Ethnic violence is back in the Balkans. And once again, it has taken the West by surprise.
This time the focal point is northern Kosovo, the region north of the Ibar River. Formally under Kosovar sovereignty, the area is claimed by Serbia and treated by the West as a de facto part of Serbia, where Serb paramilitaries profit from smuggling to the Albanian mafia while enforcing obedience among the area’s overwhelmingly Serb population.
NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR) units—which include some U.S. troops—and the EU’s rule of law mission (EULEX) tread gingerly around this reality. Belgrade exploits the paramilitaries to reinforce Serbia’s territorial claims. Officials from Pristina rarely step into this international shadowland. The United States, European Union and Belgrade all regard Pristina as a distant and inconvenient landlord, a silent partner in their tripartite understandings. Kosovo is expected to abide by the status quo and not fuss over the disjunction between Western professions of Kosovar sovereignty (albeit with close ties to Belgrade) and the reality of dominating Serb paramilitaries on the ground.
These arrangements were upended recently when Kosovo’s prime minister—finally, in the view of his countrymen—sent police units to two northern border posts to enforce a trade-policy decision by the Kosovo government. As Kosovar officials have frequently complained to the EU and the United States (to no avail), Serbia freely exports its goods into Kosovo but blockades Kosovar goods headed north. Kosovo’s deputy prime minister publicly warned Belgrade that unless it lifted the blockade within thirty days, Pristina would block Serbian goods entering through the north. On July 25—after informing EULEX of its intentions, according to the prime minister—he sent Kosovar police units to take charge of two northern crossing points along the Serbian border. The action led to a confrontation with armed Serbs, and one Kosovar police officer was killed in the shooting.
What followed were scenes reminiscent of Croatia and Bosnia in the early 1990s: Barricades went up throughout the north and began restraining KFOR movements; Two leading officials from Belgrade responsible for relations with Kosovo crossed into the north to show solidarity with fellow Serbs manning the barricades, underscore Belgrade’s claim over the territory and try to restore the status quo ante by negotiating with the KFOR commander; Serbs threw Molotov cocktails into a KFOR camp and set the two border posts ablaze. KFOR, as part of a compromise solution to tamp down the violence, took over control of the two destroyed border gates.
By Thursday a deceptive calm had returned to the area and the Kosovar forces had withdrawn. But the violence may have created a new reality. With emotions running strong on both sides, positions seem to be hardening. The Kosovars have united behind their prime minister, who condemned an already-unpopular EULEX for doing nothing to aid the police unit.
Another casualty may be the EU-sponsored Serbia-Kosovo bilateral talks on small but practical technical problems. Just weeks ago, the EU proudly announced agreement on three such issues and hoped to build momentum for further limited dialogue. But pictures of the Serbian leader of those talks meeting with paramilitaries at the barricades cast the negotiating process into a new and less benign light. The events also stirred nationalists in Belgrade. In Pristina, Kosovars now see the talks as a sideshow in which their negotiators are used as props by Brussels to help make Serbia more presentable to governments deciding soon on the country’s EU-candidacy status.
The greater damage may be to a fundamental US policy assumption: that it is better to delay grappling with the undiscussed core issue of the status of northern Kosovo—the claim in Belgrade that Kosovo be partitioned along the Ibar River and the equally firm insistence by the Kosovars that the north belongs to Kosovo.
It may well be that the West’s preference of restoring the status quo ante in the north will not be possible, though diplomats in Pristina, Belgrade and Brussels are working assiduously to achieve that. If so, Washington will have to decide whether to reexamine long-held assumptions about keeping final-status negotiations over the north in a diplomatic deep freeze and consider whether events are now forcing its hand. If this were to happen, it would require the United States to play a major role in the present negotiations and the overall Serbia-Kosovo divide.
Clearly Washington would prefer not to take on this set of headaches—far easier to kick the can down the road. Once violence, however, enters an issue, it can outrace the efforts of diplomats to contain it, as we learned in the Balkans in the 1990s.
