http://www.savekosovo.org American Council for Kosovo - Growing International Opposition to Imposed Solution 9.5.2008. en 2006-2008 American Council for Kosovo http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=10&leader=0&sp=504 Kosovo's recent unilateral declaration of independence brought back memories. I publicly opposed Nato's attack on Serbia - carried out in the name of protecting the Kosovans from Serb atrocities - in March 1999. At that time, I was a member of the opposition front bench in the House of Lords. The then Conservative leader, William Hague, immediately expelled me to the back benches. Thus ended my (minor) political career. Ever since, I have wondered whether I was right or wrong.

I opposed military intervention for two reasons. Firstly, I argued that while it might do local good, it would damage the rules of international relations as they were then understood. The UN charter was designed to prevent the use of force across national lines except for self-defence and enforcement measures ordered by the security council. Human rights, democracy, and self-determination are not acceptable legal grounds for waging war.

Secondly, I argued that while there might be occasions when, regardless of international law, human rights abuses are so severe that one is morally obliged to act, Kosovo was not such a case. I considered the "imminent humanitarian disaster" that the intervention was ostensibly aimed at preventing, to be largely an invention. I further argued that non-military means to resolve the humanitarian issue in Kosovo were far from being exhausted, and that the failed Rambouillet negotiation with Serbia in February-March 1999 was, in Henry Kissinger's words, "merely an excuse to start the bombing".

This view was vindicated by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) report on human rights violations in Kosovo, published in December 1999. The report showed that the level of violence fell markedly when OSCE monitors were placed in Kosovo following the Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement of September 23 1998; and that it was only after the monitors were withdrawn on March 20 1999, in preparation for the bombing, that general and systematic violation of human rights began.

Between March and June 1999 - the period of Nato bombing - the number of deaths and expulsions in Kosovo shot up. The "humanitarian disaster" was in fact precipitated by the war itself. Despite this, the term "genocide", freely bandied about by western interventionists, was grotesquely inappropriate at any time.

Without doubt, Nato air strikes and the subsequent administration of Kosovo as a protectorate improved the political situation for Albanian Kosovans. Without Nato intervention, they probably would have remained second-class citizens within Serbia. Against this must be set large-scale deterioration in the economic situation of all Kosovans, Albanian and Serbian (44% unemployment), widespread criminalisation, and the fact that under Nato rule, Kosovo was ethnically cleansed of half its Serb minority.

Kosovo remains in political limbo to this day. Two thousand EU officials run the country, and 16,000 Nato troops guard its security. Its "independence" is rejected by Serbia, unrecognised by the security council, and opposed by Russia, China, and most multi-national states in Europe and Asia, which fear setting a precedent for their own dismemberment. Indeed, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was quick to blame the disturbances in Tibet on Kosovo's declaration of independence.

A Serbian insurgency and de facto partition of Kosovo remain possible, and we have yet to face the destabilising effects of Kosovo's claim to independence on other divided Balkan states such as Bosnia and Macedonia. But the balance sheet is even worse in terms of international relations. Kosovo was a stalking horse for Iraq, as the doctrine of humanitarian intervention morphed into George Bush's doctrine of "pre-emptive war", by which the US claimed the right to attack any state that it deemed a threat to its national security. As then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan rightly argued, this opened the door to the proliferation of unilateral, lawless use of force.

Not the least damaging consequence of the Bush doctrine is that it dispenses with the need for public proof of aggressive intent. The Iraq invasion was justified by the same use of fraudulent evidence as was displayed in Kosovo.

On balance, I believe that I was right to oppose the Kosovo war. It was a regressive answer to a genuine international problem: how to hold together multi-ethnic, multi-religious states in a reasonably civilised way. Since 1999, Kosovans have rejected Serbian offers of autonomy, because they were confident of American support for independence.

Western countries must consider more seriously how far they should press their human rights agenda on states with both the power and the will to defend their territorial integrity. Under American leadership, it is the west that has emerged as the restless, disturbing force in international affairs. China should certainly grant Tibet more autonomy; but is pumping up the Dalai Lama into a world leader or threatening to boycott the Beijing Olympics the best way to secure a better deal for Tibetans, or to obtain Chinese cooperation on matters that are far more important than Tibet's status?

