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Nationalism has the edge

A colleague who has spent many years in and around Serbia writes:

You have probably noticed that Serbian politics haven’t changed much…the same old faces, same games, same centuries-old unresolved issue, same silliness, and the same struggle for the country’s soul, i.e., eastern or western orientation.

That is pretty much precisely my impression from a few days in Belgrade.  Bosnia, Kosovo, Communists vs. nationalists, Washington vs. Moscow, EU as the only route out of the morass.

As fortune would have it (logistics kept me from two other appointments), I spent today mainly among anti-nationalists, which is admittedly where at least some of my personal sentiments lie.  These are the people who defend individual human rights, are unstirred by appeals to ethnic identity and are trying hard to steer the Balkans in a more “civic” and “European” direction.

They are having a really hard time.  The Serbian political spectrum has shifted definitively in the nationalist direction, with President Tadic trying hard to outflank his nationalist competion, both inside and outside the governing coalition.  Today the government fired anti-nationalist Sreten Ugricic from his position as head of the national library, for signing a statement and speaking out in defense of a Montenegrin colleague.  The pretense is that this was done because in defending someone else’s right to free speech–and freedom from physical harm–he really was calling for Tadic’s assassination, which is a stretch even in Belgrade.

But it is indicative of the atmosphere here, which is reminiscent of the Milosevic era for the anti-nationalists.  Their calls to government officials go unanswered, the American embassy ignores them and even threatens to cut off funding if they continue to refer war crimes cases to the relevant state prosecutor, their media outlets get no government advertizing and they find themselves in court on ancient and often spurious charges. Of course this makes them ever more insistent and sometimes strident, determined to steer the ship of state in the direction they thought it was pointed after Milosevic fell:  towards accountability for past behavior, resolution of the Kosovo and Bosnia dilemmas and quick movement towards the EU.

The newest feature on the anti-nationalist landscape is the Preokret (turn-around, maybe U-turn) coalition, which has managed to put Ceda Jovanovic’s Liberal Party, Vuk Draskovic’s Serbian Renewal Movement, Zarko Korac’s Social Democratic Union and some nongovernmental organizations into a pro-European coalition:

All of us, all citizens who have struggled in good faith for a European Serbia…are embittered because of our numerous lost opportunities. We are especially dismayed with the unnecessary and dangerous turn of a pro-European government towards anti-European hysteria and a strategy that logs barricades at two border crossings in northern Kosovo, which could become the barrier to gaining the status of candidate nation and a date to begin negotiations for Serbia’s accession to the European Union.

This is not hyperbole, but it isn’t popular in Serbia these days either. Those who say it over and over–like Preokret and Petar Lukovic at the anti-nationalist, regionally focused internet portal e-Novine–can expect  harassment, accusations of malfeasance, and attacks in the increasingly government-influenced popular press.

I no doubt will get notes from friends criticizing me from associating with Petar Lukovic, allowing my picture to run on his site and agreeing to mention my visit to e-Novine here on peacefare.net, which I happily do (I trust the Serbian secret services will report it anyway).  The test of a democratic society is not whether it tolerates well-mannered dissent, but whether it can allow the more strident but intelligent sort to test its mettle on the sinews of the state.  e-Novine‘s style is not mine, but that’s just the point.

My last visit today was to the indomitable Natasa Kandic.  I will carry back to Washington the Humanitarian Law Centre’s Kosovo Memory Book 1998-2000 and addendum documenting “each person killed during the Kosovo conflict because of his her nationality.”  This is a work of extraordinary dedication and commitment, one that lends a firm foundation to her effort to create a regional reconciliation commission (RECOM)

to create an accurate, objective and official record of war crimes and other serious violations of human rights; to recognize the victims and their suffering; and to prevent the recurrence of such crimes.

Who could be opposed to that, you ask? It is not so much open opposition. You’ll find lots of people to rain praise on the idea, and few who will criticize it. But there are others who do not answer phone calls, or make arrangements for high-level meetings, or otherwise fail to help make this important idea into a reality.  And why should they? Nationalism has the edge today. Keeping the wounds open serves some people better than closing them.

What does Serbia want?

There is nothing new in this post:  only an explication of President Tadic’s recent “four-point” plan for resolving Kosovo-related issues, given to me in Belgrade orally by someone in a position to know the thinking inside the Serbian government.  There are other explications out there.

First, the “red lines”:

• no recognition of Kosovo as an independent state.
• no partition, because of international community opposition.

