Kosovo kann nicht warten

Dieser
Artikel von 
Daniel Serwer 

vom US Institute of Peace ist in der 59. Ausgabe der
Reihe 
Europa South-East Monitor 

des  
Centre for European Policy Studies

erschienen. Der Autor befasst sich mit den komplexen Aspekten
der Festlegung des endgültigen Status des Kosovo. Der
Artikel wurde anlässlich eines Treffens des European
Security Forum zu Sicherheitsfragen im Balkan verfasst, das
am 25.Oktober 2004 bei CEPS stattfand.

While the Balkans will
present democratization and development
challenges for the next ten years, the past
five have seen resolution of almost all the war
and peace issues that plagued the region in the
1990s. There is only one serious threat to
stability in the Balkans today: the unsettled
status of Kosovo. This is the issue that must
be settled if the region as a whole is to
proceed expeditiously towards its European
destination.  

Post-Milosevic Serbia has
given up the threat of force to regain control
over Kosovo, but the majority Albanian
population there still fears Serb intentions.
Discontent is growing. Uncertainty over status,
an inept UN administration (UNMIK), concern
about Belgrade’s efforts to partition
Kosovo, determination on the part of Albanian
extremists to ethnically cleanse the minority
population and economic crisis are combining to
generate a predictable rebellion, which
previewed with the March ethnic riots. The June
election of Boris Tadic as Serbia’s
president (over an extreme nationalist
opponent) reduced the risk of an early crisis,
but the handwriting is on the wall. 

This presents the
international community with a quandary. A
crisis in Kosovo is predictable, but that does
not mean the political will to prevent it can
be generated in advance. The war on terror and
post-war Iraq are distracting the U.S. Europe
has been preoccupied with writing a
constitution and expanding its membership.
Mistreatment of Serbs in Kosovo after the
NATO/Yugoslavia war has greatly reduced
international sympathy for Albanian
aspirations. The international community has
imposed on the Kosovars a policy of
„standards before status,“ which
requires them to show progress towards
democratization before the internationals will
embark on deciding status.  

Thus here we sit, waiting
for a crisis we know is coming but unable to
move on deciding Kosovo’s status because
of its failure to make progress in treatment of
Serbs and other minorities. Should we move
ahead anyway, possibly undermining further any
hope of progress on the standards? Or should we
stand pat, insisting on progress and risking
radicalization of the Albanian population, and
possibly even UNMIK’s
expulsion?  

Kosovo’s status will
not be decided in a vacuum. Three
„Yugoslav“ factors are relevant:
progress of reform in Belgrade, the political
situation in Pristina, and Serbia’s
relations with Montenegro. Broader Balkan and
global issues also need to be taken into
account. 

Progress of Reform in Belgrade

 

While the election of Tadic
pulled Serbia back from the brink, it will not
in itself put Serbia on a clear path. The
Radicals, whose leader is in The Hague awaiting
trial for war crimes, are still the largest
party in the Serbian parliament, and Prime
Minister Kostunica governs only with the
support of Slobodan Milosevic’s
Socialists. Security and judicial sector
reforms have stalled (and even in some
instances reversed), and Serbia’s
much-needed new constitution is hostage to the
political situation. Cooperation with The Hague
Tribunal is blocked, at least for the moment.
As a result, the U.S. has suspended bilateral
aid and the EU is withholding a
„feasibility study“ for Serbia and
Montenegro’s Stability and Association
Agreement.  

Tadic must tread carefully.
His formal powers are limited. He needs to
maneuver the Socialists out of the majority and
his own Democratic Party into it, without
however causing a break-up of the existing
governing coalition. He would like to avoid
early parliamentary elections, fearing the
Radicals might gain. But even if Tadic is
successful in reconstructing a majority that
includes all the major democratic parties but
not the Socialists, he will still have only a
fragile base from which to deal with Kosovo,
where nationalists both inside and outside the
majority will exploit any concessions to
Albanian aspirations.  

That said, a democratic
regime in Belgrade aiming for entry into
Partnership for Peace, the Schengen area and
eventually NATO and the EU has to consider
Kosovo more a burden than an asset. Belgrade
has elaborate plans for governing the Kosovo
Serbs and the territory they inhabit, but
across the entire political spectrum there is
no stomach for governing 1.8 million Kosovo
Albanians. Tacitly even extreme nationalists in
Belgrade have given up Milosevic’s hope of
either repressing the Albanians or chasing them
from Kosovo.  

The essence of
Belgrade’s ambitions in Kosovo today is to
preserve governing authority over the Serbs who
live there on territory protected from the
majority Albanian population. Despite much talk
of municipal decentralization or the creation
of „entities“ (like those in Bosnia),
partition is what Serbs who care about Kosovo
want. More nationalist Serb politicians hope
for a substantial number (five or six) of major
Serb enclaves, connected by recognized
transportation routes and protected by
Belgrade’s army and police. Less
nationalist Serb politicians would either give
up all Kosovo or hope to retain the three
northern municipalities, which were majority
Serb before the 1999 war. 

The likely losers in
partition are the Kosovo Serbs. There is little
chance of preserving more than one or two Serb
enclaves south of the Ibar, where the majority
of the Kosovo Serbs still live, more or less
„integrated“ with the Albanian
population. Any more than that would render the
Kosovo state non-viable. Both Pristina and
Belgrade would expect the Kosovo Serbs to move
to Serb-controlled areas, something they have
so far chosen not to do, despite security risks
and substantial financial incentives. 

Thus, even if Kosovo is
partitioned, there is not much to be gained by
Serbs in Kosovo, but there is a good deal to be
lost by Belgrade by holding on too long. Once
Serbia has rid itself of war criminal
indictees, little other than Kosovo stands in
the way of rapid progress in Serbia’s
Euro-Atlantic integration. Belgrade can hope
for quick entry into Partnership for Peace
without resolving the Kosovo status issue
(assuming it drops its court case against the
1999 NATO bombing), but NATO and the EU will
not be interested in Serbian membership so long
as Kosovo’s status remains unresolved.
Neither will want the Kosovo problem inside,
and both understand that their greatest
leverage in resolving the issue is the prospect
of membership.  

While Albanian mistreatment
of Serbs has given Belgrade moral high ground,
an increasingly democratic Serbia has to ask
itself how it will deal with Albanian
aspirations. Belgrade has so far hoped in
public statements that these could be satisfied
with wide autonomy. No one who knows a Kosovo
Albanian believes this to be the
case. 

The Political Situation in
Pristina

 

The problem as seen from
Pristina is that Kosovo has already enjoyed a
wide degree of autonomy as a province of Serbia
in the late 1970s and 1980s, only to see it
abruptly and violently removed by the Milosevic
regime in 1989. Up until that point, Albanian
aspirations focused on becoming a republic
within former Yugoslavia, a seemingly small
step since it already had its own Parliament
and police force as well as representative on
the collective presidency. But with the removal
of autonomy and repression by the Serbian army
and police of both non-violent protests and the
subsequent violent insurgency, Kosovo Albanians
became convinced that only independence would
do. Independence, in Kosovo, adheres to the
Weberian definition of sovereignty. It
essentially means that Serbia will not
legitimately be able to send in its security
forces.  

Politics in Pristina
revolves around the means to achieve
independence. The spectrum runs from those who
claim Kosovo is already independent and only
needs international recognition (Rugova), to
those who think it should declare independence
unilaterally (Haradinaj), to those who believe
independence should be negotiated with the US
and EU (Thaci, Rexhepi). Others think
independence can be achieved by violence
against the Serb population and UNMIK. For
Albanians, „Standards before status“
is an „extra“ requirement that others
in the region have not been asked to
meet.  

While the international
community has managed so far to drag the Kosovo
Albanians-some kicking and screaming more than
others-into the standards process, even before
the March rioting there were doubts about how
much longer this can continue without fatally
undermining the relative moderates who are
doing their best to cooperate with the
standards process. These doubts had led to the
promise of a standards review by the summer of
2005, with the possibility of moving to status
negotiations thereafter. The March rioting
heightened doubts, especially because the
violence was directed not only at the Kosovo
Serbs but also at UNMIK, which is highly
vulnerable. The Contact Group is trying to
accelerate the process with frequent check-up
visits to Pristina and turnover of more
authority from UNMIK to the Provisional
Institutions of
Self-Governance.  

