Consolidating Serb and Albanian Rights

On May 18, 2001, Nebojsa Covic (reads as Neboysha Tchovich), Vice-President of the Government of Serbia proposed that two entities be created in Kosovo – Serbian and Albanian – so that the historic rights of Serbs and the ethnic rights of Albanians would both be recognized.

The Serbian entity would be under the protection of the Yugoslav Army and Police, while the Albanian entity would have the highest level of autonomy and would remain under the protection of international armies.

“Finally, both the Serbs and Albanians must understand that trying to run away from compromise will prolong the war indefinitely in which both sides will suffer losses,” Covic stated in a panel discussion in Kosovo at the international conference “Security in South-Eastern Europe at the Beginning of the XXI Century.”

The response by Kosovar Serbs to this proposal was disharmonious, while Albanians responded with threats, with the claim that this proposal signifies the final division of this region.

Without excluding the possibility of two entities being formed in Kosovo, Momcilo Trajkovic, President of the Yugoslav Committee for Kosovo and Metohija warned that positions within the state itself must agreed upon before all else, that the attitudes of the people whose fate is being decided should be heard out, and that Covic’s proposal is “a dangerous soliloquy.”  Oliver Ivanovic, President of the Executive Committee of the Serbian National Council in Northern Kosovo stated that the idea is “interesting”, but that it should be presented to the public with greater care in order that it is not misinterpreted.  He does not think that the forming of separate entities would signify a division of Kosovo: “I think that Covic was misunderstood.  I just spoke to him.  On the contrary, he set things straight on that matter…”

The former political representative of the KLA, Adem Demaci stated that Kosovar Albanians should draw “very mature lessons” from this proposal.  “If the international community dithers and backs away from the guiding principle that Kosovar Albanians must be given the right to decide their own fate, this will only lead to new bloodshed in which the international community will take part, which would only mean new crimes both against Albanians and Serbs,” Demaci pointed out.

The Secretary of the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo, Aljus Gasi stated that Covic’s proposal “is geared toward destabilizing the situation in an otherwise unstable region.”  Jonuz Salihaj, member of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo stated that both Mr. Covic, the Serbs in Kosovo, and all those who are away from Kosovo should accept “the new reality of Kosovo.”

ETHNIC TAKEOVER:  However, the proposal directly comes from analysis of “the new reality.”  After consulting with the heads of the Yugoslav state, Serbs announced that their participation in Hakeroup’s elections on November 17 is out of the question until the issue of their elementary security is resolved.  Zoran Lutovac with the Institute of Social Science, one of the experts who took part in the discussions related to Kosovo, stated that Covic relied on the analysis submitted by Branislav Krstic, an expert in regional planning, who is not in any way a supporter of the idea of dividing Kosovo, as he is claimed to be by some, but that he supports a balanced solution in a multiethnic community, the pivotal point for a normal life and more efficient mechanisms of security for minorities at a time when according to the principle of a done deed, things are taking a direction toward independence of an ethnically cleansed Kosovo.

In his book, “Kosovo at the Trial of History”, Branislav Krstic observes that presently, under the flag of the United Nations, an Albanian ethnic takeover of Kosovo is being brought to a close (ethnic transformation of communities and kidnapping of Serbs, ethnic takeover of towns, ethnic cleansing of entire regions and proprietary takeover of territory).  This process used to unfold in stages, over three decades, but has been speeded up to the point that all this has been achieved in less than one month.  The number of Serb communities, which used to be stable, has been markedly reduced (in 1961 there were 247 entirely Serb communities, in 1981, there were 232, while in 1999, there were only 188; in 1961 there were 644 entirely Albanian communities, while in 1999 there are as many as 1123).  There are no longer any Croatian communities in Kosovo.  Minorities are abandoning multiethnic communities at breakneck speed.  What is astonishing is that over a period of two decades (1961-1981) the number of entirely Albanian communities increased by 250, while in merely two months in 1999, that increase was manifold.  On the eleven towns in Kosovo with a population exceeding 10,000, not a single one was entirely Albanian, while now they all have purely Albanian populations, except for Kosovska Mitrovica, Gnjilane and Prizren, where the remaining ethnic populations are Kosovar Turks.  The Albanian population took over all communities, except for three marginal communities.  Majority Serb populations only remain in Northern Kosovo, and partly in the heart of Kosovo,” Krstic observes.

