[Prishtina-E] [Kcc-News] Kosova Parliament Challenges U.N.

[Mentor Cana]

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  Kosova Crisis Center (KCC) News: http://www.alb-net.com/index.htm
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1. Kosovo's Parliament Set To Challenge UN's Authority (RFERL)
2. Kosovo Parliament Challenges U.N. Authority (Reuters)

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http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/07/1965fbf8-54f6-4ea7-b8d2-9db48862dbd3.html

Kosovo's Parliament Set To Challenge UN's Authority
By Patrick Moore

Thursday, 08 July 2004

Kosova's parliament voted on 8 July to adopt several constitutional 
changes, including one establishing the right to hold a referendum on 
independence. Other measures call for switching responsibility for 
international relations and public security from the UN civilian 
administration (UNMIK) to Kosova's own officials.

UNMIK has repeatedly warned the parliament that it is not competent to make 
changes to the Constitutional Framework. Only the UN Security Council, 
which adopted Resolution 1244 in 1999, has the authority to make such 
changes, UNMIK stresses. One unnamed international official called the 
parliament's vote a waste of time.

But in the wake of the ethnically motivated unrest in March, many political 
leaders in Kosova have called for speeding up the transfer of authority 
from UNMIK to Kosovar officials (see "RFE/RL Balkan Report," 2 and 16 April 
2004). In a well-publicized editorial, publisher Veton Surroi suggested in 
the 17 June issue of "Koha Ditore" that the next head of the international 
administration would do well not to bring any grand plan along. Instead, he 
should simply let the elected Kosovar officials get on with governing, 
intervening only when absolutely necessary.

In fact, many Kosovars argue that the violence showed that the province is 
a time bomb waiting to explode so long as the status issue remains 
unresolved. They stress that time has come to end what is essentially a 
colonial administration in a postcolonial world, moving toward independence 
based on self-determination and majority rule, as has been the standard in 
the post-1945 process of decolonization.

These and other scenarios regarding Kosova were discussed on 17 and 18 June 
at an off-the-record conference in Berlin sponsored by the German Foreign 
Ministry, the Bertelsmann Foundation, and the Munich-based Center for 
Applied Policy Research, titled "Rethinking the Balkans" (see "RFE/RL 
Balkan Report," 25 June 2004).

Many of the Western participants at that gathering stressed that the 
Kosovars must first meet internationally mandated standards before there 
can be movement toward clarifying Kosova's final status.

Serbian participants, for their part, were generally keen to note the 
importance of all minority rights, including freedom of movement and the 
right of all refugees and displaced persons to go home. Several Serbs 
stressed that they will measure the Albanians' sincerity by the extent to 
which they protect the Serbs' rights, adding that few Serbs are optimistic 
on this score following the March violence.

Instead, many Serbs argued for some form of administrative partition. One 
Serb said that dividing Bosnia into two ethnically based entities in 1995 
might not have been a perfect solution, but it has worked. Besides, he 
wondered, how can one charge that Bosnia is a weak state when it has the 
might of the international community behind it?

Some of the Kosovar Albanian participants took the opposite approach, 
arguing that one reason for the frustration that led to the March violence 
was the tendency of UNMIK to try to build a multiethnic society on basis of 
ethnic divisions. Instead, Hashim Thaci of the Democratic Party of Kosova 
(PDK) told "Balkan Report" on the margins of the conference that Kosova 
needs a solution resembling Macedonia's 2001 Ohrid agreement, which would 
reconstruct Kosova on the civic principle rather than on an ethnic basis. 
This, Thaci continued, would mean an end to enclaves and parallel 
structures by treating Kosova as a single country. Serbs would have the 
right to dual Serbian and Kosovar citizenship and to contacts with Serbia. 
Their cultural and historical monuments would be protected, Thaci stressed.

