Wednesday August 25 9:05 AM ETCantonization Proposal Splits Kosovo Council
By Kurt Schork
PRISTINA, Serbia (Reuters) - A Serb proposal to create ethnic cantons in Kosovo split Serb and ethnic Albanian leaders Wednesday and left the province's U.N. administrator uncharacteristically flustered.
The Serbs, who first suggested canonization last week, rejected a U.N. counter-proposal and offered a new proposal at a meeting of the Kosovo Transitional Council but complained that some ethnic Albanians refused even to discuss the matter.
Only 20,000-30,000 of Kosovo's former 200,000-strong minorities, comprising Serbs, Roma, Muslims and others, remain in the province after months of NATO bombing followed by the return of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees.
Providing security for the minorities who remain and luring back those who fled are among the most difficult problems facing the U.N. Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), which has pledged to create a multi-ethnic, democratic society in post-war Kosovo.
Momcilo Trajkovic, head of the Serbian Resistance Movement and the man who asked for canonization last week, told reporters that Bernard Kouchner who heads UNMIK suggested an unacceptable ``regrouping'' of Serbs under international protection.
How ``regrouping'' and canonization differed was not immediately clear but seemed to turn in part on who was to govern the segregated population.
The dispute appeared to upset Kouchner, who left the council meeting saying: ``Canonization is not a good word...it reminds us a lot of bad things.''
Trajkovic said Serbs would have governed themselves under his initial plan and that the international community would have been in charge under Kouchner's counter-proposal.
The Serbian leader said he had put a fresh plan on the table proposing five Serb cantons under joint U.N. and Serb administration.
He warned that the credibility of Kouchner and the U.N. operation depended on providing security adequate to staunch the outflow of Serbs from Kosovo.
``Otherwise the judgement will be that the operation was successful but the patient died,'' Trajkovic warned.
Hasim Thaqi, an ethnic Albanian and former guerrilla commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) who heads a KLA-appointed provisional government that is not recognized by the international community, had no time for ``canonization.''
``The canonization issue was discussed by some individuals today but is finished as far as I am concerned,'' Thaqi, a member of the transitional council, told reporters.
``Anyone who wants to discuss it further should go to Number 7 Francuska Street in Belgrade.''
The address is the home of the Serb Academy of Arts and Sciences where canonization plans for Kosovo originated in the past.
Kouchner expressed grave reservations about ethnic cantons Saturday and Western diplomats, including the German and French foreign ministers, have since opposed canonization.
But they agreed that the security situation in Kosovo was untenable from the perspective of Serbs and other minorities.Copyright © 1996-1999 Reuters Limited
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