The
situation as
seen from Serbia
Kosovo
Solution Series # 4
PressInfo #
212
March
23, 2005
By
Aleksandar
Mitic,
TFF Associate & Jan
Oberg,
TFF director
Relevant background links
for this series here.
Not even the hardest pro-Albanian
lobbyists deny the importance that Kosovo plays in the
hearts and minds of the Serbs. Kosovo holds the cultural,
religious and national heritage of the Serbian people. It
is home to 300,000 Serbs - currently in Kosovo or
displaced since 1999 - not to mention the hundreds of
thousands who left the province for economic or other
reasons in the decades before. Some 1,300 monasteries,
churches and other religious objects testify of the
richness of Serb presence in the province.
There is however an attempt on the
behalf of pro-Albanian lobbyists to present the issue as
simply the "Kosovo myth" which the Serbs must get rid of
if they want to get "closer to Europe". Near-governmental
organizations such as the ICG and newly-born Balkan
specialists tell the Serbs: leave Kosovo as the French
left Algeria, leave Kosovo as the Russians left Ukraine,
sell Kosovo or you will be in trouble.
They often offer the dangerously
false dilemma: "Kosovo or Europe: Serbs, pick one because
you cannot have both!".
In today's Serbia such arguments
are getting a welcome from a miniscule part of the
population, several Western-financed non-governmental
organizations, as well as a few media outlets and
political circles outside parliament. Not a single
parliamentary party in Serbia - from those seen as
"pro-Western reformers" to those seen as "conservative
nationalists" - is ready to accept an "independence" of
Kosovo as defined by the Kosovo Albanians and their
lobbyists.
The burden of the wars in the 1990s
is still very heavy for the Serbs: a majority of Krajina
Serbs have been expelled from Croatia, the Republika
Srpska is an international protectorate in which elected
representatives are constantly being threatened of being
dismissed by the omnipotent international governor in
Sarajevo, near all of the wartime Serb leaders from the
1990s have been extradited to the Hague war crimes
tribunal, the refugee toll does not get below half a
million people even a decade after the end of the
Bosnian/Croatian wars and six years after the bombing of
Kosovo.
The national frustration is indeed
very present. It's a wounded society. Many feel a
collective punishment despite the constant rhetoric about
the "individual" culpability being examined in the Hague.
The Serb population also sees a devastated economy and
social fabric, due to incompetent internal policies, but
also to decade-long international sanctions and the
bombings.
Furthermore, Serbs argue that they
were the only ones in the former Yugoslavia to throw out
their own "bad leader", while the other republics never
tried that. The delivery of Milosevic to the Hague was
never rewarded or praised.
Reforms
and fulfillment of Western conditions
The results that they see since the
arrival of reformists in power feel more like sticks than
carrots. Although Serbia is firmly in favour of the
European Union, is adopting European laws and standards,
follows to the point the line the IMF/World Bank demands
for the opening of her economy and the liberalization of
its market - even facing the fact that its factories are
being bought at the lowest prices by international
factors - it faces what it perceives as a deliberate
policy aimed to force it down on its knees.
Furthermore, Serbia has fulfilled
all of the security conditions set by the West:
1) It has respected the 1999
withdrawal conditions and the Kumanovo accord to the full
extent.
2) It has shown restraint and
collaborated extensively with NATO in managing the
2000-2001 Albanian uprising in southern
Serbia.
3) It has led a moderating role in
March 2004, when it prevented a spill-over of the Kosovo
violence to other parts of Serbia and Prime Minister
Vojislav Kostunica headed a demonstration for
non-violence in Belgrade.
4) It has been praised by Western
diplomats for its management of inter-ethnic tensions in
southern Serbia and in the northern province of Vojvodina
in the fall of 2004.
5) It has reformed its defence and
police structures in accordance with Partnership for
Peace and OSCE standards.
In contrast, the international
community has not kept its promises since 1999: there has
been no real disarmament of the KLA/KPC, no return of
refugees/IDPs, no real security for the minorities in
Kosovo, no compensation for property taken over. All of
the UN heads of administration, from Bernard Kouchner to
Soren Jessen-Petersen have been perceived as strongly
pro-Albanian.
Indeed, in Kosovo, the dramatic
situation of the Serbs has only received greater
attention when no one anymore could pretend to be blind -
with the March 2004 violence. However, even since, there
has been a pursuit of a policy putting Kosovo on the
"independence agenda", rather than trying to find a
compromising solution which could satisfy all sides and
create stability and prosperity for the whole
region.
Independence,
perhaps - but where is the logics?
