Serbia’s policy of urging Kosovo Serbs to boycott the Kosovo government is creating resentment among local Serb leaders.
By Arben Qirezi in Pristina (BCR No 566, 22-Jul-05)
A gap has opened up between the Serbian government and Kosovo Serb leaders after one of the latter said he will join the Albanian-dominated local assembly in defiance of Belgrade.
Serbia’s position is clear-cut: no participation without extra guarantees. As Serbia’s president, Boris Tadic, put it recently, "Serbia is asking for a more active policy by the international community and for guarantees for the Serbs from the local authorities. Without this, Serb participation in Kosovo institutions would make no sense.”
Tadic was speaking after meeting the UN envoy, Kai Aide, who vainly urged Serbia's leadership to start persuading Kosovo Serbs to join local institutions.
But Oliver Ivanovic, head of the Serbian List for Kosovo and Metohija, SLKM, now says he fears that Serbia is using the issue as a political football, to the detriment of the real interests of Kosovo Serbs.
“Everything is being done … for internal wrangling,” he announced this week. “These calculations may cost a lot to the more than 100,000 Serbs who have decided to stay in Kosovo."
Ivanovic announced that his group will now take up the eight seats that it holds, but has not occupied, in the Kosovo Assembly, and will formally announce a decision to join the government over the next few days.
The announcement marks a sharp break with SLKM policy, which was earlier characterised by a willingness to leave all the big policy decisions to Belgrade.
On the urging of the Serbian government, most Kosovo Serbs boycotted the elections to the assembly last October.
With less than 1,000 Serb voters casting their ballot, the SLKM and the Civic List Serbia, CLS, took the 10 seats that had been allocated to the Serb community, irrespective of the number of votes cast.
The CLS, with two of the 10 seats, led by Nebojsa Petkovic, immediately joined the assembly and took over the ministry of returns and communities.
With the Kosovo government focusing hard on returnee programmes, Petkovic found himself managing the biggest single ministerial budget, worth 14 million euro in 2005 alone.
The ministry of agriculture, which is also reserved for Kosovo Serbs, remained without a minister, however, because the SLKM decided to continue with the Belgrade-inspired boycott.
Although the UN’s framework for governing the territory, the Constitutional Framework of Kosovo, says representatives who fail to appear at assembly meetings for more than six months should be dismissed, the UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, declined to enforce this provision, clearly hoping the SLKM would eventually change its mind.
In the meantime, Petkovic criticised UNMIK for giving so much importance to the SLKM, instead of allowing the CLS, "which has shown good will to work within the institutions, to take over the remaining vacant seats in the assembly and the government".
Ivanovic's previous position, that the SLKM could not make any decision on participation in Kosovo institutions without Serbia’s support, was a calculated tactic, some observers said, aimed at maximising the Serb position and at ensuring Belgrade was granted a major role in any final-status negotiations.
"Belgrade counted that a continuous boycott of Kosovo Serbs would enforce the argument that Serbs need their own self-government within Kosovo,” said Bekim Kastrati, a political analyst from Pristina.
“On the other hand, as a Belgrade-sponsored political group, the SLKM lacked the internal strength to take decisions on its own."
But Ivanovic’s latest statements suggest these calculations have lost much of their original force.
Serbia suffered a major loss of prestige last year after the international community rejected its plan to set up five autonomous Serb regions in Kosovo, linked to each other by corridors.
In the ongoing deadlock, a view has clearly emerged in Kosovo that Belgrade is now simply reinforcing its own position at the expense of the Kosovo Serbs, whose dependence on Belgrade has left them without a credible voice.
Arben Qirezi is IWPR/BIRN Kosovo editor.
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7 comments:
Chris. You talk and talk about your independence. You will not have independence. If I met you, we could bet 2000 dollars that Kosovo will NOT have independence, even if I would think that would be the best solution. We will see, Chris.
4.45. I agree with you since they do not know how to handle the situation now, how the h¤¤¤ should they be able to run an own country. Also, it seems that they have very little support for independence of Kosova. Solana said "there is no progress in Kosovo as
there is no safety, decentralization or other steps towards the fulfillment of
standards", also transit of Nato troops through the SCG in an emergency and Eide, who does not seems satisfied. I mean, does anyone believe in indepedence really ??
In the end it will be the USA who decides and history has shown in more than one instance that they favor the Albanian side.
Ylber Burgija, Charlotte, NC.
The final status of Kosovo has already been decided, not in Belgrade, not in Brussles, but in Washington.
The Bush administration has made a tactical decision to recognize Kosovar Independence by 2006, so they can withdraw the majority of the US forces from there and convert their Bases into leap bases or transfer sites for their troops heading to the Middle and Far East. Since Serbia attacking Kosovo if Kosovo was independent would be a breach of international law, the US has decided that this would be the easiest way to protect Kosovo while maintaining a minimal military force there.
Once again the intrests of the Albanians have coincided with those of the US and as such they will get to reap the rewards.
So to all these people that consider what Solana and other relic politicians of Europe think, I say, relax, they have no decision making powers. They are mere pawns who speak but don't deliver.
Plus Great Britain, Switzerland and Germany are already starting to support Independence as the only solution,sometimes secretly and others not so secretly.
I have heard this crap before from Ivanovic. He is not e serious leader and what he says should not be taken seriously. And besides he has no power to decide for Kosovo Serbs. Kosovo Serbs still look to Belgrade for guidance. I have noticed that when International community accuses Serbs of obstruction, Ivanovic lays the blame on Belgrade and promises cooperation. Kosovo Serbs are the ones who are listening to Belgrade and therefore they are responsible for whatever happens to them.
The final will of the United States and Great Britain is that Kosovo be granted independence. I have to chuckle when the makeshift government in Serbia clings to the nation that it is still relevant. With the move for independence gaining momentum among the few actually important world leaders (except for Russia, who invented Serbia in the first place), only the ignorant and uninformed would make the ludicrous statement that Kosovo will not have independence. And it is a brilliant move by Kosovar Serbs to voice a desire to break ties with Serbia. In the eyes of the world, maybe the Kosovar Serbs will be able to unattach from themselves the stigma of genocide that will forever be Serbia's legacy.
Phantom:
I suggest you take a look back at history and recall this date:
April 6th 1941.
On April 6, 1941, Hitler’s forces, in alliance with the Hungarians and the Bulgarians, invaded Yugoslavia and bombed Belgrade.
Is this the Europe you were referring to? I know you know this date by heart. It would be to no surprise to know that you probably celebrate this date by looking up to your occupiers and recalling the memories of the occupation as the greatest in your history. That is the Europe you like, because after all that is where you took the greatest lessons of colonialisms, dictatorship, mass murder, ethnic cleansing and so on and so forth. Need I say more Phantom, go ahead keep thinking the way you do, as your tape is playing backwards.
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