http://www.centraleurope.com/yugoslaviatoday/news.php3?id=212746&section=Kosovo

Kosovo's Bitter Serbs Prepare to Sit out Historic Vote

PRISTINA, Oct 24, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) The gulf between Kosovo's
warring communities will be more obvious than ever on Saturday when the
province's Serb minority sits out an election that has become a festival of
nationhood for the Albanians.

Even a last minute, and unlikely, change of heart by Kosovo's remaining 100,000
Serbs, could not now overturn the boycott, as it held firm until the deadline
for
voter registration three months ago.

There are many reasons for their decision, chief among them a refusal to
recognize
any poll which they believe would serve to legitimize ethnic Albanian demands
for
independence from the rest of Yugoslavia and the "occupation" of their province
by NATO troops and UN administrators.

Sovereignty issues aside, the Serb boycott is also a protest at the conditions
in
which they live in UN-run Kosovo, hemmed-in in heavily guarded enclaves,
deprived of freedom of movement and in constant fear of attack by ethnic
Albanian extremists.

Their leaders have also demanded that around 170,000 Serbs who fled Kosovo in
the year after the war be allowed to return before they begin to co-operate
fully
with UN institutions.

Today, Serbs represent only five percent of the population in the province,
where
Albanians form the vast majority of the nearly two million inhabitants.

Violence against Serbs and other minorities has diminished since the middle of
the
year, but still never a week goes by without a Serb being killed, houses are
burned
on an almost daily basis and convoys carrying Serbs regularly stoned.

"The decision by Serbs to boycott polling should have come as little surprise,"
according to a report released last week by the pressure group Human Rights
Watch, "It is hard to argue that the minimum conditions exist for the holding of
free
and fair elections."

And a report issued Monday by the OSCE, which is organizing the elections for
Kosovo's UN administration, said that despite some improvements in recent
months "the situation for most minority groups remains, at best, precarious.

"Murder, arson and lesser forms of intimidation are still a daily reality," it
says.

Despite this, according to Kosovo's OSCE chief Daan Everts, many Serbs now
regret their decision to refuse to register. Speaking at the launch of the
report, he
said he was confident that by the time Saturday's victors come up for
re-election in
two year's time, many more Serbs will take part.

The ethnic Albanians, by contrast, have already thrown themselves into the
campaign with enthusiasm, and rallies held by their three main parties have
attracted tens of thousands of flag-waving citizens.

The number of Serb voters will probably be in the tens rather than the
thousands,
and they will have no Serb party for whom to vote. Instead, Bernard Kouchner,
chief of the UN mission in Kosovo, will nominate minority representatives to
Albanian dominated councils.

Kosovo, though now under UN administration, is still formally part of Serbia,
the
larger of Yugoslavia's two remaining provinces.

The other province is the much smaller Montenegro, which is headed by a
West-leaning administration.

An independent international commission on Monday called for independence for
Kosovo, provided the Albanian majority protects the rights of minorities.

South African judge Richard Goldstone, who chaired the 11-member commission,
however, warned at a press conference that this process could take years.

The independence call was one of the key recommendations made by the
commission which looked into the causes of the Kosovo conflict and produced a
372-page report that was presented to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
Monday.