The Great Kosovo Riddle

 

Latest news:
http://news.google.be/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Kosovo+

Good luck, Montenegro

http://www.makfax.com.mk/look/novina/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=2&NrArticle=21345&NrIssue=13&NrSection=20


"Consolidation" of Kosovo's TMK as "multiethnic army"
http://kosovareport.blogspot.com/2006/05/albanian-premier-calls-for.html

NATO to protect decisions on Kosovo future
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060508-014304-5002r

"Kosovo Status Determination Will Build Regional Security"
http://kosovareport.blogspot.com/2006/05/kosovo-status-determination-will-build.html

"The most important thing is finding a healthy and long-term solution for Kosovo and Metohija"
http://www.kosovo.net/news/archive/2006/May_08/2.html

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http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=838

Axis (Turkey)

May 8, 2006

The Great Kosovo Riddle

Can Karpat, AIA Balkan Section

Serbia is at odds with the EU after it failed to extradite Ratko Mladic. The fourth round of the Kosovo final status negotiations in Vienna ended with mutual recrimination and accusation between the Albanian and Serbian teams. During Kosovo Premier Agim Ceku’s visit to Skopje, Macedonian Premier Vlado Buckovski suggested that experts from Macedonia and Kosovo would confirm the former administrative border between Macedonia and former Yugoslavia as a real state border. Here is the week that shook Serbia…

On 3rd May, the EU postponed the talks on the stabilisation and association agreement because Serbia failed to extradite Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army chief wanted for genocide.
On 4th-5th May, the fourth round of the Kosovo status talks began. The direct talks, which turned to greater local self-government for Kosovo’s 100.000 remaining Serbs, degenerated into mutual recrimination and accusation between the Albanian and Serbian teams.
On 5th May, after his meeting with Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku, Macedonian Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski suggested that technical experts on both sides with support of US cartographers would confirm the administrative border between Macedonia and Yugoslavia as a real state border.
Last week’s chronology is not very hopeful as far as Serbia is concerned. And there is no immediate good sign on the horizon. Montenegro has already begun to prepare new passports. The fifth round of the Kosovo negotiations is scheduled for 23rd May - two days after the independence referendum in Montenegro. The “Greater Serbia†chimera progressively turns into a “Smaller Serbia†reality.

Painful times for the Serbia-EU relations

Serbian Interior Minister Dragan Jocic assured the international community that search for the fugitive war crimes accused Ratko Mladic will continue in the following days. However chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Carla Del Ponte, speaking in Sarajevo last Friday, dismissed the arrests and raids in Belgrade, aimed at apprehending Ratko Mladic, as not serious: “Operations in Belgrade are just for the galleryâ€. It seems as though the current Serbian authorities completely lost their credibility. But what if the EU itself, which closed its doors, though probably momentarily, to Serbia, has actually lost its credibility?
The EU follows an obvious reward-or-punish process in its dealing with Serbia. On 29th April, NATO Secretary General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer, speaking at a forum in Brussels, clearly stated: “See that Mladic gets to The Hague, and I can tell you that NATO will bring you in very quickly, [and] then you can continue stabilisation and association with the European Unionâ€.
Apart the childishness of this process, is this really the best way to “rehabilitate†Serbia? If someday Serbian authorities extradite Mladic and Karadzic, it would be better that they do so because they think that these men should be tried for what they allegedly did during the Bosnia War. Only then Serbia could “exorcise its demonsâ€. Otherwise the extradition would be an unpleasant duty, which one accomplishes rather reluctantly just for the sake of a reward. Serbia must be won, not “bribedâ€.
It is known that in Serbia even those, who defend publicly the need to cooperate with the ICTY, base their arguments on little more than compliance with the international law. This can be changed through the consolidation of democracy, education, etc., but certainly not through punishment. Those, who want to join the EU in Serbia, are 60 percent of the population. Other 40 percent, however, is not a negligible minority, and their arguments are not always unconvincing. The international community should not give them such simple opportunities to strengthen their arguments.

The Kosovo talks: Deadlock on Mitrovica

During the fourth round of the Kosovo final status talks, the Serbs wanted 14 new municipalities, while the Kosovo Albanians were offering 3. The Serbian team demanded to make the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica (northern Kosovo) a municipality of its own, while the Albanians were asking for two municipalities to be formed within the confines of one city. The two proposals about the fate of Mitrovica were diagonally opposite: Division or reunification.
The Kosovo Serbs live scattered in small communities throughout the province. Except in Mitrovica where they remain in sizeable numbers - enough to have a mini-state of their own. Mitrovica is the last urban centre of the Serbs in Kosovo and a gateway to Serbia proper. The town is divided by the river Ibar, which separates the Serb-dominated north from the Albanian-dominated south. Mitrovica, the scene of the bloody riots of March 2004, was recently patrolled by tanks to prevent ethnic clashes.

