The
torching the U.S. embassy in Belgrade was a violent sideshow during the
massive peaceful demonstrations against Kosovo’s declaration of
independence in the Serbian capital on February 18th. Few approved of these
thuggish acts, either in Serbia or in the wider world. But the vandalism
distracts from more significant facts about the Belgrade demonstrations and
the Kosovo declaration that sparked them. The U.S. embassy was not a random
target; nor was it the only target. Protesters had already marched toward
the U.S. embassy on the first day of the protests. When police blocked
their way, they headed instead toward the Slovenian embassy, which was not
guarded, and vandalized it. That was not a random target either.
It is
not difficult to understand why the protesters directed their anger at both
the United States and Slovenia. Government officials of the two countries
have made it sufficiently clear during the past year that they actively
support the independence of Kosovo. But public anger, particularly in
Serbia, has escalated over a report of a December meeting between U.S. and
Slovenian officials that was published in January both in Slovenia’s
capital, Ljubljana, and in Belgrade. The publication caused furor in
Slovenia, outrage in Serbia, and disappointment among the EU political
elite. The document was not meant for the public, but the public did not
fail to note the clearly stated American political agenda it contained and
the role of Slovenia in its execution.
This
behind-the-scenes collusion revealed two violations with regard to Kosovo.
The United States, with Slovenian assistance, sought to circumvent the
European political process — not to speak of the UN. And Kosovo itself, by
unilaterally declaring independence, violated international law. These two
violations – of a political process and of the rule of law – will come back
to haunt Europe and the United States in the coming months and years.
The Slovenian Role
Slovenia
plays a disproportionately important role in this story because it assumed
the European Union presidency on January 1, 2008. A week before, on
December 24, a meeting between representatives of the State Department and
the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs took place in Washington D. C.
Taking part in the talks were, on the Slovenian side, the Political
Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mitja Drobnic and the
Ambassador to the United States Samuel Zbogar, and on the American side,
Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian
affairs, his deputy Rosemary DiCarlo, and Judy Ansley, NSA senior director
for European affairs. An internal report of this meeting from the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs was leaked to the Slovenian daily Dnevnik, which
published it on January 25. A copy was also obtained and published
simultaneously by the Belgrade paper Politika.
The published excerpts make it clear that the talks touched upon a number
of issues but mainly focused on Kosovo.
The
American officials presented a list of demands to their Slovenian
counterparts. For example, the Slovenian diplomats were informed of the
text of the declaration from the joint US-EU summit scheduled to take place
in Ljubljana in June. “We would also like to have a mention of Iraq and
rogue states, such as Iran, Burma, and Syria,” the U.S. officials demanded.
“President Bush is also worried about the situation in Cuba and Venezuela.
He is convinced that support for the opposition in Cuba (just like in
Georgia and Ukraine) can bring positive results. The US policy toward Cuba
is not a regime change but a desire for democratic transition after Fidel
Castro’s death. In the declaration from the EU-US summit, they would also
like to have a mention of Cuba and Venezuela. They also want the
declaration to mention terrorism and non-proliferation.”
As to
Kosovo, the conversation was a careful orchestration of Kosovo’s timetable
for independence. Daniel Fried praised Slovenian Foreign Minister Rupel and
stated that “it is beyond doubt that the solution of the status is a fact,
which will happen under the leadership of Slovenia.” Mitja Drobnic asked
for help with obtaining the UN Secretary General’s statement in support of
sending the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) mission to Kosovo,
“since some EU member states have difficulties with making the decision to
send the ESDP without the UN agreement.” Fried responded that “the UN
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is under the pressure of the Russian
Federation and thus in a difficult position.” He informed his interlocutors
that the United States had assurances that the UN was not going to put
restrictions on the sending of the ESDP mission to Kosovo. The United
States, he explained, “will help the UN Secretary General in the case of
difficulties with the Russian Federation, while RS [the Republic of
Slovenia] has to achieve within the EU the sending of the ESDP in the
shortest time.”
The
decision to send the ESDP mission to Kosovo was of key importance for the
United States, since it was replacing the UN mandate over Kosovo with the
EU mandate. In pushing that decision through, Fried was clear: “one can
ignore the critical positions and statements of the Russian Federation and
Serbia.” Rosemary DiCarlo noted that it would make sense, if “the session
of the Kosovo Parliament, in which they pass the declaration of
independence, were to be on Sunday, since this way the Russian Federation
would not have the time to call for the UN Security Council. In the
meantime, the first recognitions would already have happened.”
Fried
encouraged Slovenia to be the first to recognize Kosovo. The United States
expected that although six EU member states would hold back recognition at
least 15 out of the 27 member states would recognize Kosovo and that would
be sufficient. He also noted that the United States would be among the
first to recognize Kosovo. He told the Slovenes that “the US is drafting
the constitution with the Kosovars” and that the situation on the ground
was “promising.” Fried added, “The US hoped that the Kosovars would not
lose confidence in themselves, because that would mean that the US will
lose its influence.”
Serbian Reactions
In
Serbia, when notes of this meeting were published, the Minister for Kosovo,
Slobodan Samardzic, denounced the American administration’s pressure on
Slovenia. He regretted that the American superpower was attempting to force
EU member states into violations of international law and that Slovenia and
the EU were allowing themselves to become instruments for the realization
of American interests. He was wrong about the U.S. pressure on Slovenia.
The Slovenian Foreign Ministry under Rupel was all too willing to oblige.
But the rest of Samardzic’s points seemed to hold currency within the EU.
The Austrian Press Agency characterized Slovenia’s EU presidency as
scandalous and Rupel’s views as dissonant even within his own government. Der Standard reported
a “sharp conflict” in a meeting of EU foreign ministers, where the
Slovenian Foreign Minister reportedly was criticized for putting American
interests first.
