Kosovo's Continuing Tragedy
An old saying in Washington urges one to "believe nothing until it has been
officially denied." Washington, Brussels, and the UN have been denying for
years that their policies in the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo have in
effect established a quasi-independent state, which would eventually
officially separate from Serbia. Their deeds, however, betray the falsehood
of their words. Kosovo is inching toward independence every day, as pressure
grows on Serbia to accept it as fait accompli and "move on" into the hungry
maw of the EU.
A Visa by Any Other Name
Last Thursday, Kosovo's UN administration (UNMIK) called a special press
conference, at which deputy viceroy Larry Rossin bludgeoned the media for
calling UNMIK's new regulations a "visa regime." The "visibly angry" Rossin
repeated three times during the conference, "This is not a visa regime!"
(Reuters)
Reuters explains that after six years of blissfully allowing people to come
and go to Kosovo as they pleased, UNMIK finally decided that controlling
access to the occupied territories might be a good idea. Starting in July,
visitors to Kosovo - excluding the occupiers and, interestingly enough,
anyone from Serbia - would need a special stamp in their passports
authorizing their presence.
Albanians protested that this would present an obstacle to their ethnic kin
in Albania proper and Macedonia, who have been roaming freely (with guns, no
less) through the region since 1999. This may yet be the case. However,
UNMIK could have implemented this kind of border control at any point,
especially during the KLA "insurrections" in inner Serbia and Macedonia, yet
it chose not to do so. In fact, it had an obligation to do so in June 1999,
when unknown thousands of Albanian citizens "returned" to claim Serb
property in "liberated" Kosovo. By Rossin's own admission, the regulation
was "first discussed" after Sept. 11, 2001. Surely there is a reason for
introducing it at this particular time, other than bureaucratic
inefficiency?
It could, for example, be a backdoor way to give Kosovo more attributes of
statehood. These visas - or authorization stamps, whatever - do not apply to
"citizens of Kosovo," as Reuters (and presumably Rossin) put it. Only states
have citizenship. Occupied provinces, as a general rule, do not.
Freedom of Debt
On Tuesday, UNMIK signed an agreement with the European Investment Bank
(EIB), allowing the institution to lend money to the "provisional
government" of Kosovo. UN viceroy Soren Jessen-Petersen hailed the agreement
as an "important precedent that will help attract other international
financial institutions extending loans for Kosovo." (BBC)
It is a precedent, indeed. Only states get foreign loans; occupied
provinces, as a rule, do not. Kosovo, therefore, could not quality for loans
from the World Bank or the IMF. However, rather than funding progress,
foreign loans most often lead to penury. Yugoslavia was heavily indebted to
the IMF and others in order to maintain a welfare state. Some have argued
that the debt crisis, not nationalism, was at the root of its demise. Much
of the IMF/WB funding was incurred for massive investments in Kosovo - and
right now, that debt is being serviced by Serbia.
One of the salient features of the occupation has been its trampling of
property rights. UNMIK has been "privatizing" land and enterprises it had
simply seized and declared "property of Kosovo," even though many rightly
belonged to the Serbian government, or in the case of land, to the Serbian
Orthodox Church. The province itself is stolen property, seized by force
from Belgrade in 1999.
Of course, all of this would impede economic development; widespread theft
does that. All of UNMIK's efforts so far have been toward declaring the
theft legitimate and moving on from there. This loan initiative is no
different.
Burying the Cave
Remains discovered in a Kosovo cave three weeks ago were those of Serbs
captured or abducted by the KLA, UNMIK investigators confirmed. Most wire
services that reported the original discovery called the bodies
"non-Albanians," and few followed up with the official result. Only
Christian Jennings of The Scotsman wrote about it in any detail, though he
appeared far more fascinated with "fish-burgers with tartar sauce from a
mobile canteen" the German security detail was having for lunch than with
the relatives mourning the dead, which had been "dumped under a camouflaging
layer of old cars, animal bones, earth, and rubbish."
The pro-Albanian Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) used the
discovery to argue it could help resolve the issue of missing Albanians, and
to highlight Albanian tolerance. According to Jeta Bejtullahu, human rights
activist from Pristina, the unbiased reporting of the find in the Kosovo
media "shows Kosovo Albanian society is ready to accept that Serbs, although
on a much smaller scale, were also victims in the Kosovo war."
One could argue that the Serbs were the absolute victims in the Kosovo war -
robbed of their homes, slandered as "genocidal aggressors," subjected to
pogroms, beatings, burnings and bombings, exiled and not allowed to return.
But Bejtullahu's Serbian counterpart, who heads an organization by the same
name ("Humanitarian Law Center") in Belgrade, is not only not making such a
case, but busily fabricating stories of Serb atrocities against Albanians -
which the IWPR duly publishes.
Land of Confusion
As usual, Belgrade's reaction to the events in Kosovo has been late,
insufficient, or nonexistent. In fact, if anyone has commented at all on the
"visa regime," the UNMIK loan precedent, or the cave discovery, he has yet
to be quoted by the wires.
A Serbian government plan for Kosovo, posted on the Web, illustrates the
problem with Belgrade's approach to the province. It accepts at face value
all the claptrap about multi-ethnicity and "human rights" embedded in
UNMIK's rhetoric, effectively conceding the legitimacy of the occupation.
Belgrade also declares it would only accept a "compromise" solution for
Kosovo. But a compromise with what? The Albanian desire for independence,
which they believe is a "done deal"? To compromise, one has to have a
specific position, from which it is then possible to split the difference.
Even assuming the Albanians would agree, what is Belgrade's position? What
does "more than autonomy, less than independence" actually mean?
If there is any one lesson of the 1990s Balkans wars - well, besides "Make
sure the Empire is on your side" - it would be that those with coherent
demands, however extreme, triumph over those who waffle and appease. Look at
Croatia sans Serbs, or centralizing Bosnia, or eviscerated Macedonia.
About the closest anyone in Serbia has come to a straightforward position is
the recent interview of Belgrade's ambassador to Athens, Dusan Batakovic,
who said:
"There is no separate 'Kosovar' nation with a separate identity; there are
only Albanians and Serbs.. The independence of Kosovo would mean the
partition of Serbia. Whenever it is said there can be no partition of
Kosovo, I always agree, because there can be no partition of Serbia,
either."
Forcing Consent
The Empire needs to get Serbian consent for the separation of Kosovo, to
maintain at least a veneer of legitimacy over that naked land grab. This is
why Richard Holbrooke is talking about "choosing Kosovo or the EU," and why
pathetic quislings like former FM Svilanovic have been enlisted to support
independence.
Propaganda notwithstanding, what happened in 1999 was rape; the only way the
rapists can get off the hook is by bullying the victim to say it was
consensual. It really is up to Belgrade to make a choice on Kosovo:
acknowledge the criminal Imperial "reality," or defend its rights? It is
impossible to do both.
http://antiwar.com/malic/
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