THE SERBIAN MINISTRY FOR KOSOVO AND METOHIA

KOSOVO THE CROWN OF SERBIAN HISTORY

Some nations have their founding father gure, others are based on a mix of cultures or an image of grandeur, but the Serbs identify themselves with a small piece of land a sacred land symbolizing their spirituality and sacrice. The southern province of Kosovo and Metohija (Land of churches) represents the birthplace of the Serbian nation, the roots of the royal family tree, the site of many glorious battles and timeless shrines, the matrix of values the Serbs cherish and live by, their Jerusalem and Alamo rolled into one. Crowns can fall, riches may vanish and most borders are subject to change, but no hearth can be deemed lost as long as the re is kept alive. Serbia has nally restored its statehood after eighty years of ideological confusion and now stands prouder than ever of its unique heritage. The new democratic leaders have shown laudable restraint and cooperation with the international community in the face of the tragic situation in postwar Kosovo and are now ready to propose an all-round compromise solution for the future status of the troubled province, in full compliance with international law and balancing the interests of all the parties involved to the fairest.

RISE AND GLORY OF THE SERBIAN MEDIEVAL STATE

At the time the Serbs populated Kosovo, around the 10th century, the territory was largely deserted. The fertile plain surrounded by protective mountains became the center of the prosperous Serbian Kingdom that stretched over most of the Balkans. Over the next four centuries, the Serbs aristocracy formed a great number of castled cities all over Kosovo, which served as centers of important political and diplomatic decision-making. Czar Duan (1331-1355) moved the royal residence to the city of Prizren and the Serbian Orthodox Church established its Patriarchate in Pe (1331). Marriages to European royal families members, support to Christian crusades, an important trade balance, a developed mining industry and impressive wine-making capabilities, including 20 km long vinoduct from Velika Hoa to Prizren, put the Serbian society of the middle ages on the line of social, economic and cultural developments in western Europe. Its rulers were also keen on artistic and religious endowments. Over 1,500 monuments of Serbian culture identied in Kosovo are the living legacy of the Serbian historical presence in the region.

Many of them are part of world heritage, such as the Patriarchate of Pe (1331), the Monastery of Graanica (1320) or the Holy Virgin of Ljevi (1307) and the Monastery of Deani (1334), both included on UNESCOs list. These temples, inspired by Byzantine architecture and built by the best western architects, feature frescoes of impressive beauty, showing scenes from the Gospel as well as portraits of Serbian rulers. They have been sheltering for eight centuries now the relics of canonized monarchs and leaders of the national church and have provided spiritual support to the nation in times of both prosperity and occupation. Together with many other monasteries and a dense network of small parish churches scattered all over Kosovo, these shrines represent the basis on which the Serbs formed and consolidated their national consciousness and built up their national and cultural identity.

THE MEANING OF KOSOVO FOR THE SERBS

After the fall of the Serbian medieval kingdom (12th-15th centuries) in which it held a central part, Kosovo remained a citadel of spirituality and a symbol of Serbian national identity and resistance during the long periods of foreign occupation. It is enshrined in Serbian collective memory as a quasi-mythological place, whose popular history set the bases of Serbian national character archetypes in the middle ages and perpetuated them into modern times through epic poetry and the charts of the rulers. Turbulent historical events only exacerbated this devotion, especially in the 19th and 20th century. In the dramatic 1804 and 1812 uprisings, Serbian masses called upon the spirit of Kosovo, which their leaders, founding members of the current royal dynasty, included in their coat of arms. In the rst half of the 19th century, Kosovo became a favorite theme for Serbias romantic poets, playwrights and painters inspired by the wars of liberation and the nations cultural revival. During World War I, Serbia became the darling of both English and French public, which interpreted its determination to ght and secure freedom as an expression of the Kosovo spirit. In communist Yugoslavia, celebrations related to Kosovo were forbidden, but strongman Tito skillfully usurped the matrix of the Kosovo legacy in order to hype up some of the World War II battles he himself participated in. In modern times, Slobodan Miloevi came to power in the late 1980s by pledging to help the suering of the Kosovo Serbs. At that time and then only he had the support of the entire population. In 1999, Serbia was bombed as it unanimously refused to accept an agreement it considered as paving the way for the secession of Kosovo. The major themes that shaped the cult of Kosovo were loyalty to the family and to the nation, the necessity of struggle against tyranny, the ideal of heroic self-sacrice, the futility of betrayal and the assuredness of resurrection. Even today, the Serbs categorically refuse to renounce on Kosovo, both as a territory and as a set of values. This is a rare common stand of the Government, the National Assembly, the royalty, the Church and the general public.