But at least some of the Westerners at the Berlin conference called for 
recasting rather than ending the foreign administration in Kosova. Some 
participants close to Germany's opposition Free Democratic Party (FDP) 
repeated their party's call for replacing UNMIK with an EU administration, 
while maintaining NATO's security presence.

One FDP member of the German parliament told "Balkan Report" on the margins 
of the conference that the EU is more knowledgeable about Kosova's affairs 
than are many international officials from Africa or Asia, adding that the 
EU is in the best position to offer the Kosovars incentives to meet the 
necessary standards. When asked by "Balkan Report" what the EU would do if 
the Kosovar Albanian majority wanted a political as well as a military role 
for the United States, his FDP interlocutor replied "we'll see" (see 
"RFE/RL Balkan Report," 5 March 2004).

For their part, many Serbian participants eagerly leaned forward in their 
seats when the subject of EU rule in Kosova was raised.

But the Kosovar Albanians tended to be skeptical, sensing that the project 
is more an attempt by some in the EU to show that Brussels can solve Balkan 
problems than something that will truly benefit Kosova. One Kosovar 
remarked that it seems strange that foreigners want to leave Iraq at the 
first sign of violence, but when unrest breaks out in Kosova, some 
foreigners seem more intent on staying than they were before.


### 2 ###

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=574&e=9&u=/nm/20040708/wl_nm/serbiamontenegro_kosovo_dc_2

Kosovo Parliament Challenges U.N. Authority

Thu Jul 8,10:41 AM ET
By Matthew Robinson

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Kosovo's parliament threw down 
the gauntlet to the province's U.N. overseers Thursday, adopting 
constitutional changes including the right to call a referendum on 
independence from Serbia.

The amendments also included switching control for international relations 
and public security from the U.N. mission, which has run the majority 
Albanian province since the 1999 conflict, to local authorities.

But to become law they must be signed by Kosovo's acting U.N. governor, who 
has already warned that only the United Nations (news - web sites) has the 
authority to make major constitutional changes.

"Any comprehensive review of the Constitutional Framework is outside the 
competence of the assembly," the U.N. mission said ahead of the vote, 
referring to the 2001 document which set the ground rules for Kosovo's 
provisional government and parliament.

Kosovo was placed under U.N.-led administration in June 1999 after a 78-day 
NATO (news - web sites) bombing campaign to halt Serb repression of ethnic 
Albanians. It remains formally part of Serbia and Montenegro, the loose 
union that replaced Yugoslavia last year.

The province's international administrators, backed by NATO peacekeepers, 
continue to hold the real power including a veto over parliament. But local 
Albanian leaders are increasingly impatient for formal independence and 
control over their own affairs.

"WASTE OF TIME"

One senior international official in Kosovo described parliament's move as 
a "non-starter" and a "waste of time."

He accused local politicians of playing to the electorate by making it look 
as if they were taking on the United Nations.

"They're not even using the powers that they have effectively to run the 
government and manage affairs," he said.

Oliver Ivanovic, a member of the minority Serb coalition which boycotted 
the parliamentary session, said the action could only "threaten the already 
fragile stability and security" in Kosovo.

Ethnic Albanian discontent erupted in mid-March with a wave of fierce 
anti-Serb, anti-U.N. violence in which 19 people were killed and hundreds 
of homes destroyed.

Some Balkan experts have since advocated strengthening the local 
institutions and scaling down the U.N. presence after parliamentary 
elections scheduled for October.

Parliament's amendments, adopted by 85 of the 88 deputies present in the 
120-seat body, included the right "to determine Kosovo's final status 
through a referendum."

The international community has set out a policy of "Standards before 
Status," by which Kosovo must prove its credentials in democracy and human 
rights before discussion of its final status, possibly after mid-2005.

"We believe that setting standards and then implementing standards is the 
way forward for Kosovo," U.S. Deputy Undersecretary for Political Affairs 
Marc Grossman said late on Wednesday after meeting local leaders in 
Pristina.
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