Picture Frame Without Serbs

The temporary Kosovo constitution – which resulted after all Serbian amendments had been refuted and almost all Albanian demands had been taken into consideration – gives this province a key implication of autonomy. It would remain to be under the jurisdiction of international control, but slightly less rigid than so far.

EXISTENCE OF THE FRY: The famous UN Security Council Resolution 1244 of June 1999 closely concerns the autonomy and self-government in Kosovo and it strictly confirms the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Based on that Resolution, a working group for creating a ‘legal framework’ of self-government in Kosovo was founded at the beginning of March in Pristina. It contained fourteen members, seven of which were foreigners, while the other seven were representatives from Kosovo. The foreigners stood for the UNMIK: UN, OSCE, the Council of Europe and the European Union. The presiding person was Johan van Lemun, a UN high official, while a second important member was Alexander Berg Olivier, a legal counselor of the current UNMIK chief, Hans Haekkerup.

Kosovo was represented by five Albanians, one Serb and one delegate of other ethnic communities – from which it comes clear that the Serbs are far from regarded as a preponderating ethnic community. Among the Albanians there were lawyers from Ibrahim Rugova’s party as well as those of Ramush Haradini and Hashim Thaqi and two members of some non-governmental organisations, i.e. Pristina newspapers ‘Koha’ and ‘Bujku’. The first delegate of the Serbs was lawyer Djordje Aksic, who retracted after the first meeting due to pressurising circumstances.

ARRIVAL OF THE SERB: After the meeting of the FRY President Vojislav Kostunica and Hans Haekkerup in Belgrade by the end of March, it was decided that the Serbs rejoin the working group. Aleksandar Simic, a lawyer from Belgrade, born in Pristina, set off to Kosovo. He was authorised to say that his arrival indicated the aspiration of the Serbs to work on the future of multi-ethnic Kosovo, and that the Serbian side was ready to co-operate in the constitution of the temporary legal framework of self-government, which stems from the 1244 Resolution. Neither Simic nor UNMIK wanted to go back to the beginning, since the work the text has already been commenced, but it was agreed that the Serbian representative should have right to submit amendments.

The Albanians did not welcome the Serb jovially. First, they denied lawyer Simic, but when they realised that there was no use in doing so, they turned against his assistant Dusan Celic, the former associate professor at the Law Faculty in Pristina. When Simic started presenting the Serbian amendments, the Albanians refused to pay attention. One of the first amendments was actually a demand that the words sovereignty and territorial integrity of the FRY should be mentioned in the text. However, that was rejected.

SOLUTIONS FROM RAMBOUILLET:  ‘Our amendments were in accordance with the draft of the Kosovo constitution predicted by the Rambouillet Act of February 1999, as well as other standpoints of the former US envoy Christopher Hill. They were not founded on the classical principles of prevalent democracy, but on the other hand, comprise some significant mechanisms of modern concepts of democracy. In all relevant international documents – the Petersburg document of G-8 from May 1999, the Chernomyrdin-Ahtisari plan and the 1244 UN Resolution – it was said that the international mission in Kosovo would have to launch a political process that would result in the substantial autonomy’, says for VREME Aleksandar Simic. ‘My opinion is that there was no hint of political process – except for what was within the Albanian corps. Above all, nothing was done in the direction of the return of refugees.’

Both OSCE and UNMIK, however, consider that the political process was opened with the local election in Kosovo. On the contrary, Simic claims that only with the joining of a Serbian delegate to the working group can such a process be regarded as politically valid.

WHO PASSES THE VERDICT: ‘It is clear that at the moment of launching the political process we cannot expect to have all institutions in already function, particularly not the independent judiciary. The practice showed that there can be no justice for Serbs in Kosovo, so I demanded that the whole judiciary system remain in the jurisdiction of the international administration and that the number of international judges and prosecutors be multiplied by three’, says Simic. The UNMIK delegates, however, insisted that the supreme judiciary level be the chief of the international administration. The working group consented to the three-level judiciary system in Kosovo (municipal-district-supreme court, which would also have some authority of the constitutional court). The destiny of other amendments was about the same.

MAJORISATION: Special delegations of ethnic communities in the Parliament of Kosovo, designed and authorised to inaugurate a special procedure for the protection of their interests, were rejected. Such delegations assumed the mediation of a five-member presidency within the Parliament and a special board – although delegations, according to the Serbian proposal, would also enjoy some other authorities. Initially, three such delegations were intended within the Parliament, and their members would have been elected in a different procedure than that used for other Parliament members. Then the number of members was reduced to ten per each delegation, which eventually resulted in Albanian withdrawal from the scheme. ‘It was not acceptable for us, since only the first solution would have brought about equality among various ethnic groups’, said Simic.

