Thought Leader (South Africa)
December 8, 2007
No independence for Kosovo
Grant Wallisher
The imminent independence of the province of Kosovo
from Serbia is at present the topic of hot debate and
flaring tempers up north.
The United States and many European nations are
solidly backing the call for an independent Kosovo,
while Serbia and her long-time ally Russia are
vociferously against such a move. The pro-independence
faction cites democracy and an end to ethnic and
religious tensions as the main reason for taking its
stance, and views Russia’s opposing view as
muscle-flexing and backing a long-time friend and ally
in Serbia.
While there is much to be said for the merits of a
fluffy democracy being patched together from a
war-ravaged region, the motives of the
pro-independence lobby do not appear to be any more
sincere than they were when it invaded Iraq to
liberate its people and find those weapons of mass
destruction to save us all from certain doom. To push
Serbia into accepting the loss of a sizeable chunk of
its sovereign territory without actually being
sensitive to the history and the implications would be
to create another Israeli-Palestinian conflict right
on Europe’s doorstep.
The history of Kosovo, and the Balkans in general, is
complex, bloody, much manipulated and a subject often
devolving into fierce argument. However, the generally
agreed facts are:
Slavic tribes comprising the nucleus of people that
became the modern Serbs moved south and settled the
lands of present-day Serbia and Kosovo during the
fifth and sixth centuries BC. That means that Serbs
have been present there for more than 1,400 years.
Albanians as a collective people were first recorded
in 1043, in Greece and not Kosovo, roughly 500 years
after the Serbs had settled the area. Efforts to place
them as a people in Kosovo using linguistic techniques
before this time have ended in pure speculation.
Roughly speaking, Serbs controlled Kosovo for the next
800 years before losing a major battle in 1389 on
Kosovo soil to the Turks of the Ottoman Empire, a
solemnly infamous battle in Serbian history.
There is some record of Albanians fighting on the
Serbian side in the battle, but whether they came from
present-day Albania or Kosovo is not known. At this
time fewer than 2% of the farms and homesteads in
Kosovo were Albanian by census.
During Ottoman rule, the majority of Albanians and a
few Serbs converted to Islam to avoid paying
oppressive taxes, but most Serbs were driven wholesale
from Kosovo and by the end of the 19th century, the
Albanian population eventually outnumbered the Serbian
population in the region for the first time.
During the Balkan wars of 1912, Serbia again gained
control over its long-lost province of Kosovo, then
promptly lost it when the Albanians in the region
sided with the central powers in World War I and drove
it out again. The Serbs then took control after the
war and were promptly driven out by Albanian fascist
forces that sided with Germany and Italy in World War
II. During the war, thousands of Serbs were killed by
the Albanian army — more than 100,000 were driven out
of Kosovo and actively replaced by ethnic Albanians
from Albania as part of that government’s policy to
dominate Kosovo ethnically.
That is an event that happened in living memory for
many older Serbs in the 1990s. After the war, Kosovo
became a Serbian province yet again and part of
Yugoslavia.
Under Tito, Kosovo was given federal autonomy in order
to weaken Serbia and thus strengthen Yugoslavia.
Albanian numbers increased rapidly to the point where
today they represent 90% of the population. Albanians
used various tactics, including violence and protests,
to push constantly for an independent,
Albanian-controlled state.
....
European negotiators actually brokered a ceasefire
during the Kosovo war that was promptly broken by the
Albanian KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) while Serbian
forces were retreating.
That brought new Serbian reprisals.
Nato began bombing Serbian positions in Kosovo and
eventually key strategic targets in Serbia and
Montenegro, one of the most famous of which was a
“stray” bomb that flattened the Chinese embassy on the
outskirts of Belgrade, the shell and rubble of which
can still be seen today among apartment blocks.
Since the end of the war, the UN has administered
Kosovo.
Hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Serbs have fled Kosovo
for Serbia after Albanian ethnic violence against them
and the burning of Serbian Orthodox churches and
homes.
