Topic:
KOSOVO IN THE CONSTITUTION
Authors:
Borisav Jovic
Kosovo and Metohija is today an autonomous province in the Republic of
Serbia, which together with Montenegro makes up the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia. Many abroad who today advocate autonomy for Kosovo and
Metohija are possibly not aware of the facts, that it, according to
the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, is actually an autonomous
province.
However, the albanian population in Kosovo and Metohija, lead by
nationalist and separatist political parties, not only does not
recognize and does not wish to acknowledge the autonomous rights
accorded to the Province, but recognizes neither the Republic of
Serbia not the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for its state and is
seeking independence, that is succession.
According to to current constitutional and legal norms, the Autonomous
Province of Kosovo and Metohija has its own assembly, the members of
which are elected by secret ballot in free multi party elections.
Taking into consideration the ethnic composition of the population in
that province, the representatives of the Albanians would enjoy an
absolute majority, but the assembly has not been elected and is not
functioning because the Albanian national parties, which exert the
greatest influence over the voting body, do not wish to participate in
elections nor in the assembly of an Autonomous province that is a part
of Serbia and Yugoslavia, because they insist on secession.
The Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija also also has the right
to independently and in its own assembly elect its government, the so
called Executive Council, with the number of ministers deemed
necessary, and to appoint the ministers and other senior officials of
the civil service. As things stand today, when one boycotts the state
one lives in, such possibilities are wasted.
Temporarily, until the issue of electing a Provincial Assembly is
resolved, the pertinent decisions are being made by the Serbian
national legislature, so that life would be able to go on in such
circumstances. A similar situation can be seen with regard to the
establishment of municipal authorities in the Autonomous Province of
Kosovo and Metohija, in which, in 90 percent of the cases, the
Albanian population is in the majority, and is rejecting to
participate in elections and the executive authority, so that
municipal assemblies are composed of representatives of those citizens
who voted.
We cannot avoid mentioning the fact that rejection of the Albanian
national separatist parties and voters of that nationality to
participate in the republican and federal elections, because of their
boycott and non recognition of the state in which they live, where
they would have close to 10 percent of the total number of
representatives, with a great possibility to influence the political
life of the republic and the country in both the interest of the
national minority they represent, is unreasonable sacrifice of an
exceptional right to the detriment of the citizens they believe they
are representing usefully.
The leadership of the Albanian population in Kosovo and Metohija,
through their policies and practice, has placed the citizens of their
nationality in a political ghetto, stripping it of all of the
political rights accorded to it by the constitution and the law. This
violates its citizens' rights to a considerable degree, but not in the
way it is often though of doing so, by the state in which they live,
but rather by those who do not allow them to be equal citizens.
To what extent the Albanian separatist leaders are lacking scruples
and forcing the Albanian population to boycott the state in which they
live, can easily be understood if one bears in mind the fact that they
have forced their compatriots to quit their work places so that they
could "boycott" the state. People have quit their jobs not only in the
civil service and other state institutions, but also in factories,
mines, hospitals, schools, etc., without their leaders providing them
with other employment in return. Even worse and far more damaging was
the departure of the Albanian children from their schools, in which,
by the way, they were being educated in the Albanian language at the
expense of the state.
The boycott of the state schools was motivated by the idea that it
would avoid recognition of schools whose certificates bear the
"Republic of Serbia" ensignia, because they do not recognize it, nor
do they recognize some of the less important points of the syllabus,
and which are not probably without a solution. Some form of
underground schools have been established, where the children learn
according to a syllabus that differs from the state sanctioned one,
and where certificates bear the "Republic of Kosovo" ensignia, which
are not excepted anywhere and which only bring unpleasantness to their
owners. A similar fate has befallen health care professionals of the
albanian nationality, who have been left for the most part without
employment and have been withdrawn to some illegal and inadequate
underground health care services, while the Albanian population has
been deprived of care in state run health institutions, where as a
rule treatment is free of charge and on a higher professional level.