It seems unlikely
significant progress will be made by mid-2005
on the only standard that really stands in the
way of movement to a decision on final status:
treatment of Serbs and other minorities. Even
with the best political will, Serb returnees
over the next year will number in the thousands
rather than tens of thousands, especially since
Belgrade is not encouraging Serbs to return
anywhere but to enclaves. The best political
will does not, however, prevail in Pristina. If
a start on final status is made in 2005, it is
more likely to be on the basis of the
PISG’s intentions than its
achievements. 

Serbia’s Relationship With
Montenegro

 

Serbia’s
„union“ with Montenegro is not going
well. This should be no surprise. The word
„union“ is used most often when
things are coming apart (the United States
became The Union only during the Civil War,
Europe became a Union when it reached a moment
of hesitation in its integration process). The
loosest sort of confederation, the Union of
Serbia and Montenegro is not functioning well
because neither side (but for the moment mainly
the Montenegrins) sees much benefit in making
it do so. A threat to hold Serbia back from
integration with the EU unless the Union
improves is not credible and has now been
dropped: why hold back a country of 7.5 million
people vital to European interests in the
Balkans because a country of 600,000 is not
cooperating? 

The problem for the 
indipendentistas

of Montenegro is that they are not sure they
have the votes to win an independence
referendum that everyone now acknowledges they
have the right to hold. Prime Minister
Djukanovic would like Serbia to make the first
move and is therefore doing his best to
convince Belgrade that the Union is unworkable
and needs to be dissolved. If need be, he can
postpone the popular elections for the Union
Parliament scheduled for next year, thus truly
rendering the Union nonfunctional. 

Montenegro’s
independence would not affect Kosovo’s
legal status, which is governed by UNSC
resolution 1244. An independent Montenegro
would gladly allow Serbia to be „successor
state“ when it comes to Union sovereignty
over Kosovo, recognized (
qua

Yugoslavia) in 1244.  

Legality is one thing,
politics another. Montenegro’s
independence (or Serbia’s, depending on
perspective) would raise serious questions. If
Montenegro, whose population speaks Serbian and
has a long common history with Serbs, cannot
stay in the same state with Serbia, how can
Kosovo, whose majority population speaks a
language Serbs do not understand and has a
separate, parallel history? One of
Serbia’s main motives for maintaining the
„union“ with Montenegro is to avoid a
precedent. If the Union dissolves, Kosovo
independence will to many become
inevitable.  

Why not, many ask,
strengthen the Union by bringing Kosovo in as a
third republic? The answer is that neither
Serbia nor Montenegro would accept the
proposition, never mind the Kosovo Albanians.
Kosovo would have to enter the union as an
equal partner (1.8 million Albanians could not
be offered less than 600,000 citizens of
Montenegro!). An already struggling union would
then become a serious impediment to integration
with the EU. „Thanks but no thanks“
both republics would say. 

The Rest of the World

 

Five other places bear on
Kosovo’s status: first Bosnia and
Macedonia, then Chechnya, Tibet and Kurdistan.
The problem is how to prevent Kosovo final
status from destabilizing existing states or
creating obstacles in the Security Council,
especially as the latter three bear on
interests that permanent Security Council
members regard as vital.  

In both Bosnia and Macedonia
there are extreme nationalists who might like
to follow Kosovo’s example, whatever it
may be. The problem is acute if Kosovo is
partitioned, as then Belgrade may look for
„compensation“ for its losses by
taking over the „Serb“ part of Bosnia
and Pristina may look for
„compensation“ for its losses by
taking over the „Albanian“ part of
Macedonia. But even if Kosovo final status
involves not partition but creation of Serb and
Albanian „entities“ (i.e., ethnically
defined territories), problems arise: in
Macedonia, because Albanians might ask for
equivalent treatment, and in Bosnia because
Serb resistance to the central government,
which has been flagging, would revive. The
international community should inoculate Bosnia
and Macedonia against infection from a Kosovo
final status decision, through a Security
Council resolution that guarantees their
sovereignty and territorial
integrity.  

It has been long understood
that Chechnya and Tibet present problems for
deciding Kosovo’s final status, since
Russia and China respectively will not want to
set a precedent of independence for a province,
even one as far away as Kosovo. Kurdistan may
also turn out to be a serious problem. The
United States is expending enormous political
and diplomatic capital to prevent Iraqi
Kurdistan from gaining independence. Iraqi
Kurds have a claim to independence similar to
that of Kosovo Albanians: the Kurds were chased
out of their homes en masse, they suffered mass
slaughter (including the use of chemical
weapons), they have developed their own
governing institutions, and their language and
culture are distinct from that of the Arab
majority.  

