Kosovo has never really been on the public agenda in Romania, except for today. In addition to this, Romania’s foreign policy has been everything but coherent with respect to Kosovo and to the former Yugoslavia in general. Starting from “oh Serbia… our old friend and ally” to “oh NATO… welcome us in your bossom” years ago, today’s Romania is torn between siding with the EU (which it has, since it is now contributing 6000 troops to EULex) and disapproving Kosovo’s recent declaration of independence. It might be a proof of the fact we’re still elegantly swinging back and forth between the West and rest. Paul Reynolds shows precisely how Kosovo is a typical East - West dispute in BBC News today.
Kosovo is also a dispute between law and politics. More about this in today’s Cotidianul (the article is flamboyant and hysterical, much like many samples of Romanian journalism I read every day). Kosovo also illustrates the difference between rhetoric and raw facts. Few could notice today that the newly-proclaimed state actually has a white and blue flag inspired from the EU flag. Instead, they saw their TV and laptop screens overwhelmed by red and black depictions of the Albanian dragon - despite Hashim Thaci’s statements that Kosovo’s a newborn entity deeply concerned with its minority population. It took me a while, some readings and several conversations with friends in the region to formulate an opinion on Kosovo.
Surprisingly to many, I agree with the position of Romanian politicians. I do believe Kosovo’s proclamation is a breech of international law. None of the legal criteria for self-determination has been met, and the precedent Kosovo establishes is unfortunate. I’d hate to see nationalist mobs take up weapons and seek justice on their own, at the same time rejecting consociational arrangements. As much as Kosovo’s independence is a triumph of self-determination (an ill-construed one, but nonetheless a triumph), it is also a triumph of bloodthirsty ethnic nationalism. The wretchedness the Serbian minority underwent in the last couple of years in Kosovo is deplorable.
At the same time, the ethnic cleansing that Kosovo experienced under the Milosevic regime is the most atrocious event in recent European history. Ethnic strife and all the ills deriving thereof where not solved in time, and the West failed in aiding Kosovo heal its wounds. Autonomy didn’t function because it was not set up rightly and independence has remained - to my mind - the only way out from this terrible mess Serbia got itself into. Bluntly put, Kosovo’s independence is illegal, hence wrong, but it’s the only solution for Kosovo at this sequence in history. Wrong alternatives are sometimes operationally wiser than right ones.
It’s a pity that Serbia’s reaction will plunge it several years back in history and alienate it from any hopes of prosperity derived from EU membership. At the same time, Kosovo is poor and ill-managed and it will struggle with state weakness for quite a while. All in all, Kosovo’s a fine display of cynicism…
Europe should come to its senses and quit dividing the Orthodox-Cathoolic-Protestant Christian world since we need to be united against Muslims. They’re the real enemy.
A very thoughtful analysis! Your observation that it is a neo-classical West-East split is also good even though it is still somewhat difficult for me to count Albanians as full-fledged members of the Western family of nations.
But they are darlings of the West and they love the West, probably mostly because the West has showed them so much uncritical love a decade ago.
“Bluntly put, Kosovo’s independence is illegal, hence wrong”?
I can’t help but wonder how you came to take such enormous leaps of faith. I thought you studied international law and learned the brick walls it runs into: “Sure we can’t go into Rwanda and stop the slaughtering of a million people. It is illegal.”
As illegal as something may be under international law, it can be completely the morally right thing to do.
No. Illegal does not (under any circumstances) always equal wrong!
(I’ll be back w/ more.)
You talk about ethnic cleansing in Kosovo! All Albanians that where forced to leave their homes in Kosovo, are now in Kosovo celebrating their new born state! What about 300.000 Serbs that where forced to leave there homes and can’t return to their lands that there ancestors lived for centuries… I think nobody in international community is talking about ethnic cleaning of Serbs, or any right of these people! Can you imagine living in enclave, cant move out from your village, no electricity, no water… this is reality for many Serbian villages all over Kosovo isolated and surrounded by Albanian population!