The existing dispute on implementing the so called "Milosevic-Rugova"
education agreement, boils down to the fact that the authorities are
calling on all the Albanian children, as well as the students, to
return to schools and universities, without any doubt where they could
be taught in their mother tongue, while in the meantime the Albanian
representatives are demanding that school facilities be returned to
them so that Albanian children can be taught in accordance with a
syllabus they determine and where the "Republic of Kosovo"
certificates are issued. Actually, they are calling for the schools to
be excluded from the state education system, so that they could more
easily control one of the systems of the phantom Republic of Kosovo,
which is of course unacceptable to Serbia, and it would most probably
not be allowed by any other state in the world.
The albanian national minority is guaranteed, like all others, the
right to use its mother tongue in official correspondence with the
state -- the civil service, courts and all other places, to cultivate
its culture -- to have libraries, theaters in the Albanian language,
and such, to receive information in its own language, to what end
there are numerous papers and magazines in Albanian, as well as
special broadcasts on radio and television. Not only as concerns the
rights of national minorities, but in all other rights and vital
issues for citizens, the Albanian national minority has been cheated
by the boycott forced on it by its political leadership, because they
are not allowed to participate in places of political decision making
and in places of education or work.
Often, from a standpoint of insufficient knowledge of the historical
and contemporary facts, criticism is heard abroad of an alleged
injustice of the reduction of the autonomous rights of Kosovo and
Metohija by the Serbian Constitution of 1989. At that time
prerogatives were taken from the autonomous provinces and transferred
to republic, but only those which are clearly in the realm of the
state and under no criteria anywhere in the world are they given to
autonomous provinces, just as the adoption of the Constitution of the
Republic (for which agreement was needed from the Autonomous
Province), was the adoption of a law that must be valid on the entire
territory of the republic (the autonomous provinces had previously
enjoyed the right to independently create legislation that could be in
contradiction with republican laws), territorial jurisprudence of the
courts and prosecution (a unified court and prosecution was proscribed
for the entire Republic), as well as a single police and public
security service, so that all citizens of the republic would be equal
under the law, before the courts and state organs.
The autonomous rights of Kosovo and Metohija were limited exclusively
by laws which have validity on the entire territory of the Republic,
but it has its own budget, its government and all organs whose job it
is to make sure that that the constitutionally and legally guaranteed
civic and minority rights in the autonomy are enforced in the manner
most suited to them. I cannot see how Serbia (and Yugoslavia) could
have greater international obligations than those already proscribed
by the law. That is not the issue of the state of affairs in Kosovo
and Metohija, the problem is that the Albanian population should
reject their separatist tendencies and start using the rights in the
state where they live.
It is wrong to imply that the problem could be resolved by returning
to Kosovo and Metohija the autonomous state rights it had before 1989.
Even under those circumstances the Albanian separatists had on
numerous occasions organized rebellions, starting in 1981, and later,
calling for independence and secession, while the state rights which
had been unnaturally granted to them, they widely abused to execute a
mass pogrom of the Serb and Montenegrin peoples from the region, which
was the real reason those rights were revised.
Little is known, or maybe that it does not want to be known, that in
1988, with the agreement of all the Yugoslav republics, and stemming
from the mentioned abuse, The Constitution of SFRY was amended,
allowing Serbia to amend its Constitution and revise the prerogatives
of the provinces, and since when the exodus of the Serb population
under pressure has decreased considerably. It is wrong to only blame
the amendments on Serbia, it had the general agreement for that in the
entire SFRY, including agreement from the the Assembly of the
Autonomous Province of Kosovo, which by a great majority had as its
members Albanians and voted for that amendment as logical and
unavoidable.
If anyone abroad really wants the tensions in Kosovo and Metohija to
subside, they should take into consideration the real state of events
and real causes of the political tension. They can be found in the
separatist tensions and non-recognition of Serbia as their state. If
that hurdle was to be surpassed, then anything else could be
negotiable, and the tensions would immediately subside.
(The author is former president of SFRY Presidency )
(End)
Azem Vlasi
In Article one of the Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia of 1974, along with all the republics which make up the
federal state, also mentioned are the Socialist Autonomous Provinces
of Kosovo and Vojvodina, with the difference being the added appendix
that they are "...within Serbia." That appendix was the result of a
political compromise, in order to ease the dissatisfaction in Serbia
because of the improved constitutional position of the two provinces
accorded by Article one of the Constitution of the Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, and their true representation Federal bodies,
they were in fact federal units.
