http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone12122007.html
Counterpunch
December 12, 2007
Dreaming of Diplomacy, Waiting for War
The Next Kosovo War
By DIANA JOHNSTONE
-To preserve NATO, a new raison d'être had to be
found. This was "humanitarian intervention"....The
Kosovo problem was proclaimed to be a crisis,
requiring international intervention, only weeks
before NATO's 50th anniversary meeting, when this
U.S.-designed policy was officially adopted.
To provide a casus belli, the Clinton administration
orchestrated sham negotiations at the French château
in Rambouillet. The U.S. abruptly promoted Hashim
Thaqi, the head of the armed "Kosovo Liberation Army",
to head the Kosovo Albanian delegation....
-In the level of principles, the contrast is not
between the U.S. backing Albanian Kosovo independence
and Russia backing Serbia. It is between Russia
backing diplomacy and the United States backing force.
-The main source of power in Kosovo would be the huge
U.S. military base, Camp Bondsteel, built immediately
after NATO occupied the territory in June 1999,
without asking permission from anyone.
-The official line, criminalizing Serbia, echoed daily
by more or less ignorant, but well-coached,
editorialists and commentators, heaps unbearable
insult on injury. Sometimes insult is harder to take
than injury.
The United States and its European allies have
announced that diplomacy has failed to solve the
Kosovo problem. When diplomacy fails, that means war.
Especially in so serious a matter as unilaterally
declaring the independence of a part of another
country's territory.
But the next Kosovo war is supposed to be such a
small, muted, insignificant war that nobody will
notice.
NATO is occupying the potential battlefield with over
16,000 men, backed by air power, and is poised, it
says, to "avoid violence".
The overwhelming military advantage of NATO may indeed
prevent any eventual violence from reaching the status
of a "war". The confidence that comes of wielding
decisive military force has allowed the United States
and its NATO allies to pursue a policy that normally
would be a sure-fire formula for war.
War results when the opposing parties have totally
conflicting views of reality. The Albanians and Serbs
have totally opposing views of the very history of the
disputed province of Kosovo. The role of diplomacy is
to take such conflicting views of reality into
account. It means avoiding pushing one party to a
dispute into a humiliating corner. It involves seeking
to promote mutual respect and understanding, at least
enough to accept compromise.
Instead, the United States, followed by its
irresponsible European allies, has from the start
endorsed the extreme Albanian nationalist view,
treating Serbia as a "rogue state" that does not
deserve the normal protection of international law.
Washington has orchestrated two rounds of totally sham
"negotiations", whose conclusions it dictated from the
start, on behalf of its Albanian clients. The first
round took place at Rambouillet, leading to the 1999
NATO bombing of Serbia and occupation of Kosovo. The
second round took place this year, leading to what
could be another, more muted but longer, unpredictable
conflict.
Long and short sham negotiations
At the end of the 1990s, the Clinton administration
was not really concerned with solving the Kosovo
problem. It wanted to solve its own NATO problem.
Its NATO problem was this: What is the use of this
military alliance, now that the Communist bloc, which
it was created to deter, no longer exists? To preserve
NATO, a new raison d'être had to be found. This was
"humanitarian intervention".
>From now on, NATO would exist in order to rescue
oppressed minorities in foreign countries - especially
those with some geostrategic or economic value, of
course.
The deep-rooted Kosovo conflict between the Serbian
State and an Albanian secessionist movement, marked by
spasmodic violence on both sides, provided the
experimental terrain for this new policy. The Kosovo
problem was proclaimed to be a crisis, requiring
international intervention, only weeks before NATO's
50th anniversary meeting, when this U.S.-designed
policy was officially adopted.
To provide a casus belli, the Clinton administration
orchestrated sham negotiations at the French château
in Rambouillet. The U.S. abruptly promoted Hashim
Thaqi, the head of the armed "Kosovo Liberation Army",
to head the Kosovo Albanian delegation, shoving aside
more reputable Albanian leaders such as Ibrahim
Rugova.
No direct encounters between the Serbian and Albanian
delegations were even allowed. Both were ordered to
accept a comprehensive plan drafted by the United
States, allowing for NATO occupation of Kosovo.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright bullied [sic]
Thaqi into reluctantly accepting the ultimatum, with
back-stage assurances that he would eventually get his
own "independent Kosova".
The Serbs had agreed to the principle of autonomy of
Kosovo, and their parliament had drafted a proposal
-totally ignored at Rambouillet. But the Serbian
delegation rejected the ultimatum, which included an
annex that would have allowed NATO occupation of the
whole of Serbia. This rejection was the result Ms
Albright sought. On the pretext that Serbia had
"refused to negotiate", NATO could wage its victorious
little "humanitarian" war.
This year, the world has been provided with the
spectacle of much more prolonged sham negotiations.
For weeks and months, the West's semi-official media
have put out "news" reports that the negotiations to
settle the Kosovo problem were not getting anywhere.
This was not news because the negotiations were framed
in such a way that they could not possibly succeed.
