To Albin and Shpend from Ed

Ed Joseph, my colleague here at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, offers this open memo to our recent visitors from Kosovo, Albin Kurti and Shpend Ahmeti.  They lead the “Self-Determination” Movement, which advocates a referendum on union with Albania and opposed the April agreement on normalization of relations with Belgrade.  I will of course be prepared to publish their reply, should one be received: 

MEMO

To:        Albin Kurti; Shpend Ahmeti

From:    Edward P. Joseph; Washington, DC

Date:     6 June, 2013

Subject:   Five takeaways for Vetevendosje from the Visit to Washington

I’m sure you both have gotten a lot out of your visit.  It was good to see you at the event at SAIS; I noted your diligent note-taking and was pleased to see that you saw this public event as a real exchange — both an opportunity for you to voice your views, including to a member of the Serbian Embassy, and as well to listen.  Permit me to share five points that I hope you will consider further:

1.  Speech may be free; but positions have their costs.

While you are free to voice your opinion on most anything — Serbia’s failure to change; unification with Albania, for example — you should note that free speech has its costs.  Harping about Serbia’s internal failures opens the door wider for others to harp about organ or drug trafficking in Kosovo.  You may not see an equivalence, and there may not be one; but the more you stray into comments about neighboring countries, the more it will seem to justify unflattering charges about Kosovo.  It is your right to complain about unfair Serbian treatment of Kosovo; but it is foolish to wail about all that Serbia needs to change.  Let others judge Serbia’s fitness; stick to commenting about the fitness of Kosovo. 

2.  However convinced you are about the value of unification with Albania, you are opening yourself up to an eventual political embarrassment.

Washington is a town that loves differences and debate.  The fact that there is near-unanimity about your adamant insistence on unifying Kosovo and Albania is startling.  It suggests that a lot of folks who care about Kosovo in Washington think this is a really dumb idea.  Again, free speech allows you to advance this position.  But doing so makes it extremely difficult for you to appear as a responsible figure whom the US would want to do business with.

And this point, eventually, will become clear to Kosovo’s Albanian voters who will find the defiant sound of ‘unity with Albania’ a lot less appealing when they realize that it could mean substantial damage to the most important relationship that Kosovo has: with the US.  Even if you win elections, you will lose credibility when your unification proposal goes nowhere.

3.  Stop whinging about Kosovo’s ‘limited independence.’

You argue that Kosovo is not being allowed to realize its full independence because it is not allowed to pursue unification with Albania (as a majority of Albanians in both Kosovo and Albania want.)  Well, the truth that neither Kosovo nor any country can do whatever a majority of citizens might want.  There are formal and informal constraints that operate on all countries, including even the US.  In this case, you have no basis to complain.  Kosovo owes its independence almost wholly to the US, which led NATO into an air campaign that ended Serbian control of Kosovo; and Washington advanced independence with key European allies against Russian and Serbian opposition.  Furthermore, to this day, Kosovo owes its security to NATO troops.  All that creates a quite understandable basis for Washington and others to limit Kosovo’s nationalist ambitions.  You should accept this as simply the facts of life.

4.  The US cares — a lot — about the condition of the Serb community in Kosovo.  So should you.

The US got involved in former Yugoslavia reluctantly, as Washington has limited interests in the region.  Its main interest is stability.  The main threat to stability comes from tensions related to the position of minorities.  The main approach to dealing with these tensions is to develop democratic institutions, including democratic policing, rule of law and improving economic development — all of which tend to increase the respect for human rights and improve relations within and between states.  The main vehicle for developing these institutions and reforms is the attraction of EU and NATO membership.

In short, we believe that ‘social integration’ begins first with ‘institutional development.’  We believe that, in fact, the evidence from around the world supports this sequence.  First, protect rights enshrined in law with strong institutions; then watch as social integration gradually takes place.  It is naive to think that, with a century of bloodletting between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo (including examples where both sides committed heinous acts of violence on the other and years of mistrust in the past two decades), it could be otherwise.

Among other things, all this means that we care a lot about how Serbs are treated in Kosovo (and how Serbs in the north treat Albanians), and how Macedonians treat Albanians (and how Albanians treat Macedonians in Tetovo) and how Serbs treat Bosniaks in the RS, et seq, et al.  We care whether Serbs in Kosovo can return to their homes, or whether Albanians like Shpend can do so.  If our human rights organizations are doing their jobs, they will be not only monitoring the condition of Serbs in Kosovo, but doing something to advance respect for their rights.

It’s truly great to see your party condemning the desecration of Serbian Orthodox graveyards.  This is both the right thing to do, and also the thing to do if you want to cooperate with the US and the EU.  Keep it up.  Don’t complain about the prominence of this issue.

5.  Stop blasting the 19 April Agreement; start looking for ways to ensure that it is implemented properly.

You may not like the 19 April ‘Agreement of Principles’ signed between the Prime Ministers of Kosovo and Serbia.  That’s your right.  You can continue to complain about the agreement if you want to.  You can insist that Serbia has not in any way recognized Kosovo.  You can continue to push for unification with Albania.

But if you continue to do all these things, you are helping out those who argue that Kosovo should not be recognized.  And by doing that, you do not advance any of the goals you have for Kosovo’s development.  To the contrary, you will help keep Kosovo marginalized.

Instead, you should change your approach — immediately.  You don’t have to like the 19 April agreement or publicly support it, but you should focus on seeing that it is implemented in ways that protect the interests of all of Kosovo’s citizens.  The agreement is complex and there is room for error; you could make an enormous contribution by putting forward constructive proposals — that take into account the legitimate anxieties of Kosovo’s Serb citizens as well.

Thanks for considering these points!  Wishing you and all your fellow citizens good luck.