Is Kosova at the Crossroad of Definition of Its Political Status?

25 April 2006

1.At the IDERK-organized conference on Prishtina-Belgrade dialogue last year, which was evaluated by many as �a general rehearsal� for the dialogue that was to begin later in Vienna, I saw the commitment of Serb experts on the decentralization in Kosova.

The models and alternatives offered in this conference made us to think seriously that Belgrade was well prepared not for integration of Kosovar Serbs, but for creation of a backdoor, which in later developments and regional integrations would lead towards unification of a part of Kosova�s territory to Serbia!

There were voices that ethnic decentralization or some kind of �conditioned� autonomy for Serbs within the existing territory is the price that the Kosovar Albanians must pay for their conditioned independence, which is being supported by the international community.

The price for �conditioned independence� � �ethnic decentralization�, is going to be a �hot potato� during the negotiations in Vienna, as well as the most difficult challenged that will be imposed to Kosovar delegation, when it is estimated that it is the right time to launch it. When we compare this with the request of the Parliamentary Group to report to the Parliament on Vienna meeting, we see that this �hot potato� has already started to be placed in the hands of Kosovar delegation.

The problem is that the Kosovar public opinion is not aware of the details of the possible conditions of Albert Rohan to our delegation.

The report of the delegation in Vienna did not present all the details of the swallowing up of this �potato�! Several MPs, being unaware on the importance of this process, or including it in the agenda of the talks with Belgrade, hesitated to discuss on the possible �failures� of Kosovar delegations. Or maybe they are waiting for the coming difficult stages, when there is no doubt that the Kosovar delegation should be more accountable to the Parliamentary Committee.

2. But what must our delegation do? Which existing models of functional relation building it must consult before finally accepting this challenge of �hot potato� (autonomy for Serbs) and the �smooth carrot� (independence for Albanians)?

It is also true, that in these five years none of the Kosovar Governments has made any serious offer for integration of minorities, especially on the reference plan: cultural, language and especially political ones, in order to avoid the blackmailing of the �hot potato� of the Serb ethnic decentralization. It is our opinion that the Government and its expert groups, consisting of members of the political parties should prepare a strategy for integration of Serb community in several areas.

We believe that some of the paradigms of the Ohrid Agreement could serve as patterns of their integration. The model of the Ohrid Agreement has several identifying specifications which telegraphically should be consulted without any doubts.

First, it excludes violence as a means of achieving political aspirations, which under these circumstances eliminates predispositions of a hypothetical climate and situation of local Serbs to arrange their goals for a territorial autonomy in Kosova.

Second, the argument of the positive discrimination that has been favored by the Constitutional Framework would have been chanalized through a natural representation, and in accordance with future political and democratic developments. Visionary people know that the Kosovar society benefit more from this logic. Because first of all it eliminates ethnic tensions, neutralizes political dissatisfactions, enforces regional security and stability, then it stimulates integrative goals and prepares predispositions for the establishment of multiethnic capacities.
Secondly, the sympathy and political and economic loyalty of the minority communities, which are essential for Kosova in these moments, can be gained through laws and standards (as elsewhere in Europe).

This can be seen very clearly from the daily refrains of foreign diplomats, who think that the goal of Albanians for an independent civic society is sill unprepared and irresponsible towards minority groups, which in their countries are considered as usual citizens with equal rights. From this point of view, the project or the idea of the internal integration of ethnic minorities, based on the Ohrid model, would not be unchangeable in the corpus of qualities and the so-called cultural criteria: religions, values, norms, symbols, language, traditional dresses etc. because in fact it comes out of from the action and reaction of different ethnic entities, which never quit developing and emancipating in relation with themselves and other identities around.

Third, the favor of the Ohrid Agreement would eliminate the current practice of appointing and dismissing members of the Municipal Assemblies regardless of the institutional protocol or the election mechanism, which brought many problems and clash of interests between the Serb community as well, which forced UNMIK Administration to close the process of elections with the language of success, by appointing incompetent people, which damaged the process of democratization and the definition of Kosova�s status.

Fourth, the argument of the hierarchical dependency from central power, which would eliminate the offer of the Serb experts for creation of enclaves, cantons, and ethnic decentralization, because the central administration, and not the peripheral one represents the Alfa and Omega of the further democratic developments in Kosova.

Fifth, the sovereignty and territorial compactness along with ethnic integrity would be conserved for a longer period of time. This would avoid territorial solutions of the state in favor of the ethnic interests, and this would disable project of division or the violation of the unique judicial order of Kosova.

Sixth, the applying of the civic state formula, rule of law or the democratic order would lead Kosova towards the regional and EU integration.

Seventh, the right to education, as one of the elementary human rights is enforced with European standards paragraphs, which guarantees everyone the right to education, regardless of their religion, gender, race or ethnic background.

Eighth, the formula of the positive discrimination, foreseen in the Ohrid Document, is an attracting decoy for reaching the hand of the communities. Kosovars know very well the previous regime, where students from the entire Serbia studied here, but very few of them wanted to remain in Kosova. There different reasons for this, including economical, psychological, accommodative, and there was no way that these could threaten the national substance or existence of the Kosovar Albanians.

Ninth, the analogy that may come out of this document, is the call of the international community (which means macroeconomic investments of the transnational companies) to organize a Donors Conference for macroeconomic assistance, which after the process of privatization would be a good social and political injection, in a European territory, whose population is facing serious problems with physical surviving.

