Lies of the vigilantes

Lies of the vigilantes





The Srebrenica ruling punctures the false claims that underpin the doctrine of intervention



John Laughland

Wednesday February 28, 2007

The Guardian



Slobodan Milosevic was posthumously exonerated on Monday when the international court of justice ruled that Serbia was not responsible for the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica. The former president of Serbia had always argued that neither Yugoslavia nor Serbia had command of the Bosnian Serb army, and this has now been upheld by the world court in The Hague. By implication, Serbia cannot be held responsible for any other war crimes attributed to the Bosnian Serbs.



Article continues

The allegations against Milosevic over Bosnia and Croatia were cooked up in 2001, two years after an earlier indictment had been issued against him by the separate international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at the height of Nato's attack on Yugoslavia in 1999. Notwithstanding the atrocities on all sides in Kosovo, Nato claims that Serbia was pursuing genocide turned out to be war propaganda, so the ICTY prosecutor decided to bolster a weak case by trying to "get" Milosevic for Bosnia as well. It took two years and 300 witnesses, but the prosecution never managed to produce conclusive evidence against its star defendant, and its central case has now been conclusively blown out of the water.



The international court of justice (ICJ) did condemn Serbia on Monday for failing to act to prevent Srebrenica, on the basis that Belgrade failed to use its influence over the Bosnian Serb army. But this is small beer compared to the original allegations. Serbia's innocence of the central charge is reflected in the court's ruling that Serbia should not pay Bosnia any reparations - supplying an armed force is not the same as controlling it. Yugoslavia had no troops in Bosnia and greater guilt over the killings surely lies with those countries that did, notably the Dutch battalion in Srebrenica itself. Moreover, during the Bosnian war, senior western figures famously fraternised with the Bosnian Serb leaders now indicted for genocide, including the US general Wesley Clark and our own John Reid. Should they also be condemned for failing to use their influence?



However, Monday's ruling is about far more than Milosevic. Ever since the end of the cold war, the US and its allies have acted like vigilantes, claiming the right to bomb other countries in the name of humanity. The Kosovo war was the most important action taken on this basis and, as such, the curtain-raiser for Iraq. Fought, like the Iraq war, without UN approval, it was waged partly because the international community felt it should have intervened more robustly against Yugoslavia over Bosnia. It now turns out that Serbia was not in control in Bosnia after all. The ruling therefore punctures a decade-and-a-half of lies in support of the doctrine of military and judicial interventionism.



The ICJ, indeed, operates on a radically different philosophy of international relations than that which inspires the ICTY. Unlike the ICTY, the ICJ is not a criminal court and claims no power of constraint over states. Its jurisprudence is based on the anti-war sovereignty-based philosophy of the Nuremberg trial and the UN charter. In the international system, born out of the second world war, war is illegal except in a very restricted cases. States have no right to attack other states, not even on human rights abuse claims. This position is based on the understanding that there are no war crimes without war, and that war always makes things worse.



Mere anarchy was loosed upon the world when the cold war ended and the US sought to create a unipolar world system by destroying the old one. After the 1991 Iraq war, the US and Britain claimed the right to bomb Iraq to protect the Kurds and Shias, which they did for 12 years. Nato bombed the Bosnian Serbs in 1995 and Yugoslavia in 1999. The ICTY, created in 1993, operates on the basis of this doctrine of interventionism, which has come to its ghastly conclusion in the bloodbaths of Iraq and Afghanistan.



Created and controlled by the Great Powers, the ICTY, like its sister courts for Rwanda and the new international criminal court, corrupts the judicial process for political ends, the most important of which is to support the US's supposed right to act as the world's policeman. The new ICC, created by Britain, also seems to operate on the basis that white men do not commit war crimes: its prosecutors are currently investigating two local wars in Africa while turning a blind eye to Iraq. Only when that hideous strength which flows from the hypocrisy of interventionism is sapped, will the world stand any chance of returning to lawfulness and peace.



· John Laughland is the author of Travesty: the Trial of Slobodan Milosevic and the Corruption of International Justice jlaughland@btinternet.com

powered by performancing firefox

Serbs tell America: Hands off Kosovo

Serbs tell America: Hands off Kosovo

By Matt Robinson

Reuters

Tuesday, February 27, 2007; 12:59 PM

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Some 15,000 Serbs protested outside
the U.S. embassy in Belgrade on Tuesday to denounce a
Western-backed plan to give independence to the Albanian
majority of Serbia's breakaway Kosovo province.

Some carried banners urging "Russia, Use Your Veto" to
block the proposal at the United Nations Security Council.
Cardboard cut-outs of Russian President Vladimir Putin and
Chinese leader Hu Jintao bobbed above the crowd.

Serb civil servants in Kosovo, who answer to Belgrade, were
given the day off and schools were closed so that all who
wanted to could travel to the capital for the protest. Dozens
of buses made the eight-hour round trip from Kosovo.

"Kosovo is the foundation and soul of Serbia," Kosovo Serb
political leader Milan Ivanovic said from a stage opposite the
embassy. "We appeal to the world not to carve up Serbia."

Serbs and Albanians are holding final talks in Vienna on
the plan by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. He wants
to send the blueprint to the U.N. Security Council in late
March.

But veto holder Russia repeated its skepticism on Tuesday.

"Frankly, we are worried at the absence of any desire to
meet the legitimate concerns of Belgrade," Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov said of the plan at a news conference in Moscow.

"The contents of the plan lead one to think that the
authors ... took as a starting point the inevitability of
Kosovo's independence regardless of Belgrade's views."

DEEP DIVISIONS

The Kosovo demonstration, backed by the ultranationalist
Radicals and the party of Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav
Kostunica, took place a day after the International Court of
Justice ruled in a landmark case that Serbia was not guilty of
genocide in the 1992-95 Bosnia war.

The verdict in The Hague threw a spotlight on the deep
divisions in Serbia over its role in the bloody break-up of
Yugoslavia in the 1990s, in which Serb forces under the late
President Slobodan Milosevic committed most of the atrocities.

Many Serbs deny this. The sense of vindication claimed by
nationalist parties who say Serb forces behaved no worse than
their wartime adversaries is likely to reinforce their
determination to oppose a U.N. plan to give Kosovo
independence.

The United Nations and NATO have run Serbia's cherished
province since 1999, when Western allies bombed Serbia to force
it to withdraw its troops and police who killed some 10,000
civilians in their crackdown on an Albanian guerrilla uprising.

The province's 90 percent Albanian majority say it will
never accept Serb rule again, and the West says there is no
viable alternative to granting them self-determination.

But Belgrade and the 100,000 Serbs still living in Kosovo
oppose the plan and there is no guarantee the province will not
be plunged once more into violence before its status is
settled. The plan should go to the U.N. Security Council in
March.

