducted for almost half a year.

The Serbian president entered this process with his team a few months ago. Even though I participated in several international talks in the country and abroad with his advisors, I have not observed a serious attempt on their part to defend the Serbian Government Plan.

Their guiding thought was it will not be accepted. But what supposedly will be accepted is something that is not in accordance with the established position of Serbia and the Kosovo and Metohija Serbs: voting in the elections, and later being happy with local self-government. Of course, the international community will guarantee this. And if it cannot solve the problem of Kosovo by itself, it is good for us at least to help it. Of course, against our own interests.

Stability for Tragic Kosovo

Free Congress Foundation ^ | 29 October 2004 | Paul Wyrich

Posted on 10/29/2004 1:16:30 PM PDT by Doctor13

Commentary

Many Americans' view of Kosovo -- if they have one at all -- is shaped by the tragic stories they see on CNN.

Some may even remember that our country, as part of NATO, participated in bombings there in 1999 to protect Albanian refugees as part of a war that lasted for over two months. Most Americans pay Kosovo little mind, viewing it to be the staging ground of a conflict that holds no important consequence for the United States.

However, Kosovo is more essential to the security of America and the West than many people realize.

The ability of our country, our NATO allies and the United Nations to promote stable governance that ensures minority rights very well could make the difference between peace and war in a historically and still volatile region, the Balkans, situated between Adriatic and Black Seas.

Islamists recognize the strategic importance of Kosovo and, left unchallenged by a complacent West, could use it to gain a strategic foothold in Europe.

The Serbian population is the minority. They are predominantly Christian and face persecution from an energized Albanian majority.

Right after a wave of violence shook the country in March, Damjan de Krnjevic-Miskovic, then the managing editor of The National Interest and a senior fellow of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, wrote in National Review Online the article "Kristallnacht in Kosovo." In it he stated \ldblquote...Kosovo's Serbs have for years been warning of the real nature of Albanian nationalism, and the U.N. and the West have assumed they were exaggerating."

Recently, a small contingent of American leaders in religion and public policy took a trip to Kosovo that was sponsored by the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, a conservative think tank that examines how our own national security can be impacted by religious issues across the globe.

Advisory Board members of the Institute include such noted policymakers and religious leaders as Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA); Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA); Rev. Richard Cizik, Vice President for Government Affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals; Dr. Richard Land, President of The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and Rabbi Harold S. White, Senior Jewish Chaplin at Georgetown University.

Participants in the trip included Dr. Robert Edgar, a former Congressman from Pennsylvania who now serves as General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, which represents mainline denominations (and also some Orthodox Churches), and William J. Murray, President of the Religious Freedom Coalition. Edgar was known as a very liberal Congressman, Murray regularly attends the weekly strategy lunches for conservative policymakers that I host when Congress is in session.

Despite the differences in outlook between some of the members, the participants did not turn their bus into a "Beirut on wheels." The participants were sobered by the realization that the conflict in Kosovo is one that has spilled blood, broken families and destroyed churches. A member of the trip, Rev. Michael Faulkner, Senior Minister of the Central Baptist Church in Harlem, remarked that he had never seen racism that strong among people who were the same color.

Murray noted that the religious dimension is starting to sharpen more than it has in the past. Many Albanian Muslims are marginally religious and, up to now, the relations between them and Albanian Christians (mostly Orthodox, some Roman Catholic) have been stable compared to the animosity directed by Albanian Muslims against the Serbs.

Middle Eastern organizations are devoting great resources to building mosques and other Islamic institutions. Given the poverty of Kosovo, it could easily become a breeding ground for Islamic extremism as we have seen in Afghanistan and elsewhere. (my emphasis)

The history of Kosovo, only some 4,200 square miles, is quite complicated: It became Christian in 874 A.D., only to become part of the Ottoman Empire when Muslims invaded Serbia in the late 14th Century. In 1912, Kosovo and Methohija were liberated from the Ottoman Empire and incorporated into Serbia, and then entered into as (at least theoretically) an autonomous state at Yugoslavia's founding in 1919.

