Serbs Resign From Joint Council
AP September 22, 1999
PRESS RELEASE
Information Service of the Church and National Committee
Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren
Gracanica, September 22, 1999

Wednesday September 22 8:59 AM ET

Serbs Resign From Joint Council

By ROBERT H. REID Associated Press Writer

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Angered over NATO's decision to reorganize the Kosovo Liberation Army into a civilian corps, Serbs in this tense, divided city say they will never accept an independent Kosovo and are threatening to create their own defense force.
     Replacing the KLA with a 5,000-member Kosovo Protection Corps simply perpetuates the ethnic Albanian army and could help Kosovo achieve independence from Yugoslavia, said Oliver Ivanovic, a Serb community leader in the town of Kosovska Mitrovica.
     ``I am absolutely sure that members of the Kosovo Corps will be members of the (KLA) in different uniforms and, of course, with the same attitude'' against Serbs, Ivanovic said Tuesday.
     To protest the formation of the Kosovo Protection Corps, Serbian representatives resigned Wednesday from Kosovo's joint Serb-Albanian council, which works with the United Nations on creating multiethnic structures in the province.
     Bernard Kouchner, who heads the U.N. mission in Kosovo and presides over the joint Serb-Albanian council, denied Serb allegations that the corps was a continuation of the KLA and dismissed the Serbs' resignation as a public display of outrage against international officials.
     ``They just needed to do something against the council in front of their public and they chose to do this,'' Kouchner said, adding that he would continue to cooperate with the Serbs.
     In Kosovska Mitrovica, Ivanovic said Serb community representatives would meet Friday to consider a response and possibly to decide on organizing their own Serbian national guard.
     ``I suppose (NATO) is preparing for Kosovo some kind of ... independence,'' Ivanovic said. ``We cannot accept that Kosovo will be independent. There's no life for Serbs in an independent Kosovo.''
     Under an agreement signed by the United Nations, NATO and the KLA late Monday, the new Kosovo Protection Corps would perform humanitarian missions and help rebuild Kosovo after 18 months of ethnic warfare.
     Former KLA commander Agim Ceku will also command the corps and most members are expected to come from KLA ranks. Kouchner said 10 percent of the slots would be reserved for Serbs and other minorities.
     Nowhere in Kosovo are Serb suspicions deeper and the shortcomings of the three-month-old, NATO-led peacekeeping mission more evident than in the divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica, 30 miles northwest of Pristina.
     Instead of promoting multiethnicity, French peacekeepers have enforced a division of the city, which local Serbs say is necessary to protect them from vengeful ethnic Albanians. The policy, however, has denied some ethnic Albanians the chance to return to homes they fled during the 18-month crackdown on the KLA that triggered NATO's 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia.
     Some NATO and U.N. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, fear Serb militants may be infiltrating into Kosovska Mitrovica from the Serbian border, 40 miles to the north.
     They can travel down the Ibar River valley along a route that takes them past Serb villages without fear of running into ethnic Albanian militants.
     The Ibar runs through the center of this drab industrial city, with Serbs on the north bank and Albanians, the south. French troops guard the bridge, preventing free movement from one sector to the other to avoid violence.
     The result has been to create a situation similar to the division of Berlin during the Cold War.
     On the south bank, walls are decorated with KLA graffiti, and the sound of Albanian language songs blares from cafes.
     Across the bridge about 200 yards to the north, Kosovo is unquestionably Serb. At the La Dolce Vita bar, young Serb men sometimes play nationalist songs on a sound system at maximum volume.
     Many signs are written in Cyrillic lettering, not Albanian, which is written in the Latin alphabet like English. Shop windows are marked with a cross and the letter `S' in Cyrillic four times, standing for the slogan, ``Only Unity Can Save the Serbs.''
     Vendors sell newspapers from Belgrade, not Pristina, Kosovo's provincial capital.
     The atmosphere is of a defiant community that considers itself under siege, threatened by ethnic Albanians and abandoned by the Yugoslav government, which has its hands full handling a challenge by Serbs opposed to President Slobodan Milosevic.
     ``There are many people in Kosovo who are really disappointed in Serbia,'' Ivanovic said. ``We feel like we've been cheated. We are not satisfied about Serbia. Political support is not enough. They must do something practical'' to help local Serbs.

