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GLOBE AND MAIL (CANADA) Why Western leaders balk at learning from the Balkans DOUG SAUNDERS March 21, 2008 at 10:48 PM EDT LONDON - In a joyous speech this week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomed Kosovo into the community of nations and heralded its new independence as an example of the sort of good that can be accomplished in such places as Afghanistan. "When our soldiers entered Pristina in 1999 to end the Serbian oppression of Kosovo's people, we knew it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and involve years of occupation by Canadian soldiers, but today we can point to a people who are free from fear," he said. "If we hadn't intervened, if our soldiers hadn't made sacrifices there, then there would be no celebrating on the streets." U.S. President George W. Bush used the Kosovars' moment of independence as an example to other Muslim populations. "This shows that America cares about your causes," he said. "In the last 15 years, the United States has fought four wars, and two of them have been in defence of Muslim communities against Christian invaders. Because of America's troops and NATO's efforts, we have two independent European nations, Bosnia and Kosovo, with Muslim majorities. That's the kind of freedom we're trying to bring to Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan." Too bad none of the above is true. In fact, when Canada this week became the seventh of the G-8 nations to recognize Kosovo's February declaration of independence (the eighth, Russia, never will), Mr. Harper delivered a quick and churlish acknowledgment: "The situation of Kosovo is very unique, which is why the government has taken the action it has." Mr. Bush said nothing, though he quietly signed a memo agreeing to sell arms to the Kosovars. While I don't really expect either of them to be making gleeful speeches about a place that is currently riot torn, has electricity only four out of every five hours, is the source of a nearly nuclear standoff between Russia and the West and will require tens of thousands of international soldiers and aid workers on its streets for the next decade if it wants to keep ethnic murder and mass starvation at bay, you would think that they could have done more with the moment. On the bumpy streets of Pristina, there are lessons for countries like Canada and the U.S. I hope we're learning them, even if they don't inspire much boasting. The first lesson involves timing. I am actually a bit surprised that the U.S. President has not played the Muslim card with Kosovo and Bosnia. Amid the chaos and hatred being generated in the two current wars and his country's lopsided policy on Israel and Palestine, here are two examples he could easily hold up to show that America blows both ways. Here, he could say, is where America went to bat, with nothing to gain and a lot to lose, for a bunch of poor people who attend mosques. Yeah, he'd have to steer around the fact that it was the Democrats who finally bailed the place out (after Mr. Bush's father failed to do so), and that most Bosnians and Kosovars are practising Muslims to the degreethat, say, Bill Clinton was a practising saxophone player. On the other hand, Mr. Bush's main audience these days is not the international community, but the Republican Party faithful, who aren't so keen on pro-Muslim messages. I think we'll have to wait for the next president to use this one. This brings us to the second lesson, which involves principles. The reason why Mr. Harper is even less enthusiastic than Mr. Bush about Kosovo's independence should be obvious to anyone: It may have been a nice moment for the Albanian-speakers who have been Kosovo's majority population for two centuries, but it was also the penultimate fracture of a country into ethnic splinters - something that Canadian leaders dread. Our federalism is one of our great products, and we should be exporting it aggressively. Kosovo is, in that sense, a terrible market failure. Seventeen years ago, Yugoslavia was a multi-ethnic federation, like Canada. In fact, Canada and Yugoslavia had pretty decent relations - the Iron Curtain was more of a colourful bead curtain in that part of the Balkans, and we had a lot of dealings with them. It was well known to Canadian diplomats, as early as Tito's death in 1980, that members of the Serbian-speaking majority were becoming extremist and attempting to impose their language and ethnic identity on the entire federation. We knew, from 1987 onward, that Mr. Milosevic represented a very dangerous form of this extremism. When Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia on June 25, 1991, Canada was not so quick to recognize them. At that point, it was evident to many diplomats and military figures that Yugoslavia could be held together, if only Mr. Milosevic could be stopped (and Franjo Tudjman, the odious Croatian leader, kept under control). But that kind of international activism, in those months after the Berlin Wall fell, seemed strange and anachronistic. So seven months later, as the violence began, Canada broke down and joined other countries in recognizing their independence - an abandonment of our federalist principles at a moment when they could have been salvaged. "The Yugoslav federation as we know it no longer exists and cannot be reconstituted by force," Prime Minister Brian Mulroney declared. Weeks later, Canada sent its first troops to Croatia and Bosnia. Contrary to Mr. Mulroney's words, force could indeed have reconstituted the federation, and a lot less force than was later required to create and maintain seven ethnic states. But our mission in 1992 was not to stop the program of Serbian ethnic homogenization that was the main threat to the federation, but simply to keep various "feuding ethnic forces" at bay. As a result, the looming threat to Kosovo was ignored, and for the next eight years, we would ignore Mr. Milosevic's increasingly brutal treatment of that region. By 1999 it was too late to salvage anything except the lives of Kosovo's families, and it became both inevitable and necessary that multi-ethnic countries like Canada preside over the final balkanization of the Balkans. There are lessons here, but they aren't happy ones.
