Conditions of an Unconditional Dialogue

Zarko Korac, the president of the Social Democratic Union, said the worst thing about the Kosovo crisis was the Serbian opposition's full support for the government on the issue. Whether it is really the worst thing or not, it is a fact that no one dealing with the Kosovo crisis should ignore. It is also true that it would be easier to find a needle in a haystack than an average Serb prepared to give anything away to the Albanians, with the excuse that Kosovo is "the cradle of Serbia", an "integral part of our territory" and the "Serbian Jerusalem". In practice, things are a bit different.

On March 10th, the Serbian government released a statement to the effect that all issues regarding Kosovo and Metohija must be resolved without international mediation. However, Serb representatives waiting in Pristina for days to start negotiations with ethnic Albanians who haven't turned up yet, said that "Serbia agreed to talk unconditionally" and that there were "no taboo topics the ethnic Albanians couldn't bring up".  That is quite in accord with the demands of the Contact Group, namely the US whose administration insists on an "unconditional dialogue". However, the second invitation by the Serbian authorities to the ethnic Albanians for dialogue included a condition the latter couldn't accept. It said the Serbian government "expresses its readiness for  unconditional dialogue and its determination to resolve all outstanding issues in Kosovo by political means, in full accord with Serbia's constitution, European human rights standards, the UN Charter and the EU convention on national minorities". It will be very difficult to achieve any kind of compromise with Serbia's constitution being the foundation of peace talks, regardless of the cherry pie offering international standards and documents, for it was this constitution that took away the autonomy ethnic Albanians had in Kosovo. The Serbian government has the full support of the federal authorities, also advocating a political solution to the problem with full respect for Serbia's constitutional order.

Serbian president Milan Milutinovic, who has done the least to resolve the Kosovo crisis, although he has more formal authority than anyone else in Serbia, told the British Foreign Office Minister, Tony Lloyd, that "Kosovo was Serbia's internal issue". Slobodan Milosevic said the same to the Turkish foreign minister and to Lenny Fischer, the president of the EU Parliamentary Assembly. No matter how hard Milosevic tries to rule out international involvement, the Kosovo crisis has already become an international issue in every way. All ranking world politicians have taken a stand on the Kosovo crisis and announced they will visit Yugoslavia if they haven't done so already. When Milosevic says that Kosovo is Serbia's internal affair to be resolved here, in accord with the constitution and without international mediation, he actually means that he won't listen to anyone he can stop from interfering.

The Serbian proposal: The Serbian authorities failed to produce a specific suggestion as to what should be done with the rebellious province of Kosovo. That's where the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) stepped in, with a proposal containing ten chapters. The SPO made it clear that the demands for Kosovo's independence were "unrealistic and tantamount to inviting war and the destruction of Serbia and Yugoslavia", as well as that "Kosovo's ethnic Albanians already enjoy the widest possible autonomy in accordance with the highest democratic standards in Europe". Therefore, maintains the SPO, "Serbia and Yugoslavia guarantee the respect of human, civil and ethnic rights of Kosovo's entire population," while "all judicial shortcomings shall be corrected as soon as possible". The party also promised that any abuse of power by police will be "strictly punished in the future". The SPO platform also includes a proposal for two-chamber assemblies, which would give local authorities more power.

Although Milosevic has left the impression that he is not prepared to accept international mediation in the Serb-Albanian talks, the SPO says in chapter nine that "it would be reasonable to accept Felipe Gonzales as the CSCE and EU mediator". A ranking SPO official later told Radio B-92 that "international mediation was acceptable only if there was no arbitration".

The Serbian Radical Party (SRS), however, vehemently denies any thought of foreign involvement. According to the SRS, the highest degree of independence the ethnic Albanians can get is cultural autonomy. The SRS leader, Vojislav Seselj, said he would object to ethnic Albanians not being recruited for regular military service in the Yugoslav army, while the party's Kosovo branch commended the police for their actions in the province.

Even the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) maintains that the Kosovo issue should be resolved "as a national minority problem within Yugoslavia". The DS says that ethnic Albanians should be given regional and local autonomy, while Dragoljub Micunovic's Democratic Centre feels that human rights issues should be separated from demands for secession. The Democratic Centre maintains that the return of ethnic Albanians into schools, local institutions and the election system is a good basis to start resolving Kosovo's status. The Democratic Party, led by Zoran Djindjic, released a statement saying "the Serbian constitution must take effect in Kosovo as soon as possible", whatever that meant.

