http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.kosovo10may10,0,3995677.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines
The Baltimore Sun
Botched Kosovo intervention dims hopes
for peace
By Christopher Deliso
May 10,
2006
SKOPJE, MACEDONIA -- Averting a humanitarian catastrophe was NATO's
stated justification for bombing Serbia and its Kosovo province in 1999. But
initial successes quickly succumbed to the reverse ethnic cleansing of more than
200,000 Serbs and other minorities by Albanian militants.
Now, despite seven
years of U.N. policing and donor largess, Kosovo's remaining minorities still
live in fear, and the economy and infrastructure remain in
shambles.
Behind their façade of optimism, Western leaders negotiating
Kosovo's future status are panicking. Realizing that Albanians will violently
contest any continued affiliation with Serbia, they believe independence alone
can ensure peace. Yet Kosovo is a classic quagmire, one with ominous
repercussions for peace.
Deciding Kosovo's rightful ownership is
difficult. It pits two peoples, and two hallowed principles, against each
another. Albanians - 90 percent of the population - invoke self-determination to
justify independence. Yet Serbian cultural legacy goes back seven centuries in
Kosovo, which was only independent when Adolf Hitler's Albanian allies briefly
enjoyed their Nazi puppet state. Further, U.N. Resolution 1244 in 1999 affirmed
Yugoslav sovereignty.
Kosovo's independence will be conditional, promises
the West, on its treatment of minorities. Yet nothing can realistically enforce
compliance. If the Albanians continue intimidating Serbs, penalizing them by
delaying NATO or European Union accession will have little impact; an advanced
Balkan candidate, Macedonia, won't enter NATO before 2008, or the EU before
2013.
A well-informed international official predicts remaining Serbs
will flee within 10 years of Kosovo's independence. So by the time Kosovo gets
anywhere near NATO or EU accession, the minority issue will be
moot.
Albanian attacks against Serbs still occur amid an atmosphere of a
siege mentality. If the last Serbs are expelled, Belgrade's remaining argument
for possession will vanish. Its first argument, for cultural heritage, no longer
applies because since 1999, over 100 Orthodox churches, some 700 years old, have
been damaged or destroyed by Albanians - thus eliminating Kosovo's most
lucrative tourist attractions.
Further, the United Nations dismayed
Kosovo's minorities by making a man who once terrorized them prime minister.
Albanian war veteran Agim Ceku, whose name was removed from Interpol's wanted
list after fierce U.N. lobbying, is accused of widespread atrocities while
serving in Croatia's military and while leading the Kosovo Liberation Army in
1999.
Mr. Ceku's close associate and another veteran, Ramush Haradinaj,
was indicted by the Hague Tribunal. Nevertheless, Mr. Haradinaj is now free to
participate in Kosovo politics though he's technically an indicted war criminal
awaiting trial.
Such privileged treatment reveals the fatal flaw of the
U.N. mission. Canadian police Detective Stu Kellock, who headed the U.N.
Regional Serious Crimes Unit in 2000 and 2001, says investigations implicating
Albanian politicians or their associates were routinely blocked. The orders came
directly from Washington, London and Brussels. Mr. Ceku and Mr. Haradinaj
control Kosovo's militant factions and are considered heroes by Albanians. An
anxious United Nations continually has sought to stay on their good side through
appeasement.
Independence is a mere panacea for Kosovo's Albanians. They
will remain poor. Erstwhile Albanian refugee workers - Kosovo's real
breadwinners - will be sent home by European governments sensitive to popular
anti-immigrant sentiments. Minorities will flee as nationalist militants
remobilize to purge Serbs and annex Albanian-inhabited areas of Macedonia and
Montenegro.
Bosnian Serbs, as well as Bosnian Muslims in Serbia's Sandjak
region, also could demand self-determination.
Alarmingly, the West has no
Plan B for ensuring Balkan peace. Plan A - open borders through eventual NATO
and EU membership for all - is far off and ignores the anti-expansion sentiment
among EU electorates. Membership may never arrive. The Balkans might well drift
aimlessly.
In early 1999, Kosovo was a brutal but contained local
conflict, relegated to villages. Botched Western intervention has made it a
potential precedent for multiregional warfare.
Christopher Deliso
is an American freelance journalist in Macedonia and director of an independent
Balkan-interest Web site. His e-mail is [EMAIL PROTECTED].
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