This
scenario for Kosovo’s independence bears the hallmarks of “New American
Century” misadventures. In Kosovo, the United States has one of its largest
military bases, Camp Bondsteel. The human rights envoy of the Council of
Europe, Alvaro Gil-Robles, described it a few years ago as a “smaller
version of Guantánamo.” Since Romania and Poland have now been censored by
the EU for their role in the secret CIA prisons and rendition flights, a
new destination might be necessary in the region. More importantly, Camp
Bondsteel is set to become the new home for U.S. air operations, moving
them from the Aviano base in Italy, where the recklessness and accidents
caused by U.S. pilots have worn down the patience of the locals. Kosovo is
closer to the Middle East, which has more than one advantage. And Camp
Bondsteel also completes the encircling of the Russian western border.
If
Kosovo were to remain an UN protectorate, the United States would have less
of a free hand there. As an EU protectorate, however, Kosovo will offer the
United States more room to operate freely. As an independent state
dependent upon U.S. support, Kosovo will probably not refuse to sign
bilateral agreements with the United States on the status of forces.
Kosovo’s
declaration of independence is a declaration of independence from Serbia.
But this alone does not make Kosovo an independent sovereign state. There
is a strong whiff of parody in the coordinated action by which a state
declares its independence and other states send in missions to create that
state. The EU is sending in 1,800 lawyers, judges, police, and
administrators, who are replacing the UN mission and whose task it is to
set up Kosovo’s “institutions, legal authorities and agencies for law
enforcement as well as other executive responsibilities.” The head of the
operation, which is to “base Kosovo on the rule of law,” that is, to build
a law-abiding and law-enforcing state there, will be French General Yves de
Kermabon. Dutch diplomat Peter Feith, who will head up the International
Civilian Office, will have the power to overturn legislation and sack
Kosovo officials. KFOR, the NATO-led Kosovo force, will stay, which means
that 16,000 foreign soldiers will be stationed in Kosovo. Annex 11 to the
Ahtisaari plan, the implementation of which was zealously advocated by the
United States, gives NATO military supremacy over Kosovo. (In the week
following the declaration of independence, when tensions rose on the border
with Serbia, U.S. and French troops restored order.) Economically, the EU
plans to spend 330 million euros by 2010, in addition to the 2 billion
euros it has already spent.
From
1999, following the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Kosovo was a UN
protectorate. With the declaration of independence, it has become an EU
protectorate that can be more easily shaped by U.S. policy. In real terms,
not much has changed. As a commentator in Politika stated: “Neither did Albanians
gain much more than they already had, nor did the Serbs lose much more than
they had already lost.”
So, if
not much was gained or lost, why does Kosovo’s declaration of independence
matter?
International Law
It
matters, first, because the declaration of Kosovo independence is a breach
of international law. A unilateral change of borders – that is, a change
that is not based on agreement of all concerned – violates one of the basic
principles of the UN charter. Serbia is clearly opposed to this move. If
the declaration of Kosovo independence is predicated on the limitation, or
loss, of Serbian de
facto sovereignty over the region following NATO’s 1999
military intervention, then the change of borders has been accomplished by
military means. That runs against both the letter and the spirit of the
post-World War Two international legal order. To argue that violations of
human rights, such as those committed by Serbia in Kosovo in the 1980s and
1990s, can be the basis on which to erect a new state both lacks legal
precedent and confuses law with morality. And when it comes to morality in
this context, it is a morality of double standards and selective
righteousness, in view both of global politics and of the human rights
abuses visited on the Serbian minority in Kosovo.
One
could quarrel over the interpretation of UN Security Council resolution
1244, as opponents and advocates of Kosovo independence do, but the
unilateral nature of the declaration of independence effectively violates
international law. That this argument has been raised by states that fear
their own separatist movements does not detract from the argument itself.
If the rule of law is considered supreme, it is irrelevant whether abiding
or protecting the law is in a state’s own interest.
Historically,
the closest parallel in the 20th-century Balkans to Kosovo’s unilateral
declaration of independence was the declaration of the Independent State of
Croatia, the notorious NDH, under the tutelage of Nazi Germany during World
War Two. Then, as now, the military superpower of the day constructed a
state to its own liking and in its own interest. It did so with the
collaboration of local politicians, to the relief of parts of the
population, and in the interest of the world war it was fighting. In regard
of the more recent history, the declaration of the independence of Kosovo
is the continuation of the same type of politics that characterized Serbian
oppression, repression, and crimes in Kosovo — the continuation of the
politics of might, illegality, and lawlessness.
U.S. arbitrariness
rather than the will of the people was the constitutive force of the
independent state of Kosovo. The UN was conspicuously pushed aside and
ignored. Also ignored were the interests of the neighbors and the countries
of the broader Balkan region, most of whom oppose the independence of
Kosovo. Ignored as well, and in a rather insulting way, was Russia, which
for better or worse has played a role in the region for a considerable
time. Finally, ignored were the Serbs. The unilateral decision to declare
the independence of Kosovo was carried through in a way to ensure that
Serbia will for the time being experience no catharsis, no facing and
overcoming of the legacy of the criminal wars of the 1990s. Instead, this
decision does the opposite by inflaming the very same pathology that drove
Serbia and Serbs into those wars in the first place. Has the United States
engineered a new Versailles that will in turn generate future wars?
Tomaz
Mastnak, a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org), is is director of research in
the Institute of Philosophy, Scientific Research Center of the Slovene
Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the Critical Theory Institute at the
University of California at Irvine. He is the former director of the Office
of the Alliance of Civilizations of the United Nations.
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