“The use of one’s mother tongue, the one elementary right which must not be denied in any ethnic community, especially not in public communication, has been completely trampled in Kosovo.  If the KFOR was forced to issue instructions ‘do not speak any Slavic tongue in public,’ than we are faced with proof that speaking any Slavic language in Kosovo is tantamount to wearing a yellow badge,” Krstic writes, stressing that “Slavic languages” which were freely used under every occupation of Kosovo over the centuries, have now been banned under the United Nationas protectorate of this region.

In his book Krstic cites a multitude of data, tables, charts and maps of Kosovo which present it as a multicultural and multiethnic region which is equally important for Serbs, Montenegrins and Albanians.  This cold facts present a voluminous criticism of the idea of “blood and land” which is the result of the policies propagated by the previous regime, as well as of a pointless war – but also the result of policies propagated by international factors in Kosovo.

ETHNICITY AND HERITAGE:  In 1994 Branislav Krstic published a book “Kosovo Between Historical and Ethnic Rights” in which he examined the possibilities of making peace between the historical (Serb and Montenegrin) and ethnic (Albanian) rights.  He tried to find the solution somewhere between the propositions that “ethnic rights cannot be resolved through takeover of Serb territories” and that “the body of a state cannot be larger than what its people can overlook.”  He supports the acceptance of unquestionable criteria: Serbs cannot consider their historical territory areas in which the Albanian concentration of the population in 1921 exceeded 90 percent, in the same way that Albanians cannot pretend that Kosovo in its entirety is theirs.

Krstic used to work at the UNESCO Committee for the World Heritage and points out the importance of Serb, Albanian, prehistoric, Ilirian, Roman and Byzantine cultural monuments, their relation to historical rights as the key criteria which cannot be ignored in considering the problem of the territory of Kosovo and Metohija.  He concludes that the monuments of Serb historical culture do not coincide with the territories of Albanian cultural monuments and that they do not constitute a conflict.  He invokes the 1972 Convention on Protecting the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, the 1985 European Convention on Architectural Heritage and the right and obligation of a state to protect its heritage.

1992 VARIATIONS:  In 1992 Krstic proposed that that part of Kosovo where Serbia cannot establish the rule of law, that it should be declared an Albanian region with a special status (“region of peace protection” as in the famous Vance-Owen plan), and that Serb and Montenegrin historical areas should be integrated with their republics.  In December of 1992 he submitted this proposal to the President of the Yugoslav Government at the time, Milan Panic (whose advisor drew attention to possible negative reactions on the part of the Serbian Government), and then proposed two variations of this proposal to FRY President Dobrica Cosic (reads Dobritsa Chosich).  Cosic called a meeting with General Zivota Panic and another three generals at the Supreme Headquarters of the Yugoslav Army in order to discuss this plan, along with the comment that too great a number of Albanians would remain in Serbia.  The whole plan was not carried through because Cosic was replaced.

In June of 1993 Krstic proposed a project at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, for which he got the greatest support from Z. Pesic, S. Stojanovic, V. Kostunica and N. Popov.

On August 19, 1994, Krstic’s proposal was submitted in the form of a completed book to the President at the time Slobodan Milosevic, but there was no response either to his book or to the letter he addressed to Milosevic.

In 1996 he presented the results of his research at the Serbian Academy of Science before the Committee for Investigating Kosovo and Metohija, and in 1997 he spoke to Patriarch Pavle who called on six public personalities to state their opinions.  In an atmosphere of concern and on the basis of experience of Bosnia and Croatia, Krstic transferred the weight of his argument toward the need to fight for rights, instead for territories which leads to war and ultimate loss of territory.

