ANALYSIS: Kosovo, NATO and Montenegro strain Serbian coalition
Belgrade - The Serbian government coalition, forged three months ago under huge
pressure from the West, already seems worn out over key issues and has been
sending contradictory, confusing signals ahead of crucial decisions on the
country's future status. The uneasy alliance of President Boris Tadic's
Democratic Party (DS) and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party
of Serbia (DSS) was produced to avert the rise of ultra-nationalists to power
or repeat elections and reset the country's course towards NATO and the
European Union.
But Kostunica, a nationalist himself, has become an increasingly loud
Russophile, while the pro-Western Tadic appears helplessly carried away in a
bid to remain moderate amid resurging nationalist rhetoric, reminiscent of the
1990s.
Despite winning far more votes in January's polls than the DSS, Tadic and the
DS have been weakened by the Kosovo rhetoric, a nationalist trademark, to the
point of being blackmailed into conceding the post of prime minister to
Kostunica in May.
It has become worse for the DS since. Most recently, in a dangerous populist
turn, the DSS has started pushing for Serbia's turn away from the West and even
hinted at a possible violent response from Belgrade in case Kosovo declares
independence.
Kosovo, where Serbia has had no say in government since NATO ousted it in 1999
to stop bloodshed, has been the sacred source of rhetoric for Serbian
nationalists.
But the breakaway province is vastly dominated by majority Albanians who
impatiently expect independence this year - which would force Serbian
politicians to do something, one way or another.
After eight years of life in a diplomatic and economic limbo, the Albanians
expect the West, particularly the United States, to promote what is still
nominally Serbia's province into a sovereign state.
That outcome would degrade any pro-Western leader into a traitor, again in a
manoeuvre commonly practised during the Slobodan Milosevic era.
Kosovo independence appeared to be on the verge of happening already in
mid-2007, but Serbia's awakened ally Russia blocked the process in the United
Nations and delayed the decision on Kosovo at least until mid-December by
forcing three more months of talks.
Serbs and Albanians will certainly not find a mutually acceptable solution -
which everybody hopes for, but nobody expects - as the Serbs are adamantly
insisting on sovereignty over Kosovo and the Albanians want nothing less than
independence.
Meanwhile, Kostunica has been gushing love for Moscow, offering the national
economy to Russian investors, while launching an anti- NATO campaign, accusing
the alliance of aiming to build a "NATO state" in Kosovo.
In another populist move, his DSS launched an initiative to block Serbia's
approach to NATO.
The hostility peaked when the state secretary for Kosovo and DSS cadre, Dusan
Prorokovic, hinted that Serbia could deploy its armed forces to the UN-run and
NATO-protected territory to prevent independence.
That time Washington reacted, saying Thursday that it would "seek
clarification" of the "inflammatory and unfortunate" remark.
While Kostunica remained silent, Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac, the most
hawkish advocate of Belgrade's western course among the DS leaders, verbally
slapped Prorokovic for "waving an empty gun" and warned him to "keep his nose
in his own ministry."
While a reaction to the possible declaration of Kosovo's independence has not
been defined, "there will be no unilateral military response to it," Sutanovac
told Friday's edition of the daily Blic.
He also assured that Serbia's course toward NATO was not in question, but the
damage may have already been inflicted and the tear in the ruling coalition
widened.
It was the same disjointed message with Serbia's former sister republic
Montenegro, which formally sought an apology Thursday after one of Kostunica's
advisors, Aleksandar Simic, denigrated it.
Criticizing Montenegro's refusal to allow entry to a Serbian Orthodox priest
suspected of aiding war crime suspects, Simic said Montenegro was a
"quasi-state."
Rubbing salt into the wound, a Serbian cabinet minister failed to show up for a
scheduled meeting with a Montenegrin host, offering no explanation other than
he was backing the priest.
Montenegro became independent last year, enraging Serbian nationalists,
including Kostunica.
Reflecting his bitterness, Belgrade has still not sent an ambassador to
Podgorica, though Tadic and the DS tried very hard to remain friendly with it.
Podgorica reacted to the insults with a protest note, handed by its own
ambassador to Belgrade, but the only apology, informal so far, came from a DS
official.
"Serbia recognizes and respects Montenegro as a state and is building good
neighbourly relations,' Vice Premier Bozidar Djelic said in an interview. "I
apologize to Montenegrins."
Time will show whether the DS will manage to save the potatoes of Kosovo, NATO,
Montenegro and other issues thrown into the fire by DSS populists.
Presidential and local elections, due this year, will show if Serbs will reward
or punish the effort to appease.
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