[AlbClub] NYT: Kosova Declares Its Independence from Serbia

[Haxhi Hoti]

Kosova Declares Its Independence from Serbia

 

Andrew Testa for The New York Times

People signed the back of a sculpture, reading "Newborn" in English, at 
its unveiling on Sunday in Prishtina, the capital of Kosova.

 

By DAN BILEFSKY | February 18, 2008


PRISHTINA, Kosova 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/serbia/kosovo/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> 
-- The province of Kosova declared independence from Serbia 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/serbia/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> 
on Sunday, sending tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians streaming 
through the streets to celebrate what they hoped was the end of a long 
and bloody struggle for national self-determination.

The image

Kosova's prime minister, Hashim Thaçi, left, shaking hands with 
President Fatmir Sejdiu in Parliament on Sunday.

Kosova's bid to be recognized as Europe's newest country -- after a 
civil war that killed 10,000 people a decade ago and then years of limbo 
under United Nations 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org> 
rule -- was the latest episode in the dismemberment of the former 
Yugoslavia, 17 years after its dissolution began.

It brings to a climax a showdown between the West, which argues that 
Serbia's brutal subjugation of Kosova's ethnic Albanian majority cost it 
any right to rule the territory, and the Serbian government and its 
allies in the Kremlin. They counter that Kosova's independence is a 
reckless breach of international law that will spur other secessionist 
movements across the world.

As Albanians danced in the streets and fired guns in the air in the 
capital, Prishtina, international reaction was sharply divided, 
suggesting that the clash between the principles of sovereignty and 
self-determination was far from resolved.

Britain, France and Germany were expected to be the first recognize the 
new nation as early as Monday, while other nations, fearing separatist 
movements within their own borders, have said they will refuse. Russia 
demanded an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/security_council/index.html?inline=nyt-org> 
to proclaim the declaration "null and void," but the meeting produced no 
resolution.

The image

The independence of Kosova was celebrated beyond its borders. In New 
York City on Sunday, crowds gathered in Times Square waving the Albanian 
and the American flags. Photo: John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times

The United States and additional European Union 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/european_union/index.html?inline=nyt-org> 
member states were expected to recognize Kosova's independence in the 
coming days.

President Bush, speaking in Tanzania, said the United States would 
continue to work to prevent violence in Kosova, while reaching out to 
Serbia. He said that resolving the conflict in Kosova was essential to 
stability in the Balkans and that "the Serbian people can know that they 
have a friend in America."

In declaring independence, Kosova's prime minister, Hashim Thaçi 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/hashim_thaci/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, 
a former leader of the guerrilla force that just over 10 years ago began 
an armed rebellion against Serbian domination, struck a note of 
reconciliation. Addressing Parliament in both Albanian and Serbian, he 
pledged to protect the rights of Kosova's Serbian minority. "I feel the 
heartbeat of our ancestors," he said. "We, the leaders of our people, 
democratically elected, through this declaration proclaim Kosova an 
independent and sovereign state."

Kosova, a desperately poor, predominantly Muslim landlocked territory of 
two million, has been a United Nations protectorate since 1999, policed 
by 16,000 NATO 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/north_atlantic_treaty_organization/index.html?inline=nyt-org> 
troops. Its unemployment rate is about 60 percent and average monthly 
wage is $250.

Electricity is so undependable that lights go out in the capital several 
times a day. Corruption is rife and human trafficking threatens to 
entrench a lawless state on Europe's doorstep.

Ethnic Albanians from as far away as the United States poured into 
Prishtina over the weekend, braving freezing temperatures and heavy snow 
to dance in frenzied jubilation. Beating drums, waving Albanian flags 
and throwing firecrackers, they chanted: "Independence! Independence! We 
are free at last!"

A 100-foot-long birthday cake was installed on Prishtina's main boulevard.

In an outpouring of adulation for the United States, the architect of 
NATO's 1999 bombing campaign against Serbian forces under President 
Slobodan Milos(evic' 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/slobodan_milosevic/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, 
revelers unfurled giant American flags, carried posters of former 
President Bill Clinton 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/bill_clinton/index.html?inline=nyt-per> 
and chanted, "Thank you, U.S.A." and "God bless America."

Hundreds of people, many waving Albanian flags, celebrated in Times 
Square. Revelers in cars drove in circles around the area, leading 
chants whenever they passed the crowds gathered on the sidewalks.

That spirit of exaltation contrasted sharply with the despair, anger and 
disbelief that gripped Serbia and the Serbian enclaves of northern 
Kosova. In Belgrade, Serbia's capital, as many as 2,000 angry Serbs 
converged on the United States Embassy, hurling stones and smashing 
windows.

In the Kosova Serb stronghold of Mitrovica, a grenade was thrown at a 
United Nations building, the police said. No one was injured.

Vojislav Kos(tunica 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/vojislav_kostunica/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, 
the prime minister of Serbia, which has regarded Kosova as its heartland 
since medieval times, vowed that Serbia would never recognize the "false 
state."

