Tag: Balkans
Good news for Kosovo, but tough talks ahead
I count as good news both the formation of the second Hashim Thaci government in Kosovo as well as the conviction of Serbia’s former assistant Interior Minister of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Hague Tribunal.
Of course the story is more complicated than that. Thaci still faces accusations, but little evidence and no indictment, for serious crimes associated with organ trafficking that allegedly occurred in the aftermath of the NATO/Yugoslavia war more than a decade ago. His choice of Behgjet Pacolli as President of Kosovo, essential to gaining a majority in parliament, has also raised questions, as Pacolli’s construction business prospered doing work in Russia, which has opposed Kosovo’s independence. He was Both Pacolli and Thaci gained their positions with razor thin majorities.
Whatever the allegations and the size of their majority, their elections, and the appointment of a Serb as deputy prime minister, demonstrate that Kosovo’s institutions are functioning, if occasionally with difficulty. The need to repeat December’s elections in several municipalities showed both the challenges governance faces in Pristina and the capacity of its institutions to correct mistakes.
That said, Thaci and Pacolli have a difficult road ahead. Declaring yourself ready for talks with Belgrade and preparing for them seriously are two different things. Will they go to talks with Belgrade as a government with a razor-thin majority? Or will Pristina form a broader negotiating team, as it did for the Ahtisaari negotiations? The naming of the talented and tough-minded Edita Tahiri to lead the Kosovo team bodes well.
I hear the Europeans will focus in the first instance on customs on the Serbia/Kosovo border (boundary to the Serbs). This is an issue with virtues: there could be real benefits to the Kosovo, if Serbia agrees to accept its products. In addition, cooperation on customs implies some level of recognition that the authorities you are dealing with are properly constituted and have at least some sovereign attributes. There could also be some real benefits to Serbia, if smuggling comes under better control and if the European Union is willing to count the outcome of the dialogue as sufficient to allow Serbia to proceed to candidacy status.
But if the EU is going to go that far, Pristina will need to be certain that Serbia cannot become an EU member without accepting and recognizing Kosovo as a sovereign state. Several EU members have now said as much, but agreement on that position at 27 is difficult because of the five EU members that have not recognized Kosovo. Pristina is going to need some real statecraft to ensure that EU interest in accelerating Serbia’s membership does not come at Kosovo’s expense.
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Bosnia anyone?
Yes, there were quite a few of you out there interested in Macedonoia, and then the piece about Bill Montgomery piece about Bill Montgomery grabbed a lot of you interested in Serbia. What about Bosnia? My latest is here. It is a response to a piece by Ted Galen Carpenter advocating partition.
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Wasting your money, Tomislav?
This is inside baseball, but for those of you who might be interested: former U.S. Ambassador William Montgomery’s September 2010 registration with the Justice Department as an agent for Tomislav Nikolic, President of the Serbian Progressive Party.
I would be the last to deny a retired Foreign Service officer whatever income he can find, and 7500 euros a month is not pocket change, but I would also want to know whom he represents when he gives interviews calling for the dissolution of Bosnia. To be fair he was doing this even before the date of his registration, and he is of course entitled to his views, which are contrary to mine.
The partitions Montgomery proposes are sure formulas for re-igniting conflict in the Balkans, with devastating results, including the formation of an Islamic Republic in central Bosnia. Remember Bill? We called that the “non-viable, rump Islamic Republic that would be a platform for Iranian terrorism in Europe.” Hard for me to see how that is in the U.S. or Serbian interest. But there is of course no longer a need for Bill to worry about that. He works for Nikolic.
The bigger problem may be for Nikolic: he is going to have a hard time being welcomed in Washington unless he takes a pro-Europe, One Bosnia line. Associating himself with Bill Montgomery’s advocacy of partition of Bosnia and Kosovo is no way to overcome Nikolic’s past association with the hard-line, anti-European ethnic nationalism of the Serb Radical Party, from which he split in 2008.
What does Montgomery do for Nikolic’s money? He’ll call his old friends at State, the National Security Council and Congress to get appointments. This is something that the head of a party in the Serbian parliament could and should have done by his own secretary, or by the Serbian embassy.
If that doesn’t work, I’ll help him, for free. I am vigorously in favor of Washington hearing from all parts of the political spectrum in Serbia. But it is simply outrageous that people get paid to make appointments in Washington–our public servants should all be told to tell paid agents that appointments can only be made directly, not through intermediaries.
If Nikolic wants to pay Montgomery to write his talking points, that’s fine with me. But they’ll have to say something different from what Montgomery has been saying in public.
Wasting your money, Tomislav?
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The world beyond Egypt
I’ve been so caught up in Egypt for 10 days, and Tunisia before that, I’m feeling the need for one of those quickie updates, so here goes (even if there is relatively little progress to report):
- Iran: P5+1 Ankara meeting at the end of January went badly, some say because Ahmedinejad did not take advantage of what the Americans were offering. I don’t think we’ve heard the last of it.
- Pakistan: Messy (that’s what I call it when a President has to call for a roundtable conference), but no big crisis.
- North Korea: Quiescent for the moment, but mil/mil talks have stalled.
- Afghanistan: Lots of reports of military progress from David Petraeus, and some sign that the Taliban may be looking for negotiations, or at least that is how I interpret their putting out the word that they might break with Al Qaeda.
- Iraq: some Arab/Kurdish progress that will allow oil to flow north. My friend Reidar Visser doesn’t think that’s good, but I do.
- Israel/Palestine: Biggest news has been the Palestine papers, widely interpreted to suggest Palestinian weakness, ineptitude or both. I think they show the Israelis overplaying their hand to no good purpose.
