UN vows to end divisive legislation in Kosovo
BERNARD Kouchner, the head of the United Nations administration running Kosovo, has vowed to stamp out all legislation that smacks of “apartheid” in the province, his spokeswoman said yesterday.
Nadia Younes said Kouchner had met 50 judges and prosecutors from across Kosovo who wanted to express their concern about Serbian and Yugoslav laws which discriminate against the ethnic Albanian majority. Although Kosovo has effectively been under international control since mid June, legally it remains part of Yugoslavia.
Kouchner agreed with the legal experts that a working group should be set up to advise him which laws should be changed or scrapped. “Dr Kouchner said that the main task of the advisory group would be to improve existing legislation and to draft new laws which would eliminate all elements of discrimination, that is eliminate that notion of apartheid in the law,” Younes said. Younes stressed that Yugoslav law only applies in Kosovo where it does not contravene European and international standards. The working group would have the job of identifying unacceptable legislation and improving it.
She cited a law which prohibited Albanians from property transactions as an example of discriminatory legislation. “It must be shown to the people of Kosovo that the new laws will be different from their past experience,” Younes quoted Kouchner as saying at Sunday’s meeting. She said judges who had threatened to resign over the continued application of Yugoslav laws had decided to stay on in their posts after taking part in the meeting.
Meanwhile, the position of Slobodan Milosevic has been weakened by the resignation of Bogoljub Karic, a millionaire Kosovo Serb businessman, media mogul and Serbian minister without portfolio.
Once a close ally of Milosevic, Karic recently criticised the Yugoslav president’s policies and called for the country’s faster re integration with the West.
Karic reportedly told his associates he will try to refrain from conflicts with the Yugoslav president, but is concerned that the time will come when he will have cease to be neutral towards Milosevic.
‘‘I am resigning because I am not able to conduct my duties properly,’’ Karic wrote in his resignation letter to Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic.
Karic is included in a list drawn up by the European Union that prohibits EU member governments from issuing visas to some 300 Serb and Yugoslav officials with close ties to Milosevic.
Karic, believed to be one of the richest people in the country, owns a TV station and runs one of Yugoslavia’s largest mobile telephone networks.
Under EU imposed sanctions, Karic’s accounts abroad were frozen several months ago. ‘‘My government obligations have inflicted severe damage to my business and my activities,’’ Karic said in his resignation letter.
Meanwhile, potentially violent protests were averted in the town of Mitrovica, after ethnic Albanian civil and military officials intervened to disperse angry crowds.
Reuters
© The Examiner, 1999