Kosovo Partition:
A Deadly Trap for Serbia by James_George_Jatras
Tuesday, April
17, 2007 -- Only a few months ago, the relatively advantageous position in
which Serbia today finds herself with respect to the future status of her
southern province of Kosovo and Metohija would have been unimaginable.
---------------------------------
The Ahtisaari
plan is foundering at the UN Security Council. Even UNMIK and KFOR personnel
are being told the plan will not get through the UNSC and they should prepare
for the worst from the Albanian side, according to information from
confidential sources inside the international administration. Europe is more
divided than ever, and recognition of any unilateral declaration of
independence would falter without European support.
Perhaps most
importantly, even without an agreement on forming a new government, Serbia’s
leadership has spoken with a remarkably unified voice—a key prerequisite for
Russia’s support, which has been growing steadily more solid. Before month’s
end, Pristina faces at Moscow’s initiative a UNSC fact-finding mission whose
examination it can hardly welcome.
Under such
circumstances, it is unfortunate that suggestions are heard from various
quarters that the best outcome for Serbia would be a partition of Kosovo.
Indeed, as claimed by James Lyon in the Sorors-financed Belgrade media
conglomerate B92, partition is the secret goal of Serbia’s leadership,
which—according to Lyon—is rubbing its hands in anticipation of the majority of
Serbs’ eradication from Kosovo, so as to have a pretext to keep the area north
of the Ibar. All Belgrade’s brave defense of principle, suggests Lyon, is just
maneuvering toward that end.
For whatever it
is worth, I do not for a minute believe any such nonsense, which smells of a
deliberate effort to sow discord and confusion. To start with, even if any such
pro-partition intention existed with anyone in the Serbian government, it is
hard to credit the secret collusion necessary to achieve such an outcome amid
the obvious political rivalries. Thankfully, the current political dynamic is
such that each party vying for power must tout its principled stand on Kosovo
while ready to pounce on any opponents foolish enough to weaken their
commitment to Serbia’s constitutional and territorial integrity. Oddly enough,
the current disunity has redounded to Serbia’s advantage. Even those who might
wish to sell out have no chance to do so.
Still, the
question of partition now has been raised. I can confirm that there are some in
the United States who are not at all hostile to Serbia and have suggested to me
that maybe it’s “better to keep something than lose all.” And even some Serbs,
perhaps conditioned by years of mind-numbing propaganda that “Kosovo already is
lost,” may be tempted to think the same way. So, as we face the last gasp of
the West’s failing policy, the disastrous consequences for Serbia of even
considering the possibility of partition must be addressed. Both partition and,
should it ever be toyed with, a policy of secretly aiming at partition fail as
a matter of practicality, of principle, and of political advantage.
As a practical
matter, Serbia’s aiming for partition just as the Ahtisaari plan stands on the
brink of collapse would be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. If those
“friendly” western governments that wish to detach all of Kosovo from Serbia
could do so, they would. If they cannot—and it is increasingly clear they
cannot—why should Serbia compliment their failure by conceding the majority of
what they have failed to seize?
Moreover, if a
pro-partition scheme were hatched by Belgrade (per Lyon’s scenario, following
an outbreak of Albanian violence and the clearing out of the smaller enclaves),
Serbia in all likelihood would end up with nothing at all. The resulting rump
“KosovA,” controlling all south of the Ibar and having won internationally
recognized statehood, would press its “legitimate claim” to the rest of its
“sovereign” territory with NATO, EU, and UN backing.
Agim Ceku has
already hinted at an “Operation Storm”-type solution to any Serbian
“occupation” of Northern Mitrovica. Or more likely, the resulting pressure on
Belgrade would be such that the northern holdout would eventually suffer the
fate of Vukovar and the rest of UN Zone East in Slavonija, dying not with a
bang but a whimper.
Especially
dangerous would be any behind-the-scene feelers that might be put out by the
west to suggest to Belgrade that Washington and Brussels might now consider
partition an acceptable option. If any such feelers are received, Belgrade
should be sure of two things: first, that those governments wishing to detach
Kosovo know they have lost, and are trying a new ploy; and second, if Belgrade
were to fall for it, and to try to cut a deal based on partition, the west
would not live up to any assurances given.
As for the
question of principle, if a thief claims my car as his own, what kind of
victory is it if through a clever ruse I manage to hold on to one of the tires?
