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BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, Oct. 24 (UPI) Members of Kosovo's Serbian National Council on Sunday elected orthodox Bishop Artemije as their president and vowed to bring exiled Serbs back to the province.
The 49-member council, founded last week to represent all Serb communities in Kosovo, met in Gracanica monastery to choose their leadership.
Momcilo Trajkovic, leader of the Serbian Resistance Movement, was elected president of the executive committee. He told Belgrade's Radio B2-92 that elected leaders who fled the province had no right to represent the people. He said the council planned to send non-voting representatives to the Serbian and Yugoslav parliaments.
He said the council would request meetings with the international community, the KFOR peacekeeping force, the U.N. civilian mission in Kosovo and democratic forces in Serbia on how to implement their commitments.
Trajkovic said he hoped a formula could be worked out for Serbs to protect themselves under KFOR and UNMIK supervision or command.
"We do not want a paramilitary force, but a corps such as the (Kosovo) Albanians already have that would calm down passions and help create a multi-ethnic institutions and a multi-ethnic Kosovo," he said.
Trajkovic said a delegation of Kosovo Serbs would travel to the United States to present their views to the U.S. administration.
KFOR, UNMIK and NATO Secretary-General James Robertson have all rejected Serb proposals to set up their own cantons and protection corps in the province.
Meanwhile, leaders of Serbia's opposition Alliance for Change were to meet in Budapest on Sunday with James Dobbins, the special U.S. envoy for the Balkans, to discuss prospects for lifting international sanctions against Yugoslavia, the position of Serbs in Kosovo, and Serbia's democratization.
In a statement Sunday, the Serbian Socialist Party in northern Kosovo accused ethnic Albanian extremists of trying to evict Serbs and Montenegrins from the province.
The statement called on members of Parliament, officials and citizens who have left Kosovo to return in order to encourage the remaining Serbs to stay and defend the province.