iBece.org

As the Serbian parliamentary elections on January 21 draw close, so too does Martti Ahtisaari’s announcement of his proposal for solving Kosovo’s status problem. There is a growing feeling in Serbia that independence (or “supervised independence”) is the only option being considered in the West, adding further to feelings of mistrust and resentment. This is a dangerous situation as radicalism is already a powerful force in this country and further losses for Serbia will almost certainly stoke this fire further and impair any chance of reform and integration in the near future.

The problem of Kosovo’s status must be looked at in the regional context of the Balkan quagmire. Internal borders are often preferentially treated over internationally-recognised borders - hence the disappearance of Yugoslavia but adamant refusal of world powers to allow changes to the state borders of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Serbs have become the universal scapegoats for a decade of war despite atrocities and warmongering from all sides. Ethnic cleansing as a term was coined on this soil yet it is legitimised yearly by Croatian celebrations of Operation Storm, when over 200,000 Serbs were expelled from the country. Instability is the norm, with Macedonia and the state experiment that is Bosnia never far from inter-ethnic tensions. There have already been too many experiements and too many failures in the Balkans and the international community must tread carefully in Kosovo.

Serbian concerns regarding progress in the troubled province have not changed greatly since the oust of Milosevic in 2000. The late Serbian leader Zoran Djindjic wrote personally to Vladimir Putin, George Bush and Tony Blair in February 2003 to express fears that Kosovo was slipping toward independence. Everything the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) was doing tended to this end, including the gradual transfer of power to a centralised government in Pristina. It seemed that the world hoped that through this process Pristina would gain de facto sovereignty, including on issues such as minority rights, and that independence would be a natural step. That no other solution has seriously been discussed by the international community makes this scenario seem even more likely.

Because outright independence would clearly be an outright loss to the Serbian side, increasingly the term “conditional independence” (or more recently “supervised independence”) has been used. Presumably this would mean complete self-rule but with less than complete statehood - although how much less than complete remains to be seen. In practice this would force two unwilling partners into a confederation-of-sorts. Djindjic was vehemently opposed to such a solution in 2003 and four years later it is still frought with danger. As he wrote to the world leaders, this solution would present a two-pronged punishment for Serbia: Belgrade would lose any influence over the province and then be a captive in this undesirable marriage. This constant reminder of its wounded national pride would add momentum to the already-strong radical and extremist elements in the country and would impede Serbia’s European integration. Furthermore, successful admission to the EU would require internal stability and normalising of relations between Belgrade and Pristina - something highly unlikely in the near future.

There are forces in Serbia who are in favour of Kosovo’s independence. Cedomir Jovanovic, leader of a coalition of smaller liberal democratic parties announced this week that should he win the upcoming elections, he would be happy to sign away the province. Ridding Serbia of Kosovo they argue, would be like amputating a cancer and would allow the country to move forward without baggage. While such a solution appears neat on paper and may even make politico-economic sense, it fails to take into account the deep cultural, religious and financial investments Serbs have in their southern province. For centuries, the territory of Kosovo has been the heartland of Serbia, evidenced by the hundreds of ancient churches and monasteries - many of which have been routinely and systematically destroyed by Albanian extremists since the 1980s. Since the Second World War, Serbia (and indeed all republics of the former Yugoslavia) have invested billions of dollars into Kosovo’s infrastructure and development of its mining industry. To this day, Serbia repays millions of dollars per day in debts accrued in Kosovo investments. Less than 100 years ago, Serbs were the majority population in the region and through a combination of Serbian emigration northward and largely illegal Albanian crossing from neighbouring Albania, the demographics have recently markedly shifted. No country could be expected to relinquish possession of such territory without considerable compensation. For this reason, the majority of Serbs, whether supporters of the former regime or the new democratic government, are adamantly opposed to Kosovo’s secession. Even moderate democrat supporters, when pressed, exhibit extremist, emotionally-charged views about the issue.

The problem is further complicated by what is seen as a precedent in international law. Separatists in countries around the world are eagerly awaiting the outcome of the Kosovo status negotiations. For Serbia, this has resulted in allies such as Russia and Spain backing its case. Both countries have vested interests. Spain, where a tenuous cease-fire with Basque separatists has recently been broken, does not wish to see its breakaway region go the way of Kosovo. For Russia, both outcomes could be advantageous. Independence could add weight to Chechnya’s ambitions, while simultaneously giving legitimacy to Russians in South Ossetia wishing to secede from Georgia. Currently, Russia is threatening to block any UN Security Council resolution which violates Serbia’s sovereignty with its veto power. Closer to home, Serbs in Republika Srpska see Kosovo independence as a green light for them to leave Bosnia-Hercegovina, a state which repeated polls have shown they do not wish to be a part of.

There really is no ideal solution to this problem. On the one hand, Kosovo is already essentially independent, as Serbia has had no influence on it since 1999. With Albanians numbering over 90%, and with the support for independence almost universal among the majority, it doesn’t appear plausible to keep the region within Serbia. At the same time, forcibly removing 15% of a sovereign nation’s territory sets an irreversible precedent, while also fueling extremism and anti-Western sentiment in a country which has been repeatedly demonised and beaten over the last 16 years. Without redrawing the map of the Balkans yet again (by giving Republika Srpska independence or partitioning Kosovo, for example) it is difficult to see any other scenario which would not be a complete loss to Serbia, and a win for Albanian separatists.

I, along with all citizens of Serbia, and the world, will be eagerly awaiting Ahtisaari’s proposal. I wish I could be optimistic, but I fear this may be yet another kick in the guts for our country.