Also in the constitutional definition of sovereignty of the republics
and provinces, another distinction was been made in that the republics
were defined as sovereign states within the framework of the Socialist
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, while for the provinces it was said
that they were "social-political organizations whose workers and
citizens realize their sovereign rights." In all else, according to
the responsibilities and the manner of governing, Kosovo (and
Vojvodina) were to a high degree equal with the republics.
The provincial assembly had all the legislative functions and adopted
the same laws as did the assembly of the republic, except citizenship.
Kosovo had an executive and judicial authority, a constitutional
court, administration. Although to a somewhat lesser degree as
compared to the republics, it was represented in all the
representative and political offices of the Federation, while in the
Presidency of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as were
all the republics, with one representative. Provincial laws determined
all relations in all walks of life (economy, finance, administration,
education, property issues, information, equality of ethnic
communities, their language and alphabet, etc.)
In the circles of the Greater Serbian nationalism, dissatisfaction
was kindled for a long time over such a status for the provinces, even
though, according to the constitutional definition they were to a
certain degree also within Serbia. During Tito's reign that
dissatisfaction was concealed to a point and the relations determined
by constitutional solutions of 1974, functioned relatively well.
But a more open political and propaganda offensive against such a
status for Kosovo, was initiated after the student demonstrations in
Pristina and some other places in 1981, where apart from others,
slogans for Kosovo to become a republic were also heard.
The true broad offensive for destroying the constitutional identity of
Kosovo (and Vojvodina) was initiated when Slobodan Milosevic rose to
power, when Serb nationalism was given a chance to act legitimately
and institutionally. In that approach, Kosovo, in other words, the
provinces were only the initial phase in the activities for the
radical transformation of former Yugoslavia into a "Great Serbia."
The Initiative of the presidency of the Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia to change the federal Constitution in the normative part
pertaining to social-economic relations was used as a direct reason
for the final offensive. Through the mechanism of "democratic
centralism" in the Communist league, in other words through the
Central Committee and the Presidency where they had a majority of
followers as compared to Kosovo and the Albanians ( Montenegrins,
Macedonians, Serbs from Bosnia and Croatia), the Serbs succeeded in
forcing a stand in regard to reviewing the need for such
constitutional changes which would provide for Serbia's more adequate
functioning, because of the existence of the two provinces. We and the
citizens of Vojvodina opposed it, but all further developments were
exposed to pressure, threats, protests which called to arms and
threatened war.
Through the officials of the League of Communist Yugoslavia, gathering
a majority of anti-Albanian oriented forces, they succeeded in driving
out of leading posts key Albanian personnel from Kosovo. Thus the
resistance of the Kosovo leadership to that aggressive Greater Serbian
onslaught weakened. The only resistance came from the Albanians at
peaceful mass protests, but that did not help either. In Feb. 1989 a
false allegation was staged that some enemy organization was behind
the Albanian mass protests for the preservation of constitutional
autonomy, which the presidency of the Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia was taken in by, had resulted in the imposition of martial
law in Kosovo. That initiated a campaign against influential persons
in political and intellectual circles, many people were arrested
including some very distinguished political leaders. That removed the
major obstacles to the forceful changes of the constitution, and the
changes were realized in Kosovo on March 23, under imposed martial law
and the presence of tanks, and in Belgrade triumphantly on March 28,
1989. Furthermore, 1989 had passed in political pursuits and
show-downs with all those people who in one way or another resisted
the violent and unconstitutional imposition of Serbian authority in
Kosovo.
The year 1990 is one of formal dispossession of autonomy, revoking its
last remains. At the same time under way is the process of mass
Serbization of Kosovo and systematic discrimination against Albanians,
abolishing all the national rights which they had with autonomy, as
well as violating their basic human and civil rights.
The Serbian legislature continually annulled all the laws and other
regulations which the Kosovo assembly had adopted some 20 years
earlier, replacing them with other laws and acts. All that was
conducted in an unconstitutional manner and was aimed at abolishing
all the national and civil rights the Albanians had realized earlier.
First of all, in March 1990, the Serbian legislature adopted a
regulation with a cynical title: Program of measures for the
implementation of peace, freedom, tolerance, democracy and prosperity
in the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo.