"The Serbian and Albanian sides can't agree", the
pseudo-diplomats say of their pseudo-diplomacy. They
mean, the Serbian side has not agreed to the Albanian
demand for an independent Kosovo. This was the only
proposal with U.S. support. It amounted to yet another
ultimatum to the Serbs. The Albanians knew they had
the support of the United States and NATO, who are
occupying Kosovo militarily. They had no incentive to
bargain. They could just wait for the negotiations to
fail, sure they would be given what they want by
occupying Great Powers.
Russia supports diplomacy and international law
The West is putting the blame for this failure on
Vladimir Putin. The servile press is puffing up
Putin's status as the latest world class bad guy,
motivated by "power" and a perverse desire to annoy
the virtuous Americans. Since the Americans back the
Albanian demand for independence, the Russians, out of
contrariness, back the Serbian position.
This is not exactly accurate. The Serbian position is
to offer very comprehensive autonomy to Kosovo, a
self-government just short of formal independence. The
Russian position is to be ready to support any
agreement reached between the two sides.
Western reporters and commentators refuse to grasp
what this means. It means that the Russians are
insisting on genuine negotiations, between the two
parties, the Serbian government and Kosovo Albanian
separatists.
They are not saying what the outcome of such genuine
negotiations would be. They might reach some sort of
compromise providing for some sort of independence.
The point is that such an agreement, reached by both
parties, would be legal under international law.
Independence proclaimed unilaterally by Kosovo
Albanians, without negotiated agreement with Serbia,
would constitute a clear violation of international
law. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has
repeatedly warned that a unilateral proclamation of
independence could provoke further interethnic
violence in the region and set a dangerous precedent
for many other countries with ethnic minorities.
In the level of principles, the contrast is not
between the U.S. backing Albanian Kosovo independence
and Russia backing Serbia. It is between Russia
backing diplomacy and the United States backing force.
A "NATO State"
But how much "independence" will Kosovo really enjoy?
In private, European governments know that Kosovo is
not a viable independent state. This has been
demonstrated during eight years of international
protectorate. Kosovo's economy is almost entirely
dependent on remittances from emigrés to their
families, international aid (including Saudia Arabian
mosque building projects) and flourishing crime (drug
and sex trafficking in particular).
Since official international endorsement of unilateral
Serbian guilt has made reconciliation between Serb and
Albanian inhabitants impossible, NATO forces, under
the guise of the European Union, are expected to stay
on "to protect the human rights of minorities".
In terms of security, the "independent" Kosovo will be
a NATO satellite. Formal independence from Serbia,
following eight years of de facto independence from
Serbia, will do nothing to improve the miserable state
of the economy.
The huge number of unemployed young Albanians like to
hope independence will bring jobs and prosperity. But
it is hard to see how closed borders with a hostile
Serbia will do more for Kosovo's economy than decades
of preferential Yugoslav development funds.
Some sources of income may even diminish, notably
foreign aid, as "humanitarian" NGOs move elsewhere.
Even foreign remittances may be cut back if certain
European governments decide to send their Albanian
guest workers back to their "liberated" homeland. Only
organized crime seems certain to prosper.
Last August, as the long round of sham negotiations
got underway, Slobodan Samardzic, the Serbian minister
for Kosovo, said that a Kosovo state created with the
U.S. support "would only serve the interests of
America and the local mafia clans."
Samardzic belongs to the younger, pro-Western
generation that tended to attribute the West's
hostility to Serbia to Slobodan Milosevic. But
Milosevic has been gone for years, and Western policy
remains unchanged.
Samardzic said that NATO plans to make Kosovo
virtually its own territory, "a satellite, an army
barracks state on foreign territory". The main source
of power in Kosovo would be the huge U.S. military
base, Camp Bondsteel, built immediately after NATO
occupied the territory in June 1999, without asking
permission from anyone.
As the latest round of sham negotiations ended,
Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica said events
prove that the real reason NATO bombed Serbia in 1999
was in order to conquer Kosovo as a "NATO puppet
state".
And what has Serbia been offered in return for loss of
its historic territory? Merely a vague suggestion
that, if it behaves, it may eventually obtain EU
membership. In short, in return for losing sovereignty
over Kosovo, it may be allowed to give up more of its
sovereignty to the European Union. But even this is a
hazy prospect.
It is quite possible that Serbia could manage better
economically without Kosovo, which was always the
poorest and least developed part of Yugoslavia,
despite massive development funds from the rest of the
country.
But Serbia's reasons for wanting to retain Kosovo are
not economic, but moral. The West has refused to take
these into account, brushing them all aside with the
single argument that Serbia "lost its right" to the
territory because of Milosevic's repression of
Albanian separatists. More realistically, NATO "won
its right" to dispose of Kosovo by bombing Serbia.
The Western argument comes down to might makes right,
or rather, superior might makes right.
Serbia's case
The Serbian reasons to reject Kosovo's secession are
legal and moral:
1. International law. Even after NATO bombed Serbia
into allowing Kosovo to be occupied, its sovereignty
over the province was officially confirmed under
international law.
