Day: July 20, 2018
Montenegro is not alone
I did this interview on Montenegro yesterday for Ian Masters of KPFK (Los Angeles):
The main point is not only about Montenegro but also about the Article 5 mutual defense guarantee: Trump has made it doubtful not only for Podgorica, but for all the other allies as well.
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Fake news, wishful thinking
That’s the best response to the report that US Ambassador to Kosovo Delawie has opened the door to partition of Kosovo. Here is the text of the original interview with Adriatik Kelmendi, whose relevant section reads this way:
AK: We discussed in the previous interview with you, there are many ideas going around about how the final solution of the agreement would look like between Kosovo and Serbia and many are saying that maybe some exchange of territories or partition of Kosovo can again come into the table. What is the U.S. stance on it?
AMB: I’m not going to get at what could be the elements of a deal, of an agreement, at this point. I don’t think that is really helpful. Especially when I’m trying to encourage people in Kosovo to take on that responsibility and participate in the discussion. So I’m not going to say who I think should be in the room, I’m not going to talk about the shape of the table, I’m not going to talk about what should be the elements of the final agreement. I can say that Kosovo politicians, Kosovo citizens, are fully capable of making these decisions on the negotiating positions themselves, and the United States will be standing by them as they talk about these things. Our support for Kosovo is consistent, it’s unalterable, it will continue into the future. I think those are the elements of what a deal might look like, are elements that are more appropriately discussed by people in Kosovo.
AK: It’s been almost three years since you arrived in Kosovo, did you notice any change of U.S. policy towards Kosovo and the Balkans in these last three years, from the beginning up till now while we are talking?
AMB: People react as things change, there was this terrific deal between Macedonia and Greece, so our position changes when things change. We celebrate good news like that. So regarding U.S. support for Kosovo, I sense no change. Our commitment to Kosovo has been bipartisan, it has continued since the 90’s. I have no hints from the new administration of any change in that position.
AK: I note, up till now the U.S. policy towards Kosovo was Kosovo was independent, Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is the one that should be respected by all sides, partition is never to be discussed, so now are you hesitant to say that, to repeat this again?
AMB: First of all, Americans support for Kosovo’s independence is unshakable and will continue. The other questions you ask relate to the elements of a final deal and I’m still not going to get at those right now for the reasons I’ve already mentioned.
AK: But you exclude partition, or you do not exclude that?
AMB: I am saying that I’m not going to talk about what an element of the final deal will be, I’m not going to talk about who I think should be leading this discussion in Brussels, and I’m not going to talk about ancillary details like what room it should be in or the shape of the table. Especially I think we are getting ahead of the discussion that really needs to take place here, and needs to have more participation from Kosovo’s political parties. Everybody needs to get in the game to talk about these things.
AK: Does this mean that for the U.S. administration every deal that can be reached between Kosovo and Serbia will be okay with America?
AMB: I’m still not going to answer that question, I’m sorry, you are very creative in asking several different ways. But it’s still the same question. I don’t want to bore the audience and I’m not going to get at the elements of the deal today.
AK: But you answered these kinds of questions before. Something has changed.
AMB: Today, this week, I’m focused on encouraging Kosovo political parties, Kosovo politicians, to try to get together and work on what are Kosovo’s goals. I think we are getting ahead of things if we talk about what’s going to happen at the end of the game. Kosovo needs to figure out what its goals are, it needs to try to achieve some kind of consensus on those goals, and that is what I am focusing on right now.
AK: There should not be redlines?
AMB: I don’t think it’s really helpful for me to talk too much about redlines, it’s up to Kosovo to figure out what its goals are. I think Kosovo is facing a unique moment in its history when it can help determine what the future is going to be for Kosovo, for Kosovo’s children, and to put aside the nervousness, the tension, the controversy that has characterized the relationship between Kosovo and Serbia these last several years. I think it’s important to focus on how to make the future better for all of Kosovo’s citizens, for Serbia’s citizens as well, and to find out a way to get to this normalization that we’ve been working on for a long time.
I might have wished, with the infinite wisdom of hindsight, that he had handled the partition issue differently by saying that the US continues to support the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Kosovo, but Greg was clearly in this interview trying to stay our of the substance. He didn’t discuss partition at all. His main purpose was to encourage broader participation of Kosovo’s political forces in the process. He said unequivocally there is no change of US policy. For people in Belgrade to say there is, based on this interview, is wrong.