Problem of Kosovo politicians is that they were too much focusing on independence status and not about dialoged between Serbs and Albanians.
@roach… it’s pointless to even reply to such an absurd reply
@lubos motl… brilliantly put: “they are darlings of the west”
@radu… as i said in the end of my position, despite the illegality of what happened with the recent proclamation of independence, it is the best thing to do given the circumstances; not because it is morally right (because I think moral righteousness is appeasement and democratic accommodation), but because it is practically feasible; and yes, i’ve studied international law and it indeed runs into a brick wall simply because there’s no actor to exert jurisdiction over matters of international law… this is why international law principles we’ve all agreed upon should be, to my mind, respected to the greatest extent possible… this is why i considered “illegal” to equate “wrong” in this case… again, i’m criticizing the mechanism, but not necessarily the outcome (which was the only one left)
@bojan… i’ve also mentioned the wretchedness of Albanian domination and what that has done to the Serbs in the last couple of years.. i never disagreed with you on this one, and you know it. I also agree with what you’re saying that for a very, very long time dialogue between the two parties has been ignored. by both serbs and albanians, not only by “kosovo politicians”. balkan people regard politics as a zero sum game (the all or nothing approach), which obviously has negative consequences
nu te superi ca n-o zic in engleza, este?
in fine, io inca habar n-am despre istoria locului. desi e important de aflat mai in detaliu. din cate stiu eu (ce-am apucat sa arunc o privire superficiala) Kosovo e o provincie sarbeasca din evul mediu timpuriu, populatia albaneza fiind mutata aici de catre otomani (similar cu ce s-a intamplat cu sasii si secuii in romania).
pe de alta parte iara dupa cunostintele mele, Uniunea Europeana nu este de acord cu scindarile pe motive etnice.
in fien, inca sunt confuz apropo de kosovo…
It’s only absurd if you are blinded by political correctness. You do know history, so I’m sure you know about the Turkish seige of Vienna, the Battle of Kosovo, and the recent 3/11 and London attacks. Have these things excaped your notice clever one?
mr. roach you do still live in the middle ages.
And you allow political correctness to blind you to the fact that Muslims want to live in an age much darker than our own so-called Dark Ages, ages where St. Thomas and Copernicus were authoring their finest writings, while Muslims were beheading Jews and Christians from India to Spain.
Muslims gave Europe a lot in cultural terms, from medicine, to astronomy. In the dark age, Muslims were at the peak of civilization, while Europeans still feared bathing.
Also Europeans killed more jews then other civilization ever. Please, don’t talk about death and killings, because at that Europeans are champions.
But why am i even bothering with you?
Maybe you should jump off a bridge to do your part for expiating Europe’s sins. I mean this half-seriously; if you don’t believe in your society and are so racked by guilt, you should be happy to see it swalloed up by another, no?
As a Kosovar I’m saddened and upset that Romania has taken a vocal pro-Serbian stance in this dispute, and comes out in effect to deny the Kosovars their rightly deserved freedom and statehood. I understand that Romania might have fears regarding its own situation with the Hungarian minority but the situations are miles apart. I’ll get into the legal argument in a sec, but first two small corrections: Romania could not possibly contribute 6000 troops to EULEX, because all of EULEX won’t have more than 2000 personnel. And second, re Bojan’s claim that 300 000 Serbs were forced out of Kosova. How could that be when according to the official Yugoslav census of 1991, Kosova had only 190 000 Serbs, and at present there are nearly 120 000 of them still residing in the province. According to UNHCR, Serbia has only 200 000 IDP, and that certainly includes refugees from the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosova. The magnitude of the Serbian flight from Kosova has always been greatly exaggerated by the Serbian side for obvious propaganda reasons.
Regarding the legal argument. It is not at all true that Kosova’s independence is illegal. When we speak about international law in this case, we should keep in mind two documents: Resolution 1244 of the UNSC and the Rambouillet Accords. Neither of these documents preclude the Independence of Kosova. In fact, Rambouillet requires specifically that the final settlement be based “on the will of the people”.