All that, however, is of no interest at all to Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who want nothing less than independence. The interim solutions they would settle for are far beyond what Serbia is offering at the moment.

The Albanian response: Although the ethnic Albanian leader, Ibrahim Rugova, also said he was prepared for "unconditional dialogue", his unconditional platform, as stated on March 12, followed that "We can only accept independence for Kosovo, not some sort of autonomy". He said a civil protectorate would be an acceptable interim solution, having specified back in January that an international protectorate should last two years, during which a referendum on Kosovo's status would be held. The Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) demanded that the international community recognize Kosovo as an independent state and warned the Contact Group, the EU and the UN that it was determined to carry on with the struggle for "Kosovo's liberation". Ethnic Albanian protesters attending a mass rally in Pristina on March 13th carried banners sending a clear message that ethnic Albanians "will never give up the quest for independence".

World demands: The world has its own set of demands, apart from the fact that all relevant international players have said on a number of official occasions that they oppose any re-drawing of Yugoslavia's borders. The US president's special envoy, Robert Gelbard, said Kosovo's status should be improved in order to give the province more autonomy. The US administration also said Kosovo should be given back the autonomy taken away in 1989, while the Contact Group wants "an improved status for Kosovo within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, meaning that the province would have wider autonomy and more self-governing". The group specified that "resolving the Kosovo issue should be based on Yugoslavia's territorial integrity', and NATO too said that "autonomous Kosovo inside Yugoslavia's borders" would be the most appropriate solution".
All in all, the world would probably be satisfied with a Serbian return of the autonomy Kosovo had after the 1974 constitution. This autonomy was taken away in 1989 by Slobodan Milosevic, who failed to even offer the ethnic Albanians anything that would make their life in this country acceptable. It is unlikely that the two sides to the conflict will agree on terms for starting peace talks, at least not before the deadline set to Serbia and Yugoslavia by the contact group.

Assuming that a return of the 1974 autonomy is halfway between the maximum demands made by the Serbs and the ethnic Albanians and a good base for compromise as such, one must remember that even this sort of autonomy, giving the ethnic Albanians very wide autonomy, didn't quite satisfy them.

Kosovo became an autonomous province in 1945, when the Serbian National Assembly made a decision that Kosovo-Metohija was an autonomous region and an integral part of Serbia. Kosovo-Metohija became a province in 1963, but amendments to the constitution in 1968 and 1971 gave it even wider autonomy and took away Metohija from the name (Metoh meaning land owned by the Serbian Orthodox Church). In 1974, Serbia's two provinces were given all requisites for statehood apart from the right to secession. They had their own constitutions which didn't need to be in accord with Serbia's constitution, they just had to be compatible. The provincial constitutions could have a vital effect on the Republic, but that didn't work both ways. The two provinces could veto any amendment to the federal and republican constitutions. They could adopt laws opposite to Serbia's laws. They had one representative each in the Federal and the Serbian presidency. A lot of money for the Federal development fund went to Kosovo, and its leadership didn't have to submit a report on what it did with the money. In other words, Serbia's two provinces and its national minorities had a lot more autonomy than required by any international convention. Nevertheless, riots broke out in Kosovo in 1981, when ethnic Albanians demanded full independence just like they did in 1968.

When he came to power, Slobodan Milosevic said the Kosovo situation must be resolved immediately, which is how he won wide popular support in Serbia. He took away from the ethnic Albanians all privileges provided by the 1974 constitution. According to the present Serbian constitution, Kosovo has no say in the Federal State and limited influence in the central Republican authorities. The provinces are allowed to implement their own economic, technological, demographic, agricultural and social platforms, adopt their own budget and have their own cultural and education programs, including independence regarding language, health care, media as well as urban and family planning. The ethnic Albanians reacted by walking out of all of Serbia's institutions. They boycotted elections, they stopped sending their children to school and no longer go to state hospitals. In reality, ethnic Albanians have formed their own parallel state within Serbia. The only thing keeping them inside Serbia is the presence of Serbian police and its striking force. Serbia has been quite satisfied so far with such a state of affairs.