PressInfo 2005

Kosovo Solution Series # 1 This is the first in a series of TFF PressInfos about Kosovo. It follows PressInfo 208 about the United Nations praising the potential war criminal, former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj. Relevant background links for this series here. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY As Kosovo these very days marks the anniversary of the massive anti-Serb violence of March 2004, the path towards talks on its final status appears set. The mainly Albanian populated province of southern Serbia has extradited its Prime minister Ramush Haradinaj, indicted for war crimes during the Kosovo conflict, to the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. Belgrade is doing the same with its own former generals indicted for war crimes during the conflict, thus paving the way for a positive stance by Brussels on its EU Feasibility Study. The roadblocks towards a true, negotiated and long-lasting agreement on Kosovo remain numerous, but should by no means prevent the international...

Fra serien “Løsninger på Kosovo” Dette er den første i en serie af TFF PressInfos om Kosovo. Den følger efter PressInfo 208, om at FN lovsynger den mistænkte krigsforbryder, tidligere premierminister Ramush Haradinaj. Relevante baggrundslinks til denne serie findes her. Officielt resumé I disse dage, et år efter den massive antiserbiske voldsbølge i marts 2004, ser det ud til, at vejen mod samtaler om den fremtidige status er udstukket. Provinsen i det sydlige Serbien, hvor befolkningen er overvejende albansk, har udleveret sin premierminister, Ramush Haradinaj, som er anklaget for krigsforbrydelser under Kosovokonflikten, til det internationale krigsforbrydertribunal i Haag. Beograd gør det samme med de af sine fhv. generaler, der anklages for krigsforbrydelser, hvorved vejen er banet for en positiv tilkendegivelse fra EU om Serbiens adgang til EU. Der er stadig mange forhindringer for en virkelig, forhandlet, langtidsholdbar aftale om Kosovo, men de skal ingenlunde forhindre det internationale samfund og de væsentlige parter i...

 Kosovo Solution Series # 10 Kosovo is moving up again on the international agenda. The time to think about the framework, the alternatives and the consequences of the talks on the future status of Kosovo is now. Despite the highly unlikely possibility that Kosovo will be able to achieve in the next few months the key standards necessary to initiate the final status talks, it would be gullible to believe that these criteria will not be once again downsized, shrunk to fit the path to the status talks. Pro-Albanian lobbyists such as the International Crisis Group, Richard Holbrooke and various US members of Congress argue that “independence is the only option.” However, this option can also be seen as unjust, dangerous, archaic and anti-European. The option of an “independent Kosova” implies that one of the sides (the Kosovo Albanians) would achieve its maximalist goal and that the other side (Belgrade...

Many models for a future Kosovo  Kosovo Solution Series # 9    PressInfo # 217  April 7, 2005 By Aleksandar Mitic, TFF Associate & Jan Oberg, TFF director   Four ways of making peace By way of starting, some words of caution. What’s the egg and what’s the hen in the question about the future status of Kosovo? What is form and what content, the means and the goals? People who strongly want independence tend to see that as both a means and the goal: “if only we become an independent state, everything will be fine.” There have been enough post-independence and post-colonial conflicts and wars in the world for anyone to see that this is not necessarily so. With the decision-making on the future status – form – moving to the top of the international agenda, it is likely to tilt the general attention away from issues of substance,...

Still, the Albanian lobby suffered a blow with the outcome of the US presidential elections: Wesley Clark lost the Democratic nomination race, Richard Holbrooke’s bid to become Secretary of State in the John Kerry administration failed, the hopes of George Soros and the “Albright group” to become the key ideologists of the reborn Clinton-era policy slant towards the Balkans also miserably vanished. On the other side, the problem remained: Belgrade does not have an effective PR strategy to counteract this impressively well-organized, well-oiled and paid pro-Albanian lobby campaign, nor does it follow a pro-active media approach which could put its objective demands on the table. Even Belgrade analysts do not agree on whether Serbia has a lobby in Washington and Brussels, let alone whether it is effective. Belgrade is thus left behind again in a disproportionate media battle. Failing to hear Belgrade’s views in the media and among think-tanks and...

1. The solution has to be acceptable, optimally satisfactory, for all parties inside Kosovo and surrounding Kosovo. The idea that anyone can get or should be given all it wants must be given up at the outset. 2. No solution can be imposed, it must be negotiated by all relevant parties. To solve a conflict means that the parties voluntarily accept to live with a new order of things. Thus, any talk about deciding the final status outside a comprehensive negotiation structure – something that will invariably take time – should be avoided. Also, the process toward a solution should neither be influenced by one side’s pressure or the other side’s dragging its feet. 3. The same principles must be applied to the parties. If the international community respects the Albanian demand not to be ruled by Serbs/Belgrade, it must also respect that Kosovo-Serbs who do not wish to be...