Activists, impassioned by the justice of their cause, will not consider these questions. But world leaders should take them seriously.

]]> http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=10&leader=0&sp=499 The West does not have an interest in helping either Tibet or Taiwan become sovereign countries, and efforts by some Tibetans and Taiwanese in this direction present the danger of a miscalculation that could create lasting enmity

Why is China behaving as it is in Tibet? What makes Tibet so important to the government in Beijing? At the heart of the matter is the fact that nothing worries China’s rulers more than when the country’s unity is called into question. And nothing makes them more anxious than their fear that a regional dispute might, if not brought to an end quickly, steamroll into national disintegration.

Kosovo’s recent unilateral declaration of independence sharpened the Chinese government’s anxieties over the protests in Tibet. Although supporters of Kosovo’s independence argue that it sets no international precedent, China’s rulers fear otherwise. Moreover, Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election has further ratcheted up the tension for China’s government.

Opinion polls in Taiwan suggest that former Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang (KMT) will defeat Frank Hsieh of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). But some in China fear that the incumbent president, Chen Shui-bian of the DPP, is seeking a pretext to prevent a defeat for the pro-sovereignty camp. He is currently advocating a referendum on whether Taiwan should join the United Nations, which China views as provocative and a threat to China’s unity.

It may sound strange to the outside world that China, which has known nothing but economic success for three decades, should feel its unity to be so fragile. But China’s history, both ancient and modern, suggests that there is nothing permanent or stable about the country’s current unity.

Indeed, today’s unity was secured only with Mao’s victory in 1949.

From the Warring States period (403-221 BC) to the warlord period of the twentieth century (1916-28) — and many times in between — China’s territory has splintered into separate, rival regions. So, while loudly proclaiming the unity of the Chinese state, China’s leadership is obsessed with the country’s fragility, and works constantly to reduce tensions between its provinces.

The government’s failure to eradicate chronic regional tension underscores the limits of central authority in China, which was partly intentional. An integral feature of the reforms that Deng Xiaoping launched 30 years ago was greater autonomy for local authorities — a move aimed at fostering accountability and creating incentives for growth. But some provinces have gone further. The central government’s loss of authority is reflected in the number of its appeals — usually unsuccessful — that it makes to local government for compliance with limits on investment or controls on pollution.

In any country as vast as China, far-flung regions are bound to have different interests and identities. Though few in China speculate aloud about it, there are some who believe that such differences may continue to tug the regions away from the centre, and that some might one day break away.

This is the fear gnawing at China’s rulers as they confront the unrest in Tibet. Of course, to judge from official rhetoric, there is no threat to unity. All of China’s peoples, including non-Chinese in annexed territories such as Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang, are firm and loyal supporters of the current system. But the government’s frequent rotation of local officials tells a different story. Keen to prevent any coalescence of regional identity and local authority, senior officers in China’s seven military districts also are rotated regularly.

Another precaution taken by the central government is to shape the military districts so that they do not overlap with natural regional or economic divisions. This arrangement is designed to ensure that military and economic regionalism will cancel each other out. But it also reflects the Chinese government’s constant fear that regional tensions may lead to national fragmentation.

Nevertheless, none of these precautions can assuage the anxiety of China’s leaders about the struggle underway in Tibet, particularly in view of events in Kosovo and Taiwan. In principle, of course, conflict between Taiwan and the Mainland is not inevitable. With increasing change in China and growing economic and social contacts across the Strait, it should be possible to find a formula that allows the Taiwanese to maintain their market economy and democratic system without a placard at the UN.

The West has historically stressed two bright lines with respect to Taiwan: no independence and no use of force by China. But, in view of Kosovo’s independence against the will of Serbia and without UN sanction, these bright lines have become blurred in China’s eyes.