© />http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/27/AR2007022700661_pf.html

powered by performancing firefox

Russian FM says no deadline for Kosovo status talks

Russian FM says no deadline for Kosovo status talks

RIA Novosti

22/02/2007 16:11 BERLIN, February 22 (RIA
Novosti) - Russia's foreign minister said Thursday a UN envoy for talks
on Kosovo should not set a deadline for a final decision on the status
for Serbia's Albanian-populated region.

Marti Ahtisaari, who has proposed that the Balkan province be given
an internationally supervised sovereignty, has said talks are to end by
March 10 after which the matter will return to the UN Security Council.

"It is not up to him to decide whether there is still time for
making a decision or not," Sergei Lavrov told a news conference after a
meeting with his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. "Mr.
Ahtisaari has been fulfilling a UN task, which is to mediate between
the parties in the Kosovo conflict."

Lavrov also reiterated that Russia would not try to impose any decisions on Kosovars.

"A decision on Kosovo can only be adopted by the parties involved in
the dispute themselves, nobody can impose it on them. Anyway, Russia
will not be part of any such scheme," he said.

Belgrade and Pristina held talks on Ahtisaari's proposal in Vienna Wednesday, but no breakthrough was made.

Belgrade has rejected proposals to give independence to the region,
which has been under a UN protectorate since 1999 after U.S. air raids
conducted to end alleged ethnic cleansing by Serbian troops.

Serbian authorities say they are willing to grant Kosovo broad autonomy, but will never let the province secede from Serbia.

Albanian leaders have said Kosovo's independence is the only option for them.

Lavrov also said only provisions in the UN Kosovo resolution benefiting the Albanian population had been implemented thus far.

"It is no secret that the return of refugees to Kosovo and those
ethnic minorities displaced has not taken place except for a minor
group. 90% of Serbs, Gypsies and other minorities who once lived in
Kosovo cannot return," he said.

The provision on a limited Serbian police force and border guards has not been implemented at all, the minister added.

Russia, a traditional ally of fellow Slavic Serbia and a veto
wielding Security Council member, has been opposed to internationally
backed plans to grant sovereignty to Kosovo, also arguing it would set
a precedent for the breakaway regions in the former Soviet Union it is
believed to support: Georgia's Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and
Moldova's Transdnestr.

powered by performancing firefox

Three Arguments Agains Kosovo Independence

Three Arguments Agains Kosovo Independence



By Yevgeny Primakov, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences

/>Astory published in [MN #5] offered an in-depth analysis of a plan for Kosovo presented by Martti Ahtisaari, special envoy of the U.N. secretary general and former president of Finland.



The document, drawn up on the basis of Ahtisaari's numerous trips to Belgrade and Pristina, as well as a number of meetings with statesmen from different countries, skirts the issue of Kosovo's independence. At the same time, however, it provides essential trappings of a sovereign state - the emblem, the flag, the anthem, as well as an issue of special importance, the right to join international organizations - including the U.N., the EU and NATO.



Serbia took a sharply negative view of the plan. The position of Kosovo's Albanians, however, is not so negative because U.S. and some West European politicians are telling Pristina that the proposal will lead to Kosovo's formal separation from Serbia and that the province will eventually become an independent state. This status, they say, is a foregone conclusion: the plan is a bona fide road map to independence, but it cannot be granted right away. Amid such statements, demonstrations in Pristina against the plan resemble a means of pressuring the Serbs and the world community as a whole to embrace the plan - or else.



What is to be done in this situation, given the extremely complex nature of the problem at hand and its obvious implications for other conflicts in various parts of the world, not to mention global relations?



There are several factors that need to be taken into account if a compromise solution is to be achieved.



Kosovo and Metohia are considered to be the Serbs' native and ancestral land, a land where their civilization, culture and identity evolved. The Serbian Constitution, recently adopted in a nationwide referendum, calls Kosovo an inalienable part of Serbia. Kosovo's formal secession from Serbia - not a compromise solution acceptable to the Serbian side - will sharply strengthen the positions of the country's radical forces.



The Albanians have also lived in Kosovo for centuries. As a result of the standoff between the Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo, not least with the use of force, ethnic Albanians account for 90 percent of the province's population. Under Josip Broz Tito, Kosovo had an autonomy status as part of Yugoslavia. Following the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Kosovo's Albanians created their own parliament (Skupstina) that in 1990 passed a law on the province's independence. That did not lead, however, to its breakaway from Serbia; rather a de facto diarchy was established in Kosovo. Ibrahim Rugova, elected "president" of Kosovo, adhered to a moderate position, specifically during negotiations with Belgrade.



There was a handful of advocates for Kosovo's independent status outside the province. In 1996, as Russian foreign minister, I met with the Albanian foreign minister at a U.N. General Assembly session in New York. He told me that his country (even his country - Ye.P.) only saw a solution to the Kosovo problem within the borders of Yugoslavia. A similar position was recorded in a number of documents adopted by the Contact Group, comprising Russia, the U.S., Germany, the U.K., and France. The Group's first statement on Kosovo was adopted on September 24, 1997 with my participation. The resolution was based on the assumption that the Kosovo problem was Yugoslavia's internal affair. We subsequently revisited the Kosovo issue on numerous occasions, but the general consensus was that Kosovo is not an independent state entity. The debate between myself and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright proceeded along the following lines: "Kosovo is part of Yugoslavia" (Albright) and "Kosovo is part of Serbia" (myself). Whatever the case, both the U.S. and Russia considered Kosovo to be a "part" of another state. Furthermore, the U.S. State Department put the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which was using force to drive the Serbs out of Kosovo, on a list of terrorist organizations.



But starting in 1998, the situation began to turn around. There is no need to mention the rest of the story - it is well known. Its main distinguishing feature was that it was not diplomacy, not politics, but NATO that had become the principal player on the Yugoslav scene. The situation did not change when the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) formally took over, creating "provisional self-government" and conducting [parliamentary] elections that were boycotted by the Serb population. Nor did anything change for the better when international military and police forces were brought into Kosovo - a total of 16,500 servicemen from NATO member countries.



Today, the Serbs have become second-rate citizens, exposed to constant pressure from Kosovo Albanians who are determined to evict even the tiny number of Serbs that remain in the province.



What now? There are two scenarios. One is to treat the Ahtisaari plan as a basis for serious negotiations between the parties involved, even if this requires considerable time. It may be recalled that the Cyprus and Irish problem has been debated for decades. This is not to suggest that the Kosovo crisis should be allowed to drag on. But is a forcible settlement, infringing on the interests of the Serbs, really the best method of maintaining stability in the region? Jumping the gun can be as dangerous as marking time.



