POLITICS-SERBIA: Relations with UN Deteriorate

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, May 21 2003 (IPS) - Relations between the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and Serbia have deteriorated in the face of Serbia’s growing fears that independence of Kosovo is imminent.

"Alarm bells are sounding one after another in Belgrade, because maybe the independence of Kosovo lies ahead," analyst Milan Milosevic told IPS. "But it is something people here would not like to see."

Kosovo is the southern province of Serbia and will remain so for an unspecified period under United Nations Resolution 1244.

For a year now, Kosovo has had its own parliament and government, but under the strict surveillance of UNMIK. Economic and foreign policy within Kosovo is in the hands of UNMIK.

Serb authorities blame UNMIK head Michael Steiner for disregarding Serb views. Steiner offered lease of land and industrial facilities in Kosovo for 99 years to any bidders, but excluded Serbia although Kosovo is formally a part of Serbia.

Serbia services the debts of Kosovo. Serbs own almost 60 percent of arable land. More than 400 firms in the province were branches of firms based in Serbia. But few Serbs are actually there after the exodus of 1999 in fear of reprisals from ethnic Albanians.

"The offer for lease is one-sided, aimed at favouring only one nation in Kosovo (ethnic Albanians) and disregarding the other (Serbs)," Nebojsa Covic, head of the Coordination Committee of the Government of Serbia for Kosovo said at a recent press conference.

Kosovo has been run by UNMIK since 1999, after NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) ended 11 weeks of bombing of Serbia.

The NATO campaign followed the repressive policies of former leader Slobodan Milosevic against the 1.8 million ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. The repression came after an armed rebellion by Albanians to secede from Serbia.

Kosovo has an important place in Serbian history. It was the cradle of the first Serbian medieval state. It houses key Serb Orthodox monasteries and churches dating back to 14th century.

Over a period of time the ethnic structure of Kosovo changed, and ethnic Albanians became the majority. Official statistics in the Serb capital Belgrade indicate that former Yugoslavia with Serbia as one of its member states, pumped more than 17 billion dollars into Kosovo from 1950 to 1991. Kosovo’s foreign debt is around 1.4 billion dollars, and the interest is serviced by Serbia.

In further moves that provoked Serb anger, UNMIK refused last week to hand over an ethnic Albanian wanted for terrorism in southern Serbia. UNMIK also overlooked a resolution by the Kosovo parliament that described the armed rebellion of ethnic Albanians against Serbs as a "war of liberation".

"UNMIK is behaving towards Belgrade as if Slobodan Milosevic was still in power," Covic said. "I believe it’s still because of the strong anti-Serb sentiment in Pristina (the Kosovo capital). It’s like the international institutions are afraid to take the right steps out of fear they might trigger a violent reaction from the Albanians."

Milosevic fell from power in 2000, but continuing violence by ethnic Albanians against the remaining Serbs presents a big problem. The Serbian minority in Kosovo has shrunk from 250,000 in 1999 to less than 100,000.

"Human rights and the free movement of Serbs in Kosovo remain the biggest problem," Covic wrote in a report to the UN Security Council which has been reviewing the situation in Kosovo. "If there was free movement, Serbs would not live in enclaves, which is another name for ghettos."

According to the UN housing department in Kosovo, Habitat, former Serb residents have asked for the return of more than 25,000 apartments and houses taken over by ethnic Albanians in 1999 when Serbs fled the province. Only 800 have been returned to their Serb owners so far.

International reconstruction efforts have led to the building of more than 39,000 new homes for ethnic Albanians, but only 150 for Serbs.

"Despite all the talk of Kosovo being a multiethnic community again, it’s hard to imagine that," says Miljan Rankovic, a Serb doctor who fled Kosovo in 1999. "Only two percent of Serbs have returned since 1999. It seems now that with Serbs gone or being pushed into northern enclaves, the independence of Kosovo can be achieved easily."