Serbia lashes out at NATO
Serbia veers away from NATO using hard-hitting rhetoric and accusations,
with the prime minister saying the country could not join hands with an
alliance that bombed its territory.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
By Igor Jovanovic
Eight years after NATO bombed Serbia in order to halt
clashes between Serbia and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and force Serbian
security forces out of the province, Serbian nationalists in Belgrade and NATO
are once again at loggerheads.
And as Belgrade slowly moves away from NATO, most analysts here say Serbia
is setting down a dangerous road toward isolation.
Meanwhile, the piercing rhetoric of certain Serbian ministers directed
against NATO threatens to cause serious conflicts within the ruling coalition
in Belgrade.
The exchange of accusations on the Belgrade-NATO front started with a series
of statements by ministers from Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's
Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS). They accused the US and NATO of trying to
create "the first NATO state in the world" on the territory of the
southern Serbian province by advocating independence for Kosovo.
According to the Serbian ministers, the foundations for that state lay in UN
special envoy Martti Ahtisaari's plan, which foresees no civil control over
NATO troops in Kosovo.
In early February, after nearly a year of fruitless negotiations between
Belgrade and Pristina on the status of Kosovo, Ahtisaari unveiled a plan that
envisages internationally supervised independence for Kosovo.
Ahtisaari proposed a phased transition to independence, initially supervised
by an EU bureaucrat and protected by NATO forces, which currently has 17,000
soldiers there.
The plan was backed by the Washington and Pristina and rejected by Belgrade
and Moscow. Because of threats of a Russian veto, it was impossible to pass the
resolution on Kosovo in the UN Security Council, and the negotiations were turned
over to the Contact Group for Kosovo, which appointed three mediators for new
talks between Belgrade and Pristina.
The so-called troika is to submit a report on the new negotiations to the UN
secretary general by 10 December.
Joining the enemy?
Both NATO and the US have brushed off the accusations from Belgrade.
James Appathurai, spokesman for the NATO secretary-general, expressed
"concern and disappointment over certain comments that have been coming
from Serbia lately." Appathurai said that statements about the creation of
a NATO state in Kosovo were "nonsense" and "neither welcome nor
constructive."
Kostunica's party responded by saying it was against Serbia joining NATO.
The party's new program, unveiled in early September, says that Serbia should
become a member of NATO's Partnership for Peace program (PfP), but not of the
alliance itself.
In a recent party briefing, Kostunica said he opposed Serbia's NATO
membership and that the country should stay militarily neutral, stressing that
such a move was in the interest of the state.
"How can Serbia join the military alliance which first bombed us, then,
bypassing the UN Security Council, sent its military forces to Kosovo, and
threatens to recognize Kosovo's unilateral independence?" the prime
minister asked.
The party also proposed to have Serbia's potential membership in any
military alliance checked in a referendum.
Furthermore, Kostunica's party warned of the "danger" of Kosovo
Albanians declaring independence unilaterally after 10 December, and of that
independence being recognized by the US.
As a potential countermeasure, the DSS proposed to its ruling coalition
partners the adopt of a decision in the Serbian Parliament that Serbia could
join NATO.
According to the latest public opinion polls, some 50 percent of citizens
oppose NATO membership, 32 percent support it, while 15 percent have no stance.
At the same time, some 70 percent favor EU membership.
Bad blood
Back in 1999, Serbian authorities, led by Slobodan Milosevic, sued 17 NATO
member countries for the bombing of military and civilian targets in Serbia and
Montenegro. However, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where the suit
was filed in December 2004, dismissed the case arguing that it did not have
jurisdiction over the matter, as Serbia was not a UN member at the time, and
was only recognized one year later.
Belgrade accused NATO member countries of violating Serbian sovereignty and
breaking international obligations since the strikes were not authorized by a
UN Security Council resolution.
Human Rights Watch estimates that between March and June 1999 some 500
civilians were killed as a result of the NATO bombing campaign.
Most Belgrade analysts described the actions by certain Belgrade government
officials as hasty and potentially harmful for Serbia.
Belgrade analyst Zoran Dragisic told ISN Security Watch that such damage was
"suicidal" and "would cost Serbia dearly in all areas."
Military analyst Aleksandar Radic echoed those sentiments. He told ISN
Security Watch that Serbian was wandering along a dangerous divisive path.
"This is a very serious and long-term issue that will reflect on
Serbia's reality in the years when the Kosovo problem is solved," he said.
Radic warned that if Serbia pushed NATO away, given that the alliance offered
guarantees for security in Kosovo, it would not have the moral right to call
for the protection of Kosovo Serbs.
