Kosovo Parliament Challenges U.N. Authority

Reuters ^ | Thu Jul 8, 2004 | By Matthew Robinson

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PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Kosovo's parliament threw down the gauntlet to the province's U.N. overseers Thursday, adopting constitutional changes including the right to call a referendum on independence from Serbia.

The amendments also included switching control for international relations and public security from the U.N. mission, which has run the majority Albanian province since the 1999 conflict, to local authorities.

But to become law they must be signed by Kosovo's acting U.N. governor, who has already warned that only the United Nations has the authority to make major constitutional changes.

"Any comprehensive review of the Constitutional Framework is outside the competence of the assembly," the U.N. mission said ahead of the vote, referring to the 2001 document which set the ground rules for Kosovo's provisional government and parliament.

Kosovo was placed under U.N.-led administration in June 1999 after a 78-day NATO bombing campaign to halt Serb repression of ethnic Albanians. It remains formally part of Serbia and Montenegro, the loose union that replaced Yugoslavia last year.

The province's international administrators, backed by NATO peacekeepers, continue to hold the real power including a veto over parliament. But local Albanian leaders are increasingly impatient for formal independence and control over their own affairs.

"WASTE OF TIME"

One senior international official in Kosovo described parliament's move as a "non-starter" and a "waste of time."

He accused local politicians of playing to the electorate by making it look as if they were taking on the United Nations.

"They're not even using the powers that they have effectively to run the government and manage affairs," he said.

Oliver Ivanovic, a member of the minority Serb coalition which boycotted the parliamentary session, said the action could only "threaten the already fragile stability and security" in Kosovo.

Ethnic Albanian discontent erupted in mid-March with a wave of fierce anti-Serb, anti-U.N. violence in which 19 people were killed and hundreds of homes destroyed.

Some Balkan experts have since advocated strengthening the local institutions and scaling down the U.N. presence after parliamentary elections scheduled for October.

Parliament's amendments, adopted by 85 of the 88 deputies present in the 120-seat body, included the right "to determine Kosovo's final status through a referendum."

The international community has set out a policy of "Standards before Status," by which Kosovo must prove its credentials in democracy and human rights before discussion of its final status, possibly after mid-2005.

"We believe that setting standards and then implementing standards is the way forward for Kosovo," U.S. Deputy Undersecretary for Political Affairs Marc Grossman said late on Wednesday after meeting local leaders in Pristina.

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