http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=c6fcab27-86d1 -4697-88e3-f73d6c5e9263
OTTAWA CITIZEN (CANADA) OPINION Kosovo is not Quebec Canada should stop hiding behind the fleur-de-lis and recognize Kosovo's independence from Serbia Val Percival Citizen Special Thursday, February 28, 2008 Canada should join its allies and recognize Kosovo's independence. Quebec is not Kosovo, and Canada is not Serbia. Hiding behind the fleur-de-lis misconstrues the path of Kosovo's independence and the precedent it sets. By all means, the international community should remain concerned for the conflict-generating potential of secession movements. According to data collected by the University of Maryland, 26 armed self-determination conflicts were festering at the end of 2006. Yet, these conflicts are not intractable: 15 conflicts have been contained and six settled since 2000. And critically, these settlements rarely result in independence. Autonomy and decentralization agreements and efforts to recognize minority rights effectively stem independence aspirations. But where such options have been tried and failed, or when distrust is so high that no amount of power sharing will bring about peace, there is no other alternative but independence. Kosovo is one such case. While always restive, Kosovo's Albanians, who comprise 90 per cent of the population, were content with the autonomy status provided for them in the 1974 Yugoslav constitution. In 1989, Milosevic revoked this autonomy, forced Albanian politicians from office, fired Albanian civil servants - including university professors - imposed the Serbian education curriculum and put in place a series of oppressive laws (such as annulling the sale of property from Serbs to Albanians). The Albanians responded with almost a decade of passive resistance to this oppression, undertaking an independence referendum and establishing a parallel system of government. After that passive resistance failed to bear fruit, the armed struggle by the KLA - the Kosovo Liberation Army - began in 1998. Throughout the late 1990s, the international community attempted negotiations, observation missions and high-level mediation. While the KLA were no angels, Belgrade was intransigent, making little or no effort to concede to the demands of the Albanian community. As violence against Albanians escalated, NATO bombed Serbia with the objective of stopping attacks against civilians. Serbian forces responded with ferocity: more than a million Albanians were driven from their homes, and thousands were killed, including prominent politicians and human rights activists. When the war ended in June 1999, the United Nations was charged with administering Kosovo, establishing substantial autonomy, and facilitating a political settlement to determine Kosovo's future status. The UN built self-governing and democratic institutions at the local and central level. It set benchmarks in the areas of governance, rule of law, and fiscal responsibility that the province had to achieve before status discussions could begin. Yet no one was under any illusions - Albanians wanted independence, and believed that such independence was a critical precondition for their security. Over the past two years, the United Nations finally addressed the status issue, first appointing special envoy Martti Ahtisaari to develop a plan, and then brokering extensive negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo on the final status settlement. When these negotiations failed, with Serbia refusing to negotiate any terms for Kosovo's independence and Albanians refusing to accept anything less, Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence. To signal its intent to co-operate with the international community, Kosovo accepted constraints to its sovereignty as laid out in the Ahtisaari plan, and vowed to respect the territorial integrity of its neighbours, to allay fears that Albanian regions of Macedonia and Serbia would join the new state. None of this means that independence in Kosovo will be smooth. Kosovo's Serb and Roma minorities have faced extreme hardship, discrimination and violence. While recent years have seen violence abate, the ethnic riots that briefly swept Kosovo in 2004 are a stark reminder of the fragility of Kosovo's ethnic détente. The recent demonstrations by Serbs in the north - encouraged by Belgrade - signal their fear of living as a minority in an Albanian dominated country. But this can be managed, and independence remains the best option to avoid a return to widespread instability throughout the province. So why is Canada hesitating? Many have mistakenly argued Kosovo's declaration of independence violates the terms laid out in the Clarity Act. First, there is a clear will to secede - indeed the will is so clear that no right-minded person would waste money on organizing a second referendum. Second, efforts have been made to negotiate with Serbia. The international community brokered months of failed talks over the terms of Kosovo's secession. There is simply no parallel with Canada - if a strong majority of Quebec's population wanted to secede from Canada, negotiations would ensue. Indeed, to suggest Quebec is comparable to Kosovo is highly insulting. The federal government firing civil servants whose first language is French, banning the sale of land from English to French Quebecers, and imposing an English curriculum on Quebec? As for the risk that Kosovo's independence gives hope to secessionist groups, the evidence demonstrates that independence aspirations can be controlled. Policy makers should instead emphasize the precedent that Kosovo sends to majority communities in ethnically divided states: the refusal to protect the rights of linguistic, religious, and ethnic minorities can be costly. So Canada can hold its head high, recognize Kosovo's independence, and say with confidence that the preconditions laid out in the Clarity Act have been met. And we can cite our continued and ongoing dialogue with Quebec as a signal of the strength and sustainability of our federation. Val Percival was the project director for the International Crisis Group in Kosovo from 2001 until 2003. She now teaches conflict and public health at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University.
