Belgrade, May 16, 2006 - Head of the Coordinating Centre for Kosovo-Metohija Sanda Raskovic-Ivic said last night that public international law protects the integrity of Serbs on the territory of Kosovo-Metohija.
At a lecture themed "The problem of Kosovo-Metohija in a domestic and international context", held at the Kolarac Foundation, Raskovic-Ivic recalled that the UN SC Resolution 1244 clearly states that the territory of Kosovo-Metohija is part of Serbia-Montenegro, and nowhere in that document is there any mention of the independence of the province.
She warned that any eventual declaration of the independence of Kosovo-Metohija would provoke major disturbances in the region and throughout Europe.
She posed the question how, in a situation that Kosovo-Metohija becomes independent, would it be explained to Albanians in western Macedonia or in northern Greece that they do not have the right to an independent state, or to Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina that they do not have the right to independence.
She recalled that Albanians realised their right to self-determination in 1913 with the creation of their mother-land Albania, while the territory of Kosovo-Metohija "remained on the other side."
All separatist movements will follow the Kosovo problem as it unfolds and seek the same, warned Raskovic-Ivic. She added that the idea of independence is opposite to international acts such as the Charter of the United Nations and the Helsinki Final Act.
According to Raskovic-Ivic, the international community wishes to find reconciliation between the actual situation, the fact that a million and half Albanians live in Kosovo-Metohija, and the principles of public international law.
She stressed that Serbia has found that compromise in the formula "more than autonomy, less than independence", which means that Albanians will have all that they have had until now - a president, parliament and government, as well as the possibility of integrating into Serbia.
She recalled that Serbia is still paying the external debt of the southern province, which from November 15, 2002 stands at $120,000 per day.
She reiterated that Kosovo-Metohija is part of Serb identity, and added that "the Kosovo myth has played a big role in the Serb consciousness and has guided us through history."
According to Raskovic-Ivic, today in Kosovo-Metohija there are 216,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians including Roma, Bosniaks, Ashkali and others whose choice is to live within Serbia, and not in an independent Kosovo-Metohija.
She said that in June 1999, 230,000 Serbs left Kosovo-Metohija, and in 2004, following the March violence by Albanian extremists, small enclaves have completely disappeared because of "cleansing of majority of Serb villages", while "cleansing of cities" began much earlier, and was finalised in the violence of March 2004.
In Pristina, hundreds of Serbs live in one apartment building, and in Gnjilan, Pec and Djakovica, cities that once gained their specific ambience from Serbs, not even a single Serb remains, said Raskovic-Ivic.