Kosovo Walks out

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WORLD AFFAIRS
Kosovo walks out
JOHN CHERIAN
Albanian-dominated Kosovo declares independence from Serbia with the blessings of the West, especially the U.S.
DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP Kosovars wave an Albanian flag (left) and the flag of independent Kosovo after the declaration of independence from Serbia, on February 17 in Pristina.
THE unilateral declaration of independence by the Serbian province of Kosovo on February 17 has once again put the Balkan tinderbox in the international spotlight.
The Albanian-dominated enclave in Serbia with a population of less than two million is another mini-state that has emerged from the wreckage of the Yugoslav
Federation. Last year, it was the turn of Montenegro (with a population of 800,000) to break away from Serbia.
The backing of the West was crucial in both cases. In Kosovo, the wild celebrations that followed the declaration of independence lasted for days. The United
States’ Stars and Stripes in fact outnumbered the national flag of Kosovo in the jubilations on the streets of the capital Pristina. Kosovo Albanians acknowledge U.S.
President George W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton as their political godfathers.
The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was secretly armed and trained by the U.S. and Germany in the 1990s. This was despite Washington officially labelling the
KLA a “terrorist outfit” after it was accused of trafficking in drugs, arms and women. It was Clinton who unleashed the three-month-long North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (NATO)-led war in 1999 against Yugoslavia mainly on the pretext of human rights violations in Kosovo by the Yugoslav state. The assault wrought
great havoc on Yugoslavia’s infrastructure. Bridges, passenger trains and television stations were among the targets hit by NATO planes and missiles. That war had
led to the occupation of Kosovo by the West under the umbrella of the United Nations. A permanent U.S. military base was concurrently established there.
An independent Kosovo fitted into the grandiose plans of the U.S. to gain hegemony over the strategic Balkan region and isolate Russia further. The U.S. military
base in Kosovo, called “Camp Bondsteel”, is among the string of bases that have come up since the 1990s in the Balkans, East Europe and Central Asia. It has been
used for “rendition” flights, and the interrogation and torture of suspects in the U.S.-led “war on terror”.
False State
With the active connivance of major Western powers such as the U.S., the United Kingdom, Germany and France, the Kosovo leadership laid the groundwork for
secession from Serbia. The Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hacim Thaci, declared that the independence of Kosovo signalled “the end of the dissolution of former
Yugoslavia”.
Among the most vocal supporters of Kosovo’s independence is the current French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner. Kouchner was the first U.N.-appointed
administrator in Kosovo and served from 1999 to 2001.
The Serbian Prime Minister, Vojislav Kostunica, criticising Washington’s support for an independent Kosovo, said that the U.S. had by its actions shown that it was
ready “to unscrupulously and violently jeopardise international order for the sake of its own military interests”. Kostunica described Kosovo as a “false state”.
Serbia was quick to recall its ambassadors from the U.S., France, Turkey and Austria. The Serbian Parliament passed a resolution condemning the “declaration of
independence”. Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic asserted that his country would “fight tooth and nail” to have the declaration overturned. He emphasised that
Kosovo Albanians were not the only people in the world to have a grievance against Belgrade. More than 200,000 people staged angry demonstrations in the
Serbian capital, Belgrade. The wrath of the crowds was focussed on the embassies of those countries that had actively connived in the break-up of the Yugoslav
Federation.
Part of the U.S. embassy was set on fire. Angry mobs also set fire to customs posts manned by international peacekeepers along the border with the self-proclaimed
state.
Kosovo has been an emotive issue for Serbians, who consider the territory the cradle of their culture and civilisation. Kosovo fell to the Ottomans in the 15th century.
Until the end of the 19th century, Serbs formed the majority in the province. Successive wars and forcible population transfers reduced them to a minority in the
province in the 20th century. By the 1970s, Serbs constituted only 25 per cent of the population. After the NATO attack on Yugoslavia in 1999, ostensibly to
protect the majority Albanians, it was the Serbs who fled Kosovo. Less than 10 per cent of the population in Kosovo today is Serb.
No Serb politician, even pro-Western ones like the recently re-elected President, Boris Tadic, is willing to give up Kosovo. Tadic, who was conveniently out of the
country when the recent dramatic events unfolded, later said that he would “never give up the fight for our Kosovo”.
International reactions
The fear in the international community is that the events in Kosovo may be a precedent that could be replicated in other parts of the world. Breakaway regions in the
Caucasus are threatening to declare independence. The Serbs in Bosnia have said that they are planning to unite with Serbia. Kashmiri separatists are now loudly
demanding that the Kosovo model should be applied to the disputed territory. Even within Kosovo, the minority Serbs, who still number around 120,000 despite the
ethnic cleansing, have indicated that the territory that they occupy will merge with Serbia. They are threatening to set up their own parliament in the town of Mitrovica.