FIVE CENTURIES OF TURKISH OCCUPATION

The demographic balance of Kosovo started to change after the landmark 1389, the Battle of Kosovo Polje. A few decades later, Kosovo and the rest of Serbia fell under Ottoman (Turkish) rule. This oppressive feudal system brought a dark age of destruction of Serbian society, architecture and cultural achievements, which led Serbia to lag far behind the rest of Europe during its Renaissance and Enlightenment periods. Serbian resistance and solidarity with Christian Europe was punished by severe reprisals, which triggered waves of northward migrations, most notably in 1690 and 1739, following major defeats of Austro-Hungarians, with whom the Serbs had sided up against the Turks. As the Ottomans settled in Serbian towns of Kosovo and the Serbs were forced to move, Albanians from todays northern Albania began to settle in the region and to accept Islam in exchange of social favors. This trend continued in the 18th and the 19th centuries, bringing out signicant numbers of ethnic Albanians on Kosovos demographic map for the rst time in history and antagonizing Serbs-Albanians relations on both social and religious levels, with very little room for compromise. Serbia nally regained its independence at the 1878 Berlin Congress. It liberated Kosovo from Turkish yoke in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 and reintegrated it into the Kingdom of Serbia through the 1913 Bucharest Treaty, which was unanimously supported by the ambassadors and royal representatives of Russia, France, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Italy and the UK at the ensuing London Conference. As part of Serbia, Kosovo was ocially incorporated, in 1919, in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians later called Yugoslavia.

LIBERATION FROM THE TURKS AND MODERN ALBANIAN UPRISINGS

However, the return under Serbian control after ve centuries of Ottoman occupation has been interpreted by Albanian and Albanophile historians as the beginning of the Serbian occupation of Kosovo, thus legitimizing their non-cooperation and uprisings against the Serbs throughout the 20th century. Regardless of who ruled over Kosovo -- Turks, Yugoslavs, Italians, Germans, Communists, Miloevi or the UN and whatever their relations to the ruler were, Kosovo Albanians have always fought for secession from Serbia and annexation to neighboring Albania. This is therefore not a new phenomenon, as commonly perceived today. Albanians have sided up ocially, but not wholeheartedly, with the fascism of Mussolini, with the Stalinism of Tirana, with the internationalism of Tito, with the human rights rhetoric of the UN, always hoping that the big powers they are playing up to will grant them independence. More than often, they were prepared to resort to extreme violence in order to fulll these goals. In World War I, they joined the Austro-Germans and Bulgarians. In World War II, they supported fascistic Italy and later formed special SS units. Both wars triggered new waves of Serbs migrations out of Kosovo. In Titos Yugoslavia, the communist regime only reinforced this trend. In trying to minimize the strength of the Republic of Serbia, the biggest in the Yugoslav Federation, Serbian refugees were prohibited to return in the province while Kosovo Albanians were given extraordinary prerogatives after the constitutional changes of 1974, which granted high autonomy and rights of veto to the Kosovo Provincial Government. Billions of dollars were invested in the province, which accounted for up to 45% of the total internal aid. Major social and urbanistic developments were achieved: the province became fully bilingual and there were TV and radio stations, newspapers, schools and university studies available in Albanian language. The Obili power plant was constructed in 1962, the police turned multiethnic in 1966, the Institute of Albanology and the Albanian Academy of Sciences were formed in the 1970s and Kosovo Albanians were granted the highest state positions. This, however, didnt stop Albanian aspirations for secession, as manifested by general lack of their integration in the Yugoslav system and a series of violent demonstrations calling for a Republic status for Kosovo, with a perspective of secession. After Titos death, radical Albanian requests of seceding from Serbia mounted, encouraged by their demographic growth and supported by their auent and solidary diaspora and their notorious organized crime network. Numerous incidents from that period, such as the widespread Albanian demonstrations of 1981 and desperate protests of Kosovo Serbs attracted much international media attention.

