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Ambassador Morton Abramowitz, Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation and a former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, speaks with Jerry Folwer about the current situation in Kosovo and the United Nations’ Special Envoy for Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari’s, drafted plan to resolve the region’s so called final status. Ambassador Abramowitz recently had an article in Newsweek International arguing that it is time to decide about Kosovo.
TRANSCRIPT:
JERRY FOWLER: My guest today is Mort Abramowitz. He is a Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation and a former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Before holding either of those positions, he had a long and distinguished career in the Foreign Service, which included serving as United States Ambassador to Turkey and Assistant Secretary of State. Ambassador Abramowitz, welcome to the program.
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: Thank you for having me.
JERRY FOWLER: We want to talk today about Kosovo. Since the NATO intervention there in 1999, Kosovo has basically been an international protectorate. It is still technically part of Serbia, but it is largely run by a Kosovar Albanian government, under the supervision of the United Nations, and now the United Nations’ Special Envoy for Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari, who is a former president of Finland, has drafted a plan to resolve the region’s so called final status. You had an article in Newsweek International recently arguing that it is time to decide about Kosovo. Before we get to why it is time to decide, though, could you outline the plan that President Ahtisaari has put on the table?
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: What President Ahtissaari has done is two related, but different things. In the first instance, and perhaps most important for Kosovo’s final status, he basically has provided a plan under which Kosovo would be able to declare itself independent; that is that he would propose a new resolution of the United Nations Security Council which would eliminate the famous resolution 1244, which still provided for Kosovo to be under Serbian sovereignty, so he has provided a way for getting rid of 1244 and replacing it with a new resolution, which would mean that Kosovo was unencumbered from Serbia. At the same time, he has provided a way and a process for ensuring that to the best way possible, Kosovo remain a multi-ethnic state—that is the Serb populations would be adequately preserved—and the governance of Kosovo would have some oversight by a new administration provided by the European Union essentially, to replace the United Nations administration. At the same time, he has provided a considerable amount of decentralization which permits Serb communities to feel more protected and preserve many of the prerogatives of running their own place, and he has permitted a considerable authority to this European Union administration to make sure that the Kosovo government lives up to the demands of the international community.
JERRY FOWLER: This European Union oversight; would it include actually having security forces inside Kosovo, or would the current K-4 that is on the ground there, as they call it, Kosovo-4, be pulled out?
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: The K-4 remains, under NATO auspices, and would continue under the European Union administered Kosovo as well. Without the K-4 forces for a good period of time, there would always be some concern that Serbian forces would some day walk into Kosovo again if a nationalist Serbian administration emerged. At the same time, it provides the terms to potentially bad mistreatment of the remaining Serb population by Kosovar people.
JERRY FOWLER: That was the point that I wanted to focus on. Obviously, as I said, the NATO intervention in 1999 – or maybe I did not say this, but I should have – was responding to what you might call ethnic cleansing of the Albanian majority by the Serbian government. Since then, there has been pretty steady violence by the Albanians against the Serb minority, so it kind of raises the question, it is one thing to say that there will be a plan to make it multi-ethnic and protect the Serbs after this transition happens, but how will those protections be guaranteed in practice?
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: First of all, I think steady ethnic violence is a little overstatement. There was a very bad patch there, two years ago, which destroyed a lot of Serb property and a number of people were killed, and there are occasional incidents from time to time, and harassments of Serbs and many Serbs, not surprisingly, feel uncomfortable. Let me back track a little bit. First, the government of Kosovo has carried on a serious campaign—I cannot be sure how successful—trying to reassure the Serb population that they have a place in Kosovo, that they will be protected once independence comes, and that it is the responsibility of the people of Kosovo’s government to make sure that Serbs can operate freely like anybody else. There has been such a campaign; how successful it has been, I do not know.
JERRY FOWLER: At the political level?
