Kosovo:
Many options
but independence
PressInfo #
228
October
27 2005
By
Jan
Oberg,
TFF director & Aleksandar
Mitic,
TFF Associate
The Serbian province of Kosovo,
largely populated by the Albanian separatist-minded
majority, has failed to meet basic human rights and
political standards set as prerequisites by the
international community, but it should nevertheless enter
in the months to come talks on its future
status.
This basic conclusion of the
long-awaited report by UN special envoy Kai Eide was
approved by the UN secretary general Kofi Annan and fully
supported by the EU and the US, but it fails to demystify
the paradox.
Only two a half years ago, the
international community had charged that talks on status
could not start before a set of basic human rights
standards was achieved.
Since then, however, as it became
clearer that the Kosovo Albanian majority was unwilling
to meet the criteria and the UN unable to enforce them,
there was a permanent watering down of prerequisites,
until the proclaimed policy of "standards before status"
was finally buried with Mr. Eide's report.
Why has it failed? Is it because of
the fear of the Kosovo Albanian threat of inciting
violence if talks on status did not start soon, or was
this policy a bluff from the start?
What kind of signal does it offer
for the fairness of the upcoming talks? Will threats of
ethnic violence in case "the only option for Kosovo
Albanians - independence" - is not achieved again play a
role? Or will the international community overcome its
fear and offer both Pristina and Belgrade reasons to
believe that the solution would negotiated and
long-lasting rather than imposed, one-sided and
conflict-prone?
Advocates of Kosovo's independence
such as the International Crisis Group, Wesley Clark,
Richard Holbrooke and various US members of Congress
argue "independence is the only solution." The U.S. has
more urgent problems elsewhere. But full independence
cannot be negotiated, it can only be imposed.
"Independent Kosova" implies that the Kosovo-Albanians
achieve their maximalist goal with military means while
Belgrade and the Kosovo Serbs and Roma would not even get
their minimum --- a recipe for future
troubles.
It would be also counterproductive
for Europe and the U.S.: to side with the
Kosovo-Albanians and isolate Serbia - a highly
multi-ethnic, strategically important, constitutional
state with a market of 10 million people - would be
foolish. Keeping punishing Serbia and Serbs collectively
for Milosevic's brutality would be immoral.
An "independent Kosova" would set a
dangerous precedent for the region, not least in Bosnia
and Macedonia, for international law, for European
integration. And if Kosovo, why not Taiwan, Tibet,
Chechenya, Tamil Eelam, Kashmir? The world has about 200
states and 5,000 ethnic groups. Who would like 4,800 new
states? The future is about human globalization and
integration.
Independence would also violate UN
Security Council Resolution 1244 of 1999 on Kosovo. Not
even liberally interpreted does it endorse independence.
Independence would reward Albanian extremists who have
been behind the ethnic cleansing campaign against the
non-Albanian communities, encourage those who exported
violence from Kosovo to the neighbouring southern Serbia
and to Macedonia. The 'disarmed' protectorate of Kosovo
was a major player in all that.
The results of Milosevic's
authoritarian policies clearly prevent Kosovo from
returning to its pre-1999 status. Belgrade recognizes
that today. The international community on its side
refuses to see that the UN, NATO, EU and OSCE in Kosovo
have failed miserably in creating the multi-ethnic,
tolerant and safe Kosovo that it thought the bombings
would facilitate. There has been virtually no return of
the 200,000 Serbs and tens of thousands of other
non-Albanians who felt threatened by Albanian
nationalists and terrorists in 1999-2000.
Proportionately this is the largest
ethnic cleansing in ex-Yugoslavia. Half a million Serbs
in today's Serbia, driven out of Croatia, Bosnia and
Kosovo, make up Europe's largest - but ignored - refugee
problem. The economy of Kosovo remains in shambles - 70%
unemployment -and mafia-integrated.
There is never only one solution to
a complex problem. Between the old autonomy for Kosovo
and full independence is a myriad of thinkable options -
combining internal and regional features. They should all
be on the negotiation table: a citizens' Kosovo where
ethnic background is irrelevant, cantonisation,
consociation, confederation, condominium, double autonomy
for minorities there and in Southern Serbia, partition,
trusteeship, independence with special features such as
soft borders, no army and guarantees for never joining
Albania. Least creative of all is the "only-one-solution"
that all main actors today propose - completely
incompatible with every other "only-one
solution."
Finally, no formal status will work
if the people continue to hate and see no development
opportunities. If we ignore human needs for
fear-reduction, deep reconciliation and economic
recovery, independent Kosovo will become another failed
state, perhaps consumed by civil war. Even an ethnically
pure, only-Albanian Kosovo is no guarantee for regional
stability. It could soon become a dangerous burden on the
EU.
Kosovo is about the future of that
province and of Serbia, but also about the region and the
EU. Indeed, Kosovo is about global politics. In this 11th
hour, the UN, EU and the U.S. should re-evaluate their
post-1990 policies and recognize the need for much more
intellectually open and politically pluralist approaches
than those that have been promoted so far. Rigidity, lack
of principle and wishful thinking could once again prove
to be the enemies of sustainable peace in the region.
TFF has been conducting
conflict-mitigation work in all parts of ex-Yugoslavia
since 1991. TFF teams served in the 1990s as goodwill
advisers to both Yugoslav governments and the
Kosovo-Albanian leadership of present President Ibrahim
Rugova.
There is a lot of links about
the crisis in Kosovo - and a list of virtually all of
TFF's analyses and debate articles here.
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