Branislav Ristivojevic, a close associate of the Serbian Prime Minister, said that his country would take the U.S. to the International Court of Justice if it did not annul
the decision to recognise Kosovo’s independence. The Serbian Prime Minister had earlier demanded that Washington “annul” its recognition of Kosovo’s
independence and confirm Serbia’s sovereignty.
Despite the key role the European Union has played in the creation of the mini-state, many of its member-countries have refused to recognise it formally. E.U.
members such as Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania have sizable minority communities clamouring for separate identity. The Basques in Spain have for
long been waging a violent struggle for statehood. The Basques and the Turkish Cypriot leadership have hailed the declaration of independence by the Kosovo
Albanians.
DARKO BANDIC/AP Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hacim Thaci speaks at the Parliament convention in Pristina, on February 17.
Senior Palestinian officials highlighted the double standards adopted by the West on the issue of statehood. Yasser Abdel Rabbo, a senior Palestinian official, said
that Palestine had a more legitimate case for independence than Kosovo. He emphasised that if the international community could accept Kosovo’s independence,
then it should “happen with Palestine as well”.
Russia has warned the E.U. from recognising Kosovo. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticised the E.U.’s deployment of a task force to supervise
Kosovo’s police, customs and justice systems. He said that the E.U. decision was taken without the approval of the U.N. Security Council. The Security Council’s
Resolution 1244 of June 1999 had ordered the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo and the takeover of the territory by the Kosovo Force (KFOR), the
U.N.-sanctioned military mission. However, the resolution had not made any mention of independence for Kosovo. The preamble of the resolution refers specifically
to the “territorial integrity” of Yugoslavia. Article 10 of the resolution only authorises “substantial autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia”.
The U.S. used the E.U. to circumvent the U.N. and bestow “independence” on Kosovo. Coming in handy was the plan drawn by Martti Ahtisaari, the U.N. special
representative to Kosovo. Ahtisaari, a former President of Finland, had recommended a limited type of independence for Kosovo. According to the plan, Kosovo
would not be allowed to be part of a greater Albania. Its government would be under international supervision.
The E.U. is sending a 2,000-strong police and justice mission called the European Union Rule of Law Mission (EULEX) to replace the U.N. mission in Kosovo.
These forces will be in addition to the 16,000 NATO troops already on the ground in Kosovo.
Many observers feel that these measures have made “independent” Kosovo a “protectorate” of the West. Under the terms of the U.S.-E.U. “supervised
independence”, Kosovo’s leaders will have limited powers. EULEX, under a E.U.-appointed “viceroy”, will have the final say on all important matters. The Kosovo
Albanians had to give up their red flag emblazoned with a two-headed eagle, in favour of an E.U.-sponsored blue flag with the map of Kosovo.
OLIVER BUNIC/BLOOMBERG NEWS Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica at a mass protest rally against Kosovo’s declaration, in Belgrade on February 21.
One commentator described Kosovo as a “post-modern state, an entity that may be sovereign in name but is a U.S.-E.U. protectorate in practice”.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that the declaration of independence by Kosovo would have an impact on Moscow’s relations with Abkhazia and Southern
Ossetia, Georgia’s breakaway republics. Kosovo’s independence, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated, “presupposes a revision of commonly accepted norms and
principles of international law”.
Moscow warned that the development would encourage separatist movements “from Moldova to Indonesia”. President Vladimir Putin had warned the West that any
declaration of independence by Kosovo would be “illegal, ill-conceived and immoral”.
New Delhi has also reasons to be concerned about the developments but has not yet formulated a clear position on the issue. Even when Yugoslavia was being
bombed by NATO forces, New Delhi refused to take a clear stand. An External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said that there were “several legal issues” involved
and that the government was studying the evolving situation.
“It has been India’s consistent position that the sovereignty and integrity of all countries should be fully respected by all states,” he said.


Indonesia and Sri Lanka have been more forthright. Their governments have said that they would never recognise an “independent” Kosovo. China and Vietnam have
expressed the opinion that any solution to the Kosovo problem should not infringe on the sovereignty of Serbia.
An adviser to the German Foreign Ministry, writing in the newspaper Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung warned that the independence of Kosovo created a precedent
which could be directed “in other cases against the Western states”.


The spokesman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Parliament described Kosovo as a “mafia state”. The SPD is a partner in the coalition ruling the country.
Germany has played a key role in the disintegration of Yugoslavia, by first actively encouraging Slovenia and Croatia to secede.

WORLD AFFAIRS
Sri Lankan rebuff
SRI LANKA and Kosovo are continents apart literally. And yet no single event in the global sphere in recent years has caused such trepidation and discomfort in Sri
Lanka as Kosovo’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence. The resounding rejection of Kosovo’s UDI by the government and a vast majority of civil society in the
island is on a par with the consternation in Belgrade and Moscow over the development, and for good reasons.