The world is risking much by injecting ambiguity into an issue that once seemed clear-cut. Thirty-five years ago, in a supreme act of modern statecraft, Zhou En-lai and Richard Nixon signed the Shanghai Communiqué, which set the following unambiguous standard: there is only one China, and Taiwan is part of it. An unequivocal reaffirmation of that understanding, particularly by the United States in the light of its role as primary backer of Kosovo’s independence, is now needed if China is to be reassured that its unity will not be called into question.

The West does not have an interest in helping either Tibet or Taiwan become sovereign countries, and efforts by some Tibetans and Taiwanese in this direction present the danger of a miscalculation that could create lasting enmity. Already, some Chinese suspect the US of seeking an independent Taiwan as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for use against a future Chinese enemy. Such suspicions can feed a climate of excessive nationalism in China.

Both China and the West must now avoid letting exaggerated fears create self-inflicted prophecies. Events in Tibet can only be properly viewed with the shadows cast by Kosovo and Taiwan in mind.

]]> http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=10&leader=0&sp=497 Through our crystal ball

The year is 2025 or thereabouts; pick another year if you wish, because this hypothetical scenario is a real possibility.

Russia has argued in the United Nations for the independence of California.

California's leading minority-grievance activists presume to speak for the state's Spanish-speaking majority — or near majority, depending on the coming census. They have succeeded in pressuring the state legislature and governor into declaring the state's independence from the United States of America. California thus would become the first U.S. state to attempt secession since the mid-19th Century, though a self-proclaimed socialist senator from Vermont has made noises in that direction over the years.

Russia, having gone to war with the U.S. over the latter's 2008 successful use of its power to back the Muslim-majority Kosovo in its drive for independence from Christian Serbia, is using its own increased authority in Europe and in the world community to bully the U.S. in world affairs. Russia pronounces this as a drive for "liberation," an Orwellian term for its privately expressed desire to give Uncle Sam "as taste of his own medicine."

The slogan, of course, served to encourage the (successful) campaigns for secessions by other ethnic and/or religious-motivated "breakaway provinces" elsewhere, Muslim and non-Muslim.

These included Albanian communities in areas of southern Serbia -Montenegro and Macedonia — as well as Bosnia-Herzegovina. And then there are the Turkish majority in northern Cyprus and the Basque separatists in Spain. It is believed that Scotland's petition to secede from the United Kingdom is next.

Shortly after U.S. recognition of Serbia's breakaway province back in 2008, the American Council for Kosovo publicized an article arguing that "the dumbest statement about Kosovo's independence is that it will bring stability to the region, since as anyone can see the opposite is true."

Russia went to war with the United States a few years ago, not only because of Vladimir Putin's support for Serbia in its part of the world — but also out of concern that the Kosovo breakaway would create similar pressures (in its own backyard) on the part of the restless and troubled Sunni Muslim province of Chechnya.

Now in 2025, the president of the United States has personally addressed the United Nations, arguing that California had been an integral part of the United States for 175 years and had been the home base of several U.S. presidents in the 20th Century. The pleas fell on deaf ears at the UN, as Russia was able to marshal the forces of the Islamic and Spanish-speaking nations and some allies in Africa and parts of Europe.

Is this the future? Back to 2008

The continental United States — notwithstanding the War of 1812, the Civil War, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11 — has been blessed with a relative absence of the ravishes of war on its own territory. If we keep meddling in matters that are not only none of our business — but are also contrary to our own best interests — that string of good fortune may soon run out.

Defining our "best interests"

John Bolton, President Bush's highly respected former ambassador to the United Nations, is concerned about the administration's "dismissive attitude displayed toward Russia's objections [to an independent Kosovo] " and contends it would backfire against the United States in a very real and dangerous way.

In a Washington Times article co-authored with former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman, Bolton issues the following warning: "Whatever disagreements the United States may have with Moscow on other issues, and there are many, the United States should not prompt an unnecessary crisis in U.S.-Russia relations. There are urgent matters regarding which the United States must work with Russia, including Iran's nuclear intentions and North Korea's nuclear capability. Such cooperation would be undercut by American action to neutralize Moscow's legitimate concerns regarding Kosovo."

