Three Months After Independence Declared, Kosovo Still Faces Uncertain Future

By Peter Lippman

A Kosovo Albanian shepherd (l) and French NATO peacekeeping troops watch helicopters taking off near the French military camp in Belvedere, in the divided northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica, on April 29, the first day of a two-day military exercise designed to demonstrate readiness for rapid intervention (AFP photo/Laura Boushnak.)

ON FEB. 17 of this year, the Albanian citizens of Pristina, Kosovo ate cake. Created in the shape of Kosovo, the cake in question, weighed one and a half tons and was served to hundreds of thousands of people gathered at Mother Teresa Square, in the center of Kosovo’s capital city. The occasion: independence for the former Serbian province.

Nine years after NATO intervention and the province’s violent separation from Serbia, Albanian leaders officially declared the long dreamed-for independence of this 90 percent Albanian territory. By early May close to 40 countries, including the United States and most of the European Union (EU), had recognized its independence, and Arab League and Caribbean states were promising to do so shortly. When Kosovo will achieve true independence, however, is entirely up in the air.

Kosovo’s road to independence began during the 1998-1999 war between Albanian rebels and the Serbian army and special police. During the 10-year rule of President Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian regime had converted Kosovo into a place that uncannily resembled occupied Palestine: the province’s majority Albanian population was subject to firings, school closures, arrest without charge, torture, and random murder of civilians. During the 80 years of Serbian rule prior to Milosevic, Albanians were second-class citizens at best, with vicious repression occurring on a cyclical basis. Not surprisingly, this resulted in Albanians yearning to be free of Serbia.

It was not always this way; until Yugoslavia dissolved in the early 1990s, most Albanians were willing to live side by side with the Serbs, at most seeking a separate republic within a common state. But with the destruction by Serb forces of hundreds of villages, and the expulsion of over 800,000 Albanians before and during the NATO intervention, the Albanians’ willingness to live under a Serbian regime disappeared forever.

This fact was recognized by the international officials heading the U.N. interim administration of Kosovo (officially, the U.N. Mission in Kosovo, or UNMIK). Serbian leaders, too, recognized the inevitability of Kosovo’s independence, though few of them admitted it; to do so publicly would have been political suicide. After all, saber-rattling against the Albanians continues to be a successful—in fact, obligatory—political strategy.

UNMIK’s governance of Kosovo beginning in mid-1999 was beset by intractable problems. Violence between Albanians and Serbs flared periodically, with Albanians—in contrast to earlier times—holding the upper hand in persecution of the Serbs. Serbs are now trapped in small enclaves around several parts of Kosovo, but control most of the northern city of Mitrovica, preventing displaced Albanians from returning to their pre-war homes in that area. Around half of the approximately 100,000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo live in this northern enclave which, sharing a border with Serbia, has not become incorporated into the breakaway province. Meanwhile, for Serbs and Albanians alike, the economy is in a disastrous state, with little foreign investment, regular energy shortages, and high unemployment.

In the opinion of the international officials trying to run Kosovo, along with their Albanian protégés, these problems cannot be solved without a long-term resolution of Kosovo’s status, guaranteeing stability. Finnish diplomat Marti Ahtisaari led U.N.-sponsored negotiations between Serbian and Kosovar Albanian representatives for most of 2006 and 2007, but the two parties’ positions were immovable from the start. The Albanians would accept nothing less than complete independence, and Belgrade was not about to relinquish the territory that it considered the “cradle of Serbian civilization.”

Independent at Last?

For a time, early in 2007, it looked like the U.N. Security Council was going to declare Kosovo’s independence. However, Russia, in a surprise move, made it known that it would veto such a move. Finally, with the backing of the United States and much of the EU, Kosovo’s Albanian leaders issued a unilateral declaration of independence. The announcement declared Kosovo a “democratic, secular, and multi-ethnic society,” and expressed a strong commitment to protect minority rights.

Predictably, the reaction on the part of Serbs throughout the region was stormy. In the third week of February, tens of thousands of Serbs demonstrated in Belgrade; some hundreds split off and attacked the U.S. Embassy, burning part of it (one rioter died of smoke inhalation inside the embassy); other embassies were attacked as well, along with Western businesses such as McDonald’s and Benetton. Some Belgrade residents used the unrest as an opportunity to go on what one commentator called a “shopping spree on a zero budget.”

The Serbian government issued an angry response, its spokesmen vowing that Serbia would take “all possible diplomatic, political, and economic measures to reverse” the declaration. The response among citizens who were interviewed throughout Serbia was mixed. Some expressed disinterest, saying they had never been to Kosovo and were much more worried about making ends meet. But one mother with two sons of military age declared that she was willing to have them die for the preservation of Kosovo within Serbian borders.

As the number of nations recognizing Kosovo’s independence grew, Belgrade withdrew its envoys from many of them, including several neighboring countries that recognized Kosovo in early April. Recognition was not unanimous, however; several EU members, including Romania, Greece and Spain, refused to recognize an independent Kosovo because of concerns about encouraging their own potentially unruly minority populations.

Not only those who opposed Kosovo’s independence protested the unilateral declaration, however. The grassroots Kosovar organization Vetevendosje (“Self-determination”) criticized the pending transition for providing too much extraterritorial power to the Serbian government, resulting in a de facto partition of Kosovo. Vetevendosje also strenuously objects to the fact that, in its opinion, the international community, in the form of NATO, the U.N. and the European Union, continue to hold the preponderance of state power in Kosovo.

As winter turned to spring, unrest in Serbia continued to flare up, with indications that it was encouraged and possibly organized by the Serbian government. Serbian policemen abandoned Kosovo’s multi-ethnic police force, while Serbs in northern Kosovo attempted to take over the railways in that area, and Serbs from both sides of the border attacked and burned two border checkpoints.

