THE COUNTDOWN FOR KOSOVO HAS BEGUN
28-12-2007

 Barring any great surprises, generations should come to see current events in Kosovo as the bankruptcy of the New World Order, the end of peace in the Balkans and the destruction of the West’s values.

For nearly ten years Kosovo has been on the brink. It was part of Yugoslavia, a country that was once considered a rare model for others, but now it is stuck between breaking away and being unable to break away from it. During this process, every concept that was usd to pressurise has been brought out to be judged by history.


Kosovo will most likely win its independence in a decision to be taken on 10 December. Of course, an unpredicted move from Serbia and Russia could lead to bartering that delays independence, but it is unlikely to be cheery for Kosovo in any case. Be it independent or not, Kosovo is far away from a stable future.


The European Union and United States have insisted on Kosovo’s independence from the start of the talks. Russia and Serbia took the opposite position and, by barricading Kosovo’s path to independence, tried to prevent the Balkan map from changing.


Meanwhile the Kosovar Albanian majority has, as we saw in particular during the last election, put forward independence as the single, nonnegotiable target. This was such so that no Serbian offer was satisfactory for the Kosovars, because from their point of view the EU’s position, the strong pro-independence statements from the United States and the 16,000 troops on its soil was enough to overlook Serbia’s offers.


It was particularly interesting that Serbia’s defence minister Dragon Sutanovac called on NATO to use all the resources it had to maintain stability in Kosovo if the negotiations proved fruitless. It shows that Serbia and the EU found at least the lowest level of common ground over Kosovo.


The EU too had called on Kosovo to avoid a unilateral declaration of independence following elections in the province. Likewise, Mr Sutanovac is wary of such a unilateral declaration.


Kosovo’s leaders had said that they would unilaterally declare independence when the UN Security Council recognises Kosovo as an independent state.


All these factors – time running rapidly to the finish, the international community’s direct and indirect statements that Kosovo had to separate from Serbia regardless of the negotiation result – prevent any side from making a concession at the UN-sponsored talks in the Austria town of Baden, near Vienna. Previous talks had ended without result for the same reason.

Serbia sees Kosovo as its own territory, and its non-negotiable last offer is widespread autonomy. Serbia will take a number of steps if Kosovo unilaterally declares its independence, which could include economic embargo, a travel ban and perhaps discussion of a military operation.


There have been Serbian threats of a bloody conflict upon a Kosovar declaration of independence before. The Kosovo problem should have been resolved soon after the province went under UN and NATO control in 1999.


It is possible to say the following about the situation today:


The European Union and United States, for whatever reason, did not encourage a culture of conciliation in Kosovo. It made no constructive contribution, be it through a “win-win” formula or by brokering an agreement between the sides. By giving a message of independence at all costs at the very start of the process, they ensured the sides had no ground over which to negotiate.


For whatever reason, the EU and US though a solution in Kosovo could be blackmailed upon Serbia. By offering hope of EU and NATO membership to the Serbs, they hoped for a voluntary sacrifice. This method has yet to yield results.

Nor did the EU and US avoid tarnishing their prestige and conceding the very universal values they defend in order to make


Kosovo independent and Serbia tenable. Despite not handing over its war criminals, who have committed bloody crimes against humanity and who pose a threat to humanity, Serbia has been able to sit down at the table with the European Union.

International justice has also ruled that of everything that happened in Bosnia, only the events of Srebrenica were genocide, but that it cannot be determined who committed that act.


The mentality of seeing wealth in diversity and the principle of working together and living together are the latest version of the “divide and administer” policy inspired by globalisation. This provokes not just segregation but every nationalist, and reduces the risk assessment capacity of every mechanism.


Serbia was shaken into changing its administrations first through war and later through public movements. The European Union and the United States both expected Serbia in its quest for economic and political stability to behave like a terminal patient prepared for any experimental treatment. Looking from today, we can say that this approach did not work.