Kosovo has remained part of Serbia since then, with the exception of World War II when Kosovo was administered as a part of Greater Albania by the Axis powers. During that time, churches and monasteries were destroyed.

Throughout the 1920s, 30s, and 40s there had been a simmering conflict between the Albanians -- largely, but not completely, Muslim -- and the Serbs who generally belong to the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The Albanians in Serbia collaborated with the Nazis against the Serbs. In 1945, Yugoslavia became a Communist country, and the authorities covered up ethnic tensions through force, intimidation, mass resettlement of Serbs from Kosovo, and ideological propaganda.

Yugoslavia's grip on its provinces diminished over time, greater autonomy was granted to Kosovo, a state of Serbia with a population composed of ethnic Serbs, Albanians, and Montenegrons. After Yugoslavian Communist Dictator Tito died, the tensions between ethnic and religious groups resurfaced.

Eventually, as Communist rule weakened, Slobodan Milosevic, a Serb, became the President of Serbia, only to crack down on the Albanian extremists bent on seeking independence through force of arms which led to bloody confrontations in 1998 between the Serbian troops and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a largely Albanian terrorist outfit. A ceasefire negotiated by NATO fell apart, setting the stage for the NATO air strikes that started in March 1999, designed to bring Milosevic to heel.

Our participation in the effort was premised on our being part of NATO; we ignored Russian arguments in favor of the Serbs. Some have called this "Monica's War" because it came soon after the Clinton impeachment. However, our effort also led to the removal of the KLA from the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.

Many Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo became refugees. A peace agreement was signed after a 78-day bombing campaign. Control of Kosovo was divided between German, French and American sectors, with the primary duties of peacekeeping divided between the armies of NATO countries and agencies of the United Nations.

Neither NATO nor the United Nations has been effective in keeping a lid on the animosity. For one reason, the missions of the armies are mixed. French and German soldiers are there only to protect persons. Our soldiers, numbering less than 2,000, are there to protect both persons and property. Kosovo's population is beset by high joblessness and substandard living conditions as well as crime and ethnic and religious rivalry.

Since the end of the conflict in June1999, violence has been perpetrated against Serbian Orthodox Churches and holy sites. Over 120 holy places, including many that date back to the Middle Ages, had been desecrated or destroyed by December 2003.

At the same time, at least 200,000 Kosovar Serbs and other non-Albanians have been "cleansed" from their homes, only 10,000 have returned. In March 2003, apparently false reports of violence perpetrated by Serbian children against young Albanians ignited what was called the "March Pogrom" in which 35 churches and monasteries were destroyed. Strong suspicion exists among many in Kosovo, even those within NATO's Kosovo Force (KFOR) peacekeeping forces, that the March Pogrom was anything but a spontaneous event.

Members of the delegation visited the Devic Monastery -- founded in the 15th Century -- which had been ransacked and burned by a mob. French troops took the nuns to safety but they refrained from doing anything further, given that the definition of their mission was to protect people. In fact, the French troops left an ailing nun to be attacked by the mob. Thankfully, she escaped unharmed. The looters smashed crosses on graves, even trying to open the sarcophagus of a saint (whose relics had already been moved). This unfortunate monastery had been rebuilt after having been badly damaged by the (terrorist?) KLA in 1999.

William J. Murray has written an extensive report of his trip. He reminds people that the act of destroying a church extends far beyond shattering glass and bricks. He says the aggressor is taking dead aim at demolishing "a people's whole history, religion, and culture." More than Christian Churches were destroyed, so were Christian libraries, graves and cemeteries in what can only be interpreted as an effort to literally eradicate the historical presence of Christianity.

Murray found that our State Department officials in Kosovo favor the Albanians rather than the beleaguered Serbs. Our official government representative wants to force the Serbs to learn the Albanian language even though Serbs lived there for generations before many of the Albanians arrived.

It is Murray's opinion that the best thing would be to have Kosovo rejoin Serbia and to create a unified national government of Serbs and Albanians that will police it rather than a UN body or the institutions which have been persecuting Christians. The worst thing in his estimation would be if Kosovo became independent and eventually become part of the European Union, which could allow the region to become a gateway for Arab terrorists to enter Europe.

