Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
12 OCTOBER 2004
MR GABRIEL
PARTOS AND
DR JONATHAN
EYAL
Chairman: I welcome to the Committee
today first Mr Gabriel Partos, who is the Balkans analyst at the
BBC World Service. Mr Partos is senior Balkans analyst, with extensive
experience of the region. Secondly, Dr Jonathan Eyal, who is a
Balkans analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, manages
RUSI's European programme and has written extensively in the area.
Clearly both of you have extensive experience and I welcome you
to the first meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee in respect
of our inquiry into the Western Balkans. I have a very clear memory
that when the Committee met the then Greek foreign minister George
Papandreou during the Greek presidency in his office he had a
large map of Europe on the wall and he pointed out the Western
Balkans and said words to the effect "That gentlemen, is
the missing piece of the jigsaw". The Balkans will impact
for good or ill on us in the remaining part of Europe. So we rely
on you gentlemen to allow us to connect positively to the problems
of that region. We value your help and we should like to begin.
I call on Mr Illsley please to begin the questioning.
Q1 Mr Illsley: Gentlemen, given the recent
problems in Serbia, starting perhaps with the assassination of
the Prime Minister Djindjic, the parliamentary elections which
led to a resurgence of the radical party, the slowdown on the
Serbian economy and with that the slowdown of the process of reform,
is the election of Boris Tadic, the leader of the democratic party,
as president likely to speed up Serbia's integration into the
West? Is that likely to be a catalyst for a little bit of a step
change in Serbia?
Dr Eyal: As always, it is very
difficult to predict, although personalities are of course a crucial
element of any movement in that region, more perhaps than in many
other European countries. It is clear that Mr Tadic's triumph
in the elections was very good news all round, for at least three
reasons. First, because it was a crucial blockage: the filling
of that post proved to be a constant blockage to a constitutional
log-jam in Serbia and Montenegro which has lasted, more or less,
uninterrupted for two years. Secondly, because quite frankly,
and I shall be undiplomatic here, the alternative was simply too
awful, certainly the alternative that emerged in the second round
of the voting. Thirdly, because Mr Tadic proved himself, in his
previous position as defence minister, as one of the more efficient
members of the government in Belgrade and a person who was determined
to reform what probably was one of the least reformed institutions
of the Yugoslav former state, namely the military. So, for every
one of these reasons, it is an enormous advantage. However, and
this is the usual caveat, the constitutional problem still remains,
although there is a level of politeness between Prime Minister
Kostunica and the president—they have both pledged together—the
possibility that the power sharing may not succeed remains relatively
high. Secondly, the point of both Mr Tadic and of Prime Minister
Kostunica still is that somehow they can pick and choose what
level of cooperation they want with the West; the question of
the handover of war criminals for instance, has been left is abeyance,
although the government proclaims that it wants to co-operate
with us, and, on a personal note, I must say I was rather disappointed
that President Tadic kept rather quiet in the first few months
after his elections on this issue where he probably could have
shown some leadership.
Q2 Chairman: Mr Partos, do you agree
with that?
Mr Partos: I agree entirely with
what Jonathan Eyal has just said, and there are one of two things
that I would add to that. One thing we need to bear in mind is
the fact that the position of president in Serbia is not a powerful
position in the sense that the government is a parliamentary government.
In practical terms, executive power is in the hands of Prime Minister
Kostunica and his government. Of course, the president has a great
deal of influence. He can, of course, draw on the fact that he
was elected by universal suffrage, by the public, he is a directly
elected president; he also has now the backing in some other ways
of that his own election victory back in June. The success of
his Democratic Party in the local municipal elections held recently
in which it captured, among other places, the very important position
of the mayor of Belgrade—that position has gone to the candidate
of the Democratic Party—shows that his party is also doing
well in general, has recovered from the disastrous defeat it suffered
in last December's parliamentary elections. So in that sense,
President Tadic can draw on his own personal authority, he can
draw on his influence, on the success of his own party, but we
do need to bear in mind that he is not there to make policy. Just
briefly, if I may illustrate that, only the other day when he
called on Serbs, Kosovo Serbs, to take part in the forthcoming
elections due on 23 October in Kosovo, in other words, he went
against the advice of Prime Minister Kostunica who was calling
for a boycott on the grounds that Serbs do not enjoy sufficient
security and also that his particular plan for decentralisation
in Kosovo had not been accepted, whilst President Tadic had gone
against that advice and he was saying that the only way Serbs
can have a voice after the elections is if they take part, for
that, he was rapped on the knuckles because he was going against
the declaration by parliament, by the prime minister. He was told
that he should not have made that statement. So just to illustrate
the fact that it is a difficult position in which he needs to
manoeuvre in order to be able to bring forward those policies
which you mentioned in your question.