The second option is to use the Ahtisaari plan as a basis for a U.N. Security Council resolution. This line of action is favored by the U.S. It is acting in haste, apparently without assessing the possible fallout of this haste. But if it is drafted by the U.S. and other Western countries, I believe that Russia should veto a resolution recognizing Kosovo's independence. The U.S. must understand Russia's motives.



I would like to mention three.



First, granting Kosovo independence could reopen interethnic armed conflicts in the post-Soviet area that required so much effort to extinguish - between Georgia and Abkhazia, Georgia and South Ossetia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Moldova and Transdnestr.



According to Condoleezza Rice, she often told her Russian interlocutors that Kosovo "may not be a precedent." But can this proposition be used as a policy basis? I do not think so. Kosovo's secession from Serbia is a special case: The attempt is being made to separate an autonomous republic from a state with internationally recognized borders. But the secession of an autonomous republic from a state must be approved by the state's entire population. I am afraid that Kosovo's secession from Serbia will fuel separatism in Europe, among other regions.



Second, granting Kosovo independence could affect the state structure of the Balkans, which is more or less well balanced today - not immediately, of course, but gradually eroding the system of the existing state borders.



Third, Russian public opinion. Fortunately, gone are the days when it could be simply ignored. Today - I will not go into the historical, traditionalist or purely psychological factors - it is strongly on the side of the Serbs who have, in addition, suffered more than others in the Balkans over the past few years.



I am asking Condoleezza Rice, with whom I used to have good business contacts and, I hope, still have a friendly relationship, to pay attention to these motives. Clearly, they far outweigh the desire of the U.S. administration to achieve at least one success story in settling a crisis.



http://english.mn.ru/english/issue.php?2007-6-7

powered by performancing firefox

In Defence of Kosovo’s Serbs

17, 2007

In Defence of Kosovo’s Serbs

There must be no return to ethnic cleansing in the Balkans



It is eight years since Nato halted Slobodan Milosevic’s persecution of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians, in an onslaught that emptied and torched villages, killed about 100,000 and forced almost a million to flee. Returning Albanians turned on their persecutors, killing 1,000 Kosovan Serbs; 200,000 left the province, never to return. Kosovo became a UN protectorate, administered and policed by foreigners, including a 17,000strong Nato contingent whose thankless job has been to hold the ring between two embittered communities, 90 per cent of them Albanian and 10 per cent Serb.



Morally, the Albanians have a strong case for full independence — provided that the Serbs among them are properly protected from physical danger and economic discrimination. Legally, Kosovo is a province of Serbia, which argues that to give the territory independence would be an attack on Serbia’s territorial integrity, and thus a violation of the UN Charter.



Politically, the vital thing is to prevent Kosovo, where ancestral memories of conflict reach deep into medieval history, from becoming, once again, the tinder-box of the Balkans. So the UN and Nato put Kosovo’s future on hold until a compromise could be reached that all parties were prepared to accept.



The idea was reasonable; but because compromise is not a word in the Albanian and Serbian vocabularies, it was not feasible. Eight years on the remaining Serbs, heavily dependent on subsidies from Belgrade, live in segregated enclaves, protected by Nato troops, from which most do not dare to emerge. Continued assaults on their ancient churches intensify their fears for the future. The Albanians retort that the Serbs cut themselves off by choice, dealing only with Belgrade, and that they should blame Mr Milosevic, not their Albanian compatriots, for their present plight. The risk of conflict is almost as high as it was when Kosovo was taken under Nato’s wing.



Doing nothing is no longer an option. Kosovo could erupt if Albanian demands continue to be shunted into the “too difficult” file; meanwhile, much of Western Europe quietly hopes the remaining Serbs will ethnically cleanse themselves.



On behalf of the UN, Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish President and a veteran of Balkan negotiations, has come up with a plan for a form of Kosovan independence, supervised by the EU. The word does not appear, but Kosovo would have the trappings of statehood, including its own army and the right to join international organisations. The plan goes too far for the Serbians and not far enough for the Kosovans. They meet next week in Vienna for supposedly “final negotiations”. No one expects progress. The buck then passes to the Security Council, where Russia could use its veto.



This plan offers Serb communities considerable autonomy. They would be unwise to refuse. But they need better guarantees, equal citizenship and opportunities. An incentive to good faith would be an offer, made now, of EU membership for both Serbia and Kosovo, if they jointly ensure the welfare of all Kosovans. So bold a step would be out of character for the EU. But it could hold the key to a durable Balkan peace.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article1398161.ece

powered by performancing firefox

Russia raises prospect of UN veto on Kosovo

Russia raises prospect of UN veto on Kosovo



09.02.2007 - 18:08 CET | By Andrew Rettman



EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Russia has made clear it will veto any UN security council resolution that proposes Kosovo independence without Serb agreement, adding it would favour a confederation between Belgrade and Pristina instead to help soothe separatist tension in the Western Balkans and beyond.



"If it is a negotiated solution, Russia will not oppose it. But if it is an imposed solution, Russia will oppose it," Russia's EU ambassador Vladimir Chizhov told EUobserver on Thursday (8 February). "Russia may not be happy even with a negotiated solution because of its impact on other parts of the world."



"If a negotiated solution based on something different from independence is found then it makes Kosovo a positive precedent - it's hard to speculate, maybe a loose confederation, a union or whatever," he added. "But if there is an imposed solution based on independehttp://www.euobserver.com/onm/onm_news2.phtml?aid=23468nce, it will serve as a negative precedent."



The remarks come after UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari last week presented a draft blueprint for Kosovo's future that puts the UN-administered region on the road to statehood, with talks between Belgrade - which has condemned the plan - and Pristina to take place in Vienna on 21 February.



The Kosovo issue will ultimately be decided by a new UN security council resolution in the next few months, with Russia and China holding vetos at UN level and with the other veto powers, the US, the UK and France broadly in favour of giving Pristina the independence it craves.



Ravaged by ethnic conflict just eight years ago, Kosovo continues to see skirmishes between its ethnic Serb minority and ethnic Albanian majority in a situation that risks plunging Europe back into the darkest period in its recent history and causing ripples in disputed territories around the world.



"Whether you or I like it or not, Kosovo will serve as a precedent for others," Mr Chizhov said, outlining a "concentric circle" effect that could see future calls for independence by ethnic Albanian enclaves in Serbia's Presevo Valley, parts of Macedonia and Montenegro as well as by the Serb community in Bosnia.



"Then if you look further afield, people in Transdniestria [Moldova], South Ossetia [Georgia], Abkhazia [Georgia], Nagorno-Karabakh [Azerbaijan], not to mention Northern Cyprus...would say they have more reasons to claim independence than Kosovo," the ambassador went on.