PRESIDENT OF STATE:  Initially, the principal organ of authority was supposed to be the presidency of the Parliament, although the Serbs proposed the six-month rotation principle. It was rejected, and another institution was introduced: the President of Kosovo, who would, thanks to his political authority, marginalise the multi-ethnic Parliament presidency. The Kosovo President will not be elected in direct elections, but in the Parliament, and it will surely be someone with democratic legitimacy (read: Rugova), which is allegedly about to open up possibilities for negotiations with the official Belgrade.

There was much debate concerning the authorities of the special representative (the so-called black list) and the future Kosovo government (the so-called white list). Next, the working group settled on taking up the responsibility of passing the laws by itself (however, according to some rather bizarre legal logic, Heakerrup’s decrees will still have more influence than the Parliament laws). What is worse, the Kosovo Defence Corps (KZK) – a formation of about 5000 armed member of the former KLA (the Kosovo Liberation Army) – was installed as a supreme legal act in Kosovo, as an institution for civil protection. A recently published information tells us something more about the activities of KZK – the investigating organs of UNMIK have recently placed commander Isa Hajrizi under arrest, due to a suspicion that, on February 3rd 2000, he had organised and attempted a bomb attack on a Serbian café ‘Belami’ in the north part of Kosovska Mitrovica, on the occasion of which twenty people lost their lives, while three other people remained permanently disabled.

REACTION: Hans Heakerrup announced that he would be the one to proclaim the Kosovo Act, unless the Serbs and Albanians reach a consensus by May 5th. That was not done, but the whole matter was postponed to the UN Security Council session on May 9th.

Having found out that all Serbian amendments had been rejected, Rada Trajkovic, representative of the Serbian National Council, left the session of the Temporary Administrative Council of Kosovo (originally formed by the UN civil administrator, including the leaders of the most influential Albanian parties). Trajkovic stated that the Serbs would be compelled to ‘create their own authoritative organs, for which they can no longer be blamed’, and that what could be expected was ‘the process of canonisation of Kosovo and the setting up of new borders, since there is no other way for the Serbs’. Apart from her, there were other reactions on the part of the representatives of the Kosovo Serbs. Momcilo Trajkovic, president of the Federal Committee for Kosovo, also stated that the Serbs would not go to the forthcoming October elections, if Heakerrup proclaims the Act on Self-Government, without the Serbian consent.

The official Belgrade immediately submitted an appeal: the Federal Government estimated that the draft of the Kosovo legal act was unacceptable and called UNMIK to incorporate that document with the 1244 UN SC Resolution.

The Parliament of Serbia held an extraordinary session at which a ‘Resolution of the Serbian Parliament regarding the state of affairs in Kosovo and Metohija and the position of the Serbs and other non-Albanian ethnic groups’ was adopted. This Resolution emphasises that it was the international community who undertook the full responsibility for maintaining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the FRY.

What interest the international community most are the Kosovo elections. The Serbs are encouraged to go to the elections, because it is supposed to be in their interest. Dun Everts, the chief of OSCE Mission in Kosovo, called for a registration of prospective voters, so that they could ‘determine their status, property rights, and so on.’ This does not however imply whether or not the Serbs will lose the hitherto status in Kosovo, property and right to fulfill their regular political duties as citizens. Their compromise would only corroborate the so-called success of the international community’s development of democracy in Kosovo.

While this VREME edition is being printed, the dialogue between President Vojislav Kostunica and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York is drawing to a close. Its outcome, as well as the epilogue of the Security Council session on Kosovo will soon be known. If, in spite of this argumentation, the highest legal act of Kosovo becomes adopted in the mentioned text, it will mean that the West accepted a logically and politically unfounded claim of the influential members of Kosovo Albanians that, regardless of the presence of KFOR troops and UN civil management in the province, there were all sorts of violence over non-Albanian population – but that it will by all means be halted as soon as Kosovo becomes independent. However, maybe it is not very far from the truth: it is likely that the entire non-Albanian population will be banished from Kosovo, so there will be no potential victims of violence. It is more than evident that such enforced steps towards the independence of Kosovo are opposed to peace, stability and the proclaimed democracy in the region.