As the one-sided war ended, the United Nations
Security Council adopted Resolution 1244 which
reaffirmed "the commitment of all Member States to the
sovereignty and territorial integrity" of Yugoslavia,
of which Serbia is the successor State.
Resolution 1244, which remains the existing basis for
the legal status of Kosovo, also speaks of
"substantial autonomy and meaningful
self-administration" - which is what Serbia has agreed
to and proposed. It does not speak of independence.
What has Serbia done since the fall of Milosevic to
merit worse treatment than was prescribed in 1999?
2. The impossibility of abandoning the Serbian
minority to almost certain persecution and expulsion.
Nor can Serbia abandon its historic monuments, the
precious medieval monasteries of Decani, Gracanica,
Pec and many others.
3. The deep, truly painful sense of injustice and
humiliation at the manner in which the Great Powers
are orchestrating the amputation of this most
cherished part of Serbia's historic territory.
Serbs are blamed for something they never did,
something even Milosevic never did: the attempted
"genocide" or at least "expulsion" of Albanians from
Kosovo.
This is no more than wartime propaganda, which by now
is probably believed by most Albanians, since the
Great Powers endorse it. The official line,
criminalizing Serbia, echoed daily by more or less
ignorant, but well-coached, editorialists and
commentators, heaps unbearable insult on injury.
Sometimes insult is harder to take than injury.
This last reason, which may be the strongest of all,
is virtually invisible to Americans and Europeans who
have swallowed whole the official line of wicked Serbs
persecuting innocent Albanians, in willful ignorance
of the complexities of history and culture of the
region.
If these perfectly legitimate Serb concerns were taken
into consideration, patient diplomacy could in all
probability achieve a compromise settlement that would
differ from the initial negotiating positions of both
sides, but which, with international guarantees and
incentives, could satisfy at least part of the demands
of both sides.
Dreaming of what might have been
Even after the disaster of NATO bombing and occupation
of Kosovo made the situation far worse, by
exacerbating hostility between the Albanian and
Serbian communities to the boiling point, diplomacy
might have been able to play a constructive role. That
would simply require a bit of good will and
constructive imagination - qualities to which current
U.S. leaders do not even aspire, preferring to rely on
the iron fist.
Let us imagine that the United States had not managed
to subvert the peace-making functions of international
organizations such as the OSCE and the United Nations.
Let us imagine the existence of a real "international
community", which could give serious backing to
diplomatic efforts to find a compromise solution for
Kosovo. Instead of uniting a "Troika" made up of the
United States, the European Union and Russia, let us
suppose that India, China and Brazil could appoint a
group of diplomats, for instance, former ambassadors
to Yugoslavia (including, perhaps, both the former
East and West German ambassadors to pre-disintegration
Yugoslavia, former Canadian ambassador James Bissett
and former British ambassador Ivor Roberts, as well as
former ambassadors from non-European countries) to
facilitate open-ended negotiations between Serbs and
Albanians. There would be no preconditions except one:
the negotiations would last until the two parties
agreed to a compromise solution.
My own personal belief is that genuine, patient
negotiations could arrive at some sort of overall
agreement involving border changes and partition, as
well as some sort of union between the secessionist
Albanian part of Kosovo and Albania itself. The
arguments for such a solution are overwhelming, and
have been stated most convincingly by Dobrica Cosic,
Serbia's most distinguished novelist and a former
President of Yugoslavia, well before the Kosovo
problem exploded into armed conflict in 1998-99.
It is true that both the Albanian and Serbian sides
reject partition, more or less vehemently. But that is
natural at the start of negotiations. The Albanians
adamantly demand all of Kosovo within its present
borders. This demand is supported by the United
States, which also insists that there be no union
between Kosovo and Albania. This is the point on which
some compromise could be worked out.
Serbia's position has been to offer a degree of
autonomy that would in fact be tantamount to total
internal independence. This is understandable as a
bargaining position, but it is hard to see how it
would be favorable to Serbia itself. Serbia would risk
bearing a financial burden for a territory over which
it exercises no control.
On the other hand, the Albanians' expectations for
independence, and most of all, the hatred they foster
for Serbia, makes a return to Serbian rule impossible
in practical terms. Moreover, Serbia has one of
Europe's lowest birth rates, while Kosovo Albanians
have the highest. After being outnumbered by Albanians
in Kosovo, Serbs might eventually be outnumbered by
Albanians in Serbia.
The welfare of both Serbs and Albanians could be
ensured best by an overall agreement to end the
hostilities between the two populations, something
that clearly has not been accomplished in eight years
of U.N.-NATO protectorate. This should involve some
territorial rearrangements, as well as economic and
cultural agreements between the parties concerned.
Neighboring countries should also be brought into the
negotiations. Agreements should be made on the basis
of practical realities, not on presumptions of "guilt"
and "innocence".
Finally, identity needs to be detached from particular
territories and particular events. Future generations
of Serbs and Albanians must be able to live their
lives freed from the burdens of past resentments and
ancestral vendettas.
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools' Crusade:
Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions, Monthly Review
Press. She can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Serbian News Network - SNN
[email protected]
http://www.antic.org/
