WT: Objections remain to independence

Objections remain to independence

By Bruce I. Konviser
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 30, 2006

PODGORICA, Serbia-Montenegro -- A declaration of independence making Montenegro the world's newest nation could come as early as Friday, but lingering objections to the results of a May 21 referendum have spoiled some of the fun for Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic.
    The ballot, in which pro-independence forces narrowly achieved a supermajority threshold demanded by the European Union, was the crowning glory of Mr. Djukanovic's career.
    But the pro-unionist bloc, which favors maintaining the Serbia-Montenegro federation, is refusing to accept the results even after international observers declaring the plebiscite to be free, fair and in accordance with international standards. The bloc claims thousands of ballots were cast illegally by registered voters from neighboring countries.
    "I'm not surprised by such a position," Mr. Djukanovic said in an interview. "This is part of their political tradition. Over the past 10 years or so, there have been only two outcomes for them. Either they will have won, or the vote has been stolen."
    Mr. Djukanovic charged that the pro-unionists, made up largely of ethnic Serbs, are encouraged in their intransigence by the Belgrade government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.
    "What is happening now in Montenegro is directly inspired by, and from, Mr. Kostunica's office in Belgrade," Mr. Djukanovic said. "Mr. Kostunica, as a through-and-through nationalist, would like to leave to Serb nationalists an open issue that some [territorial issues] are open to dispute for Serbia beyond its border."
    Congratulations on the referendum result have already come in from Mr. Djukanovic's counterparts in neighboring Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. But Mr. Kostunica has been silent.
    Still, the prime minister maintained that opposition challenges couldn't change the results, which he said are indisputable and represent the will of the Montenegrin people.
    Before the referendum, the European Union, skittish about reigniting the ethnic tensions that tore apart the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, mandated that the pro-independence bloc obtain at least a 55 percent majority in order for the EU to accept the desire for independence.
     The pro-independence bloc cleared that threshold by about half a percentage point. The election commission is expected to ratify the results this week and send them to parliament for confirmation. That should be followed by a parliamentary declaration of independence, which the prime minister said could come as soon as Friday.
     That would formally end the Serbia-Montenegro federation that was born three years ago out of the last remnants of the former Yugoslavia. Civil war tore Yugoslavia apart in the 1990s, as Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia all left the federation to form their own separate states.  

 

Objections remain to independence
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20060529-110959-6447r.htm

New Europe: "End Balkanization Now!" by Aleksandar Mitic

 

 

 

 

 

May 28- June 3, 2006. Issue Number 679

 

Page 2 – Opinion

 

 

End Balkanization Now!

 

By Aleksandar Mitic

 

An old saying in Montenegro used to say “Crna Gora i Srbija – to je jedna familija†(“Montenegro and Serbia – one familyâ€). Today, pro-independence graffiti in Montenegro read “Crna i Gora i Baskija – to je jedna familija†(“Montenegro and the Basque Country – one familyâ€).

 

Indeed, if the preliminary results of the Montenegrin referendum on independence are confirmed, the process of the balkanization of the Balkans will have scored one more point.

 

Some say it also paved a chance for many independence-hopefuls around Europe, be it in Catalonia, the Basque Country or Scotland, which have sent their observer missions to Podgorica to monitor the mechanics of intra-state divorce.

It might be contrary to the logic of European integration and the equation mark between the European Union and “borderless Europeâ€, but it is real and it is happening in 2006, just a few weeks before the June summit on  “the future of Europeâ€.

 

As far as enlargement is concerned, EU leaders should answer the question: “Does a European future imply further balkanization of the Balkans?†or “Do the Balkans have to choose a nationalistic past in order to pave their way to their European future?â€.

 

If the answer is yes, EU finance ministers should start planning a budget for more crisis management and Balkan nations should start digging out marching songs cds back from the basement.

 

If not, the “balkanization of the Balkans†must end. Now!

 

It must end now, because Montenegrin independence at least had a legal basis. Under the findings of the 1991-92 Badinter Commission on the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, all six Yugoslav republics – and only republics not provinces -- had the legal right to become independent.

 

After Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, Montenegro is the last former Yugoslav republic to seize the opportunity.

 

It means that Kosovo, a province of Serbia, does not have the right to secession. Indeed, an independence of Kosovo – against the will of Serbia – can only be illegal, one-sided and imposed.

 

As such, an independent Kosovo would be the real, universal opener of the Pandora box of separatism.

