Kosovo split by independence issue

By Avni Zogiani

PRISTINA, Kosovo -- In what appears to be a landmark vote, about one-half of Kosovo's Serbs voted in the province's general elections on 17 November, with the moderate Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) coming out on top.

As many as 64 percent of ethnic Albanians in the province voted, while the Serbian turnout was about 47 percent, according to Daan Everts, the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mission.

Many Serbs voted from outside Kosovo. Approximately 170,000 Kosovar Serbs moved to Serbia and Montenegro in waves after July 1999, in fear of reprisals from ethnic Albanians. About 100,000 remain in tightly guarded enclaves in Kosovo.

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The campaign was, on the whole, peaceful -- although many Serbs who chose to vote were under pressure to boycott the elections. In Kosovska Mitrovica, a northern mining town cut by a river into ethnic Albanian and Serbian halves, a group of hard-liners -- who sprang up in 1999 to prevent ethnic Albanians from crossing into the Serbian side of town -- harassed Serbs going to vote.

Pressure also came from politicians. In Belgrade, the Serbian Radical Party of the ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj called any participation "an open betrayal."

But politicians from Zajedno, the loose alliance that now governs Serbia, had invited Serbs to vote in the elections. "Voting is a smaller evil than boycotting," said Goran Vesic, a Democratic Party leader. The official Belgrade line has been to urge Serbs to vote in the 17 November election, so that it would give them "more hand to negotiate their position."

Most ethnic Albanians were unsuprised by the victory of the LDK, the party of veteran political campaigner and pacifist Ibrahim Rugova, who will probably become the first democratically elected president when parliament is convened later this month.

The Kosovo Action for Civic Initiatives, a Pristina-based think tank, said the LDK received about 45 percent of the vote; the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) about 25 percent; while the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) polled 8 percent. Koalicija Povratak -- a coalition of about 20 Serbian parties and civil groups in Kosovo -- received 6 percent.

The independence issue is still the province's Achilles' heel. Though technically part of Yugoslavia, Kosovo became a de facto U.N. protectorate in July 1999, after NATO's bombing campaign against former President Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia. Most of the 1.7 million ethnic Albanians -- who constitute approximately 90 percent of Kosovo's population -- strongly favour independence; the province's Serbs want a gradual return to Yugoslavia.

Rugova said independence was a thorny issue that had to be addressed. "Formal independence, which I demand from the international community, is something that should come today or tomorrow," he said. The 56-year-old is generally more trusted by ethnic Albanians than the PDK's Hashim Thaci, the former political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) guerrillas, or Rramush Haradinaj of the AAK, a former regional UCK commander.

Rugova said he would include two seats in the government for minorities and added that he "may discuss whether to include rivals in the government as well." It looks like his party will not win an outright majority, which will mean forming a coalition government.

But many Serbs are worried that the new parliament is the first step toward outright independence. "The election will lead to the creation of an Albanian state [in Kosovo], and we have been given no guarantees of safety, security, and justice," said Milan Ivanovic, the president of the regional board of the Serbian National Council of Northern Kosovo.