Kosova

Noordwijk 1996

The Liberal International Congress, meeting on 5th – 8th June in Noordwijk, The Netherlands:

• shocked that between 22nd and 24th April 1996 a Kosovan student was shot dead by a Serb in Prishtina; a bomb was thrown among Kosovan children playing in Vucitera, causing the death of a 7-year-old boy and wounding three other children; and that two Serb policemen were murdered in Shtimje and Decan, apparently to give the impression that the Kosovans were resorting to violence;
• stressing that such outrages form part of the daily repression to which the Albanian speaking people of Kosova are subjected;
• recalling the fact that Kosova, which has a 90% Albanian-speaking population, was an autonomous region of former Yugoslavia with the rights of a federal unit, which has since 1989 suffered under the systematic violence of the Serbian regime of President Milosevic, under which virtually all fundamental rights and freedoms, including the right to life, have been violated;

calls for:

• President Milosevic to engage immediately in dialogue with President Rugova and other legitimate leaders of Kosova, under the mediation of an internationally authorised third party, to seek a peaceful settlement of the Kosova issue;
• an end to Serbian police and military violence against the innocent people of Kosova, to normalise the situation in the country and pave the way for peace and stability in the region and beyond;
• the restoration of the use of the Albanian language in all educational establishments and in all public institutions;
• an end to the practice of treating Kosova as an internal issue of Serbia or the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the recognition of it as an international problem;
• an international conference on the future of Kosova, in compliance with international standards;
• European countries to establish cultural and information offices in Kosova; the barring of Serbia’s access to international institutions until an acceptable settlement to the Kosova issue is found, and until other potential causes of conflict related to this issue in the Balkans are removed;
• instructs its President to send this resolution to President Milosevic, to Mr Carl Bildt, to the President in Office of the Council of the European Union and to the SecretaryGeneral of the OSCE and the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe.