Written evidence submitted by Professor
James Pettifer, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom
INTRODUCTION
The following observations are submitted concerning
the major political, economic and military developments in the
southern Balkan region in the recent period, and are focussed
on developments in Kosovo, one of my main areas of professional
expertise, in particular on the approaching period of political
decision concerning the status of Kosovo.
The memorandum will be divided into four parts:
I. The general situation in the region.
II. Kosovo—the key to stability.
III. Current developments in Kosovo and Former
Yugoslav Macedonia.
IV. The role of the international community.
I. THE GENERAL
SITUATION IN
THE REGION
After the overthrow of the Milosevic regime
in autumn 2000, there was expected to be a period of rapid progress
and stabilisation in southeast Europe, and in particular in Yugoslavia
itself. Earlier in that year there had been a crackdown on the
ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo, and a tightening of control
by the United Nations and NATO through the KFOR forces. It was
expected that the democratisation of Serbia would lead to a reduction
of tension between Serbia and Kosovo, and a reduction in ethnic
and social tensions within Kosovo itself. Efforts to promote a
better atmosphere were headed by European Union attempts to persuade
Montenegro to drop independence ambitions and a new Federation
between Serbia and Montenegro was brokered to replace Yugoslavia.
Slobodan Milosevic himself was arrested and sent to the IWCT at
the Hague.
In reality many of the hopes of the international
community associated with this event have proved to be over-optimistic
and ill-founded. The short war in Former Yugoslav Macedonia (FYROM)
in spring-summer 2001 illustrated the uncertain future of that
state and the poor ethnic relations between the Macedonian majority
and the 25% Albanian minority. Relations between Serbia and Kosovo
remain unchanged. Independence ambitions remain central to the
political outlook of the 95% ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo,
and are also returning to the political agenda in Montenegro,
where the three year Federation agreement with Serbia expires
in late 2005. The position of the 80,000 Serbian minority in Kosovo
remains uncertain outside the Serbian enclave in north Mitrovice
and Leposavic opstina, and refugee return has to all intents and
purposes stopped after the serious rioting this year in the third
week in March.
The general situation in the region remains
dominated by the aftermath of the wars of the ex-Yugoslav succession,
economic crises of varying severity, and the continuance of a
number of conflicts in ethnic and national relations where without
the presence of the military forces of NATO, further outbreaks
of violence would be possible, perhaps likely. The northern republics
closest to the European Union have seen the most progress, principally
Slovenia and Croatia, while those in the centre and south of the
peninsular have seen least. In these conditions of economic crisis
and regional stringency, organised crime has been seen as a major
problem by the international community and considerable police
resources have been given to combating trafficking of people and
hard drugs and cigarettes, with varying degrees of success.
The most positive aspects in this period have
been the movement towards the European Union in nearly all states,
with varying degrees of progress in different countries, the integration
of the majority of local armed forces either into the NATO Partnership
for Peace programme, or at least dialogue with NATO where this
is not possible, and a degree of demobilisation of excessively
large local armed forces and paramilitary organisations. There
has been progress towards the implementation of the Ochrid Accords
in FYROM, to provide a platform for state reform and democratisation,
and extensive privatisation of industry in Serbia and Montenegro.
The main negative factors are the very high and often still rising
degree of unemployment, economic stagnation, corruption and the
all pervasive nature of traditional "Balkan" political
cultures based on nationalist extremism of various kinds.
The role of the International War Crimes Tribunal
at The Hague remains controversial, and many indicted suspects
remain at large. A new negative factor in the aftermath of the
events of September 2001 in the United States and subsequent terrorist
activity worldwide is the possibility that in the future the numerous
and diverse Islamic populations in the region may be infiltrated
by outside terrorist organisations. The Balkan Islamic groups
are, outside of Bosnia, overwhelmingly concentrated in the south
of the peninsular, and to date all follow moderate leaders. A
quite small terrorist event could though in some circumstances,
in some Balkan nations, act as a trigger for quite disproportionate
political effects.
II. KOSOVO—THE
KEY TO
STABILITY
In the view of most regional observers Kosovo
is the main Balkan challenge facing the international community
in the short term. The serious rioting and associated population
movement in March this year illustrated the potential for violence
and inter-ethnic conflict that still exists and highlighted a
number of serious failures in the current governance and security
structures set up by the international community in 1999. Although
the riots took two days to build up, the United Nations UNMIK
administration appeared impotent to influence the direction of
events, and although opinions on details differ, there must be
considerable concern about the practical capacity of the police
and the NATO KFOR force to control the streets of Kosovo in the
face of future mass demonstrations by the 95% ethnic Albanian
majority. The ethnic Albanians and the Serbs have ample access
to small arms, and in any repeat of the riots where the political
background was that of KFOR/UNMIK appearing to try to prevent
independence there could be heavy loss of life. The refugee return
process of Serbs and other minority groups has stopped, in the
main, and there are very few non-Serbs living in the northern
Mitrovice/Leposavic enclave. The UNMIK minorities policy of 1999-2003
is to all intents and purposes dead apart from small numbers of
displaced people from the March riots returning to their homes.
