Oh,
Those Balkans Again!
By
Gaither Stewart
12 December,
2007
Countercurrents.org
(Rome)
The failure of the mediation of USA, Russia and the European Union for
a solution to Kosovo’s demands for secession from Serbia has the
USA at loggerheads with both Russia and the EU about how to handle the
new Balkan crisis.
Washington
supports Kosovo separation and independence from Serbia, Russia supports
the integrity of Serbia, and the EU prefers continuation of its peacekeeping
role there to avoid another eruption of violence.
After Italian
Premier Romano Prodi’s warning that “Kosovo could again
become a hell,” NATO, meeting in Brussels this Monday on the Kosovo
issue, is ready to bolster its 16,000-man peacekeeping force there.
The governments in Rome, Paris, London and Berlin have warned the rest
of Europe that the period of negotiations is over and that action in
the Kosovo question is necessary, even without UN approval.
The USA is
backing independence for turbulent Kosovo, with its 2,2 million people,
92% of whom are Albanians, and which has the unenviable record of being
the poorest country in Europe. Condoleeza Rice warned that one should
not ignore the reality of the rupture of relations between Belgrade,
the Serbian capital, and Pristina, the capital city of the Kosovo region.
Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov repeated Moscow’s support for Serbia and
called for further negotiations. Backed by Spain, Lavrov labeled the
declaration of independence of the newly elected Kosovo government from
Serbia “a violation of international laws” and “a
dangerous precedent.” He warned that in such an eventuality Moscow
would react in accordance to international law.
Thus far
the Serbs have been the bad guys of Europe, guilty of massacres and
atrocities against the Albanian population of its administrative region
of Kosovo during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Kosovo however is the
traditional home of the southern Slavs, hallowed ground for Serbians
who feel about the region as some Americans to the 13 original colonies.
On the other
hand Serbia, close to Italy in life style and culture, is largely as
Europe-oriented as is Croatia, ready to enter the European Union. Its
economy is strong, 5-6% annual growth though battling against 24% unemployment.
Serbia, the former center of Communist Yugoslavia, has had to surrender
all of ex-Yugoslavia’s former republics, from Montenegro to Bosnia.
It suffered the NATO bombing of Belgrade in 1999 and is the only country
in the world that surrendered its chief of state, Milosevic, to the
international court in The Hague where he subsequently died in a cell.
Now the USA
demands it surrender also Kosovo, the center of national memory and
religion.
Apparently the USA wants to rush Kosovo’s independence in order
to withdraw its men and equipment from the Balkan stall and use them
elsewhere. Europe is wiser. Its memory is longer. The Balkans call up
sinister memories of a Serbian nationalist who in nearby Sarajevo assassinated
the Hapsburg Crown Prince igniting World War I. Slow down events, stop
and stall is the European watchword.
Serbia still
suffers the syndrome of isolation and scapegoat. Belgrade fears internal
problems if Kosovo too goes. Is membership in the European Union worth
it, Serbs wonder? Their future seems cloudy. Even the Mediterranean
Union proposed by France looks more toward African shores than toward
the Adriatic Sea.
The alternative
scenario seems more concrete to Serbs: Russia. Russia has always had
a thing about the southern Slavs. The dream of a union of the Slavs.
Russia already controls Serbian and Montenegrin industries, airlines
and hotels. With US help Moscow can tuck Serbia neatly back in the fold.
So once again
Serbia, striving for the West but lured by the East, stands at a crossroads
between Moscow and Washington, and this time with the complicating factor
of its desire to enter the European Union. Yet any unilateral recognition
of Kosovo independence would carry the Balkans backwards in time even
though relations between Serbia and its Albanian minority in Kosovo
are dead.
Europe is
more careful this time than in 1991 when the only war in Europe in sixty
years risked spreading. The fear is that as usual for America history
is yesterday.
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