On the other hand, the reasons, which lead to the disintegration of Serbs and establishment of a multiethnic society in the postwar Kosova, should be searched in three directions, which are not a subject of this analysis. However we can briefly identify in the area of regulations and documents which did not have the power of laws to influence the integration, in the area of lack of (projects, ideas, the detailed strategy) lack of interest of the Kosovar institutions, and in the area of systematic manipulation of Belgrade authorities with local Serbs, only to obstruct the idea of their integration into the Kosovar institutions.

The issue of protecting minorities by law is a reasonable demand and very much preferable with today�s international standards, however when it starts to be raised in the level of system of privileges, then it might be a serious barrier in fixing the interethnic relations.

3. There are several initiatives and models in the international scene which are in competitive relations with each other, but the western countries are those who have done a lot for protection of minorities, whereas Eastern and Southeastern European countries are still preparing their legislation for ethnic minorities. The OSCE document approved in Copenhagen on June 29, 1990, reads that the creation of the �local autonomous and administrations is a very efficient mean in maintaining ethnic, cultural, language and religious identities for ethnic minorities.�

In fact, number of recommendations and projects, or ideas dealing with the redefinition of minority statuses, especially when dealing with minorities of the two latest European Empires (the Yugoslavian one and Russian) shows that for the moment there is no magic formula which would regulate these sensible relations between different ethnic communities. No one is saying that Ohrid Model makes an ocular exception.

Today, the so-called model of �economic intervention� is recommended for global integration of ethnic entities, some elements of which are also included in Ohrid Agreement, whereas in countries facing integration problems (such as Kosova), the amputation of the territorial and personal autonomy is not excluded.

Since the model of territorial autonomy is recommended, then we must say that in the first plan it seems to be a sophisticated model of integrating minorities into the system of social organization, but in the case of Kosova it has some weaknesses which are projected in the level of effectiveness of its limitation.

In the case of Kosova, it can be opposed by all possible point of views, but the main opposing that can be done for the moment is that there is no compactness of the ethnic minority group, which is being requested as the main alibi, having in mind that Serbs did not have any ethnic compactness across the entire Kosova�s territory in any certain historical period. But there are efforts to do this now, through the new colonization.

In a such situation, when the Serb ethnic entity is spread for many reasons, the territorial autonomy being promoted by Belgrade experts and Prime Minister Kostunica itself must be put in question by a new fact which is not being used by our politicians as a strong argument.

The fact or the mechanism of the territorial connection, which is contested by Ohrid Agreement in all its possible dimensions. Another weakness of the territorial autonomy is the final non-resolution of the ethnic minorities, because it simply regenerates new ethnic minority groups during its implementation. Think of any municipality in which majority (Albanians) could turn into a non-ethnic minority if compared to the Serb minority.

4. The other model known as the model of personal autonomy, oppositely from the pervious one is not overloaded with refinements majority and minority, but it recommends the maintenance of the cultural identity. When speak of cantonization, we must emphasize that it is not in accordance with the idea of multiethnic society which has been promoted by UNMIK. This model is very dangerous and it must be elaborated more. The idea of Serb prosecutors that the process of cantonization must be done based on the project of the concentrating the population with ethnic majority in the areas which they were holding before the end of the war, represents another well-prepared trap of the Government of Serbia and the Coordination Center for Kosova, which aims the division of Kosova, or the annexation of one part, the northern part of Kosova in a later period (evaluated by them as more peaceful and more favorable for Serbia).

Because it can be commented differently, Serbs insist in cantonizing the municipalities of Leposvic, Kolashin, Fushe Kosova, Gjilan, Kamenica and Novor Brdo. Another canton would include the municipalities of Shtrpce and the areas inhabited by Gorans � Opoja and Gora, whereas the last canton would include several villages of Peja, Istog and Klina inhabited by Serbs as well as the lands of the Serb monasteries, as foreseen in the land-patents of 1941.

This draft model, prepared by Vladika Artemije, the Serb historian Batakovic (a moderate nationalist) and the communist politician Trajkovic is foreseen as experiment in the 15-20 coming years, so that the final status of Kosova is not decided by the current generation of politicians, which are though to be overloaded with �the Albanian-Serb conflict in Kosova�.

This is the plan of the current Serb establishment of Serb return in Kosova. They even say that this model in not in contradiction with the UN SC Resolution 1244. The only persons who could profit from this project, are Serb officials who are using the misfortune of Serb citizens of Kosova for their own interests, whereas local Serbs are going to be the biggest losers.

There is no doubt, that this model could be applied in Kosova, as it was applied in Bosnia. Several foreign representatives have already begin to contact the Kosovar Albanian leaders, but I believe that they will not disrespect the broad Kosovar opinion.

To avoid all these traps of Serbs and several international circles, Albanians and especially the newly elected Government of Kosova, the Parliament and political parties must prepare integrative projects of local communities, not to allow alibis for creation of enclaves in Kosova.

Because this creates predispositions of poker game and the division of the northern part of Kosova.

Based on our recommendations, in the case of Kosova�s conflict, is it not sufficient to apply the models or the typologies of the classic integrations or �compromises� (such as Ohrid Agreement) and the one of �reconciliation with final procedure� (the case of Bosnia) or the one of the �integrative solution� (Croatia), which must be consulted, because of thelong-term success in those countries they have implemented, in order to absorb their positive and negative experiences.

Finally, the Kosovar leadership must select its own model of integrating minority communities, a model which must amputate the experiences of the others and country�s specifics. At the moment, Ohrid Model must serve as a solid base, since the models of cantonization, ethnic decentralization, cultural or personal autonomy seem to be less flexible and unsustainable.