Independent Online, June 12, 2004
Serbia seeks end to UN mission in Kosovo
By
Aleksandar Mitic
Belgrade - Five years after the United Nations and Nato
intervened to end the war in Kosovo, Belgrade insists the international mission
has been a "stinging failure" and is demanding a change of strategy.
Serbia's frustration with the international community's role in the
southern ethnic-Albanian dominated province peaked after a wave of mob violence
against Serbs in March which left 19 people dead.
"It is evident that
after the recent violence the international community must count the costs of
the stinging failure of its policies in Kosovo," said Dragan Marsicanin, a
senior figure in the ruling coalition.
As well as the 19 people killed,
over 900 were injured during the March riots that lasted for two days and forced
4 000 people - mostly Serbs - from their homes.
Over 800 houses were
torched along with 19 Serb Orthodox churches and monasteries. It was the worst
ethnic violence in Kosovo since the end of the 1998-99 war, when Serb forces
were accused of trying to drive out Albanians.
Kosovo's outgoing UN
mission chief, Harri Holkeri, warned Thursday the security situation there was
"very fragile" and the province could turn into a hotbed for terrorism if it was
abandoned by the international community.
"If the international
community gives up, what would it be? That would be a carte blanche for
terrorism, for violence... all kinds of actions against humanity," Holkeri said.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who visited the breakaway
province last Monday for the second time since the anti-Serb riots, said a
society plagued by such ethnic violence "does not belong to Europe".
The
role of the UN and Nato peacekeepers in Kosovo once divided nationalists and
moderates in Serbian politics but now there is unanimous agreement across the
political spectrum that the intervention has failed.
Serbia is now
demanding a dramatic change in strategy to allow the province to be
"decentralised" between Serb and Albanian areas - an idea that has been
criticised as amounting to the ethnic division of Kosovo.
This policy,
announced by Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica earlier this year, has been
unanimously adopted by the Serbian parliament and is seen here as the only
practical solution to ensure security for the Serbs.
It would grant
extended powers to five enclaves where Serbs were in the majority before their
post-war exodus, when more than 200,000 fled in fear of reprisal attacks by the
Albanian majority.
Only around 80 000 Serbs remain in Kosovo, out of a
total population in the province of 1,8 million. Nato troops who are supposed to
ensure security were completely overwhelmed by the organised mob violence in
March.
Marsicanin said the decentralisation plan was the "only solution"
which could "stabilise the region" in accord with UN Resolution 1244, which
established the UN protectorate in Kosovo.
The plan has won the support
of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who described it as a "very good base for
work" after meeting Kostunica last week.
Western European leaders have
been far more cautious, however one Western diplomat in Belgrade told AFP that
Kostunica's plan was a "good point of departure" and that the "decentralisation
of Kosovo is inevitable".
Kosovo Albanian Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi
has condemned the idea as an emotional response to the March violence and a way
of dividing the province or reintegrating it with Serbia.
The ethnic
Albanian leadership of Kosovo demands nothing short of independence, however the
province remains technically part of Serbia and its "final status" will be
decided by the Security Council.
Aleksandar Simic, an advisor to
Kostunica and one of the architects of the plan, said the policy did not amount
to division as the proposed autonomous Serb enclaves would not necessarily be
connected.
"The plan does not meddle with the question of the final
status of Kosovo," he told AFP.
Marsicanin said an independent Kosovo
was "impossible".
"We have seen over the past five years that an
independent Kosovo will not resolve the question of human rights and will lead
to an ethnically pure Kosovo," he said. -
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/jun04/hed6510.shtml