The UN is largely impotent in containing regular
Albanian reprisals against the Serbian population
living in Kosovo today.
While this is a much-summarised history, I think it
presents a few interesting points for debate.
Firstly, one should perhaps modify the view of the
much-maligned Serbs being the only bad boys in this
nasty spat....
It would seem that the Nato bombing campaign needed a
“baddie” to appear justified, and the Serbs fitted the
bill nicely at the time.
The Western media played ball and what was actually a
simple decisive strategic action to end war being
waged too close for comfort to European borders became
the usual good-versus-evil Star Wars fodder dished up
to us by US broadcasters.
This has placed the Serbs on to the moral low ground
during the current negotiations for Kosovo. How
differently we would have looked at this if the
snapshot were taken during World War II when the
Albanians were bedfellows of the Germans and Italians
and engaged in their own campaign of ethnic cleansing
just 60 years ago.
Within that argument lies embedded the deeper issue:
Should Kosovo be granted its independence and on what
grounds?
Anyone on the ground knows that independence means
Albanian control, a probable coalition with Albania
itself and hellish reprisals against the last 100,000
Serbs living in the region as soon as Nato moves out.
Of course it is an extremely attractive proposition
for the Nato countries patrolling the area. They could
extricate themselves from the mess into which they
bombed themselves, claim to have installed a
democracy, stop paying aid and separate the Serbs and
Albanians for good. It’s attractive too for the
Albanian majority who get control of territory they
have been fighting over for hundreds of years.
What of the Serbs, though? They clearly have a strong
legitimate historical claim to the territory, the
territory is still a province of Serbia, the Nato
invasion and occupation of sovereign territory was a
breach of international law and external powers are
now deciding that Serbia’s national and religious
homeland will be removed regardless of their thoughts
on the matter.
It would appear they have a right to be concerned
about the events in progress when you review the
facts.
Enter Russia. It is looking past the emotive issues
and is worried about precedent. If Kosovo is
successful in its independence struggle, it will set a
precedent and give hope to regional minorities the
world over that they too can win their autonomy and
govern themselves. Russia is up to its eyeballs in
candidates there! It would seem it is thinking further
ahead than Europe and the US are.
Notable exceptions to the Nato voice include Spain.
The Spanish are concerned about independence claims in
its Basque region. What about Sri Lanka, the Congo,
Sudan, Indonesia, India (Oranje?) and countless other
regions with minority groups pushing for independence?
All have the same potential problem and that does not
even begin to address the growing issue of rapidly
increasing minority populations in parts of Western
Europe and the US.
How would the US react, for example, if Florida
declared its independence in 2020 because it had a
majority Spanish-speaking population that aligned
itself more with Castro than Bush? No different to the
Serbian situation in theory, perhaps, but would it
apply the same precedent and allow the independence it
is pushing so hard for in Kosovo? I somehow think not.
Independence for Kosovo is looking like a hasty Nato
patch-job for a prickly problem, and rather than fix
the mess it could create a whole new era of
instability, not just in Kosovo but also the world in
general. There must be a possible compromise, perhaps
involving a partition of Kosovo that includes
important religious and historical sites being
incorporated into Serbia and similar concessions made
for the Albanians.
Alternatively, federal autonomous control but not
independence has already been extended by Serbia to
Kosovo but rejected outright as a solution by the
Albanians, who sense that they can gobble up the whole
cake so why accept a slice?
It seems reasonable, given the history and the
investment by both sides, to revisit this idea. This
proposal also has merit when you consider that
Kosovo’s economy is largely dependent on Serbian
consumption for its survival and the reality for
Kosovo, should it break away, could be economic
collapse.
Whatever the final outcome, it is sure to set minds
and wheels in motion around the world. The turbulent
Balkans might even hold the key to future European and
global stability as they so often have in the past.
It’s not the time for a Band-Aid when stitches are
required.