Simon Tisdall
Friday October 13, 2006
The Guardian
Plain-speaking Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president who has been widely tipped to win the Nobel peace prize today, let the Kosovo cat out of the bag this week with potentially unpredictable consequences for Balkan stability.
As UN envoy charged with brokering a settlement by the end of the year between Serbia and the ethnic Albanian leadership in Pristina, Mr Ahtisaari conceded the negotiations were not going well. In fact, he went further. Agreement on Kosovo's final status was not on the cards, "at least not in my lifetime", he said. "The parties remain diametrically opposed." The breakaway province might have to wait a little longer for its long-sought independence, he said.
That was definitely not what the US, Britain or most Kosovans wanted to hear. They say 2007 must be the year when Kosovo becomes a sovereign country. And almost regardless of whether this ill-starred entity of about 2 million people with no visible means of support and a dispiriting history of crime, violence and division can be transformed into a viable state, they seem determined, at least in public, to have their way.
Other factors have a bearing. Nato still has more than 16,000 troops tied down in Kosovo, seven years after intervening to end the late Slobodan Milosevic's oppressive rule. The EU has 6,500 soldiers in Bosnia. Both organisations, facing expanding commitments elsewhere and keen to encourage Balkan self-sufficiency, want out.
On present plans, the international presence in Kosovo would be drastically reduced following a settlement. In Bosnia, the EU hopes to deploy the new pan-European gendarmerie. Any delay would badly upset these calculations. According to the US, it would also increase the chances of renewed sectarian fighting involving Kosovo's put-upon ethnic Serb minority.
US and British officials have moved quickly to re-bag Mr Ahtisaari's cat, insisting the talks are on course. After meeting Kosovo's prime minister, Agim Ceku, in London yesterday, the Europe minister, Geoff Hoon, said Britain "remains committed to working towards a settlement of Kosovo's status by the end of 2006". Mr Ceku, too, is adamant. "Nothing less than independence will be acceptable ... Kosovo is ready. We are going to be a modern, democratic, secular country," he said this week. If Kosovan aspirations were thwarted even temporarily, a unilateral declaration of independence could not be ruled out.
Unsurprisingly, Serbia has other ideas. Having watched Montenegro go its own way this year, the Belgrade government offered autonomy but resolutely opposed Kosovo's secession. So, too, has the Serbian Orthodox church.
Both government and clergy back a new national constitution, to be voted on (by Serbs but not Kosovo's ethnic Albanians) in a referendum later this month. It deems the province an "integral part" of Serbia and is expected to be approved. Early elections in December are also likely to focus on the issue.
Indeed, some fear the Kosovo controversy may act as a lightning rod for wider discontents. This year's suspension of Serbia's EU membership talks, the perceived failure of the 2000 pro-democracy revolution, and entrenched economic problems are all fuelling an anticipated surge in support for the far right.
The Radical party, led by the jailed war crimes indictee Vojislav Seselj, looks likely to win most votes. Liberal and left-of-centre parties are meanwhile urging a boycott of the constitutional referendum, saying its passage will trigger renewed confrontation with the west.
All this might be dismissed as internal politicking. But Russian sympathy for Belgrade's stance adds a whole new dimension to rising Balkan tensions. Moscow, a member of the so-called Balkans Contact Group, opposes Kosovo's independence partly because it may encourage secessionists elsewhere, such as in Chechnya. If Kosovo is cut loose, it says, then Abkhazians and South Ossetians in Georgia and ethnic Russians in Moldova should be afforded similar licence.
But Moscow's stance has little to do with resolving the Kosovo conundrum and a lot to do with the wider, ongoing geopolitical struggle between Russia and the west. By suggesting delay Mr Ahtisaari, like a hapless England goalkeeper, may have missed his kick and given the game away.
Comments
October 13, 2006 09:41 AM
Fascinating. With all due respect, how does one win the Nobel Peace Prize by being the first to leave the negotiating table? I am not aware of a single success having come out of the Pristina-Belgrade talks in Vienna. If Ahtisaari had found a way to help these two parties find some common ground before throwing up his hands, THEN I would say, "That guy deserves a Nobel." (BTW, I am an American living in Pristina, been here for five years. I came to Kosovo/a as a bridge-builder, and I'll leave the same -- though I must say, it's killing me. BTW2: My country is not SCG. If you were to add 'Kosovo' to the pop-up list on your registration page, you'd make a lot of people happy down here -- the *compromise* being that Kosovar Albanians spell it with an 'a'.)
October 13, 2006 10:41 AM
Who is Agim Ceku? It's great to see that Margaret Beckett greeted him with such respesct.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/total_coverage/kosovo/ceku.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldbriefing/story/00,,1920947,00.html
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/polbet0306.htm
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/july00/hed292.shtml
How can anyone be the Prime Minister of a PART of a country? The only comparison I can make is say, being Prime Minster of Scotland, Wales or Ireland!
Kosovo and Metohija are a part of Serbia and no amount of ethnic cleansing by the Albanians of all other minorities is going to chage that fact. NATO occupation will not change that fact either. It will end for them just like Iraq.
