Serbian arguments in negotiations on Kosovo and Metohija

Nova Srpska Politicka Misao, Belgrade
Monday, December 05, 2005

Sanda Raskovic-Ivic
Chief of the Coordination Center for Kosovo and Metohija
 
The constitutional name of the southern Serbian province is Kosovo and Metohija, originating from the word "kos" meaning blackbird and the word "metoh" meaning monastery estate. Kosovo and Metohija comprise slightly over 12 percent of the territory of the Republic of Serbia. It is the cradle of our medieval Serbian state, and the location of the seat of the Patriarchate of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Kosovo and Metohija has significant natural resources in the form of mineral ores and reserves of lignite: the Kosovo, Drenica and Metohija basin contain almost 15 billion tons of coal. The mine is located close to the surface ranging from 41 to 100 meters thus greatly simplifying excavation. The annual production of electrical energy in Thermoelectrical Facility Kosovo A is 1.9 billion kilowatt hours, and Thermoelectrical Facility Kosovo B produces 2.3 billion kilowatt hours. The reserves of lead ore are 7.5 million metric tons and the Goles magnesite mine near Lipljan has estimated reserves of 2.4 million tons of this ore, as well as 92.2 million tons of dolite and 10 million tons of serpentine, a decorative stone. The Strezovce magnesite mine near Kosovska Kamenica has an estimated reserve of some 5 million tons of magnesite and significant reserves of andezite.
 
Just during the period from 1971 to 1985 the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia invested 15 billion U.S. dollars in Kosovo and Metohija; the republic of Serbia alone invested 9.6 billion U.S. dollars. Today Serbia is paying off the foreign debt of Kosovo and Metohija in the amount of one billion and four hundred million U.S. dollars; during the period from 2002 to November 2005, the amount paid was 130 million.
 
Today in Kosovo and Metohija there are 142,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians living in 112 enclaves, while the number of Albanians is just over 1.5 million. A total of 230,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians were expelled from the province after June 1999, and the number of returnees is less than 12,000. The number of those who have voluntarily left Kosovo and Metohija in the past six years is approximately 20,000. Serbs have been completely cleansed from all urban centers with the exception of northern Kosovska Mitrovica, the only multiethnic city in Kosovo and Metohija, where Serbs are the majority population. According to cadastral records, 60 percent of land in Kosovo and Metohija is owned by Serbs.
 
Recently talks have begun on the future status of Kosovo and Metohija. In October, when Ambassador Kai Eide submitted his report to the United Nations Security Council, for the first time actual living conditions in Kosovo and Metohija were publicly revealed. It was no longer a matter of Serbs complaining and a few independent journalists and intellectual supporters of the subjugated making their voices heard; Ambassador Eide unveiled how the human rights of Serbs and other non-Albanians were being violated as if the rule of law did not exist, as well as how coercion of judges, prosecutors and witnesses was a regular phenomenon, and Albanian society was more loyal to its family or clan than to legal and civilizational norms. The ambassador also spoke about the general sense of anarchy because not one perpetrator of numerous murders nor the initiators of the March violence in 2004 have been captured and sentenced. Freedom of movement for non-Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija does not exist.
 
And while the Kosovo Albanians are explaining to the world how the independence of Kosovo is a panacea that will solve all of Kosovo's problems and magically improve all eight standards, and bring peace and stability to the region, the Serbs are heading into the negotiations counting on international law and bringing to the negotiating table several issues, all of which can be reduced to the formula "standards and status".
 
In its reliance on international law, the Serbian side is thinking primarily of several important documents, including UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which guarantees the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as well as the sovereignty of FRY over the territory of Kosovo and Metohija. In the text these guarantees are mentioned three times, just as substantial autonomy is also mentioned three times. There is no mention anywhere of independence or self-determination which the Albanian side is talking about today. The UN Charter is also an important document for us because it states that the right to self-determination is enjoyed only by constitutive peoples, not by national minorities, and as we know the Kosovo Albanians are a national minority. In the Helsinki Final Act, the document on which all European states are founded, it is said that that two states can unite or a part of a state can secede from its hub only with the mutual agreement of both. And finally, also very important are the conclusions and findings of the Badinter Commission from January 1992, according to which only republics have the right to self-determination. Let us not forget that it is according to the principles of this commission that the former SFRY dissolved and that the Serbs, despite the fact that they were constitutive peoples in Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina, did not get the right to determine their state-constitutional future.
 
