[Kcc-News] Kosovo destined for independence, but on probation

[Kosova Crisis Center News and Information]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/print?id=1205769

Kosovo destined for independence, but on probation

Reuters, Oct 12, 2005, By Matthew Robinson

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro - The majority Albanian province of Kosovo
can win independence from Serbia in 2006 but it will be conditioned by an
"international supervision" proviso, diplomats and analysts say.

While Serbia insists Kosovo can only have autonomy, the West will steer
talks due to begin later this year toward a form of "conditional
independence," they say. Quite possibly it would be conditioned on accepting
a European Union monitoring mission.

"Conditional independence is the central consensus in the international
community," said a senior European diplomat. "There's an idea what the
outcome will be, but & no blueprint."

Full sovereignty might be offered when democratic standards were achieved
and only as Serbia and the states of the western Balkans join the EU over
the course of the next decade.

The United Nations took control of Kosovo in 1999 after NATO bombing drove
out Serb forces accused of killing 10,000 Albanians in their 1998-99 war
with separatist rebels.

Six years later, with the 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority clamoring for
independence, the major Western powers which intervened in 1999 say
U.N.-protectorate status is no longer sustainable. They want a solution in
2006.

Serbs see Kosovo as their Jerusalem, the cradle of a thousand years of
Orthodox Christianity. No Serbian leader has dared to admit it may soon be
lost.

But Western governments believe Serbia has already lost Kosovo. The problem
is getting Serbs to face up to reality.

"Reintegrating Kosovo into Serbia and Montenegro will not win the Albanians'
consent. It could only be achieved and sustained by the use of force, which
is why it will not happen," says Judy Batt of the Institute for Security
Studies in Paris.

Faced with 1.9 million hostile Albanians, Serbia could not hope to govern
Kosovo again, and cannot afford it, she adds.

THE CONUNDRUM

Kosovo may have been in legal limbo for six years. But under U.N. guidance,
it is already a separate state in all but name.

The province has its own institutions of government, police and customs
services, monetary system and postal code. The ethnic Albanians, who exceed
90 percent of the population, will not accept a return to Serbian rule in
any form.

Yet with the talks only weeks off, Belgrade still insists independence is
not negotiable. It is offering executive, legislative and judicial autonomy
but insists on sovereignty over Kosovo's foreign affairs, defense and
borders.

Few analysts think the U.N. special envoy to be appointed this month can
conjure up an easy answer to what the European Union's top diplomat, Javier
Solana, calls "this conundrum."

U.N. officials say Kosovo's interim Albanian powers are as yet unable to
guarantee the rights and safety of 100,000 Serbs, ghettoized and targeted
for attack since 1999.

So, diplomats say, independence must be tied to concessions to Serbs,
including international oversight, most likely in the form of a years-long,
veto-wielding, EU-led mission.

"The most obvious analogy would be the Office of the High Representative in
Bosnia," said the diplomat, referring to the role created after the war
1992-95 Bosnia war to oversee the reintegration of Serb, Muslims and Croats
in one state.

British diplomat Paddy Ashdown is fifth in a series of Bosnian satraps who
wielded sweeping powers aimed at herding former enemies toward genuine,
multiethnic democracy.

An international security presence would also remain, with a NATO peace
force slimmed down from its present 17,000. Solana suggests the EU take over
policing, as it did in Macedonia.

THE SUGAR-COATED PILL

Such conditionality could make the eventual amputation of Kosovo -- which
covers 13 percent of Serbian territory -- a little less painful for Serbs,
especially if coupled with a promise that the whole region would eventually
be under the same European Union roof.

Brussels and Washington hope the prospect of EU and NATO membership over the
next decade will be sufficient incentive for Serbia to accept independence,
although analysts warn that the political shock to Serbia -- where
ultranationalism is still a potent force -- must not be underestimated.

"Belgrade knows it's going to lose Kosovo," said one Western diplomat. "But
it wants the price as high as possible."

Faced with independence, some observers believe Serbia may demand that the
province be partitioned at the Ibar River so that its Serb-dominated north
remains under Belgrade's wing.

But partition, which would be accompanied by forced population movements and
possibly by violent attempts to force further land swaps around Kosovo's
Albanian-peopled borderlands, is officially a taboo concept for the West.

Ultimately it is the U.N. Security Council which will decide Kosovo's
status, and veto-holding powers China and Russia may have serious
reservations about a precedent-setting grant of independence to a single,
breakaway ethnic group.

Serbia's acceptance of a divorce, however, would make a veto far less
likely, and if there were none, Kosovo would be the first newly independent
state since East Timor in 2002.

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