The riots took place against a background of
political progress in the previous eighteen months, with some
refugee return, the improved functioning of the Kosovo Parliament,
the opening of new government ministries, improved functioning
of the Kosovo Police Service and the Kosovo Protection Corps,
and a marked fall in the crime rate, so that, if political assassinations
are not included, the murder and serious crime rate in Kosovo
is better than in many European Union cities and regions. Although
the riots were a very negative landmark for the Albanian majority
in terms of international image, they did not slow the transfer
of competencies from UNMIK to local hands, and in the view of
some observers this process has actually accelerated this summer.
In practice more and more government functions are being given
up by the United Nations, and there has been a withdrawal of both
military and civilian personnel.
The timetable for evaluation of the so-called
"Standards before Status" policy culminates in summer
2005, in nine months, a time when a series of criteria that the
Kosovo Albanians are supposed to meet before political status
can be decided runs out. In the main the standards concerned are
those of normal European states, in terms of ethnic relations,
tolerance and so on. Critics of the standards platform say that
very few ex-colonies or new countries formed since 1945 have met
all these standards, and that compliance is unrealistic, and in
particular they were not met in other Balkan countries such as
Croatia and Bosnia that achieved independence. Their defenders
claim that in practice many of them are drafted in loose wording
and progress towards achieving them can be evaluated in different
ways.
In Serbia, with the renewal of nationalism over
the last year, there has been resistance in the Parliament and
government to the prospect of the loss of Kosovo if independence
is granted, and the proactive line in international relations
from the Putin government in Russia has strengthened the hand
of hardliners in Belgrade. It seems extremely difficult to see
any Serbian government agreeing to independence in the present
atmosphere and it is an unfortunate aspect of the uncritical support
(particularly by the UK) given to post-Milosevic Serbian governments
that there are now few "carrots" (in terms of money
or readmission to international bodies) available to the international
community to trade for agreement to Kosovo independence. The one
really significant method to influence hardline Serb nationalists,
the abandonment of the activity of the ICTY in the Hague is probably
not a political possibility at the moment. The ICTY is seen by
Western intelligence services as a main pressure point to control
the direction of events in Bosnia and as an agent of conflict
resolution giving continued life to the Dayton Accords.
The events of the last year have shown that
Kosovo is now irreversibly on the path to independence, but there
is little sense that the international community has a policy
to bring this about. The danger of the current situation is that
the time of initial decision is not far away, in 2005, and an
unenviable series of political options exists. Anything short
of full independence is unacceptable to the vast majority of Kosovo
Albanians, and if it was openly refused there is a real possibility,
perhaps likelihood, that Kosovo would become rapidly ungovernable.
It is very likely that the Parliament would declare independence,
and although this could be ruled illegal and outside its competencies
by the United Nations, such a declaration would be very popular.
Another possibility is that an illegal referendum on independence
would be organised. Although KFOR and the police would in theory
have the technical capacity to stop it taking place, it would
be highly divisive and practically very difficult to do so.
The de facto policy followed recently has been
to allow the transfer of competencies without antagonising Belgrade
unduly, but there are limits to this policy in terms of the status
issue. At some point soon the IC is going to have to face the
decision issue, and the military and security dimension such as
border security, always a key issue in the Balkan region. The
Kosovo Albanian political leadership envisage a long-term partnership
with NATO to provide functional security structures for Kosovo
and its neighbours, but the abolition, in time, of the current
KFOR mandate. While this is a responsible policy that should be
strongly welcomed, it has the disadvantage that to change the
KFOR mandate requires UN Security Council agreement, which given
the current policies of Russia and possibly China may be hard
to achieve. But in the current climate, the status quo is not
an option, either.
III. CURRENT
DEVELOPMENTS IN
KOSOVO AND
FORMER YUGOSLAV
MACEDONIA
At the moment an election campaign for the Kosovo
Parliament is in progress. Kosovo elections have been orderly
and successful since the first local elections in autumn 2000
and there is no reason to expect difficulties now. It is not clear
if the Serbian leadership will endorse participation, but whether
they do or not, Serb turnout is likely to be low. Other Kosovo
minorities, such as the Turks and some of the Roma are expected
to participate fairly fully. Many Serbs feel that the March riots
and the vandalism and attacks on their religious buildings and
houses were the last straw, and significant numbers south of the
Ibar river that divides Mitrovice are hanging on until the political
status decision in the hope of financially favourable terms for
relocation. Many are consequently not much interested in participating
in Kosovo institutions. The main exception to this view is in
the majority Serb group north of the Ibar river, much of which
is still controlled by "parallel structures" directly
influenced and led by hard-line nationalist politicians in Belgrade.
The UN and French KFOR has never achieved effective control of
this part of Kosovo since 1999 and there is little reason to expect
it to do so now. Thus the question of partition inevitably arises.
