[AKI-News] Kosova : Report on Conditional Independence

[AKI News]

Advocates for Kosova's Independence (AKI)
January 24, 2002

=================================
  ** AKI Newsletter, Issue 6 **
=================================

This week, members of the Kosovo Commission returned to Prishtina to discuss
their research and ideas about developing a process to resolve the final
status of Kosova. This well-balanced report has many powerful points to
make, regarding both Serbia and Kosova. We are including here some
highlights:

"It would be a tragic sequel to the NATO war of 1999 if Kosova is once more
forgotten, or worse, if Belgrade is granted a free hand to obstruct the
realization of the right to self-determination for the people of Kosovo. The
most recent assertions of the FRY government are not reassuring. This
Commission feels obliged to remind leaders of the world that the status of
Kosovo has not yet been decided and that leaving this issue unresolved is
both cruel to Kosovo and dangerous to stability in the Balkans." (9)

"Following years of violence, oppression, massacres, and wholesale
expulsion, it was never realistic to expect that the FRY could once more
exercise sovereignty over Kosovo." (19)


The same generals who directed the war in Kosova, are in place in
Yugoslavia, such as General Pavkovic. No police have been brought to trial
for the murders and crimes they committed. 800 Albanian bodies have been
located in mass graves in Serbia, and their remains have not even been
transferred to Kosova.

Another major point of the report is that the SRSG has far too much power in
Kosova. He is in charge of customs, the judicial system, the police,
property ownership and border supervision. Worse, he also has power of
foreign interviews and negotiations. These rights and powers must all be
restored to the citizens of Kosova, or the term "autonomy" will be soon
rendered meaningless. A recent example of this power dispute is the November
5, 2001, common document signed by Haekkerup and Covic. No one knows who
authorized Haekkerup to create this document on behalf of the citizens of
Kosova, who are now on their third SRSG in as many years. Why does Covic
apparently have more say over Kosova than the people who live there? There
is no one to answer these questions. No one to find out what the true course
of Kosova is. UN 1244 did not spell out a democratic process of the
resolution of the long-term status of Kosova. In the wake of September 11,
with world attention firmly fixed elsewhere, the steps toward meaningful
autonomy and self-determination, which is everyone's inviolable human right,
is in clear danger of erosion.

Ordinary citizens in Kosova have worked hard to put their lives back
together, but do not know how to begin to take back power from the SRSG, and
ultimately, from internationals.

"The argument for conditional independence is based on a normative
foundation, arising from the long-term systematic abuse of the Albanians and
their subsequent withdrawal of Albanian consent to Serb rule." (22) In day
to day terms, Albanians will never apply for a FRY passport or pay FRY
taxes. It is unthinkable.


The Conditions for Independence are:

1. Renunciation of border changes and also nationalistic logic for change
2. Human Rights in Kosova must be guaranteed and protected
3. Renunciation of violence in settling disputes
4. Regional cooperation and integration

In summary, the concept of 19th century sovereignty is no longer a mandate
for absolute control of a population. That sovereignty must now give way to
modern regional equality and cooperation, as well as the a priori right to
for the will of the people to be governed by an elected government of their
choice.


###

Questions/Comments, email AKI-NEWS at aki at alb-net.com
AKI Website:  www.alb-net.com/aki/