The Perils of Kosovo’s Independence
by Srdja Trifkovic
Srdja TrifkovicItaly’s political forces of all color and hue are alarmed by
the possibility of Kosovo’s proposed independence even though some prefer to
pretend otherwise, Alleanza Nazionale Senator Alfredo Mantica, deputy
chairman of the Commission on Foreign Affairs, told me in Rome earlier this
month. Mantica, a veteran politician who was Italy’s deputy foreign minister
in Berlusconi’s coalition government, favors a pause of several months “to
reflect on this issue, and to consider the consequences of opening what may
well prove to be Pandora’s box.” Mantica has no doubt that Kosovo’s
independence would establish an important precedent, regardless of various
assurances from Washington and Brussels to the contrary. He fears that this
precedent would have the potential to destabilize Europe: the “right to
self-determination” would be invoked by every dissatisfied minority,
especially in the eastern half of the Old Continent.
Alfredo ManticaSenator Mantica regrets the fact that the position of Italy
in the European debate on Kosovo is weak, which reflects the lack of either
principled courage or imagination within the ruling leftist coalition. In
the beginning, he points out, the position of the Italian government was
totally different. Initially, after the end of the intervention by NATO in
1999, that position was based on the need to devise a form of specific
autonomy for Kosovo but not to consider independence as a viable option, let
alone support it. The focus at that time was on the well-known “109
Standards” for Kosovo, standards concerning the respect for human rights of
the Province’s minority communities, the rule of law, the return of
refugees, and so on, before any “final status” could be considered.
“The problem of Kosovo was perceived in Rome as a problem of Italy’s
national security,” Mantica says, “because we considered Kosovo a territory
incapable of introducing the rule of law. We realized that Kosovo was a
criminal would-be state whose criminality was largely directed against
Italy.” And yet, today, only Slovakia, Romania, Greece and Spain are voicing
unease with the proposed independence of Kosovo—and within the European
Union as a whole there is no focused resistance to the U.S. position on the
desirability of independence.
“We met recently with the U.N. mediator Marti Ahtisaari here in Rome,”
Mantica goes on, “and he insisted that Kosovo’s independence would not set a
precedent” for other countries with compact minority populations that wish
to secede:
We asked him about Abkhasia, Ossetia, Transdnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh,
northern Cyprus—and we found Mr. Ahtisaari very compliant with the American
perspective. Neither he nor the current Italian government are taking any
account of the position of Serbia. We have responded to Ahtisaari by
pointing out that the current ethnic balance between Kosovo’s Serbs and
Albanians is the result of the Albanians’ ethnic invasion, with only ten
percent of the population being Serbian. Ahtisaari even rejected the
suggestion that more time should be allowed for negotiations, saying that
too much time had passed already with no new ideas on the table. I asked him
personally, if the northern part of Kosovo should be allowed to remain with
Serbia, or if the Serbian Republic in Bosnia, the Republika Srpska, should
be able to join the Republic of Serbia. Is it not the case that Kosovo’s
independence would open a host of new problems? I have also noted that the
current borders of Serbia are not natural and historical but
administrative-political, and that—by contrast—the current borders of
Croatia have created a state far greater in geographic extent than the
historical Croatia.
Senator Mantica insists that Italy should not recognize any unilateral
declaration of independence of Kosovo that would seek to bypass the Security
Council, “not only for legal and political reasons, but also because of the
long historic ties between Italy and Serbia that hark back to World War I
and before.” The pressure from the United States is strong, he says, but in
Washington they cannot walk and chew gum at the same time: “Their absolute
priority right now is Iraq and Afghanistan, and Kosovo is low on their list
of priorities.”
When all is said and done, Manica continues, is it possible to imagine
Kosovo as a functional sovereign state? He thinks not, and would therefore
suggest a creative alternative: Kosovo as a province of Europe: “If we
assume that all of the Balkan countries will eventually enter the European
Union, it should be possible to envisage Kosovo entering Europe in a
different way, like a province administered by the Union itself.” He
nevertheless warns that is not in the capacity and authority of the EU to
make such a decision:
Personally I hold that we are still stuck with the destructive legacy of
Madeleine Albright. The policies pursued by the United States in her tenure
[as Secretary of State] have helped Al Qaeda in Europe. But the same spirit
is still present in Mr. Ahtisaari’s insistence that the Serbs of the Krajina
are not a problem, while the Albanians of Kosovo are a problem—although in
both cases the number of refugees was more or less the same.
The Italian government that agreed to NATO’s attack on Serbia in 1999 was a
government of the Left, Mantica points out, just as the current government,
which supports the Ahtisaari Plan is of the Left. Its prime minister at that
time is now foreign minister; and it is noteworthy that this government has
been notably supportive of the American position thus far. “The problem it
faces is that our Parliament would not support the government if it tried to
extend recognition of Kosovo’s independence that would bypass the UN
Security Council,” he concludes. “It is no longer possible to steamroll
decisions by asserting that Milosevic is a criminal and Tudjman or
Izetbegovic is a saint
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=199
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