Wednesday, January 31, 2007
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The chief prosecutor of the UN war crimes tribunal confirmed today that she will retire in September, marking the end of an era in international law.
Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal's third and longest serving chief prosecutor, will be remembered primarily for overseeing former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic's genocide trial, which ended before a verdict could be reached after he died of a heart attack in his cell in March.
"After eight years, I have done my work. It's time for me to go back to a normal life," she told reporters Tuesday in The Hague. In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session, Del Ponte said that in the dozens of trials she has supervised – including 20 in which the defendants pleaded guilty – "I never saw one (defendant) who had real remorse." Expressions of regret were only designed to ease their sentences, she said.
Del Ponte warned that the two former Bosnian Serb leaders most wanted by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal could go free unless they are caught before the tribunal is closed in 2010 and if the UN Security Council takes no further action. Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb political leader, and his top general, Ratko Mladic, have evaded arrest since the UN tribunal issued indictments against them in 1995 for genocide and other war crimes committed during the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia. The Security Council has instructed the tribunal to finish its last trials by 2008 and conclude the appeals process within another two years, before closing down.
If the court no longer exists, its arrest warrants against Karadzic and Mladic will become invalid. "If the tribunal must close the door by 2010, they (the Council) must find another solution" for the remaining fugitives, Del Ponte told reporters. Del Ponte repeated her assertion that Serbian authorities know Mladic's whereabouts and could arrest him at any time. "It's a political decision," she said.
"Mladic is within reach. I believe the intelligence services know where he is," she said. If the government gave the order today to arrest him, "I could have him here by the evening," she said. Until last spring, the Serb government was in frequent contact with him to persuade him to voluntarily surrender to the court, as more than a dozen other fugitives had done, she said. But nothing is known about the location of Karadzic, whose flight from justice is financed by organized crime and drug money, Del Ponte said. Another four fugitives are at large.
She urged the EU not to resume preliminary talks with Serbia, aimed at paving the way for Serbia to join the 27-country, until it fulfills its pledge to fully co-operate with the tribunal. A resumption of talks on a Stabilization and Association Agreement with Serbia would be "extremely damaging," said Del Ponte. She will meet the EU's foreign policy chief Javiar Solana in Brussels on Wednesday as part of her campaign with EU members to block the talks. Del Ponte said she hoped a coalition of democratic countries headed by President Boris Tadic will form the next government in Belgrade following Serb elections, since it would co-operate more with the tribunal than a nationalist government. "Yes, it would make a difference," she said.
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BEIJING. Jan 31 (Interfax-China) - Russia and China have stated that they have similar positions on the situation surrounding Kosovo, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov said.
"The Russian and Chinese positions coincide in that we advocate a search for a compromise in the talks," the Russian diplomat said after consultations with Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui.
"This decision must not be locked in any time frames, if a solution is to be found that would strengthen peace and stability in the Balkans and in a wider context," he said.
Russia has said on many occasions, said Titov, that the method to be chosen in settling the Kosovo problem "will be of serious importance and will be projected to other regions and international situations."
The first ever attempt is being made to detach a part from an integral state, not an independent entity from a federative state, the Russian diplomat said.
"If the separation takes place without the state's consent a very negative precedent will be created for other international situations," he said.
Titov also announced that the UN secretary general's special envoy Marti Ahtisaari was expected to inform Belgrade and Pristina of the proposals on ways to settle the situation.
"Further developments will depend on the reaction to these proposals by the parties concerned. We've always wanted these proposals to facilitate the negotiations, " he added.
During the consultations the parties "exchanged views on the situation in Europe as a whole and on various international organizations' activities in Europe," he said.Labels: Kosovo, Serbia
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Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Serbia offers interior independence to Kosovo-Metohija
Belgrade, Jan 29, 2007 - Advisor to the Serbian Prime Minister and coordinator of the state team for negotiations on Kosovo's future status Slobodan Samardzic stated today that Serbia offers interior independence to ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo-Metohija through an agreement which would symbolically preserve "the membrane of Serbian sovereignty" over the issue of the province.
In an interview for the Reuters agency, Samardzic said that Serbia only needs respect of its borders, adding that interior organisation of the state may ensure maximum flexibility.