A tone-deafness on the campaign trail

Further contributing to the foreign policy downslide is the fact that all three major party candidates for the presidency — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain — support independence for Kosovo. McCain, in fact, sent his wife Cindy to meet with Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, implicitly signaling that if elected, McCain — as would be the case with either of his Democrat opponents — is fully supportive of the newly minted state.

Bush ignored warnings

It is sad to recall that President Bush — during his first campaign for the White House in 2000 — expressed a disdain for "nation-building." And yet in his second term, he has followed just that path with an intensity and stubbornness that would make Woodrow Wilson proud. Though lionized by the liberal establishment , Wilson's pompous and self-righteous pursuit of nation-building made him one of the biggest failures in America presidential history. President Bush would do well to think twice about going down the path of the first of his One-Worlder predecessors.

What sense is there in pursuing Islamists in Iraq, while offering American prestige and power to establishing an Islamist state on the European continent? Not only an Islamist state, but one whose persecution of Christians is a matter of record.

His Grace Bishop Artemije of Ras and Prizen, a leading Serb cleric, came to Washington prior to the U.S. action and begged the White House to change its planned course of action.

"I do not welcome having to direct these critical words of the United States," the bishop declared. "Serbs have always regarded America as a friend and continue to do so. Americans and Serbs were allies in both World Wars. We are not the ones who are pursuing a confrontation today. But it is impossible for America to profess friendship with Serbia while demanding the amputation of the most precious part of our homeland."

Bush 43: Clinton redux?

One despairs that a president who started out with such great promise — and indeed on such issues as tax cuts and appointment of judges has indeed fulfilled some of the promises — should make such a foreign policy blunder as recognizing a new Islamist state.

In so doing, he follows in the footsteps of his immediate predecessor Bill Clinton who — under NATO auspices — lobbed missiles at the former Yugoslavia — a war that (1) was blatantly unconstitutional, since he did not seek the input of Congress; (2) was suspect as having been a "wag the dog" exercise in deflecting attention from Clinton's White House scandal hit parade; (3) was waged on the premise of pervasive genocide by Serbia against Albanian Muslims — a claim that was wildly exaggerated at best and patently false at worst; (4) recklessly cost innocent civilian lives; and (5) ended in withdrawal of Serbian troops from Kosovo based on a promise by the world community that Kosovo would remain a Serbian province, but with a measure of "autonomy."

Biting off more than we (should) chew?

Here are some other facts to bear in mind the next time you hear someone rhapsodize over the beauty of Kosovo as a new "democracy":

A — Kosovo is 90 percent Muslim, including remnants of the old Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), with an early linkage to al Qaeda, whose camps have hosted KLA members for terror training. B — Criminal gangs, drug trafficking, and corruption are rampant there. C — With a reported 40 percent unemployment rate and average annual income of less than $3,000, Kosovo is too weak to be self-sustaining economically, forget about militarily. Guess who will be called upon to pick up that tab? D — The U.S. has committed troops in Kosovo in the long term (1500 last fall, according to the Washington Times). Will we stumble into an avoidable war on the side of "the bad guys?"

To what purpose?

As I write this (Sunday afternoon, April 6), President Bush's last meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin is big news, though — as of right now — no publicized word about discussions of Kosovo, a thorny issue perhaps reserved for one-on-one discussion behind closed doors.

Bush 43 thus engaged in an exercise that — aside from the damage alluded to above — puts an unspoken stamp of approval on Bill Clinton's legacy chestnuts which are thereby pulled out of the fire. It is beyond any rational understanding of seasoned foreign policy specialists. But then we are speaking of specialists beyond the rarified atmosphere of the nation-building striped pants diplomats who populate the State Department, whose building is appropriately nicknamed "Foggy Bottom."

]]> http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=10&leader=0&sp=495 Feral Tribune, 1 April 2008
Croatias recognition of Kosovo has more to do with a desire to please Washington than responsible regional politics, writes Marinko Culic.

In less than the two months since Kosovo became independent, Croatia has been flooded with so many wrong conclusions and theses that they have already started to create a false parallel reality. This is not to say that unforgettable political statements have not been made before, especially during Tudjmans time, when, for example, the thesis of Croatia as the bulwark of Christianity shook the western part of ex-Yugoslavia, and almost the country itself. We thought we had left this behind, and few could have imagined that this dirty package once thrown out of the door would return through the window.