"What about Quebec? And if you look to the other side of the planet, what about Taiwan? This is a concern for another member of the permanent security council [China]," he said, adding there is "no sense of inevitability" about Kosovo's independence in Moscow today. "The Ahtisaari proposals...might change."



The Russian ambassador also criticised the EU and US' excessive focus on the sensitivities of Kosovo Albanians and the safety of international peacekeepers, suggesting the west is neglecting the rights of the Serb nationalist camp - associated in the EU with Slobodan Milosevic's bloody crackdown against ethnic Albanians in 1998.



"You cannot count on a solution that requires difficult choices for one side and easy choices for the other," Mr Chizhov said. "Everybody is afraid of the Kosovo Albanians going ballistic, but nobody is talking about what the Serbs might do."



"Let's face it: UN resolution 1244 [which currently governs Serbia-Kosovo relations] has been implemented only partially, only those parts that favour Kosovo Albanians," he explained, giving the example of a UN mandate for a contingent of 999 Serb soldiers to guard Serb holy sites in Kosovo "which never materialised."



EU seeks ways to placate Serbia

Meanwhile, EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday will discuss the possibility of re-starting EU integration talks with Serbia despite Belgrade's non-compliance with the UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague, which has demanded the hand-over of fugitive general Ratko Mladic.



UN prosecutor Carla del Ponte last week urged the EU not to re-engage with Belgrade until Mladic is in the dock, in a line championed by the Netherlands at EU level. But an increasing number of EU states is swinging toward giving Serbia a sweetener to improve the chances of Mr Ahtisaari's plan.



"We won't necessarily follow her advice," a senior EU diplomat told EUobserver on Friday, before questioning Ms del Ponte's judgment, saying she is prone to "mood swings" and "maybe focusing on Mladic too much."



http://euobserver.com/24/23468

powered by performancing firefox

Kosovo needs a balanced solution

[Comment] Kosovo needs a balanced solution

06.02.2007 - 17:43 CET
| By Jan Kubis



EUOBSERVER / COMMENT – Slovakia is one of the 15 members of the UN
Security Council deciding on whether or not the new Kosovo status plan
presented by Maarti Ahtisaari will be adopted and, if so, along what
lines.





The UN special envoy's plan represents an open proposal but its author
has already indicated that he has no intention of entering into lengthy
negotiations with the two parties, but rather intends to conduct
consultations, limited in time, on certain aspects of the deal.





The process is set to culminate with the adoption of a new Security
Council resolution, which is a prerequisite for the EU to step in and
take over responsibility from the UN in Kosovo and for the presence of
KFOR in the area to continue.





No new resolution, however, could lead to a set of unilateral acts whose direction is impossible to control.





Several factors will influence Slovakia's position and priorities as we
enter into the final act of the Kosovo drama and as we hear more about
the Ahtisaari plan.





Slobodan Milosevic's liquidation policy towards Kosovo Albanians caused
their exodus from Kosovo and prompted a NATO-led military intervention
while the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 then placed Kosovo under
interim UN administration.





However, this move fell short of preventing the exodus of Serbs from
Kosovo, most of whom never returned to the region. This was followed by
the building of democratic institutions and several elections, often
with the participation of Kosovar Serbs, followed by their boycott of
the newly elected institutions.





Now the economy is in dire straits and unemployment rates are extremely
high. The omnipresent ethnic tension is aggravated by occasional fatal
incidents. This situation calls for massive civilian and military
engagement by the international community.





The status quo has ceased to be sustainable. While in 1999 Kosovo was
faced with a number of different scenarios, the course of events
gradually lead to a single one remaining today.





Under the supervision of the UN Security Council and the Contact Group,
steps have been taken since 1999 to reinforce the de facto autonomy of
Kosovo and its independence from Serbia.





Serbia has no intention of agreeing to Kosovo's independence. A certain
part of Slovakia's public as well as of its political forces support
this stance since they see the matter as a separation of a territory
against the will of the state.





However, Slovakia's public is equally aware of the fact that in order
to attain its aim Belgrade is offering Kosovo unprecedented, almost
absolute autonomy under the principle of minorities' collective rights
– which is a model based on the principle that we deem unacceptable.





The situation leaves open very few alternatives, none of which seems
appealing. There is no ideal solution to it. Nevertheless, our first
and foremost interest lies in a future solution that will enhance
peace, stability and prosperity in the Balkans.





The outcome must not be a victory for one party and a defeat and
humiliation of the other one. It must reflect reality, yet at the same
it has to aim at providing a European perspective to the entire region.






Therefore, today, EU member states must come together and unite both in
finding a solution for Kosovo and in promoting a European perspective
for Serbia, while giving some concessions.





This is our responsibility towards our national interests, but also
towards our partners in the EU and our allies in NATO. Slovakia is in
its second year on the UN Security Council and this month we also hold
its presidency. Through our position on the issue of Kosovo, we must
show that our country is mature enough to shoulder such responsibility.






The author is Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic.

powered by performancing firefox

Kosovo's independence drive kindles ethnic fears

International Herald Tribune

Kosovo's independence drive kindles ethnic fears

By CRAIG S. SMITH

Sunday, February 4, 2007

MITROVICA, Kosovo



Thuggish Serbian "bridge watchers" still maintain their vigil on the north side of the Ibar River here, ready to punish any ethnic Albanian who dares to cross the unofficial boundary between Serbian and ethnic Albanian territory in Europe's unfinished war.



Kosovo, still officially a province of Serbia, is bitterly divided between Serbian enclaves, including a large chunk of the north, and the rest of the territory, which is overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian. Now, as the United Nations nudges Kosovo toward what it calls "final status" and Belgrade calls independence, many of northern Kosovo's Serbs are threatening to break away.



"Northern Kosovo will secede," warned Oliver Ivanovic, a moderate Serbian politician here. Mr. Ivanovic says he has been warning the United Nations, NATO, the European Union and the United States that, nearly eight years after a NATO bombing campaign drove the Serbian Army and other security forces out of Kosovo, it is still too early to settle the status of the disputed territory. "Kosovo's independence will leave no space for the moderates to act."



Secession by northern Serbs could provoke Albanian reprisals against Serbian enclaves elsewhere in Kosovo, warn Serbs and Albanians alike, and could destabilize a still fragile region full of ethnic slivers separated from their homelands.



Kosovo, which is more than 90 percent ethnic Albanian, has struggled since the early 20th century to free itself from the dominance of Belgrade. With the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s the fight began anew, but Serbia resisted fiercely.