NATO is desperate enough to get out and leave the region in a worse mess than when they went in. If they don't deliver on their promises the Albanians will have their guts for garters. Not a nice prospect. The soldiers on the ground have seen what the Albanians are capable of.
October 13, 2006 11:09 AM
I think it would be wrong to see Russia as utterly opposed to Kosovan independence. In fact the only reason I can see for them opposing it is that they want to maintain close relations with Serbia. It would certainly be wrong to see them as opposed because it might encourage secessasionary struggles in the former Soviet Union. Russia WANTS secessationary struggles.
Not on its own territory obviously, but many years of appalling brutality and bloodshed have seen that Russia's territorial integrity is intact. If Kosovo gets its independence however, then Russia will feel free to call for independence in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Trandniestria, Eastern Ukraine etc etc. In fact Kosovan independence would almost definitely strengthen Russia's hand in its backyard.
October 13, 2006 11:47 AM
If full independence can be granted to Kosovo - from which a large proportion of the Serbain minority has fled due to intimidation - where would that leave the future status of Republika Srbska? Why should the Bosnian Serbs be expected to accept a Bosnian Muslim-dominated government in Sarajevo while the Albanians in Kosovo are granted independence from the Serb-dominated government in Belgrade?
October 13, 2006 12:00 PM
The "bad news" from Kosovo is that 240,000 people remain ethnically cleansed from their homes. Meaningless "independences" that get handed back the next day to Brussels and other EU elite unaccountable structures are not worth a single death.
October 13, 2006 12:31 PM
Ah yes ... Kosovo. The part of Serbia which NATO (without the UN resolution which "progressives" seem to think is mandatory nowadays) fought so hard to remove from Serbia and hand to a bunch of terrorists (the KLA) - and without so much as a squeak of protest from the BBC (but that was the nice Mr Clinton - wasn't it. Not the nasty Mr Bush).
From a part of the world where all the artificially created (by Tito) internal boundaries of Yugoslavia are considered sacrosanct and unchangeable ... except Serbia's.
This being a place which NATO went into to "prevent a humanitarian catastrophe", which ... erm ... only kicked off *after* the bombing started - to Clare Short's apparent surprise (she not having made any preparations for the unforseen fact that civilian populations tend to run away from places that are being bombed - and where NATO has fulfilled its promise of preserving a "multi-ethnic Kosovo" by presiding over a colony which has seen the systematic ethnic cleansing of a large proportion of its ethnic Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, Macedonians and even non-Albanian Muslims (most of whom had to take refuge in nasty racist Serbia).
A place chock-full of as yet undiscovered "mass graves" and "rape camps" alleged to have been created by people who had the cheek to believe that they had the right to put down a terrorist uprising within their own country.
As somebody else has pointed out - why should Serbia be liable to be carved up according to demography, but not Bosnia? It is no wonder that the Serbs believe that double-standards are being applied here.
And the result of all this wonderful western intervention? The re-Balkanisation of the Balkans, a Bosnia which has even less independence now (and for the foreseeable future) than it had when it was part of Yugoslavia (and which even had to suffer having Paddy Pantsdown as its Grand Poobah for a while), and a Balkans where the only remaining multi-ethnic society is ... erm ... nasty racist Serbia.
Way to go.
October 13, 2006 12:50 PM
"Warrant for the arrest of Agim Ceku has been withdrawn because of his new prime ministerial status," quotes an Interpol release issued on March 24.
http://www.ccmr-bg.org/vesti/frommedia/media0180.htm
So much for 'the end of impunity'. NATO and their thuggish allies are still immune from prosectuion for the crimes they committed in Kosovo.
October 13, 2006 12:56 PM
Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh, managing director of the Grameen Bank, was awarded the Nobel for his efforts toward eradicating world poverty. [MSNBC] Mr. Ahtasaari is a shoe-in for 2007. I'm assuming, of course, that he'll find a way to get a picture of Agim and Vojislav shaking hands -- with smiles on their faces.
October 13, 2006 02:05 PM
Agim Ceku was one of the greatest generals in Croatian army. He has won nine major awards for achievment during the Croatian-Serbian war.
What people don't know is that he never fought in Kosova/o. He was only appointed the head of KPC (Kosovo Protection Corps) only few weeks before the end the war in 1999.
As a person he is very nice, honest and friendly. He is a former Army University tutor in Belgrade-Serbia.
October 13, 2006 02:39 PM
Aim Ceku was only great because he killed and cleansed Serbs as did Godovina. And if they were great then Milosevic was great too. He could have been appointed the head of KPC but that does not do him justice for heading the KLA so I am sorry, but your statement does not clear his name. Second, your other statement that he is very nice, honest and friendly, is impossible, because as we have seen he is a successful politician and no politician gets there by being nice, honest and friendly. Look at George Bush!! Politicians are greedy, driven, full of B.S. and can lie to your face. Those are the facts don’t try to make it seem like he is innocent and a nice guy because we all know its untrue, otherwise Kosovo would be a stable region within Serbia if this all was true but in fact even without Serb "ethnic cleansing" and "aggression" it is the most violent and unstable region in the Balkans. Thank you very much.
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