He explained that Belgrade will not govern all other issues related to the vital interests of ethnic Albanians, such as economic, social and cultural ones. He also stressed that these issues could be directly related to financial institutions.
Belgrade's plan does not insist that Serbia controls the border and this matter could be left to international police, said Samardzic and stressed that the Serbian side does not demand that its army and police return to the province.
He said that in ten years' time, Serbia's and Kosovo-Metohija' s membership in the EU would reduce the importance of borders and equalise the monetary and customs policy.
Samardzic noted that Belgrade has not been offered the chance to come up with its own suggestions and added that applying pressure is not a good way to solve this issue in the next few months, as the West is doing now.
The problem of Kosovo is 100 years old and Ahtisaari provided only three hours of Serbian-Albanian status talks last year with a note that it was the meeting of the deaf.
Serbia's plan is a multi-layered plan of administration under the umbrella of Belgrade, he said and concluded that Europe is brimming with successful self-determination stories with no secession. Labels: Kosovo, Serbia
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And the Kosovo Goes to... the International Community? Can Karpat, AIA Balkan section
Last Friday, Martti Ahtisaari, the UN representative and mediator for Kosovo, presented his proposal on the future of Kosovo to the Contact Group at a closed-door session in Vienna. Probably no independence, but a Dayton-like broad international engagement in Kosovo. At the end, it seems that Kosovo will get rid of Serbia - to go to . the international community? Meanwhile, the coalition negotiations have just begun in Serbia. As one Serbian minister put it, "it has never happened that a European state is requested to have its key issues discussed at a time when its government has not been set up". This is a grand première indeed .
The Kosovo well
Last Friday, Martti Ahtisaari, the UN representative and mediator for Kosovo, presented his proposal on the future of Kosovo to the Contact Group at a closed-door session in Vienna.
All that we know is that Ahtisaari's Kosovo status proposal focused on protecting minority rights and foresaw "a strong international civilian and military presence within a broader future international engagement in Kosovo". That was what he told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe last Wednesday.
Of course what interests the public opinion is not this rather impenetrable and vague bureaucratic rhetoric. The main question is short and plain: at the end, independent or not independent?
Diplomats close to Ahtisaari state that "independence" as word does not appear in the document. Instead, the proposal intends to repeat the Dayton model, namely the establishment of an international administrator in Kosovo. As in Bosnia, there will be an international military presence backed up by NATO peacekeepers and a civilian one backed by the EU.
Martti Ahtisaari plans to present his proposal formally to the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians during his visits to Belgrade and Pristina on 2nd February. So as predicted, no one would be happy with the outcome.
The Kosovo Albanians have been assured by their politicians for years that the only possible outcome would be full independence. It was often said that this policy was quite perilous and unwise. Now the Kosovo Albanians would feel themselves frustrated by this proposal, which no doubt delivers them from Serbian control, though without turning their province into a sovereign state as they expected. What will be their reaction? Or rather let us put the question bluntly: will their reaction be peaceful or violent?
As to the Serbs, the proposal would mean nothing but unsaid independence for Kosovo, which is indeed the case. And all this during a most delicate period for Serbia: the post-elections period. The coalition bargain started yesterday. Would such a proposal push Serbia into the political abyss?
And finally, let us ask one final question: what on earth pushed the international community to such a hasty initiative? Crass ignorance of Balkan affairs? Political impatience? The traditional belittlement of the Balkans as "Europe's backyard"? Or all three of them?
As the outgoing Minister of State Administration and Local Governance, Zoran Loncar put it: "It has never happened that a European state is requested to have its key issues discussed at a time when its government has not been set up".
The elections riddle in Serbia
Last week the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) interim president Tomislav Nikolic stated: "The Radical Party is the winner but we shall not have the opportunity of forming a government. We are now going to see how the two parties, the Democrat Party [DS] and the Serb Democrat Party [DSS] will come together". An excellent example of Schadenfreude indeed!
As Nikolic put it, it is quite probable that to find a common ground between Boris Tadic's DS and Vojislav Kostunica's DSS will be a difficult task.
Apart the dispute over the prime minister chair, Kostunica declared that he will not accept any coalition government with the Liberal Democrat Party (LDP) in it. Note that LDP is the only Serbian party which does not oppose to the independence of Kosovo.