The war was marked by atrocities on both sides and a horrific cycle of "ethnic cleansing," as the formerly mixed Serbian and ethnic Albanian populations pulled apart. Nearly 10,000 ethnic Albanians died as well as many Serbs. Thousands more, mostly ethnic Albanians, remain missing.



It ended with NATO's intervention in 1999, and the province has been administered by the United Nations ever since.



[A United Nations mediator, Martti Ahtisaari, presented his proposals for Kosovo's final status to officials in Belgrade and Pristina on Friday, but the two sides remained far apart. The Serbian president, Boris Tadic, immediately rejected the plans as a prelude to independence while Kosovo Albanians — who with the United States' blessing have said they will accept nothing less than independence — welcomed them. The continued standoff suggested that the intended end may instead be a prologue to another difficult chapter in a troubled history.]



Most of the Kosovo Serbs insist that they will never accept an independent Kosovo. Even if the government in Pristina does hoist a new national flag, they say, they will fight to recover the province that Serbs still consider their cultural heartland — the cradle and, in 1389 at the hand of the Turks, the grave of their great medieval empire.



"It would create a situation like Iraq or Lebanon here in Serbia," said Milan Ivanovic, a doctor at Mitrovica's hospital and head of Kosovo's hard-line Serbian National Council (no relation to Oliver Ivanovic). He cited the Christian reconquest of Moorish Spain and France's eventual recovery of the Alsace-Lorraine region from Germany as models. "We would fight to get Kosovo back with all legitimate means."



Kosovo Albanians and their international supporters hope that a high degree of autonomy in Serbian areas with guarantees for the protection of Serbian rights and strict international oversight will eventually persuade Serbs in the territory to accept an Albanian-led government in Pristina.



"Hopefully, with independence, a local Serb leadership will emerge to address the needs of the Serbs within the Kosovo system," said Muhamet Hamiti, an adviser to Kosovo's president, Fatmir Sejdiu.



Some moderate Serbian politicians are already willing to work within a Kosovo national system, even if their political support in the Serbian community is small.



But Serbian enclaves, particularly northern Kosovo, still operate under Serbian national authority and draw most of their financial support from Belgrade, raising questions about how Pristina could enforce sovereignty over Kosovo Serbs without coercive actions that would risk provoking more violence.



Nowhere is the divide as clear as in the region around this northern city. A United Nations-financed train that links the rest of Kosovo's Serb enclaves with the north carries Serbs and Albanians alike until it reaches the Mitrovica station south of the river. There, even the Albanian conductor gets off. Only Serbs ride on for another 15 minutes across an iron railroad bridge to the end of the line.



"I'm not brave enough to go up there," the conductor said, watching the train pull away. "I survived the war. I don't need another challenge."



Cars carry Serbian license plates and the economy still operates on the Serbian dinar even though the Albanian areas of this long-disputed territory, now administered by the United Nations, long ago converted to the euro. Serbia's Ministry of Education in Belgrade has even set up what it calls the "University of Pristina, Temporarily Located in Mitrovica."



"How can they force us to accept independence?" asked Dr. Ivanovic, the Serbian politician, who like many people working for Serbian institutions in Kosovo's Serbian enclaves is paid an above average salary by Belgrade as a reward for his loyalty.



While many people see fixing Kosovo's eventual independence as the last chapter of Yugoslav disintegration, Serbs see it as the dismemberment of their homeland.



The province, ringed by snowy mountains and populated with great colonies of inky rooks that gave it its name (kos means blackbird in Serbian), is home to the Serbian Orthodox Church's most sacred sites.



"This is the spiritual center of the Serbian Church," said Sister Dobrila, a nun at the monastery of the Patriarchate of Pec, which was built around a richly frescoed Byzantine church from the 13th century that holds the tombs of Serbia's medieval archbishops.



She noted that western Kosovo, the site of the monastery, is called Metohija in Serbian, which means "church land." "It's sacred territory," she said.



Even the birds, which swarm over Pristina to settle in its trees at night, are woven into the nationalist myth. According to Serbian folklore, the birds are the souls of the dead from the 14th century battle of Kosovo, in which a Serbian-led Christian army sought to stop the Ottoman advance — an advance whose legacy is the nominally Muslim Albanian majority in the province today.



The common analogy given to Americans, imperfect but pertinent in the emotions it stirs, is the notion of secession by Florida or New Mexico, if the Spanish-speaking populations in those states became a majority. The analogy is imperfect because few Americans, most of whom are already long separated from their cultural roots, have as deep an emotional connection to place as many Europeans have.



That is why Europe, understanding the violence of such emotions, is not united behind the United Nations plan. Countries facing their own secessionist movements — Spain with the Basques, Romania with ethnic Hungarians, and Russia with Chechens and peoples of other rebellious territories — are skeptical of what they see as an American effort to jam a solution into place so Washington can turn its attention elsewhere.



"A forced solution is not a solution," said Marko Jaksic, head of the Democratic Party of Serbia and widely regarded as the most powerful politician in Mitrovica.

International Herald Tribune Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

powered by performancing firefox

Will Kosovo Independence Hurt Stability?

Eastern Europe January 31, 2007, 1:25PM EST text size: TT



Will Kosovo Independence Hurt Stability?



The UN's plan for the territory's gradual independence will trouble Serbia and other Balkan states, but fears of war or political strife are much exaggerated



by Tihomir Loza



Now that the UN Kosovo envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, has presented his proposal for the territory's future status to the "contact group" of international overseers, there is little doubt that Kosovo is going to become independent. Not immediately, though. Ahtisaari's report will not be published before he presents it to Belgrade and Pristina on 2 February. Most leaks accompanying his 26 January meeting with the group (the U.S., Russia, France, the U.K, Italy, and Germany), however, spoke of a mechanism enabling Kosovo to gradually take control of its own affairs and seek membership of international institutions.



This would then create conditions for the Kosovo government to declare independence, which would in turn enable those countries wishing to do so to recognize Kosovo as an independent state. In this way the Western powers, all of whom favor independence, would avoid having to go through the UN Security Council where Russia and possibly even China may block any resolution taking Kosovo away from Serbia.



This kind of a script for Kosovo's endgame is going to let all hell break loose in the Balkans, according to many mainstream media outlets in the West. Kosovo's Albanian majority will just freak out—and likely take their frustration out on the local Serbs—when they officially learn that Ahtisaari is not giving them instant independence; what's more, the proposal doesn't even seem to venture to say the independence word.



But as Ahtisaari's proposal will actually provide for Kosovo's independence in the near future, it is going to aggravate the Serbs in Serbia as well. And the Serbs are "still obsessed with the issue," so much so that their parliamentary elections earlier this month "revolved around it [Kosovo], giving the ultra-nationalist Radical party... a victory," to quote just one of many such news reports and opinions. What will the Serbs actually do? One never knows with them, suggests one columnist gravely, but expert opinion offered on the subject included warnings that the Serbs might even attempt to retake Kosovo.



