Options open on Kosovo autonomy

Date: 30/07/1998

By Mark Turner

INTERNATIONAL diplomats are very close to completing a key paper laying out possible models of autonomy for Kosovo, the disputed Albanian-dominated province in southern Serbia.

The document, which was discussed in detail by a UK-chaired meeting of Contact Group powers last week, will present ethnic Albanians and Serbs with a menu of options based on existing European examples, but will not attempt to prescribe any solutions.

Examples considered so far include South Tyrol, the Basque country, Wales, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, the West Bank and Tatarstan.

Although there is “no deadline” for finalising the paper, insiders say it is viewed as “extremely urgent” and is being handled with utmost secrecy.

“The paper will go to the parties as soon as possible,” said one official, adding: “This is very delicate. There is a very strict rule of no leaks on this.”

UK sources suggest that both parties will have it “within a week or two”. They say the move reflects a more proactive approach by the Contact Group powers as concern grows over the size and effect of the conflict.

As fighting drags on between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and the Serb security forces, there are fears that the province could suffer an all-out humanitarian disaster during the winter months. But there are few signs that either side is willing to budge from its respective demands for independence and maintaining the status quo.

“We will not lay down our arms until every bit of Kosovo is liberated,” KLA commander Lum Haxhiu told the Albanian newspaper Koha Ditore recently. “Time has shown that Serbia has the means to violate all these types of status,” he added, referring to Serbian behaviour towards autonomous regions.

Meanwhile, Kosovar Serbs have threatened to proclaim a 'Serbian Republic of Kosovo' if Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic bows to international pressure.

Nonetheless, the Contact Group powers hope that by providing some substance for talks, they can at least get both sides to the negotiating table.

“We have been looking at a range of autonomy models from around the world and trying to draw on these, however they can fit in,” said US special representative Robert Gelbard. “There has to be a combination of territorial autonomy and autonomy regarding governance at a number of levels: at the top level inside Kosovo all the way down to the municipal level.”

Although diplomats are wary of sounding overly prescriptive, there appears to be some agreement that Kosovo should be given a status more akin to that of Montenegro than of a Serb province.

“It should have autonomy within the framework of Yugoslavia and not Serbia,” said a spokesman for Austria's foreign ministry which, as current holder of the EU presidency, sits in on Contact Group meetings.

Vienna notes that under Kosovo's 1974 constitution, repeated in 1989, the province had a theoretical right to separate from the Yugoslav Republic.

There is also agreement that autonomy should not stop at control over education. “Of course it should go further than culture,” said the Vienna spokesman.

But officials recognise that extremely complex issues surround any model. “On the health-care system we get into some really difficult questions regarding governance at the municipal level. Will Albanians be prepared to deliver mail to the Serbs?” asked Gelbard. “Ultimately what they agree on, anything they agree on, is fine with us.”

A British spokesman agreed. “There should be a significant degree of enhanced self-government, perhaps somewhere between autonomy in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and autonomy within Serbia,” he said. “But we are ruling nothing out.”

But what of self-determination, a number of influential US politicians have asked. Gelbard is quick to lay that ghost to rest. “People tend to believe in self-determination until it begins to affect their own country,” he said. “We ran into this kind of problem a little over 100 years ago, in what we came to call the Civil War.”