Q3 Mr Illsley: Has the recent local election
result given any prospect for reform? I think you alluded to it
there when you said his party's fortunes are reviving.
Mr Partos: His party did well
and that in a sense reinforces the argument that, at the very
least, the Democratic Party, which is the mainstream party devoted
to pragmatic pro-European integrationist policies, is recovering
its position. But of course, at a national level, it is still
the rather weak, precariously-positioned minority government under
Mr Kostunica which is still in power and that is in a sense dictating
the rhythm as it were, and the rhythm or the tempo is rather slow.
It is rather slow for a number of reasons which we could go into
but perhaps the three or four most important aspects are the fact
that it is a minority government, it is a government which depends
ultimately on the support of a handful of socialist MPs, who of
course represent the party of Mr Milosevic, who is on trial in
the Hague on war crimes charges. He is dependent on that rather
backward-looking group of politicians in parliament for his survival,
and also Mr Kostunica's own personality is generally described
as being rather hesitant when it comes to decision making, he
perhaps prefers to spend a great deal of time consulting rather
than taking decisions and of course he has a very strong, firm
commitment to a Serbian nationalist ideal. To that extent I think
we do need to wait and see to what extent the local election result
may have a bearing of Serbia's integration or change.
Q4 Mr Illsley: I referred in my introduction
to the economy slowing down. The Americans have cut their aid
to Serbia by $25 million because of non-cooperation of the Hague
Tribunal. We have seen a recent BBC report where Kostunica has
said that he would prefer war criminals to be tried by the Serbian
court, rather than the Hague. Is there absolutely no chance of
Kostunica going along with the Hague Tribunal? Is there no accommodation
there at all?
Dr Eyal: Theoretically, all the
political leadership in Belgrade accepts cooperation with the
Hague Tribunal. What we have seen, however, over the last year
and a half is essentially a dialogue of the deaf, very often suggestions,
partly that they do not know where some of the chief indictees
are, partly that it is very tricky to arrest them at this particular
moment, partly that it is unjust to treat the Serbs as the pariahs
and not to indict other alleged war criminals and, finally, why
can they not be tried before Belgrade tribunals. Now the reality
is that we shall very shortly see the first attempt actually to
hand over a few of the indictees to be tried before tribunals
in Belgrade itself. However, clearly we are nowhere near the stage
where this could be done in a routine manner. Let us not forget
that the international tribunal is well behind time in its own
activity, there is a limit to how far it could continue operating,
there is pressure from the United States about putting a cut on
the actual period that it operates, so there is actually a lot
that can be done. However, it is also fair to say that at the
end of the day, sadly the decision of most of the Serb politicians
has been that cooperating with the tribunal carries a greater
political cost to them than not cooperating with this and it is
this that has created the frustration of the Americans. There
is a similar frustration among Europeans including Britain; it
is perhaps not expressed in the same way as that of the Americans.
Q5 Mr Illsley: How big an influence does
organised crime still have in Serbia? Is it still a major threat
to Serbian stability?
Mr Partos: Not in the way that
it was perhaps up to 18 months ago. What happened at the time
of the assassination of Prime Minister Djindjic in March of last
year was that it was followed, as you may recall, by a state of
emergency during which thousands were detained. A number of those
regarded as perhaps being the criminal gang bosses were actually
killed in gun battles with the police and perhaps eliminating
in some way the worst of that kind of criminalised elements of
the state, the intersection with the state which had developed
in the days of the Milosevic era, when the security apparatus
often went hand in hand with organised criminals—partly
because criminals themselves had been encouraged to go and fight
back in the days of the early 1990s in Croatia and in Bosnia on
behalf of the Serbian cause. In the following years, the process
of UN sanctions also encouraged cross-border crime, smuggling,
and all this encouraged the development of this state-within-a-state
or perhaps it might be even better to describe it as a kind of
symbiotic relationship with elements of the state, the security
apparatus and criminal gangs. That survived the fall of President
Milosevic and it produced what appears to have been the Djindjic
assassination among many other activities. I think that the worst
of it is now perhaps behind us because of the very firm action
the government took back in the spring/early summer of last year.