The trouble does not stop there. There is also this place called Bosnia, where a very nationalist local Serb leader is said to have threatened to call a referendum on independence of the Serb part of the country in case Kosovo becomes independent, a prospect that promises yet more instability, warns the international press.



Luckily, there are far fewer reasons to be nervous about the Balkans right now. The Kosovo Albanians are very unlikely to repeat the violence of March 2004, when independence-demanding mobs attacked Serbs, their property and historic monuments throughout the province. Contrary to some popular assumptions, the Kosovo Albanians are not wild political animals who fly into raging fits every time they are denied immediate gratification of their desires. The March 2004 violence was not spontaneous. It was organized and sanctioned by people inside or close to Kosovo's leading political parties. Those people succeeded in painting a realistic picture for the international community of what they are capable of doing in case they don't get what they are asking for.



The situation is now radically different. To start with, the Kosovo Albanians are undoubtedly getting independence, though not as quickly as some of them might have hoped. Second, while the threat of Albanian mob violence has been an important element in all international calculations about Kosovo, the international security forces in the province are now far better prepared for such an eventuality, so that anyone entertaining the idea would think twice before giving the go-ahead. And all the signs in Pristina are that the Kosovo Albanian leaders understand full well that all they are required to do now is behave themselves for a change.



The chances of a Serbian military invasion of Kosovo in the foreseeable future are precisely zero. To start with, there will be significant international military presence there for many years to come. More importantly, there is very little to suggest that drumming up support for another war over Kosovo is even a remotely realistic possibility. There are even fewer signs that anyone is really going to try to do so. The Serbian elections did not revolve around Kosovo. In fact, the democratic parties, which together won a decisive victory, had all explicitly ruled out ever using military means to keep Kosovo inside Serbia.



It may be worth recalling here that, unlike the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, Serbia's Kosovo adventure in 1998–1999 could hardly be described as a popular war. One reason it went as far as it did is that it just wasn't unpopular enough to gather sufficient resistance among the Serbs.



More than anything else, the Serbs have been pretty confused about Kosovo for a couple of generations now. The reality of a lost demographic battle has dawned on the nation very gradually, with some able to grasp it decades ago, others taking it on board only recently. The bottom line is that those who believe Serbia could and should ever again rule the lives of Kosovo Albanians are now a minority, not a tiny one, not an insignificant minority, but a pretty powerless minority for sure.



It does not follow from this that the Serbs should be able to accept Kosovo's independence easily. The Kosovo most of them now have in mind is not so much a real land with real people going on about their everyday lives. Their Kosovo works primarily as an emotional entity that links them with their past. The ethnic Serbs who refuse to leave Kosovo as well as the numerous artifacts that this emotional entity relates to, however, are physically anchored—and guarded by international troops 24/7—in the territory of that real Kosovo. Obviously, the two cannot be separated and that's what the Kosovo issue is now largely about.



An important element in the Serbian rejection of Kosovo's independence will be the popular lack of respect for Albanians among the Serbs. Ethnic Albanians were close to the bottom of an unspoken yet omnipresent food-chain among the former Yugoslavia's ethnic groups, a rating list whose top was occupied by often antagonistic but largely mutually respecting—if not always respectful—Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. To reward the Albanians, who are still often disdained and ridiculed as backward by the region's nationalists, with something as shiny as an independent new state, on top of the one that they already have in Albania, just doesn't and will not soon make any sense to ordinary Serbs.



Now that Kosovo's independence is officially mapped out, does any of this mean a major destabilization of Serbia is on the cards? Definitely not. Yes, the formation of the next government may be slowed down as the more nationalist part of the democratic bloc does its expected ritual dance around Ahtisaari's proposal to express its alleged disgust and shock. Even small protests in front of some Western embassies in Belgrade shouldn't be ruled out. Anything more than that would be a shock, though. To be sure, Serbia may not recognize Kosovo's independence for many years and it may sulk and start asking for compensation, but it won't go to war, nor will its reform process suffer significantly because of developments in Kosovo.



As for Bosnia, there won't be any immediate Kosovo-related trouble there either. Republika Srpska Prime Minister Milorad Dodik never actually said that he would call a referendum on independence if Kosovo broke away from Serbia. He only spoke of such a referendum as a possible reaction to what he sees as attempts by Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) leaders in Sarajevo to use illegitimate means to impose their will on Bosnia's Serbs and Croats. Dodik first raised the issue last year when Montenegro proclaimed its independence, which he supported. As for linking the future of Bosnia and Kosovo, Dodik did say that secession by Kosovo could encourage similar logic across the region, including among the Bosnian Serbs. Last week, he warned his constituents, however, that his government won't hesitate to use force against anyone in Republika Srpska seeking to exploit the expected public dissatisfaction with Ahtisaari's proposals.



While no immediate destabilization of any part of the region should be expected, it is less clear what the long-term effects of Kosovo's independence will be on Macedonia and Montenegro. Both countries have large ethnic Albanian minorities. The big unknown here is whether an independent Kosovo as the biggest prize of them all will relax Albanian attitudes and put a stop to any future secessionist aspirations or whether it will encourage them.



Tihomir Loza is a deputy director of TOL....



http://www.businessweek.com/print/globalbiz/content/jan2007/gb20070131_949333.htm

powered by performancing firefox

On Road to Kosovo Independence, a Warning: Go Slow

The New York Times



Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By



February 4, 2007

On Road to Kosovo Independence, a Warning: Go Slow

By CRAIG S. SMITH



MITROVICA, Kosovo, Jan. 29 — Thuggish Serbian “bridge watchers” still maintain their vigil on the north side of the Ibar River here, ready to punish any ethnic Albanian who dares to cross the unofficial boundary between Serbian and ethnic Albanian territory in Europe’s unfinished war.



Kosovo, still officially a province of Serbia, is bitterly divided between Serbian enclaves, including a large chunk of the north, and the rest of the territory, which is overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian. Now, as the United Nations nudges Kosovo toward what it calls “final status” and Belgrade calls independence, many of northern Kosovo’s Serbs are threatening to break away.



“Northern Kosovo will secede,” warned Oliver Ivanovic, a moderate Serbian politician here. Mr. Ivanovic says he has been warning the United Nations, NATO, the European Union and the United States that, nearly eight years after a NATO bombing campaign drove the Serbian Army and other security forces out of Kosovo, it is still too early to settle the status of the disputed territory. “Kosovo’s independence will leave no space for the moderates to act.”