That said, Turkey has been
dead set against independence for Kurdistan
(fearing the aspirations of its own Kurds). So,
too, are Iran and Syria. It is the Turks though
who count in American eyes, which in any case
see the risk of instability without a strong
Iraq on Iran’s western border. An American
president who agrees to final status for Kosovo
will want to be sure that it does not set an
unacceptable precedent for
Kurdistan.  

So Do We Go Ahead Or Not?

 

The bottom line is this:
both in the U.S. and in Europe, there is
increasing conviction that a decision on Kosovo
final status cannot and should not be put off
for long. The current uncertainty, as President
Branko Crvenkovski of Macedonia points out, is
more destabilizing than a final status
decision. Those closest to the situation on the
ground (especially in UNMIK) think it would be
best to proceed with final status in 2005,
after the review of progress on standards.
Others think a decision might be put off until
2006. This could mean a decision on Montenegro
first, thus simplifying the equation. Few
experts in Washington, Brussels or most
European capitals think it would be wise to put
off a start to the decision-making past
2006.  

Yet none of those capitals
is yet ready. Neither are Belgrade and
Pristina.  

In Pristina, a great deal
will depend on the October elections. If
someone from the main Albanian parties becomes
prime minister, the international community
might postpone to 2006 in order to see progress
on Serb returns (provided it is reasonably
confident that NATO and the UNMIK police can
handle any consequent unrest). If, however,
someone new with demonstrated good intentions
towards the Kosovo Serb population were to
become prime minister, there would be an
argument for moving ahead in 2005. 

In Belgrade, the government
is ready with its opening position, which has
passed virtually unanimously in a vote of the
Serbian parliament: Serbia wants sovereignty
over all of Kosovo and governing authority over
its Serbs. But the Serbian internal political
situation is still unclear. If early
parliamentary elections prove necessary, their
outcome will be important. The international
community will not be prepared to suggest to
the Kosovo Albanians that they remain in a
state with Serbia if an extreme nationalist
were to come to power in Belgrade. A decision
in 2005 would then be best. At the same time,
if Tadic and democratic parties gain full
control, there will be hesitancy to ask him to
grab the third rail of Serbian politics with
both hands. 2006 might be a better
idea. 

Washington and Brussels are
also not well prepared. While many Europeans
and Americans are saying that they need to
enter a decision-making process on final status
in 2005 or 2006, little has been done to
prepare. Officials who mumble in private that
independence is inevitable (with or without a
bit of partition) have not worked out any
details or negotiating strategy. Nor do they
show the political will to start the
process.  

This situation needs to
change. Washington and Brussels need to decide
both a process and a desired outcome, or at
least a range of acceptable outcomes. It is
clear from the more or less abortive
Belgrade/Pristina dialogue convened this year
by UNMIK that the UN cannot handle final status
negotiations. The U.S. and EU should nominate
special envoys, as they did during the 2001
Macedonia crisis, to collaborate in steering
the process and ensuring an outcome that falls
within an acceptable range.  

The U.S., even if distracted
by Iraq, will have to play a vital role in
Kosovo. It is more likely to do so if the
Democrats win the presidency in November, since
Richard Holbrooke, Joseph Biden and others
committed to Kosovo’s self-determination
would likely return to power. The Republicans
have been more inclined to postpone, concerned
about the consequences for Belgrade of a final
status decision and reluctant to invest
American prestige in non-vital issues left over
from the Clinton
Administration.  

Europe, even if much of it
remains at odds with the U.S. on Iraq, will
also have to play a vital role. Only a joint
U.S./European effort will enable Belgrade and
Pristina to find and implement a mutually
acceptable solution, whatever it may be, and
only a mutually acceptable solution will find a
welcome reception in the Security Council. That
will end, after more than a decade of war and
strife, any serious threat of instability in
the Balkans and open the way to Europe for all
its peoples.  

 

Daniel Serwer

is director of the Balkans Initiative and Peace
and Stability Operations at the US Institute of
Peace. The views expressed in this article do
not represent formal positions taken by the
Institute, which does not advocate specific
policies.