Please find enclosed the "EU Observer" version of the article "Many
Options but Independence for Kosovo" by Jan Oberg and Aleksandar
Mitic.
Link to article: http://euobserver.com/7/20228
Best regards,
Aleksandar Mitic
Many options but independence for Kosovo
16.11.2005 - 17:44 CET | By Jan Oberg and Aleksandar Mitic EUOBSERVER
/ COMMENT - The Serbian province of Kosovo, largely populated by the
Albanian 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.
From a legal point of view, Kosovo is an integral part of the
sovereign state of Serbia and Montenegro. However, after Milosevic'
clampdown on the province - including taking away its autonomy - and
NATO's partwise destruction of Kosovo and Serbia in 1999, Security
Council Resolution 1244 declared it a territory administered by the
United Nations.
Thus UNMIK (the UN Mission in Kosovo), together with NATO, the OSCE
and the EU make up the authority ever since. However, talks and
negotiations about the future status and "standards" of the territory
shall begin this autumn; UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has recently
appointed former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari to lead this
process.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana recently disseminated ideas of
the European Union taking over law enforcement in Kosovo from the
United Nations as part of a more active engagement in the Balkans.
Bluff from the start?
Only two and a half years ago, the international community had charged
that talks on Kosovo's 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 has been 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 fear of Kosovo Albanian threats 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 be
negotiated and long-lasting rather than imposed, one-sided and
conflict-prone?
Recipe for future troubles
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 US has more urgent problems elsewhere. But full independence
cannot be negotiated, it can only be imposed. "Independent Kosovo"
implies that the Kosovo-Albanians achieve their maximalist goal while
Belgrade and the Kosovo Serbs and Roma would not even get their
minimum - a recipe for future troubles.
It would be also counter-productive for Europe and the US: 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 on punishing Serbia and
Serbs collectively for former President of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic's
brutality would be immoral.
An "independent Kosovo" would set a dangerous precedent for the
region, not least in Bosnia and Macedonia, for international law and
for European integration.
And if Kosovo becomes independent, why not Taiwan, Tibet, Chechnya,
Tamil Eelam, Kashmir? The world has about 200 states and 5,000 ethnic
groups. Who would like 4,800 new and ethnically pure 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.
The results of Milosevic's authoritarian policies clearly prevented
Kosovo from returning to its pre-1999 status. Belgrade recognises that
today.
Europe's largest - but ignored - refugee problem
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 military
intervention 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 is
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 - for instance, 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.
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 US should re-evaluate their post-1990 policies and recognise
the need for much more intellectually open and politically pluralist
approaches than those that have been promoted so far.
Otherwise, political rigidity, lack of principle and wishful thinking
could once again prove to be the enemies of sustainable peace in this
region.
Aleksandar Mitic was Belgrade correspondent for Agence France-Presse
(AFP) from 1999-2005. Jan Oberg is Director and co-founder of the
Swedish Transnational Foundation, TFF, a think tank in peace research
and conflict mitigation.
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