News | Serbian Unity Congress

April 10, 2007 on 3:08 am | In Kosovo & Metohija, News in English |

A key leader in Kosovo has accused Russia and Serbia of conspiring to rob it of statehood ahead of a crucial United Nations vote on handing the territory its independence.

Lufti Haziri is the deputy prime minister of Kosovo, and led its negotiating team in talks to draw up a final status plan for the fractious Balkan province which has been a crucible of conflict for centuries. Last week, the United Nations security council, overseen by Martti Ahtisaari, the UN envoy, began talks on the plan which effectively hands Kosovo independence from Serbia.

But Belgrade and its key Moscow ally fiercely oppose the proposal, with Russia even threatening that it will use its veto when it comes to a vote in the next few weeks.

“The Serbs are trying very hard with the Russians to block the Ahtisaari plan,” Mr Haziri told The Daily Telegraph. “They are spreading discrimination and division and destabilising Kosovo.”

Mr Haziri claimed that “hardliners” in Belgrade were “bringing fear to Kosovo” - a land treasured by Serbs as their historical heartland for more than a thousand years.

Belgrade has repeatedly insisted that it will not allow the bonds of tradition between Serbia and Kosovo to be broken. However, since the 1999 Kosovo war, the province has effectively been run under United Nations control, without intervention from Serbia.

Now the UN security council must decide whether to back Mr Ahtisaari’s scheme and formalise Kosovo’s independence.

Britain’s envoy to the UN, Emyr Jones Parry, said last week that the Security Council members would visit Kosovo before making a decision. But the European Union and the US are already known to back the plan, which enshrines the rights of Kosovo’s estimated 200,000-strong Serb minority while handing its two million Albanian majority the trappings of statehood, such as the right to join international organisations.

“After independence Serbs will be accommodated,” said Mr Haziri. “They have guaranteed seats in parliament.”

Despite his assurances, the fate of Kosovo has paralysed politics in Serbia, which is still without a government almost three months after elections.

Instead the political process has been hamstrung, with no party wanting to assume office only to be immediately tarred with the loss of Kosovo.

Resentment over the issue is already fuelling the Serbian ultra-nationalist Radical Party, and could propel it into power in future elections.

Meanwhile, Vojislav Kostunica, the caretaker prime minister, has insisted that Russia will save Kosovo for Serbia by wielding its veto - a move that Mr Haziri believes could prompt a complete democratic collapse.

“Hardliners control everything in Belgrade,” he said. “But we hope for reconciliation after independence. The international community must finish its mission in Kosovo.”

Either way, Kosovo’s years in limbo as a UN protectorate are fast coming to a close. Most assume that if Russia did veto the plan, Kosovo’s Albanians would declare independence anyway, sparking a showdown with Belgrade.

“One way or another the status quo will end,” said Daniel Fried, the US Assistant Secretary of State.

“It will either end through a controlled, organised process or it will be uncontrolled and much more violent. That is the choice.”

Related posts:

• Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo: An Abbreviated History, Richard Jansen (Colorado State University)
• The Chains That Bind: Constitutions, then and now, antiwar.com (Nebojsa Malic)
• Analysis: Are UN, EU Part Of The Problem In Kosovo?, Federal Information & News Dispatch
• Into the Bosnian Quagmire (Part 3), antiwar.com
• U.N. probe said to criticize March Kosovo raid, Reuters