EU and US diplomats are most likely using most of their time to evaluate the words of Slobodan Sarnarzic, Serbia’s minister for Kosovo, that they would not shirk from showing the same response as any European country when a part of its territory is under threat.


Serbian president Boris Tadic said that they would cancel any decision that takes Kosovo to independence, and would use all diplomatic and legitimate means to cancel such a decision. The words Serbia’s president and Kosovo minister together show that Serbia has taken a step that should deeply concern the US and particularly the European Union.


With these words, Serbia underlines a few striking truths that should not be ignored:


Every country has the right to protect its territorial integrity. European countries have not hesitated to take similar steps in the past. International law also gives states the right and authority in this regard. Also, both Serbia and Russia can have a destructive effect, and will certainly use this.


Following these statements, it is beyond possibility that Serbia will warm to the UN’s plan for Kosovo’s independence under international scrutiny. However much the present situation constitutes international observation and a de facto independence, Serbia has, in spite of the never-ending talks and all the social engineering by non-governmental organisations, refused to submit to decisions taken in its absence.


There is another important detail: surveys in Kosovo have shown that the people are prepared for an independence that does not have the widespread approval of the UN, provided it still has the support of the United States and the major European powers. Some are even prepared to support a declaration backed only by Washington.


That is why all the many efforts – the Hong Kong model, the Aaland model, the East Germany model and the Ahtisaari plan – have proved invalid. The only truth is that the ethnic problems could not be solved by agreement or negotiation.


For the same reason, Kosovars who believe in independence should be cautious over independence and the lack of a solution.

Richard Holbrooke has proved to be the person who has best analysed the process in Kosovo. He said that the Balkans, through Europe’s blindness, the United States’ bad choices and Russia’s aggressiveness is heading towards becoming a poisonous concoction.


On 10 December the United States, European Union and Russia will tell the United Nations that the negotiations process was unsuccessful and without result. A Kosovar declaration of independence will be imminent after the lack of agreement between the Serbs and the Albanians over Kosovo’s final status is document. It is certain that after this, the US will announce that it recognises Kosovo. This will bring to the fore in many EU countries a new, strengthening conflict that has not been much mentioned recently.


Not all EU countries approve of Kosovo’s independence. What is more, they do not approve of the European Union’s active role in the matter. This situation also goes to show in Turkey that the “age of independence” is just a phrase without any important meaning. It demonstrates how absurd it is to say it is a time of strengthening the sovereignty of member states.

It is inevitable that Russia and countries close to Russia will ignore Kosovo’s independence. This will create a new dimension for many countries, some of them EU members, who will find themselves drawn to Moscow’s line when they make their Kosovo choice based on ethnic and domestic politics concerns. What makes this even more strange and ironic is that it is Russia that is stoking ethnic and regional conflict.


How many regions in the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East will joyously celebrate Kosovo’s independence? It is, of course, not possible to know for sure, but the world could be at the start of a second “Domino process”, following the first when the eastern bloc collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s.


Separatist forces in EU countries ranging from Belgium to France and from Spain to Poland could, in the security of knowing that they would not leave the encompassing roof of the Union and believing that they would find the support they seek, begin a process of their own.


In these times when ethnostrategic approaches, ethnopolitical perspectives, crisis management models and regional conflict resolution efforts are discarded, many countries could do what was said of the Baltic states wanting to leave the USSR at the start of the 1990s: the quote the Frank Sinatra doctrine, they wanted to “My Way”.


There would be much for NATO to do in this new period. It might have to work to acquire independence in some regions, and suppress it in others, because collective security could become more important for NATO members than ever before. The creation of security on the national and international plan will come to the fore like it never has since the fall of the USSR.

The first response to developments in Kosovo will probably come from Bosnia. If Kosovo declares independence then Bosnia’s Serbs will, on Moscow and Belgrade’s instigation, declare the independence of Bosnia’s Serbian republic. 150,000 Bosniacs in the Serbian republic could face genocide.