Otherwise, the DSS top official Dragan Sormaz warned, new elections will have to be called. This was a rather premature warning anyway. Should we take it as a sign of DSS' bad faith?
Yet, as Vojislav Kostunica himself already stated, it is now up to the President to appoint the prime minister. It is expected that Boris Tadic designate the former finance minister Bozidar Djelic to this post. As to the second problem, it may be that this would not be that difficult to push aside.
No matter how or when, DS and DSS accompanied by other minor Serbian and minority parties would probably form the new government at the end. However, the question is not there.
The main question is: will a DS-DSS coalition government, though a pro-Western and democratic one, be functional enough to face the country's serious international and economic problems? Or will it be just a suspension of sentence - as sentence called SRS?
One last nuance, though. Many Europeans patronise the Serbs about the January elections, reproaching them for allowing the Radicals to be the winner. However, in comparison to the last general elections on 28th December 2003, DS marked + 10.3 points, while SRS only + 1.1 point. When one thinks of the serious domestic and international problems that this country does and will face, this result is in fact a promising one for the future. Labels: Kosovo, Serbia
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Sunday, January 28, 2007
Serbia plans to boycott the United Nations envoy for Kosovo when he arrives in Belgrade next week to present his plan for the breakaway province's future, local media said Saturday.
Former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari presented his plan to the so-called Contact Group of big powers - the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia - behind closed doors on Friday in Vienna.
The still-secret plan, or proposal, is expected to launch Kosovo toward independence.
Nominally still a province of Serbia, but with a vastly dominant Albanian majority that wants independence quickly, Kosovo has been a UN and NATO protectorate since 1999.
Also on Friday, Serbian caretaker Premier Vojislav Kostunica said that he would not receive Ahtisaari when he arrives in Belgrade to present the plan to Serbia on February 2.
Ahtisaari was scheduled to visit Pristina later that same day.
Kostunica said that the caretaker government, which is to be replaced following the January 21 elections, was without authority to deal with big issues such as Kosovo's status and that it would have to wait for the upcoming government.
On Saturday, Justice Minister Zoran Stojkovic said that no member of Kostunica's cabinet would meet Ahtisaari, whom Serbia has frequently accused of being biased in favour of the Albanians.
Staunchly pro-European and seeking close ties with the West, President Boris Tadic was "likely" to see Ahtisaari when he arrives, sources from his cabinet were quoted as saying.
Tadic, however, has little real power, his function being largely based on protocol.
Without a clear election winner, Serbia has a late-May deadline for the new government to take over, but possibly faces months of political stalemate and even new polls.
Ahtisaari, who mediated Kosovo talks between Belgrade and Pristina starting last February, has already delayed the presentation of his plan in deference to Serbia's elections, called after the country proclaimed its new constitution in November.
So far, 10 months of talks have failed to bring Belgrade and Pristina any closer. Serbs continued insisting on sovereignty over Kosovo, while Albanians reject anything less than independence.
Banking on Russia - which only said it opposed an "imposed" solution, but did not commit - to block Kosovo's independence, Kostunica is attempting to delay the Kosovo process, some analysts said.
He hopes that "Albanian frustration at the delay would lead to violence ... weakening Pristina's position," James Lyon, the International Crisis Group think-tank representative in Belgrade, said in a text he posted on the B92 internet portal.Labels: Kosovo, Serbia
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A Western diplomat has said. that Russia wants any UN decision on the future of Kosovo to be put off until after Serbia has formed a new government following inconclusive general elections on January 21.
Western news agencies quoted the unnamed diplomat as saying Russia urged the delay at a meeting of the six-member Contact Group in Vienna today.
The five Western members of the Contact Group -- the United States, Britain, France, Italy and Germany -- reportedly saw no need for delay.
Kosovar Prime Minister Agim Ceku also said today there was no need for any further delay in implementing the UN proposal.
The Contact Group had previously asked UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari to delay his proposal on Kosovo until after Serbia's general elections.
Ceku said the Contact Group then assured his government there would not be another delay.
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The surface-to-air missile that hit the belly of Lt. Col David Goldfein's F-16 in May 1999 came from an unexpected source.
The SAM launch sites had proved to be a constant threat in Serbia, disappearing and reappearing. This one appeared right under the squadron's route as it flew into Belgrade, Serbia, on a night mission to destroy enemy air defenses. The missile destroyed Goldfein's engine.