The Institute on Religion and Public Policy (IRPP) plans to issue reports on how this mission to Kosovo can be productive. One step would be to remove the current KFOR policy structure and provide a unified command structure that more clearly defines instructions to provide protection for both people and property.

The IRPP is not talking about increasing our presence there, but enabling the troops -- ours and those of other countries -- to be more effective. The term the IRPP uses is "finish what we started." Americans interested in justice and religious freedom should be on the watch for this report.

There will be no quick and easy solution to this region and its problems. The animosity is centuries old and is divided along ethnic lines. We should worry that the conflict in this strategic area threatens to become increasingly religious.

Indeed, the defilement of churches and monasteries as well as the serious amounts of Islamist money coming into Kosovo should send a strong warning. I cannot say that I am supportive of our troops sent on peacekeeping missions such as this one, but since they are there and if they have to remain there the United States Government should press for revamping the structure to increase their effectiveness.

The worst thing would be to have a fledgling Islamist state situated in Europe, something that creates worry among people such as Murray and Joseph K. Grieboski, the founder and president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy.

No doubt they are correct in that belief. Still, there is only so much we can do around the world. If there are ideas that can avoid a substantial commitment of US money and manpower but stop the violence and help to bring stability to Kosovo, I would like to hear it. As of now, the fate of Kosovo is in the hands of the NATO, the UN, Islamic interests, and, most importantly, the hearts and minds of the Albanian majority.

(Paul M. Weyrich is chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.)

THE ECONOMIST (UK)

October 28, 2004
Serbia and Kosovo

A Serbian call for a boycott was heeded but it may backfire

Kosovo's election brings a peace settlement no closer

KOSOVO has just held an election, under the watchful eye of its international overlords, and the main winner is the prime minister of Serbia, Vojislav Kostunica. That was one of the oddest features of the ballot held on October 23rd in a province whose political future remains wide open, five years after NATO wrested the place from the Serbs.

One of the few uncertainties about the result of the election was how many of the province's 200,000 Serb voters (of whom only half now live in Kosovo) would heed the advice of Mr Kostunica and boycott the poll. In fact, almost all did. In Belgrade, some young wags summed up Serb feelings by staging a parody of the vote. That was good news for Serb nationalists but it may spell trouble for the province, where tension is rising palpably ahead of the final-status talks which are supposed to be starting next summer.

For now, the place remains in a sort of legal no-man's-land. In diplomatic theory, sovereignty over Kosovo is vested in 'Serbia and Montenegro', a union of the only two republics of communist Yugoslavia which are still yoked together. In practice, the province is run by the UN, which has been transferring power to local institutions -in other words, to the territory's ethnic-Albanian majority.

For the Albanians, this month's poll changed little: all ethnic-Albanian parties are solidly in favour of independence, and all those representing Kosovo's minority Serbs are solidly against. In the last provincial legislature, the Kosovo Serbs had 22 out of the 120 seats. Now they will have a maximum of ten seats, a quota to which they are entitled as a minority.

But will they take those seats up? Mr Kostunica feels the Serbs should not lend legitimacy to the province's 'multinational' governance, because that was torn to shreds by last March's anti-minority violence which chased 4,000 Serbs and Roma from their homes. To participate in Kosovo's institutions would give undeserved credibility to the local Albanian leadership and their claim to be running a multi-ethnic show; that is the argument which Serb nationalists have used.

Whether they stayed away of their own free will or were intimidated, all but 1% of Kosovo's Serbs also eschewed the ballot. For Mr Kostunica, this result was a nice riposte to his main rival, Boris Tadic, the moderate, pro-western president of Serbia, who had appealed to the Kosovo Serbs to go to the polls.

The prime minister needed some good news. In local elections held on September 19th, Mr Tadic's Democratic Party showed it was making a comeback from the doldrums it hit last year. Mr Kostunica's party suffered a drubbing, while the extreme nationalist Radicals also proved they are a force to reckon with.