This is exactly what has happened. In the effort to please Washington it is as though Croatias politicians adopted the logic of George Bush, who solemnly proclaimed the end of war on the occasion of the US armys entry into Baghdad, while the war has kept raging for the next five years, and nobody knows for how much longer. It is in a similar manner that many in Croatia see the independence of Kosovo. It took only a few weeks for the unsophisticated simplifications of a serious problem to produce several firm, but completely wrong theses about it. Here they are.

Stability. The dumbest statement about Kosovos independence is that it will bring stability to the region, since, as anyone can see, quite the opposite is true. In no time, the governments in four of six former Yugoslav states have been seriously shaken. One of them, Serbia, has already collapsed, Macedonia has barely avoided the same fate, while crisis struck the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina (which is Bosnias permanent state to tell the truth) and also Croatia. This was to be expected, of course. In each of these countries lives a sizeable community of an opposing side, either Serbs or Albanians, and, since its collapse, never has the crisis spilled so rapidly from one end of the former Yugoslavia to another. If this is stability, then what would instability look like?!

End of Yugoslavia. The favorite thesis in Croatian politics and media is that the independence of Kosovo is the last act of Yugoslavias breakdown, which is to say that it was something inevitable and would finally put an end to the story. But it might rather be the beginning of something: that Yugoslavia, after it has been broken down along the borders of the former federal republics, could now continue breaking down along ethnic lines. The most affected state would again be Serbia (more specifically its regions of Vojvodina, Sandzak and the Presevo valley), but also other countries, particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and somewhat less Montenegro and Croatia. Only Slovenia seems to escape the meltdown. Those other countries have learnt their lessons, however, and thus none of them has so far recognized an independent Kosovo, except Croatia, which seems to believe that the best place from which to look at the regional problems is not Zagreb, Sarajevo or Podgorica, but Washington.

NATO. Croatia has its own specific reasons for so obediently adhering to the views from Washington because it knows that it could never become part of NATO if it does not recognise Kosovo. But this is not the whole truth. Prime Minister Ivo Sanader also had his own reasons for his speedy recognition of Kosovo. Demands from Washington came as a welcome excuse. The Kosovo crisis has resolved one of his biggest old problems: the fact that for years popular support for NATO membership was stuck between 30 and 40 percent, while now it has skyrocketed to 60 percent.

Prime Minister Sanader, of course, is a responsible enough politician not to openly pour oil on the Kosovo fire, unlike some pro-government newspapers that reported the alleged arrival of Russian missiles on the Croatian border. But he also doesnt mind if recognition of Kosovo causes some tension on the other side, nor even among Serbs in Croatia itself. He is obviously not very concerned about the effect on the situation in the region, especially when consider that this is the first recognition of statehood for one ethnic group within the borders of a former Yugoslav republic. Not even Milosevic and Tudjman ever thought of recognizing the independence of the para-states they themselves had created (two self-proclaimed Serbian states in BiH and Croatia, and one Croatian in BiH). Petty local tyrants seem to have been better than big ones, at least in this issue.

Independent Democratic Serbian Party (SDSS). The party that represents the interests of Serbs in Croatia embarrassed itself by making empty threats that it would leave the coalition government if Croatia recognized Kosovo. This has created the impression that SDSS only trades with government posts, while Sanader did nothing to disprove this largely overblown accusation. Quite to the contrary, he only strengthened it by offering Slobodan Uzelac of the SDSS a post in the state privatization fund.

By so doing, he legitimised the worst among the critics of SDSS. He knows full well, but prefers to keep quite, that the SDSS is a modern party that has done a great deal to defuse Serbian-Croatian tensions in Croatia. SDSS was wrong to ignore the plan made by Marti Ahtisaari, however, which guarantees great autonomy to the Kosovo Serbs, even double citizenship, while its rejection might leave them with almost nothing. Still, too much defamation against SDSS has been heard these days, including that they are the tool of the Serbian state in Croatia, while some even went so far as to accuse them of being the tool of the Serbian extreme nationalist Radical party.

