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Serbia Shrugs off Kosovo Elections
The transitional Serbian government Saturday rejected as "unacceptable" the elections in Kosovo organized by the UN mission and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
"It is unacceptable because they are mono-national, without any foundation in the laws of the Republic of Serbia, and because they run contrary to the proclaimed objectives and responsibilities of the international community and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244," the Tanjug news agency quoted the Serbian government as saying in a statement.
Kosovo is a province of the Republic of Serbia, which forms the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with Montenegro.
Some 1,466 polling stations were opened on Saturday throughout Kosovo to vote for local organs of administration, and 920 councilors were expected to be elected. Ethnic Albanians went to the polls en masse, but Serbs boycotted the election.
The Serbian government said conditions are not ripe for elections in Kosovo.
"There are not even the elementary conditions for implementing these elections, having in mind the security and overall political situation in the province," said the statement.
It said there were no conditions in Kosovo for the free expression of the political will of citizens as there was no freedom of movement; Serbs and other non-Albanians have been expelled; and those who remain in Kosovo were threatened in every respect.
The Serbian government emphasized that the elementary precondition for free, legitimate and democratic elections in Kosovo was the full realization of Resolution 1244, and that such elections cannot be organized or accepted without a political solution for the problems in this province, said the statement.
NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslavia last year allegedly to prevent humanitarian disasters there. Ironically, ethnic tension has not been alleviated after Kosovo was placed under the control of a UN administration and NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) as Serbs are constantly targeted by Albanian terrorists.
More than 1,000 people have been killed and about 1,000 kidnapped since the end of the war in June 1999. Hundreds of thousands of non-Albanian residents were forced to flee their homes.
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