Partition as a future policy has its supporters
within the international community, but its superficial attractions
conceal many dangers. The most important objections are those
concerned with setting the principle of a change of borders determined
by ethnicity, which could easily serve as a precedent for the
division of other regional states of which FYROM and Bosnia are
the most obvious candidates. The borders of Kosovo have been set
for many years and have remained unchanged (except for the Presevo
valley under Tito) despite the bitter divisions between Serbs
and Albanians about the future of the territory. If partition
was made on the basis of the Ibar river, it is very likely that
the Albanians would reopen the Presevo valley issue that was subject
to violent dispute between 1999 and 2001. It is also possible
that the strong separatist tendency in some parts of the Macedonian
Albanian community in western FYRoM would seek to split FYRoM.
Partition was favoured in some periods by the Milosevic regime
as it would enable the Serbs to hold onto the mineral wealth of
northern Kosovo.
It is also worth noting that partition would
never be accepted by at least some, perhaps a large majority of
Albanians and there would be a strong likelihood of underground
armed resistance to the policy, along the lines of the Free State/Republican
division in Ireland in the 1920's and the birth of the IRA. Thus
a contested partition would lead to a new security problem for
the IC, of having to police what in practice is a new internal
border where significant groups on either side of the ethnic divide
do not accept it. It is of course arguable, from the military
and security point of view, that this problem will be inevitable
in some shape or form because whatever happens there will be a
new "border" to police. The great advantage, though,
from the military point of view, of a full declaration of independence
under existing borders is that whatever difficulties there might
be with population movement a new UN mandated international force
would be operating in a clear legal climate to maintain an existing
border rather than try to force compliance with a new one. KFOR
has a structure of installations on the current Kosovo border
roads that could easily be reinforced in the inevitably tense
period that will accompany the political status decisions. There
has been some illegal efforts by the Albanians to demarcate the
border in the many wild and forested areas involved, mainly by
tree felling. It is inevitable that this will continue.
In Former Yugoslav Macedonia a referendum is
being held this autumn called by a section of the Slav-Macedonian
Opposition against aspects of the Ochrid Accords, mainly the proposed
reorganisation and empowerment of local municipalities. The Slavs
see this as giving major advances to the 25% Albanian minority
and endangering the influence of the Skopje government in Albanian-dominated
western FYRoM localities. The referendum requires a high percentage
of population participation and is unlikely to succeed in blocking
the implementation of this aspect of the Ochrid Agreement, but
the fact that it is being held at all is indicative of the high
level of political tension in the state. There are still serious
question marks about the long term future of the FYRoM state,
which remains open to both internal destabilisation, mainly connected
to Kosovo and Presevo, and external pressures from its neighbours.
The name issue with Greece remains unresolved.
Elsewhere in the region, the Albanian factor
in politics is growing. Albanians continue to agitate against
what are seen as human rights abuses in Montenegro and various
other difficulties such as World War II property restitution in
the Cameria region of Northwest Greece. The former is likely to
be subsumed within the wider decision period that is approaching
over the future of Montenegro in late 2005 when the current EU-brokered
three year agreement on the Serbia-Montenegro Federation runs
out, and is not likely to be significant or destabilising. This
may not be the case with Cameria. The Cameria problem assumed
a central status in Albanian political life in the summer of this
year, and although a vote to commit the Albanian government to
a forward policy was just defeated in the Tirana Parliament, the
intense commitment of sections of the powerful Albanian Diaspora
to this issue and the unwillingness of Greece to end the formal
state of war that still exists between Greece and Albania and
then pay World War II compensation to the Cams under international
law is storing up many problems for the future. The Greek tourist
industry is very vulnerable to disruption over this issue, particularly
on the island of Corfu, where it is the largest single source
of revenue.
IV. THE ROLE
OF THE
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
In the last three years, since the Ochrid Accords,
the international community has not given the Balkans much priority.
The signature of the Ochrid Accords in August 2001 almost exactly
coincided with the beginning of the War on Terrorism, and the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has deprived the region of publicity
and many qualified international personnel. The Bush administration
has not appointed a top level Balkan envoy, in the role Richard
Holbrooke played in the Clinton administration, and many policy
decisions devolved to individual Ambassadors. The same process
took place in the UK in some aspects, so that, for instance, policy
moved in a much more pro-Serb direction in the 2000-03 period,
before the realities of the Belgrade events of autumn 2000 began
to become more apparent.
The period of decision over Kosovo and the warning
bell of the March riots this year should give cause for reconsideration
of this policy. Without the firm and unequivocal participation
of the United States at the right level, any kind of political
progress is unlikely and there is a real possibility that some
random and quite possibly minor event may, in classic Balkan terms,
start a chain of causation that means events move out of control.
The United States is the only outside power the ethnic Albanians
and Bosnian Muslims trust and without US leadership in the region
stability cannot be assured. Despite years of painstaking effort,
the European Union has yet to throw off the heritage of past political
failure and psychological dependence on a model of the Balkans
based on centralism with inscribed predominance for Serbia.
Professor James Pettifer
Defence Academy of the United Kingdom
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