To the extent that organised crime in many ways dominated Serbia,
that situation no longer is the case, but clearly it is not something
you can switch on and switch off from one day to the next.
Q6 Mr Illsley: The status of Kosovo is
likely to come under discussion within the next few months. What
is likely to be the attitude of Serbia towards the Kosovo issue?
Are they likely still to maintain a totally nationalistic attitude
that Kosovo remains within Serbia and there is absolutely no question
of independence? Or could there be some compromises there, bearing
in mind what has happened in Vojvodina?
Dr Eyal: Of course of the Serb
government, the new government, has circulated to Western governments
a proposed solution of the Kosovo problem in February this year.
It has not been discussed in public, indeed it was not discussed
formally between the Western governments and Belgrade, mainly
because the suspicion among many Western governments is that actually
the plan was effectively hinting at a separation, a division of
the problems. Officially the plan only calls for particular measures
to protect ethnic Serbs in the country and technically the Serbs
have been proven to be correct by the rather tragic riots that
took place just a few weeks after the plan was circulated. So,
in many respects the official Serb position is that they consider
the problems as part of Serbia and Montenegro, which is the official
position of the UN Security Council resolution as well, but essentially
all they want is protection for Serbs. Now, my personal feeling
is that there is no-one of any authority in Belgrade who believes
that the province could return to Serb sovereignty. What they
cannot figure out is how to accept this de jure without
getting what they see as a compensation which they could portray
to their own population as being an equitable settlement.
Q7 Sir John Stanley: Very briefly, could
you both tell us what you consider should be the top British Government
foreign policy priorities towards Serbia?
Dr Eyal: In a word—engagement.
We have two things which relate to engagement. The first one is
to dispel the very deep-seated attitude of all Serbs, in all walks
of life, that they are the victims of the West and that regardless
of what they do, we will never take them seriously. Now that view
is widespread even among intellectuals, even, if I may say so,
among people who should know better. Sadly, we did miss some tricks:
for instance, the riots in Kosovo were clearly perpetrated largely
by ethnic Albanians, yet our view was to suggest that it was a
plague on both houses. This to a certain extent was true, but
it was perceived in Serbia yet again as our inability to look
at other countries which may be breaking the law as well and our
determination to be sticklers for protocol when it comes to Serbia
and not elsewhere.
Mr Partos: I would add to that,
perhaps that it is very important to keep Serbia and the Serbian
authorities to their pledges and promises, to their undertakings
in terms of their obligations to the International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia, The Hague Tribunal, and at the same
time to encourage them and show that by cooperating with the tribunal,
accepting other undertakings, not having special rules for Serbia
to have trials of indicted war criminals in Serbia rather than
transferring them to the Hague, by accepting these undertakings
and acting on them, that of course there are various ways in which
there are benefits which they can take advantage of: in terms
of easier access to the European Union; and accelerating the talks
towards a Stability and Association Agreement, which, of course,
is something that Serbia will need to conclude with the EU in
order to qualify later on for full membership.
Q8 Mr Mackay: Can I move on to Montenegro?
Clearly here, one of the key issues is the potential independence
of this country. It does seem to be controversial within Montenegro
and I would appreciate your comments on that. Equally, we see
secessionist difficulties and issues in Bosnia and Kosovo. If
in the relatively near future Montenegro became independent, what
knock-on effect across the Western Balkans would that have? I
guess the final question on this particular point is that we have
seen minorities discriminated against elsewhere, to my knowledge
we have not in Montenegro yet, but if it were an independent state,
would some difficulties be raised there?
