Botched Independance

Things don’t look too rosy in Serbia. First Kosovo unilaterally declares independence with Western help, then riots, then more riots, and now there are reports of a charred body in the U.S. Embassy. We’ve seen these kinds of problems for centuries in that part of the world, and the result has always been disastrous.

But the irony of the current state of affairs is that it could all very easily have been avoided.

Kosovo is a dangerous part of the world suffering from abject poverty and bitter xenophobia. The wounds left from the Yugoslav war won’t be healed for a long time, so separation from Serbia is all but inevitable. As we know, the trouble is that Serbia is refusing any form of separation, which leads directly to an impasse.

So to break that impasse, the United-States and the European triumvirate of France, Britain and Germany simply told the Kosovo government to unilaterally declare independence, promising in return to immediately recognize the new state.

It’s certainly radical, but it’s hugely naïve.

First and foremost, it goes against international law. The U.N. Charter is clear: Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter. The Helsinki Accords -signed by Canada, the U.S., all the European powers and the Soviet Union- are even more adamant, stipulating that relations between states must be guided by respect for the “rights inherent in sovereignty, inviolability of frontiers and territorial integrity of states”.

Serbia is a sovereign country with full sovereignty over Kosovo. In fact, the U.N. introduced in 1999 a declaration (number 1244) officially ending the fighting in Serbia and reaffirming its sovereignty over Kosovo. Therefore, since the Kosovo independence movement is clearly an internal matter, nothing would authorise the U.N. or its member states to intervene by recognizing Kosovo as an independent state.

So in the words of Former Canadian Ambassador to Serbia James Bissett, “we’ve now got an ironic situation where it’s the Russians who are standing up for the U.N. Charter and saying: look, you can’t do this, its illegal.”

This leads to my second point, that by encouraging a unilateral declaration of independence, the U.S. and its allies have all but guaranteed that Russia and China will veto any attempt at bringing Kosovo into the U.N. Never in a million years would Russia or China, countries that both have many Kosovos of their own, recognize a unilateral declaration of independence. The entire procedure would have to be revised for them to accept Kosovo’s entry into the U.N. This would take time and probably cause more blood to be spilt.

The Western countries could have been so much more creative with Serbia. With more time and imagination, they could no doubt have found a way to “convince” Serbia to accept Kosovo’s independence and sign a treaty that would have let the country keep its honour. This is what happened two years ago when Montenegro and Serbia “parted ways”.

But yet again, the Bush administration put passion before reason and let impulse dictate its international policy. The result will be more infighting at the U.N. Security Council, a new rise in the polls for Vladimir Putin, and a semi-state of Kosovo that will most likely spend the next ten years as a U.N. protectorate, awaiting official recognition and picking up in the process newfound hate for the Serbs.