"I became a very expensive glider pretty quick," said the 47-year-old Goldfein, now a brigadier general in command of Holloman Air Force Base, who recounted the incident last week. He saw the flak clouds from the anti-aircraft fire that was trying to zero in on his damaged plane.
He felt a stinging sensation on his hand and he looked down to find blood welling from a minor shrapnel injury, said Goldfein, who then commanded the 555th Fighter Squadron and led the first of many missions of Operation Allied Force over Serbia.
"That's when your training kicks in," said Goldfein, one of two pilots shot down in the operation. "It was a full-moon night. You don't want to be highlighted (in the sky) too long."
He waited to eject so he would have just enough time for his parachute to deploy while spending as little time as possible as a floating target. The ejection mechanism worked flawlessly.
After landing in a "perfectly plowed field," he rolled and popped off his parachute. Helmet still on, he grabbed his things and headed for a ravine. The ravine sloped down at a steeper angle than he had expected from his hasty survey, and he tripped and fell face first.
"My stuff was like a raft in front," he said. "I was riding it like Indiana Jones down to the bottom."
He collected himself and then made radio contact with the fighters still circling above.
"My first call was answered by my buds who were with me," Goldfein said. "There wasn't a minute I didn't hear jets overhead, and that was very comforting. There was absolutely no question in my mind I was getting out that night."
As his training had taught him, he dumped anything shiny that would reveal his location and traveled along the edge of the plowed field. If the field had land mines, he thought, the farmers would already have dug them up.
The countryside looked a lot like Indiana or Ohio farmland, he said. "There were lots of dogs and roosters up and awake and sounding off at 2 a.m.," he added.
After walking about two miles, he found a relatively remote cleared area.
"I had to find a good spot to stay hidden and coordinate the rescue," Goldfein said. "It was just, 'Don't screw it up; don't get in the way.' "
He once again communicated his position, and then, from his hiding spot, heard a rustling sound and looked in the direction of the noise.
"Whatever it was, it reared up on its hind legs ... I saw beady eyes," he said. "I say it was a Serbian tiger, but my buds said it was probably a field mouse."
He ran for a distance, which turned out to be a blessing because he found a better landing spot. When the rescue helicopter arrived, it brought enemy fire with it. Within seconds of its arrival, Goldfein was in the helicopter. A later inspection revealed five bullet holes in the fuselage.
"We never know when some young airman is going to risk everything to come pull us out," Goldfein said. "You become extremely humble. They get a bottle of scotch from me every year -- a single-malt, good quality."
Goldfein said the unit saves the last of the bottle and, when he is able to bring the new bottle in person, they drink it together. Even though the airmen who participated in his rescue have rotated out of the squadron, he said, "it's the legacy of the unit."
But, he added, "I keep in touch with many of the airmen on that rescue."
Goldfein said he wanted to fly immediately afterward, but his commanders told him to wait a day. Although he flew the next day, he points out that pilots in Vietnam often flew the same day they were rescued and they didn't receive a hero's welcome when they returned home.
Nonetheless, Goldfein could rightfully consider the incident a day at the office.
"My dad is a career fighter pilot in the Air Force century series fighters," Goldfein said. "I've really been in the Air Force my whole life."
His older brother, a two-star general, is vice director of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, and his younger brother flies F-16s at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.
Goldfein also deployed to Abu Dhabi for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and to the Vicenza Combined Air Operations Center for Operation Deliberate Force. He has more than 3,900 flying hours in the T-37, T-38 and F-16C/D.
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VIENNA (Reuters) - Russia is skeptical about a plan by United Nations envoy Martti Ahtisaari that would give Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo virtual independence, a senior diplomat told Reuters on Friday.
After a meeting in Vienna with the six-member Contact Group of major powers, the diplomat said Russia had urged a delay in any U.N. decision on Kosovo until Serbia had formed a new government following an inconclusive parliamentary election on Jan 21.
"It was a very tough meeting. The Russians are very skeptical about the plan," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity. "I have never seen the Quint (United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy) more united."
Ahtisaari's spokesman Remi Dourlot told reporters after the meeting the envoy would travel to Belgrade and Pristina as planned on February 2 to present his proposal to officials.