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: At the political level; I cannot be sure how deep it goes. There obviously remains still enormous animosity. Secondly, they are required to have a constitution under the Ahtisaari plan – I should have mentioned this before – which makes clear in every way the protections for the minority peoples, including the Serbs. Thirdly, they will never be free, in any reasonable timeframe, of an international tether, until it is demonstrated that once they have been able to centrally rule themselves as the plan provides for, they will not be free of international oversight, until the nations of the world, Western states, are confident that the Serbs are being protected. Now, on the promise to be fair, is that the government of Serbia is basically not encouraging Serbs to stay or Serbs to return. They are constantly pointing out what they say is this extraordinarily bad situation in which Serbs are under all kinds of threats of violence or acts of violence actually being committed. At the time that the Kosovar government is trying – I think, fairly seriously – to get Serbs to come back, or at least some Serbs to return, the Serbian government has been undermining that effort by telling Serbs, “Do not go back; it is a terrible place.”
JERRY FOWLER: I wanted to push just a little bit on those protections that you outlined, especially the last two. The constitution would have explicit protections in it, and then they would not be free of an international tether.
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: The Constitution – I should have mentioned it earlier – provides for a significant degree – so much so that people fear that it might make the state ineffective – provides a significant degree of decentralization, in which Serbs run their own affairs, can have relations with Belgrade, and can receive monies from Belgrade. There is even a slightly extraterritorial factor here, and a number of Kosovars feel rightly wrongly that this is going to weaken the ability of the government to function, however, the leaders of Kosovo have accepted this restriction, in part because they want to proceed as quickly as possible to final status, and then they do not want to introduce elements that could lead to prolonged negotiations with Ahtisaari and his team.
JERRY FOWLER: With regard to the international tether, how realistic is that? If the Kosovar Albanians, in the wake of declaring independence and having it recognized, started to piece by piece break down the protections, is there really an international will, particularly on the part of the European Union, to push back, to exercise that tether?
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: There are two things I would say. First of all, in the broader context, Kosovo is totally dependent on the international community; they need it for money; they need it for protection from Serbia; it needs the help it can get. So, the notion that the Kosovar government is going to turn on the Serb population and expect the West to continue to provide support for it is, I think, unlikely, and that is a major deterrent. Secondly, there are going to be considerable forces there, as well as oversight, particularly in the judicial and police forces, which should serve to mitigate, if Kosovars are so inclined, violence against Serbs; it does not preclude it, but it is a significant deterrent. Both of those things have to force Kosovo, and certainly the government, to recognize a reality: they are heavily dependent on the West for its growth, for its ultimate integration into Europe. Kosovo aspires to get into the European Union. They think they are going to get into the European Union is they destroy their Serbian population? Highly unlikely. They may have trouble getting into the European Union period these days! There are protections. I do not say that there will not be incidents; there are still lots of feelings, and there is also the possibility of Serbia to stoke up the problem in order to undermine the Kosovo state. That is a concern that I have too, but you are raising a fair point, but I think that there are significant deterrents against sizeable violence. I do not preclude the isolated incidents; I do not preclude that at all.
JERRY FOWLER: Let us turn to the Serbian part of this equation. You said that the Kosovar Albanians have basically accepted, or at least at the political level accepted the Ahtisaari plan because it gives them enough of what they need. What has been the Serbian reaction?
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: The Serbian reaction has been totally against Ahtisaari and has denounced Ahtisaari personally for proposing independence. There is no Serb leader at this point who will sign up to any document that provides for Kosovo’s independence, straight off or in the near future. The question is, if the Ahtisaari plan is embodied in a United Nations resolution and implemented, the Serbian government will have to consider, are they going to cooperate with that, or are they going to oppose it? The leadership hopes that the Russians will step in and veto any resolution, thus, at least legally, still providing for Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo. It is very ironic; the whole thing is very ironic. Here you have a Serb leadership who wants no part of the Albanians of Kosovo, does not want them to vote in their elections, does not want them to participate in their national life, are effectively out of Serbian control; they want to insist that they still own the place. It is hard to break up a country; we all know that, and it is very painful for many Serbs to accept this, but what we are dealing with is an accomplished fact, and the question is whether Serbia is going to turn the page, recognize the reality—it is easy for me to say, I understand that—and start to deal with the issue constructively. Unfortunately, the Serbian leadership has shown no indication of that, and in particular, Mr. Kostinitza, who is a fierce nationalist, very little different from many of the feelings of Mr. Milosevic.
JERRY FOWLER: Partly, you are saying that there is no political leader who is willing to do that, and in part that is because the political consequences for someone in Serbia who did that would be devastating.
