The Unstable Kosovo
The new Constitution has hardly come into force in Kosovo that the Western sponsors of this act contrary to the international law are already afraid of new instabilities in the Serbian province.
(Rainer Rupp, Junge Welt) Friday, June 20, 2008
"The dispute over the fact who is the new sovereign in the State is a threat to the stability of the newborn State and could precipitate a new crisis in the Balkans", warned New York Times last Monday. Actually, the power of the executive, according to the new Constitution, should be handed in from the United Nations, that has been administrating Kosovo since the NATO war against Serbia in 1999, to the Kosovo government made out of former members of the terrorist organisation UCK, if there wasn't the Russian veto. Russia considers that the partition of Serbia is illegal and that is clearly contradictory to the UN resolution n° 1244 dated June 10th 1999, emphasizing that Kosovo is and shall stay a province of Serbia.
On February 17th Kosovo has still unilaterally declared its independence, which has only been recognized by 40 countries until now. As long as Serbia does not accept this, Russia has promised to prevent all decisions concerning the integration of Kosovo in the UN institutions or the UN decisions in favour of the independence of Kosovo. The latter has triggered the current Kosovo crisis, where 16,000 NATO soldiers are still present.
According to the new Constitution, the European Union should take over the task of a supervisor from the United Nations during a transition period. But this is blocked by Russia at the United Nations because this kind of EU mission is illegal without an agreement of the UN Security Council. This has led to the situation where UN officials are still carrying out their duties in Kosovo and the EU police and justice mission of 2200 members has been stopped because the houses, apartments and offices planed for the EU officials are occupied by the UN officials.
Meanwhile, Western experts like Alex Anderson from International Crisis Group, think that Russia is the one responsible for the "destabilisation of the tender plant called democracy in Kosovo". And the New York Times considers that keeping the stability in Kosovo is an "important foreign policy test" for the self-declared western "international community". However, the EU envoy, Peter Feith, was confident in an interview last Sunday. The European Union could start sending its police units to Kosovo already next October. But many things seem to depend on Serbia's cooperation, like for example "if Belgrade gets an EU friendly government". If the new Serbian government recognizes Kosovo, then its independence would be legal. And Russia would no longer have a reason to block Kosovo's UN membership.