Secession by northern Serbs could provoke Albanian reprisals against Serbian enclaves elsewhere in Kosovo, warn Serbs and Albanians alike, and could destabilize a still fragile region full of ethnic slivers separated from their homelands.



Kosovo, which is more than 90 percent ethnic Albanian, has struggled since the early 20th century to free itself from the dominance of Belgrade. With the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s the fight began anew, but Serbia resisted fiercely.



The war was marked by atrocities on both sides and a horrific cycle of “ethnic cleansing,” as the formerly mixed Serbian and ethnic Albanian populations pulled apart. Nearly 10,000 ethnic Albanians died as well as many Serbs. Thousands more, mostly ethnic Albanians, remain missing.



It ended with NATO’s intervention in 1999, and the province has been administered by the United Nations ever since.



[A United Nations mediator, Martti Ahtisaari, presented his proposals for Kosovo’s final status to officials in Belgrade and Pristina on Friday, but the two sides remained far apart. The Serbian president, Boris Tadic, immediately rejected the plans as a prelude to independence while Kosovo Albanians — who with the United States’ blessing have said they will accept nothing less than independence — welcomed them. The continued standoff suggested that the intended end may instead be a prologue to another difficult chapter in a troubled history.]



Most of the Kosovo Serbs insist that they will never accept an independent Kosovo. Even if the government in Pristina does hoist a new national flag, they say, they will fight to recover the province that Serbs still consider their cultural heartland — the cradle and, in 1389 at the hand of the Turks, the grave of their great medieval empire.



“It would create a situation like Iraq or Lebanon here in Serbia,” said Milan Ivanovic, a doctor at Mitrovica’s hospital and head of Kosovo’s hard-line Serbian National Council (no relation to Oliver Ivanovic). He cited the Christian reconquest of Moorish Spain and France’s eventual recovery of the Alsace-Lorraine region from Germany as models. “We would fight to get Kosovo back with all legitimate means.”



Kosovo Albanians and their international supporters hope that a high degree of autonomy in Serbian areas with guarantees for the protection of Serbian rights and strict international oversight will eventually persuade Serbs in the territory to accept an Albanian-led government in Pristina.



“Hopefully, with independence, a local Serb leadership will emerge to address the needs of the Serbs within the Kosovo system,” said Muhamet Hamiti, an adviser to Kosovo’s president, Fatmir Sejdiu.



Some moderate Serbian politicians are already willing to work within a Kosovo national system, even if their political support in the Serbian community is small.



But Serbian enclaves, particularly northern Kosovo, still operate under Serbian national authority and draw most of their financial support from Belgrade, raising questions about how Pristina could enforce sovereignty over Kosovo Serbs without coercive actions that would risk provoking more violence.



Nowhere is the divide as clear as in the region around this northern city. A United Nations-financed train that links the rest of Kosovo’s Serb enclaves with the north carries Serbs and Albanians alike until it reaches the Mitrovica station south of the river. There, even the Albanian conductor gets off. Only Serbs ride on for another 15 minutes across an iron railroad bridge to the end of the line.



“I’m not brave enough to go up there,” the conductor said, watching the train pull away. “I survived the war. I don’t need another challenge.”



Cars carry Serbian license plates and the economy still operates on the Serbian dinar even though the Albanian areas of this long-disputed territory, now administered by the United Nations, long ago converted to the euro. Serbia’s Ministry of Education in Belgrade has even set up what it calls the “University of Pristina, Temporarily Located in Mitrovica.”



“How can they force us to accept independence?” asked Dr. Ivanovic, the Serbian politician, who like many people working for Serbian institutions in Kosovo’s Serbian enclaves is paid an above average salary by Belgrade as a reward for his loyalty.



While many people see fixing Kosovo’s eventual independence as the last chapter of Yugoslav disintegration, Serbs see it as the dismemberment of their homeland.



The province, ringed by snowy mountains and populated with great colonies of inky rooks that gave it its name (kos means blackbird in Serbian), is home to the Serbian Orthodox Church’s most sacred sites.



“This is the spiritual center of the Serbian Church,” said Sister Dobrila, a nun at the monastery of the Patriarchate of Pec, which was built around a richly frescoed Byzantine church from the 13th century that holds the tombs of Serbia’s medieval archbishops.



She noted that western Kosovo, the site of the monastery, is called Metohija in Serbian, which means “church land.” “It’s sacred territory,” she said.



Even the birds, which swarm over Pristina to settle in its trees at night, are woven into the nationalist myth. According to Serbian folklore, the birds are the souls of the dead from the 14th century battle of Kosovo, in which a Serbian-led Christian army sought to stop the Ottoman advance — an advance whose legacy is the nominally Muslim Albanian majority in the province today.



The common analogy given to Americans, imperfect but pertinent in the emotions it stirs, is the notion of secession by Florida or New Mexico, if the Spanish-speaking populations in those states became a majority. The analogy is imperfect because few Americans, most of whom are already long separated from their cultural roots, have as deep an emotional connection to place as many Europeans have.



That is why Europe, understanding the violence of such emotions, is not united behind the United Nations plan. Countries facing their own secessionist movements — Spain with the Basques, Romania with ethnic Hungarians, and Russia with Chechens and peoples of other rebellious territories — are skeptical of what they see as an American effort to jam a solution into place so Washington can turn its attention elsewhere.



“A forced solution is not a solution,” said Marko Jaksic, head of the Democratic Party of Serbia and widely regarded as the most powerful politician in Mitrovica.

powered by performancing firefox

Swiss expert criticises Kosovo proposal

Swiss expert criticises Kosovo proposal



Thomas Fleiner, a Swiss legal expert who is advising the Serbian government on Kosovo, has criticised the latest proposal on the future of the disputed province.







Fleiner told a newspaper the plan presented by the United Nations special envoy to Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari, might result in a pressure:based solution and therefore more ethnic conflict.



The Swiss Foreign Ministry, has, however, welcomed Ahtisaari's recommendations.



The 90 per cent ethnic Albanian majority want Kosovo to break away from Serbia, but this is rejected by Belgrade, which wants the province to remain part of the country.



Ahtisaari's plan, presented on Friday, recommends that Kosovo should be able to govern itself democratically and make international agreements.



It did not explicitly mention independence, but observers have hailed it as taking the first tentative step on the road to possible statehood. The proposal has already been rejected by the president of Serbia.



In an interview published in Saturday's edition of Le Temps, Fleiner said he was not optimistic about the plan.



"For me the only solution for Kosovo is to clearly reach a consensus between the parties and not a limping compromise resulting from international pressure," the head of Fribourg University's Institute of Federalism said.

Vienna meeting



Ahtisaari has called a meeting between the two sides in Vienna later this month in which both sides are, according to the UN envoy, to be given one more chance to find a compromise.