The Contact Group has set policy on Kosovo since the U.N. took control in 1999 of the province where 90 percent of the population is ethnic Albanian. Ahtisaari drafted his plan after a year of shuttle diplomacy and fruitless Serb-Albanian talks.
Diplomatic sources said the Vienna meeting was the last step before he presents his proposal to officials next Friday. He will hold further bilateral talks in coming weeks, but diplomats say that would be merely fine-tuning details of the plan.
Eight years after NATO drove out Serb forces accused of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo while fighting Albanian separatists, Kosovo's Albanians demand nothing less than full independence.
Their patience was tested in November, when the Contact Group told Ahtisaari to delay until after Serbia's election.
"There is no need for another delay," Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku told reporters in Pristina on Friday. "The Contact Group assured us before that there wouldn't be another delay."
Belgrade is offering only far-reaching autonomy for a territory it sees as the sacred cradle of the Serb nation.
Diplomatic sources told Reuters this week Ahtisaari's plan would set Kosovo on the road to independence with international supervision, giving it the right to apply for membership of international organizations.
It would provide for a right to dual citizenship and urge Pristina to establish good relations with Serbia, but contain no reference to Serbian sovereignty.
LONG COALITION TALKS
Russia's insistence on waiting for a new government in Belgrade could mean a delay of weeks or months. Last weekend's national election in Serbia failed to produce a clear majority and parties were preparing for lengthy coalition talks.
The ultranationalist Radical Party won 28 percent of the vote but could find no partner that would give it a majority.
The pro-Western Democratic Party came second and is looking for a deal with the party of moderate nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and a smaller liberal party.
Kostunica used increasingly hardline rhetoric during his campaign and has said a common stance on Kosovo is the key to a coalition deal. It is not clear how easy it will be for him to agree with the Democrats on how to handle the potential loss of the province.
Parties have until late May to agree on a coalition, or a fresh election would have to be called.
After a meeting in Brussels, NATO, which keeps 16,000-plus peacekeepers in the province, also advised against a delay.
"There was a strong sense around the table on the need for a (U.N.) resolution as soon as possible," NATO spokesman James Appathurai told reporters. "Long delays risk a lack of clarity, risk fostering instability, " he added.
The alliance is on alert for ethnic tensions caused by the report and wants to ensure it is not caught napping by any new violence in Kosovo, as it was in March 2004 during two days of rioting by ethnic Albanian mobs.
(Additional reporting by Douglas Hamilton and Mark John)Labels: Kosovo, Russia
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Statement by Martti Ahtisaari, the UN Secretary-General' s Special Envoy for the Future Status Process for Kosovo before the 2007 Ordinary Session of the CoE Parliamentary Assembly
Wednesday 24 January
Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, Dear parliamentarians, ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for your invitation to address your Parliamentary Assembly. Since 1999 the Council of Europe has played a key role in the international community's efforts in promoting human rights and good governance in Kosovo. The CoE expertise in these issues has been, and will continue to be, essential even after Kosovo's status has been resolved.
I would like to take this opportunity here today to provide you with an overview and assessment of where we stand in the status process. I will also brief you on the preparatory work being undertaken for transition from UNMIK to an eventual future international presence in Kosovo following the status resolution. Finally, I will highlight what the CoE's future role in Kosovo could be within the overall envisioned international engagement.
As Special Envoy of the UN SG for the status of Kosovo for the past year I have led the talks between the parties to determine the future status of a territory that has been administered by UNMIK for almost 8 years. Throughout the talks, I have continually assessed the dynamics and developments of the process itself while taking into account the reality of the situation on the ground in Kosovo.
During the future status process, our objective has been to build the foundations for a Kosovo where members of all communities - in particular the Kosovo Serb and other minority communities - can live a dignified, safe and economically sustainable life. Our objective should remain to build a multiethnic society, but we need to be realistic and should be under no illusions: this will require time and cannot happen without the cooperation of all of Kosovo's communities.
Together with my team I have brought the representatives of Serbia and Kosovo together for numerous direct and proximity talks on a range of issues, namely, decentralization, cultural and religious heritage, community rights, and economic issues. My staff has engaged in constant and intense expert-level discussions with both sides. These efforts have been part of a "bottom-up approach", geared towards finding areas of concrete agreement between the sides on issues of direct relevance to Kosovo's minority communities, in particular the Kosovo Serbs. Our fundamental objective has been to create the political, institutional, economic and societal foundations for a Kosovo in which all of its communities can coexist in peace.
