Self-Governance and Autonomy in Southeastern Europe:
The Case of Kosovo

This speech was presented recently at Princeton University and Wellesley College (April
1998) by Sonja Biserko of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. Ms. Biserko
has been urging the immediate establishment of an international conference to provide
much needed support in bringing all parties (not just nationalist parties) to a negotiated
settlement of the conflicts between the Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo/a/Serbia/Yugoslavia.
=============================

Self-Governance and Autonomy in Southeastern Europe: The Case of Kosovo

1. Kosovo problem is a long-standing one. It can be maintained that Kosovo was
traditionally ruled by dominance because of the absence of democratic values and
extremely low standards of political culture in the region. Other factors, such as language,
religious and cultural differences also contributed to the establishment of this model.
However, it is a fact, that in this century, since the end of the First Balkan War, the Serbian
power dominated Kosovo and a large ethnic distancing from ethnic Albanians was
established. According to the 1987 poll, young Serbs would rather marry a Japanese or a
Negro, than an ethnic Albanian.

2. Ever since Kosovo's integration into Serbia, after the Balkan wars (1912-1913) and the
promulgation of the constitution of the first Yugoslavia (1918), the status of Albanians has
been a constant source of conflict and instability. In the first Yugoslavia Albanians were
generally denied their ethnic rights and in the second one (1945-1991) the Albanian
problem in Serbia and Yugoslavia was "solved" through various models of autonomy,
ranging, from the status of an autonomous region (1945), a combination of cultural and
some forms of limited territorial and political autonomy, to the highest-degree autonomy
(the 1974 Constitution), when Kosovo was nominally an autonomous province within
Serbia, while in fact it had all the state prerogatives and functioned as one of 8 federal
units.

3. 1 think that the year 1974 is relevant for our discussion, as under the then promulgated
SFRY Constitution Kosovo was granted the highest-degree autonomy in Serbia and in the
SFRY. In view of the then prevalent political context, that is the bipolarity in international
relations, Kosovo in actual fact got the most favourable status. Albanians accepted the
federal umbrella which cushioned the Serbian policy of dominance. However, this solution
caused much internal political tension in Serbia, the end result of which was an up-front
denial of the 1974 Constitution. Preparations for the abrogation of the constitution started
immediately after its adoption and culminated after Tito's death. Amendments to the
Constitution marked the beginning of the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. In 1980-1990
Serbia gradually gained control over all the federal institutions and staged a massive
campaign against the autonomies of Kosovo and Vojvodina.

Serbian nationalists demanded the restoration of control over Kosovo and Vojvodina and
advocated new arrangements to better reflect Serbian "legitimate" interests in the
federation. Through massive demonstrations Milosevic managed to gain the upper hand in
Kosovo and embarked upon "a programme to disenfranchise and marginalize the ethnic
Albanian population in ways constituting racism, impermissible ethnic discrimination and a
grave violation of the rights of ethnic Albanians to free expression and equal political
participation" (Human Rights Watch report). In March 1989 Milogevic pushed through the
provincial and republican parliaments the laws repealing the Kosovo autonomy. Albanians
staged demonstrations. A week-long clashes resulted in 25 fatalities and 228 seriously
injured protesters. Further unrest occurred in early 1990 and the authorities used force to
break up demonstrations. Milogevic's Kosovo policy obviously aimed at crushing the will of
Albanians. Through the serbianization policy in the province a widespread bureaucratic
cleansing took place. 100,000 Albanians workers lost their jobs. An ambitious, but
abortive, plan to resettle Serbs (especially those from Krajina) in Kosovo was
muchpublicized.

4. Albanians were against those imposed changes. On 2 June 1990 Albanian delegates in
the Assembly of Kosovo put forward the Declaration of Independence of Kosovo, and
then, on 7 July 1990 at the Kacanik meeting, promulgated the Constitution of the Republic
of Kosovo. In September 1991 they organized a referendum on independence and in May
1992 held the elections for the president of the republic of Kosovo and its multi-party
parliament.

