Nations
and states,
sovereignty and self-determination
Kosovo
Solution Series # 7
PressInfo #
215
March
31, 2005
By
Aleksandar
Mitic,
TFF Associate & Jan
Oberg,
TFF director
Relevant background links
for this series here.
May we recommend that you get hold
of a copy of the UNDP's, Human Development Report of 2004
with the title, Cultural Liberty in Today's Diverse
World? It's a rich source on the problems we seek to
deal with here. It informs us that the world's nearly 200
countries include some 5,000 ethnic groups. Two-thirds of
all countries have more than one ethnic or religious
minority group that make up at least 10 per cent of the
people. Thus, one way or another every country is a
multicultural society. No less than 44 per cent of the
people living in Toronto, Canada was born outside Canada.
There are some 300 million indigenous people in 70
countries representing 4,000 of the world's 6,000
languages.
The Minorities at Risk project at
the University of Maryland estimates that 129 groups, or
518 million people, with a distinct identity face
cultural (or living mode) discrimination and
disadvantage. Further, 191 groups, or 832 million people,
with a distinct identity can be judged to suffer
political discrimination, and finally 189 distinct
groups, or 750 million people, are faced with economic
discrimination and marginalisation. Using this set of
data, unique as they are, 509 groups or slightly more
than 2 billion people feel excluded in our world. (It
goes without saying that many are hit by more than one
type of exclusion and, thus, the total number of
repressed people is smaller than 2 billion).
But one may convincingly argue that
the solution to this can not be to create 509 new
independent countries. The solution is to learn to live
differently, in tolerance, and making the world safer for
difference. To argue that Kosovo as an independent
country is the only solution is, thus viewed, to
make a mockery of hundreds of millions of people's
similar suffering. No responsible decision-maker would
ever argue that all other suffering groups and minorities
(of which many have suffered considerably more than the
Kosovo-Albanians) have an indisputable right to be
granted a status of independent state. For, after all,
who would argue that a world of about 700+ countries -
with borders, national military defence, ethnic
exclusion, etc. - would be a more manageable and peaceful
place?
Renowned peace researcher and
TFF
Associate, Johan Galtung,
says in his book Searching for Peace, that "the
general point of departure is a simple assumption: the
higher the number of alternatives to the awesome
dichotomy status quo in a unitary state vs.
secession-independence, the lower, ceteris
paribus, the probability of violence…In no way
should this imply that self-determination as a human
right is given up but that the right to
self-determination is linked to a duty to conflict
transformation."
Serbia has given up on the first.
Will the Albanians and the international community be
able to give up on the second and reduce the general risk
of renewed violence in the future? Will the right to
self-determination in Kosovo be linked intimately to
prior conflict-resolution and reconciliation? Or,
differently put, will self-determination be made
conditional upon a will to settle the basic conflicts
first so self-determination will not release new
violence? And will it be emphasised that
self-determination does not mean automatic secession and
independence because one group, no matter how big (the
Albanians), can not have a right to ignore the right to
self-determination of other groups (the Kosovo Serbs and
other minorities)?
Says Galtung, "The right to
self-determination is an extremely important human right
but it should not be interpreted as an automatic right to
secession, independence and recognition by the
inter-state community as a state…The right to
self-determination is the right of a people to determine
their status within a state, and by implication in the
world, including the option of independence and the
option of status quo. But, regardless the decision, a
right to autonomy at a low or high level is not a right
to be autistic, disregarding others completely, just like
the right to free speech does not imply the right to
disregard the consequences of exercising that right.
There is an overriding principle of
responsibility." (Italics added).
UNSC
Resolution 1244 and the Standards for
Kosovo
And by that we come to the problems
of the two basic legal documents of the Kosovo conflict
resolution process, UN Security Council Resolution 1244
of June 10, 1999 and the Standards for Kosovo of 2003
that outlines the target goals for the province. The
degree of achievement of these goals shall be evaluated
this summer 2005. Depending on that evaluation, talks
about the future status of Kosovo shall begin.
What is the main content of UNSC
Res. 1244? First, it "bears in mind" that the aim is to
maintain international peace and security. This must be
interpreted to mean that the solution for Kosovo has a
wider framework than just Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo;
it must produce international peace. The
resolution aims to provide for the safe and free return
of all refugees and displaced persons to their home. That
can not mean only the Albanians and others who had fled
at the time; the principle must apply also to the people
who have been driven out by the Albanian leadership since
then.
Of basic importance for a
resolution is the paragraph "reaffirming the commitment
of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial
integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the
other States of the region, as set out in the Helsinki
Final Act" followed directly by "Reaffirming the call in
previous resolutions for substantial autonomy and
meaningful self-administration for Kosovo." The
resolution goes on to determine the nature of the
international presence and its responsibilities - and
here, regrettably, it must be concluded that during the
past 6 years, a number of these responsibilities have not
been met.
Thus, the international presence
has far from managed to deter renewed hostilities
(neither inside Kosovo nor in Southern Serbia and in
Macedonia both of which have clear-cut connections with
Kosovo-Albanian hardliners, March 2004 ethnic violence);
it is highly doubtful that the Kosovo Liberation Army and
other armed groups were really disarmed and that there
remains no weapons in today's Kosovo. Furthermore, the
international presence has not been able to establish a
secure environment in which refugees and displaced
persons can return in safety.
Resolution 1244 stipulate that the
international civil presence shall "provide an interim
administration for Kosovo under which the people of
Kosovo can enjoy substantial autonomy within the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, and which will provide
transitional administration while establishing and
overseeing the development of provisional democratic
self-governing institutions to ensure conditions for a
peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants of Kosovo."
