FOLLOWING IN MAZOWIECKI'S FOOTSTEPS

Elisabeth Rehn in FRY

President of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic decided to put relations with Elisabeth Rehn on ice, after her recent visit to Kosovo

AIM Belgrade, October 11, 1996

During the first weekend in October, United Nations Special Rapporteur, Elisabeth Rehn, paid a visit to Kosovo, after which she was expected to meet Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade. This meeting, however, failed to occur, because on Monday Milosevic refused to receive her on Monday.

Ms. Rehn came to former Yugoslavia (before Kosovo, she had toured Bosnia, and then Eastern Slavonia) in order to get an insight into the situation in the field for the last time before submitting a report to the UN Security Council in mid November about the situation concerning human rights in the region. To be specific, the purpose of her visit to Kosovo was to see for herself how the agreement on education of Albanian children signed by Milosevic a month ago with the Albanian leader, Ibrahim Rugova, was implemented. As this agreement, according to almost unanimous assessment of observers, was an act of primarily symbolic and less essential significance, it was also expected that Ms. Rehn's visit would also be more or less just formal. However, after the talks with representatives of the Albanian and the Serb parallel authorities in Kosovo, on Sunday, October 6, Ms. Rehn convened a press conference in Pristina Grand Hotel and said something that made the President of Serbia seriously angry and forced him to cancel the meeting scheduled for Monday at 2 p.m.

At the press conference, Elisabeth Rehn expressed concern because of increased repression of the Serb state agencies against the Albanians in the province, especially because of the case of arrested teachers in the presence of their pupils. "Even if they (the teachers) had been guilty of something, such things should not be done in the presence of children, because it intimidates them", said Rehn. According to reports of agencies, she also advocated that diplomatic pressures on Serbia should continue until the Albanian issue in Kosovo was resolved and demanded that apart from the existing American, information centres of the United Nations and the European Union be opened, having expressed her view that Kosovo was rather a European than an American issue, because, as she said, the USA were "geographically too far away". Apart from that, she expressed a favourable opinion of the proposal of Ibrahim Rugova that Kosovo should be placed under international administration in the next ten years.

What enraged Milosevic the most is still not quite certain, because a day later Ms. Rehn herself disassociated herself from some of the formulations saying that her words were "wrongly translated" or placed into "a wrong journalistic context". Federal Minister of human rights, Margit Savovic, who was entrusted with the unpleasant duty to receive Elisabeth Rehn instead of Milosevic, expressed to the UN Rapporteur, according to the statement of the Belgrade Government, wonder and concern because of the statement that the international community ought to continue with pressures and conditioning of FRY until the issue of human rights in Kosovo and Metohija was resolved. Nevertheless, there are reasons to believe that Belgrade authorities were troubled even more by her having spoken in favour of opening of information centres and putting Kosovo under international protectorate. Less than a month before the federal and local elections in the FRY, just a hint at a concession made to the Albanians could cost Milosevic not many, but extremely precious votes of the remaining Kosovo Serbs. Due to the fact that the Albanians will boycott the elections, these votes bring a disproportionately large number of seats in the federal parliament (about 12 per cent), which is exactly the number which enables the Socialist Party of Serbia to await November peacefully.

With this in mind, one should not be surprised that repression in Kosovo has lately increased. Arrest of three Albanians suspected of a series of attacks against Serb policemen in Kosovo, court proceedings against President of the Party of National Unity of Kosovo, university professor Ukshin Hoti, initiated because of a comparatively harmless offence (possession of membership cards of an "illegal" football club), are aimed at convincing the Serb population that the ruling party is still capable of controlling the situation. In such circumstances, statements of Elisabeth Rehn about such an important issue as placing a part of Serbia under international administration, were experienced as adding oil on the fire.

State controlled media in Serbia did everything to give the least possible publicity to Ms. Rehn's visit. Not only have they failed to publish a single word about the Pristina press conference, but they did not even mention the cancelled meeting with Milosevic, nor the statement of the Ministry of information about "wonder and discontent" of Margit Savovic. As concerning the Serb public opinion, therefore, absolutely nothing has happened.

Such treatment by the media indicates that Milosevic has still not quite made up his mind whether to break up completely with Ms. Rehn, and that he has given her a yellow and not a red card in this game. Had this not been the case, state-controlled propaganda would have been busy by now and filled newspaper columns and television commentaries with reports about "anti-Serb activities" of the UN envoy for human rights, about her probable membership in free masons', Vatican, and who knows which global plotting groups. In other words, she would have been in the centre of a campaign which was launched against her predecessor Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who resigned after the offensive against Srebrenica in protest against intertia of international community concerning the fundamental human right to live. Long before his resignation, Mazowiecki was de facto prevented to work on the territory of the FRY because of the openly inimical attitude of the authorities.

What permits the Serbian President such a degree of arrogance is obvious discord within the international community concerning what should actually be done in Kosovo in order to resolve the situation there. Milosevic has always known perfectly how to exploit discord among his opponents, and Elisabeth Rehn, with her comments about America being far away, provided him with material for all kinds of possible future tricks with the Kosovo pack of cards.

It remains to be seen what Elisabeth Rehn will write in her report to the Security Council, and whether this report will be an immediate cause for a specific move of the Security Council. One thing is for sure, and that is that no drastic moves should be expected in Kosovo before Milosevic, through November and spring (Republican) elections consolidates his power in Serbia and the FRY. There will be, on both sides, more manoeuvring space for serious agreements. Whether a place will be reserved for Elisabeth Rehn at the table when cards will be dealt then, is not at all certain.

(AIM) Dejan Anastasijevic