All the above moves led to the emergence of a specific, parallel system of power, in which,
alongside the Serbian emergency administration, existed also fragments of a "state within
a state" controlled by the Albanian majority. Although the government of the Republic of
Kosovo resided abroad and the parliament elected in 1992 was never constituted, the
Albanians nevertheless organized themselves and created their parallel society . and
institutions, such as, a comprehensive Albanian schooling system, a network of party
organizations acting in the interests of the Albanian population, a relatively independent
media system, self-financing system, structures of independent economic and health care
system, independent cultural institutions and republican and urban sports leagues.

In line with the Kacanik Declaration, the Albanians boycotted Serbia's first multi-party
elections in December 1990. In an interview Rugova explained his strategy: "It must be
clear that a peaceful option is a longer route, but if balanced and well thought-out if
represents a more durable solution. Any confrontation under the present circumstances
would not be in our favour."

5. However, Rugova was criticized for his peaceful approach. The outbreak of hostilities
between Serbia and Slovenia and Croatia forced Albanian politicians to reassess their
positions. In August 1991 Albanian political parties in Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro
decided to coordinate their activities and take a unified stand. A month later, the Kosovo
parliament proclaimed Kosovo "a sovereign and independent state." In a national
referendum organized in late September, the Albanians overwhelmingly approved the
decision. On 11 October the Coordinating Committee of Albanian Political Parties issued a
statement explaining ethnic Albanian demands. The document stated: "If an agreement is
reached to preserve the federal structure of Yugoslavia, Kosovo must be recognized as a
republic and Albanian minorities in Macedonia, Montenegro and southern Serbia
guaranteed their national rights. If Yugoslavia remains a state with its internal borders
changed, the Albanian-inhabited territories in Macedonia, Montenegro and southern
Serbia should be annexed to the republic of Kosovo. In case of secession of Croatia and
Slovenia from Yugoslavia ethnic Albanians would insist on union with Albania." Apparently
the statement made it clear that the rump Yugoslavia was not acceptable for Albanians.

6. By the year 1992 Serbia has already established an apartheid system in Kosovo.
Albanians organized the first multi-party elections of the Republic of Kosovo on May 24,
1992, in Kosovo. Rugova was elected president. Bujar Bukoshi, as a newly-elected Prime
Minister, set up a Solidarity Fund, financed primarily by the diaspora, and through which
Albanians managed to establish parallel education and health systems.

In contrast to Rugova, Qosja has emerged as the main figure behind a national strategy of
the national unification of the dispersed parts of Albanian nation. However, Rugova has
managed to maintain control of the national movement. After the signing of the Dayton
accord, Albanians felt that their cause had lost momentum and had been, once again, put
aside. Consequently, those who believed that the peaceful approach had not given
tangible results, took more radical stands.

7. This feeling of impotence was heightened by a simultaneous social and political collapse
in Albania. Over the past year the situation in the region became even more complex due
to the persistent rejection of the Serbian regime to try to find a settlement and its
continuing terror-instilling campaign, on the one hand, and a growing Albanian frustration,
on the other hand. The past year also saw the emergence of a mysterious liberation army
and the resultant, ever-growing number of assassinations, raids on police stations and a
general feeling of insecurity.

This precarious situation culminated in March 98 when special police forces, on the pretext
of acting in response to the terrorist attacks on the police forces in Drenica, made a
crackdown in the Drenica area (several villages) and killed 100 persons, mostly women,
children and the elderly. Such an explosion of violence, unanimously backed on the
Serbian side, caused a swift reaction of the international community through the actions of
the Balkans Contact Group, which threatened Yugoslavia with the new sanctions unless
special police forces were immediately withdrawn from Kosovo and an international
mediator for Kosovo accepted.