All this reveals how little Milorad Pupovac, the President of SDSS, is understood. He has been a loyal ally of Serbias liberal President Boris Tadic. He has no hesitation about defending his position on Serbian State Television, in front of the anchors who do not hide that they fiercely sympathize with the Radical party of Tomislav Nikolic. But it seems that nobody in Croatia wants to know this, and without knowing it, it is impossible to understand why SDSS opposed the fast recognition of Kosovo. Such recognition benefits the Serbian nationalistic parties, and that is why SDSS asked for recognition to be postponed at least until the parliamentary elections in Serbia in May.

Regional leader. Croatia has been obsessed with the desire to become the regional leader, which is childish and narcissist, but would not be too hard to bear had it not been for one other thing. This title is expected to be bestowed by major international offices, but not by the countries in the region itself, while, bearing in mind all the bad moves thus far, it is quite obvious that none of the countries in the region would want to give Croatia this title except maybe Kosovo. And the lesson? You cannot keep your feet here and your head in Washington and expect that suspicious neighbors will take you as one of their own, let alone respect you.

]]> http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=10&leader=0&sp=493 The United States' decision to recognize the independence of Kosovo is the most recent in a series of mistakes regarding the breakaway Serbian province. America has been making ill-fated decisions in the Balkans for at least a decade and a half. What separates this bungling of Kosovo from its prior decisions is that the recognition of Kosovo's independence will have deleterious effects on international law and cause consequences in the region and beyond.

The main problem is that Kosovo's independence undermines a system of international law that America helped create and from which it benefits greatly. The United Nations Charter enshrines the inviolability of state sovereignty. In recognizing Kosovo without a UN Security Council resolution, the United States and its European allies have weakened two of the fundamental principles of international law: that states are free to determine their internal composition and that their territorial integrity must be respected.

To make matters worse, the United States and the European Union have adopted a wildly expansive interpretation of Security Council Resolution 1244, which placed Kosovo under UN administration and provided for Kosovo's autonomy within Serbia. Under this interpretation, administrative authority is being transferred from the UN-sanctioned mission in Kosovo to an EU mission that has no legal mandate in the province and whose prospects for success rely on Serb participation, which is far from guaranteed. Already, ethnic divisions are hardening into a de facto partition of the territory between Albanian and Serb-controlled areas.

Another problem caused by Kosovo's independence is the precedent it sets for ethnic enclaves within other sovereign states. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's claim that "Kosovo cannot be seen as a precedent for any other situation in the world today" misses the point. It is doubtful that separatists from Xingjian to Catalonia will accept the niceties of Rice's argument that Kosovo is exceptional due to its political and legal history. It is much more likely that these separatists will view the conflict for the precedent that it is: the carving off of a sovereign state's territory in favor of an ethnic and religious minority threatening violence -- a model to be replicated elsewhere.

Russia has been particularly outspoken against Kosovo's independence because of its concern that its restive Caucasian provinces will follow the Kosovo precedent. The United States currently requires Russian cooperation on two issues of great strategic importance to America: counterproliferation efforts against Iran and the implementation of new missile defense systems in Central Europe. Irritating Russia and spending useful political capital on a tiny, economically stagnant, breakaway region will only make Russian cooperation less likely -- even on issues that concern its security.

Finally, Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence has only reinflamed the divisions and enmities of the 1990s -- not a time that any of us should want to revisit in the Balkans. The declaration of Kosovo's independence has emboldened Albanians in Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia in their calls for the creation of "greater Albania."

There is also the possibility that the largely Serbian north of Kosovo will decide to secede and ask its Serbian kinsmen to protect it. Will America defend Kosovo's sovereignty after having destroyed Serbia's?

The decision to recognize Kosovo's independence was foolish. In doing so, the United States and its European allies have undermined international law and opened the door to separatist movements worldwide to follow suit. Relations with Russia are being strained at a time when America needs Russia's cooperation. Most disturbing of all, the Balkan tinderbox could be reignited at any point. No amount of wishful thinking by our foreign policy leadership will fix the damage that's been done.

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