 

According to the UNDP, there are some 5,000 different ethnic groups living in some 200 countries in the world. According to the figures of the study “Minorities at riskâ€, some 509 ethnic groups in the world consider themselves as politically discriminated and want autonomies or states.

 

All separatist or independence-seeking movements in the world already have their eyes set on the resolution of the Kosovo talks, especially since most of them have suffered much more tragic conflicts and have waited for the solution to their problems much longer than has the southern Serbian province, populated by an Albanian majority.

 

Indeed, a Kosovo precedent would have world ramifications.

 

It could impact on the tense relations between two nuclear powers – India and Pakistan – disputing Kashmir, a region very much like Kosovo in terms of ethnic proportions, violence or religious symbolism.

 

It could have an impact on the world’s largest country – Russia – with Transdniestria in Moldova, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia seeking to integrate it and Chechnya seeking to separate.

 

The world’s most populous country – China – could face separatism in Xinjiang, not forgetting Taiwan and Tibet.

 

Eternal pragmatists should think about the impact of imposed independence on some of the world’s most important pipelines – winding their way through disputed territories around Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh or a Kurdistan.

 

Back to the Balkans, people still do not know whether they will be part of the next wave of EU enlargement due to its “absorption capacityâ€, but they surely are themselves still digesting the last wave of balkanization from the 1990s.

 

In the news today, the High representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina Christian Schwarz-Schilling expressed his worry about the slow progress of reintegration of the southern Bosnian town of Mostar, divided between Croats and Muslims since a conflict which ended 12 years ago.

 

Near Prizren, in Kosovo, an Albanian mob clashed with UN police after attacking and injuring Serb lawyers investigating a war crimes case for the Hague tribunal. A local Albanian leader later explained it was a mistake: they thought they were attacking Serb refugees trying to visit their homes seven years after being brutally expelled.

 

So, what kinds of signals would the pursuit of balkanization send to the Muslims in the Sandzak area, the Albanians in southern Serbia or in western FYROM, the Hungarians in northern Vojvodina, the Serbs in eastern Slavonia, eastern Montenegro or eastern Bosnia?

 

Indeed, if “yes†to an independent Kosovo, why not a “yes†to an independent Republika Srpska for example – which also has a 90-percent majority seeking to break away?

 

I can almost feel some eyebrows raising.

 

But can there be any more “taboos†if there are no more principles?

 

Aleksandar Mitic is the Brussels correspondent of the Tanjug news agency, a Lecturer at the University of Belgrade and analyst at the Institute 4S, Brussels.

 

Bosnian Serbs Call For Independence Referendum

http://news.scotsman.com/latest_international.cfm?id=795432006


Reuters
May 29, 2006


Calls for Bosnia Serb referendum
By Olga Lola Ninkovic


BANJA LUKA, Bosnia - Long-standing calls by Serb nationalists [sic] for the
Serb Republic to secede from Bosnia grew louder on Monday, following
Montenegro's vote in a referendum earlier this month to split from Serbia.

The Serb National Movement, made up mostly of Serbs forced out of Croatia in
1995, said it had collected nearly 50,000 signatures of Serbs across the
country for a petition to demand an independence referendum.

"The will of the citizens cannot be ignored. The Serb people do not want to
live in a Bosnia imposed on them. The Serb people want a free Republika
Srpska, separated from an imposed Bosnia and Herzegovina,"
said movement president Dane Cankovic.

An apparent endorsement of the referendum demand by Bosnian Serb Prime
Minister Milorad Dodik was sharply rebuked on Monday by the country's
international peace overseer, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, part of whose job
is to keep Bosnia together.

"The international community will not allow the sovereignty and territorial
integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina to be endangered," his office said in a
statement on Monday.
....
The U.S.-sponsored Dayton accord ended Bosnia's war of secession from
Serb-dominated Yugoslavia in 1995, making Bosnia a single state comprising
two "entities"
- the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat federation.

Although its 18-month initiative for secession has been ignored officially,
the Serb National Movement gained popularity after Montenegro voted for
independence, dissolving its loose union with Serbia.
....
Montenegro was one of Yugoslavia's federal republics with a legal right to
secession which it retained in the looser Serbia-Montenegrin union.

Under Bosnia's peace accord Republika Srpska had no such right. Kosovo is
still nominally a province of Serbia but is under U.N. control.

Dodik proposed Bosnia be organized as a federal unit, giving each ethnic
group the right to self-determination through referendum....

Serb radicals urged Dodik on Monday to put the referendum issue on the
parliamentary agenda to prove he was serious, not simply fishing for votes
ahead of the October general election.