Cozying up to Russia
But plenty of analysts disagree with this assessment.
Analyst Slobodan Antonic, in his column in the Belgrade daily Politika,
said the US and EU were pushing Serbia away, and that certain countries were
trying to strip Serbia of a portion of the territory it considered its cradle
(Kosovo) and expected Belgrade to take it calmly. According to him, this pushes
Serbia toward Russia, but also jeopardizes democracy in the country.
Former US ambassador to Belgrade William Montgomery points out the nature of
the association between Serbia and Russia. In an article written for Belgrade's
B92 website, Montgomery said that the DSS' rhetoric reflected Russian
President Vladimir Putin's vision of the world. Russia, by demonstrating its
strength, aimed to create an alliance of states that had just one thing in
common - disliking the US, he wrote.
But economic interests are also becoming a link between Moscow and Belgrade.
Serbia is facing the privatization of large state-controlled companies, in
which the Russians are very interested. Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska
talked with Kostunica before the calling of the tender for a copper mine in the
Serbian town of Bor, in which Deripaska's company is also taking part.
Russian air carrier Aeroflot representatives visited Kostunica prior to the
beginning of the sale of Serbian air carrier JAT Airways, while Lukoil is
mentioned as one of the potential buyers of the Serbian oil company NIS. But
the Russians have not invested much money in Serbia so far. The leading
investors are precisely members of NATO - Norway and the US.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently said that Moscow would not
haggle over the US anti-missile shield in Europe and the status of Kosovo.
Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili also tackled the possible reasons
for Russia's interest in Kosovo, telling the German media that the recognition
of an independent Kosovo outside of the UN could destabilize the entire
Caucasus.
The Georgian foreign minister said Russia would then "probably
recognize the Georgian province of Abkhazia," which would also be "a
precedent for the separatist groups in the Russian part of northern
Caucasus."
The Russian envoy in the troika for Kosovo, Aleksandr Botsan-Kharchenko,
echoed this sentiment, saying that the Kosovo case could create a dangerous
precedent. "Of course, that precedent can be used in other regions as
well, where there are so-called frozen conflicts," Kharchenko told Russian
news agency Interfax.
Internal rifts
Kostunica's strong policy on NATO has also led to rifts between the Serbian
ruling coalition partners, where nationalist and radicals are against NATO
membership while moderate parties believe that membership is in the state's
interest.
The prime minister's DSS, the opposition Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and
Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), formerly led by the late Milosevic, oppose
NATO membership, while the Democratic Party (DS), G17 Plus and Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) support alliance membership.
The strongest member of the coalition, formed in May, Serbian President
Boris Tadic’s Democratic Party, did not miss the opportunity to point out that
its priorities were both EU and Euro-Atlantic integrations.
"[…] Serbia's strategic goal is for its army to be an active
participant in Euro-Atlantic integration and the Partnership for Peace, and to
be honored and respected among its friends and allies," the president said
at an army ceremony in Belgrade on 15 September.
Democratic Party whip Nada Kolundzija said that in resolving the Kosovo
issue Serbia should count on as many countries as possible, not make enemies.
She urged all Serbian parties to refrain from using the problem of Kosovo to
forward their own interests.
Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, Tadic's close associate, also reacted
by warning the government that the anti-NATO rhetoric coming from certain
members of the DSS had caused concern among Serbia's partners and the EU.
"Even countries with whom Serbia has traditionally had good relations
have indicated concern over Belgrade's new foreign policy course," Jeremic
told B92.
The head of the European Commission's delegation in Belgrade, Josep
Lloveras, warns that the problems in Belgrade-NATO relations could affect
Serbia's European integration, adding that although these processes are
separate, they are nonetheless related.
Referring to Serbia's "anti-NATO rhetoric," Lloveras said in a
statement that "Serbia will decide by herself on her future relations with
NATO. But both processes should be regarded as coherent, or rather,
complementary."
After all that, the DSS proposed the postponement of the presidential and
local elections, which are to be called in 2007, for the period after the
resolution of Kosovo's status. Tadic's Democrats interpreted this as a heavy
blow, because they planned to make Tadic their candidate in the election.
They believe Tadic stands a much greater chance of victory against the SRS
candidate before the end of the year and the resolving of the Kosovo issue. The
entire matter brings the most benefit to the ultranationalist radicals, the
single strongest party in Serbia.
With bickering within the ruling bloc and the resolving of Kosovo's status,
time in Serbia is on the radicals' side.
Igor Jovanovic is a Belgrade-based correspondent for ISN Security Watch,
where this article was published.
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idarticle=11060
Powered by ScribeFire.
