By Patricia H. Kushlis
Whether Kosovo is, or is not now an independent country apparently depends upon how the July 22, 2010 World Court’s advisory opinion is interpreted. On the one hand, the International Court of Justice in a 10 to 4 decision declared that Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 did not violate international law. On the other hand, the Court did not declare Kosovo independent under international law.
The Court’s goal may have been to split the difference in a centuries old dispute between two rival ethnic groups fighting over the same plot of land but thus far, it appears that the Kosovars have gained far more from the court's advisory opinion than the Serbs – at home and in the world court of public opinion.
Serbia’s Last Stand?
What prompted Serbia to take this quarrel to the World Court in the first place makes little sense at least on the surface – but perhaps with just over 9,900 NATO-led international peace keeping troops (KFOR) not including Russia still in Kosovo and not planning to leave any time soon as well as 69 countries having recognized this former Serbian province as an independent state – the Serbian government decided its options were limited – if, that is, it intended to continue to pursue its claims over this wayward province which comprised 12% of Serbia.
Moreover the influence of the Russian Federation, Serbia’s primary supporter, seems to be waning over Balkans affairs – note, for instance, its absence from KFOR. Playing a weak Russian card on this table, has proven, at most, a delaying the inevitable tactic - especially if Serbia wants to join the European Union.
The most persuasive argument used by the Serbs and its supporters against the World Court’s opinion is that it would likely spur other restive regions – the Basque region in Spain, Northern Cyprus, Abkhazia in the Caucasus, and Tibet, for instance - to follow suit. This is why Spain, Greece, Cyprus, China and other countries with irredentist problems have not recognized Kosovo’s independence. But not one of the regions mentioned above has been recognized as independent by more than a handful of countries, and in some instances none whatsoever, so the likelihood of an epidemic of cases of splitism headed to the World Court or out the respective national doors soon is questionable.
The Irredentist Fear Factor
Regardless, the fear of the spread of irredentism globally sounds somewhat like the Southeast Asian domino theory. According to this theory promulgated during the Vietnam War, if Vietnam fell to the Communists, the rest of Southeast Asia - and who knows Hawaii would be next. The last time I looked, however, Hawaii was still a state and Thailand – supposedly the next victim after Vietnam and Cambodia fell to Communist regimes in 1975 - has yet to follow.
But it is true that when regimes crumble at the core, leadership struggles inevitably occur to fill the ensuing power vacuum and the center does not always hold.
After the Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the nineteenth century, nationalist movements based on linguistic, cultural and sometimes religious affinities rose to the fore throughout Europe and Asia. The first Balkan independence movements appeared almost immediately thereafter. The Ottoman Empire – which had ruled most but not all the Balkan Peninsula since the 15th century – was first defeated by the Greeks and then the Serbs with help from their respective Great Power protectors. Greece became independent in 1829 and Serbia in 1878.
Having watched the demise of Yugoslavia during the 1980s and early 1990s, it was clear that Kosovo would not remain attached to that rump state willingly for long. Antagonisms between the minority Serbian population and majority Albanians was evident even as early as 1983 when we stopped one summer’s night in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, en route from Greece to points north.
Recipe for unrest
A ratio of 90 percent Albanians to 10 percent Serbs dominated by an ultra-nationalist Serbian government based in Belgrade just didn’t compute for the province’s long term political stability. The abolition of Kosovo’s autonomy by the then ultra nationalist Serbian dominated Milosevic government in 1989 and his decision to play upon the minority Serbian population’s grievances in Kosovo made matters worse. Poverty, financial mismanagement and high unemployment under the Communists from 1946 – 1990 added to the stew of rising discontent on both sides.
Whether the Great Powers should have agreed to place Kosovo under Serbian jurisdiction as they tried to sort out conflicting territorial claims in the Balkans during the first part of the twentieth century is another story, but that’s what happened. This decision - combined with intra-Albanian feuds over goals, religions and dialects - prevented the establishment of an independent Kosovo nearly a century ago - or more likely then, the creation of a Greater Albania. As Miranda Vickers wrote in Between Serb and Albanian in 1998, a Greater Albania that included Kosovo or an independent Kosovo was vehemently opposed by competing territorial claims of the Serbs and Greeks both supported by the Russian Empire. The other Great Powers involved, including Great Britain, acquiesced.
The intervening years between 1914 and 2010 did nothing to help resolve this underlying and seemingly irreconcilable conflict between Serb and Albanian. As decades passed, the percentage of Albanians increased. The 1974 Yugoslav Constitution promulgated under the country’s Premier Josip Broz Tito gave autonomy to restive regions but simultaneously diminished the rights of minority Serbs living in places like Kosovo. This devolution of authority worked as long as Tito lived. But after Tito’s death in 1980, Yugoslavia slowly and bloodily spun apart.
Mistakes can be corrected
Plenty of mistakes have been made over governance of the Balkans. One of them led to the beginning of World War I. The region, like Southeast Asia, is fraught with entrenched competing territorial claims. But one thing the European Union can do – is to not make the same mistake it did with Cyprus. EU membership is still sought after and the Union should be able to use its considerable influence to help settle - not put off yet again - the dispute over Kosovo by making it a condition for membership for both parties involved.