Apart from point-scoring, does Mr Kostunica have a strategy? He probably wants to forestall talks on Kosovo's final status, because, despite this electoral fillip, he really has no credible proposal for the political future of the territory. At the moment he is pushing for a plan which foresees autonomy for Serbian areas within Kosovo, which would, for now at least, remain under international tutelage.

But the plan is unworkable. It foresees Serbs displaced from Kosovo being moved to majority ethnic-Albanian areas where they would live in new settlements, and even new towns. Once these areas have been 'Serbianised', then boundaries could be redrawn to link them up to other Serbian areas.

Albanians reject this, seeing in it a bid to fix Kosovo's demography before splitting the province.

Meanwhile, the Kosovo Serbs have no legitimate representatives to speak on their behalf; their future is more precarious than ever. With no serious Serbian interlocutors ready to engage in talks, some Albanians may say it is time to dig up their guns; and now they may target not only Serbs, but western troops or international bureaucrats.

Will the Serbs break the logjam by accepting that Kosovo is lost? Dobrica Cosic, a respected ex-president of Yugoslavia, wrote recently that the current generation of Serbs should not pay for the loss of Kosovo by previous ones. The influential Belgrade newspaper, Politika, has said something similar. But such voices are marginal; as a result, ordinary Serbs still find that their future is yoked to a place where most have no wish to go.

No Decision On Mandates Of Serb MPs In Kosovo-Metohija Parliament

Kosovska Mitrovica, 29 Oct (Tanjug) - Representatives of the Serb list for Kosovo and Metohija, at a meeting in Kosovska Mitrovica on Friday, again failed to reach a decision on their participation in the work of the provincial parliament following the Oct 23 elections which were boycotted by the Serb community.

"The stand of the Serbian government will determine whether we will be in parliament or not, and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica will have to state unequivocally whether he recognizes the last provincial elections or not," the first candidate on the Serb ticket, Oliver Ivanovic, told a press conference.

Bishop Calls For Parallel Serb Elections

Pristina, 29 Oct (B92) - The Serbian Orthodox bishop of Rasko-Prizren has called for elections to be held in Kosovo for representatives of the Serb community.

Bishop Artemije said that the elections were needed to authorize Serbian delegates to take part in negotiations on decentralization and other problems in the province with the Serbian government and the international community.

He also cautioned against Serbs taking seats in the present Kosovo parliament, saying that they would only represent themselves there.

Serbian Heritage Cannot Be Renamed Into Kosovo Heritage - Serbian Orthodox Bishop

Belgrade, 29 Oct (Tanjug) - The Serbian people does not recognize the legitimacy of newly elected Serb representatives in the Kosovo parliament and maintains that Kosovo Albanian institutions cannot decide on the fate of Serbian heritage in Kosovo-Metohija, Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemije of Raska and Prizren said on Friday.

This situation serves the purpose of those who are trying to rename the Serbian cultural heritage in Kosovo into "Kosovo heritage" and deprive institutions in Belgrade of their jurisdiction, Bishop Artemije warned at a Belgrade press conference following his visit to the US.

President Tadic: I Shall Visit Prizren

29 Oct (Blic) - Serbia President Boris Tadic said to have got support from German Defense Minister Peter Struck for his efforts to visit Kosovo and Metohija.

'I have requested form competent authorities to visit the province on several occasions so far. One should not always take care about reaction of Albanians side regarding visit by Serbia President. Kosovo Serbs have need to talk with officials of Serbia at the place where they live, in the area that according to UN SC Resolution 1244 is part of Serbia and Montenegro. I got support for that', Tadic said.

'During my meeting with Minister Struck I told him that I would like to visit Prizren and talk about the role of German KFOR troops in March violence. I would like to speak as to how similar situation can be prevented to happen in the future. I also said that I would like to visit the churches in the sector under protection of German troops', President Tadic said.
Tadic also met with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. 'It is in the interest of Germany that reforms in Serbia are successful and that it joins European and Euro-Atlantic structures', Fischer said. He, however, pointed the importance of cooperation with the Hague Tribunal as a precondition for such membership. He expressed hope in successful future of the state union of Serbia and Montenegro. As regards Kosovo and Metohija he mentioned the importance of European standards of mutual life and efficient protection of the minorities

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (JAPAN)
October 30, 2004

Empty ballot boxes highlight plight of the Serbs.