Ethnic map of Kosovo - blue zones represent Serbian concentration  (click for enlarge)

Mitrovica is the ultimate symbol, which will confirm whether reconciliation between the Albanian and Serbian communities is possible in Kosovo. While Kosovo’s Serbs and Albanians work and socialise together in urban areas like Pristina, life is less friendly in the Serbian enclaves. The “Train of Freedom†has run from the province's southern border with Macedonia to the northern border with Serbia proper since the end of the Kosovo War. The de facto divided town of Mitrovica is not an obstacle for the train. Yet, the last stop for Albanian passengers is on the southern side of the town. Many Serbs usually gather in a café on the other side, watching the bridge to check that no Albanian come across. According to French author Ernest Renan, in order to form a national body, the people of this body must learn to “forgetâ€. Obviously in the case of Kosovo, it is too early to forget - the wounds are still fresh.
Mitrovica is the key for the future of Kosovo and that of the whole region. Many fear that if Kosovo becomes independent without granting the Kosovo Serbs the large autonomy they want, these Serbs would leave Kosovo for good. This means that there will be thousands of Serbs along the Kosovo border of Serbia, full of resentment and ready to explode any time. The ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party would not fail to provoke them and exploit their anger. This stock of angry radical nationalists on Serbian border would threaten not only the safety of Kosovo, but also that of other neighbouring countries, the rest of Europe and Serbia itself.
During the last direct talks, the Serbian team made an interesting proposal. Slobodan Samardzic, a Serbian negotiator, stated that his team suggested the creation of 16 “communities†run by Serbs and other non-Albanians, including Roma Gypsies, Turks and Muslims of Slavic origin (Gorans and Bosnians). Does Serbia try to mobilise other non-Albanian communities of Kosovo and make out of minority rights a cause célÄbre in order to gain some support from “inside the castleâ€?
On 28th April, representatives of the Goran and Bosnian communities demanded for setting up new municipalities in Vitomirica (western Kosovo, near Pec), Recane (southern Kosovo, southeast of Prizren) and in the part of Dragas municipality (southern Kosovo, near Gora region) inhabited by Gorans and Bosnians.
As to the Turks of Kosovo, which are the third largest minority of Kosovo, they lost most of their rights after the establishment of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Turkish language, which was the third official language of Kosovo before the war, was replaced by English thereafter. Against the UNMIK, which somewhat discriminates some minorities of Kosovo, the Serbian proposal may seem attractive.

The border dispute anaesthetised

As to the visit of Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku to Skopje, it brought nothing new. Agim Ceku and his Macedonian counterpart Vlado Buckovski stated that the Kosovo-Macedonia border issue is just a technical question, not a political problem. Buckovski stressed: “The former administrative border of the former Yugoslavia will be the one pending demarcation once certain conditions are met i.e. once we get a partner with a full international credibilityâ€. The discussion of this issue was postponed until a “more appropriate momentâ€.
Serbian Foreign Ministry expressed its surprise over the statement by Vlado Buckovski that experts from Macedonia and Kosovo would confirm the former administrative border between Macedonia and former Yugoslavia as a real state border. The internationally recognised state border between Serbia-Montenegro and Macedonia was established as such by the agreement on the state border in 2001.
Thus, ten days after the border dispute, which was revived on 25th April by Agim Ceku, everything got back to the starting point. Was this a kind of much ado about nothing?
According to the Coordinating Centre for Kosovo President Sandra Raskovic-Ivic, this was not the case: “The first thing that is obvious is that Ceku already feels like the premier of an independent and internationally recognised state of Kosovoâ€. Ceku was appeased on 5th May with Buckovski’s proposal of experts. Ceku acted as a real prime minister, and was also responded as a real one. He marked a good point for the Kosovo team.
Was Buckovski’s proposal a coincidence? Macedonia decided to hold parliamentary elections two months ahead of the official September deadline. Did Buckovski, the leader of the ruling Social Democrats, send a message to the Albanian minority, which forms no less than 19.2 percent of the population (est. 2004)? Also Ceku claimed that the reactions of Macedonian politicians were done for internal political consumption in the first place. If this is the fact, then Ceku himself is not exempt from internal political motives. He must placate the angry inhabitants of the Kosovo border village of Debelde, whose properties were divided by the new boundary.
The border demarcation agreement was signed on 22nd February 2001 - two years after Serbia lost control over Kosovo. Despite this fact, the agreement was welcomed by every factor in the international community (Macedonia’s neighbours, the EU, USA, NATO, etc.). Today there is no reason to change the current situation. With an unemployment rate nearing 55 percent, Kosovo will probably independent only by name. An economically dependent Kosovo will not be able to annul an agreement, which still benefits from international approval.

Related items:
Serbian Radical Party: The Hubris of Serbian Political Scene (04.05.06)
Euro-Atlantic Axis in the Balkans: Macedonia-Kosovo-Albania (02.05.06)
Kosovo Turks: Those Who Live in the Most Critical Region of the Balkans (15.12.05)
Kosovo: A New State or a New Bone of Contention in the Balkans? (26.11.05)
Kosovo is Heating Up Again (16.11.05)
Kosovo - Another Example of the International Impotence (29.10.05)