This "independence agenda" has been
pushed more and more overtly by near-governmental
organizations and some Western officials. Talks about the
independence of Kosovo as the only solution possible is
however a great paradox and an example of the lack of
principled, consistent policies by the international
community. Here are some of the reasons:
1) Republika Srpska - the
Bosnian Serb entity under the 1995 Dayton accords - has
nearly the same number of people as the province of
Kosovo, between 1,5 and 2 million people. It is also a
protectorate and has had the same kind of NATO force on
its soil like Kosovo. It has a very similar structure of
the population as Kosovo - some 90% belong to one ethnic
community. Strategically, its Bosnian Serb population has
the same aspirations as the Kosovo Albanians: to become
independent.
Yet, in Republika Srpska, the
international community is tearing down all symbols and
structures of statehood: from laws to the mechanisms of
police and army. The Republika Srpska is in fact in the
process of getting - perhaps forcefully - closer to a
more unified Bosnia. All this despite the wishes of its
population, but for the sake of regional and European
integrations, multiethnicity and stability.
In Kosovo, the very same
international community is doing just the opposite: it is
building a state from scratch, paving the way to a
break-up of a country and treating Kosovo as an
"independent state in-the-making". It has set up a state
and government structure with ministers and a president.
What a difference 100 kilometres can make (the distance
from Republika Srpska to Kosovo)! A whole new world of
principles, standards and guidelines with an obvious
goal: make the Serbs lose both Republika Srpska and
Kosovo. To put it crudely, it's 0-2 in the game, an easy
take-away win against a Serbia on its knees and against
the even more powerless minorities in Kosovo. Despite the
fear in Belgrade to talk openly about the linkage of
Republika Srpska and Kosovo (and before 1995 Croatian
Krajina), such an outcome may well become an explosive
device for the decades to come.
2) Breaking up the most
multi-ethnic society? Just as the West rushed into
the break-up of the former multiethnic Yugoslavia in the
early 1990s, it could be rushing to break-up Serbia, the
most multiethnic country of former Yugoslavia. What kind
of examples does this kind of policy set for
multiethnicity in the Balkans: for the Muslim-populated
Sandzak area, for the Albanian-populated southern Serbia,
for the Serb-populated eastern part of Montenegro, for
the Albanian-populated western Macedonia, for the
Serb-populated eastern Slavonia, for the
Hungarian-populated north of the Vojvodina province? In a
larger perspective one may even ask: how come that
wherever the international community has intervened in
conflicts, there is less multi-ethnicity than before the
war? How come that those who drive an overall globalising
world where we are all becoming more mixed can keep on
pursuing civilisationally regressive and nationalist
models of one nation in one state?
3) Why new borders on the road
to EU integration? If the entire south-eastern Europe
is on its way to European integration, on its way to
integrated Europe, where borders will "no longer matter",
if this is a process that is under way and is to be
completed in the decade to come, why create new borders
around a new second Albanian state in Europe? Why are new
borders at such a high cost necessary if they are going
to be brought down in the matter of years? Where is the
logic of European integration in the independence of
Kosovo?
4) Exceptionalism will undermine
international law. Recognizing the independence of
Kosovo without the UN Security Council approval - where
Russia and China are certain to block the outcome due to
Chechnya, Taiwan and Tibet - as well as without Belgrade
(as proposed by the ICG), is sure to deal another heavy
blow to both international law and the world system,
create serious negative precedents and aggravate
international relations.
5) Bombing for independence and
mono-ethnicity. Building on the experience since
1999, the independence of Kosovo is highly likely to,
sooner or later, result in a mono-ethnic Albanian Kosovo.
It will become the second Albanian national state in
Europe. As such, it would undermine completely the
arguments of those who supported the 1999 bombings in the
name of "multiethnicity" in the province. The 1999
bombings will historically be seen as a bombing campaign
for the independence of Kosovo, which is light years away
from the proclaimed goals of a "humanitarian
intervention".
6) Helping some minorities to
become independent. The international community
accepted independence for Croats and Croatia out of
Yugoslavia but not independence for Serbs out of Croatia,
thereby taking the side of the majority in Croatia. Thus,
the Kosovo-Albanian argument that there has been too much
historic and contemporary repression to live together is
valid in Kosovo but not in Croatia where the historic
repression of Serbs is much worse and 250.000 legitimate
Croatian Serbs citizens were ethnically cleansed in 1995
and have, we few exceptions, not come back.
The TFF Kosovo
Solution Series
# 1
Why
the solution in Kosovo matters to the
world
# 2
The
media - strategic considerations
# 3
The
main preconditions for a sustainable solution to the
Kosovo conflict
# 4
The
situation as seen from Serbia
# 5
The
arguments for quick and total independence are not
credible
# 6
What
must be Belgrade's minimum conditions and its media
strategy
# 7
Nations
and states, sovereignty and
self-determination
# 8
Positive
scenarios: Turn to the future, look at the broader
perspectives
# 9
Many
thinkable models for future Kosovo
# 10
Summary:
From "Only one solution" towards democracy and
peace
NOTE
Relevant
background links for this series.
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