23 October 2002 Wednesday Edition

CONTENTS

University Clinic and Batllava, first to plunge into darkness (Koha Ditore)

Koha Ditore reports that KEK officials have already prepared a list of consumers who will soon be plunged into darkness. Based on this list, the biggest debtors are those that operate on funds from the Kosovo Consolidated Budget. Agim Miftari, financial director at Prishtina Distribution stated, "The decision for disconnection of the consumers who overspend and are big debtors to KEK was taken based on UNMIK Regulation 2002/19, dated 20 September 2002."

According to Miftari, the biggest debtor is the University Clinic Centre (QKU) at 837,000 euros, which will soon be disconnected from the power plant. The Batllava regional water supply is also one of the biggest debtors, at 760,500 euros. The third ranked debtor is Termokos, owing 479,400 euros, then a mineral company, which owes 332,000 euro. The list goes on and on, including a kindergarten, which owes 67,000 euros, the Kosovo railway, 43,000 and a student dormitory, 17,000.

The distribution financial director says that all these institutions will be disconnected from the power supply soon because they haven't met the deadline for restructuring their debts. "We have informed these debtors by sending them warnings which said that if they don't pay by 16 October, they will be disconnected from the power supply," Miftari was quoted as saying in Koha Ditore.

Xhaferi and PDSH react to points in Steiner's decentralization plan (Koha)

Koha Ditore carries a report on a press release from Arbën Xhaferi's PDSH in Macedonia, which warns that the SRSG's recent announcements on decentralization will have consequences for the entire region. The communiqué draws a parallel between Serbs in Kosovo and Albanians in Macedonia and suggests that decentralization would mean "territorialization" on the basis of ethnicity, which, presumably would be welcomed by Albanians in Macedonia.

Michael Steiner's invitation in his announcement on decentralization falls within the competencies of the SRSG, according to a communiqué from Arbën Xhaferi's PDSH. At first sight, it seems to an internal matter for Kosovo, but the first point, which says that "municipal units may be established for sizeable non-majority communities. These municipal units will have a local council, administrative organs and a budget", indicates that it will have regional consequences and, to begin with, will destabilize Macedonia. PDSH's reasoning is that this point creates negative precedents on two levels:

1. It legalizes a method for decisions to be made about Kosovo Serbs outside of Kosovo, in Belgrade, be it in legal institutions or parapolitical institutions, such as the CCK, which Covic is coordinator of, or the Serbian Orthodox Church, represented by Bishop Artemije or Patriarch Pavle. This strange practice approved by Steiner would ruin the autonomy of Albanian political entities in Macedonia, which now function autonomously without the blessing of Tirana, Prishtina or regional institutions. The more that Belgrade's patronage in Prishtina is legalized, the more would Prishtina's patronage in Skopje be legalized.

2. It legalizes a territorial principle for resolving interethnic conflict. It is already known that the respect of Albanian political and military entities for Western tendencies and standards at the Prizren and Ohrid agreements served to de-territorialize the Albanian issue in Macedonia, limiting Albanian demands to the dimension of rights.

PDSH is worried because of these precedents, which would have direct consequences on Macedonia's fragile stability, and it appeals for care to be taken so that missteps are not made. The first and only productive step that should be taken in Kosovo is the determination of its status, which would lead to recognition of its right of self-determination, and then should come the resolution of Serb and other minority demands.

"If the Serb issue is opened without resolving the Kosovo status issue, why not then contest the Macedonian issue on the principle of the territorialization of Albanian issue?" asks PDSH, which suggesting that it is likely that Albanians in Macedonia would welcome legitimization of this precedent in Macedonia for territorializing ethnic issues.

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Surroi: Return of the preferred Albanian sport, the moving of boundaries (Koha)

1. In our village, with big families and very little land, one of the most oft repeated rituals, generation after generation, was the moving of boundaries from one property to the other. This ritual is so strong that it turned into a national sport over the past few centuries and, as villagers came to town, it took on the dimensions of grabbing even a centimeter of the pavement or public green space for their own private needs. And it always causes a mess.

This is more or less what I was thinking of when I first read Steiner's plan on decentralization. After the local elections (in this case, it goes without saying, we are talking about Kosovo Serbs), at a neighborhood in the village, a group of villagers can ask for it to be marked as a 'municipal unit', thus to be counted as an administrative unit under the level of the municipality, which should be taking care of the primary interests in accordance with municipal policy. In essence, it means that an ethnic group in one municipality has the right to draw its own administrative boundaries of a new administrative category, which is somewhere between the local communities of the former socialist system and municipalities, as foreseen in the Constitutional Framework.