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: Right; they would fear that. That is exactly right; there is no question that there is a political risk there. On the other hand, I think there are a lot of Serbs who may not like this but recognize that Kosovo is lost. There is only one party right now – a small party, but which did win 15 seats in the Serbian legislature in the recent elections, in the Serbian Parliament – which advocates independence for Kosovo and say that it is the only way to proceed.
JERRY FOWLER: You made a reference a few minutes ago to the hope on the part of Serbia that Russia might veto a resolution based on the Ahtisaari plan. I think it is well known that Russia has a long standing, close relationship with Serbia.
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: I think that is exaggerated; they had one in the past, the Russians are not very much interested. They have developed a certain amount of economic interest recently by buying up some Serbian countries, but by in large, I think that is exaggerated.
JERRY FOWLER: Do you think that the Serbs’ hopes in Russia are misplaced, that Russia will eventually go along?
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: I honestly cannot answer that. The Russian position has been that they will accept any agreement that both parties accept. That endorses the Serb position that Kosovo is part of Serbia. On the other hand, the Russians have never said that they are going to veto, and they are not likely to take any position until the Security Council meets – probably in April – to consider the Ahtisaari plan and vote on it. The Russians have contributed nothing to the Balkans in the past twenty years – nothing. The West has put enormous resources into this; an enormous effort to create new countries and stable countries and decent countries, and for the Russians to veto an agreed upon Western approach would be an act which is hard to understand. They certainly have a legal right to do so, but I think it is up to the American government particularly to make it very clear to the Russian government that this would be an extraordinarily unfriendly act.
JERRY FOWLER: One of the things that you say in your article in Newsweek International is that there will be a temptation to call for continued negotiations among the parties, and then you say that that would be a disaster for the region, the West and the United Nations. Specifically, why would it be a disaster to negotiate for that?
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: First of all, there is no possibility of reaching an agreement, and that is where you have to start from. We know that, Ahtisaari knows that, and postponing an agreement is urging negotiations; it is a desire not to face a difficult situation. That is all it is. It is not a desire to deal with the problem. Secondly, the Kosovo issue is the biggest irritant today in stability in the Balkans. Nobody knows what is going to happen. It has an impact on all the countries, particularly Macedonia what happens in Kosovo, and the situation in Kosovo itself can be tenuous. The people of Kosovo have been waiting for independence for a long time, they have been promised it – certainly by the United States – and for this uncertainty – nobody can invest there because they do not know who it belongs to, and even Serbia cannot do anything to turn the page to get into the European Union without solving this Kosovo problem. The prolongation of this only offers opportunities for those who do not like this to create mischief and for the very impatient Kosovars to get mad as hell and resort to actions that we would all deplore. It is in the interest of reducing violence, of ending instability and uncertainty that we proceed on this. I think almost everybody – perhaps except for the Russians – realize that waiting is going to create a potential disaster. There are countries, however, of course, who do not like breaking up a country. I do not like breaking up a country either, but the reality is the reality. It would be imprudent to take a step to postpone this when there is no prospect of agreement.
JERRY FOWLER: You have mentioned some of the regional implications of not adopting the Ahtisaari plan. In the little time that we have remaining, let me ask you about one of the regional implications of adopting it. In Bosnia, since 1995, there has been an uneasy federation between Bosnian Muslims and Croats on the one hand and Bosnian Serbs on the other. Some Bosnian Serbian politicians there in Bosnia are saying that if Kosovo gets independence, then there so called Republic of Serbska should as well, and that might threaten to unravel the peace in Bosnia. How serious is that threat?
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: That has been a threat, I think in part promoted by the Serbian government to try to reduce the possibilities of Kosovo independence. The Republic of Serbska is a creation of massive ethnic cleansing; it has no legitimacy, no government would recognize it, and the West has made very clear that Kosovo refers only to Kosovo and to the existing territory of Kosovo; there is no partition. I do not think that there is any government that would recognize a break away from the date and agreement. They all signed up to this agreement, including the Bosnian Serbs, and it has become a major feature, accepted feature of the international scene, and I do not think it would be tolerated in any way by Western governments. I think it is an idle threat.
JERRY FOWLER: Mort Abramowitz is a Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation and a former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Ambassador Abramowitz thanks so much for taking the time to be with us.
MORTON ABRAMOWITZ: Thank you for having me.
