Svetski Sabor Srba
CONGRES MONDIAL SERBE WORLD SERB CONGRESS WELTKONGRESS DER SERBEN
THE KOSOVO FUTURE:
TEN ESSENTIAL PREREQUISITES FOR SUCCESSFUL TALKS.
DR.DJORDJE JOVANOVIC, PRESIDENT***
***
TIENSESTEENWEG 87 B-3360 BIERBEEK, BELGIUM
E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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THE KOSOVO FUTURE
10 PREREQUISITES FOR SUCCESSFUL TALKS
by
Dr. DJORDJE JOVANOVIC
Problem description
In 1999, for three months, the activity of the UN concerning the political
situation in Kosovo was interrupted.
On March 24 NATO unilaterally decided a military action without consulting the
UN Security Council.
In any case, immediately after the end of this non authorized military
intervention and subsequent to the agreement on the cessation of belligerents
activities, between NATO and the FRY (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia),
predecessor of todays Serbia and Montenegro, the UN Security Council by its
Resolution 1244 of June 10 ,1999 issued the mandate for establishing of the
provisional administration of this province which remains an integral part of
FR Yugoslavia.
For the newly created UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo), and KFOR(Kosovo
Force), this task force was mainly composed of NATO troops, first task was the
re-establishing of a peaceful coexistence between people who underwent the
change from neighbours to belligerents in a very short period of time
The objectives of the UNMIK were divided into two main categories: standards and
status. The task of KFOR is peace keeping activities.
Standards mainly concern safety, property rights, the rule of law ,the use of
ones native language in official instances, social welfare, health, education,
religion and similar, while status is related to the building of institutions
and instruments necessary for the implementation of standards
.The extent of the transfer of competences to newly formed local institutions
and a degree of their independence remain to be established during the
subsequent talks.
It has been assumed that the realization of a programme of standards should
precede the status talks.
Deadlines were not foreseen.
In March 2004 major riots occurred, more than 50,000 Albanians were involved
simultaneously throughout Kosovo, nineteen people, were killed.
During the same riots Kosovo Albanian also caused massive destruction of Serbian
sacred objects and 4000 Serbs were forced to leave Kosovo.
In May 2005 the UN Secretary-General appointed Mr .Kai Eide as his Special Envoy
to undertake a comprehensive review of the situation in Kosovo.
The purpose of the review was to assess whether the conditions are in place to
start the political process designed to determine Kosovos future status.
The essence of his report is: although a comprehensive set of institutions has
been established both on the central and on the local level their working is far
from being satisfactory
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. The development of new institutions is undermined by a tendency of the local
leaders to consider them as their property; they are accountable only to their
own parties and/or family clans.
This means that despite of progress the situation is far from satisfactory,
Serbs and other non-Albanians are victims of a constant and almost general
ethnic discrimination.
The rule of law is not respected, the Kosovo police and judiciary institutions
are very fragile, property rights are neither respected nor ensured, and
personal safety, especially for Serbs and other non-Albanians is far from being
acceptable
.Serbian Orthodox religious sites and institutions, a part of them are on the
World Cultural Heritage List of UNESCO, are constantly exposed to hostile
demonstrations of Kosovo Albanians.
Conclusion: An overall assessment leads to the conclusion that the time has
come to commence the process of status talks. Followed by the warning:
However, moving into the future status process entails a risk that attention
will be focused on status to the detriment of standards and last but not least
It is of great importance that the future status process takes place at time
when the international community is still present in Kosovo in sufficient
strength. A future status process should be accompanied by a clear expression by
the international community that it is determined to stay and support this
process as well as its outcome. End of quotation.
WHAT ARE THE PREREQUISITES?
1) Hitherto the UN has made an impressive effort during its mandate, but the
achievements are very modest , and the accomplishments look like the tip of the
iceberg.
Most of the objectives, due to their complexity or to their politically
sensitive nature have not yet been achieved.
In such a case one would not expect that the next step to be recommended.
Nevertheless the UN Secretary Generals Special Envoy concluded that the status
talks would be productive and become a stimulus for the standards implementation
process.
It is estimated by the UN Secretary Generals Special Envoy that conditions are
now in place for initiating and conducting the future status process, providing
Kosovo with a political perspective
It is imperative that the UN continue to lead the status process.
The status talks are scheduled for the near future.
They will start under the auspices of the UN Security Council, coordinated by
the Secretary Generals Special Representative Marti Ahtisari and
representatives of Russia, the USA and the European Union (EU).
One may expect that the Secretary Generals Special Representative will mediate
and guide the process of talks exclusively based on what happen in the
negotiation room , offering
his good offices, without external influence and pressure..