The reaction by our villager, Albanian or Serb, will be the same: the proposal for decentralization formed in such manner would be understood to be like planting a tree in the middle of an Albanian or Serb field, which for the moment is a big co-op [farm] called Kosovo, administered by internationals.

2. The consequences of understanding this concept, for either Albanians or Kosovo Serbs, won't be good. I can just imagine when party leaders sit down after the elections with UNMIK chief administrator Michael Steiner to discuss this concept, that somewhere in the backs of our minds municipal and ethnic maps will be hidden. In fact, every participant will have calculated how the maps of these new municipal divisions are going to be drawn. Every time maps are drawn in the Balkans something bad happened.

Actually, these talks would be, in concept, something that hasn't brought anything good to other former Yugoslav republics in talks on territorial division on the basis of ethnicity. Furthermore, these talks would automatically create another dilemma that has not been brought up by the Kosovo Constitutional Framework because four decision-making levels will be created. First, will be the decision made by the UNMIK chief administrator, then the central Kosovo government, afterwards comes the municipal level, and, in the end, the municipal units.

At this moment, when decision-making is coordinated with great difficulty among three areas of government, the formation of a fourth area based on ethnicity will hardly contribute to efficiency.

3. I believe there are ways that talks on decentralization can avoid degenerating down the path they seem to have started on, the drawing of administrative lines between Albanian and Serbs. First, the three main principles proposed by Steiner have to be fully accepted. That Kosovo should be decentralized to help bring efficiency to the government; the need for decentralization to be part of the integration of the citizens into Kosovo institutions; and the requirement for decentralization to address the needs of some specific groups that are not in the same position as the non-ethnic majority.

From this point of view, Steiner's proposal for decentralization should be raised to the category of principles for all. So the municipal units are not formed only on the principle of ethnicity, they are based on the principle of bringing the administration closer to the citizens, even if there is more than one ethnic group. This project should be directed toward creating a more efficient administration and not toward making it more complex, or creating a back door through which it would be possible to form a parallel government, ethnic cantonization, or other proposals such as came from the Academy of Sciences in Belgrade in the past.

There must be talks on procedure: who will have the competencies for forming municipal units? Who will give the initiative and who will look into them?

4. Talks on decentralization are, in fact, talks on constitutional order as in any European country. So it will also be in Kosovo, which still it hasn't decided on its agenda.

When, on 1 November, party leaders sit down together with the UNMIK chief administrator to talk about decentralization, we have to understand that we have started negotiations that will rearrange the current administrative order of the Kosovo constitution. We have to know that we can do this, for better or for worse, nevertheless we cannot do this without a wider consultation with all citizens.

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Cufaj: Decentralization in Bayern, Steiner's home town (Koha Ditore)

Koha Ditore carried a commentary on Steiner's decentralization plan by Germany-based correspondent Beqë Cufaj, who asks the question: Did the UNMIK chief administrator use the Bayern Land model? Cufaj wrote:

Steiner's plan for decentralization of Kosovo municipalities is a letter with several points, which are more or less generalization; and, for the time being, they are abstract and without concrete examples. Be that as it may, the fulfillment of this will be seen after the 1 November meeting that UNMIK chief administrator has called in Gjilanë/Gnjilane.

A question arises of whether this plan should be fully analyzed or looked at in its broader outlines. According to one source, Steiner took his decentralization model from one of the most powerful regions in Germany, and one of the most developed ones, the Free State of Bavaria. If we look closely at Bayern's decentralization, it appears that this was chosen intentionally by the chief administrator. Not because Steiner comes from Bayern, specifically München, where he was born and spent most of his youth, but because this land is so powerful and independent (within Germany) but it is also compact. However, this compactness shows through in regionalization or the powerful decentralization of regions and municipalities, which in no way leaves the impression that it's part of the same country. From the outside, Bayern differs in many respects from Bavaria; while from the inside, despite all its mass decentralization, it doesn't present any regional divisions, but only a passing of competencies from the central and regional governments that are in charge of cooperation between municipalities in Bayern.

