Pristina, again
I’m in Pristina, again. The big question on my mind is about the end of “supervised independence.” Kosovo, according to the International Steering Group that has overseen its progress since independence in February of 2008, has substantially implemented the terms of the Comprehensive Settlement Proposal (Ahtisaari Plan). This will enable the Steering Group to end the supervision conducted by the International Civilian Office, which will go out of business in September.
That is a milestone worth noting. Few international operations of this sort reach a clear end to their responsibilities. The High Representative in Bosnia–the closest equivalent to the International Civilian Office in Kosovo–is still overseeing implementation of the Dayton agreements more than 17 years after they were signed. Kosovo, in order to reach this point, has had to meet a lot of requirements. It has decentralized governance, strengthened legal protection for Serbs and other minorities, improved its legislation and amended its constitution.
Supervised independence is ending, but not the complex regime of limited sovereignty that dates from the end of the war in 1999, well before independence. Kosovo will not be entitled to a proper defense force until next year, and even then NATO will remain essential to the defense of Kosovo’s territory for an undetermined period. An EU rule of law mission will still provide prosecutors and judges, especially in cases of inter-ethnic and organized crime. The UN continues to maintain a mission in Kosovo that plays a limited (I hope diminishing) role in the northern area still under Belgrade’s control. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has helped Kosovo to improve its governance and enabled Serbs there to vote in Serbian elections. Kosovo uses the euro as its currency, thus eliminating the difficult issues that arise from having a sovereign currency of its own.
Some of this chafes, but not all of it. Kosovo is happier to be part of the eurozone than many European Union members. The international prosecutors and judges relieve their Kosovar counterparts of burdensome and dangerous responsibilities. Having the OSCE around is useful if you want Serbs to be able to vote in an election neither Pristina nor Belgrade would feel comfortable arranging.
The more troubling issues concern the north and Kosovo’s defense force. No state can tolerate forever not having control over its entire territory. That is the heart of sovereignty. This applies to both Serbia, which continues to avow (even in its constitution) that all of Kosovo is part of its territory, and to Kosovo, which believes that the north is an integral part of its territory.
This is the kind of conflict that leads to war. It needs to be settled, definitively and peacefully. I can think of no better basis than the Ahtisaari plan, which would provide the Serbs of the north with ample autonomy and self-governance. It is true of course that that is precisely what Belgrade would like to offer the Kosovars, but they were at least 20 years late doing it. It might have been accepted in 1991. Independence, now recognized by 91 other countries, is a film that won’t run backwards.
Establishing Kosovo’s governing authority in the north, even in the weak form envisaged in the Ahtisaari plan, is going to be challenging. Many of the Serbs who live there don’t want it, and Belgrade encourages them to resist. Ivica Dacic, the Serbian prime minister-designate, hopes to hive off the north as compensation for the loss of the rest of Kosovo. No one in the international community wants to see that happen de jure, but no one has been ready to exert the effort to reverse it de facto.
This is related to the question of Kosovo’s future defense forces. A NATO-led force has protected Kosovo since the end of the 1999 war. But what was designed as protection against a Belgrade effort to retake Kosovo is now functioning also as protection against a Pristina effort to retake the north. This is comfortable for Belgrade, but it cannot be expected to last forever. It ties down about 5600 troops, including about 780 Americans.
Supervision is ending. That is to be celebrated. Time to get busy resolving the remaining questions.
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Kosovars lost any interest in Belgrade’s proffer of autonomy after the fighting started, and recent events in Belgrade show they were wise not to trust to promises. Autonomy for Vojvodina is apparently going to mean only the right to refer to the province as “autonomous” now that the Constitutional Court has just ruled – since the elections – that the rights they had won after years of parliamentary struggle are “unconstitutional” – no, there will be no capital city in Novi Sad, there will be no regional office in Brussels (as other regions in Europe have), there will be minimal or no control over where the money generated in the (comparatively prosperous) region goes … There are even calls (newspaper articles) about lessening the use of Hungarian in the schools. Considering how subject to interpretation the term “autonomy” is in Serbian it’s understandable that Kosovars were not interested in any form of it for Kosovo as a whole under Serb rule, and why Serbs fear what any form of autonomy for northern Kosovo could turn into.