INTERETHNIC RADICALIZATION AND FOREIGN INTERVENTION

Kosovo became a synonym for trouble even before the breakup of Yugoslavia, and many analysts predicted that the problematic Serbian province would be the catalyst of the disintegration of the entire country. Belgrade reacted with an eective police crackdown, rst praised as war on terror by the White House - while it was still listing KLA as a terrorist organization - and later condemned as overwhelming use of force, when the separatistic guerillas were suddenly renamed partners of US interests. The clashes between KLA and Serb security forces led to substantial collateral damage and initial displacement of thousands of Kosovo Albanian civilians from the areas of conict. At the Rambouillet negotiations, NATO accused Milosevic of ethnic cleansing and threatened to stage a military intervention against Serbia. Belgrade strongly disputed this interpretation, claiming it was only ghting separatists on Serbian territory. A few weeks later, despite the lack of approval of the UN Security Council, NATO launched a massive 78-day bombing campaign against Serbia, which resulted in all-out war on the ground, exodus of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians, signicant material damage and loss of life. On 10 June 1999, a peace-deal was signed, ensuring the retreat of Yugoslav army and Serbian police forces and the establishment of a temporary UN-NATO protectorate in Kosovo.

Compromise was once again o the agenda. Faced with an open campaign for secession of Kosovo in the 1980s, the Serbian Government headed by Slobodan Milosevic sharply abolished the autonomy of the province in 1989, involuntarily triggering the creation of the Kosovo Albanian parallel system, which was based on the boycott of cooperation and dialogue with the Serbs and on the establishment of parallel, pro-Albanian underground institutions. The absence of dialogue inevitably led to the radicalization of the situation. On July 2nd 1990, the Albanians-dominated Assembly of Kosovo proclaimed the Republic of Kosovo, which led to the introduction of the state of emergency, widespread harassment and institutional discrimination of dissident ethnic Albanians. The second part of the 1990s was marked by the appearance of the armed Albanian guerilla group calling itself KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army), which staged numerous attacks on security forces and civilian targets in 1996-1998, aimed at inciting a foreign intervention.

THE FAILURE OF UN PEACEKEEPING

Eight years later, the consequences of that intervention are rather controversial. While they have achieved a certain success in institution-building and restoring normal living conditions for the ethnic Albanian community, UN administrators and NATO KFOR troops have blatantly failed to challenge the other side of the problem a wide-spread campaign of violence against the Kosovo Serbs and other non-Albanians. Albanian revenge attacks, as they were apologetically called in the rst weeks of the postwar period, became the syndrome of systematic eradication of Serbian presence and culture in Kosovo. Faced with deadly violence, discrimination and lack of freedom of movement, Kosovo Serbs and other non-Albanians either ed the province or relocated to isolated enclaves and ghettos, living in the worst conditions in the whole of 21st century Europe. In the seven years of UN administration, in times of internationally guaranteed peace and despite the presence of dozens of thousands of NATO troops, over 2000 Serbs and other non-Albanians have been killed or remain unaccounted for and 226,000 of them have been forced out of Kosovo. Thousands of homes have been destroyed; over 80 graveyards and 156 Christian Orthodox churches, many of them the jewels of medieval architecture, were desecrated, mined or burned to the ground. All symbols and monuments of Serbian culture have been removed, while many government-sponsored materials grossly falsifying the history of Kosovo appeared, trying to wipe out all traces of Serbian presence in the province.

The remaining 120,000 Kosovo Serbs live conned in rural enclaves and ghettos with restricted freedom of movement, facing daily intimidation and harassment, limited access to health care, lack of employment opportunities and a blockade of Serbs media outlets. They survive thanks to the help coming from Belgrade and to the security provided by NATO soldiers, who maintain checkpoints around the most vulnerable enclaves and provide military escort to school children, priests and bus passengers. But even this proved not to be enough: beating, stoning, shooting, bomb, landmine and rocket attacks - cynically described as isolated incidents- continue on a daily basis. The proclaimed goal of multiethnic coexistence seems very far away. All this is to be added to the problems that Kosovo faces as a society in general: the extremely dicult economic situation (skyrocketing unemployment, enormous decit, widespread corruption and ever too frequent electric power cuts), its trademark organized crime (drugs trade, sex tracking, cigarette smuggling) and notorious paramilitary structures ( violence exporting to Macedonia or southern Serbia and turning against the UN administration or other local targets, including even late president Ibrahim Rugova and various Hague Tribunal witnesses). A poor and biased privatization process did not take into account the property rights owned by the Kosovo Serb workers or by the state of Serbia, and the expropriation of illegally occupied property is discouragingly slow.

