June 30, 2000
In spite of a new accord with the United Nations on enhancing security for the Serb minority in the province, Kosovo Serb leaders remain split over cooperation with international officials.
As the Serb National Council (SNV) led by Bishop Artemije signed a memorandum of understanding with Kosovo UN mission (UNMIK) Thursday, other Serb politicians questioned the SNV's right to represent the province's Serb population. Observers warned that differences among Kosovo Serb politicians could mean them ending up an ineffectual opposition in the Serb province, where the overwhelming majority is ethnic Albanian.
One analyst compared them to the political opposition to President Slobodan Milosevic in the centre of Serbian power in Belgrade. "If Kosovo Serbs fail to overcome their personal rivalries and political differences, they will face the same destiny as the opposition in Serbia, which for years has failed to establish a serious threat to Milosevic," he said.
The Thursday deal was a condition for continued SNV participation in the UN's joint administration, which the SNV shunned for three weeks this month in protest at an upsurge in anti-Serb violence. The text foresees a special security task force as part of UNMIK police to tackle organised crime and what Serbs call "ethnic Albanian terrorism."
But other Serb politicians questioned the SNV's right to represent the province's Serb population. The most suprising move came from veteran Kosovo Serb leader Momcilo Trajkovic, who helped to set up the SNV last year. Trajkovic, for several years seen as the strongest Milosevic opponent in Kosovo, split with Artemije over participation in the UN-sponsored transitional administration council.
He lashed out at the UN administrator for Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, accusing him of failing to provide essential assistance to Serbs, who have become regular victims of ethnic violence. "Of course we are for cooperation, but the international community, especially Kouchner's policy, has broken the Serb community in Kosovo," Trajkovic told AFP. He charged that Kouchner "is not interested in united Serbs, as a factor in Kosovo, but only in the Serbs he can use for his own political goals."
Trajkovic's Serbian Resistance Movement has launched an initiative for "political unification of Kosovo Serbs," and proposed round-table talks with the participation of official Belgrade, the Serb political opposition and Kosovo Serb representatives. "The bottom line is that a year has passed and we have not at all improved the status and position of the Serbs," Trajkovic said: "On the contrary, it has become even worse."
The strongest criticism of the Artemije leadership came from the SNV splinter group in Kosovska Mitrovica, the most highly populated Serb enclave in the province. It insists Artemije's group wields no influence over Serbs in Kosovo. Jaksic is an ally of the self-proclaimed mayor of northern Mitrovica, Oliver Ivanovic, who opposes Artemije's right to represent all Serbs in Kosovo.
Western officials believe the more radical position of Mitrovica Serbs towards international administrators inidcates that they are more strongly inlfuenced by the Milosevic regime in Belgrade. The Ivanovic group denies this, but has hitherto failed to take a firm position either on distancing itself from Milosevic or cooperating with the UN and the KFOR peace force.
Meanwhile observers beleive the Belgrade regime is stirring up old divisions and quarrels. "The state of Serbia and Yugoslavia does not want to cooperate with the UNMIK and KFOR," one analyst said.
Since Yugoslav troops pulled out of the province last June following NATO bombing, Belgrade has fiercely criticized UNMIK and KFOR for failing to protect the Serb population in Kosovo. But apart from verbal threats and criticism, it has revealed no real projects for the future of the province which its more radical representatives often describe as occupied by enemy forces.
