Kosovo Serbs vow to form own assembly after Sunday election

Kosovo:  LEADERS OF the Serb community in Kosovo have pledged to form their own political assembly after elections on Sunday.

They will do this, they say, in defiance of warnings from the UN and the ethnic-Albanian government of the fledgling state.

While allowing Kosovo's Serbs to vote in Serbia's general election, UN officials - who have overseen the running of Kosovo since 1999 and will hand over to an EU mission later this year - has condemned plans for simultaneous local elections, calling them illegal and inflammatory.

Prominent figures among Kosovo's 100,000-strong Serb community are determined to hold the ballot and establish an independent authority to manage Serb affairs, however.

"Serbs in Kosovo need their own representative body to realise their legal and legitimate rights," said Kosovo Serb leader Marko Jaksic. He added that the Kosovo parliament was dominated by Albanian "puppets" of the West who would surely not work in the interest of the Serb minority.

Serbs have little faith in Kosovo's central government, which declared independence in February. But many also fear de facto partition of Kosovo, knowing that while it might improve life in strongly Serb northern areas, it would only increase the isolation of Serb enclaves further south.

"The Serbian elections are not legal and legitimate. They cannot establish new institutions in Kosovo," said the country's deputy prime minister, Hajredin Kuci. "But the government won't use any violence to stop them."

The US and Britain have supported a call from UN officials in Kosovo for Belgrade to cancel the elections. Serb and Russian leaders say the ballot should go ahead.

Serb prime minister Vojislav Kostunica campaigned in a Serb region of Kosovo yesterday. His party is expected to come third in the general election, and may form a nationalist ruling coalition with the hard-line Radical Party, which is predicted to win the vote.

The idea of a Kosovo Serb parliament to rival the Albanian-dominated assembly in Pristina has echoes of Bosnia and Croatia. Belgrade-backed Serbs rebelled against those republics' independence from Yugoslavia in wars that claimed 100,000 lives. - (Additional reporting: Reuters)