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 U.S. signals a return to solving issues in Balkans
By Nicholas Wood The New York Times
BELGRADE, October 14, 2005 (Southeast European Times) -
Having receded from international attention since the ethnic wars of the 1990s,
the western Balkans seem likely to return to the spotlight in the months ahead
as the United States indicated it has made a substantial change of policy.
During a three-day visit to Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia, Nicholas Burns,
the State Department's under secretary for political affairs, said his
government was determined to "re-engage" in the region and tackle problems
lingering from the earlier conflicts.
In interviews and comments to
journalists over the three days, Burns said the United States saw a substantial
opportunity for change in the region, as power began to be transferred to local
authorities in Bosnia and Kosovo, powers that had been vested in the hands of
international forces. Those forces were in charge to enforce reforms and uphold
the peace.
The policy indicates a move away from agreements that
succeeded in bringing about an end to conflicts but that are now widely seen by
politicians and diplomats as poor foundations for stable development.
Nevertheless these agreements - the Dayton Accords in the case of Bosnia and a
UN Security Council resolution in Kosovo - have remained the blueprints for
policy.
As a result of these agreements and lacking local political
leadership the engage in reform, the region has been held back, according to
Burns, who is the third-highest-ranking figure in the State Department.
"This region has been victimized, because at the end of the Cold War
every other part of Central Europe and the former Soviet Union has had a chance
to reform, in a peaceful, relatively peaceful environment, and most of the
Balkans have not," he said.
Some of those proscribed changes are already
under way.
In Kosovo, preparations for talks on the future status of the
province have begun. The region's Albanian majority hopes it will lead to the
creation of independent state, but most of Kosovo's Serb minority want the
region to remain part of Serbia.
Burns said he expected the negotiations
to begin within 30 days, and that their conclusion would transfer substantial
powers to local authorities from the United Nations mission that has run the
region since the end of the war in 1999.
It was the recurrence of
violence across Kosovo in March 2004 that underlined the fragility of the
international community's role in the Balkans. More than 50,000 Albanians
attacked Serbs and other ethnic groups despite the presence of 17,000
peacekeeping troops. UN officials concluded that the violence demonstrated deep
popular frustration with the failure to resolve the province's future.
"This is a pressure cooker and people are not going to tolerate another
five years of not knowing who they are, what country they live in and what their
future is," Burns said.
In Bosnia, the risk of renewed violence is
regarded as minimal, but the country's Serb, Muslim and Croat population remain
deeply divided. Since the end of the war, international officials have sought to
forge a more unified state, but have made slow progress. The United States is
helping to convene a meeting of Bosnia's political leaders in Washington to mark
the 10th anniversary of the Dayton Accords; at that meeting, Burns said, he
hoped the leaders would agree on an undertaking aimed at ceding their powers to
a more unified state.
Bosnia's tripartite presidency - each ethnic group
has its own president - would be replaced with a single president, and the
powers of the federal parliament and prime minister would be reinforced.
At the same time, Burns suggested that there was a consensus in the
international community to phase out Bosnia's high representative, the country's
most senior international official, a position currently held by a former
British politician, Lord Ashdown. That job was established by the Dayton Accords
and the person holding it has the power to fire politicians and public officials
and to pass laws.
"Ten years is a long time for a country to be under
international stewardship, and it is time now to diminish the powers" of the
high representative "and give the locals that authority," Burns said.
In
both Bosnia and Kosovo, the speed as which these changes can take place will
depend on the willingness of the Serb leadership, much of which argues that it
has the most to lose.
Leaders of Bosnia's Serb Republic have
persistently opposed efforts to create a more centralized state at the expense
of their own "entity," as it is known.
Serbia's conservative prime
minister, Vojislav Kostunica, is opposed to holding talks on Kosovo's future.
During his visit to the region, Burns reiterated several times that the Serbian
government could not veto a negotiated settlement on the province.
A
Serbian government statement issued shortly after Kostunica met Burns in
Belgrade on Friday afternoon, suggested any agreement should be based on
compromise but that Kosovo should remain "within the existing boundary of Serbia
and Montenegro."
Serbia has yet to normalize its relations with the
United States, and is blocked from full membership in the European Union, over
its failure to find and arrest the region's leading war crimes suspects, Radovan
Karadzic, the wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs and his military commander
Ratko Mladic.
Were Serbia to hand over both men to the International
Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and accept a negotiated settlement
on the future of Kosovo, it would be assured of closer ties with both the
European Union and the United States.
"I think that will also be a key
way for Serbia to escape its past," said Burns. "If Serbia wants to look
forward, it has to look backward in order to atone for its mistakes of the
1990s."
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