Then, the “comprehensive solution” of more important, but non-technical issues Serbia is trying to interest the Americans and Europeans in pursuing:

1.  For north Kosovo, no less right to govern themselves than they have now.

2.  For the Serb enclaves south of the Ibar river, full implementation of their rights under the Ahtisaari plan.

3.  Resolution through an agreed mechanism of rights to private property and socially owned enterprises.

4.  An international mechanism to guarantee protection of the Serbian cultural heritage in Kosovo, in particular the church properties.

This came to me with relevant commentary.  Belgrade is not looking for return of displaced people and refugees to their pre-war homes.  It anticipates that most people who recover property will sell it to the majority group in the area in which the property happens to sit.  The current Serb officials in municipalities south of the Ibar river Belgrade regards as illegitimate crooks, which is pretty much the same way it regards Albanians who occupy positions in the Pristina institutions, but with that special disdain for those of your own kind who go over to an enemy.  Belgrade would like the municipal governments in the enclaves reconstituted more to its liking.

The last of the four issues–an international mechanism for protection of sacred properties–is directly related to Serb identity and the most important of the four items for Belgrade.  If there is flexibility on that, Belgrade can give more on the other three.  Belgrade does not regard the current Belgrade/Pristina talks as the right forum for talks on these issues.  It wants to talk more directly to those with the authority to implement solutions.  They irony of that was not lost on me.

Asked what was in the plan for Pristina, I was told that the Albanians could hope that settling these issues would encourage more investment and resulting employment.

It is difficult to regard this “four-point” plan as explicated here as representing much progress, except that it essentially reduces Belgrade’s “wants” from restoration of sovereignty over all of Kosovo to something more manageable, without however promising Serbian acceptance of Kosovo’s status as a sovereign state.  Certainly the attitude towards the Pristina institutions and the municipal governments in the Serb enclaves is one not likely to induce a warm response.  Nor are the Americans and Europeans likely to be thrilled with the attitude toward the Pristina/Belgrade talks, from which Belgrade would like to escape.

That said, there is much here a negotiator could work with.  Some sort of international mechanism guaranteeing Serb church properties in Kosovo is not out of the question.  A mechanism for settlement of property disputes was always in the cards.  If Belgrade is willing to instruct its loyalists to vote in the next Kosovo elections, I suppose some of the municipal governments it regards as illegitimate may be swept away, or in any event modified.  The Ahtisaari plan has ample provision for self-government in the Serb municipalities.

The Ahtisaari plan is in fact the heart of the matter.  It considered all four of the issues the Serbian government is now emphasizing.  A hard look at what is in the plan on these issues and how it might be implemented is in order, both in Belgrade and in Pristina.  And the day will come when direct talks between responsible officials may be necessary.

This brings us back to the recognition question.  Belgrade can expect implementation of any agreement on the four points it raises only by a sovereign government, one it recognizes as legitimate.  This is implicit of course in the Belgrade/Pristina talks, but it is still denied explicitly in Belgrade, which has painted itself into a corner by stating repeatedly and loudly that it will never recognize Kosovo as sovereign and independent (as required by its post-Milosevic constitution).  It does not have to.  It can simply allow General Assembly membership, which Moscow blocks in the Security Council with a veto bought with a sale of Serbian energy assets to the Russians at bargain basement prices. Any principled Russian position on the issue disappeared with Moscow’s recognitions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the break-away provinces in Georgia.

The related question of Kosovo’s identification in regional talks, prominent in the B92 report cited above, was not mentioned to me.  If Belgrade’s demand is that it be consistent with UN Security Council resolution 1244, I see no problem with that:  the International Court of Justice has decided that declaration of a sovereign and independent Kosovo was not inconsistent with 1244.  But of course that is not what Belgrade is asking:  it will want Kosovo’s identification to be “status-neutral,” an interpretation of 1244 that the ICJ, the United States and other recognizing countries do not agree with.  Even most of the non-recognizing EU countries understand that Kosovo will have to be dealt with on a basis that does not remind it constantly that they have not recognized it.

Belgrade is today feigning disinterest in EU candidacy, claiming that real benefits only come from getting a date for accession talks to begin and that in any event the reform process required for EU candidacy will continue.  But of course this flurry of interest in redefining the agenda comes directly from Angela Merkel’s clarity last summer about what Serbia needed to do to get EU candidacy, in particular her insistence that Serbian parallel institutions in the north be dissolved.

However turgid and byzantine the four points and the related commentary get, the real prize here is the EU, for both Serbia and Kosovo.  Belgrade can hope for EU membership, if it prepares at the current pace or better and the stars align well, before 2020, maybe even by 2018.  Kosovo cannot.  If Belgrade doesn’t mind being put on the same EU time schedule as Kosovo, which would vastly slow its progress but simplify many issues, so be it.  That likely is not want Serbia wants, but it may well be what it ends up getting.