Doug Bandow
Creating Crisis: Another War in the Balkans?
The Bush administration has badly botched U.S. foreign policy. But the administration isn't finished: Another potential crisis looms in Kosovo.
The latest negotiating round over Kosovo's final status has finished. The ethnic Albanians plan to declare independence from Serbia. Chaos and conflict could follow. In 1998 the territory, the historic heartland of Serbia , was suffering through a bitter guerrilla campaign directed against
the ruling Serbs. It was an awful civil war, but one like many others around the globe and of no policy interest to the U.S.
However, the Clinton administration decided to demonstrate its humanitarian credentials by intervening. Washington sided with the ethnic Albanians rather than promoting a settlement in the interest of both parties. In early 1999 the Clinton administration summoned the contending sides to Rambouillet , France , and attempted to impose its plan on Kosovo. The ethnic Albanians would get eventual independence. The Serbs would get treated like a conquered province, accepting free transit by NATO forces throughout
Serbia.
The Serbs walked and the U.S. bombed.
After 78 days Belgrade yielded. The Albanian majority then
carried out a campaign of large-scale ethnic cleansing. Upwards
of 200,000 or more Serbs, Jews, Roma, and non-Albanian Muslims
fled. Violence eventually fell, but in March 2004 ethnic Albanian
mobs again hit the streets, torching Serb homes, churches, and
monasteries.
The war left the status of Kosovo for negotiation. Not even
the Serbian government believed that a return to the status quo
ante was possible.
However, full independence was not inevitable either.
Possible were autonomy, partition of Kosovo, or even giving the
ethnic Albanians EU citizenship.
Unfortunately, however, the U.S. and leading European states
decided to insist on full independence. Kosovo would be a multi-ethnic showcase. Serbia would be bought off with membership in
the European Union. Russia would be ignored.
There would be negotiation, but only as a pretense.
However, last year the Serbs refused to play their assigned role
and the Russians promised to block a UN independence resolution.
Another year of negotiation was ordered. But the U.S. made
clear that the same rules applied.
After his victory in Kosovo's recent legislative elections,
former guerrilla Hashim Thaci, Kosovo's new "prime minister,"
promised a declaration of independence after the formal end of
negotiations on December 10. Allied diplomats predict that Thaci
will act in mid-January. Then what?
Kosovo is unready for statehood. In early November the
European Commission released a report concluding that "working
tools for an efficient government" still had "to be enhanced and
fully applied"--more than eight years after allied rule. The
Commission reported: "corruption is still widespread and remains
a major problem."
Moreover, "Civil servants are still vulnerable to political
interference, corrupt practices and nepotism," explained the
Commission. There is a backlog in war crime cases, which are"hampered by the unwillingness of the local population to
testify."
Indeed, warned the Commission, "little progress has been
made in the promotion and enforcement of human rights." The
Commission said that "minorities and other vulnerable groups face
restrictions in exercising their right to freedom of assembly and
association across Kosovo." Finally, the Commission concluded,
"Religious freedom is not fully respected."
If such an entity does declare independence, and its claim
is recognized by the U.S. and Europeans, many of the remaining
Serbs are likely to flee.
Only in the north around Mitrovica might Serbs safely stay.
They are likely to resist Albanian control in a newly independent
Kosovo. Serbs, Albanians, and NATO forces all could end up in
combat.
Although Serbian officials say they will not send in the
army, gangs and militias could fight. A Kosovo independence
claim also might reenergize ethnic Albanian separatists in
Macedonia, Montenegro, and south Serbia. Serbs in Bosnia could
seize on Kosovo's action to push for an independent Republic of
Srpska.
The Europeans are likely to divide on the issue, with blame
for EU discord falling on Washington . Allied relations with
Russia would further fray.
Serbia 's fractious democratic coalition might fall. Kosovo
would stoke revanchist flames in Belgrade , creating a permanent
geopolitical irritant in the region.
There's still time to avert a crisis, but the window is
closing. Washington and Brussels should stop trying to dictate a
solution in Kosovo. They should propose a new round of
negotiations--genuine talks with no preconditions or timetables. Agreement might still prove impossible. But success would
be far more likely than from the faux talks previously promoted
by the allies.
The best hope to avert a new, and possibly violent,
breakdown in the Balkans is for both Washington and Brussels to
tell Pristina no to independence. But they must do so quickly.
Doug Bandow is the Robert A. Taft Fellow at the American Conservative
Defense Alliance and a member of the American Council for Kosovo. He
is a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan and the author
Foreign Follies: America 's New Global Empire (Xulon Press).
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