As requested by the Foreign Ministers of the Contact Group countries in New York on 20 September, I am now finalising my comprehensive proposal for a status settlement. My proposal takes into account the results of the talks between the sides, and, where no agreement was reached, I have proposed solutions that I judge to be fair and balanced. My settlement proposal focuses strongly on the protection of minority rights, in particular of the Kosovo Serbs. It provides the foundations for a democratic and multiethnic Kosovo in which the rights and interests of all members of its communities are firmly guaranteed and protected by institutions based on the rule of law. It also foresees strong international civilian and military presences within a broader future international engagement in Kosovo. With the recent conclusion of Serbia's parliamentary elections, I am now preparing to present my proposal to the parties without delay in the near future.
One of our key challenges in our proposal has been to define the scope and scale of the international community's future engagement in Kosovo. In the past few months this process has moved forward considerably. A future International Civilian Representative, or "ICR", is envisaged, whose mandate will be to supervise implementation of the Settlement, and who would also be the EU Special Representative. Co-ordination mechanisms with other international organizations, including the CoE, will also be essential to ensure that these organizations work together effectively in Kosovo. Such mechanisms are envisaged in my proposal.
Preparing the ground early and properly for an effective transition to a future international civilian presence and start of implementation is central to our overall efforts. As part of the preparations for this transition, my Office has participated in a number of meetings involving the EU, the OSCE, NATO, the United States and UNMIK. An EU-led ICO transition team has been bringing forward technical preparations on the ground in Kosovo. I am pleased to see that this ICO preparation team, UNMIK and the Kosovo government have intensified their cooperation by establishing a joint transition planning structure.
Although the role of a future international engagement will be critical, we should bear in mind that the major responsibility for an effective implementation of the settlement will lie with the Kosovo authorities. It will be very important that Pristina fully and formally commits itself to implementing all elements of an eventual settlement. But it will not only be an issue of political will. Pristina also has to have the necessary means and institutional capacity to implement the provisions of a settlement.
Mr. President,
From the start of the future status process, my firm and consistent view has been that the CoE should continue to play an important role in the international community's future efforts in Kosovo, following the determination of its future status. In order to prepare for this role, it is of utmost importance that the liaison and coordination at all levels between the CoE and other partners, be as effective and results-oriented as possible. In particular, I would encourage the CoE in Kosovo and the ICO transition team to cooperate closely on the ground in Kosovo.
My Office has benefited immensely from the assistance given by experts of the CoE on decentralisation, and promotion and protection of religious and cultural heritage, and on constitutional matters where we have had very good co-operation with the Venice Commission in particular. I believe that the CoE's expertise and institutional knowledge in the areas of human rights and rule of law will continue to be of considerable value for the democratic development of Kosovo. Specifically, overseeing the application of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities through the existing monitoring mechanism is a strong tool to promote full and effective equality of national minorities (communities) in Kosovo. In addition, we are currently envisaging a role for the CoE in monitoring Kosovo's implementation of the settlement with regard to the protection of the cultural and religious heritage.
As we move forward in the future status process, we are increasingly faced with the need to prepare the ground for a transition of UNMIK's powers, responsibilities and functions from UNMIK to the institutions that will be established under the political settlement, as well as to the future International Civilian Representative and broader future international engagement. I envisage that the CoE will play an important role in such a future engagement, and I look to you for your continuing support of our common efforts.
Thank you.Labels: Kosovo
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The people have marked their ballots, yet the region's future is more likely to be decided in New York than Belgrade.
Philip Cunliffe
Serbia looks set for weeks of debilitating coalition-building after the results of parliamentary elections on 21 January. Although Tomislav Nikolic's ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party won the most votes, under the proportional representation system no party won an outright victory. Many Western diplomats and politicians have tried to depict the election as a decisive confrontation between the dark forces of Balkan primitivism and 'pro-European' enlightenment. The reality in Serbia itself was more prosaic, with much of the election being fought around economic questions and technocratic promises of fighting corruption.