In an address on national television on Sunday, he said Kosova was 
propped up unlawfully by the United States and called the declaration a 
"humiliation" for the European Union. The Serbian government has ruled 
out using military force in response, but was expected to downgrade 
diplomatic ties with any government that recognized Kosova.

Demonstrations were planned for Monday in Serbian enclaves across 
Kosova. Serbs said they were under orders from Belgrade to ignore the 
independence declaration and remain in Kosova to keep the northern part 
of the territory under de facto Serbian control, raising questions about 
Serbia's long-term aims.

At the Security Council, Russia argued that the proclamation violated 
the 1999 resolution that established the United Nations mission in 
Kosova. "Our position is that the declaration should be disregarded by 
the international community and declared null and void," said Vitaly I. 
Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations.

But Alejandro D. Wolff, the deputy American ambassador, said, "In our 
view, this declaration is logical and consistent and completely in line 
with" the 1999 measure.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/ban_ki_moon/index.html?inline=nyt-per> 
pleaded with all parties "to refrain from any actions or statements that 
could endanger peace, incite violence or jeopardize security in Kosova 
or the region."

The Security Council agreed to a request by Russia and Serbia to hold an 
open meeting on Monday that will be addressed by the Serbian president, 
Boris Tadic.

Kosova's declaration followed nearly two years of United 
Nations-sponsored negotiations between it and Serbia. Those talks 
failed, as did a Security Council effort in December to resolve Kosova's 
future.

The European Commission 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/european_commission/index.html?inline=nyt-org>, 
the European Union's executive branch, appealed for calm, while NATO's 
secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said the alliance would 
respond "swiftly and firmly against anyone who might resort to violence."

Kosova's sovereignty remains severely circumscribed, making it reliant 
on the international community. NATO still provides international 
security, while the European Union has agreed to send an 1,800-strong 
police and judicial mission to help run the territory after the United 
Nations leaves.

Ulrich Wilhelm, the spokesman for the German chancellor, Angela Merkel 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/angela_merkel/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, 
said Germany would decide what to do on Monday.

Kosova played a central role in the collapse of the Yugoslav federation 
built by the Communist strongman Josip Broz Tito 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/josip_broz_tito/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, 
who died in 1980. Albanian nationalism erupted in Kosova in 1981, 
leading to bloody clashes.

In the 1980s, Mr. Milos(evic' used Serbs' enormous sense of grievance 
that their ancestral heartland was now dominated by Muslim Albanians to 
come to power in Serbia. By 1989, he had abolished Kosova's autonomy, 
fired tens of thousands of Albanians from their jobs, suppressed 
Albanian language education and controlled the territory with a heavy 
police presence.

Ten years ago, Mr. Milos(evic''s forces moved against the rebel Kosova 
Liberation Army 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/k/kosovo_liberation_army/index.html?inline=nyt-org>, 
killing a guerrilla leader and his family at their compound. As violence 
escalated, NATO intervened in a 1999 bombing campaign, causing hundreds 
of thousands of Albanians and Serbs to flee.

An estimated 10,000 civilians were killed in the 1998-99 conflict, many 
of them Albanians, while 1,500 Serbs died in revenge killings that 
followed.

For the ethnic Albanians who make up 95 percent of Kosova's population, 
independence marks a new beginning.

"Independence is a catharsis," said Antoneta Kastrati, 26, an Albanian 
from Peja, who said her mother and older sister were killed by their 
Serbian neighbors in 1999. "Things won't change overnight and we cannot 
forget the past, but maybe I will feel safe now and my nightmares will 
finally go away."

In Mitrovica, a 70-year-old Serbian engineer who would give only his 
first name, Svetozar, said: "I will stay here forever. This will always 
be Serbia."

Kosova's declaration created immediate ripples in the former Soviet 
Union, where small, Russian-backed separatist areas -- one in Moldova 
and two in the republic of Georgia -- have existed since the early 
1990s. Two of them -- Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia -- announced 
their intention to seek recognition as independent states.

Conversely, several of the European Union's 27 member states -- 
including Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia and Romania -- oppose 
recognizing Kosova because they fear encouraging secessionist movements 
within their own borders.

In Brussels, officials were drafting a statement for a foreign 
ministers' meeting on Monday. Senior European Union officials said they 
expected it to acknowledge Kosova's independence declaration without 
explicitly endorsing it.

The declaration of independence raises the prospects of a new 
constitution and emblems of nationhood, including a new flag bearing a 
map of Kosova topped by six stars.

But in a sign of how hard it will be to forge the kind of multiethnic, 
secular identity that foreign powers have urged, the distinctive 
two-headed eagle of the red and black Albanian flag, reviled by Serbs, 
was everywhere Sunday, held by revelers, draped on horses, flapping out 
of car windows and hanging outside homes and storefronts across the 
territory.

Warren Hoge contributed reporting from the United Nations, C. J. Chivers 
from Moscow and Nicholas Kulish from Berlin.

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