Dr Eyal: My personal opinion is
that we are nowhere near a consensus or even a majority view inside
Montenegro for secession. That is one reason why the country's
leadership has not put it to a referendum and I suspect that what
they are trying to do is to show that the current constitutional
arrangement simply does not work and to persuade public opinion
in Montenegro that independence is the only alternative. The leadership
of the republic remains committed to independence, but it dares
not put it to a vote. Now, if the question does come to a vote,
it will not result in violence, that we can be almost sure; there
is absolutely no-one is Serbia who will carry out an order to
shoot on Montenegrins because of the close ethnic and historic
proximity of the two nations and there is absolutely no-one in
Serbia who will even dream of giving such an order. So that is
not the problem. Now, the problem of mixed-marriages could arise,
but I suspect it is probably less of a difficulty than it was
in other successor states of Yugoslavia. The issue does not, I
repeat, arise and it is unlikely in my mind to arise for a year
or so, despite the fact that you will be told by various Montenegrin
politicians that they are just poised in a day or so, to declare
a referendum on the issue. This is part of their technique to
increase their value with both us in the West, in terms of their
negotiations and quite frankly is part of the blackmail which
goes on daily in Belgrade in the tussle for resources. We have
seen it in other separatist movements. I suspect, to your final
point, that if Montenegrin independence comes, it will have very
little impact on Bosnia where the logic of the behaviour of the
various ethnic communities is completely different. It will, however,
on Kosovo, because it will be very difficult to say we are not
settling the legal status of Kosovo, but we are rushing to settle
the legal status of Montenegro.
Q9 Chairman: The area which is left is
the minorities, the Albanian minority for example, and effect
there and other comments, please?
Mr Partos: Montenegro has perhaps
the most harmonious inter-ethnic relations among Serbs, Montenegrins,
Albanians, Muslims, of course, are a large community too. I do
not see any prospect of that being harmed by Montenegro's independence
because of the way the country has been able to hold together
under enormous pressure the various ethnic communities, both under
the Milosevic regime, when there was pressure from Belgrade, and
in the more liberal atmosphere which has taken root since the
fall of the Milosevic regime over the last four years. So that
will stay as it is, and any problems which might arise between
Serbs, or those who see themselves as Serbs and want to keep the
relationship with Serbia going, and the Montenegrins or the pro-independence
Montenegrins, is unlikely in my view to lead to any major upheaval
because Belgrade itself will agree to an amicable divorce. I do
not know, Mr Chairman, whether you will permit me to comment on
the other two aspects of the questions.
Q10 Chairman: The question of minorities
is a further question not yet tackled.
Mr Partos: If I may comment on
independence in general, I do not think it is on the agenda yet.
What is going to happen is that the current three-year trial arrangement,
or trial marriage as it were, or re-marriage between Serbia and
Montenegro will come to an end early in 2006. At that stage, perhaps
the government, which has previously mooted a referendum on many
occasions—a referendum has always been "just around
the corner"—may suggest that the time has come. We
will have to wait and see until then. The latest opinion polls
which I have just seen suggest that there is now a considerable
degree of, not exactly unqualified support for independence,
but a gap between the pro-independence and the pro-union views
is now about 12 per cent in favour of those who want independence,
though these things can change from time to time. Finally, what
precedent might be set for Bosnia or Kosovo? I think the impact
on Bosnia will be marginal, minimal; conditions in Bosnia have
been moving towards integration within the state rather than the
other way around. I think that process is unlikely to be disturbed.
Kosovo? Again there will not be a major impact because Kosovar
Albanians, the majority, have been determined since 1990, when
they first declared that they want to be independent. To that
extent, whether Montenegro is part of a union with Serbia or not
is irrelevant from their perspective; of course they could use
Montenegro's independence as a justification perhaps in some ways
in terms of rational arguments around the world to back their
call for independence. But I think that ultimately their determination
to go for independence will not be affected by Montenegro's choice.
Q11 Mr Chidgey: May I come back now to
more detail on the situation in Kosovo, particularly UNMIK's[1]role
there? You referred in passing to the ethnic riots in the spring,
in March, and the effect that that has had. Of course the Secretary-General
of the UN commissioned a report on that process and its effect
and some of the conclusions were particularly striking which are
worth dwelling on, particularly the comment that after the riot,
the report said, if there is insufficient progress, it will be
very hard, if not impossible, to repair the damage caused by the
March violence. Then, in regard to the international community,
the point was made that the international community is today seen
by Kosovo Albanians as having gone from opening the way to now
standing in the way and it is seen by the Kosovo Serbs as having
gone from securing the return of so many, to being unable to ensure
the return of so few. That is a rather chilling situation to be
in. The particular question I really want to ask you on that basis
is that given that the UN mission has been severely criticised
following the March riots which left 19 dead and many more injured,
where was it that UNMIK fell short of its obligations?
