“Kosovo: Thinking Outside of the Box”
As with being pregnant, there is there is no half way house to “independence”. A second Albanian state in the Balkans is not needed – nor is it desirable, as it would set a very unfortunate precedent internationally.
(Wes Johnson, New Europe) Monday, September 17, 2007
A front page photo in the International Herald Tribune a few weeks ago of the blackened and twisted remains of an automobile blown up by the Basque terrorist ETA outside a police barracks in Spain was yet another reminder of the danger to peace and stability posed by various liberation movements that use violence to advance their cause.
Only a few years ago both the Irish IRA and the French Corsicans were making their demands at the point of a gun - and sticks of dynamite. Today, we can add the Chechens; Turkish Kurds; Armenians in Nagorno-Karabagh; Abkhazians and Ossetians in Georgia and the Turks of northern Cyprus to the clamor for separatism and independence. And that is only in Europe. Consider Africa from the Western Sahara over to the Horn. In the Middle East, we have Palestinians divided amongst them-selves and an Iraq that may split up. In Asia, Tamils in Sri Lanka; Tibetans; and Kashmiri and Philippine Moslems. There are dozens of such movements and organisations around the world - some with legitimate grievances, some not. Why then is independence for Kosovo considered to be so very urgent - mainly by the Albanians themselves in this tiny impoverished Balkan back- water and their powerful US supporters in Washington?
The International Crisis Group (ICG) has issued yet another report urging independence - even without the agreement of the UN Security Council. It calls Kosovo "a ticking time bomb in the EU's backyard." This so-called independent think-tank has pushed this issue for years, always issuing dire warnings should the Albanians not get their way. Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the architect of NATO's 1999 bombing campaign, has often led the pack backed by Rand Corporation Director James Dobbins. It is striking how former senior US officials dominate the ICG: Thomas Pickering, Morton Abramowitz, Kenneth Adelman, Steven Solarz, Wesley Clark, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carla Hills, and Swanee Hunt. Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations is there as well - and others. Former ICG country director Edward Joseph has called for US "brinkmanship" over Kosovo in order to block Russian influence. It was an unwelcome return to Cold War rhetoric, a blind unwillingness to accept the fact that others may see Kosovo differently from Washington.
Given ICG efforts to undermine and prejudge the outcome of the ongoing round of talks between the Kosovo Albanians and Belgrade in advance, the EU's representative to the Contact Group, Wolfgang Ischinger, has urged both sides to "think outside of the box" - to even consider partition if both sides want it. Previously the Contact Group had considered such talk taboo.
However, if one is to really "think outside of the box", then one might well imagine that Belgrade may want to table other issues - which might promote flexibility and encourage them to consider trade-offs. Among these might be a "green light" for the Srpska Republic to leave an obviously dysfunctional Bosnia-Herzegovina to join their brethren across the Drina River in Serbia; an agreed autonomy for the Krajina Serbs of Croatia, as set out in previous UN-brokered negotiations; and finally a "dual autonomy" for Kosovo that would give the Serbs and Albanians their own symbols, schools, religious institutions, police, and local governing bodies. Each community could have its own banks; and both could have tariff-free trade and other services with Serbia and Albania respectively. Kosovo could enjoy representation in inter-national organisations, as others do, but not full sovereignty. As with being pregnant, there is there is no half way house to "independence". A second Albanian state in the Balkans is not needed - nor is it desirable, as it would set a very unfortunate precedent internationally.
Wes Johnson is the author of Balkan Inferno: Betrayal, War, and Intervention 1990-
2005, Enigma Books, New York, NY, 2007.
