Kosovo Serb leaders say partition is "out of
the question"
BBC Monitoring Europe (Political) - August 17, 2007, Friday
Text of report by Serbian newspaper Glas javnosti on 16 August
[Report by "D.M.": "Only Crumbs for Serbia"]
Belgrade -- "Chopping up Kosovo-Metohija would bring Serbia another war; it
would turn Kosovska Mitrovica into another Beirut and the only thing 'gained'
from the division would be a legalization of the position of the north of the
province, which in fact is not under the rule of the Kosovo provisional
institutions anyway. There would be no new municipalities created in the
Pomoravlje region; 75 per cent of the Serb community would be abandoned at the
mercy of the [ethnic] Albanians, as would 90 per cent of our cultural and
historical heritage, in which our Serbian identity is rooted," Kosovo Serb
representative Oliver Ivanovic warns in the strongest terms.
And while the corridors of international diplomatic offices are abuzz with
rumours about a division as an alternative to Ahtisaari's plan, our people in
the province are appealing to Belgrade not to abandon them this time at least.
They are insisting that much more than mere percentages of area is at stake.
They are warning against the delusion that pro-European Serbia would be given a
concession in the form of making a tiny municipality here and there or putting
up more barbed wire around the holy places.
"Everything south of the Ibar River would be lost forever. There would be no
other demarcation line except the one that we have today. It would only be moved
if we had another war and heavy casualties -- and that is what nobody needs
today. We must have no illusions about the border. All Serbs left living on the
other side of it would feel abandoned. They could not stay on in Lipljan,
Gracanica, and so on. They would leave their homes either of their own volition
or under pressure," Ivanovic insists.
The north of Kosmet [Kosovo-Metohija] would be annexed to Serbia, but this would
only be the beginning of the problems. The new border could easily go up in
flames.
"There would immediately come a new concentration and operation of extremists
along this line. Mitrovica would undergo Beirutization and young people would be
the first victims. In effect, we would even be left without a part of that town,
too, and people would have to move out. They would leave Zvecan next. Out of all
the divided areas, there would be only two municipalities left -- Leposavic and
Zubin Potok. Also, nearly the entire economic potential of the province, about
90 per cent of it, would be left to the Albanians," Ivanovic, a member of the
first Serbian state team [for Kosovo talks], explains.
This time, however, Serbia would not be the only one drawn into the new war for
a Greater Albania. Ivanovic insists that a division would trigger conflicts also
in northern Macedonia and Greece and there would be problems, too, in northern
and southern Montenegro, Bosnia, and so on. He maintains that a similar effect
would be produced by creating two [ethnic] entities. The international community
would not want to settle the status according to that model, anyway, because the
practice in Bosnia has shown clearly enough its "reconciliation effect," our
interviewee maintains.
In order to avoid any possibility of such a scenario, another Kosovo Serb
representative, Marko Jaksic, insisted yesterday [15 August], that the word
"division" must not be mentioned even in the context of the remotest of
theories.
"A division is out of the question and therefore there must be no mention of
such a thing. We must not mention such a thing in any shape or form, because
that is not a possibility. There are no percentages, no boundaries, no borders.
Our trump card is international law. We have the misfortune that NATO has
occupied the country and has no intention of leaving. But we must not give up. A
division would lose us everything," Jaksic candidly said.
Source: Glas javnosti, Belgrade, in Serbian 16
Aug 07 p3
Copyright 2007 British Broadcasting Corporation
Posted for Fair Use only.