With its own three-decade-old, unresolved ethnic conflict and the one-point agenda of the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to pursue the goal of a separate
state of Eelam consisting of territories in the north and the east, the island nation is demonstrably alarmed over not only Kosovo’s UDI but also the unabashed manner
in which the United States and its allies rushed to grant recognition to the new state in contravention of all norms of international relations and diplomacy.
For Sri Lanka, Kosovo’s UDI is a painful reminder of what it had gone through 18 years ago and the island nation is understandably horrified at the prospect of the
notion gaining international currency. On March 1, 1990, Varadaraja Perumal, the then Chief Minister of the North-Eastern Province and the leader of the Eelam
People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), made a unilateral declaration of the state of Eelam. (Today, the EPRLF is committed to resolving the ethnic
problem within a united Sri Lanka and is a registered party.) It was no more than a symbolic act of defiance born out of frustration, but for Colombo the ghost of that
action refuses to go away. The LTTE’s decision to write to the United Nations Secretary-General, weeks after the Sri Lankan government ended the Norwegian-
brokered 2002 Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) on January 16 this year, seeking recognition of a separate state of Eelam has only increased Colombo’s discomfort.
It was against this backdrop that the Mahinda Rajapaksa government deemed it necessary to let the world and the powers behind Kosovo’s act of defiance know in
unambiguous terms that it could ill-afford to turn a blind eye to the developments in the Balkans. Sri Lanka’s disapproval of the Kosovo UDI is aimed not only at the
LTTE but also at the powerful Western block led by the U.S. In a brief statement on the very day Kosovo declared independence, the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry
put on record its strong note of disapproval.
“We note that the declaration of independence was made without the consent of the majority of the people of Serbia. This action by Kosovo is a violation of the
Charter of the United Nations, which enshrines the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Member States. Moreover, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 of 10th
June 1999 reaffirms commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all States of the region. This action is particularly regrettable, since all efforts at reaching
a negotiated political settlement on the future status of Kosovo, as envisaged by the Security Council Resolution 1244, have not been exhausted. The Unilateral
Declaration of Independence by Kosovo could set an unmanageable precedent in the conduct of international relations, the established global order of sovereign
States and could thus pose a grave threat to international peace and security,” the statement said.
For obvious reasons, the Foreign Ministry did not get into the issue of implications of Kosovo’s independence for Sri Lanka. However, Dr. Dayan Jayatilaka, Sri
Lanka’s Permanent Representative at the U.N. Office in Geneva and a non-career diplomat, felt no such restraints. Incidentally, Jayatilaka was a member of the
North-Eastern Council of 1990. In a signed article titled “Kosovo countdown: Lessons for Sri Lanka”, a day before the Kosovo UDI, he forcefully articulated the
diabolical implications of the move for his own country.
“These then are the lessons for Sri Lanka: never withdraw the armed forces from any part of our territory in which they are challenged, and never permit a foreign
presence on our soil. After 450 years of colonial presence, and especially after the experience of the Kandyan Convention, we Sri Lankans should have these lessons
engraved in our historical memory and our collective identity. The Western imperialists who failed to capture our island militarily were able to take control of it only
because we double-crossed our leader, trusted the West, signed an agreement and allowed the foreign presence into our heartland,” he argued.
Jayatilaka reasoned that there were options other than secession for Kosovo. One was the fullest autonomy within Serbia. The other was the carving out of the
Serbian majority portion of Kosovo and its annexation with Serbia. “However, all options were aborted by the obduracy of the Kosovo leadership, which insists on
independence. It must be noted that the current leader of Kosovo is a former leader of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army,” he noted.
The envoy argued that all tendencies in world politics which weakened, fragmented and destabilised states, undermining their sovereignty and making them vulnerable
to hegemony and intervention, were inimical to Sri Lanka while all tendencies which strengthened and defended state sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, were
friendly and helpful to his country.
Endorsing the sentiments of Jayatilaka, the Sri Lankan English daily The Island noted in an editorial that if independent states were to be carved out haphazardly
according to the whims and fancies of a handful of powerful nations, then the U.N. ought to be given a grand funeral. It further noted that the LTTE, which was elated
over Montenegro’s independence in 2006, are not so upbeat this time round; it felt that the Tigers had chosen to tread cautiously because of India’s fears and
concerns about their Eelam project.
Jayatilaka’s arguments seem sound. However, there is one aspect which the envoy has sidestepped, and that is the failure of successive regimes in Colombo to come
forward with a credible political solution to the grievances of minorities. A political package could provide the much-needed muscle to the moderate forces that are
arraigned against the LTTE. It is the inability of the polity to come out with a solution to the ethnic conflict that provides oxygen to the LTTE.
B. Muralidhar Reddy