Kosovo: Municipality or "State within State"

Plan for the Future

AIM Belgrade, 15 October, 1998

The latest proposal of the Contact Group on Kosovo is not the best possible, but it is not too bad either, and it certainly is not unacceptable as a platform for the beginning of a dialogue between the Serbian regime and Kosovo Albanians, as rumour about it is being spread due to the tendency to reject it.

The greatest difficulty concerning this document, as with every other similar document, lies in the fact that there is an essential split between the two ethnic communities in Kosovo and Serbia due to which none of the parties recognizes that the other one is entitled to certain rights. While Serbia wants Kosovo without Kosovo Albanians, Kosovo Albanians want Kosovo without Serbia. And all that with reference to self-determination!

In such a situation in which there is no will for an adequate political community, there can be no compromise, no matter how skilfully elaborated and "technically" developed a proposed, transitional or initial, document may be, which could build up that joint will among the two ethnic communities. This is where the main problem of the proposal of the Contact Group is, as it would and will be with any other or similar document.

Nevertheless, it is very fortunate that, apart from the two conflicting parties, feuding at daggers drawn to the point of extermination, the ultimate outcome will be decided by those who have made this proposal regardless of whether this formulation of the proposal will be maintained or a new one will appear. The key element of the proposal consists of the fact that Kosovo will remain a part of Serbia and FR Yugoslavia, although this is not explicitly stated.

But, since the proposal prescribes that representatives of Kosovo be present in the legislature of Serbia (with 20 deputies) and that of Yugoslavia (with 10 deputies), it is obvious that the creators of the proposal have tried to satisfy both parties without explicitly mentioning what they would not like to hear: on the one hand that Kosovo will remain in Serbia and Yugoslavia, and on the other, that it will be impossible to rule either Serbia or Yugoslavia without Kosovo Albanians!

As concerning self-administrative rights of Kosovo Albanians, they will, according to the proposal, decide about everything that is not or does not belong in the category of duties and responsibilities of a state, that is, those of the highest state significance, such as the sphere of foreign affairs, defence, finance, common market, customs and similar. This means that Serbia (and Yugoslavia) would not have the right to interfere with the duties and responsibilities of Kosovo, but neither would Kosovo Albanians be able to question issues in the mentioned classical state sphere.

Since Kosovo will have its government, judiciary, parliament, and a "chairman" whose post will resemble that of a head of the state, it seems that this proposal was partly inspired by the once known Z-4 plan which was offered to Krajina Serbs and which was rejected by them provoking the intervention of Croatian authorities which forced them into one of the greatest exodus of people after the Second World War.

The problem of police was resolved in a manner which gives Kosovo the right to establish local police in proportion with the ethnic coimposition of the population. Serbian, or rather Republican police would carry out only the duties connected with external security, border activities, customs, etc. They would not be permitted to interfere with the work of local police nor would they have any power over it.

One of the novelties is also introduction of the so-called council of ethnic groups which would consist of representatives of all ethnic collectivities in Kosovo, with a special role and rights to affect decisions of Kosovo self-administration. It is interesting that the authors of the proposal do not suggest establishment of such a council for Serbia which is ethnically by far more complex than Kosovo and has a lower ethnic concentration of the majority nation, which shows that they wished to avoid its federalization, which can also be interpreted as a concession to Belgrade and Milosevic.

Starting from the principle that a democratic self-administration must be paid for, authors of the proposal suggest that expenses of its maintenance be financed from special and local taxes, but partly from the state taxes as well, in view of divided rights and duties resulting from responsibilities of Kosovo administration and the state administration, which can be said to be a just principle.

Criticism of Kosovo Albanians, or more precisely of their political and ethnic leaders concerning this proposal is practically a comparison of what autonomous rights Kosovo as a province enjoyed in the past pursuant the 1974 Constitution of SFRY, which they were deprived of by force in early nineties, and what this proposal offers them, establishing that they are at a considerable loss.

By application of this method, they objectively reduce their demands for independent Kosovo and, volens-nolens, arrive at the request for federalization of Serbia. If one says that pursuant the 1974 Constitution, Kosovo enjoyed the highest rights in joint affairs of the federation, such as common market, finances, foreign affairs, defence... and now it does not, since they have been left out of the agreed framework becoming the subject of subordination, one objectively arrives at two different positions of Kosovo: one from the period of the second Yugoslavia, and the other offered in the latest proposal of the Contact Group.

Therefore, political leaders of the Albanian ethnic entity believe that the starting point in negotiations with Serbia must be the rights which Kosovo was deprived of, and then, starting from that, approach a lasting solution of the position of Kosovo. "What Kosovo has already enjoyed and what it was deprived of by force cannot be the subject of negotiations", some of them say. There is a certain logic in this way of thinking, but it contains a fundamental error in the interpretation of the position of Kosovo within former Yugoslav federation.

Primarily, the thesis on giving back Kosovo the rights it had stumbles on the simple obstacle that there former Yugoslavia does not exist any more, nor do its other constituent elements. But, this complaint need not be taken as decisive. Perhaps it is more important that Kosovo did not have the status of a separate federal unit like the rest of Yugoslav republics which would automatically give it the right to independence and sovereignty in the very act and process of creation of the other Yugoslavia.

The fact that Kosovo was an element of the federation, but within Serbia, makes it inevitable for its present solution to differ from the solution of disassociation of former Yugoslav republics based on their self-determination. In this sense, one should really start from the rights Kosovo enjoyed in the former Yugoslav federation, but also from the fact that Kosovo had a specific position in it, which is illustrated by the Constitutional formulation: "within Serbia".

Slobodan Inic

(AIM)