The reader may well ask him or herself why so much insistence on legalism but the matter is quite simple. The question of status is an entirely a matter of legality and not of politics. All other issues that we wish to discuss during the forthcoming negotiations also have a very strong political dimension. Therefore, the Serbian side is bringing a catalogue of topics to the negotiating table that can be divided into four groups.
 
The first is the future status of Kosovo and Metohija. At a session of the Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, a resolution of the Serbian Government was adopted whereby Kosovo and Metohija is offered substantial autonomy. This means that Kosovo Albanians retain everything they have now, meaning a president, a government, a parliament and judicial authority. These institutions, which are now acting in a provisional capacity, would become permanent. What is not offered to the Albanians as a part of substantial autonomy is a place in the United Nations, a Kosovo foreign affairs minister nor a Kosovo defense minister.
 
A second large group of topics is decentralization. Decentralization means the lowering of central administration from Pristina to the municipal level and the strengthening of local self-administration. What is necessary is a comprehensive and substantial decentralization that will also reach to smaller municipal units. It is essential to form 15 more non-Albanian municipalities that would take care of education, health, social protection, economic development and privatization, media, culture and religious freedoms, judicial matters to the level of the municipal court, and police to the municipal level. In this way, the province would be stabilized, the principle of accountability, as well as the principle of security, reinforced. The door to returns would be opened and the survival of Serbs and other non-Albanians would be ensured. Establishment of horizontal ties would have a political as well as a functional character because obviously small municipalities cannot have their own court, hospital, secondary school...
 
A third group comprises economic topics, including private ownership of apartments, houses, destroyed or illegally occupied, ownership of land, meadows, fields, woods, as well as the problem of construction without building permits on land owned by Serbs. The Serbian Orthodox Church, too, has not resolved the problem of its property which still remains to be returned to it. State ownership of hotels, factories, mines, etc. also needs to be a topic of negotiations. Privatization, which is now taking place completely illegally, without consideration for the factual situation establishing what belongs to whom, also needs to be cleared up. The Kosovo Trust Agency has taken over Serbian state owned property in "trusteeship" for 99 years but is not hesitating to take the 10 or 15 percent of a factory that is sound and sell it to a private party.
 
The fourth group of topics is the so-called "security package". First of all, this means individual personal security, institutional protection of non-Albanian ethnic groups, institutional and armed protection of religious and patrimonial sites, and fighting against organized crime. Institutional protection of non-Albanian communities is essential due to the flagrant violation of human rights on a strictly ethnic basis; consequently, an ombudsperson for human rights is necessary but it is also essential to establish a special one for the protection of non-Albanian communities. Since 1999 156 Orthodox Christian churches have been destroyed, 60 of them classified as cultural monuments. Luckily, there are still monasteries and churches left in Kosovo and Metohija and UNESCO has categorized them highly. They represent not just the heritage of Serbian Orthodoxy but European and world cultural heritage, and we must certainly not allow the maturity of extremists to be tested on these pearls of spirituality. Organized crime in Kosovo is flourishing. Drug trading is traditional; there is a so-called Afghan cocaine route, and heroin production is highly developed. In addition to drug trading in the past few years the human slave trade has also flourished.
 
All of these topics are in an integral part of the building of peace and stability in the region. An independent Kosovo would bring unrest and send a signal to Albanians in western Macedonia or Epirus in northern Greece, in the south of Serbia or east of Montenegro, to Serbs in Republika Srpska or Serbs in Croatia that they can get their own states. All separatist movements will be following the resolution of the Kosovo problem very closely and will see a chance for themselves in the Kosovo precedent. Kosovo and Metohija is a unique national and state phenomenon. The Albanian demand for a state is irrational. History and law do not recognize the possibility of any ethnic group, especially one that already has its own state, being voluntarily given a second state on the territory of an already existing one. Relinquishing one's own state territory to another state, in this case, a second Albanian state in the Balkans, makes no sense. The Albanian people in Kosovo and Metohija has probably interpreted some political developments as a promise or perhaps it has even received a promise from someone, going back to the time of Titoism as well as later. Now when they are getting the maximum, it appears to the Albanians that they are not getting anything because for the Albanians everything except full sovereignty is nothing.
 
