Posted on 02/25/2003 8:51:38 PM PST by Destro
World - Reuters
Kosovo's Serbs Form Union, Angering Albanians
Tue Feb 25, 4:04 PM ET
By Shaban Buza
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Kosovo's Serb minority formed a union of Serb-dominated towns and areas on Tuesday and said they saw their future with Serbia, angering the pro-independence ethnic Albanian majority.
The U.N.-led administration in Kosovo made clear it would not deal with the new self-styled Union of Serb municipalities, and an aide of ethnic Albanian Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi branded it as an unacceptable bid to divide the province.
About 300 delegates at an assembly in the Serb-dominated north of the flashpoint town of Mitrovica elected a president and a 15-member executive board and adopted a declaration that included establishing a Kosovo Serb entity.
"The Serb entity would...function as an integral part of Serbia," the declaration said, calling for the return of some Serbian army and police forces to help secure Serb-dominated areas and fight organized crime and "terrorism."
The declaration set out a series of demands to improve the minority's situation and create conditions for Serb refugees to return to the province.
"All Serbs are afraid of Albanians dominating their lives," said Kosovo Serb politician Rada Trajkovic.
DEEP DIVISIONS
Serbs, many of whom live in enclaves guarded by troops from Kosovo's NATO-led peacekeeping force, insist the province should remain part of Serbia and say they are discriminated against. The Albanians demand independence, saying they can never again be ruled by Serbia.
The landlocked province of two million came under international administration in mid-1999 after an 11-week NATO bombing campaign to halt Serb repression of its Albanians when Slobodan Milosevic was in power in Belgrade.
United Nations officials say the province's future will be decided by the Security Council at some unspecified time in the future.
The U.N.'s Kosovo governor, German diplomat Michael Steiner, brushed aside the formation of the union.
"Institutions which are based in mono-ethnicity will neither be our partners nor will they have any legal relevance," he said.
His office this week rejected an appeal by Belgrade to allow the return of Serbian forces to the province and for talks on its future status to start in 2003.
Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was quoted at the weekend as telling Britain's Times newspaper that Belgrade would sponsor a breakaway Serb mini-state if the West prevented its troops from returning to guarantee the minority's rights.
He has accused the international community of gradually handing over powers to Kosovo's Albanians.
But Steiner's spokesman Simon Haselock said: "These ideas of partition and division only incite tension."
Ramadan Avdiu, political adviser to Rexhepi, said: "This union is an attempt for the division of Kosovo and it is unacceptable."
Yes but he had not problem with the ideas of partition and division of YUGOSLAVIA and Serbia by incing tension!!.
Ramadan Avdiu, political adviser to Rexhepi, said: "This union is an attempt for the division of Kosovo and it is unacceptable."
Yes but he had no problem with a union of all Albanian lands in one Greater Albania and the division of Serbia and Macedonia.
The U.N.'s Kosovo governor, German diplomat Michael Steiner, brushed aside the formation of the union.
"Institutions which are based in mono-ethnicity will neither be our partners nor will they have any legal relevance," he said.
By his own words no one should be a partner of the NATO protected Mno-ethnic mono-religious Albanian fascist region of Kosovo.
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