Even though the polling station was open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m., nobody came to cast their ballot. As the ballot box was made of transparent plastic, its emptiness was all the more conspicuous.

An editorial writer of The Asahi Shimbun was sent by the Japanese government to Kosovo as a member of an observer team of the Council of Europe to monitor the Oct. 23 assembly election in Serbia-Montenegro (former Yugoslavia). The area he was assigned was the northern mountainous region populated mostly by ethnic Serbs. It was in that polling station that the ballot box was empty.

A little over five years have passed since NATO airstrikes ended hostilities in Kosovo. During that time, the United Nations and other organizations mediated a rapprochement between majority Albanians and minority Serbs in Kosovo. In this latest election, the second since the end of armed conflict, most Serbs refused to cast their ballots, highlighting the depth of ethnic strife.

The Council of Europe said the election went smoothly and was held in a peaceful atmosphere. Indeed, the election itself was free of any major disturbances. In the northern region our colleague visited, local election workers did their job briskly.

But voters, key players in any election, did not turn up at the polling station. Of the seven polling stations he visited, only five votes were cast at one place and just two at another. They were all visible because the ballot boxes are transparent.

Most Serbs lead isolated lives among the Albanians under the protection of NATO and other international troops. In some places, guards are required even when Serbs go shopping. Local residents complained to the writer about conditions in their region.

There has also been bloodshed. Many Serbs were killed and wounded in a clash with Albanians in March. Serb refusal to vote was partly a sign of their protest.

In the assembly election, President Ibrahim Rugova's party garnered the largest number of seats once again and is scheduled to organize a coalition government. The silver lining is the fact that Rugova said he aimed to achieve Kosovo's independence by peaceful means--as indeed he should.

As the elections were held peacefully, negotiations are likely to start next year to determine the future status of Kosovo. There is also a plan for the United Nations, the Rugova government and Serbia-Montenegro to take part in those talks.

Still, Kosovo faces many difficulties. Little headway has been made in ethnic reconciliation. The conflict between the Albanians and Serbs has walloped the economy. The jobless rate hovers at nearly 60 percent. Crime is rampant, too. Though the Rugova administration calls for independence, it has to overcome these and other problems before it reaches its goal.

The conflict in the former Yugoslavia left many dead, wounded and displaced. The world was buffeted by the armed conflict that embroiled the region in the 1990s. Even after hostilities ended, peace in Kosovo remains precarious.

And, for a Serbia that drove former President Slobodan Milosevic from power, its road to returning to the fold of the international community through membership in the European Union will be very hard unless it solves the problem of Kosovo.

Belgrade Media Update, October 30

Too early for talks on reserved mandates for Serbs in Kosovo Assembly (Tanjug)
As long as the final results of the recent Kosovo elections are not determined, there will be no talks on the stand Serbs have towards the mandates which have been reserved for them in the province's assembly, UNMIK spokesperson Mechthild Henneke said. Asked by local Most TV reporters how long the OSCE and UNMIK would wait for a possible declaration of Kosovo Serbs on accepting or rejecting the mandates which belonged to them, Henneke answered that for the time being, it was too early to raise that issue.

Kostunica to meet Sřren Jeesen-Petersen next week (Tanjug)
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica will meet next week with UNMIK Head Sřren Jessen-Petersen, Tanjug reports. The topic of the talks will be the decentralization in the southern Serbian province and the Serbian Government plan for the political solution to the situation in Kosovo.