- Egypt: Trouble. This is what I said at the end of the year: “succession plans founder as the legitimacy of the parliament is challenged in the streets and courts. Mubarak hangs on, but the uncertainties grow.” Did I get it right? All but that part about the courts anyway.
- Haiti: Presidential runoff postponed to March 20. President Preval’s favorite will not be on the ballot; former first lady Mirlande Manigat will face singer Michel Martelly.
- Al Qaeda: No news is good news.
- Yemen/Somalia: Yemen’s President Saleh has so far proved immune to Egyptian flu, but itmay not last forever. Parliament in Somalia has extended its own mandate for three more years, dismaying the paymasters in Washington and other capitals. Nice democracy lesson.
- Sudan: The independence referendum passed, as predicted (no genius in that). Lots of outstanding issues under negotiation. President Bashir is behaving himself, some say because of the carrots Washington has offered. In my experience indictment has that effect on most people.
- Lebanon: Indictments delivered, not published, yet.
- Syria: President Bashar al Assad is doing even better than Bashir of Yemen. No demonstrations materialized at all.
- Ivory Coast: Gbagbo and his entourage are still waiting for their first-class plane tickets. African Union is factfinding, in preparation for mediation. Could this be any slower?
- Zimbabwe: Mugabe continues to defy, sponsors riot in Harare. No real progress on implementation of powersharing agreement with the opposition.
- Balkans: Bosnia stuck on constitutional reform, Kosovo/Serbia dialogue blocked by government formation in Pristina, Macedonia still hung up on the “name” issue. See a pattern here? Some people just recycle their old problems.
- Tunisia: At last some place where there is progress: the former ruling party has been shuttered. Don’t hold your breath for that to happen in Egypt!
PS: on Algeria, see this interesting piece.
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Anyone out there interested in Macedonia?
Here’s an interview I did over the weekend for Slobodanka Jovanovska of Utrinski Vesnik, a Skopje paper:
Q. Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski soon will travel in U.S. to have a meeting with the high officials in the State Department. It will be his first official visit after five years on power, motivated by political crisis in Macedonia. How do you see American-Macedonian relations and do you agree that, after the NATO summit, Macedonia is going in opposite [a negative] direction?
A. My sense is that Prime Minister Gruevski has not made a lot of friends in Washington, mainly because of his brandishing of Macedonian nationalism and his failure to come to terms with the Greeks on the name issue. I don’t say this is entirely fair, only that he is seen as more a problem than part of the solution in influential circles.
Q. Do you see potential for “Tunisian scenario” in Macedonia after almost all of the opposition parties left the Parliament, and after the instability in Albania? How do you comment the critics here that there is not democracy in the country and that the freedom of expression is threatened by ruling party?
A. I don’t think Macedonia is even close to Tunisia: Skopje may not be a perfect democracy, but it is a nascent democracy that is far ahead of Tunis. What the opposition lacks is not freedom, but votes. It would certainly be a mistake for Macedonia to follow Albania’s lead—it takes a long time for a country’s reputation to recover from that sort of instability. As for the threat to freedom of expression, that concerns me, but how do I know the accusations are unfounded?
Q. There is [the] impression in Macedonia that Obama’s administration is not interested about the Balkans as much as the previous one and is not doing enough about the name issue, which is blocking Macedonian membership in NATO and EU negotiations. What is your opinion on that?
A. Anyone can see that the Obama Administration has its hands full with many problems that come ahead of the Balkans: Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Sudan just to name a few. And I think there is a feeling here that it is up to the Greeks and Macedonians to settle the name issue, not up to Washington, which tried for many years.
Q. Macedonia was one of the countries which supported Bolivia about the controversial coca leaf, contrary to U.S. which supported the ban. The Prime Minister had a meeting with Robert Mugabe and got as a favor recognition of the constitutional name of Macedonia. The president Gjorgji Ivanov is sending messages for better relations with Russia…Do you think that this is wise policy instead of NATO and EU membership?
A. If it is instead of NATO and EU membership, I think it is not wise. But many Macedonians feel strongly about the name issue and I can’t blame them for that. It seems to me Gruevski may have decided he doesn’t want a solution (other than “Republic of Macedonia”). That is his right, but then EU and NATO membership are not possible, so long as Greece remains opposed.
Q. Do you personally believe that there is solution about the name dispute with Greece and where do you find, if any, optimism?
A. Optimism, no. But I am sure there is a solution. The question is how much more damage will be done before they come to it.
Q. Generally, do you think that the Balkan countries are going in right direction and are there any threats left?
The big threat in the Balkans today is lack of progress: on the Macedonia name issue, on Bosnia’s constitutional reforms, on Pristina/Belgrade dialogue. These are long-standing irritants that are being allowed to remain unresolved and are blocking progress towards NATO and the EU. This is a mistake—Brussels and the Balkans capitals need to find a way of moving forward, even if only slowly. Washington will help, but it doesn’t want to play the primary mover role any longer.
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Dodik’s next move: squeezing Brcko dry
Matthew Parish, who now practices law in Geneva with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, has kindly given me permission to publish this interesting analysis, which has already appeared in the Bosnian newspaper Oslobodjenje. From 2005 to 2007, Matthew lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he worked for the Office of the High Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina (OHR) as the Chief Legal Adviser to the International Supervisor of Brčko.
While I think Matthew is overly harsh in his description of OHR officials, the careful dissection of what Dodik is up to merits attention, including from the OHR and other concerned internationals. As it is significantly longer than the usual blog posts, I’ve put the piece in the “From the field” section, where Geneva (and Brcko) are located from my DC perspective.
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