It has to be stressed that this German land has not escaped history. Especially after the Second World War, Bayern was hugely destroyed. One of the reasons was that Adolph Hitler started his political activities in Bayern, to be more precise in München, where his party had the strongest support. The town of Nuremberg was flattened by the allied forces, and after the end of war the famous trial was held in Nuremberg. After the war, Bayern was occupied by allied forces had to face the process of denazification and the process of institutional reorganization and, subsequently, the forming of institutions. There were many obstacles. It is an acknowledged fact that one third of the Bayern population after the war were refuges from various European countries, who were expelled or came of their own will to the fatherland. More than three million Germans came from neighboring countries. The difficulties of adapting were great. Not only because there was need to create a living environment for them but also because they had to reorganize the municipalities in this land. As time passed, progress was made and today there are only "Societies of the Expelled", which still exists as relic of the post war era, as these people became devoted citizens of Bayern Germany. After WWII, thanks to the new citizens, the need for new municipalities or the division of these municipalities into units that were included in different districts and regions was evident.

Naturally this should have been the main argument for decentralization of Bayern, but other, practical reasons were just as important, so the motto of this town still goes like this: the government has to be brought as close as possible to the people, not only through a functioning government, but government that serves the needs of the citizens and fulfills their wishes, contracted through the obligations the citizens have toward the government and the law. For this reason, we have to stress that not only Bayern but all over Germany and in all western European countries, local government and local elections are of the utmost importance. It is a general principal that central government hands over as many competencies as possible to the local government. This is so the central government has a free hand to deal with state problems, while forming and following an interactive process with the local government.

Leaving theory aside and given that this plan was a carrot for Serbs to participate in elections, then we can freely say that the general points in Steiner's plan for the decentralization of Kosovo coincide with the Bayern model. What has to be stressed is that differently from Kosovo, which doesn't have and it is not planning to have, its own separate regions, such as Bayern has, which are Oberbayern, Niderbayern, Scheaban, Oberpfalz, Oberfranken, Unterfranken and Mittlefranken. Their task is to link the work of the municipalities and districts with the central government through regional mini-governments. Naturally, this is more practical in Bayern, which has 12 million residents. While Kosovo, with two million residents with strong regional and ethnic divisions, could and should have ties with the central government in Prishtina.

One of the best moves that Steiner made was to choose not to create regions in Kosovo, because only then could one speak about federalism or the possibility of dividing Kosovo. All the other general points that foresee greater competencies for municipalities are quite normal if we consider the Bayern model. For example, the municipal council of a town such as Landshut (Kosovo Albanians remember this Bayern town for accepting Kosovo asylum seekers) has many competencies. To be frank, it has more than Steiner's plan foresees. Landshut's municipal council has a town mayor. Deputies come from different political parties and they have their representatives in municipal commissions according to the percentage of votes, which is the same as any parliament. And they lack the competency for interior security and armed forces. Thus municipal council has members from different parties who have their duties as deputies and also in the commissions: Council for the Elderly, Council for Construction, Council for Vacations, Council for Finance and Economy, Council for Municipal Budget, Council for Youth Policy, Council for Health, Council for Fairs and Organizing, Council for Culture, Council for Social Issues, Council for Sport, Council for Legal Advice, Council for Accounting, Council for Administration, Council for Urban Planning and Communication, Council for Environment and so on. In a word, this gives a realistic possibility that all municipal deputies are engaged in municipal activities.

Given the fact that the devil hides in the details, it has to be emphasized that Landshut lacks one thing, the municipal council doesn't have the competency to create or finance schools. While point four of Steiner's plan reads: "Municipal units will have the right to manage primary and secondary schools." This is dangerous for Kosovo when we know that the Serb community doesn't want to join the Kosovo education system. This issue has to be followed with great care, especially by Kosovo politicians when they sit down on 1 November in Gjilanë/Gnjilane to talk with Steiner. Because if we divide the educational system, this will mean that some young Kosovo citizens, in this case Serbs, will study in their schools about the "heroic" wars of the Serb army in the Balkans from 1990 until their "defense against the NATO aggression"! This detail has to be examined very carefully because Kosovo's future depends on it.

Regarding the right of citizens to form municipalities, this right also exists in Bayern. However, the central authority makes this decision. The issue of expanding municipalities in Prishtina is welcomed. Bigger towns have two, three or even four mayors. One of them is the head mayor (Oberbürgermeister), while the others are his deputies (Bürgermeister). This only aids the work of the town because the majority comes from the party that wins in local elections. Steiner's plan can be compared with the decentralization of Bayern; however, special care has to be given to the rights of administration and opening of schools, while on the issues of interior security (police), state security and the loyalty of municipal council toward central government, there can be no discussion. They are self-evident. No matter which political parties the municipal council and the central government belong to.

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Local elections "winner" (Zëri)

Zëri carries an editorial by Blerim Shala, who argues that decentralization and not the elections is the main issue in Kosovo and that decentralization will also be the winner in these elections.