These elections were the first since the dissolution of the Union of Serbia-Montenegro in May 2006, itself cobbled together under the auspices of European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Javier Solana in 2003. One of the key issues in the election was the status of the province of Kosovo, still formally part of Serbia but in practice run as a United Nations (UN) protectorate, complete with an internationally- appointed viceroy, since 1999. Although the Serbian constitution of October 2006 declares Kosovo an integral part of Serbia, the UN is expected shortly to publish a report that would redraw Serbia's borders by advocating some form of semi-sovereign independence for the Albanian-majority province.
It was in 1999 that NATO launched what many still consider to be a 'good war' over Kosovo. NATO leaders America and Britain claimed to be intervening to liberate Kosovo from Serb domination. The continuing wrangling over territory in the region, and the West's ongoing role in shaping politics there, suggests that this 'good war' did little to herald a new era of freedom and democracy.
With the parliamentary elections in Serbia, Western powers were hoping to cajole the Serbian electorate into voting for parties that would help the West avoid the unseemly sight of having to dismember Serbia themselves. They would prefer that a Serbian government renounce the province of Kosovo and conceded to a further carving up of the region. This explains why so many international worthies, foreign ministers 'from Scandinavia to Slovenia', patronised Belgrade the week before the election, talking about how Serbs should vote 'for the future and not the past' - 'the future' in this case being pro-Western parties, principally Serbian president Boris Tadic's Democratic Party (1).
But it is hardly surprising that many Serbs have ended up spurning the instructions issued by Western diplomats and embassies. This most recent round of Western intervention is only the latest attempt in the six years since the overthrow of Milosevic in October 2000 to pressure Serbian citizens into doing what the EU and the UN want. The promises of 'European integration' sound more hollow each time (2).
The UN demonstrated the extent of its faith in the Serbian electorate in November 2006, when UN mediator Martti Ahtisaari delayed the publication of the UN report on Kosovo's future. Even though the report's recommendations are already known in advance (semi-sovereignty for Kosovo), and nobody expects its content to change whatever the results of the election, the UN still felt it best to withhold the details of the report, presumably for fear of inflaming the xenophobic instincts of the Serbian masses.
The US ambassador in Belgrade said Serbian voters should turn their backs on the 'extremists who would be happy to turn Serbia into an isolated island blinded by nationalism' (3). Actually, the Western powers have helped to isolate Serbia. Only last year, the EU suspended talks on membership with Belgrade, over the failure to deliver former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. In short, Serbia presents too many opportunities to cover up the failures of Western policy in the region, and to bolster the West's moral authority by claiming the mantle of defending human rights and prosecuting war crimes.
The Western response to the election results was best articulated by Javier Solana. Solana welcomed the results by flagging up the fact that the Radicals did not win the majority of votes: 'the majority of Serbs voted for forces that are democratic and pro-European. ' (4) But even the most ardent EU election monitor would be hard-pressed to use Solana's new measure as a way of uncovering the difference in democratic value between votes cast in the same election. What Solana really means is that what counts as democracy is what the EU decides is democratic, and the democrats are those who are anointed by the international community, regardless of who actually receives the votes.
In spite of the election results, the deciding votes that will determine the fate of the region will be cast in neither Serbia nor Kosovo, but in the UN Security Council. The real political horse-trading will not be coalition-building in Belgrade, but diplomatic intrigue in New York. Some analysts are speculating that Russia, as one of the permanent members of the Security Council, will use its power of veto to deny independence to Kosovo, prompting a diplomatic showdown in order to leverage concessions out of America and the EU. Just the possibility of this happening indicates that the real threat of instability emanates not from Serbia, but from the petty rivalries and intrigues of the major powers as they bicker over the fate of the region's peoples.
Philip Cunliffe is co-editor of Politics without Sovereignty: A Critique of Contemporary International Relations, UCL Press, 2007. Read more about the book here.
(1) Ian Traynor, Integration or isolation? Serbs go to polls with rivals neck and neck, Guardian, 20 January 2007
(2) Tara McCormack, Get Mladic, or else!
(3) Ian Traynor, Nationalists triumph in Serbian elections, Guardian, 22 January 2007
(4) BBC News, Serbian coalition struggle begins, 22 January 2007
Labels: elections, Serbia
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