Recognizing Kosovo

Recognizing Kosovo implies, first, recognizing reality. The dissolution of Yugoslavia already extends to the gains of Serbia in 1912–1918. Serbia for all practical purposes lost Kosovo nine years ago. Kosovo’s independence has been recognized by the U.S. and de facto by the EU, which is sending a mission to help run the place. As must have been painfully obvious to a quarter of a million protesters gathered in Belgrade on 21 February, no Serbian politician has a plan for getting it back. Nor is there any obvious way to do that, short of launching another Balkan war involving ethnic cleansing on an unprecedented scale and another fight with NATO. Not an appetizing prospect for Serbia, considering the losses it incurred in each of its 1990s wars. As far as reality goes, the only question is who is really in control north of the Ibar.

Second, recognizing Kosovo’s independence is to recognize the manifest will of the vast majority of the territory’s population, expressed since 1989 in illegal referendums, in non-violent resistance through parallel institutions, in a war for independence, and now in a declaration of a democratically elected parliament — immediately ratified, one is tempted to say, in a plebiscite of popular joy on the streets. Maintaining the status quo, on the other hand, might sooner or later have led to an Albanian insurgency against the UN administration. Not an appetizing prospect for NATO peacekeepers, who given the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan would prefer to continue to be welcomed by at least one Muslim population.

Third, recognizing this independence is to recognize that continuing the status negotiation process is pointless, and that the Ahtisaari plan was and is the best achievable solution for all Kosovo’s inhabitants. Continuing negotiations is pointless: the minimal demands of the parties being irreconcilable, no agreed settlement is possible. The best basis for an agreement thrown up by the status negotiation process was the UN Special Envoy to Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari’s 2007 Report and Comprehensive Proposal. The Kosova Declaration of Independence commits Kosovo to unilaterally implementing the Ahtisaari plan, with its extensive safeguards and concessions for the Serb community. Far worse scenarios could easily be imagined.

First, recognizing Kosovo does not mean accepting a principle that different nations cannot live together. This gloomy interpretation, with its lethal implications for Bosnia and Macedonia among others, was proffered in the Slovene press last weekend, not just by Serb premier Koštunica, but more surprisingly by former Slovenian president Milan Kučan.²

But by declaring independence, the Albanian majority have only declared, as Slovenes did 17 years ago, that they will not live under Serbian-dominated rule from Belgrade. If that distinction is questionable, given the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Serbs by Kosovo Albanians in 1999 and 2004, that is all the more reason to insist on it, for the sake of the estimated 120,000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo.

True, Slovenia seceded from a badly undemocratic Yugoslavia, while Kosovo has now formalized its independence from a Serbia that has, in the meantime, democratized. It should in principle be acceptable for one people to live as a minority in a democratic state dominated by another. Should Kosovars have been told to stay in Serbia, accept the high degree of autonomy mooted by the Serbian side in last-ditch negotiations, and use their considerable vote to help make Serbia a better place for all its peoples? Should they have trusted that a democratic Serb nationalism would show less hegemonic appetites than an undemocratic one? Given all that has gone before, would a Serbia that included a rapidly growing Kosovo Albanian population with autonomy as well as central voting rights have been more stable than what we are now getting, or would it be followed by new cycles of resentment, repression and rebellion? These are fair questions, but absent a firm American “yes,” Kosovo Albanians — with ample reason to distrust Serbian promises — have gone firmly and irreversibly for a “no.”

Second, I don’t see why recognizing Kosovo need imply a major shift in the balance between self-determination and the sanctity of international borders: Kosovo’s independence is neither sui generis, as the countries supporting it insist, nor a major new departure in international law. It is simply another national liberation struggle, which, for a large number of coinciding reasons, happens to be on the verge of succeeding. Other national liberation struggles will resemble it more or less. They will appeal more or less plausibly to the Kosovo precedent, while others will point out relevant differences. Most will fail, as both boosters and deniers of Kosovo’s dependence will want them to.

Third, recognizing Kosovo need not imply affirming a general principle that states may be punished for massive past violations of human rights with the loss of sovereignty over parts of their territory. The undeniable attractions of such a principle would not, I think, outweigh the risks — in particular, the greatly increased risk to human rights advocates and reporters in many places if their reporting of abuses were viewed as preparing the ground for secession.

This is not to say that moral arguments should play no political role. There is an obvious moral and political argument, for instance, why, fourth, recognizing Kosovo does not imply recognizing any right to secession on the part of the Republika Srpska entity in Bosnia and Hercegovina, as its Assembly tried to claim in a resolution this week. The Kosovo Albanians patiently and non-violently resisted brutal oppression for nearly a decade before taking up arms, thus bringing down upon themselves a wave of ethnic cleansing that stirred the West’s sympathy and guilty conscience after the Srebrenica genocide (later, they wasted a good deal of that sympathy by responding with ethnic cleansing of their own). The Srebrenica genocide was the culmination of a war of ethnic cleansing, or terror against civilians, started by the founders of Republika Srpska with the aim of secession, even though Serbs were not particularly oppressed in Bosnia-Hercegovina at the time. Nor are they now. Recognizing that secession would be a dangerous precedent indeed.

Finally: recognizing Kosovo, sadly, is most unlikely to be the “end of the Balkan troubles” — as Bernard Kouchner incredibly put it. Make no mistake about it, Kosovo’s independence is a crisis. No state can be expected to take a loss of a substantial part of its territory easily, but the attachment of many Serbs to Kosovo is a religious one — both in the strict sense and in the sense that it is deep-set, passionate, and not amenable to rational persuasion. Kosovo’s secession would be difficult to handle even if Serbia were led by great statesmen, which it currently is not. As it is, the wound is likely to fester for years, with unpredictable but possibly very unpleasant historical consequences, both within Serbia and in the region. The venting of impotent rage in Belgrade mass meetings resembles not so much the end of a horror movie as the “hook” for a sequel. And those who laugh at rhetoric about Kosovo as “the sacred land of the Serbs,” should keep in mind that sacred land is not a claim to be trifled with.

Recognizing Kosovo means recognizing reality, but it is not a reality to inspire complacence.