How an assassination scuppered change in Serbia

Serbia should have been the first state to recognise an independent Kosovo, and start rebuilding the trust with Kosovar Albanians as good and respectful neighbours.

This week the Serbian and Albanian delegations will meet for the last round of talks on the future of Kosovo. But the meeting in Vienna is not expected to bring closer their divided position. Last month, the UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari presented the parties with his proposed plan providing for internationally monitored independence. But while Albanians have broadly accepted the plan, Serbia's parliament has rejected it, describing it as a violation of Serbian sovereignty. Ahtisaari has already said he sees no prospect for an agreement.

You would be forgiven for having a sense of déjà vu.

The prime minister of Serbia, Vojislav Kostunica, who barely addresses the issue of Kosovo without referring to the position of Russia, sounds more like a minister in Putin's government than the head of an independent state.

I was recently in Belgrade, the city where I grew up and which I regard as my home town. Serbia changed after the overthrow of Milosevic in 2000, but the killing of the forward-looking Serbian prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, in 2003 put the speed of change on hold and even into reverse.

This may explain why policy on Kosovo, central to Milosevic's power, has not changed. Another explanation lies in the origins of that policy, the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, a radical document endorsed by Milosevic as a new weapon in his ruthless pursuit of power. Milosevic soon found his partner in war in Croatia's nationalist president, Franjo Tudjman. Together they drew up new maps of the Balkans.

Kostunica does not call for war as the Socialist and the Radical parties are doing, but his calls for respect for international law are hollow while his government ignores and breaks UN resolutions. A recent four-hour journey from Pristina to Belgrade took 12 hours as we were forced to go via Macedonia because my fellow travellers - both BBC journalists - had UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo) entry stamps. Nor does Serbia recognise UNMIK passports issued to Kosovars. On the advice of the government, a handball club recently refused to play against a Kosovar club in a European cup.

When Ahtisaari arrived in Belgrade last month to present his proposal, Kostunica refused to see him, claiming that his outgoing government lacked the legal authorisation to deal with it. But a day earlier he had met Belgium's foreign minister and in following days felt legal enough to meet a number of western diplomats.

Kostunica lectured at the Belgrade Law School where I was a law student. Yet he seems to have forgotten the basic principles: the law protects and provides stability for people. Kostunica hasn't said what he intends to do with the two million people living in Kosovo and there has been no apology for Milosevic's brutal rule there.

The trust between Kosovars and the Serbian regime was violently broken in 1989 when Milosevic surrounded the parliament in Pristina with tanks to force a change in Kosovo's constitution. It was broken again when Milosevic hit at the intellectual heart of Kosovo by closing Albanian-language media, the university and schools.

The Serbian government should now prepare a joint statement with Albanians on Ahtisaari's proposal for Kosovo's independence, with all guarantees for minorities. But it is looking increasingly unlikely that this will happen.

Kim Bytyci is a journalist and writer. A Kosovar Albanian from Serbia, she now lives in London

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