<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.kosovo10may10,0,399567
7.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines>
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.kosovo10may10,0,3995677
.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines
The Baltimore Sun
<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/> Opinion >
<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped> op/ed
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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