The cynical part of it is the fact that the same regime had prior to
and after that, done everything contrary to the title of that
document. In fact it was a program for the legalization of national
inequality, that is an all encompassing favoring of Serbs and
discrimination against Albanians and with calls to Albanians to
recognize and respect as their own the authorities who were doing such
things to them.
In that series of unconstitutional " laws", according to the extent of
the negative effects sustained by the Albanians and the legalization
of disorder and injustice, best remembered was the so called "Law on
conduct for state bodies under special circumstances" which was
adopted in the Serbian legislature in June 1990. It in fact gave the
Serbian authorities at all levels freedom to do whatever they wanted
with the Albanians in Kosovo, under the excuse that they were
imposing law and order. Recalling that "law" all companies, and many
other institutes and institutions were placed under Serbian
receivership, and thus with a wide sweep the legal management of those
public organizations was abolished.
The receiverships were given the authority to fire Albanians from
their jobs, take away their apartments and similar by short procedure.
Also added to that was " The law on employment under special
circumstances" which was adopted in July 1990. Receiverships
implemented that " law" efficiently, and in less than a year about
100,000 Albanians were fired from their jobs. It is interesting to
stress that with the adoption of that "Law" the Serbian legislature
adopted an instruction for the implementation of that law only in
Kosovo.
That was followed by the annulment of other laws adopted by the Kosovo
legislature over a period of more than 20 years and "covering" the
regions which were regulated by them, by Serbian laws.
In violation of the Constitution, at the beginning of July 1990, the
Serbian Legislature adopted a "Law on the cessation of power of the
assembly and executive council of the Socialist Autonomous Province of
Kosovo." By that the two highest ruling bodies in Kosovo were formally
extinguished and once again in an unconstitutional manner Serbia's
rule over Kosovo was imposed in a much greater measure than was
allowed by the forced constitutional changes of 1989.
Under the pretext of allegedly preventing the Serbs and Montenegrins
from leaving Kosovo, in about the middle of 1990, the Serbian
legislature adopted a "Law on a fund for the development of Kosovo"
and the "Program of measures for preventing the Serbs and Montenegrins
from leaving Kosovo". Harsh cynicism: while over 100,000 Albanians
were fired from their jobs, "laws" and "programs" for opening new job
opportunities for the Serbs and Montenegrins were adopted.
In the ensuing operation other spheres of life are invaded: the
Serbian legislature adopts "laws" on abolishing provincial laws which
were in effect until that time: for higher, secondary, and elementary
education, by which the Albanian language curriculum is actually
abolished at the university and high school education levels. Also
abolished were all the existing educational and training institutions
which were part of the education system. The entire judicial system
and authorities in Kosovo were abolished. Also the Constitutional
Court of Kosovo was abolished. In March 1991, the Kosovo presidency
was also abolished.
Similar events take place in the field of information, interrupting
the program in the Albanian language on Pristina Radio and Television
right after the abolishing of the provincial law on information, and
the police forcibly drove the Albanians out of broadcasters' premises.
The publishing of the Rilindje was banned, the only daily in the
Albanian language since 1945.
With the adoption of the new Serbian Constitution in 1990, all the
functions of the autonomous provinces were in fact extinguished. In
the new Constitution the names "Autonomous Province of Kosovo and
Metohija and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina" just stand, when in
fact they have less authority that the municipalities did in the
earlier system.
All that was concluded at the time as the disintegration of former
Yugoslavia. Thus Serbia has realized its political goal stressed in
its policy proclaimed during the protests, that it wishes to be like
the other republics, in other words free of provinces. The only
difference is in that now, instead of the province of Kosovo, it has
an unrelenting clash with the Albanians who have by referendum
proclaimed Kosovo a republic, while the Serbian authorities remain
convinced that it is an internal issue of Serbia.
Serbia rules over Kosovo, mainly through repression, but in fact the
Kosovo issue has remained in debate and a solution is being sought.
That is by far a very internationalized issue, and the international
community does not agree with the a situation which Serbia has
forcibly imposed. The second half of the match is anticipated.
(The author is a Pristina-based attorney and former communist
official)
(End)