They should also end in the same conditions. It is realistic to assume that the
UN might in some cases delegate some executive tasks to the regional
organizations, estimating that they are geographically and or politically closer
to Kosovo.
At any event such action may not alter the leadership of the UN SC which carries
the responsibility for the process started in 1999.
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2) The talks should be free and the continuity of the activities should be
ensured by seeing them as a cumulative process taking place preferably in
distinct stages, each of which should fall into distinct phases.
The basic method:: enactment of a package of changes followed by the number of
implementing documents; leading to the preparation for the next stage.
The initial achievements become rapidly visible and effective. This avoids
eternal revisions, crisis situations and slowing down or interrupting the talks.
It appeared very effective during the long process of the reform of the state in
Belgium.
Artificial deadlines should be avoided.
It seems that first steps will involve a shuttle diplomacy. Its role should
be to prepare direct contact for constructive talks.
The status talks are a highly sensitive political issue and the popular method
of putting pressure on the participants will be counterproductive. Such an
approach will only postpone and accentuate the crisis instead of resolving it.
3) Status talks must respect the international law and norms
Kosovo has been the integral part of Serbia since 1913, when the International
Peace Conference in London re-established the sovereignty of the Kingdom of
Serbia over this Serbian medieval province, as a part of the peace agreement
ending the Balkans war with the Ottoman Empire.
It was confirmed in Versailles in 1919, the end of the WWI at the creation of
Yugoslavia, and reconfirmed by all Constitutions of Yugoslavia and Republic of
Serbia between 1921 and 1974 and it is still considered as part of Serbia by the
present Constitution of Serbia.
The UN Security Council Resolution 1244,the last document concerning the legal
status of this Serbian province, confirms the sovereignty of Serbia .
The interpretation of the relevant legal documents should be performed
faithfully and fairly without an excess of creativity.
Such an approach should be intended to ensure the long term validity of the
final settlement.
It will be beneficial to the entire region .Legal and geopolitical
considerations are not unavoidably antagonistic.
4) Both, Kosovo Albanian leaders and the Government of Serbia announced their
proposals.
Not surprisingly they are different and unfortunately the opposite of each
other.
- Kosovo Albanians are insisting on the right of self determination considering
that it automatically means independent statehood including the full sovereignty
of the province as a new state, according priority to the independence and
international recognition without paying specific attention to the human rights.
However, the Declaration of the UN General Assembly of the 18 December, 1992
concerning individual rights of members of national and religious minorities,
states in its Article 5: not a single statement of this declaration can be
interpreted as a right to endanger the sovereignty, territorial integrity and
independent policy of the country
The UN Security Council Resolution 1160, 31 March 1998 stressed the
territorial integrity of FR of Yugoslavia and recommended meaningful
self-administration for Kosovo.
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-The Serbian Government offers a large scale transfer of internal competences:
executive, legislative and juridical power with few exceptions concerning
borders, customs, monetary system, and foreign affairs. It means a wide and
substantial autonomy respecting the territorial sovereignty of the country.
The proposal of the Government of Serbia is in compliance with the international
law and norms and practical aspects of the organisation and governance in the
province are open to negotiations. A very important part of it is dedicated to
the individual human rights and multi-ethnicity.
5) European practice is rich in examples showing a feasibility of self
governance without independence and international sovereignty.
Most interesting model is the logic behind the reform of the state in Belgium.
Prior to this reform Belgium was a state with very pronounced central power, but
composed of three ethnic communities.
Why do we suggest this model and how can it be applied to the Kosovo situation?
We will briefly describe the core of the concept; it is beyond the scope of this
paper to enter into the technical details, in so far as they are not essential
for understanding.
The reform mentioned above resulted in an acceptable degree of harmony between
the communities and regions, between a geographical (territorial) concept of
regions and communities as a cultural/linguistic and human rights concept and
satisfactory working of new institutions.
In Belgium there are three regions: Flanders, the Walloon region, the Brussels
region and three communities: Flemish, French-speaking and German-speaking
located in the Walloon region .The German-speaking community is independent in
handling the community matters ,while for regional competences it is a part of
the Walloon region.
The region of Brussels is bilingual so that both French and Flemish community
matters are handled separately.
This is very important to remember : The communities can exercise their
competences also in the mixed regions, as far as the community matters are
concerned without interfering with the other competences of the bilingual
region..
Furthermore, the communities have the legislative powers necessary to exercise
their competences. Their decrees are equal in power with the federal laws,
limited to the obtained competences and therefore not concurrent with the
federal level. The Constitution places them all on an equal level within their
own spheres of competences.
The communities have also been given the power to negotiate, conclude and ratify
international treaties in all areas of their competences.
