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WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (OneWorld.net) - The largest alliance of women's groups in Kosovo has severed ties with the United Nations Development Program after the agency prohibited the network's leader from publicly denouncing a controversial UN plan for governing the region.

• Kosovar citizens protest UN plans to expand Serb influence in the country; November 2008. © Advocacy ProjectIn November, thousands of Kosovar citizens demonstrated against the UN proposal to grant Serbia significant administrative powers over Serb-majority areas within Kosovo. "These would include control of the police, judiciary, transportation and infrastructure, boundaries, customs, and religious sites," specifies the Advocacy Project, a group that partners with grassroots organizations around the world to foster democracy and human rights. "[The Kosova Women's Network] and other civil society groups contend that the new UN proposal would threaten Kosovo's territorial sovereignty, violate its constitution, and jeopardize the fragile peace that has been secured in Southeast Europe," adds the Advocacy Project.

• On Feb. 18, 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia. The Republic of Kosovo has a population of 2 million, of which 92 percent are ethnic Albanian and 120,000 belong to the Serb minority, according to Inter Press Service, a humanitarian news agency. Since independence, Kosovo has been recognized by 52 UN member states, including 22 European Union members and all bordering states except Serbia, writes the Advocacy Project.

• Much of the responsibility for the fragmentation of the former Yugoslavia -- which encompassed modern-day Kosovo and Serbia, among other countries of Southeast Europe -- and the perception for a time of Serbia as a pariah state can be laid at the door of the extreme nationalist former president, Slobodan Milosevic. The final straw for the international community was Milosevic's bloody 1998 suppression of an insurgency in Kosovo. As killings of members of the Kosovo Liberation Army and its supporters raised the spectre of ethnic cleansing, NATO intervened in 1999 to bomb Serbia and evict the Serbian army from Kosovo. Ruthless reprisals against the Serb minority and their property in Kosovo ushered the territory into the military and civilian police control of the NATO Force in Kosovo and the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo respectively. For more background on the conflict in Serbia and Kosovo, see OneWorld UK's Serbia country guide.

Anger in Kosovo as UN "Muzzles" Civil Society Leader at Democracy Conference

From: Advocacy Project

December 12, 2008: The largest women's network in Kosovo has suspended cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), after the agency prevented the group's leader from publicly criticizing a controversial UN plan to grant Serbia control of Serb enclaves in Kosovo.

The incident occurred last week as Igballe Rogova, Executive Director of the Kosova Women's Network (KWN), was preparing to speak at a UN conference on women and governance in Istanbul. UNDP organizers told her that her speech was "too political" and that she could only speak if she removed all references to the plan from her remarks.

In an angry statement sent to UNDP headquarters, KWN accuses the agency of suppressing freedom of speech and undermining democracy. "Evidently the UNDP organizers believed that women are allowed to participate in politics only so long as they are not too political or they avoid serious political issues," it reads.

The controversy has strained relations between women's civil society in Kosovo and the UN, which has administered Kosovo since the withdrawal of Serbian forces in 1999. KWN has requested an official, public apology from UNDP.

The UN plan was proposed recently by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and caused anger in Kosovo because it appeared to undermine Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia on February 17. Thousands of Kosovars marched through the streets of Prishtina last month in protest, as reported by AdvocacyNet.

KWN, a network of more than 85 women's organizations and partner of The Advocacy Project (AP), has been at the forefront of the protests, and Ms Rogova planned to use her speech in Istanbul to urge respect for the country's national sovereignty. Ironically, Ms Rogova was due to speak at a discussion about women's political participation in democracy-building.

The KWN statement has been sent to the UNDP in Prishtina and New York. It accuses the agency of violating the UN's own resolutions on women's rights and cites UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. The Resolution urged governments to "ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions."

The KWN statement adds that women can also help to break the stalemate that so often occurs when men negotiate peace agreements. "Women bring new perspectives to war, peace and security," it reads. "By silencing our voices, UNDP may even be contributing to the prolongation of conflict."

* Learn more about KWN

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