Kosovo Prime Minister Haradinaj quickly rejected the idea of exchange of territory with Serbia:
Division means war for me, and I say that without hesitation. It’s risky to speak about the partition…there is no victory, exchange of territory, or changes the borders. That’s dangerous and something we should not try to do in these circumstances.
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The elephant in the room
Tuesday, Carl Gershman (President, National Endowment for Democracy (NED)), Andrew Wilson (Executive Director, Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE)), Daniel Twining (President, International Republican Institute (IRI)), Kenneth Wollack (President, National Democratic Institute (NDI)), and Shawna Bader-Blau (Executive Director, Solidarity Center) convened at CSIS to discuss “Promoting Democracy in Challenging Times.” Daniel Runde (Senior Vice President; William A. Schreyer Chair and Director, Project on Prosperity and Development, CSIS) moderated the panel.
In recent years, the world has experienced a democratic recession. Civil societies have suffered amidst authoritarian resurgences in countries that previously displayed shifts towards democracy. Established democracies have also endured setbacks amidst populist groundswells that enabled the rise of authoritarian-friendly leaders like Trump. From the outset, Runde made it clear that Trump’s recent cozying up to totalitarian leaders would not feature prominently in the discussion, imploring the panelists to “tell him something they are optimistic about” in their democracy promotion work.
With this in mind, Gershman opened by pointing out that NED was founded in the midst of Huntington’s third wave of democratization in the 1980’s. In this sense, the democratic backsliding of the last 12 years should be seen less as a permanent phenomenon and more as a temporary setback. Despite this challenging environment for democracy promotion, however, Gershman highlighted that NED enjoys unprecedented bipartisan congressional support. Abroad, recent democratic gains in The Gambia, Colombia, Malaysia, Armenia, and Tunisia reveal that democracy remains an appealing option worldwide. Gershman reminded the audience to never underestimate the power of the people, pointing to the January protests in Iran as evidence that citizens there are tired of their country’s “failed system.”
Bader-Blau said her organization’s efforts to stand in solidarity with workers around the world recently convinced the ILO to enshrine freedom from harassment at work as a human right. The Solidarity Center’s efforts have also led to the unionization of 200,000 garment workers in Bangladesh. Wilson highlighted CIPE’s recent progress in Bangladesh. The creation of the Bangladesh Women’s Chamber of Commerce with CIPE’s help allowed 10,000 women in that country to receive loans to start or expand their businesses. CIPE’s work has also encouraged international corporations to look beyond profits and place more importance on their role in society, particularly in the developing world.
For Twining, a major source of optimism lies in IRI’s work to strengthen governments in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the Balkans. Beyond addressing the institutional vacuums that foment violent extremism, Twining revealed that this work also strengthens societies to prevent destabilizing refugee flows from occurring. Twining also emphasized IRI’s positive influence in Europe, where its efforts to expose foreign influence in domestic politics are helping to curb Russian disinformation campaigns in the region.
Wollack also chose to focus on the Middle East, highlighting positive developments in Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, and Tunisia. For him, reforms among these Middle Eastern “liberalizers, reformers, and transformers” continually prove that they can handle economic and political problems better than autocrats. Another source of optimism is the fact that NED and its affiliates exist today, in contrast to 35 years ago, when no funds for democracy promotion existed in OECD countries.
The five panelists agreed that the work of democracy promotion matters because people, if given a realistic choice, will choose this system of government because they want to be free. After all, this is the premise upon which the NED and its four affiliates were founded during the Cold War. However, what happens when that choice is eroding in the United States, the country historically seen as the beacon of democracy?
The erosion of democratic norms in America has turned what Gershman described as a recession into a democratic crisis that severely erodes the credibility of the NED family of organizations abroad. President Trump counters and corrupts the efforts of NED and its affiliates every day, both outside and inside the United States. IRI’s efforts to counter Russian disinformation campaigns are undermined when the president attacks the free press. Things could get worse if Putin begins using force to pick off countries at the periphery of NATO with the confidence that mutual defense has become obsolete. Further, Trump’s performance in Helsinki raises the question of whether the US president has been co-opted by the very country that threatens these nations.
Wollack revealed that NDI was founded based on the principle that “if democratic politics fail, the entire democratic system is put in jeopardy.” This rings true today, though in a way that NDI’s founders would probably never have imagined. The democratic system’s legitimacy is threatened by our president, the elephant in the room. The NED organizations do not have the authority to act here at home, but an intervention is badly needed. Let’s hope that it comes through the power of the people this November.
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