Otherwise the idea of dividing Kosovo cropped up in Serbian politics on several occasions.  In his book “Last Days of the SFRY” Bora Jovic wrote that on September 1990 Dobrica Cosic came to him to present him with his idea on “setting up borders with Croats and Shiptars” (“to practically set up borders, to keep the coal mines and several shrines, Gracanica, Gazimestan”).  In 1996 the President of the Serbian Academy of Science and Art, Aleksandar Despic proposed his idea that Kosovo needs to be divided…

NEW CONDITIONS:  In year 2000, Krstic proposed his old and new ideas in a book “Kosovo at the Trial of History.”  This book is a compendium of historical, social, political, demographic, migrational, urbanistic, diplomatic, international-legal facts in which different options are considered.  In keeping with new conditions, the objective of the investigation is more pressing in terms of the idea of two entities.

By at once invoking the UN Security Council Resolution and the Rambouillet Agreement, Krstic demonstrates that the FRY lost the war, that it got worse conditions at the end of the war than the ones offered at the beginning, that it lost control over the vital highway toward Skoplje, over the vital parts of two rivers, Ibar and Morava, that it had to abandon its vital historical heritage and that the imposed agreement prevents it from exercising its constitutional rights over its territories.  He observes that Serbia is not adequately represented in the execution of UN Security Council Resolution 1244.  He thinks that the problem of Kosovo cannot be reduced to the problem of Serbs in that Region – he stresses that the Kosovar Serbs never had legal backing in their state, nor any long term policies, nor any common position toward the UN Mission in that Region, nor in self-management.

CANTONIZATION:  Fighting for mere survival, for the return of refugees and a normal life in Kosovo, Serb representatives in the Transitional Council (which they abandoned because of discrimination and ignoring of demands) proposed the creation of cantons.  The author of the project which dates back to 1998 is historian Dusan Batakovic, now Ambassador to Athens.  The plan for dividing up Kosovo into cantons was submitted in 1999 by representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  According to this plan, it is proposed that towns be kept under mixed Albanian-Serb control, and that cantons mostly include agrarian areas with majority Serb populations, to which would be added the lands of Serb monasteries.  The borders of communities would be changed so that the possibility for constituting smaller communities would be left in grouping together smaller towns and villages with majority Serb population.

This plan, which was submitted prior to the beginning of the war in 1999, was not accepted by the International Community.  In 1999, the Administrator of Kosovo, Bernard Kushner, however, reacted to the repeated proposal of cantonization with the idea of regrouping the Serb population into more secure areas, that is to say those that are protected.  The great powers struck the whole idea of cantons from the agenda.  Ministers Vedrin and Fisher observed while staying in Kosovo that “cantonization is contrary to efforts by the International Community to build a unified Kosovo.”  USA also went against the proposal.

As an urbanist, Kostic is a critic of cantonization – he thinks that pilot projects proposed by the USA go against Resolution 1244.  He stresses that people must live on uninterrupted territory beyond enclaves.  “A multiethnic Kosovo must preclude the disappearance of enclaves as a way of life.  Regardless of the name these territories would get (cantons, zones, enclaves), they would only make sense as temporary solutions, because they would become reservations for the remaining Serb population within several years…  It is well known that Apartheid is the most extreme form of denial of human rights.  In Kosovo, the segregation of the population has not been carried out according to faith, as under the Ottoman Empire, but according to origin, where this is known as ghettoization…  Many people are against dividing Kosovo, but in practice Kosovo has been divided in an unacceptable manner in terms of ethnic segregation,” Krstic observes.

REFORMATION:  The proposal on reformation is based on the conclusion that military success has left a political void equivalent to defeat and that with the end of the war, the conflict between the Serb historical rights to territory and Albanian rights to territories where they are make up the majority population, has not been resolved – and it is at the root of the entire problem of Kosovo.  Given the fact that the war and the measures being implemented by the KFOR and UNMIK are not solving the causes of the conflict, Krstic proposes that an attempt at consolidating respective rights be made in terms of reorganizing territory.  This attempt is based on four criteria – that the entities with Serb populations ensure that the most valuable areas of the Serbian historical heritage be kept in Serbia; that the entities with Albanian populations include the greatest number of Albanians; that property over land should have the significance which it always had, because it proves the right to territory far more significantly than numbers of immigrants who came during demographic expansion; that both Serbs and Albanians have the right to self-management in the continuous territory in which the population would have a majority.