On the other hand, for the Serbs the Kosovo myth contains their entire spiritual and psychological potential. The Kosovo epic represents an interweaving of the Orthodox and the national. We know that the pragmatic and positivistic world does not care much about myths but without the mythic images of a people one cannot evaluate the essence of its being nor recognize its essential identity. The Kosovo myth, like most myths, originated in the consciousness of tragedy. It defined and sustained the Serbian people as its archetype and its spiritual vertical plane. Myths are necessary; they are the mirror of our nation's soul. Nevertheless, for the Serbs the time is ripe to venture from the zone of tragedy into the zone of universal human values and life values. The Kosovo covenant is a covenant of death and suffering. We should preserve it within ourselves but without following the path of suffering as a people yet again in a countless series in our history. That is why we are setting out in negotiations on the future status of Kosovo and Metohija rationally, relying on international law, offering the Albanians in the province the maximum to decide their own future, and proposing topics on which the civilized and cultured West rests, which are the economy, democratization and protection of human rights. I hope that the Western democracies will help democratic Serbia to survive.
 
(Translated by sib, December 13, 2005)

U.N. envoy wraps up visit in Kosovo

Associated Press
Dec 14, 2005 4:51 AM

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro-A U.N. envoy was to conclude a visit to Kosovo Wednesday after talks with Kosovo leaders on the future of the disputed province.

Albert Rohan, has been appointed to assist U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, in leading the status talks. He was to travel to Serbia's capital, Belgrade for talks with leaders there after visiting Kosovo.

Kosovo, officially a province of Serbia-Montenegro, has been administered by the United Nations since a 1999 NATO bombing campaign halted the Serbian crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.

The U.N.-mediated talks on solving Kosovo's future status are expected to formally begin in January under Ahtisaari's auspices.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority insists on independence, while Serbia and the Serb minority living here want to retain at least formal control over the region.

During his visit to Kosovo, Rohan urged ethnic Albanian leaders to reach out to the Serb and other minorities living here by addressing issues such as local government reform aimed at giving them more say in the areas where they live.

"Kosovo Albanians must be conscious that independence will not fall into their lap from heaven," said Rohan in an interview to Kosovo's public television late Monday.

He said the leaders have to create a normal society, which would adhere to European Union standards on rights of minorities and good governance.

EU mulls future role in Kosovo

Two top EU officials are proposing that the bloc take on a greater role in Kosovo after its final status is determined, including taking on policing functions.

By Blerta Foniqi for Southeast European Times in Pristina -- 13/12/05

In a 7-page report presented Monday (12 December), EU security chief Javier Solana and Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn called for an EU force to assume a greater role in Kosovo after its final status is determined, including taking on policing functions.

The report is an update of one released in June, which initially set forth the idea of an EU policing mission. It was presented Monday to EU foreign ministers, who gathered in Brussels to discuss the prospects for further EU engagement in the Balkans.

"The EU could take on responsibilities in the police and rule of law and certain economic areas," the Reuters news agency quoted the new report as saying. "Contingency planning for a possible ESDP [security and defence] mission on police and rule of law should start."
The two officials also urged the bloc to help strengthen the rule of law in Kosovo by sending prosecutors, judges and prison staff, and to provide more aid to help lower the province's staggering unemployment rate, which currently stands at over 50 per cent.
Rehn and Solana stressed, however, that the bloc had no intention of completely replacing the current UN mission, which now handles everything from maintaining law and order in the province to overseeing its everyday civilian administrative tasks. The bloc would not be creating a "EUMIK", they said.

At the same time, they warned the EU's engagement in Kosovo would likely be its largest and most expensive yet, representing another substantial burden for the EU's 2007-2013 budget -- already a source of strain within the bloc.

"The EU contribution to the future international presence may have to include the funding of any future interim civilian administration structure to implement the status settlement, as well as a future ESDP operation for police and rule of law," they wrote, urging ministers to make sure the budget includes sufficient funds.

The financial impact is likely to be keenly heeded by EU leaders, who have so far been unable to strike a deal over the bloc's long term financing. The impasse has already had an impact on the EU's Balkan policy, with a decision on Macedonia's candidate status apparently put off in part because of budgetary concerns.

Speaking to reporters Friday, however, Rehn said the Union could not afford to fail in Kosovo because the province is "so important for the stability of the Western Balkans".
In their report, Rehn and Solana suggested there should be a European horizon for Kosovo regardless of how its status is resolved. However, they said, the EU's role will depend on the progress of the status negotiations, which will have to somehow reconcile Serbia's demands for continued sovereignty and the ethnic Albanian majority's insistence on full independence.