Mini-State of Kosovo

The EU, USA, and Russia have officially declared negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo to have failed. The now imminent unilateral declaration of independence for Kosovo appears unavoidable. Marc Hoch takes a critical look at the failures in European policy

The leader of Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), Hashim Thaci, gives thumbs up after winning Kosovo's general elections early 18 November 2007 in Pristina, Kosovo (photo: dpa)
Hashim Thaci, president of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, is most likely to lead Kosovo to independence within the first half of 2008

​​The century-old problem of Kosovo is about to face a new and perhaps its most important turning point. This Monday, the European Union, Russia, and the USA will officially report on why this last attempt at negotiations between Serbs and Albanians has failed.

No one has reason to be pleased about this situation. As a result, the solution for this last, large-scale territorial conflict in the Balkans entails independence for the 1.9 million Albanians and separation from Serbia.

A flag will be raised over this new Balkan mini-state, although when exactly remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that no other option remains open after the failure of the Kosovo negotiations. It is also certain that 2008 will be a very restless year in the Balkans.

No compulsion to reach a compromise

The result is unsatisfactory because it really doesn't contribute at all to calming the situation in the region. Responsibility lies on the one hand with the American government, which has vehemently pushed for a territorial division and the founding of a second Albanian state.

photo: dpa
Hundreds of supporters of the 'Kosovo Albanian Movement for Self Determination' march during a protest in Kosovo's capital Pristina, March 2007

​​On the other side, the Serbs are also accountable for their late acceptance to respect the need for autonomy of the people in the province and the resistance to this day by radical forces in Serbia to acknowledge the policy of extermination pursued during the Balkan War.

Under these conditions, none of the negotiation rounds held between the Serbs and the Albanians were particularly promising. From the very start, the Kosovo Albanians felt that they had support for their unconditional desire for independence as long as powerful America was on their side, and there was no compulsion to reach a compromise.

All offers by Belgrade on a wide-ranging autonomy – albeit much too late – were thereby condemned to failure. This is why new negotiations also make no sense. The Albanians won't budge from their maximum demands.

Breach of international law

This is hardly a tidy solution under international law by which the USA and the EU can hope to officially recognize Kosovo. History repeats itself – it has often been

The population of Kosovo is around 90% Albanian, the majority of which are Sunni Muslims. Some 5% of Kosovars are Serbian Orthodox, while the rest of the population consists of a wide mixture of Croats, Turks, Roma, Bosnians, and other ethnic groups. the case in the Balkans that individual states have used situations to serve their own egoistical interests, thereby turning their backs on the principles and guidelines of international law.

This already occurred in 1992, when the recently unified and thereby powerful Germany dealt the deathblow to Tito's Yugoslavia by officially recognizing Croatia.

At the time, the Serbian minority in Croatia didn't even enjoy a sliver of the minority rights currently guaranteed in Kosovo. The second sin committed by Europe was in Macedonia, which, in 1992, was denied official recognition under pressure from Greece, although the republic fulfilled all of the requirements. Today, that decision has been corrected.

Yet, in the case of Kosovo, the rules have been broken once again. Europe and the USA are breaking the principle established in 1991 than no new borders are to be drawn in the Balkans. All states that emerged from the disintegrated Yugoslavia had previously been republics. They had exercised their right to choose independence in accordance with the rules of the European Community.

Serbs must now collectively pay

Kosovo, however, was merely a province during the Yugoslav era. Even after the NATO attacks against Belgrade in 1999, the UN Security Council maintained this legal position in its preamble to resolution 1244, which recognized Belgrade's right to territorial integrity.

Now, for the first time in recent European history, a nation will have had a large part of its territory taken away on the basis of the unspoken grounds that the Serbs have forfeited their claims on the province due to the crimes committed during the Milosevic era and must now collectively pay.

Underlying this decision is a simple, power-political calculation – Serbia is weak. One couldn't expect to wrest an independently declared Chechnya from a powerful Russia. To this day, a strong China can suppress the desires of autonomy in Tibet and Taiwan with threats.

Serbia will not challenge NATO again

On the other hand, the histories of territorial disputes are rarely comparable, and in the case of Kosovo, Serbia recognized too late that an offer of autonomy and a future embedded in Europe could also be in its own interest.

Serbia will not take this breaking away quietly, as no state on the planet can easily come to terms with the loss of territory. Serbia is nowhere near so foolish as to challenge NATO again. Yet, regardless of the countermeasures Belgrade chooses to take, the domestic political mood will be radicalized and this isolated and even tinier country will be shoved further away from Europe and into the arms of Russia.

Noel Malcolm opened his standard work on Kosovo with the words, "The Yugoslavian crisis began in Kosovo, and it will also end here." Mindful of all the problems related to international law entailed in a recognition of Kosovo, this December 10 will certainly not see an end to the crisis in the Balkans.

Marc Hoch

© Süddeutsche Zeitung/Qantara.de 2007

Translated from the German by John Bergeron

This article was previously released by the German daily, Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Qantara.de

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