407 May 2007 Morning Edition
Kosovo
* US and EU warn Russia not to veto independence proposal for Kosovo
(FT)
* Kosovo PM hopes independence weeks away (AFP)
* A better plan for Kosovo (The Christian Science Monitor)
* Gathering of Serbian nationalists on Kosovo raises dark specter
(IHT)
* Serb ex-militia members vow to fight for Kosovo (AP)
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Kosovo
US and EU warn Russia not to veto independence proposal for Kosovo
DANIEL DOMBEY and NEIL MACDONALD
Financial Times UK
The US and the European Union are seeking to push through a United Nations
resolution on Kosovo this month, warning Russia that if it vetoes any
suchmeasure it will be responsible for any resulting violence or instability
in the province. US and European officials hope that, despite recent
friction between Russia and the west on a range of topics, Moscow will
abstain rather than veto the plan.
"It would be quite a big step if Russia blocked a resolution of what is
fundamentally a European issue," said a senior British official.
"I would hope that the Security Council would agree this month for the
simple reason that the meeting at the G8 can agree on a more positive agenda
(at its June 6-8 summit)," said Martti Ahtisaari, the UN's mediator for
Kosovo, last week. "Otherwise this issue will haunt that meeting as well."
He added, referring to his plan to give Kosovo "supervised independence"
under the EU and Nato: "In light of my experience of the past year and a
half, this is the only possible solution."
He predicted that an international presence would be required in Kosovo for
another five years or so.
Russia has consistently said that any deal needs to be backed by both the
Serbs and the Kosovo Albanians and has repeatedlydismissed the Ahtisaari
plan.
The argument made by Washington and Brussels is that a Russian veto will be
indefensible, since it will be European and US peacekeepers who will be
caught in the middle if the lack of a decisive outcome leads Kosovo to
spiral out of control.
"It's sure that the Kosovars will declare independence under any
circumstances," said Albert Rohan, Mr Ahtisaari's deputy. "The question is:
'Do we want this process to be handled in an orderly way or in a rather
messy way?' . . . Russia cannot simply say no to a solution which is orderly
even if it is not an ideal one."
This argument assumes that Europe and the US can win a majority of UN
Security Council members to their side, but the senior British official said
the Ahtisaari plan was backed by 11 or 12 of the 15 countries on the
council.
He added that rather than simply declaring Kosovo independent, a UN
resolution would give the province a "platform" for independence, by giving
it the right to join international organisations.
As a result, he said, Russia could still refuse to recognise Kosovo, even
after a resolution was passed, and could even veto a specific Kosovan
application to join the UN.
Nicholas Burns, US undersecretary of state, said that the US and the EU
would probably start circulating a draft resolution at the UN this week.
"We hope very much that Russia is going to work with us and be a productive
member of this group," he said.
"It's hard to stop history," he added. Settling Kosovo's status has been
further complicated by the lack of a fully functioning government in
Belgrade.
Parliament is to convene today although rival parties have still failed to
form a governing coalition since inconclusive January 21 elections.
At the weekend, about 200 men, including veterans of the 1990s Yugoslav
wars, gathered outside a central Serbian church vowing to fight as
paramilitaries rather than accept the loss of 15 per cent of their country
to ethnic Albanian separatists.
Kosovo PM hopes independence weeks away
ZAGREB, May 6, 2007 (AFP) - Kosovo's prime minister said on Sunday that he
hoped the Serbian province would gain independence in a matter of weeks,
while ruling out a future union with neighbouring Albania.
"I sincerely hope that Kosovo will be independent very soon," Agim Ceku told
Croatian national television HRT, adding that it could come in a few weeks.
As for the possibility of forming a union with Albania, Ceku said Kosovo was
more interested in European Union membership.
"There is only one plan for a union -- with the European Union," he said.
A plan developed by UN mediator Martti Ahtisaari to provide internationally
supervised independence for Kosovo is expected to be taken up soon at the UN
Security Council.
Serbia and Russia have steadfastly opposed the move, while the United States
and the European Union have supported it.
Moscow has threatened to wield its veto at the Security Council to block the
plan, while Serbia has proposed "monitored autonomy" instead of independence
for the province.
Ceku is to attend a summit of leaders from southeastern European countries
in Zagreb on Thursday and Friday. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica
is also scheduled to attend.
Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since 1999, when a NATO
bombing campaign ended a crackdown by Belgrade forces on
independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.
A better plan for Kosovo
Independence sets a bad precedent. Partition is better.
By Hurst Hannum
The Christian Science Monitor
HONG KONG
One of the most cherished principles of international law - the territorial
integrity of states - is about to be undone as part of the latest Western
attempt to cover up failure in the Balkans. The UN envoy to Kosovo, Martti
Ahtisaari, recommends that Kosovo become independent. Despite the reaction
of Serbia's moderate president, Boris Tadic, who told Mr. Ahtisaari that
"neither Serbia nor I, as its president, will ever accept the independence
of Kosovo," the Security Council will be asked to dismember a sovereign UN
member state for the first time in its history.
