[ALBSA-Info] {QIKSH =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=AB?=ALBEUROPA=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BB?=} Early Serbian Poll Puts West in Kosovo Dilemma

[Nikoll A Mirakaj]

Early Serbian Poll Puts West in Kosovo Dilemma 

BELGRADE, Oct 19, 2000 -- (Reuters) Plans by Yugoslavia's new rulers to hold early Serbian elections present the West with a sudden dilemma over Kosovo that it has been desperate to avoid.

The elections, scheduled for December 23, force diplomatic powers to confront quickly the issue of whether Kosovo remains part of Serbia. Whatever their decision, it is likely to anger one ethnic group or another in Europe's most volatile region.

If the international powers that run Kosovo as a protectorate let the elections take place in the province, they risk the wrath of the ethnic Albanian majority which fought for independence after years of repression under Serb rule.

If they decide not to allow the polls, they will enrage Kosovo's Serb minority and risk alienating new Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica and the people of Serbia proper, whom they are anxious to steer towards Western democracy.

The West has embraced Kostunica as a democrat. Elections to the Serbian parliament, still dominated by allies of former Yugoslav president and the West's Balkan nemesis Slobodan Milosevic, are a key part of his campaign to consolidate power.

"I can see from the Kostunica point of view that it's the earlier the better in order to change the chemistry in Serbia - but it will put us in a very delicate position," said Daan Everts, a deputy head of Kosovo's international administration.

DECISION COULD PRE-EMPT STATUS TALKS

Western governments previously stuck to the line that the vexed question of Kosovo's status should be resolved at some vague future date, hoping that time would heal the wounds of the bloody conflict between Serbs and ethnic Albanians.

Now Western minds which had been concentrating on Kosovo's own municipal elections due on October 28 have just a matter of weeks to focus on the bigger picture.

"If you say the elections have to be held in Kosovo also, you basically pre-empt the later final-status negotiations because you are saying Kosovo is part of Serbia," Everts told a recent briefing for journalists in Vienna.

Officials in the UN-led administration admit they have yet to formulate their position. Some officials and diplomats speculate Kostunica may not insist on the poll being held in Kosovo but agree they will be in a tight spot if he does.

"It's a tough one," said one Western source in the Kosovo capital Pristina. "It's difficult to see how we could say 'no'."

The administration, set up in June last year after NATO bombing drove out Serbian forces, works according to a UN resolution which says Kosovo remains a part of Yugoslavia but does not specify whether it is part of Serbia.

Kosovo was a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic, with an autonomous status withdrawn by Milosevic.

CONCERN COULD TURN TO ANGER

Albanians could just about tolerate being part of some sort of nebulous Yugoslavia for an interim period as long as this had virtually no practical implications.

International officials took the view that as long as Milosevic was in power, Yugoslav and Serbian authorities had forfeited the moral right to have any say in running Kosovo.

Milosevic's authorities set up some polling booths in Serb enclaves in Kosovo for last month's Yugoslav elections but the move was not endorsed by the UN and treated as an irrelevance by Kosovo Albanians.

Organizing Serbian elections in Kosovo with active international help may provoke a very different response.

Kostunica's arrival in power and his whirlwind courtship with the West already has ethnic Albanians worried.

Any increased influence by Yugoslav authorities in Kosovo could enrage Albanians, raising the specter of the majority population turning against NATO-led peacekeepers and international officials initially feted as liberators.

"There is already great concern," said Louis Sell, a former U.S. diplomat who heads the Kosovo office of the International Crisis Group think tank. "It could turn to anger."

Officials suggest if the UN mission did decide to give the elections its blessing, it would also have to state that the decision would not prejudice talks on Kosovo's final status.

Whether ethnic Albanians would accept that declaration is open to question. Some analysts believe they might be more willing if they were also offered sweeteners such as the promise of general elections to a Kosovo assembly soon.

Kostunica's ascent to power means many long-moribund questions on the future of the Balkans are up for discussion and Kosovo Albanians are anxious to take part. A Kosovo-wide assembly would provide representatives to do just that.

"They want a seat at the table," Sell said. "They need their own Kosovo-wide government structures."

(C)2000 Copyright Reuters Limited

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