Elsewhere the words "substantial autonomy" and
"self-government" is reiterated.
In Resolution 1244 "self-governing"
is mentioned 3 times, "self-government" 4 times,
"self-administration" 1 time, "substantial autonomy" 3
times whereas neither "self-determination" nor
"independence" is mentioned in the document. The
"sovereignty" of Yugoslavia is mentioned 3 times.
Given the substance of this
Security Council Resolution - what it states and does not
state - it is remarkable that the international
presence, the UN in particular, has never publicly
emphasised that full independence is not stated (and not
made possible) within the framework and words of UNSC Res
1244. By not stating this clearly, the international
community has psychologically endorsed, indeed, promoted
the self-determination-secession-independence policy in
the minds of the Albanian leaders and, thereby, the
Albanian citizens of Kosovo. They have very
understandable reasons to believe that what they are
moving towards is independence. This is what their
leaders have told them were the only solution for more
than 15 years (and remember the average age of the
population in Kosovo is 25).
The political body language of the
international community as well as of its pro-Albanian
lobbyists - anti-Serb and anti-Belgrade interpretations
throughout the conflict, bombings and intimate
co-operation in Kosovo with leaders whose only policy
goal was independence with or without weapons - have sent
one unmistakable signal: that independence is a real
possibility. According to the highest authority, the UN
Security Council, it is not.
The most recent example of such
creation of false expectations came on March 29, 2005
when Express carried an interview with outgoing OSCE Head
of Mission in Pristina Pascal Fieschi. Commenting on
Kosovo's future status and asked about the possibility of
an independent country, Fieschi was quoted as saying,
"Why not? It all depends on you, it depends from the
citizens of Kosovo, how they behave, their policies and
the standards. Nothing is automatic and nothing comes
from the skies. Why not, even independence. No one rules
out this possibility."
If the international community
cannot deliver on that later, there is all reason to
believe that the Kosovo-Albanians will show their anger
and disappointment.
Please see TFF
PressInfo 71 from June 18, 1999
for a further critique of this Resolution.
The Kosovo Standards Implementation
Plan can be downloaded on UNMIK's
website. It describes the
Standards in thi manner:
"The Standards for Kosovo
describe a Kosovo where public institutions are
representative and democratic, where the rule of law
is effective, respected and accessible to all, where
those IDPs who wish to are free and able to return to
Kosovo without hindrance, threat or intimidation,
where all individuals, regardless of ethnic background
can travel and work safely, and use their language
(and where that use is respected) anywhere and in any
institution in Kosovo, where the framework for a
functioning market economy is in place and where the
Kosovo Protection Corps operates strictly within its
mandate; furthermore, the standards describe a Kosovo
where Pristina is participating in successful dialogue
with Belgrade and where Kosovo is in a stable and
peaceful relationship with its regional neighbours. In
short, a truly multi-ethnic, stable and democratic
Kosovo which is approaching European
standards…"
This is what Kosovo shall look
like. When it does, negotiations about its status will
follow. Although there has been considerable progress, it
should be pretty easy to see that there is still a long
way to go on almost all points - most importantly perhaps
concerning the return of IDPs and a safe environment. The
failure of the international community to disarm KLA and
prevent the Albanian reverse ethnic cleansing of about
200.000 Serbs and other minority citizens out of Kosovo
in the first several months of the international presence
(at the time over 40,000 NATO troops) and the fact that
virtually no one has come back are major reasons why it
should be extremely difficult for the international
community to determine that the Standards for Kosovo have
all been met by summer 2005.
Indeed, one wonders what political
game is being played when high-level international
members, including the SRSG Søren Jessen-Petersen,
hold out the prospect of status talks in September 2005?
That requires prior knowledge that the Standards
will be satisfied in full in the course of just a
couple of months ahead from the time it was stated.
However, if things have not moved in the right
direction during 5 years, it is a bit difficult to
envision them do so and achieve great results in 5 months
from now.
Finally, one may observe that the
Standards document was evidently written by people who
had no professional understanding or feel for the human
dimension of conflicts and their resolution. One wonders
how all the mentioned Standards shall be achieved without
a massive investment in peace education of
decision-makers and citizens alike in a broad sense:
conflict-understanding, negotiation, reconciliation and
forgiveness, empowerment of youth and women,
trust-building, media to promote values of co-existence
and tolerance and new ways of dealing with the
military-macho culture and criminality in various
communities in the province.
Without any of that, the
Standards will hardly ever produce anything but shallow
peace. Deep peace, the introduction of a peace
culture and an honest recognition on all sides that the
past must be dealt with constructively for all to move
forward was effectively ignored by this Standards
document. But that may also not have been its true
purpose. It rather serves, it seems, to legitimate a kind
of secession and integration of Kosovo into the EU. In
reality it would probably take at least another decade
for Kosovo to qualify for EU membership.
The next PressInfo will outline,
therefore, a much broader approach to peace in and around
Kosovo.
Recommended
literature
Johan Galtung and Carl G. Jacobsen,
Searching for Peace. The Road to Transcend. Pluto
Press, London 2000.
Hurst Hannum, Autonomy,
Sovereignty, and Self-Determination. The Accomodation of
Conflicting Rights, University of Pennsylvania Press,
Philadeplhia, 1990.
Hugh Miall, The Peacemakers.
Peaceful Settlement of Disputes since 1945,
Macmillan, London 1992.
United Nations Development Program,
UNDP, Human Development Report 2004. Cultural
Liberty in Today's Diverse World, UNDP 2000, New York
2004.
Alan Zelim Skurbaty, As If
Peoples Mattered. Critical Appraisal of "Peoples" and
"Minorities" from the International Human Rights
Perspective and Beyond, PhD, Lund University
1998.
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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