8. Kosovo is a political issue, and as such it can be settled only by political means. Any
other means would belong to the category of the escapist ones. This issue cannot be
settled unless an already attained status of Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia is fully taken
into account. And if Kosovo issue is not settled, it will further drag Serbia into an abyss and
make it permanently unfit for any transition or democratization. Its inability to see the reality
both in the country and in the world, as well as its impotence to genuinely define its
national and state interests, puts Serbia in the position of a total loser. One could say that
there is an awareness of the said position, but it produces an effect contrary to the
expected one.

The objective of the war was to create the Greater Serbia. It was hoped all along that in
addition to territorial gains in Croatia and Bosnia, the carving up of Kosovo could be also
achieved. The Serbian elite still has not renounced that objective. They have renounced
the Croatian territories, but not the Bosnian. Republika Srpska is still considered a war
bootv. Political differentiation which emerged in RS primarily through the actions of Biljana
Plavsic and her allies, can be easily reversed. The choice of Milorad Dodik is a very smart
move, as his cooperative attitude creates the illusion that in RS an essential turnaround
has been reached. If international community is too yielding, Serbs will have a chance to
attain their objective. By extension it can hardly be expected that such an elite would want
cohabitation with Kosovars.

9. International community as an active factor in the settlement of our crisis still has not
perceived the extent to which the Kosovo issue and uncertain future of Bosnia and
Herzegovina are interlinked, nor it manifests enough determination to help solve the first
issue. By insisting on the dialogue, international community avoids to finalize its job.
However, the presence of international community in the region is inevitable, although
always tardy. It comes only when the new reality is created, hence its belated solutions are
so difficult to implement. To date Bosnia has paid the highest price for this kind of
vacillation. What would be the results of attempts to create new reality in Kosovo? Massive
ethnic-cleansing and new tragedies.

Dialogue is not possible between the two inequitable sides with different objectives,
projects and aspirations to the same territory. Serbia has no internal forces capable to
reach a compromise satisfactory for both sides through a dialogue. Political immaturity,
provincialism and basic misunderstanding of the world developments and circumstances
disqualify them for such a dialogue.

Recent tragic event in Drenovica area clearly illustrated the inability of the Serbian side to
resolve the Kosovo knot through dialogue and respect of the Kosovar rights. Western
powers find the skilled acrobatics of the Serbian regime increasingly transparent. Judging
by the speedy convening of the Contact Group, the West has decided not to repeat the
same mistakes from the beginning of the Yugoslav crisis.

Kosovars and Serbs need a mediator, a third party, to define the framework and principles
of the settlement. Only when such a framework is defined it will be possible to put pressure
on both sides to implement such a project. Unfortunately international community missed
a chance to find a global solution along equal principles for all in the former Yugoslavia.
That is, it failed to impose the 1991 Hague Conference solution to all the Balkan
protagonists. Now it has to impose partial solutions with much more effort and at a much
higher price.

10. An immediate convening of a conference, Dayton like, is the only way out both for
Serbs and Kosovars. Both sides have made great promises and find it difficult to renege
on them. That is why a voluntary scapegoat is needed. Anti-conference arguments, for
example, that there was no war in Kosovo, are not valid. Economic collapse, that is, a
chaos into which Serbia is sliding, similarly to Albania in 1997, as well as the ever growing
violence are a good enough reason for holding such a conference on Kosovo.

Bearing in mind all the aforementioned, the Kosovo case, in the aftermath of the break-up
of Yugoslavia (1991), re-opens the issue of the right to self-determination. Kosovars are in
a specific position in Yugoslavia, as they already have their "original" state, that is, Albania.
Right to self-determination does not necessarily presuppose the right to a national state. If
that were the case, many boundaries in Europe would become indefinite. The Yugoslav
case amply indicated that a peaceful attempt at border changes was not possible, and
judging by the prevailing mood in Serbia, similar attempt at Kosovo secession would meet
the same fate.

