West has exhausted diplomatic coercion of Serbia

West
has exhausted diplomatic coercion of Serbia


By
M.
Bozinovich

April
1, 2007





At
an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Bremen, Slovakia, Romania
and Greece went smack against the Ahtisaari plan for Kosovo independence
while Spain and Italy expressed reservations about the Kosovo blueprint,
reports EU
Observer.

It is unlikely that only 5 EU states harbor misgivings against Ahtisaari's
proposal and as the initial euphoria designed to convince Kosovo Albanians
that their agenda is being listened to by EU, more countries are expected
to come against Kosovo independence proposal.

Statement by the Spanish Foreign Minister illustrates the underlying
European sentiment.

"When we talk about splitting countries up, the map of Europe could
change every year," Spanish foreign minister Alberto Navarro said.

Viewed as "splitting countries up", Kosovo independence will likely
galvanize those European states who fear loss of their territory. Their
stubbornness in opposition will ultimately win out over those in favor
or are indifferent to border changes.

As for Italy, its silent diplomacy always had a determined, antagonistic
streak to the Kosovo Albanian separatism, overtly suppressed, perhaps because
of Italy's participation in the elite Contact Group but more so because
it has its soldiers on the ground in Kosovo. As far back as the Ramboulliet
talks, Italy was vehemently against Albanian separatism and pressed the
Albanian side to renounce it.

Writes Albright in her memoir: "This created an opening for Italian
Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini, who had always been highly critical of
the KLA. He pressed Taci not only to accept the framework but also to renounce
support for a referendum on independence."

Albright then immediately dismissed the Italians saying that what Dini
was doing "was not fair," and she went out of her way to convince the Kosovo
Albanians that US is on their side, only in order to obtain the Albanian
signature on the deal, so it could bomb the Serbs.

"On the other hand" Albright quotes herself as saying to the Kosovo
Albanian Taci "if you say yes and the Serbs say no, NATO will strike and
go on striking until the Serb forces are out and NATO can go in."

Absent in this statement is any care for the Kosovo Albanian desire
to acquire Serbian territory and Albright's deputy Strobe Talbott affirms
that Kosovo Albanian desires for independence are but a lip service for
the West, used in order to coerce Serbia into the Western fold.

"It was Yugoslavia's resistance to the broader trends of political and
economic reform - not the plight of Kosovo Albanians - that best explains
NATO's war," writes Talbott.

With EU Parliament's resolution affirming its commitment to an independent
Kosovo, then Carl Bildt's threat, repeated by US and British Ambassadors,
that Serbia's EU membership is on hold until it gives up Kosovo, all possible
firepower to diplomatically coerce Serbia to agree to an independent Kosovo
have been exhausted.

"Some Western politicians may have hoped Mr. Tadic would put European
Union membership above Serbia's territorial integrity. That did not happen,"
explains Primakov.

...and unilateralism seems to be off the table as it has been since
during the NATO war on Serbia in 1999.

Again elaborates Albright: "Dismayed at the early setbacks, we examined
the idea of arming the KLA but rejected it as too likely to split the Alliance.
We looked at the proposals for partitioning Kosovo but rejected them as
a legal and security nightmare and a poor precedent for resolving
ethnic disputes."

So we are back to what Russia is saying - that Kosovo independence sets
a precedent - and State Department's insistence that it does not appears
more of a temporary tactical position in order to win one up on the Russians.

To this end then Ahtisaari is being flashed and promoted by the State
Department not in a belief that he is some diplomatic sage but because
he is a useful material to tell the Kosovo Albanians that US used one of
"their guys" in a process, have exhausted all possible ways to coerce Serbia
into signing off on Kosovo's independence, then promptly discard Ahtisaari
praising him to be a great diplomat for whom the victory just eluded him.

This may happen after Contact Group meetings and once we see Ahtisaari
escorted from the diplomatic podium a solution to the Kosovo status can
and probably will be solved.

"As soon as Washington issues a threat to the Kosovo Albanians, to the
effect that in the event of anti Serb violence they would lose Western
support once and for all, everything will return to normal in Kosovo,"
quotes Yevgheni
Primakov a senior Serb government official.

Thoroughly convinced in independence, and with no legal move to improve
their situation, any action by Kosovo Albanians, at this point, cannot
marginally improve their situation. Hopelessness and conviction of invincibility
are but the same because there is nothing that one can do in either situation
that will make it any better.

"I feared that few more cases of Albanians killing Serbs would squelch
European enthusiasm for financial reconstruction of Kosovo," wrote Albright
in 1999.

Remembering that atrocities deemed as precipitating factors for Western
diplomatic and military action in the Balkans have always been accused
of being staged events, it is to be expected that, perhaps soon, Europeans
may decide to pay particular attention to one of these atrocities against
Serbs in Kosovo that occur daily.. and what then will happen to the European
enthusiasm for Kosovo Albanian independence?

Now that a pro-Western government is in Belgrade and Washington, in
particular, is happy of Tadic being the president, Primakov's op-ed alludes
that this arrangement is something that Moscow can live with.

"According to Mr. Tadic, Serbia has three foreign policy priorities:
rapprochement with the European Union, the United States, and Russia,"
writes Primakov.

The real fear in the West then is not that Kosovo Albanians will resort
to violence - after all they have been threatening it for some time - but
whether NATO, EU and US will not be made look fools by an Albanian guerrilla.

If Russia can facilitate this, the solution to Kosovo can quickly emerge.

http://www.serbianna.com/columns/mb/057.shtml

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