APPENDIX 9
Memorandum submitted by Free Kosova Committee
1. The Free Kosova Committee has been established
by individuals who have long been concerned in one way or another
with events in Kosova and the former Yugoslavia generally, many
having scholarly expertise on the region and/or direct personal
familiarity with it. They are united in their conviction that
the current de facto protectorate exercised by the United
Nations and Kfor over Kosova can be only temporary; that there
can and should be no attempt to restore Serbian control; and that
the attempt to preserve FRY at all costs is misguided and doomed
to failure. In short, they believe that acceptance by the UK government
and its international partners of an act of self-determination
by the people of Kosova in the not-too-distant future—one
that will almost certainly lead to independence[1]—is
not just realistic, not just legitimate, but also desirable.
2. Independence for Kosova has the best
chance of bringing stability to the region: Serbia proper, Albania,
Montenegro and especially (pace the conventional wisdom) Macedonia.
It will act as a powerful check to irredentist dreams in Serbia,[2]
providing a realistic point of departure for the construction
of forward-looking alternatives to the Milosevic regime. It will
act in a similar way in Albania, helping to remove the Kosova
issue from domestic politics and facilitate integration of the
northern and southern parts of the country.[3]
It will allow Montenegro eventually to define its own relationship
with Serbia on a democratic basis that the existing make-up of
FRY makes impossible. Lastly, it should—and indeed certainly
will—involve guarantees for the territorial integrity of
Macedonia that will make it far easier for the latter to reach
a just and democratic resolution of its own "national question".
It is important here to appreciate that the progress to independence
of a formally—and as far as possible actually—multi-ethnic
Kosova, which already possessed its own self-governing institutions
in the former Yugoslavia, would in no way legitimise—or
set a precedent for—the break-up along ethnic lines of either
Macedonia or Bosnia-Herzegovina, let alone for the separation
from the latter of "ethnically cleansed" entities carved
out by force in the shape of Republika Srpska or "Herzeg-Bosnà.
3. The emergence of democratic institutions
in Kosova itself, moreover, will be possible only in the context
of preparation for independent status. Given such a context, clearly
understood by all, it will be possible to utilise the period of
protectorate to the full, in collaboration with the local population,
to build a durable political and social order.[4]
Such collaboration with local forces, on the basis of a shared
understanding of what the future holds, will alone make it possible
to establish effective law and order, and thereby offer protection
to Serbs, Roma and other minorities—for, in the long run,
only the Kosovars themselves can provide such protection. If their
legitimate aspirations are denied, and their future mortgaged
to present or future regimes in Belgrade that can never represent
them, they will not be in a position to do this.[5]
4. The UK government, along with its international
partners, has made great strides in the recent period towards
an understanding that the Milosevic regime, far from being the
potential—even the indispensable—guarantor of Balkan
stability, has in fact for a decade been, and continues to be,
the principal regional generator of conflict and instability.
There is now also a clear appreciation of the fact that British
and European and US interests are all involved in the establishment
and maintenance of peace and stability in the Balkans, since without
stable democratic regimes throughout the region Europe as a whole
will be permanently destabilized.
In relation to Kosova, many serious mistakes
have been made and many opportunities wasted by Europe and the
United States, over the past century and especially during the
past 10 years. The importance of Kosova's autonomous status for
the viability of the SFRY as a whole was not understood, so that
the illegal and forcible abolition of that status was not met
by the international condemnation it merited. Then, when the former
Yugoslav federation dissolved, although Kosova as a federal unit
had an equivalent right to independence to that exercised by Slovenia,
Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina or Macedonia, its application for
equal treatment was cold-shouldered both by the International
Peace Conference for the Former Yugoslavia chaired by Lord Carrington
and by the EC's Badinter Commission. At the time of the Dayton
peace talks in 1995, Kosova was once again omitted from the regional
settlement centred on Bosnia-Herzegovina. So when the Belgrade
regime turned decisively to the use of mass terror and indiscriminate
violence against the rural population of Kosova in March 1998,
the UK government and its allies were ill prepared to react and
did so slowly and uncertainly.
The freeing of Kosova from Serbian control and
the establishment of an international protectorate, however, have
done a great deal to make up for past mistakes, providing a real
opportunity to create a durable state order in south-east Europe.
The thirst among Kosovars of all political persuasions for a democratic,
European future is palpable—it has been well articulated
by the Lansdowne declaration enclosed here—and must not
be denied. We have seen a particularly sharp contrast over the
past few days between, on the one hand, a warm identification
by US Secretary of State Albright with Kosovar aspirations (albeit
not explicitly with their desire for independence) and, on the
other hand, a quelling injunction to forget dreams of independence
from outgoing NATO secretary-general Javier Solana that could
not fail to remind one of that pronounced—Canute-like—by
Albright's predecessor James Baker in Belgrade, in June 1991,
on the need to preserve the former Yugoslavia. Other disturbing
indications that the old, mistaken policies have not yet been
discarded entirely have included: allowing an enclave under exclusivist
Serb (and perhaps Belgrade) control to be established in and to
the north of Mitrovice; and, above all, failing either to prevent—or
adequately to react to—the abduction to Serbia of many thousands
of Kosovar prisoners, whose fate remains uncertain.
5. Finally, beyond all the juridical and
moral arguments for the independence of Kosova—and they
are powerful indeed—there has to be an understanding of
the real relationship between Kosova and Serbia over the past
century and today: an understanding based not on any shadowy and
contested mediaeval past, but on the simple truth that Belgrade
has treated Kosova as a colony and its majority population as
racial inferiors; that this attitude permeates all layers of Serbian
society; and that the freeing of Kosova from rule by Serbia is
essential for the future development of both—as vital as
freedom for "Algérie Française' four decades
ago was for Algeria and France alike.
1 The aspiration to self-determination across the
political board, so far as the majority population of Kosova is
concerned, is made clear in the enclosed declaration recently
adopted by a wide and representative spectrum of Kosovar political
leaders and independent intellectuals, following a four-day conference
held at Lansdowne, Virginia under the auspices of the United States
Institute for Peace. Back
2
The enclosed article written for IWPR by Srdjan Staletovic«
indicates the dangers of such irredentism, which is unfortunately
rife also in opposition circles (Vuk Dras°kovic« is
merely an extreme example). Back
3
The enclosed article written from AIM (Alternative Information
Network) by Altin Raxhimi provides a salutary antidote to the
constant, ill-informed refrain about the dangers of a "Greater
Albania". Back
4
Recent press reports (eg that by R Jeffrey Smith of the Washington
Post Foreign Service, published in the International Herald Tribune
on 24 September 1999, enclosed), indicating that the US government
is shifting its position on Kosova independence, make it clear
that the main reason is precisely an appreciation of the fact
that such a shift is a precondition for the successful construction
of democratic institutions in practice, in Kosova under international
protection today. Back
5
The willingness of Kosovar leaders of all persuasions to subscribe
to democratic principles in this regard is something else testified
to by the Lansdowne declaration. The UK government and its international
partners should welcome and seek to build on this willingness,
helping to translate it from the sphere of proclaimed principles
to that of implemented practice. Back
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