R 1244 recognized a nominal sovereignty over Kosova to Yugoslavia, but only for the interim period after the war and until the final status was determined. It was nominal because the same resolution defined that all matters of administration, foreign policy, security etc were the responsibility of the International Community (UNMIK, KFOR etc) and of Kosova Govt (PISG), with Yugoslavia being treated practically as a foreign country with no say whatsoever over any field of the administration. Please note that the sovereignty was assigned to Yugoslavia not Serbia. That is a very subtle but crucial point. At the time Yugoslavia was a federation and Serbia was a republic of it. 1244 treats Kosova as a federal unit - as far as the nominal sovereignty is concerned - and not as a part of the republic of Serbia. Kosova had been a federal unit before, as an autonomous province, with all the trappings of the republic but the name, but that was revoked illegally by Slobodan Milosevic in 1989, an event that in effect set the ball rolling for the destruction of Yugoslavia (SFRY) and the secession of Slovenia, Macedonia, Croatia and Bosnia. During Rambouillet negotiations, FRY (the rump Yugoslavia) had insisted very hard that Kosova be recognized in the agreement as a part of the republic of Serbia, but they obviously lost that argument in the war with NATO and R 1244, which considered Kosova as a federal unit.
Now, FRY ceased to exist in 2006, when Montenegro left the federation. It could be argued legally that the dissolution of FRY, removed any obligation from Kosova, as no one had any sovereignty anymore (nominal or otherwise) over the territory. Serbia claims to be the successor state of the FRY, however as far as 1244 goes, the sovereignty was assigned to FRY not Serbia and for a very good reason. UNSC did not amend Res 1244, when FRY died, to transfer its sovereignty over to Serbia. That makes 1244 antiquated and ambiguous at best. The “deed” that Serbia claims to have over Kosova, so to speak, has written on it someone else’s name, and is about as valid today as a treaty binding Serbia to the Ottoman Empire.
Furthermore, legal experts have argued that the Yugoslav sovereignty under 1244, is not even legally binding since it is only mentioned in the preamble, and the UNSC resolution preambles are not legally binding in terms of “We decide, we confirm, we order” etc. This point was also recognized by the Serbian legal expert Prof. Ivo Viskovic.
So, Serbia’s legal argument is very weak. They don’t have any other argument to hold on to Kosova and that’s why they often resort to “historical right”, ie Kosova that used to be part of a certain Serbian empire for sometime in the middle ages etc etc. Well, in that case maybe the entire Balkans should go over to the Byzantine Empire once again.
Regardless, the international community and the Albanian side tried very hard to reach an agreement with Serbia on a final settlement, only to hit a brick wall. We had two years of negotiations, facilitated by the UN special envoy, Mr Ahtisaari, who produced a proposal for the final status, because both sides could not agree on a settlement. Albanians naturally wanted independence, while Serbs couldn’t give more than autonomy, which was in substance even less than what Albanians had under the Tito’s constitution of 1974 that was revoked illegally by Milosevic. Ahtisaari proposed independence, but limited and supervised by the EU mission. The proposal was put in the UNSC and Russia blocked the vote four times threatening a veto. The strategy of Russia and Serbia in this case was to drag the negotiations indefinitely in order to frustrate and incite a revolt among the population in the province against UN mission, so they could eventually benefit from it and send in the Serbian army again. And that’s why they never wanted to reach an agreement, and that’s why UNSC is blocked on the issue and can not perform it’s function. People of Kosova can not live in legal limbo forever, 8 years as it is it’s a long time, the economy bad as it is, is becoming even worse and no one will invest where there is no legal certainty. Serbia wants the territory but it never considered the people who live there as its citizens, nor it cared for them, instead its officials constantly refer to the Kosovars in derogatory terms.
As for the Russians, were they really interested in a solution inside UN, they would put forward their own resolution. Let then UNSC vote in two parallel resolutions, with a guarantee that no one will use the veto, and let the best resolution win by simple majority. See, it couldn’t have been so hard.