Public condemnation of the living conditions of non-Albanians is virtually non-existent and a culture of impunity reigns: so far only a handful among thousands of ethnic-motivated crimes have been processed, thus further endangering prospects for a multiethnic environment. In such a situation, it is almost understandable that the return of the displaced Serbs and non-Albanians to Kosovo has been practically non-existent: in six years only 5-6% or some 12,000 people returned to their homes, mostly on individual incentive. In January 2007, there were less than one hundred (!) Serbs living in the six biggest cities of Kosovo combined, excluding the north part of Kosovska Mitrovica. On the political plan, the Kosovo Albanian leadership continually refuses any contact with Belgrade, despite democratic changes and successful EU-oriented reforms in Serbia. They were encouraged in this kind of thinking by the UN administration which on numerous occasions breached UNSC Resolution 1244 by transferring more competency than agreed to the provisional authorities. This transfer of responsibilities failed to improve the situation, however, as the Albanian community had only one thing on their agenda the urgency of talks on the nal status of Kosovo. Ironically, they keep claiming that all problems would be solved only posteriori, when Kosovo becomes independent. The international community tried to move things from a standstill in December 2003 when it came up with the policy of standards before status, which called for the fullling of a series of eight key human rights standards before any talks on the future status could begin.

In the meantime, the situation on the ground turned from bad to worse. The wide-scale antiSerb violence of 17-20 March 2004 branded ethnic cleansing by the NATO Admiral Gregory Johnson and orchestrated, planned violence by international observers was the worst outbreak of violence since July 1999. Yet, instead of pursuing with more rmness than ever the proclaimed policy of establishing democratic standards, the opposite happened: the standards were downsized, with the sarcastic argument that there could be no progress without starting the negotiations on the status of Kosovo.

Ironically, this was exactly what the Kosovo Albanian politicians wanted and what the Albanian extremists aimed at when launching their operations. The standards BEFORE status policy was buried in the rubble of the March 2004 violence, cynically replaced by the motto standards AND status. Negotiations on the future status of Kosovo began in Vienna in February 2006.

THE FAILURE OF STATUS NEGOTIATIONS

Despite early attempts by some lobby groups to close down the debate on Kosovo before it has even begun by suggesting there was only one possible option (independence), a thorough and well argued debate based on past conict-management experience has led to the understanding that negotiations on the status of Kosovo must meet a certain number of prerequisites in order to be successful. Tibet, Taiwan, Northern Cyprus, the Basque Province, Chechnya, Abkhasia, South Ossetia, Dagestan, Nagorno-Karabagh, Transdniestria, Northern Ireland, Western Macedonia, Republika Srpska, Quebec, Tamil Eelam, Hawai Attempts to describe Kosovo as a cancer that Serbia should amputate, to suggest that Serbia will go faster into the EU without Kosovo, to speculate that progressive Serbs do not care about Kosovo or to estimate that organized crime and human rights abuses will disappear as soon as Kosovo becomes independent have not worked, nor have the emotional spin-arguments implying that Albanians must get independence simply because they want it very much, because they have a moral (sic) right to it or because they would explode in violence if their desires were not satised urgently. Still, despite all these blus and notwithstanding Belgrades continuously restrained role and constructive proposals, the negotiations process was clearly biased, supercial and unsubstantial, while a vicious sticks and carrots policy set up by some lobby circles continued to be applied against Serbia, not the least through constant proposals of conditional, delayed or supervised independence as the magic solution for Kosovo. Luckily however, this idea, initially presented as a fait-accompli and even grossly hailed as compromise, quickly became downplayed as only one of the options on the table, and not the most rational one indeed. The controversial proposal of UN-envoy Martti Ahtisaari calling for supervised independence for Kosovo was not even put to vote at the UN Security Council, as Russia, China and several other council members were clearly reluctant about it, rejecting a priori not less than ve such resolution drafts.

