Kosovo: A New Versailles?
Tomaz Mastnak | March 7, 2008
Editor: John Feffer
Foreign Policy In Focus
The torching the U.S. embassy in Belgrade was a violent sideshow during the
massive peaceful demonstrations against Kosovo’s declaration of independence
in the Serbian capital on February 18th. Few approved of these thuggish
acts, either in Serbia or in the wider world. But the vandalism distracts
from more significant facts about the Belgrade demonstrations and the Kosovo
declaration that sparked them. The U.S. embassy was not a random target; nor
was it the only target. Protesters had already marched toward the U.S.
embassy on the first day of the protests. When police blocked their way,
they headed instead toward the Slovenian embassy, which was not guarded, and
vandalized it. That was not a random target either.
It is not difficult to understand why the protesters directed their anger at
both the United States and Slovenia. Government officials of the two
countries have made it sufficiently clear during the past year that they
actively support the independence of Kosovo. But public anger, particularly
in Serbia, has escalated over a report of a December meeting between U.S.
and Slovenian officials that was published in January both in Slovenia’s
capital, Ljubljana, and in Belgrade. The publication caused furor in
Slovenia, outrage in Serbia, and disappointment among the EU political
elite. The document was not meant for the public, but the public did not
fail to note the clearly stated American political agenda it contained and
the role of Slovenia in its execution.
This behind-the-scenes collusion revealed two violations with regard to
Kosovo. The United States, with Slovenian assistance, sought to circumvent
the European political process — not to speak of the UN. And Kosovo itself,
by unilaterally declaring independence, violated international law. These
two violations – of a political process and of the rule of law – will come
back to haunt Europe and the United States in the coming months and years.
The Slovenian Role
Slovenia plays a disproportionately important role in this story because it
assumed the European Union presidency on January 1, 2008. A week before, on
December 24, a meeting between representatives of the State Department and
the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs took place in Washington D. C.
Taking part in the talks were, on the Slovenian side, the Political Director
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mitja Drobnic and the Ambassador to the
United States Samuel Zbogar, and on the American side, Daniel Fried,
assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, his deputy
Rosemary DiCarlo, and Judy Ansley, NSA senior director for European affairs.
An internal report of this meeting from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
leaked to the Slovenian daily Dnevnik, which published it on January 25. A
copy was also obtained and published simultaneously by the Belgrade paper
Politika. The published excerpts make it clear that the talks touched upon a
number of issues but mainly focused on Kosovo.
The American officials presented a list of demands to their Slovenian
counterparts. For example, the Slovenian diplomats were informed of the text
of the declaration from the joint US-EU summit scheduled to take place in
Ljubljana in June. “We would also like to have a mention of Iraq and rogue
states, such as Iran, Burma, and Syria,” the U.S. officials demanded.
“President Bush is also worried about the situation in Cuba and Venezuela.
He is convinced that support for the opposition in Cuba (just like in
Georgia and Ukraine) can bring positive results. The US policy toward Cuba
is not a regime change but a desire for democratic transition after Fidel
Castro’s death. In the declaration from the EU-US summit, they would also
like to have a mention of Cuba and Venezuela. They also want the declaration
to mention terrorism and non-proliferation.”
As to Kosovo, the conversation was a careful orchestration of Kosovo’s
timetable for independence. Daniel Fried praised Slovenian Foreign Minister
Rupel and stated that “it is beyond doubt that the solution of the status is
a fact, which will happen under the leadership of Slovenia.” Mitja Drobnic
asked for help with obtaining the UN Secretary General’s statement in
support of sending the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) mission
to Kosovo, “since some EU member states have difficulties with making the
decision to send the ESDP without the UN agreement.” Fried responded that
“the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is under the pressure of the Russian
Federation and thus in a difficult position.” He informed his interlocutors
that the United States had assurances that the UN was not going to put
restrictions on the sending of the ESDP mission to Kosovo. The United
States, he explained, “will help the UN Secretary General in the case of
difficulties with the Russian Federation, while RS [the Republic of
Slovenia] has to achieve within the EU the sending of the ESDP in the
shortest time.”
The decision to send the ESDP mission to Kosovo was of key importance for
the United States, since it was replacing the UN mandate over Kosovo with
the EU mandate. In pushing that decision through, Fried was clear: “one can
ignore the critical positions and statements of the Russian Federation and
Serbia.” Rosemary DiCarlo noted that it would make sense, if “the session of
the Kosovo Parliament, in which they pass the declaration of independence,
were to be on Sunday, since this way the Russian Federation would not have
the time to call for the UN Security Council. In the meantime, the first
recognitions would already have happened.”
Fried encouraged Slovenia to be the first to recognize Kosovo. The United
States expected that although six EU member states would hold back
recognition at least 15 out of the 27 member states would recognize Kosovo
and that would be sufficient. He also noted that the United States would be
among the first to recognize Kosovo. He told the Slovenes that “the US is
drafting the constitution with the Kosovars” and that the situation on the
ground was “promising.” Fried added, “The US hoped that the Kosovars would
not lose confidence in themselves, because that would mean that the US will
lose its influence.”
Serbian Reactions
In Serbia, when notes of this meeting were published, the Minister for
Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, denounced the American administration’s pressure
on Slovenia. He regretted that the American superpower was attempting to
force EU member states into violations of international law and that
Slovenia and the EU were allowing themselves to become instruments for the
realization of American interests. He was wrong about the U.S. pressure on
Slovenia. The Slovenian Foreign Ministry under Rupel was all too willing to
oblige. But the rest of Samardzic’s points seemed to hold currency within
the EU. The Austrian Press Agency characterized Slovenia’s EU presidency as
scandalous and Rupel’s views as dissonant even within his own government.
