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Balkan Crisis Report (Institute for Peace and War Reporting) 3-Feb-03
Presevo Albanians Eye Autonomy

Local leaders feel inevitable border talks may give them the leverage needed to break away from Serbia.

By Belgzim Kamberi in Presevo South Serbia's ethnic Albanians are hoping that a decade-old referendum will help them realise their dreams of autonomy and unification with Kosovo.

With the creation of the new union of Serbia and Montenegro last week and increasing debate over the future of Kosovo, Albanians living in the Presevo region are believed to be moving to protect their interests in the event of any future border changes.

The Presevo Albanians now hope that an unofficial referendum conducted in 1992 - in which 95 per cent of some 47,000 people polled backed full autonomy for the region and recognised its right to be united with Kosovo - will sway local and international opinion and boost their bid to breakaway from Serbia.

Local politicians hope that the Presevo valley - which they call Eastern Kosovo - will be transferred in exchange for Serbian enclaves on the Kosovar side in the event of any future border discussions.

Analysts believe that although the plebiscite was never officially recognised by Belgrade or the international community, it may yet become the Presevo Albanian leadership's trump card.

The region, consisting of the Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja municipalities, home to around 70,000 Albanians and 40,000 Serbs, was the scene of armed conflict between the Yugoslav army and Albanian guerrillas until mid-2001.

The fighting stopped after the international community and Serbia's deputy president Nebojsa Covic hammered out an agreement under which the Albanians agreed to disarm in exchange for guarantees of improved human and democratic rights that had been denied by Yugoslavia's former leader Slobodan Milosevic.

Talk of the referendum was abandoned during the peace negotiations. "The international community made it very clear that we should abandon our plans for changing the borders, so we stopped talking about the plebiscite," said Naser Haziri, deputy head of the United Democratic Party of Albanians, who was a member of the Presevo negotiating team.

In accordance with the peace deal, municipal elections were held last July. In the ballot, leading Albanian party, the Party for Democratic Action, PDP, led by Presevo mayor Riza Halimi, won the control of Bujanovac and Presevo municipalities, while a Serb coalition triumphed in Medvedja.

However, while they were prepared to vote for the matters that concern them locally, ethnic Albanians in southern Serbia boycotted the Serb presidential elections in October and December last year. This has been viewed as yet another signal that they are not interested to stay part of Serbia.

Local leaders appear to think that the 1992 referendum may still play its part in an eventual change of borders within the former Yugoslavia - and that unification could still be achieved through an agreement between Pristina and Belgrade, with areas of northern Kosovo which have a majority Serb population being exchanged for Presevo.

"I do not think that this is just our nationalistic dream, but it is a legitimate and democratic way of expressing peoples' views," Haziri told IWPR.

While Kosovo is formally part of Serbia and Montenegro, it has been run as a United Nations protectorate since the end of the conflict in 1999, and talks over its final status are yet to begin.

However, the subject remains high on many political agendas. Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic has recently announced that he wants final status talks to begin by June of this year, while the independence issue has never been more fiercely debated in Kosovo itself.

Serbs living in northern Kosovo formed an association of their municipalities in January, which could - in the event of Kosovo being granted its independence - hold a referendum on joining Serbia.

The current political situation in the protectorate could allow Albanians in southern Serbia to use the 1992 referendum as a bargaining tool and ask the international community to recognise its result.

"I think this historical injustice to the [Presevo] Albanians could be changed through an agreement between Kosovo Albanians and Serbs," said Sevdail Hyseni, a spokesperson for the Albanian Democratic Progress Movement.

"The referendum is eternal and nobody has a mandate to brush away the wish of the Albanian population in this region."

However, the local population may not agree. Ten years on, most Albanians here have lost hope that their dream would one day become reality. "The referendum result is nothing more than a piece of paper, which is being used by our leaders for their own political needs," said one Presevo resident, who did not want to give his name.

Presevo Albanians Snub Belgrade Again

Western diplomats critical of Presevo Albanians’ plan to repeat presidential poll boycott.

By IWPR contributors in Presevo (BCR No. 381, 11-Nov-02)

Ethnic Albanians in southern Serbia will press their case for union with neighbouring Kosovo by again boycotting presidential elections, which are to be re-run on December 8 after the initial ballot was annulled due to a low turn out.

To the annoyance of the Serbian authorities and the international community, some 65,000 Albanians stayed away from the polls in the municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja during October’s invalid ballot.

The Albanians hope the Presevo valley region will one day be transferred to Kosovo in exchange for Serb enclaves on the Kosovan side of the border.

Although Kosovo is still formally part of the Yugoslav Federal Republic, FRY, it has effectively been run as a United Nations protectorate since the NATO conflict with Serbia ended in 1999. Talks on the area’s final status have yet to start.

The only concession made by the Presevo valley Albanians was to take part in recent municipal elections, on the basis that local matters concerned them directly. In the ballot, the leading Albanian group, the Party for Democratic Action, or PDD, won control of the Bujanovac and Presevo municipalities while a Serb coalition triumphed in Medvedja.

Until mid-2001, the Presevo valley was torn by armed conflict between FRY security forces and Albanian guerrillas of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja, UCPBM. The fighting stopped after the international community and Serbian deputy premier Nebojsa Covic hammered out an agreement under which the guerrillas disarmed in exchange for guarantees of human and democratic rights that were denied to Albanians under former president Slobodan Milosevic.

The official Belgrade view is that Kosovo remains part of the FRY under UN resolution 1244.

However, some circles in Serbia, primarily those surrounding the influential academic and writer Dobrica Cosic, seen as the father of Serbian nationalism, think territorial exchange would be the best option.

Sulejman Hiseni, an ethnic Albanian from Bujanovac, told IWPR, that the boycott of Serbian presidential elections made perfect sense for the local population. “I don’t see what Belgrade can expect from Albanians here because they will never accept Serbia as their country,” he said, reflecting the views of many in the area.

Two of the three most significant Albanian parties - the Party for Democratic Union of Albanians, PDUA and The Movement for Democratic Progress, PDP, which embraces former commanders of the UCPBM - openly shunned the October presidential elections.

Riza Halimi, the moderate leader of the PDD formally invited his members to vote in the contest. But local observers claimed his statement was more a gesture of cooperation with Belgrade and the international community than a serious invitation. Halimi received one of the presidential candidates, the reformist Miroljub Labus, and assured him of support, which never materialised on the day of the ballot. The leader of Socialist Party of Serbia, SPS, Dragoljub Filipovic, said Halimi’s actions amounted to “political prostitution”.

International envoys also showed impatience with the Albanian position. One western diplomat reminded IWPR that in local elections Albanian leaders called on their followers to vote in what they termed a fight for political supremacy. “Now these same leaders refrain from contributing to the country’s democratisation,” the diplomat said.

Such criticism looks unlikely to sway the Presevo Albanians. Sources at the heart of the community said the boycott of political activity unrelated to local concerns was likely to continue until final talks on the status of Kosovo.