One-sided solutions, international precedents and articial deadlines must be excluded, the nal agreement should be based on compromise and not imposed, and the nal word should stay with the UNSC, which was the warrant of the peace-brokering in the rst place. Based on these conditions, proclaiming the independence of Kosovo would indeed be a risky, unilaterally-imposed and ultimately wrong solution. Not only would it endanger international law by creating a second Albanian state from scratch and critically hurting democratic Serbia, but it would also create a dangerous precedent that could have severe repercussions in dozens of similar hotspots around the world Kurdistan, Palestine, Western Sahara, Kashmir, Xinjiang,

As Washington became desperate to present Kosovo as one of its rare successful intervention stories and tried by all means to impose its independence, Moscow was rmly determined not to allow this imposition to become a breach of international law, while Brussels, for its part, spent more time managing its internal cohesion than creatively thinking about how to get out of the impasse. Summer 2007 is therefore the time for a new beginning in Kosovo. Any continuation on the basis of the previous assumptions could cause serious trouble in Kosovo and elsewhere in the world. Taking away 15% of a sovereign, democratic, multi-ethnic European countrys territory with the intent of satisfying the independence aspirations of one of its minorities sounds dangerous and problematic indeed. Bypassing international law, especially now that the issue has mobilized the attention of elite world analysts, would deal a deadly blow to international stability and to the credibility of the United Nations. Persisting in nding ways to impose a proAlbanian solution rather than engaging all sides in a fair, deep, compromise-driven debate is denitely not an example of serious conict management. It is time now to look at realistic alternatives, the painful ones which imply the recognition of ones own mistakes and a necessary sacrice of self-interests. As opposed to Washington and Pritina, Serbia has gone the furthest on this line, acknowledging its past mistakes and proposing a realistic solution which complies with international law and takes into best account the interests of all sides. Under the ocial Serbian proposal, Kosovo Albanians would keep all the power they already have and get even more, only in exchange of giving up on breaking Kosovo away from Serbia. They would enjoy full legislative, executive and judicial capacity, including even a limited external representation in particular full access to the international nancial institutions but most importantly, they would benet from normalized relations with Belgrade. Serbia, as the natural leader in the region, has many positive things to oer to Kosovo, including a strong push in its macroeconomic revival, a large job market and common market of goods, continuous coverage of the provinces external debt, an integrated energy, electricity and infrastructure network, access to its health and education systems, a common ght against organized crime and a joint contribution to regional stability and European integration. All these things could only be realized in a compromising solution of autonomy, and by no means in case of an imposed independence, which would never be signed by Serb ocials and which would certainly result in the closing of borders, regional destabilization and a permanent threat of renewed conict.

THE NEED FOR A TRUE COMPROMISE

Considering all this, an internationally supervised, maximum autonomy for Kosovo inside Serbia appears as the most reasonable, compromising and long-term solution. Ignored in the beginning of the negotiations process, this proposal should now become the basis for a historical conict resolution between Serbs and Albanians. It represents a fair balance between a standard autonomy for the province, unacceptable for the Albanian aspirations, and the independence of Kosovo, unocially promised to them by some international players but unacceptable in any form for international law, for the Serbs and for the Serbian state. It responds to the realistic demands of Kosovo Albanians for self-governing, but it also protects the interests of non-Albanians, of Serbia and of the principles of non-violability of borders. More than anything, it is a win-win situation for everyone: the Kosovo Albanians will nally get the means to manage their future and so will the Kosovo Serbs; Serbia will not have its borders changed and its historical and religious cradle amputated; Macedonia and Bosnia will receive guarantees that the changes of borders in the Balkans are no longer tolerated; the EU will obtain regional stability and take fully in charge its European perspective; the United States would be able to disengage its troops without losing its diplomatic leverage in both Pristina and Belgrade; Russia, China, India and many other countries in the world would appreciate not having to deal with a dangerous precedent; the UN will have the basis of international law system respected. Past mistakes should be acknowledged and reversed, not perpetuated. Only arguments should be used as arguments. Articial deadlines, lobbying eorts and under-the-table promises should not preclude lasting solutions. Pressure should be applied on creating those solutions, rather than imposing one sides interests over another. Forcing a result on which neither the sides on the ground nor the great powers agree has obviously not passed. It is time now to get back to fair negotiations, to respect international law, to be constructive, patient, sound and consistent. For the rst time in the history of Kosovo, it is time for a successful compromise.

Printed by The Serbian Ministry for Kosovo and Metohia