[ALBSA-Info] Financial Times

[Agron Alibali]

Financial Times (London) October 30, 2000, Monday 


Copyright 2000 The Financial Times Limited   
Financial Times (London) 


October 30, 2000, Monday London Edition 1 

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 27 

LENGTH: 1092 words 

HEADLINE: COMMENT & ANALYSIS: Chained to Serbia's good
guy: The Serbians are right to prefer Vojislav
Kostunica to Slobodan Milosevic. But not all Kosovar
Albanians feel that way QUENTIN PEEL 

BYLINE: By QUENTIN PEEL 

BODY: 
   Good news is all too rare these days, so let us be
clear about one thing. The peaceful overthrow of
Slobodan Milosevic in former Yugoslavia was, and
remains, a wonderful cause for celebration - all the
more so in that it was so unexpected. 

It should be an enormous relief not just to the
impoverished Serbians, whose country has been ruined
by Mr Milosevic's bloody attempts to create a greater
Serbia. It also reduces a constant threat to
neighbouring states. And it has been greeted in the
capitals of Europe and America with delight because it
removes the main obstacle to stabilising the Balkan
region. 

Whoever wins next week's US presidential election will
have one headache less to deal with thanks to Mr
Milosevic's overthrow, which also appears to justify
Nato's Kosovo bombing campaign. Bill Clinton can leave
office with head high. 

So Vojislav Kostunica is enjoying a well-deserved
honeymoon as the new president of Yugoslavia. He
hardly seems to have put a foot wrong. But, sadly, it
cannot last. 

In one small corner of the region his victory is seen
as anything but a blessing. The irony is that it is in
Kosovo, where Mr Milosevic launched his last attempt
at "ethnic cleansing" and brought down on himself the
wrath of the Nato warmachine, that his demise is most
obviously mourned. 

Yesterday, the people of Kosovo went to the polls for
the first time since the war, to choose new local
authorities. The precise outcome is not as important
as the overall message: that only the ethnic Albanian
population voted, not the Serbian minority. And every
important participant was dedicated to independence. 

For those voters, the people for whom Nato went to war
last year, the continued rule of Mr Milosevic was the
best possible guarantee of their ultimate freedom. The
advent of a new democratic regime in Belgrade is
regarded with grave misgiving, because it might give
the western world good reason to delay, or even
oppose, independence. 

The Nato allies certainly cannot afford to ignore
Kosovo, as they did for far too long while the rest of
former Yugoslavia was disintegrating in the 1990s.
They now have a garrison of 40,000-50,000 troops
keeping the peace in the territory, and thousands more
civilian personnel attempting to rebuild the
structures of a civil society. 

Apart from the official missions of the UN and the
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe,
there are some 300 non-governmental organisations
involved on the ground. If there is a new
confrontation between the Kosovar Albanian majority
and a democratic Serbia over independence, then both
soldiers and civilians will be in danger of getting
caught in the crossfire, exposed to kidnapping or
worse. 

Such a threat seems certain to reinforce US
unwillingness to keep peace-keeping troops in Kosovo
for much longer, whoever wins the election. George W.
Bush's advisers have made their doubts clear. Even if
Al Gore becomes US president, he will be under
increasing pressure to bring his forces home. The
European allies in Nato will be left to police what is
universally regarded in Washington as a European
problem. 

That is not going to make the problem any easier to
resolve. For the Kosovar Albanian demand for
independence exposes the unresolved contradiction at
the heart of western policy. Even as the bombers were
unleashed, there was no attempt to define a final
status for the province. It was simply too difficult. 

The international operation in Kosovo, based on UN
Security Council resolution 1244, relies on ambiguity:
it seeks to promote substantial autonomy for the
province, while reaffirming the territorial integrity
of Yugoslavia. 

In the words of one trenchant report*: "The
international mission... resembles a ship that has
left its harbour without any final destination...This
lack of direction reflects the failure of the
international coalition - which went to war in 1999
without any agreed war aims - to develop a post-war
objective in Kosovo, or a strategy for dealing with
Milosevic." 

Those words were written before the change of power in
Belgrade. The danger is that now the constructive
ambiguity of Resolution 1244 will become destructive,
allowing both sides to claim right on their side in a
new confrontation. This time, there will be no bad guy
to blame when things go wrong. 

There are certainly no easy answers. "The rush to
embrace full-scale independence is just not on,"
according to Gareth Evans, president of the
Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "There is a
need to consolidate Mr Kostunica's position. But
equally we must recognise the utter unreality of
having Kosovo coming back into the Serbian embrace." 

Mr Kostunica won the predictable support of Vladimir
Putin, the Russian president, last week, in opposing
independence for Kosovo. But there are many among the
Nato allies who are equally dubious, fearing that such
a move might trigger a new round of Balkan rivalry,
centred on attempts to create a greater Albania. 

A provocative contribution to the debate on a final
status for Kosovo was published last week**, by an
independent international commission set up by Goran
Persson, the Swedish prime minister. It dismisses
outright independence, along with partition,
protectorate status and autonomy within a federal and
democratic Yugoslavia, proposing instead something
called "conditional independence". 

The commission's main objections to full independence
are that Kosovo is incapable of defending itself, and
cannot guarantee internal order and the protection of
minorities - Serbs and gypsies. The latter in
particular is a devastating objection. 

With "conditional" independence, both external
security and internal human rights would have to be
guaranteed for the foreseeable future by the
international community and a "considerable military
presence", the report says. 

It is a form of independence likely to fall well short
of Kosovar Albanian expectations. Equally, it fails to
take into account the new dynamic of democratic
progress in Serbia. 

What is really needed in the Balkans is a concept that
gets away from 19th century notions of "independence"
- of the nation state, rigid borders, armies,
independent currencies and hostile sovereignties. 

Of course, such a concept already exists. It is called
the European Union. But is the EU ready, willing or
able to take up the challenge? 

*Kosovo report card, International Crisis Group,
Avenue Louise 149, Brussels. **The Kosovo Report,
Oxford University Press. quentin.peel at ft.com 

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