Der Standard reported a “sharp conflict” in a meeting of EU foreign
ministers, where the Slovenian Foreign Minister reportedly was criticized
for putting American interests first.
This scenario for Kosovo’s independence bears the hallmarks of “New American
Century” misadventures. In Kosovo, the United States has one of its largest
military bases, Camp Bondsteel. The human rights envoy of the Council of
Europe, Alvaro Gil-Robles, described it a few years ago as a “smaller
version of Guantánamo.” Since Romania and Poland have now been censored by
the EU for their role in the secret CIA prisons and rendition flights, a new
destination might be necessary in the region. More importantly, Camp
Bondsteel is set to become the new home for U.S. air operations, moving them
from the Aviano base in Italy, where the recklessness and accidents caused
by U.S. pilots have worn down the patience of the locals. Kosovo is closer
to the Middle East, which has more than one advantage. And Camp Bondsteel
also completes the encircling of the Russian western border.
If Kosovo were to remain an UN protectorate, the United States would have
less of a free hand there. As an EU protectorate, however, Kosovo will offer
the United States more room to operate freely. As an independent state
dependent upon U.S. support, Kosovo will probably not refuse to sign
bilateral agreements with the United States on the status of forces.
Kosovo’s declaration of independence is a declaration of independence from
Serbia. But this alone does not make Kosovo an independent sovereign state.
There is a strong whiff of parody in the coordinated action by which a state
declares its independence and other states send in missions to create that
state. The EU is sending in 1,800 lawyers, judges, police, and
administrators, who are replacing the UN mission and whose task it is to set
up Kosovo’s “institutions, legal authorities and agencies for law
enforcement as well as other executive responsibilities.” The head of the
operation, which is to “base Kosovo on the rule of law,” that is, to build a
law-abiding and law-enforcing state there, will be French General Yves de
Kermabon. Dutch diplomat Peter Feith, who will head up the International
Civilian Office, will have the power to overturn legislation and sack Kosovo
officials. KFOR, the NATO-led Kosovo force, will stay, which means that
16,000 foreign soldiers will be stationed in Kosovo. Annex 11 to the
Ahtisaari plan, the implementation of which was zealously advocated by the
United States, gives NATO military supremacy over Kosovo. (In the week
following the declaration of independence, when tensions rose on the border
with Serbia, U.S. and French troops restored order.) Economically, the EU
plans to spend 330 million euros by 2010, in addition to the 2 billion euros
it has already spent.
>From 1999, following the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Kosovo was a UN
protectorate. With the declaration of independence, it has become an EU
protectorate that can be more easily shaped by U.S. policy. In real terms,
not much has changed. As a commentator in Politika stated: “Neither did
Albanians gain much more than they already had, nor did the Serbs lose much
more than they had already lost.”
So, if not much was gained or lost, why does Kosovo’s declaration of
independence matter?
International Law
It matters, first, because the declaration of Kosovo independence is a
breach of international law. A unilateral change of borders – that is, a
change that is not based on agreement of all concerned – violates one of the
basic principles of the UN charter. Serbia is clearly opposed to this move.
If the declaration of Kosovo independence is predicated on the limitation,
or loss, of Serbian de facto sovereignty over the region following NATO’s
1999 military intervention, then the change of borders has been accomplished
by military means. That runs against both the letter and the spirit of the
post-World War Two international legal order. To argue that violations of
human rights, such as those committed by Serbia in Kosovo in the 1980s and
1990s, can be the basis on which to erect a new state both lacks legal
precedent and confuses law with morality. And when it comes to morality in
this context, it is a morality of double standards and selective
righteousness, in view both of global politics and of the human rights
abuses visited on the Serbian minority in Kosovo.
One could quarrel over the interpretation of UN Security Council resolution
1244, as opponents and advocates of Kosovo independence do, but the
unilateral nature of the declaration of independence effectively violates
international law. That this argument has been raised by states that fear
their own separatist movements does not detract from the argument itself. If
the rule of law is considered supreme, it is irrelevant whether abiding or
protecting the law is in a state’s own interest.
Historically, the closest parallel in the 20th-century Balkans to Kosovo’s
unilateral declaration of independence was the declaration of the
Independent State of Croatia, the notorious NDH, under the tutelage of Nazi
Germany during World War Two. Then, as now, the military superpower of the
day constructed a state to its own liking and in its own interest. It did so
with the collaboration of local politicians, to the relief of parts of the
population, and in the interest of the world war it was fighting. In regard
of the more recent history, the declaration of the independence of Kosovo is
the continuation of the same type of politics that characterized Serbian
oppression, repression, and crimes in Kosovo — the continuation of the
politics of might, illegality, and lawlessness.
U.S. arbitrariness rather than the will of the people was the constitutive
force of the independent state of Kosovo. The UN was conspicuously pushed
aside and ignored. Also ignored were the interests of the neighbors and the
countries of the broader Balkan region, most of whom oppose the independence
of Kosovo. Ignored as well, and in a rather insulting way, was Russia, which
for better or worse has played a role in the region for a considerable time.
Finally, ignored were the Serbs. The unilateral decision to declare the
independence of Kosovo was carried through in a way to ensure that Serbia
will for the time being experience no catharsis, no facing and overcoming of
the legacy of the criminal wars of the 1990s. Instead, this decision does
the opposite by inflaming the very same pathology that drove Serbia and
Serbs into those wars in the first place. Has the United States engineered a
new Versailles that will in turn generate future wars?
Tomaz Mastnak, a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org), is
is director of research in the Institute of Philosophy, Scientific Research
Center of the Slovene Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the Critical
Theory Institute at the University of California at Irvine. He is the former
director of the Office of the Alliance of Civilizations of the United
Nations.