The communities have three basic groups of competences:
- Education :the communities are competent for all education including
universities and postgraduate studies, with some minor exceptions .
- Cultural matters: they include cultural policy and organisations,
libraries, arts, cinema and all aspects of broadcasting, support to the written
media and advertising.
- Personalisable matters: these include health and social assistance
including hospitals, family policy, the use of ones native language in
administration including the judiciary and police,
For the communities and for the regions the financial resources are: their own
taxes, which are less important, the more important part is a share of central
taxes (personal income taxes, VAT) and similar, following a fixed key between
the communities.
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6) The Province of Kosovo is both internally and externally heterogeneous, like
other parts of Serbia. Apart from the Serbs and Albanians several other ethnic
groups live in the province just as Albanians live in other parts of Serbia.
In his report Mr Kai Eide estimated that a wider decentralization of Kosovo
would be required. He suggested envisaging enhanced competences at the local
level in areas such as police, justice, education, culture, media, health and
economy. He foresees a possibility of horizontal links between Serb majority
municipalities, with creation of the new ones with Serbian majority when
required.
The most important issue seems to be to start the talks with a recognition of
all ethnic communities in Kosovo, as a part of the Kosovo constitutional frame
work and their right to a basic package of competences including education,
culture and personalisable matters similar to those described above with
addition of those specifically mentioned by Mr Eide.. In this way the
non-Albanian communities will not feel themselves threatened and the Albanian
community should not fear that the future decentralization could mean a virtual
partition of the Province.
Such an approach would enhance the flexibility of all participants and
facilitate further status talks. Pragmatism in reaching the compromise without
dishonour becomes possible.
By the same token, corrections and reshaping of some UNMIKs decisions, for
instance the precipitated last minute transfer of internal affairs and justice
to the Kosovo Government,
would avoid negative impact on the evolution of the talks.
.
We have clearly shown that model of organization in Belgium can meet the
requirements.
It handles separately competences of the regions and those of the communities.
It does not endanger central institutions and because of separation of
competences it does not weaken the central authority.
It does not allow the partition of the Province
The central authority cannot endanger the exercise of the competences
transferred to the regions or communities.
All these transformation of Belgian state, did not alter the central state
authority neither they weakened the cohesion of the state, but they contributed
to the development of all its ethnical components.
This is a good model where human rights considerations influence the shape and
the nature of institutions and not vice versa. The solution is a result of
needs and aspirations of all communities and not a kind of the Procrustean bed
for one, due to the intolerance and exaggerated ambitions of another one.
Prior to the future settlement there are several other problems to be solved for
obtaining an equitable solution.
7) The return of internally displaced persons
At present there are almost 200 000 of Serbs who were expelled from Kosovo in
1999, after withdrawal of the Yugoslav army and police and the subsequent
installation of UNMIK and KFOR. An additional 4000, fled the riots in 2004 ,so
that they are living today in the central part of Serbia, often not far from
Kosovo waiting to the possibility of return.
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Other non-Albanians who fled out of fear of the Albanian revenge are living in
the central part of Serbia. Some of them have returned to Kosovo but are living
in the camps .Most of them are Roma.
The return process, six years later, is not yet a reality , it did not
seriously begun.
It is generally admitted that currently as many Serbs are leaving Kosovo as are
returning if not more.
I n his report, Mr Kai Eide listed the principal reasons for this : absolutely
most important is insecurity and the absence of freedom of movement, a result
of the hostile behaviour and violence of the Albanian population, former
neighbours, and the practical impunity of perpetrators, due to the absence of
vigorous prosecution. Furthermore their agricultural or commercial properties
remain illegally occupied, often destroyed, and repossession is impossible due
to the indifference of the police and judicial bodies. They are unwilling
and/or incapable of undertaking any action, a case of criminal negligence.
The return must be considered as a basic human right, and a top priority.
All of those who fled the violence , regardless of the moment , should be given
a chance to return, without restriction not only to where they have lived but
also where they can live in security. They are entitled to be fully indemnified
for all losses and expenses.
Only a wide decentralization and recognition communities as legitimate entities,
entitled to exercise their competences, by improving the security of persons and
property, access to general services, education and other civil rights, can
ensure the return of displaced persons and their normal life.. It is
indispensable that the Kosovo Government takes the responsibility for the
implementation of elementary standards such as the rule of law, a multiethnic
society and equal access to general services and jobs in the administration,
which should be multilingual.
.
8 )Privatization process
A privatization process is under way despite the absence of a well defined legal
basis to do so.
Private property and Serbian state- owned or socially-owned companies,
factories, mines and real estate often entered the process of privatization
without taking care to find out who was the owner.