By contemplating partition, Belgrade would already have fatally conceded the
point that Serbia’s “inviolable” territory was not so inviolable after all.
Such a surrender would make it impossible for Serbia to press the case that any
part of Kosovo should be retained. It also would place in an untenable position
those countries, notably China as well as Russia, that have extended their
support not so much for Serbia but for Serbia’s position on the inviolability
of state borders. Partition of Kosovo would mean Serbia had put her arm on the
chopping block, and the argument is only about where to make the cut: at the
wrist, the elbow, or right up to the shoulder. Territorial sovereignty is
seamless and indivisible; to concede part is to concede all. In terms of the
negative precedent Kosovo’s detachment would set, despite western assurances to the contrary,
the destabilizing impact across the globe, especially in Africa, would hardly
be less devastating.
As to the
political consequences, partition, or trying to achieve partition, it would
result in Belgrade’s loss of lands it would otherwise have been able to keep
and the unnecessary expulsion and deaths of yet more Serbs. It would mean
devastation of Serbia’s spiritual and national patrimony in the province,
almost all of which concerns sites south of the Ibar. It would soon be seen for
what it is: the catastrophe for which every politician in Serbia had tried
mightily to avoid blame.
The ugly fact is,
we are in for a hot summer. When it becomes clear the Ahtisaari plan is dead,
the Albanians will resort to violence. (Or more correct to say, stepped-up
violence, since the violence from their side never has been absent.) The
targets will be not Serbs only but the international presence. But it should
not be imagined that even if Kosovo were separated from Serbia (and I
emphasize, I don’t think this will happen if Belgrade remains firm), the
violence would begin with wiping out the smaller enclaves; cracking the tougher
nut of Northern Mitrovica would become a more protracted affair but with the
same eventual result. Further violence
could then be expected in Bujanovac-Medvedja-Presevo, Tetovo, Sanjak and
so-called “Malesia” in Montenegro. (This is not even to address the political
violence to the rest of the Serbian state, and consequences for Vojvodina as
well, as per German Ambassador Zobel’s timely candor.)
Accordingly, in
addition to holding a firm line on the detachment of any part of Serbian
territory—which also means no partition—Belgrade must now focus on convincing
the west that violence in the first instance is more containable and less
destabilizing to the region than the second scenario. The real question is not
how much land Serbia is willing to see amputated but under whose authority the
Albanian community in Kosovo will be governed, and under what circumstances.
Washington, alas, can be reasoned with only after the definitive collapse of
the Ahtisaari plan, but there is reason to believe that Brussels—which must see
both Serbs and Kosovo’s Albanians as future EU citizens—may be willing to
listen to reason. Whatever the
continuing threat of organized crime, jihad, intolerance, and instability, it
will be laid mainly on Europe’s doorstep, not America’s.
It is time for
Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica to issue a formal and public invitation for
the EU to take over the mission in Kosovo in which the UN has so abjectly
failed, and to do so without a change in Serbia’s borders.
Belgrade
repeatedly has said it does not intend to exercise supervision of Kosovo’s
Albanians, but it is clear to everyone that given the terrorist and criminal
quality of administration by the likes of Ceku, Haradinaj, and Thaci, someone
else must do so. Of the concerned outside powers Europe has the most direct
interest in providing reasonable people among the Kosovo Albanians—and there
are some, who cannot today come forward without hazarding their lives—a
civilized future in Europe with Serbia.
Such an
arrangement, involving shared administration between Belgrade and Brussels,
with a degree of decentralization and community separation needed to ensure
human security at the local level, would have the best chance of splitting some
portion of the Albanian population from their corrupt and terroristic present
leadership. Serbia’s public proposal to this effect would also exacerbate the
current divide among the European countries, where efforts are already underway
to whip the dissenters into support for a “common” policy.
In any case,
Serbia must press its advantage over the next few weeks and months with all its
strength and imagination. While it is possible to consider a division of
administrative powers in Kosovo within Serbia’s borders, detachment of even one
hectare of territory from sovereign Serbia is out of the question. The siren song
of partition resonates only with unwarranted perceptions of Serbia’s weakness
and reliance on timeworn assumptions about Serbia’s options. It must be
rejected as categorically as any surrender of Kosovo as a whole.
James George
Jatras is director of the American Council for Kosovo in Washington, D.C.
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Boba Borojevic
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