Independence, perhaps – but where is the logics?

This “independence agenda” has been pushed more and more overtly by near-governmental organizations and some Western officials. Talks about the independence of Kosovo as the only solution possible is however a great paradox and an example of the lack of principled, consistent policies by the international community. Here are some of the reasons:

1) Republika Srpska – the Bosnian Serb entity under the 1995 Dayton accords – has nearly the same number of people as the province of Kosovo, between 1,5 and 2 million people. It is also a protectorate and has had the same kind of NATO force on its soil like Kosovo. It has a very similar structure of the population as Kosovo – some 90% belong to one ethnic community. Strategically, its Bosnian Serb population has the same aspirations as the Kosovo Albanians: to become independent.

Yet, in Republika Srpska, the international community is tearing down all symbols and structures of statehood: from laws to the mechanisms of police and army. The Republika Srpska is in fact in the process of getting – perhaps forcefully – closer to a more unified Bosnia. All this despite the wishes of its population, but for the sake of regional and European integrations, multiethnicity and stability.

In Kosovo, the very same international community is doing just the opposite: it is building a state from scratch, paving the way to a break-up of a country and treating Kosovo as an “independent state in-the-making”. It has set up a state and government structure with ministers and a president. What a difference 100 kilometres can make (the distance from Republika Srpska to Kosovo)! A whole new world of principles, standards and guidelines with an obvious goal: make the Serbs lose both Republika Srpska and Kosovo. To put it crudely, it’s 0-2 in the game, an easy take-away win against a Serbia on its knees and against the even more powerless minorities in Kosovo. Despite the fear in Belgrade to talk openly about the linkage of Republika Srpska and Kosovo (and before 1995 Croatian Krajina), such an outcome may well become an explosive device for the decades to come.

2) Breaking up the most multi-ethnic society? Just as the West rushed into the break-up of the former multiethnic Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, it could be rushing to break-up Serbia, the most multiethnic country of former Yugoslavia. What kind of examples does this kind of policy set for multiethnicity in the Balkans: for the Muslim-populated Sandzak area, for the Albanian-populated southern Serbia, for the Serb-populated eastern part of Montenegro, for the Albanian-populated western Macedonia, for the Serb-populated eastern Slavonia, for the Hungarian-populated north of the Vojvodina province? In a larger perspective one may even ask: how come that wherever the international community has intervened in conflicts, there is less multi-ethnicity than before the war? How come that those who drive an overall globalising world where we are all becoming more mixed can keep on pursuing civilisationally regressive and nationalist models of one nation in one state?

3) Why new borders on the road to EU integration? If the entire south-eastern Europe is on its way to European integration, on its way to integrated Europe, where borders will “no longer matter”, if this is a process that is under way and is to be completed in the decade to come, why create new borders around a new second Albanian state in Europe? Why are new borders at such a high cost necessary if they are going to be brought down in the matter of years? Where is the logic of European integration in the independence of Kosovo?

4) Exceptionalism will undermine international law. Recognizing the independence of Kosovo without the UN Security Council approval – where Russia and China are certain to block the outcome due to Chechnya, Taiwan and Tibet – as well as without Belgrade (as proposed by the ICG), is sure to deal another heavy blow to both international law and the world system, create serious negative precedents and aggravate international relations.

5) Bombing for independence and mono-ethnicity. Building on the experience since 1999, the independence of Kosovo is highly likely to, sooner or later, result in a mono-ethnic Albanian Kosovo. It will become the second Albanian national state in Europe. As such, it would undermine completely the arguments of those who supported the 1999 bombings in the name of “multiethnicity” in the province. The 1999 bombings will historically be seen as a bombing campaign for the independence of Kosovo, which is light years away from the proclaimed goals of a “humanitarian intervention”.

6) Helping some minorities to become independent. The international community accepted independence for Croats and Croatia out of Yugoslavia but not independence for Serbs out of Croatia, thereby taking the side of the majority in Croatia. Thus, the Kosovo-Albanian argument that there has been too much historic and contemporary repression to live together is valid in Kosovo but not in Croatia where the historic repression of Serbs is much worse and 250.000 legitimate Croatian Serbs citizens were ethnically cleansed in 1995 and have, we few exceptions, not come back.

The TFF Kosovo Solution Series

# 1
Why the solution in Kosovo matters to the world

# 2
The media – strategic considerations

# 3
The main preconditions for a sustainable solution to the Kosovo conflict

# 4
The situation as seen from Serbia

# 5
The arguments for quick and total independence are not credible

# 6
What must be Belgrade’s minimum conditions and its media strategy

# 7
Nations and states, sovereignty and self-determination

# 8
Positive scenarios: Turn to the future, look at the broader perspectives

# 9
Many thinkable models for future Kosovo

# 10
Summary: From “Only one solution” towards democracy and peace

NOTE
Relevant background links for this series.

© TFF and the author 2005

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