No independence for Kosovo

The imminent independence of the province of Kosovo from Serbia is at present the topic of hot debate and flaring tempers up north.

The United States and many European nations are solidly backing the call for an independent Kosovo, while Serbia and her long-time ally Russia are vociferously against such a move. The pro-independence faction cites democracy and an end to ethnic and religious tensions as the main reason for taking its stance, and views Russia’s opposing view as muscle-flexing and backing a long-time friend and ally in Serbia.

While there is much to be said for the merits of a fluffy democracy being patched together from a war-ravaged region, the motives of the pro-independence lobby do not appear to be any more sincere than they were when it invaded Iraq to liberate its people and find those weapons of mass destruction to save us all from certain doom. To push Serbia into accepting the loss of a sizeable chunk of its sovereign territory without actually being sensitive to the history and the implications would be to create another Israeli-Palestinian conflict right on Europe’s doorstep.

The history of Kosovo, and the Balkans in general, is complex, bloody, much manipulated and a subject often devolving into fierce argument. However, the generally agreed facts are:

Slavic tribes comprising the nucleus of people that became the modern Serbs moved south and settled the lands of present-day Serbia and Kosovo during the fifth and sixth centuries BC. That means that Serbs have been present there for more than 1 400 years.

Albanians as a collective people were first recorded in 1043, in Greece and not Kosovo, roughly 500 years after the Serbs had settled the area. Efforts to place them as a people in Kosovo using linguistic techniques before this time have ended in pure speculation.

Roughly speaking, Serbs controlled Kosovo for the next 800 years before losing a major battle in 1389 on Kosovo soil to the Turks of the Ottoman Empire, a solemnly infamous battle in Serbian history. There is some record of Albanians fighting on the Serbian side in the battle, but whether they came from present-day Albania or Kosovo is not known. At this time fewer than 2% of the farms and homesteads in Kosovo were Albanian by census.

During Ottoman rule, the majority of Albanians and a few Serbs converted to Islam to avoid paying oppressive taxes, but most Serbs were driven wholesale from Kosovo and by the end of the 19th century, the Albanian population eventually outnumbered the Serbian population in the region for the first time.

During the Balkan wars of 1912, Serbia again gained control over its long-lost province of Kosovo, then promptly lost it when the Albanians in the region sided with the central powers in World War I and drove it out again. The Serbs then took control after the war and were promptly driven out by Albanian fascist forces that sided with Germany and Italy in World War II. During the war, thousands of Serbs were killed by the Albanian army — more than 100 000 were driven out of Kosovo and actively replaced by ethnic Albanians from Albania as part of that government’s policy to dominate Kosovo ethnically. That is an event that happened in living memory for many older Serbs in the 1990s. After the war, Kosovo became a Serbian province yet again and part of Yugoslavia.

Under Tito, Kosovo was given federal autonomy in order to weaken Serbia and thus strengthen Yugoslavia. Albanian numbers increased rapidly to the point where today they represent 90% of the population. Albanians used various tactics, including violence and protests, to push constantly for an independent, Albanian-controlled state. Milosevic used this as a catalyst to mobilise Serbs against them in the most recent Kosovo war that we all saw on TV.

European negotiators actually brokered a ceasefire during the Kosovo war that was promptly broken by the Albanian KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) while Serbian forces were retreating. That brought new Serbian reprisals. Nato began bombing Serbian positions in Kosovo and eventually key strategic targets in Serbia and Montenegro, one of the most famous of which was a “stray” bomb that flattened the Chinese embassy on the outskirts of Belgrade, the shell and rubble of which can still be seen today among apartment blocks.

Since the end of the war, the UN has administered Kosovo. Hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Serbs have fled Kosovo for Serbia after Albanian ethnic violence against them and the burning of Serbian Orthodox churches and homes. The UN is largely impotent in containing regular Albanian reprisals against the Serbian population living in Kosovo today.

While this is a much-summarised history, I think it presents a few interesting points for debate. Firstly, one should perhaps modify the view of the much-maligned Serbs being the only bad boys in this nasty spat. Nobody could argue that Serbian forces did not commit atrocities in recent times. Judging by the history of the place, however, it was simply the next swing of the deadly pendulum that has now, with Nato’s heavy-handed help, since swung back yet again.

It would seem that the Nato bombing campaign needed a “baddie” to appear justified, and the Serbs fitted the bill nicely at the time. The Western media played ball and what was actually a simple decisive strategic action to end war being waged too close for comfort to European borders became the usual good-versus-evil Star Wars fodder dished up to us by US broadcasters. This has placed the Serbs on to the moral low ground during the current negotiations for Kosovo. How differently we would have looked at this if the snapshot were taken during World War II when the Albanians were bedfellows of the Germans and Italians and engaged in their own campaign of ethnic cleansing just 60 years ago.

Within that argument lies embedded the deeper issue: Should Kosovo be granted its independence and on what grounds? Anyone on the ground knows that independence means Albanian control, a probable coalition with Albania itself and hellish reprisals against the last 100 000 Serbs living in the region as soon as Nato moves out. Of course it is an extremely attractive proposition for the Nato countries patrolling the area. They could extricate themselves from the mess into which they bombed themselves, claim to have installed a democracy, stop paying aid and separate the Serbs and Albanians for good. It’s attractive too for the Albanian majority who get control of territory they have been fighting over for hundreds of years.

What of the Serbs, though? They clearly have a strong legitimate historical claim to the territory, the territory is still a province of Serbia, the Nato invasion and occupation of sovereign territory was a breach of international law and external powers are now deciding that Serbia’s national and religious homeland will be removed regardless of their thoughts on the matter. It would appear they have a right to be concerned about the events in progress when you review the facts.

Enter Russia. It is looking past the emotive issues and is worried about precedent. If Kosovo is successful in its independence struggle, it will set a precedent and give hope to regional minorities the world over that they too can win their autonomy and govern themselves. Russia is up to its eyeballs in candidates there! It would seem it is thinking further ahead than Europe and the US are.

Notable exceptions to the Nato voice include Spain. The Spanish are concerned about independence claims in its Basque region. What about Sri Lanka, the Congo, Sudan, Indonesia, India (Oranje?) and countless other regions with minority groups pushing for independence? All have the same potential problem and that does not even begin to address the growing issue of rapidly increasing minority populations in parts of Western Europe and the US.

How would the US react, for example, if Florida declared its independence in 2020 because it had a majority Spanish-speaking population that aligned itself more with Castro than Bush? No different to the Serbian situation in theory, perhaps, but would it apply the same precedent and allow the independence it is pushing so hard for in Kosovo? I somehow think not.

Independence for Kosovo is looking like a hasty Nato patch-job for a prickly problem, and rather than fix the mess it could create a whole new era of instability, not just in Kosovo but also the world in general. There must be a possible compromise, perhaps involving a partition of Kosovo that includes important religious and historical sites being incorporated into Serbia and similar concessions made for the Albanians.

Alternatively, federal autonomous control but not independence has already been extended by Serbia to Kosovo but rejected outright as a solution by the Albanians, who sense that they can gobble up the whole cake so why accept a slice? It seems reasonable, given the history and the investment by both sides, to revisit this idea. This proposal also has merit when you consider that Kosovo’s economy is largely dependent on Serbian consumption for its survival and the reality for Kosovo, should it break away, could be economic collapse.

Whatever the final outcome, it is sure to set minds and wheels in motion around the world. The turbulent Balkans might even hold the key to future European and global stability as they so often have in the past. It’s not the time for a Band-Aid when stitches are required.