12 years ago, the sides in Bosnia signed a perfect agreement for peace. What made the Dayton Agreement perfect was that it made all sides equally unhappy, but it was not just for a country subjected to genocide to be as unhappy as the country that implemented it.


12 years later, if a Kosovar explosion shatters Bosnia’s windows, the sides could – in spite of so much pain and suffering – remember that the only attainable peace was Dayton, and could like everyone opt for Sinatra.


Today, the European Union and its members are demonstrating that they do not know the answers to certain questions.

What if Moscow, on the verge of elections, decides to use the winds from the hell unleashed in Kosovo to flick the switch in Upper Karabakh, Transnistra, South Ossetia and Abkhazia?


If Serbia, seeing itself at the end of the road, decides to crush Kosovo by every means, thus splitting the Serbian republic from Bosnia-Herzegovina, what would the end be?


Would such regions as Kashmir and Chechnya stay quiet to these developments?


What about Cyprus?


And Palestine?


The European Union has proven its incompetence in crisis management, prevention and resolution in every issue – particularly Cyprus. Could it possibly put up with all this?


And the United States too is present in too many crisis regions already. It is creating exit strategies from those regions; if a whole range of new problems spring up, how much further financial and human loss can it shoulder?


But let us presume Kosovo’s effect would be limited to the Balkans, and that the Sinatra doctrine is only known in the Balkans. Let us presume all the remaining lands and seas of the world are in enduring peace and comfort.


The situation in the Balkans would still be as follows:


Albania’s population: 70 percent Muslim, 20 percent Orthodox, 10 percent Catholic. Ethnically, 95 percent is Albanian and 3 percent is Greek.


Bosnia-Herzegovina: 40 percent Muslim, 31 percent Slav-Orthodox, 15 percent Catholic. Ethnically, 40 percent is Serbian, 38 percent Bosniac, 22 percent Croats.


Croatia: 77 percent Catholic, 11 percent Orthodox. Ethnically, 78 percent are Croats, 12 percent is Serbian.

Macedonia: 67 percent Orthodox, 30 percent Muslim. Ethnically, 65 percent are Macedonian, 22 percent is Albanian, although there are Turks and Bosniacs too.


Romania: 70 percent Orthodox, 6 percent Catholic, 6 percent Protestant. Ethnically, 89 percent Romanian, 9 percent


Hungarian. There are also Turks.


Serbia: 65 percent Orthodox, 19 percent Muslim, 4 percent Catholic and 1 percent Protestant, while 11 percent ascribe to other faiths. Ethnically, 63 percent are Serbian, 14 percent Albanian, 4 percent Hungarian, and there are also Turks.


Greece: 98 percent Orthodox and 2 percent Turkish. Ethnically, Greece is home to just about every ethnicity in the Balkans. The two biggest groups are Turks and Macedonians.


This scenario could create a Greater Albania. Macedonia and Bosnia too would not complete the process unhurt. A Greater Albania would not fit in particularly well with Greece, while the Albanian, Slav-Orthodox and Turkish axes are determining factors. Alliances between the factors could determine the balance.


It seems Holbrooke was not being ruthless when he spoke of Europe’s blindness, the United States’ bad choices and Russia’s aggressiveness heading towards becoming a poisonous concoction.


Under UN directives, EU supervision, NATO protection, Russia’s pressure and Serbia’s threats, it does not look like a happy future for Kosovo. But there is no happy future for Kosovo within Serbia’s borders either.


The 17 November elections showed the Kosovars were aware of this conundrum. Participation was at 45 percent. For an election that was held in the spirit of an independence referendum, there was no hopeful, joyous society with a large turnout. It is true that Serbs boycotted the vote, but they constitute a mere 5 percent of Kosovo’s population.


But the elections was determined by protest votes, and showed the electorate was tired of trying to find a suitable, honest leader.

Source: Diplomatic Observer