“It might not be nice, but it is legitimate,” Serbia’s Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic said of the violence at the border crossings. The violence escalated in mid-March, when hundreds of Serb protesters, throwing stones and hand grenades, managed to dislodge U.N. troops guarding a courthouse in Mitrovica. During this fracas a Ukrainian soldier was killed and dozens on both sides were wounded. Protesters occupied the building for a couple of days, until UNMIK forces took it back.

International officials and Albanian leaders are arguing against partition of Kosovo; significantly, some Kosovo Serb leaders agree—an annexation of the Mitrovica enclave to Serbia will not help the significant number of Serbs living in other parts of the territory. In effect, however, Kosovo has been partitioned since 1999, and today that partition is becoming reinforced. Samardzic is promoting himself as the ultimate authority of the Serb-controlled northern sector, where the main currency is the Serbian dinar, rather than the euro commonly used in the rest of Kosovo. And Serbs in this area use the Serbian telephone, health and educational systems.

Foreign Manipulation and Regional Repercussions

The resurgent political power of Russia has played a significant role in the unfolding of events regarding Kosovo over the last couple of years. Riding on a wave of economic success due to its status as a major supplier of natural gas to Europe, Russia wields ever-larger influence on the European scene, and is striving to re-connect with its traditional spheres of influence, one of which is Serbia. Since Moscow sided with Belgrade against Kosovo’s independence, Serb demonstrators throughout the region have been carrying pictures of Vladimir Putin to their protests.

Upon Kosovo’s declaration of independence, Russia began to agitate for its partition, saying Serbs would be safer if those who live in parts of the territory outside of Mitrovica would all move to the north. Meanwhile, although Belgrade adamantly opposes Kosovo’s independence on a declarative level, since the declaration it has ceased paying the latter’s foreign debts. In a way, this constitutes an admission that Kosovo is no longer part of Serbia.

Manipulation of the independence declaration has been widespread throughout the Balkans. A prominent example is the Republika Srpska, Bosnia’s Serb-controlled entity, where Prime Minister Milorad Dodik periodically threatens to hold a referendum on secession. While such a referendum is prohibited by the Dayton agreement, such exhortations enhance Dodik’s already-strong popularity among his constituency. Heightened Bosnian tension around the time of Kosovo’s declaration of independence was accompanied by attacks on Albanians living in Bosnia.

Looming Problems

The international community has very probably forestalled another outbreak of violence throughout Kosovo, similar to the widespread riots of spring 2004, by allowing the unilateral declaration of independence to be made. But the declaration may have only temporarily ameliorated long-term dissatisfaction. True independence remains in the realm of fantasy. This already is clear to the activists of Vetevendosje, and will soon enough become evident to the rest of Kosovo’s Albanians. Kosovo is not being allowed an army, and Russia and Serbia will block its membership in the United Nations. Entry into the EU will be gradual at best. What is worse, Kosovo’s economy remains in a shambles, and all of its inhabitants, regardless of ethnicity, are suffering for it.

One current snafu is the transition from U.N. to EU administration. Soon after the declaration of independence, the EU began sending administrators, along with around 2,000 security troops and legal officials. EULEX, the EU’s new law-and-order mission, is set to become Kosovo’s main international supervisory body. UNMIK was expected to cede power to the EU, but directives for an orderly transition have been lacking. Some UNMIK officials are saying there is no mandate for them to hand over their powers. It looks as if the two authorities will be competing for a time, alternately flinging criticisms at and ignoring each other. Russia and Serbia, needless to say, strenuously object to the introduction of the EU body.

Meanwhile, a main part of the EU’s plan for achieving stability in the region has hit a pothole. Of Yugoslavia’s six former republics, only Bosnia and Serbia have been held back on the route to EU accession, and Bosnia looked set to sign a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with Brussels in May. After a long delay, the EU signed an SAA with Belgrade, in an apparent move to encourage Serbians to ally with the West rather than Russia. However, given European support for Kosovo’s independence declaration, there is strong resentment of the EU in Serbia at this time. In any case, the SAA will not begin to be implemented before remaining fugitive indicted Serbian war criminals are handed over to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. This pre-ordained delay renders the signing of the SAA all the more symbolic, and obviously a ploy to influence Serbian politics.

Even before Kosovo’s Feb. 17 declaration of independence, the Serbian parliament had adopted a statement that “annulled” such a declaration. Since then, a significant number of Serbian officials have been insisting that their country would join the EU only with Kosovo as part of Serbia, or not at all. Other politicians, more realistic and “Western-oriented,” have argued in favor of going ahead with accession. Contention on this issue caused the governing parliamentary coalition to dissolve in March, and new elections were held May 11. Billed as a referendum on Serbia’s accession to the EU after Kosovo’s separation, a strong plurality voted for the Democratic Party, the main “pro-Europe” party. Party chief Boris Tadic and EU leaders were quick to proclaim the election a victory for the Western-leaning tendency in Serbia. However, Serbia’s parliamentary system requires a majority coalition that may, in fact, be easier for the nationalist parties to form. Coalition-building negotiations are underway, but could take weeks or even months to bear fruit.

In light of the ongoing turbulence, critics of Kosovo’s independence may be right when they assert that the separation will cause instability in the region. But these critics have not proposed solutions to the problem. One would be to allow Kosovo complete self-determination, while insisting on protection of minorities, ensuring secure borders, and encouraging international investment. Another might be to reinforce democratic forces in Serbia, without compromising on the issue of Belgrade’s cooperation with the Hague war crimes tribunal.

Peter Lippman is an independent human rights activist based in Seattle.