Krstic writes: “It is well known that there is a relatively homogenous territory in the north and northeast of the Region which is made up communities with majority Serb and Montenegrin populations, because communities with mixed populations present significant sub-regions.  This territory extended much further, but the demographic expansion of the Albanian population fundamentally changed its ethnic structure.”  He asserts that the creation two entities would realize the legitimate rights of Serbia and of ethnic Albanians.

In their part Serbs would keep historical monuments which make up the indivisible part of the Serbian culture and national history, such as the Patriarch’s Seat, monasteries Decani, Gracanica and Kosovo Polje, with access territories and populations.  The remaining monuments of the highest value which are established should be relocated to Serbia (for instance the remains of the Monastery of Holy Archangels, the Church of the Mother of God of Ljeviska or the Church of Holy Salvation in Prizren), according to Krstic.

Krstic observes that after the “transition” which NATO is carrying out in Kosovo, Kosovo is no longer a multiethnic and multireligious territory, and is being left without multiethnic towns which even the Turks nurtured with care.  There are no longer any Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats, Slavic Muslims, in general there are no longer any Slavic populations in those towns…

The author of “Kosovo at the Trial of History” thinks that no entity could be left without towns.  This would ensure education, healthcare and a life without discrimination for the residents of both entities.  That is why he thinks the Serb entity should keep Kosovska Mitrovica (which was left in Serb hands even by Nazi Germany during the occupation), parts of Pristina, Pec and others, while the Albanian entity should get the remaining parts of Pristina and Pec, Prizren, Djakovica, Urosevac and others.  According to the nature of things, the control over the two main rivers in Serbia, Ibar and Morava, should be left in Serb hands.

The area with the predominantly Slavic population would be populated with 174,600 Serbs and Montenegrins, 163,100 Albanians and 53,400 residents of other communities (Krstic cites information from the last official census from 1981).  The balance between the Serb-Montenegrin and Albanian populations would be 44.6 percent vs. 41.7 percent, while that balance used to be 63.1 percent vs. 28.5 percent twenty years ago, before the ethnic cleansing.

The area with the predominantly Albanian population, which would include the greatest part of Kosovo and Metohija and its towns, would have 1,063,600 Albanians, that is to say 86.7 percent of the entire Albanian population of the Region, as well as 61,900 Serbs and Montenegrins and 67,700 members of other ethnic communities.  The majority of Albanian historic monuments would be in that area.

The reorganized Kosovo would remain a region within Serbia and Yugoslavia under the protection of NATO forces and Russia, that is to say the United Nations.  Refugees would have to be allowed to return without discrimination and the region could survive as a multiethnic territory.  This would avoid the division of Kosovo into populations which live freely, and those which are forced to live in enclaves.

BOSNIA OR CROATIA:  The basis of Krstic’s approach is that there are two legitimate rights in Kosovo and that both of them must be acknowledged. 

“The big powers took part in the resolution of ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia on two occasions – one in Croatia, the other in Bosnia.  In Croatia they allowed ethnic cleansing of Serbia, although they claim that they do not intend to permit this in Kosovo.  In Bosnia, which they wanted to maintain multiethnic and multireligious, they created two entities…  They are facing a choice: either they want an ethnically clean Kosovo, or they want to establish two entities.  There is not third alternative,” according to Krstic, “because the one that is being implemented now is the first option – an ethnically clean Kosovo with several enclaves.”

Krstic enumerates the questions to which there are yet to be found adequate answers:

Will NATO and the UN Mission stop violence and ensure that all refugees can return to their homes without discrimination, or will they stop the violence once the Slavic population is reduced to enclaves which merely legalize an ethnically clean Kosovo?

Will the United Nations hold to their 1970 Declaration in facing the dilemma between sovereignty and territorial integrity of a state and between self-determination by a minority community, or will they set a risky precedent?

Will the big powers find an acceptable solution to the conflict in Kosovo in the “political process” through negotiations between Serbia and the Albanian minority community, or are they set on burdening Serbia with a permanent problem…

In working patiently disarming a dangerous situation in the tampon zone, Covic was perhaps able to observe that the international factors are aware of the weightiness of these unsolved problems, so that it could be concluded that he did not make a mistake when he drew attention at that low-profile international conference to the proposal for making peace between the historical rights of Serbs and the ethnic rights of Albanians in Kosovo.