Kosovo Serbs will participate in the local elections where there is security and institutional conditions. If translated into understandable language, we could say that Serbs will vote where their politicians consider it to be in their national interest.

Nevertheless, it seems that at least in principle all Kosovo citizens that have the will to vote will participate in elections. This is good news. But it can be predicted even now that after the elections there will be political tensions in the triangle formed by UNMIK, Albanian and Serb politicians over how to end the chapter on decentralization. It's hard to avoid the fact that in normal democratic circumstances this issue would have been clarified before the election campaign, because politicians and citizens have a right to know what kind of local government they are fighting over, and how that government will be organized in future. But we all know that showing all the decentralization cards would cause disorder and withdrawing from the elections by this or that political faction in Kosovo.

From today's perspective, three days before the elections, we can say that decentralization and not the elections are the main issue. Second, it turns out that several days were "bought" and the problem was postponed for a week. And presumably this problem will be the biggest winner in the local elections on 26 October.

Kosovo Campaign Coverage

Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK)
Dailies report on LDK election campaign in Kaçanik, Han të Elezit/General Jankovic, Ferizaj/Urosevac and Prizren. Koha Ditore quotes Rugova as saying in Kacanik, "We will repair castles and build hydroelectric plant in Lepenc. Epoka e Re, reporting on the same rally, quotes him as saying that the Kaçanik valley is suitable for rice planting.

Zeri quotes Rugova as saying in Ferizaj that this city proclaimed the independence of Albanian territories in 1908, while Koha Ditore and Epoka e Re report that Rugova told the supporters to plant sunflowers.

Kosova Democratic Party (PDK)
Dailies report on PDK election campaign in Gjilan/Gnjilane, Sharr and Kamenicë/Kamenica. "We will also win in Dardana," Thaçi said for Zëri. Koha Ditore quotes him as saying in Gjilan, "Exchange your two year disappointment with happiness; vote for PDK."

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Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK)
Dailies quote Ramush Haradinaj as saying, "With AAK, Mitrovica will be united."

Kosova Green Party (PGJK)
PGJK president Daut Maloku was quoted in Epoka e Re as saying that chief administrator Steiner's project for the future of Kosovo is even more harmful than the Haekkerup-Covic agreement. "This project cantonizes and Bosnianizes Kosovo," he said.

Belgrade Media Update

194 polling stations to be opened in Serbia proper for Kosovo municipal elections (Tanjug)
Kosovo IDPs who temporarily reside in other parts of Serbia will be voting at the municipal elections at 194 polling stations in 76 towns in Serbia proper, the Republican Commissariat confirmed to Tanjug.

An Advisor to the Commissar, Natasa Mandic, explained that Kosovo IDPs would have to show their IDs (licna karta) or IDP's ID. Some 101,600 voters in Serbia proper are eligible to vote in the Kosovo municipal elections.

Serbs started election campaign in Kosovo (RTS/Beta)
Kosovo Serb political representatives have started their election campaign aimed at motivating as many of their compatriots as possible to vote in the five municipalities where Serbs have majority and could form the local authorities alone, Beta reports.

A KP member in the Kosovo Assembly Presidency Oliver Ivanovic told Beta that it was not possible to organize a full-scale campaign for the upcoming municipal elections scheduled for October 26. He said that "eventual election failure and poor election results among Serbs should be attributed to the UNMIK chief Michael Steiner, who has underestimated Serbs as a political factor and has totally marginalized them".

Ivanovic said that the election campaign could be organized only in places where Serbs have security and majority. "Regretfully, this is only the case in the northern part of Kosovo, plus few places in central and southern Kosovo," he said.

Earlier on Kosovo Serbs' political representatives announced that Serbs would participate in the municipal elections in Leposavic, Zubin Potok, Zvecan, Novo Brdo and Strpce. "In those municipalities, we can expect good results, and we shall discuss poor results in municipalities where we do not take part in the elections with Michael Steiner and claim his responsibility for that," he said.

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Covic calls on massive turnout (SRNA)
The head of the CCK, Nebojsa Covic, called on Serbs in Strpce to turnout massively to the municipal elections and create a possibility to form the local authority alone.

Covic also met with the municipal economic and political representatives and explained to them the decision of selective participation in the upcoming elections.

Covic told local the TV station in Strpce that Serbs, by their massive election turnout, should show that they are majority in Strpce. "Serbs should turnout to the elections as massively as possible in order to decide their destiny themselves," he concluded.