In any case, the need for a Kfor presence is not going to decline for the foreseeable future. The new president of Serbia has said that if force is used in northern Kosovo against Serbs that Serbia could send in its military. Considering the control certain factions in Belgrade have over the level of violence in the region, he may be only offering a verbal bone to the locals while planning on doing nothing more than Tadic did. It may be more interesting that new government (his party and Dacic’s) are demoting the Ministry for KiM to an office while spreading responsibility (and reporting requirements?) throughout the entire government/bureaucracy. If this makes is possible to demonstrate just how much money is being spent under the heading “KiM” (and to whom it is going) it could provide a helpful argument to those arguing that spending on it is too high and too ineffective and it would be better for Serbs in Serbia to forget about retaining their claim to sovereignty over it.
The head of the new office says the goal will be to increase the number of Serbs in Kosovo, but that has been a Serbian goal ever since the early 1800s. A new colonization drive, as after the handover of Kosovo to Serbia by the Great Powers, seems unlikely at this time, with population falling and villages emptying out throughout Serbia. In any case, they always had more luck with moving people to Vojvodina – as a well-managed part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, and a part with good soil and an industrious population, it was easier to persuade Serbs to move there by the village-full, especially after the Germans, guilty or not of any crimes during WWII, where forced out.
The new president in Serbia is also calling for the UN to become involved in the negotiations with Kosovo. Getting the Russians involved would probably help to slow the talks down, which may be the best the Serbs can hope for at this point. With Serbia’s aging and declining population and shrinking economy it’s hard to see how they can hope for more than stalling off the inevitable end.
Mr. Serwer, what is your message for the 230,000 refugees who still haven’t been able to return to Kosovo?
My message to however many displaced people/refugees want to return to Kosovo is this: ignore what you read in the Serbian press, go have a look, evaluate the situation for yourself and decide whether you in fact wish to return.
On the numbers: The Serbian Academy of Sciences put the number of Serbs in Kosovo in 1981 at under 210,000, having declined from about 227,000 in 1961. It seems unlikely that the numbers increased between 1981 and the war in 1999, apart from the mostly Croatian Serbs relocated there by the Milosevic regime. Few of them are likely to want to return. We don’t really know how many Serbs remain in Kosovo today because the census hasn’t published the numbers south of the Ibar and the Serbs north of the Ibar have so far refused to participate. A Serb source put the number at about 130,000 in 2002.
That leaves a maximum of 100,000 Serbs who potentially might want to return, not your mythological 230,000. Why they would not already have done so to Kosovo’s north, which is still under Belgrade’s control, is not clear to me. Nor is it likely that those with a role in the Serbian administration of Kosovo (including the Serbian army and police) under Milosevic will be aching to return, for fear that they might be held culpable. For the sake of comparison, UNHCR says there are still 113,000 internally displaced people “in need of a solution” in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
But let’s be clear: Bosnia, Serbia or Kosovo: all refugees and internally displaced people have a right to return if they want to do so.
It is well known that most refugees from Kosovo are Roma. And that also a considerable number of Muslims Slavs (Gorani and Bosniaks) have left. Serbs are relatively scarce among the refugees because of the relative safety of their mono-ethnic villages. They (and other minorities) have been nearly completely cleansed from the cities.
I suppose you have seen the 2010 Amnesty report (link to pdf near the bottom) about how difficult life is (made) for those Roma who return.
Some figures:
I encountered estimates of the number of Roma (incl. Ashkali and Egyptians) refugees of 120 to 130,000. It is estimated that half the Gorani population is in exile.