Roadblocks with more than one significance
Herewith an interview I did for Bekim Greicevci of Kosovo’s Daily Express on the situation in northern Kosovo (you can play the Kosovo band Gillespie, subject of a nice piece on PRI’s The World yesterday here in DC, while reading):
Gillespie – E Di (Official Video)
Gillespie | Myspace Music Videos
- Kosovo Government took a decision to establish control over border crossings along Kosovo’s northern border with Serbia. What is your opinion on Government’s decision?
There is no question in my mind about the right of a sovereign state to control its own borders, but Belgrade has not recognized Kosovo’s sovereignty. That is the underlying problem that needs to be resolved. It will not be solved quickly or easily. Nor will it be solved by unilateral actions or the use of force. Belgrade’s acceptance of Kosovo’s customs documents would be a good first step in the right direction and ameliorate the situation in the north.
- EULEX refused to help Kosovo authorities to establish the control at Northern border crossings. Kosovars are very unhappy with the EU Mission. What is your comment on EULEX and its position about the North?
EULEX reflects division within the EU, in particular between the five non-recognizing states and the 22 recognizing states. As control of the border is a sovereign function, it should surprise no one that the five non-recognizing states do not want to be responsible for establishing sovereign controls there.
- Belgrade and some EU officials have called for the situation in the North to return to what it was before July 25. Kosovo Government says there is no turning back. In your view, how can this be resolved?
While I understand those who may not want to help Kosovo establish sovereign controls on the northern border, I find it hard to understand those who want a return to the previous situation. Belgrade cannot claim that UN Security Council resolution 1244 gave either Serbian officials or local hoodlums the right to control what it regards as the boundary between Kosovo and Serbia proper. That responsibility clearly should lie with the Kosovo institutions. The status quo ante should not be restored.
- Taking into account the statements by Serb high officials during past months advocating the change of borders do you think that Serbia’s final goal is partition of the North from Kosovo?
I think there is no question but that Belgrade’s goal is partition. It has been for a long time. Partition is a grave danger to peace and security throughout the Balkans, as it may precipitate problems in Macedonia, Bosnia, southern Serbia and Sandjak. Belgrade needs to get back to the Ahtisaari plan, read it carefully and specify precisely what more it wants than what is already provided there for the north.
- How do you see the role of the international community, namely the United States and the European Union regarding latest developments in Kosovo?
Washington and Brussels would like to see this problem resolved quickly and peacefully, with no partition. It is not clear whether those goals are all compatible. They are going to need to work hard to convince Pristina not to make unilateral moves and Belgrade to give up on partition.
- The international community is calling for discussions in the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia facilitated by the EU. After the events in North, what chances does this dialogue have? The Serb chief negotiator Borislav Stefanovic is everyday calling local Serbs not to remove the roadblocks in the North.
You make peace with your enemies, not with your friends. Borko Stefanovic is not being helpful, but you still have to talk with him. I imagine he has some complaints about things that are said in Pristina, too. The EU-facilitated dialogue is the only show in town—it is important to try to make it a success. The Americans will look for a peaceful and mutually acceptable outcome and back it fully.
The Europeans have the ultimate leverage: control over Belgrade’s EU candidacy and the date for starting negotiations. Stefanovic, or one of his bosses, needs to worry that those northern Kosovo roadblocks might become obstacles on Serbia’s path to EU membership.
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After seeing where the softly-softly approach has led in BiH, I’m inclined to think that a unilateral move was exactly what was needed to break the logjam. Or maybe what the Balkans need is more German generals and fewer EU bureaucrats doing the mediating? The final session between Kfor and the Serbian negotiators took 5 hours rather than the scheduled half-hour, and there was no mention of further negotiating with Prishtina, so it seems clear who has the most reason to be satisfied. Now it’s in the hands of the spinners. (Also, the President of Kosovo is congratulating everybody involved, including the Serbs, while Borko is saying they got what was most important, the withdrawal of ROSU troops from the border posts. But, since when does anybody use their spec ops guys as customs inspectors?) B92 poster: “See how we’ve WON again?” Approve – 344, disapprove – 21.
BTW, the Serbs keep making claims about what they’re never, ever going to do – but in 1945, who could have imagined American forces reporting to a German commander?
I find Mr. Serwer’s comments more balanced that I sometimes do. But one thing that I think is a real misperception is that the people resisting Pristina and KFOR in the north are “hoodlums.” There are criminals in the north, as there are south of the Ibar. But those manning the roadblocks over the last several days are in the great majority people afraid for their families and communities. They see the latest actions from Pristina and KFOR as a way to press them to accept a “reality” that is inimical to their continued existence in the place where they were born or took refuge after troubles elsewhere. Until this degree of humanity is granted the northern Serbs, the possibility of great injustice, not to mention ethnic violence and/or ethnic flight, remains.
And why American troops have stepped into this situation – they are enforcing the blockade at the two northern crossing points – is beyond me. Don’t we have enough problems elsewhere?
The American troops were already in country, no? It’s not as though they had to be flown in from Germany or the States.
In fact, they may even be trusted more by the Serbs than some other forces – a poster at one of the Serbian newspaper sites remarked that in 2004, it was American troops who shot and killed Albanian rioters to save Serbs in danger.
As for “hoodlums,” even Belgrade is blaming them for the events at Jarinje, which certainly weakened the Serbs’ bargaining position. I don’t think anybody is claiming that it’s hoodlums standing shifts at the barricades – aren’t they usually described as being “behind” the show of defiance? Or even acting against the locals’ pleas? (As at Jarinje.)
Eulex claimed last year to have a list of some 1500 names of criminals in the north they were ready to arrest that would end most of the problems there, but then did nothing. Leaving the area a no-man’s land is not doing the honest majority any favor. The Serbs in the north are afraid of the Albanians, true, but how much of this based on propaganda from the opposition parties in Belgrade? The Serbs in the South are not being slaughtered in their beds on a nightly basis, after all. They govern their own towns and even hold a Deputy Prime Minister slot in the government. Maybe there should be “go and see” visits from the north, not just from Serbia, to allow people to get an idea of what life could be like in a unified Kosovo. Arresting the people who set off explosives and take shots at anyone willing to try cooperation with Prishtina should also help lower the emotional temperature.
I suggest that next time you have the opportunity, speak to the northern Serbs and see how much they trust the American troops. And anyway, as an American, I cannot understand why my government has decided to put our people in the middle of yet another conflict we really don’t understand and have no direct stake in.
Mr. Serwer, you state that “Belgrade needs to get back to the Ahtisaari plan, read it carefully and specify precisely what more it wants than what is already provided there for the north.”
I can’t understand this position. It is well known that the main problem of Kosovo’s Serbs and other minorities is not the lack of laws but how they work out in practice: the discrimination, the occasional violence and sabotage and the dysfunctional justice system. How many perpetrators of march 2004 have been convicted? How many Serbs who went to court to get their lands back actually got it?