Tadic: Serbs face certain ethnic cleansing in Kosovo (RTS/AP)
Serbian President Boris Tadic told the U.S. news agency AP that he has understanding for the Serbs' overwhelming boycott of the elections in Kosovo, since, as he said, they are exposed to "some process of ethnic cleansing". "Right now, we have only one-third of our population in Kosovo; two-thirds are internally displaced persons in Serbia", Tadic told AP in Frankfurt, where the Serbian Chamber of Commerce office had been opened. The Serbian president underlined that the problem of the Serbian southern province was European, and not only Serbian because at issue is a 'certain process of ethnic cleansing that is completely unacceptable in the context of European values.'

Renewed counting of votes ordered in Kosovo (RTS)
The Central Election Commission in Kosovo has ordered that votes from the assembly elections be counted again over the noticed irregularities during the process of establishing results. The election body will count around 660,000 votes, because mistakes were established during the checking performed at the request of political parties, the OSCE announced. UNMIK is acquianted with the decision of the Central Election Commission and fully agrees with the need to check, and called all parties to respect that process.

Without decision on mandates (RTS)
Even after the meeting in Kosovska Mitrovica, representatives of the Serb List for Kosovo and Metohija have not reached a decision on whether they will participate in the work of the provisional assembly, after the elections of October 23, boycotted by the Serb community. Whether we are going enter the assembly depends on the position of the Serbian Government, and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica should clearly say whether he acknowledges the past elections in the province, the bearer of the list Oliver Ivanovic told a press conference. Leader of the Serbian Citizens Initiative Slavisa Petkovic reiterated that he would enter the Kosovo Assembly, and would not talk with Kostunica, but with Serbian President Boris Tadic.

Samardzic: Government plan enables autonomy within autonomy (RTS)
The Serbian Government plan for Kosovo envisages such change of territorial organization of the province that enables 'autonomy within autonomy' for the Serb, but also for other communities that express such a wish, stated the political advisor to the Serbian prime minister Slobodan Samardzic. In an interview to NIN, Samardzic has pointed out that the plan envisages territorial autonomy for five regions central Kosovo, northern Kosovo, Kosovo Pomoravlje, Metohija and Mt. Sar region. Since most of the expelled Serbs have lived in urban centers in which they are not anymore, the plan envisages that a just compensation would be that Serbs have the right to territories that naturally link Serb majority settlements. Samardzic, who is one of the authors of that document, stated that 'certain criticism by the European initiative for stability that the government plan is a paravan for the partition of Kosovo is not well-intended,' stressing that Serb regions are not in territorial continuity. He concluded that 'a way out is in freezing guaranteed Serb seats in the Kosovo Assembly, which is easily done by not accepting the verification of Serb mandates and in continuing talks on decentralization as soon as possible.'

Artemije calls for new elections for Serb representatives (RTS)
The Raska-Prizren Bishop Artemije assessed that the future of Kosovo, with a minimum participation of Serbs in the latest assembly elections, cannot be democratic and supported the holding of new elections for Serb representatives. The bishop told a press conference in Belgrade that the call on the allegedly elected Serb representatives to enter the Kosovo Assembly would represent an irreparable political mistake. Speaking of the recent visit to the US, Artemije said that he had told US officials that Serb people were still suffering in Kosovo and that there were still consequences of the Albanian violence in March.

Ilic: Assembly activities to be determined by Belgrade (Tanjug)
Sladjan Ilic, who this week resigned from his post of Strpce Municipal Assembly president, said elected representatives of Serbs in Kosovo did not get the legitimacy of the people, but that the final decision of Belgrade should be heard before a decision is made on possible participation in the work of the provincial assembly. "Serbs in the assembly cannot improve their position in Kosovo, which all of us could have seen over the previous several years, but I will be a member of that institution only because of state interests," Ilic told a press conference at the Media Center.

Democrats call meeting on Kosovo (B92)
Boris Tadics DS has launched an initiative to relieve the problems of Serbs in Kosovo. Deputy party leader Nenad Bogdanovic said that a meeting would be held with President Boris Tadic, the Serbian Government and Kosovo Serb representatives in an attempt to find ways in which life can be made easier for Serbs in the province. Bogdanovic warned that Belgrade must not distance itself from the problems of Kosovo Serbs and said that a joint decision must be made on whether political leaders in the province should take their seats in the Kosovo Assembly.

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