Time Overdue
to Give Kosovo its Independence
By JONATHAN
POWER
Sept. 29, 1999
LONDON- The western powers owe Slobodan Milosevic of
Yugoslavia nothing. They certainly don't owe him the
rewriting of history in his favour. This begs the question
why on earth are Nato and Russia policing Kosovo with the
avowed purpose not just of "keeping the peace", but of
maintaining the fiction that the majority Albanian-peopled
territory is part of Serbia and thus part of Milosevic's
reduced empire of Yugoslavia?
These questions were asked in this column back in June at
the time of Nato's bombing of Serbia. At the time Bill
Clinton, Tony Blair and the other western leaders insisted
on every occasion their prime purpose was simply an end of
the threats to the security of the Kosovo Albanians; they
were not prepared to consider a deal with Milosevic that
would re-draw the Balkan map more sensibly. In fact before
the war they had insisted on a future referendum in Kosovo
on whether its people wanted independence; in the end-of-war
agreement with Milosevic this condition was inexplicably
dropped.
At last, rather belatedly, the White House is beginning
to revise its opinion- an independent Kosovo is now
considered, at least in the private discussions in the
national security apparatus, as a distinct possibility. No
doubt there will be a lot of resistance to overcome among
the allies in Europe. And certainly Russia will be totally
against it. All of them, having stuck their feet in a rut at
the time of the war, will find it difficult to step free a
few months on.
Yet the logic of what is happening today, nevermind the
history of the last half millenium, points in that
direction. The UN administration is now issuing travel
papers for Kosovo Albanians that are de facto passports. It
has introduced a new currency and a special border tariff
with Serbia. There is also an independent police force and
now, with Nato's blessing, there has been created the
uniformed so-called Kosovo Protection Force whose boss is
the former head of the guerrilla force, the Kosovo
Liberation Army.
As for history, why does Nato, with its obsession with
multi-ethnic unity in the Balkans, forget so quickly that
Tito's Yugoslavia was very much a personal creation, held
together by a mixture of charisma, the chemistry that was
the legacy of the partisan's victory against Hitler and
sheer political will power? Not for nothing was Tito called
the last of the Habsburgs. But, with Yugoslavia, unlike the
Habsburg empire which itself inevitably disintegrated under
the pull of its ethnic diversity, there was no common
language, no unifying single church and thus no common
culture. Certainly there was no common history.
Indeed, the history of the Albanian people of Kosovo has
been constant emnity and regular warfare with the Serbs. In
this century alone there have been six wars involving the
two nations. Before that there had been 500 years of Ottoman
rule, during the latter part of which the Albanians of
Kosovo had asked unsucessfully for autonomy within the
Ottoman empire. They realized their constantly deferred
ambition temporarily in 1941 when the invading Italians
united Kosovo with Greater Albania. At the Second World
War's end Tito had promised the Kosovo Albanians that they
would have the option of uniting with Albania but thenTito
reneged on the deal. After years of unrest, however, he did
allow the Albanisation of the province, giving it a great
deal of autonomy.
It was when Milosevic came to power that the autonomy was
foreclosed and thus began the series of events that led to
the decade's Balkan wars, culminating in this year's Nato
bombing of Serbia. If it hadn't been for the wise,
non-violent leadership in Kosovo of Ibrahim Rugova, a
convinced Gandhian, the wars would have begun in Kosovo, not
ended there. And if the Dayton Agreement, that was supposed
to bring peace not just to Bosnia but to all the Balkans,
had rewarded the Kosovo Albanians for their self-discipline
over the years, the Kosovo Liberation Army would never have
picked up adherents and never gained the leverage to elbow
Rugova aside. Instead, Dayton, in effect, slapped the Kosovo
Albanians in the face by recognizing Milosevic's new Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia as made up of Serbia, Montenegro and
Kosovo.
One hopes now that the Clinton Administration has started
thinking what they used to say was unthinkable that they
have a grand design in mind. There is no point in pushing
ahead with independence for Kosovo if it merely gives
Milosevic a new lease of life. The nationalist rug has to be
pulled from underneath him at the same time, otherwise it
will merely aid him in rebuilding his dwindling popular
support.
There is a part of Kosovo that is Serbian sacred land-
the northern 10% or so with its churches, monasteries and
frescos, erected by the Serbs in the Middle Ages before they
migrated north. This should be given to Serbia. Also, to
make the whole arrangement palatable, Serbia should now be
allowed to incorporate the Serbian parts of Bosnia. Time has
made it obvious that there will never be a multi-ethnic
Bosnia.
The Kosovo Albanians will then be free not only to have
title to 90% of the territory but to re-unite with Albania
if they vote to do so. (And there should probably also be a
plebiscite in neighbouring Macedonia to see if the majority
wish to join up with Bulgaria and the minority with
Albania.)
The Balkan map never made sense and it never made peace.
If the western allies had only realized this before
hostilities began, a grand deal perhaps could have been made
and the war and the killing of many of the innocents
avoided.
Copyright © 1999 By JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and e-mail:
JonatPower@aol.com
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