  Independence, perhaps – but where is the logics? This “independence agenda” has been pushed more and more overtly by near-governmental organizations and some Western officials. Talks about the independence of Kosovo as the only solution possible is however a great paradox and an example of the lack of principled, consistent policies by the international community. Here are some of the reasons:   1) Republika Srpska – the Bosnian Serb entity under the 1995 Dayton accords – has nearly the same number of people as the province of Kosovo, between 1,5 and 2 million people. It is also a protectorate and has had the same kind of NATO force on its soil like Kosovo. It has a very similar structure of the population as Kosovo – some 90% belong to one ethnic community. Strategically, its Bosnian Serb population has the same aspirations as the Kosovo Albanians: to become independent. Yet,...

In short, the Albanians – the winners of the war – have monotonously argued the same thing for decades while the Serbs side – losers of the war – have moved positions and views in accordance with changes on the ground. Pro-Albanian lobbyists like Richard Holbrooke and other, primarily American, policymakers and lobbyists are often using the argument of Serbia as “a traditional Russian ally” to argue that the West must put itself on the side of the Serb opponents. This “metaphor of Russia ” must be rejected. Serbia indeed respects Russia due to historical, religious and Slavic ties, but Serbia is far from Russia and punishing Serbia does not mean punishing Russia. Finally, attempts to give independence to Muslim-dominated Kosovo in order to balance the aggressive policy towards the Islamic world in the Middle East should be rejected no matter how convenient they appear to geo-strategic analysts in Washington....

Relevant background links for this series here. The pro-Albanian lobby program in Brussels, Washington, New York and other Western capitals has been up and running for decades now. An advocacy campaign pushing for the independence of Kosovo as the only alternative to bloody conflict and instability has been the primary theme of this campaign, fought through well-established consultants, PR groups, think-tank lobbyists, contacts with key policymakers and the media. The fight for the agenda-setting and the context of the Kosovo issue has been set by Albanian lobbyists during Tito’s communist Yugoslavia – well before anyone ever heard of a man called Slobodan Milosevic. The quest for the independence of Kosovo has been a long and strategic policy of the Albanian community in Kosovo and abroad at a time when Serb politicians in Belgrade and in Pristina were still loyal to a “dream” of a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia and unable to formulate a...

Kosovo Solution Series # 3 Relevant background links for this series here. In the first PressInfo of this series, we outlined four general criteria (a-d) for what it means to have solved a conflict. To arrive at a sustainable solution in the concrete case of Kosovo, a minimum of professional principles and considerations are necessary. This PressInfo offers the following: 1. The solution has to be acceptable, optimally satisfactory, for all parties inside Kosovo and surrounding Kosovo. The idea that anyone can get or should be given all it wants must be given up at the outset. 2. No solution can be imposed, it must be negotiated by all relevant parties. To solve a conflict means that the parties voluntarily accept to live with a new order of things. Thus, any talk about deciding the final status outside a comprehensive negotiation structure – something that will invariably take time – should be avoided. Also, the process...

Kosovo Solution Series # 4 Relevant background links for this series here. Not even the hardest pro-Albanian lobbyists deny the importance that Kosovo plays in the hearts and minds of the Serbs. Kosovo holds the cultural, religious and national heritage of the Serbian people. It is home to 300,000 Serbs – currently in Kosovo or displaced since 1999 – not to mention the hundreds of thousands who left the province for economic or other reasons in the decades before. Some 1,300 monasteries, churches and other religious objects testify of the richness of Serb presence in the province. There is however an attempt on the behalf of pro-Albanian lobbyists to present the issue as simply the “Kosovo myth” which the Serbs must get rid of if they want to get “closer to Europe”. Near-governmental organizations such as the ICG and newly-born Balkan specialists tell the Serbs: leave Kosovo as the French left...

 Kosovo Solution Series # 5 Relevant background links for this series here. While the ICG, the International Crisis Group, and other pro-Albanian lobby groups argue that the independence of Kosovo is a means or necessity in order to avoid another “March 2004” and general chaos, the counterargument would be this: wouldn’t the granting of full independence to Kosovo be a reward for years of policies of ethno-nationalism and ethnic cleansing led by Albanian extremists? Would it not mean rewarding violent struggle by the KLA and punishment of the largest non-violent movement in ex-Yugoslavia – that of the Kosovo-Albanians before KLA became the dominating force? Would it not mean rewarding the two aggressions that to a large extent was instigated by factors in Kosovo, namely that in Southern Serbia and that in the 8 months war in Macedonia? When the Hague war crime indictee and Kosovo’s now former Prime minister Ramush Haradinaj promises that...