Washington now faces two broad policy choices: follow the EU in attempting to restore the old situation by coaxing Pristina to accept the status quo ante in the north and convincing both parties return to their limited talks. Or it could try to shape a new reality, either by changing the nature of the talks and focusing on the fundamental question of the future of the north; or by leading the EU in establishing Western control over northern Kosovo and the border with Serbia. Almost certainly, if history is any guide, short-term considerations will prevail over long-term ones.
Comments
Aware that it is seen by the West as the linchpin of the region's stability, Serbia often tends to think unrealistically of its importance in a broader international affairs. Thus, instead of acting as a locomotive which leads the entire region toward prosperity and peace, Serbia usually turns out to be the major troublemaker in the western Balkans.
Breaking up countries and creating new one is a messy business. Why is the United States, one of the main contributors to the breakup Yugoslavia, surprised? However, once you have gone down the road of ethnic self-determination, which the United States has been a strong supporter of, it is very difficult to stop halfway. No, the US should not coax Pristina into accepting the old arrangement. It should strive to actually resolve the situation - coax Pristina into giving up the north in return for recognition from Serbia. Just as the Albanians will never accept to live in Serbia the Serbs will never accept living in an Albanian Kosovo. For either state to be a democracy it must accept this and the United States, as a claimed proponent of democracy, should work to make both parties accept this. With the issues of sovereignty clarified, both north Kosovo and Pristina have better conditions for creating a rule of law and economic development.
It is somewhat embarrassing to see people as experienced as the two authors get so much wrong. To begin with, the West has not treated the north of Kosovo as de facto part of Serbia. North Kosovo is de facto part of Serbia and indeed, according to UN Security Council Resolution 1244, all of Kosovo remains de jure part of Serbia. In the north live some 60,000 or more Kosovo Serbs who almost universally reject Kosovo independence and rule from Pristina. There are no roving paramilitaries enforcing obedience on the local Serbs. This is a preposterous and dangerous misperception. There are criminals in the north as there are in southern Kosovo. But the people who have been on the barricades in the last two weeks to protest the aggressive moves by the Pristina authorities are common people who see themselves as defending their communities.The decision by Kosovo's Prime Minister to send his special police to seize control of the boundary crossing from local Kosovo police and the European Rule of Law Mission (EULEX) set off the current crisis. NATO's insistence in supporting this provocative move and in now taking upon itself to enforce Pristina's blockade of goods into the north is prolonging the crisis. NATO is acting well beyond its UN mandate by supporting one side in the still open issue of Kosovo's status. American troops are on the frontline in yet another foreign territory as they are the NATO forces at the crossing points and forbidding entry to regular supplies entering from Serbia. Why the US has put itself in this position deserves further explanation.By the way, Serbia does not block goods crossing from Kosovo. Under existing arrangements, such goods can enter with appropriate customs documents issued by UNMIK. This has been working since 2008. Pristina's decision to block Serbian imports owes to its demand that Serbia accept Republic of Kosovo documents. This is a political demand. Also, the two officials sent by Belgrade to try to ensure the local Serbs accept any agreements reached have indeed also expressed solidarity with these locals. It is called peacekeeping and something KFOR should keep in mind. American troops stopped the officials from entering though they then used back roads.Finally, the policy option of trying to "shape a new reality by … leading the EU in establishing Western control over northern Kosovo and the border with Serbia" would be dangerous, including for American troops there. The northern Serbs will not accept such "Western control" because they see it as an agent of Albanian control. Any any effort to use force could lead to further conflict.
I share your sentiment. The above article comes as no surprise, given the track record of the two authors in question. There's a good follow-up commentary and discussion of this matter at: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/the-west’s-rube-goldberg-schemes-the-balkans-come-apart-5715 - Michael Averko - http://www.americanchronicle.com/authors/view/2713 - http://www.eurasiareview.com/author/michael-averko/