Copyright © 1996-1999 The Associated Press

 
PRESS RELEASE

Gracanica, September 22

Today on Sep 22 on the session of the Kosovo Transitional Council the representatives of the Serbian national commuity, Bishop Artemije and Mr. Trajkovic officially resigned from their positions within the KTC. They explained their leaving of the Council with the fact that after three months of KFOR and UNMIK presence in Kosovo the multiethnic concept in Kosovo has failed. This failure was crowned by the transformation of the KLA into a monoethnic and armed Kosovo Protection Corps which is directly violating the UN Security Council Resolution 1244. After three months of peace the results are catastrophic for the Serbs in the province: about 200.000 expelled, more than 350 killed, 450 abducted, thousands of burned and looted Serb houses as well as 70 destroyed churches and monasteries in the presence of almost 50.000 international peace forces. In Kosovo there is not a single multiethnic institution. Serbs have been practically expelled from all multiethnic areas and forced into reservations and ghettoes. They are denied the basic human rights and freedom of movement, education, work and medical protection. Nothing is done to enable the expelled Serb to go back to their homes while the remaining Serbs and other non-Albanians are still being persecuted, killed, raped and beaten. According to the  words of Mr. Trajkovic the winners in the so far process in Kosovo are Mr. Thaci and Mr. Milosevic while the loosers are Kosovo Serbs, Serb and Albanian moderate and democratic forces and especially the international community (KFOR and UNMIK).

The Serb representatives in the KTC said that their participation in the Council was motivated with the idea to constantly point out to the difficult security situation for the Serbs in Kosovo and make efforts to ccontribute to the better conditions for life and survival of our people. But Bishop Artemije and Mr. Trajkovic have clearly explained that they are not ready to take upon themselves the political responsibility for the decisions which are made in Kosovo without the consultation with the Kosovo Serbs and against their interests. The international community is working more and more in direction of creating the independent Kosovo for which no one from the Kosovo Serb community can and should take responsibility. Kosovo Protection Corps which is already translated into Albanian as KOSOVO DEFENSIVE TROOPS is the continuation of the KLA with full continuity of its millitary structure with the gen. Agim Ceku as its head. The fact that KLA have given over only one part of mostly outdated weapons and have hidden the majority of the modern wapons in their secret depots is only an attempt to show that UNMIK and KFOR have managed to demilitarize KLA, what was envisaged by the UN Resolution 1244.  In reality this is a tacit legalization of a monoethnic army built on the foundations of an organization which is considered by many as a terrorist organization directly responsible for many crimes against the Serb and other non-Albanian population. The New Corps is nothing but a nucleus of the future ethnic Albanian army of Kosovo.

Since the international community has completely denied the multiethnic approach to the resolution of the Kosovo issue and focused on attempts to resolve Albanian question only, the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija with full right might ask for resolution of the Serbian ethnic question in direction of cantonization and the establishement of the Serbian Protection Corps.

Bishop Artemije and Mr. Trajkovic have clearly manifested that in the present situation they have not the mandate to represent the Serbian people in Kosovo and they proposed to Mr. Kouchner to find other representatives for the Council among those who seek the ethnic approach to the Kosovo issue or to build Kosovo future with Albanians only. The Serb representatives cannot be any longer a decoration of the inexistent multietnicity.

Despite their leaving of the Council, Bishop Artemije and Mr. Trajkovic said that they remain open for the further cooperation with the international community in order to better protect the human rights and freedoms of the Serbian national community in the southern Serbian province.

Information Service of the Church and National Committee
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Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren
Gracanica Monastery, Pristina,
Kosovo and Metohija

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