Kosovo: the train wreck ahead
The word 鈥淜osovo鈥 appeared on the front page of my newspaper this morning 鈥 and I can鈥檛 remember the last time that happened. Crunch time is approaching in the Balkans, and the diplomats are getting twitchy. They don鈥檛 have a deal, and that worries them. A lot.
Back in 1999, when NATO flew to the rescue of Kosovo鈥檚 majority ethnic Albanians, the default mindset in pretty much every Western capital was 鈥淪erbia bad, Kosovo Albanians good鈥. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was an easy man to cast as the villain: ex-Communist party apparatchik, nationalist demagogue, destabiliser of the Balkans for much of the 1990s.
But things have changed in Serbia: Milosevic has long gone, new governments have been elected, shaky to be sure, but with at least some of their leading members anxious to take their place in the European mainstream.
Talk to their Foreign Minister, Vuk Jeremic, as I did last night. (You can hear the interview here.) He says the US-EU determination to recognise an independent Kosovo, against the wishes of Belgrade, risks 鈥渄evastating consequences鈥 in the region. True, he would say that, wouldn鈥檛 he? But in principle, he may well have a point: dismembering a sovereign state, a member of the United Nations, against its will, is not a good precedent to set. Bosnia next? Chechnya? The Basque country? Kurdistan? Abkhazia? The list could be endless.
Even in terms of practical politics, the risks are all too evident. There are restive minorities throughout the Balkans 鈥 what lesson will they learn from an independent Kosovo? Not for nothing has the word 鈥淏alkanisation鈥 come to be whispered with such foreboding down the ages.
So why the rush? For months now, the US, EU and Russia have been trying to stitch up a deal between Serbia and Kosovo. They have failed, and on 10th December, they鈥檒l wind up their mission. The US has assured the Kosovo Albanians that they鈥檒l recognise them as an independent state with or without an agreement, but the UN won鈥檛, because Russia is siding with the Serbs.
Creating states out of conflict is fraught with danger. Eritrea and East Timor are two of the more recent examples 鈥 neither is exactly a success story yet. Kosovo has no functioning economy to speak of; organised crime is frighteningly powerful; the Balkans specialist Misha Glenny says if it does become a state it will be a 鈥渘ightmare state鈥.
So, what to do? The clock is ticking, the Kosovo Albanians are ready to declare independence, come what may. If there is a light at the end of the tunnel, I fear it may well be the light of an oncoming train. Only Washington can turn the green signal to red, and there鈥檚 no sign that they intend to.
Both the EU and NATO (while both being in Europe) bear huge responsibility for the situation in the Western Balkans, particularly in Kosovo. If both of them ever thought of offering a membership to the states from the Western Balkans, it proved that their reaction toward the Yugoslav crisis was very much disorganized. After the chaos had terminated and once they realized that solving such a conundrum was not an easy job at all, they started buying time by postponing the settlement. What is the purpose of doing so and thus keeping the region stuck? Everybody knows what both Serbs and Albanians want and that any further postponing will only spread additional hatred and eventually cause a new conflict. Thus, do hurry up, all of you, and do settle the situation best way possible.
Complain about this postBranislav Radeljic
Is there a chance for Kosovo to emerge from Limbo ? It has been here for a long time. It is neither a heaven nor a hell but a place, like anywhere else, where people need to live and take control of their own destiny. Only the people can not do so because they do not have a state. They are in a state 鈥 but it represents nothing more than a state of confinement.
Complain about this postThis imprisonment is whose fault exactly? NATO? UN? EU? All of these? None? More?
Yes, the history is as bloody as it is complex. But democracy is more than a part of the answer. The right to self-determination trumps outside influence every time. A distinct lack of involvement in determining the future is already part of this definition of the term Balkanisation being whispered far and wide.
鈥淭he hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.鈥 (Dante) A 鈥榥ightmare state鈥 must be better than a state of oblivion, surely. Action is required more than rhetoric and platitudes.