Dr Eyal: I think the failure was
on almost every count and there are some severe lessons to be
learned. First, there was a political failure: most of us turned
our eyes away to places like Iraq and elsewhere and Kosovo was
assumed to have been one of the world's inherently insoluble problems,
so why deal with it today. It was a chilling reminder that it
is a very immediate problem and it is now. Secondly, there was
the assumption that somehow we were the victims of our own slogans
and the famous slogan being "standards before status"—get
standards of government operating before we discuss the status—without
realising that one is completely intertwined with the other. Thirdly,
the rules of engagement of NATO were rather poor, both in terms
of the explicit rules of engagement and in terms of the way that
they were executed. Finally, there was almost no early alert system
when Albanian controlled media started spewing out racist news
about alleged murders of young Albanian children by Serbs. There
was almost no reaction of the kind that you would have had in
the case of Bosnia where the media is tightly circumscribed when
it comes to any ethnic-related propaganda of this kind. The only
good thing that could be said is that the response of both London
and Paris, as the main contributing countries in military terms,
was very good and very satisfactory. Forces were air-lifted and
reinforcements were in place within 36 hours after it became clear
that we were facing a difficult situation. What was not satisfactory
was the fact that, at least for the first 24 hours, it appeared
that it was touch and go whether NATO was going to lose control
of the province altogether. So our intelligence, our preparation,
our early warning systems were all faulty.
Q12 Mr Chidgey: Mr Partos, do you have
anything to add to that?
Mr Partos: Very little, because
I agree entirely with what Dr Eyal has just said, but I would
also add that in terms of presentation, public image, there was
a degree of complacency in the way in which UNMIK had been running
Kosovo; of course that was back in March and it was already in
effect entering the sixth year of UN administration, or was soon
to enter it at that time. That was a problem; an impression was
created among the population at a time when frustrations were
building up, precisely because the issue has been shelved, at
least for the time being, the issue of Kosovo status and this
is why those frustrations built up among the Albanians. It is
ironic, of course, in a sense that the March events, the tragic
events actually occurred only three months after the UN had started
a process, a rather tentative process, whereby they outlined a
timetable which will take us in the middle of 2005 to a review
of the achievements of the UN administration and of the local
elected authorities in terms of democracy building, the rule of
law, inter-ethnic tolerance, security for the minorities and so
on a review which will then lead on, if it is a positive assessment,
perhaps in early 2006 to the start of discussions about final
status. The problem was that to most people on the ground back
in March this year, because of this air of complacency that I
have already mentioned, because of the lack of visible progress
on the ground, there was a sense in which they could see no advance,
no progress and the situation then in a sense meant that there
was this trigger, this violent incident, or supposedly violent
incident against Albanian boys. Then, of course, it suddenly all
erupted and this was a lesson which has since been learned. I
think there is now a sense in which the UN authorities are trying
to impress on people that things are moving ahead and, of course,
it is up to the local authorities and the local communities to
try to work out ways in which they can ensure that those standards
are actually met.
Q13 Mr Chidgey: I think we now take it
as read that the March riot demonstrated the failure of the concept
of standards before status, but how important and how pressing
is the status issue in Kosovo?
Mr Partos: I would not say that
they demonstrated the failure of standards before status: if you
do away with the standards what are you left with? Are you saying
that you can just get on and have talks, irrespective of the situation,
for example the security situation, regarding the Serb minority?
I think it is more a question of focusing on those standards,
streamlining them and I think this is something that UNMIK is
now trying to do, to make it more comprehensible to people who
have not necessarily got the political sophistication to go through
the 140 pages of standards on this or that area and so on, but
just need to have some headline notions of what exactly needs
to be done on the ground. My understanding is that the standards
issue is still there and it is still very strong, not only because
it is a kind of cliché or a slogan, but also because it
needs to be part of any equitable settlement.
Q14 Mr Chidgey: Dr Eyal, would you agree
with that?
Dr Eyal: Up to a point. I was
one of the school of thought that believed that the question of
status really should be ignored, that we should concentrate on
stabilising the province and that we should do more or less what
we have done in Bosnia. Very few people believed in the Dayton
Accord; everyone implemented it in the hope that one day we would
cease to have to implement it. So I have assumed a similar approach.
I am beginning to believe now that the issue cannot be held much
longer. The difficulty we have is, as my colleague was suggesting,
how to tie in the two; the question of timing is of less importance
to me. I do believe that by 2005 we have to face the question
of the status, mainly because for local politicians it has become
a justification for not doing anything. So the question of the
disposition has to be faced, we are in much calmer water with
other permanent members of the UN Security Council, because let
us not forget the question of status implies a change in the UN
Security Council resolution of the summer of 1999 at the end of
that war. It is not a simple matter, it needs to be decided by
Beijing and Moscow as well as by Paris, London and Washington.