Tacitly it has been assumed that everything which is located in Kosovo is the
property of the Kosovo Government!!!
It is useful to remind that during the period of 45 years despite an active
policy of accelerated development and important effort of investments, mostly
from external funds, the economic development of Kosovo was very modest. Those
funds were coming from Serbia, from federal development funds or international
credits. During the redistribution of funds Kosovo accounted for 40% to 50% as
much as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia together.
During the period 1950-1985 the external funds represent between 70% and 90% of
all investments in the Province. The efficiency of the investments in Kosovo was
very low; it cost twice as much in investments in Kosovo than as it did in other
part of Serbia to obtain the same results in economic development .The
demographic investment rate in Kosovo amounted 15.6 per cent of the social
product, compared to 2.4 per cent in other parts of Serbia.
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Uncontrolled population growth and an unfavourable and inadequate population
structure are the main factor responsible for the low efficiency of the
investments.
The Albanian population of Kosovo doubled in the period of 1948 and 1971, the
most impressive growth rate in Europe. Children under the age of 14 account for
41% of the total population, more than 50% are younger than 18, and between 1961
and 1981 the mean age of the total population dropped from 25.6 to 24.2 years.
Furthermore, in the period between 1950 and 1985 besides the high growth there
is a strong decline in death rates and the consequent increase in the expected
average life span, from 48.6 to 66.3 years of age for men and from 45.2 to 70.3
years of age for women, despite of very high number of children,4.9 per woman.
The extremely high expenditures in the health and welfare area seem to be
fruitful.
There is no doubt that the stance that everything belongs to the Kosovo
Government is completely unfounded.
The international credits for Kosovo, which today amount to $1.16 billion, are
still being reimbursed by Serbia.
It is of capital importance that further privatization stops until the property
rights are clearly established and that for the companies, already sold, their
real owners are indemnified.
9) The Serbian Orthodox religious sites and institutions
The Orthodox sacred places are located everywhere in Kosovo.
Simple decentralization cannot provide the solution for all sites. They are
very often surrounded by large and hostile Albanian population.
The Patriarchate of the Serbian Orthodox church in Pec is a striking example.
It has been many times in the last 25 years damaged by fires. As a supreme
Serbian sacred object it is considered as a target of strategic importance In
general a monastery is seen as an embassy of Belgrade.
Today it is essential that the military forces improve their effectiveness in
protecting holy places, although a durable solution cannot be based only on
military force.
It happens too often that in their presence important monasteries, some of them
a part of the world cultural heritage, are destroyed.
.
All Serbian holy sites accomplish a double function:
-they are a part of the Serbian cultural and religious heritage indispensable
for the spiritual life of the Serbs, in Kosovo, in other parts of Serbia and
Montenegro and in the rest of the world. Recently, UNESCO made an inventory of
a great number of them with a description of their meaning and importance.
- Also they have an everyday spiritual function.
It is indispensable that the access to all sacred places be without risk and
easy .
We are living in Europe and in the 21st century.
Last but not least the Serbian Orthodox Church is entitled to request the return
of all its property, mainly land and woods, nationalized during communist rule.
In other parts of Serbia this process is underway Kosovo, cannot be the
exception..
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10) General considerations and conclusions:
The problem of common life of different communities in Kosovo is an old one, but
the solution for a multi-ethnic society is possible only on the basis of respect
for human rights, and orientated towards the future.
The historical background, the objectives of one population, not realized in
the 19th century, should not be neglected, but it may not be the decisive
factor in shaping the future, two centuries later.
The solution should be a result of the needs and aspirations of all citizens,
belonging to the different communities .It may not become the Procrustean bed
for ones due to the intolerance and exaggerated ambitions of the others.
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The model of the state organization in Belgium fulfils these requirements; it is
based on the priority of the human rights concept and it is, in the same time,
flexible in application, and does not lead to the partition of the Province.
The UN Security Council accepted a difficult task, realized a small part of it,
and six years later cannot abandon the leadership. The UN will continue the
monitoring of a new phase and its leadership should be maintained.
The international community must envisage its presence for long years after the
final settlement; it is indispensable for the implementation and sustainability
of the agreement
A long term legal validity of the basic framework of the agreement and its
concept, will be
most important factor for the peace and stability in the entire region.
The UN Security Council should remain the warrant that the principles and
spirit of the agreement should not be modified , unilaterally or under the
pressure.
In the case of Kosovo a hidden agenda may become catastrophic for the
stability of the Balkans and a source of permanent conflict situation.
BIERBEEK December 15, 2005 Dr.Djordje Jovanovic
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Serbian News Network - SNN
[email protected]
http://www.antic.org/