Macedonia's fate is linked to that of Kosovo. If Kosovo were to secede and become an
independent state, such a development would put at stake the very survival of Macedonia
as a sovereign state and the entire region would plunge into a war far worse than the one
in Bosnia.

However, one also needs to highlight a highly negative stance of the Serbian state
towards Albanians. When one takes into account the fact that international law views the
state primarily from the standpoint of the citizen, that is, lays down that the state must
serve the citizen, then the reason d' etre of every state is threatened unless if fulfills its
fundamental obligations towards its citizens. If that happens, then the state loses its
legitimacy, and consequently endangers its very existence. Albanians in Kosovo have all
the reasons to distrust this state which is duty-bound to protect the physical life and
integrity of all its citizens, including Albanians. But the fact is that there is a 20-year long
state repression and terror in Kosovo, and Kosovars understandably have difficulty in
remaining loyal citizens to such a state.

I would like to point out that the problem is very complex, due to the immaturity of the
newly emerged regimes, notably the Serbian one, in these territories. A certain
international supervision (to the extent which is considered sufficient) is needed to pacify
the new elites and prepare them for coexistence and cohabitation. Under the
aforementioned circumstances the process of self-determination (irrespective of its extent)
will have to be implemented under the control of international community.

According to the Declaration on Principles of International Law on Friendly Relations and
Cooperation (1970) and eminently the OSCE Final Act (1975), the focus of the principle
was moved to the antihegemononistic and anti-totalitarian plan. This applies notably to the
case of the SFRY, and now, to the SRY.

Self-determination principle must be interpreted and implemented integrally, that is, by
taking into account all the internal and external forms of self-determination, in the sense of
the provision on the right of people to "freely realize their political, economic, social and
cultural development." This presupposes its implementation in keeping with principles and
objectives of the United Nations and norms of international law, including notably its
original principlethe one of the territorial integrity.

It is of paramount importance that the right to self-determination, notably its secession
option, is implemented under an effective supervision of international community, led by
the United Nations and the OSCE, as the pan-European representative. International
community should act at two levels. Firstly, it should have a practical and operative task,
that is, carry out supervision, mediation and compulsion (the last one to include the well-
known measures from the Chapter VII of the UN Charter, even the military intervention). At
the second level, its engagement must be of normative character, that is, international
community should elaborate, specify and update this principle, and regulate the procedure
of its implementation.

Sonja Biserko
Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia
Belgrade

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Submitted by:
Lasiewicz Foundation
Los Angeles

Commentary:

It was wrong that the Dayton Peace Accords were only negotiated between the three
major nationalist parties of former Yugoslavia. Kosovo was not on the table in 1995 and
therefore an effective region-wide settlement was not found. However, Dayton can be
updated, and the Kosovo/a conflicts absolutely need outside assistance to help the
polorized sides to find their common interests for peace and stability.

Mr. Milosevic may not be in a hurry to find the proper settlement, namely because he is not
looking forward to having Albanians get back into the voting process. When Albanians
boycotted the national elections, Mr. Milosevic's Socialist Party picked up about 30 seats in
Parliment "for free." As soon as Albanians would be involved in voting again, this number
would probably fall to 3 or 4. Therefore, Mr. Milosevic probably wouldn't mind dragging this
out for at least another 6-10 months.

However, the high emotions and influx of Serbian army/police/paramilitary and the armed
rebellion movement are all factors which could set off a destructive region-wide war. We
feel that this is the time when NATO and the International Community must act
responsibily and forcefully to instigate a dialog with all those whose lives and property are
at stake. If Milosevic won't come right away, perhaps the party must begin without him and
all other guests will be allowed to begin the talks. There are plenty of people who don't
want the nationalist hammer to fall on their heads. Allow peacemakers to begin building a
sensible and rationale end to these complex problems.

Nalini Lasiewicz
Ex. Director
Lasiewicz Foundation

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