Even though the Security Council has repeatedly reaffirmed the territorial
integrity of what is now Serbia, Ahtisaari and his Western supporters have
changed their minds. There are two possible explanations. The first is
simply that Ahtisaari has taken the more politically popular position (at
least in the West), ignoring international law in favor of pragmatism and
completing the West's oversight of the disintegration of Yugoslavia. The
second is that Kosovo's independence is justified as a means of punishing
Serbs for the killings and mass expulsions that were unleashed against
Kosovar Albanians after the beginning of the NATO bombing campaign against
Serbia in 1999.
The first explanation would be difficult to challenge, if only earlier
pragmatism had been more successful. Instead, the former Yugoslavia is now
composed of six independent states, most of which are significantly more
ethnically pure than before the wars. Nationalism has not disappeared, and
Ahtisaari's assertion that "Kosovo shall be a multiethnic society" will not
make it so.
The second explanation has greater appeal, since Serb forces did commit
international crimes in Kosovo both before and during the NATO bombing. But
it is based on only a half-truth, conveniently ignoring the fact that both
Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo have sought to repress the other whenever they
have had the power to do so. In the year before the NATO campaign, it is
estimated that approximately 2,000 people were killed in Kosovo, mostly
ethnic Albanians killed by Serbs. In the year following the NATO
intervention, approximately 2,000 people also were killed in Kosovo, this
time mostly Serbs killed by Kosovar Albanians. Both Serb and Albanian
leaders have been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
Since the UN protectorate over Kosovo was created in 1999, there is little
evidence that the Albanian majority in Kosovo is willing or able to protect
the small number of Serbs who remain in the territory, most of them in
protected enclaves.
What, then, to do? Rather than dictate separation, the only course
consistent with both international law and long-term stability in the
Balkans is to continue to press for a negotiated settlement between Kosovo
and Serbia. Unfortunately, the one option that might encourage such a
settlement is partitioning Kosovo, which has been inexplicably rejected by
international mediators from the beginning. Partition is not without its
problems, but it would serve the interests of both parties better than the
all-or-nothing option offered by Ahtisaari.
Ceding the northern part of Kosovo to Serbia would enable most Serbs now in
Kosovo to remain within Serbia, and it may be acceptable to Kosovar
Albanians if it is part of a final settlement that includes full and
unconditional independence. Of course, those Serbs who remain scattered
throughout Kosovo would be at risk, but their small numbers would constitute
a minimal threat to the new state. Ensuring that Serbs have access to
monasteries and other holy places within Kosovo would encourage economic and
other ties between Serbia and Kosovo, which all observers agree are
necessary for Kosovo's long-term viability.
Conditions in the Balkans and the desire of diplomats to "do something"
cannot justify overturning two basic principles of international law:
territorial integrity and the nonacquisition of territory by force.
Insisting on independence for Kosovo is likely to trigger a Security Council
veto by Russia and/or China, which would raise the stakes and make the
situation even more untenable. UN-mandated independence after an armed
intervention by outsiders would embolden separatists everywhere. And denying
statehood to other groups that have suffered at least as much (Kurds,
Tamils, and Chechens, for example) would make a mockery of morality and
consistency. Adopting the Ahtisaari proposal would mean that might makes
right in the Balkans, and it would serve neither peace nor justice.
. Hurst Hannum is Sir Y.K. Pao Professor of Public Law at the University of
Hong Kong and professor of international law at Tufts University's Fletcher
School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Mass.
Gathering of Serbian nationalists on Kosovo raises dark specter
IHT
KRUSEVAC, Serbia: Hard-line nationalists gathered in this city Saturday with
a plan to "save Kosovo" as a part of Serbia. But there was a shadow of the
paramilitary groups that caused untold trouble in the 1990s.
Dozens of veterans of the Balkan wars of that decade pledged allegiance to a
new paramilitary force willing to fight and die to prevent Kosovo from
breaking away into a new entity dominated by its ethnic Albanian majority.
The prospect of an independent Kosovo seems increasingly close, and it has
the backing of much of the United Nations Security Council, except Russia.
While Serbia has said it seeks to oppose that plan by diplomatic means,
Saturday's gathering raised the specter of the violence of the past.
In the 1990s, paramilitary groups with names like White Eagles, the
Scorpions, the Tigers and the Red Berets were backed and financed by Serbia
and used as surrogate armies to seize land through out former Yugoslavia.
They stand accused of committing some of most notorious war crimes of the
wars.
"We who have been through previous wars would like to shoulder the burden of
Kosovo," said Zeljko Vasiljevic, president of the Serb Veterans' Movement
and the leader of a new group, the Guard of Tzar Lazar.
The gathering was small, but Vasiljevic said 5,000 men were ready to join.