I suspect that we can reach . . . There is an understanding in
Belgrade as well that the status question cannot by postponed
ad infinitum. The difficultly is twofold: first the difficulty
of execution. How do you tell people that you are not going to
move too fast on status, because if you do, you are basically
going to prevent all the advances that you can do on standards?
You can also give the Albanians the assumption that it was precisely
because of the riots that we are now moving to discussing the
status. At the same time, the second one is one of form. How do
you manage to make it very clear that status has to come at a
price of further advancement in the institutions? We have failed
to pass the test.
Q15 Mr Chidgey: Finally on Kosovo. An
area of great concern, not only in this country, but I think throughout
the EU, has been the growth of organised crime emanating from
Kosovo particularly in the trafficking of drugs and young women
for prostitution. There is a view that this is flourishing because
of the fact that Kosovo is in some sort of legal limbo, but whatever
it is, it is a cause of great concern amongst many people in the
European Union, to the extent that there are many who believe
that the very stability of the European Union is threatened by
this flourishing of organised crime from Kosovo. What shall we
do?
Mr Partos: I think that the issue
should not be seen in isolation. Kosovo may be one of the centres
of organised crime, but I think that wherever you look in the
region, and Serbia already cropped up in that context earlier
in this discussion, we have problems and Albania is another one
and Macedonia too and Bosnia and so on and so forth. It is a regional
issue; organised crime knows no boundaries and in fact there
has been very good evidence and documentation of cooperation even
during the Bosnian war between the warring sides, as they were
described, at the level of smuggling, organised crime and so on.
I think the answer, if there is a simple answer to your question—What
do you do?—is first of all, to tackle this issue not on
a regional or national level, by region I meant an entity level,
but on a broad regional level across the Western Balkans as part
of a much wider network. Many of those who are being traded, I
mean the white slave trade, in fact the victims, come from Moldova,
for example, or Ukraine, further to the east and north and end
up quite often in Western Europe, in this country or in Italy
or elsewhere, so it all has to be part of a much broader international
co-operation. On that issue, the British Foreign Office has taken
a lead role, along with other EU countries, in terms of organising
cooperation meetings, conferences, technical know-how, intelligence
sharing, all these are important, but ultimately it will be slightly
naíve to expect any dramatic improvement in the situation,
short of two developments. One is what we saw in Serbia last year,
a state of emergency, which was of course applicable after the
assassination of the prime minister, but you cannot apply that
left, right and centre. Secondly, and this is a much slower process,
a marked improvement in living standards across the region. While
people often have high levels of unemployment, little choice in
terms of employment—
Q16 Chairman: Do you agree with that?
A brief response, if you would.
Dr Eyal: The presence of international
forces is probably the right approach at the moment. I do not
accept the argument that they may be part of the problem: they
are part of the solution. Increasing the level of employment,
which is increasing very, very slowly, is clearly another element,
so is the build-up of the local police force. The moves have been
rather hesitant; they have been taken but they have been rather
hesitant. If you wish, it is a classic answer to why the question
of standards has to come up at the same time as the question of
status. Status without standards would plunge the region into
a sort of wild East of Europe.
Q17 Andrew Mackinlay: It strikes me that
if Montenegro were to take independence, and I can understand
both the likelihood of it, and I can understand from their point
of view the prudence of it, but if they were to do that, surely
that would increase the feeling in Serbia, their whole traditional
feeling of owning Kosovo? At the present time this fragile federation
dilutes that feeling does it not? But surely once Montenegro goes,
then nationalism, pride, call it what you like, will just increase
in relation to the historic feeling that Serbia has for the real
estate of Kosovo.
Dr Eyal: I am not sure. I think
that there will be a much deeper disappointment among Serbs about
the fact that the state which used to be respected in Europe,
which they regarded as being large and influential, has now been
reduced to borders last seen some time during the nineteenth century.
There is clearly a sense of defeat there, which is shared even
by educated people in Belgrade and certainly by the masses, but
I am not sure that the two are connected. There is also very strong
feeling in Belgrade that the question of Serbia's own identity
in Europe will never be properly answered as long as they are
encumbered by all these loose federations and associations. There
are people in Belgrade who say "You want to go your own way?