However, Fleiner said that this was putting too much pressure on the Serbs and could be exploited by the nationalists, the big winners in the last parliamentary elections.



He said that in ethnic conflicts it was often the process and negotiations that counted more than the final solution and that the international community could learn its lessons from the situations in Cyprus and in the Middle East.



For her part, Swiss Foreign Mininster Micheline Calmy:Rey has several times stated her support for Kosovo's independence.



Fleiner called on the government to continue its efforts, but emphasised that for now Serbia did not consider Bern to be neutral in the matter.



A foreign ministry spokesman, quoted in Le Temps, said the ministry welcomed Ahtisaari's latest recommendations.



Switzerland has not participated in the official negotiations but has collaborated wit the UN envoy by giving him assistance on decentralisation and protection of minorities issues, spokesman Philippe Jeanneret was quoted as saying.

UN administration



The UN has administered Kosovo since a Nato bombing campaign forced out Serbian troops in 1999.



Talks on the province's future and status have been continuing for years without the two sides coming to agreement.



Under Ahtisaari's plan, Kosovo could raise its own flag, with its own national anthem and other symbols.



But an "international community representative" would be appointed, with powers to intervene if Kosovo tried to go further than the plan allowed, while Nato and European Union forces would remain in military and policing roles.



The UN Security Council will have the final say on whether to adopt the plan.



swissinfo with agencies



http://www.nzz.ch/2007/02/03/eng/article7494094.html

powered by performancing firefox

Serbia Rejects U.N. Plan for Independent Kosovo

Serbia Rejects U.N. Plan for Independent Kosovo





Article Tools Sponsored By

By CRAIG S. SMITH

Published: February 2, 2007



PRISTINA, Kosovo, Feb. 2 — Serbia rejected a United Nations proposal today that paves the way for an independent Kosovo, setting up a possible showdown between its supporter, Russia, and the West over the disputed territory’s final status.



Serbia’s response came almost immediately after a United Nations envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, presented the complex plan to politicians here and in Belgrade.



“I told Mr. Ahtisaari that Serbia and I, as its president, will never accept Kosovo’s independence,” President Boris Tadic said in a statement from Belgrade. He noted that while the plan does not mention statehood for Kosovo, it “opens the possibility for Kosovo’s independence.”



The proposal, which is still subject to weeks of negotiation between the two sides, will require Russian acquiescence in order to win Security Council approval. Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council with veto power over the plan, has until now backed Serbia’s position that Kosovo must remain an integral, albeit autonomous, part of Serbia.



A NATO bombing campaign stopped fighting between Serb and Kosovo Albanian forces in 1999 and put the disputed territory under United Nations administration. It has been in limbo since then. Mr. Ahtisaari’s proposal is intended to finally fix the province’s future, closing the last chapter of the 1990’s Balkan wars.



While the plan does not mention independence, its provisions describe de facto statehood for Kosovo — providing for an army, constitution and flag — though it would still be protected by NATO and overseen by the international community for the indefinite future. The plan would also allow Kosovo to declare independence if the package is approved by the Security Council.



Mr. Ahtisaari avoided addressing the subject of independence today at news conferences in Belgrade and Pristina, saying only that “there will be a clear definition of Kosovo’s status when I submit my proposals to the Security Council.”



He did not expect the provisions regarding Kosovo’s status to change much before then, he said.



“Let’s face it,” he said, “the positions of the parties are extremely firm on both sides, so on the question of status, I’m not very hopeful” that there will be any more progress toward a compromise.



That shifts the onus to Russia and, to a lesser extent, China, both of which have supported Serbia’s territorial claims — in part, over concerns about ethnically motivated secessionist movements in their own countries.



In Russia, officials have long said they would not back any solution that was not supported by Serbia, effectively ruling out a forced separation, even one that stopped short of outright independence.



By tonight, the Russian government had not responded officially, but Leonid E. Slutsky, deputy chairman of the international affairs committee of the lower house of Parliament, said that Mr. Ahtisaari’s proposal was far from the last word.



“It raises many questions,” he said, according to Interfax, “and it appears to me that any haste in trying to implement this plan may bring negative consequences.”



The question now is what Russia will demand in exchange for dropping its objections to the plan, if it is willing to drop them at all.



Mr. Ahtisaari did not give a timetable for taking the plan to the Security Council, but said he would set aside the rest of February for further negotiations with the two sides.



The proposal provides for the province’s United Nations administration to be replaced by an International Civilian Representative who would have veto power over all government decisions for an indefinite period. It also foresees a multiethnic Kosovo security force of 2,500 troops and 800 reserves as well as a domestic intelligence agency to monitor threats to internal security.



The plan calls for the disbanding of the Kosovo Protection Force, which consists primarily of former fighters from the Kosovo Liberation Army, which fought Serbia and has been charged with human rights violations against Serbs.



Kosovo Serbs in six municipalities would be granted wide autonomy powers, including the right to receive financial donations and technical assistance from Serbia. The proposal would also establish more than 40 “protected zones” limiting building and commercial activity around Serbian churches and monasteries.



A constitution, to be written by a 21-member Constitutional Commission, will need a two-thirds majority for approval by Kosovo’s Parliament. Kosovo Serbs and other minorities will be consulted on the document but the proposal does not require them to be included in the commission.



Serbs and other minorities would be guaranteed seats in the Parliament and have the power to block legislation of “special interest” to them. But Mr. Ahtisaari said Friday that the provision could not be used to block more important measures, such as the constitution or a declaration of Kosovo’s independence.



In Belgrade the mood was glum. Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, who refused to meet with Mr. Ahtisaari, called the proposal “illegitimate,” saying that it violated the United Nations Charter because it would “divide Serbia’s territory and redraw its internationally recognized borders.”



The proposal was met with only muted optimism in Pristina. “Kosovo will be sovereign like all other countries,” said Kosovo’s president, Fatmir Sejdiu, after his meeting with Mr. Ahtisaari. The territory’s prime minister, Agim Ceku, said the document “is very clear for Kosovo’s future.”



Not everyone is so sure. Albin Hurti, a Kosovo Albanian whose Movement for Self-Determination has called for protests against the proposal on Feb. 10, argues that Mr. Ahtisaari’s soft and slow approach to Kosovo’s independence will give Serbia time to strengthen its hold on Kosovo’s Serb areas. “This plan will lead to more conflicts,” he said.



Xhimajl Kilminda, 53, a graphic designer, watching the news on television at his apartment in Pristina, said he was hoping for immediate independence but was nonetheless encouraged by the news.



“Now we have to wait,” he said. “I hope we will have independence soon.”



Steven Lee Myers contributed from Moscow

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/world/europe/02cnd-kosovo.html?

powered by performancing firefox