The force is named after Prince Lazar, the Serbian leader who lost his life
fighting the Turks in Kosovo in 1389.
Yet if the Saturday gathering proved anything, it is that the era of
Serbia's paramilitary groups is over, said analysts for a human rights group
and for group trying to solve the conflict. Perhaps most significant, 27
Tzar Lazar volunteers were arrested as they arrived in Krusevac, indicating
that the government will not tolerate new paramilitary groups.
Yet Serbian feelings over Kosovo are intense. Former fighters from all over
Serbia had driven to Krusevac for the occasion. Milovasa Obred, a
40-year-old Serbian veteran of the war in Croatia, said he had found dozens
of former comrades ready to volunteer for Kosovo.
Next to him stood, Sinisa Draskovic, a veteran who was wounded three times
while fighting with Serbian forces in Croatia and Bosnia. Visible beneath
his short hair was a scar that he said had been left by a sniper's bullet in
Croatia.
One man was wearing a T-shirt with the words "catch me" under the photograph
of Ratko Mladic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army and wanted
war-crimes suspect.
At various intervals, wedding guests and a bride and groom moved through the
crowd of former fighters to enter Saint Lazar's Church, making the gathering
seem even more bizarre. "I am afraid of these people," Ivana Djosic, a
member of the wedding party, said of the veterans. "We do not want another
war. These things always start little by little."
Talk of Kosovo's becoming a separate state remains taboo in Serbian
politics. Politicians and public figures who suggest the notion have been
heavily criticized by the government and some have come under physical
attack.
"There is no doubt that Kosovo raises high emotions," said Vesna Pesic, an
opposition politician whose window was smashed. But she accused the
government of fanning the tensions, saying, "They are raising people's
expectations, and this is extremely dangerous."
Still, several analysts said they were encouraged by the government's
response to the Saturday meeting of war veterans. The government earlier
warned that the creation of any armed group was illegal. "This has a
reassuring political effect," said Vojin Dimitrijevic, the director of the
Belgrade Center for Human Rights, a nongovernment group.
He said the arrests indicated a different approach by the secret services,
which were implicated in the support of paramilitary groups in the 1990s.
James Lyon, director of the International Crisis Group in Serbia, said, "It
is a sign that Serbia does not want a military confrontation with the West
over Kosovo."
Members of the Guard of Tzar Lazar dispersed. A few left the church and
headed to the police station, where they stood outside in the sunshine,
licking chocolate ice-cream and waiting for their fellow volunteers to be
released.
Serb ex-militia members vow to fight for Kosovo
AP
BELGRADE, Serbia - Hundreds of burly former militiamen from the Balkan wars
regrouped outside a church in central Serbia on Saturday, promising to fight
together as a paramilitary unit once more if Kosovo breaks away from the
government in Belgrade.
Twenty-seven people were detained, all wearing T-shirts with symbols of the
disbanded Unit for Special Operations, whose former commander and several
members are on trial for the 2003 assassination of Serbia's reformist Prime
Minister Zoran Djindjic.
"We will never give up Kosovo, we are ready to fight," said one of the
organizers, Andrej Milic.
Milic added their unit will be available to the government if Serbia goes to
war, and called for a "new Serb uprising and a new battle for Kosovo."
The event illustrated the mounting nationalism here over the Western-backed
plan to allow Kosovo to split from Serbia as demanded by its ethnic Albanian
majority.
Many of those in Krusevac on Saturday wore military uniforms with
nationalist symbols typical of the notorious units accused of atrocities
during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. Some wore
T-shirts with images of the U.N. war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic.
Kosovo is formally part of Serbia, but is dominated by ethnic Albanians who
are seeking independence. The region has been run by the United Nations
since a 1998-99 Serb-Albanian war.
Talks on the formation of a new pro-Western government in Serbia, meanwhile,
remain deadlocked, triggering a political crisis that could pave the way for
the return to power of the nationalists loyal to ex-leader Slobodan
Milosevic.
The United States and its allies favor internationally supervised
independence for the province, as proposed in the U.N. plan, but Russia
opposes it, signaling a possible showdown at the U.N. Security Council,
which will have the final say on the matter.
Most Serbs consider Kosovo the heartland of their history and culture. The
government in Belgrade has rejected the plan.
There was no immediate reaction from the Serbian government to the veterans'
gathering in Krusevac, although creation of paramilitary units in Serbia is
illegal.
The volunteer units were first founded in the early 1990s, during the rule
of the late Milosevic, who took Serbia to four wars during his decade-long
rule.
Dragoljub Vasiljevic, one of the volunteers who came to Krusevac on Saturday
denied the brutality allegations, telling the Beta news agency that they
were "honorable and brave" fighters.
The organizers said that their unit will be named after a medieval Serb
leader, Czar Lazar, who reportedly led the Serb army in a crucial battle
against the Ottoman Turks in Kosovo in 1389