Goodbye"; there are people like that as well. I do not think
that is anyone connected so much to the question of Kosovo, which
is seen in quite a different light. Where I do think there is
a connection is between Kosovo and the status of the Serb population
in Bosnia where a lot of people would argue privately, or not
officially, that they could say goodbye to Kosovo tomorrow from
their perspective, if they were allowed in return a closer relationship
with Republika Srbska, namely the Serbs of Bosnia.
Q18 Andrew Mackinlay: We presumably agree
that none of us believe that ethnic cleansing should pay or really
endure, though certainly in 1945 there was an irreversible shift
in the European map. It seems to me that the European Union and
others would have a dilemma: when we come to look at final status,
there would be the question of the Serbs returning to their farms
and properties in Kosovo and the dilemma is that all you do is
re-invent the same problem as before. Are we not really going
to have, as a Western community a dilemma, particularly as probably
our long-term objective is to bring those countries into the European
Union? How do we deal with restitution? The Committee is looking
at another part of the world, Cyprus, and we know how that whole
plan has slightly imploded because that could not be satisfied.
Is that not really going to be a tremendous hurdle for us?
Mr Partos: Yes of course is it,
and you see that also in the possible impact—which both
of us were suggesting would not be a major impact—on Bosnia
and the Bosnian Serbs. If Montenegro or Kosovo were to go independent,
would that not encourage the Bosnian Serbs to try once again?
Yes, I think it is an issue and I think more directly it would
affect the status of Kosovo. You could argue that the Serbs have
not been able to go back there in any large numbers and I think
that is why it is so essential to re-double the efforts which
have been made and try to encourage Serbs, those who wish to go
back, at the very least to reclaim their property and to be able,
if they want, to stay on and to provide the kind of security which,
at the moment, clearly is lacking. What I think might be an interesting
or potentially unintended result, if there were indeed a successful
attempt to return Serbs in large numbers to Kosovo, might be to
settle the issue and tie it in with Kosovo's status. Indeed the
Kosovo Albanians, who are so determined, adamant, that they want
independence, might, if they saw the opportunity for independence,
then become, let us put it like this, more generous to their Serb
neighbours on the grounds that this would be their land, as they
would see it, or their state and the Serbs would now be a minority,
so they might as well allow them back and provide a degree of
security, especially if that is a condition of Kosovo becoming
independent, whereas in the situation now, with Kosovo in limbo,
it is more difficult to encourage the Albanians to behave in that
sort of way towards the minority.
Q19 Andrew Mackinlay: The thing we have
not talked about is the aspiration for European Union membership.
It seemed to me, just picking up from the example we were talking
about, and it is true of the other countries, that whatever our
views on the European Union, conflict resolution, or minimisation
of potential conflict, is by sheer mobility, free mobility of
labour so people can work in various places but still have their
weekend home back in their communities. This is the thing which
is probably one of the potential blocks to rebuilding this area
and yet it seems to me that the EU are not uttering this to any
great extent. There does not seem to be much talk about this carrot
of European Union membership for all these countries or territories.
Dr Eyal: The carrot is, if you
wish, implicit rather than explicit. It is obvious to a lot of
countries that the progress, very rapid progress, made by Croatia
for instance in the last year on the road to membership is actually
an example which needs to be followed. It is very painfully felt
by the other communities of the region and you are right in saying
that the European Union has not been explicit with this carrot.
The reason is very simple: some of the initial obstacles to a
normal discourse have not been removed and therefore there is
no point, even in discussing these theoretical things. However,
the advances made only in the last few weeks by Croatia to a status
as a candidate country are clearly enormously powerful. I have
not met anyone in the region who believes that they can somehow
find an existence outside this European Union: I have met a lot
of people who believe that they will be admitted on their own
terms, rather than Brussels's terms. On the subject of the return
of people, free movement of people, I am not sure that even Croats,
who are so far advanced from that region, are actually aware that
the ultimate outcome of their membership may be that all the ethnic
Serbs they have kept out of the country would be perfectly entitled
to return: there have been some comments on it; but they do not
understand it. I find it inconceivable, however, that there will
be any status agreement on Kosovo which does not include a provision
about the right of return for the Serbian minority and I will
remind members of this Committee that there is also the open sore
in the tragedy of the roma people who were hounded out of the
region and on whose behalf nobody speaks. I find it inconceivable
that there would not be a right of return. It would probably be
mitigated in the case of the Albanians, by a right of compensation
instead of return.
1 United Nations Mission in Kosovo. Back
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