MuseumDESCRIPTION:
Daniel Serwer, vice president of the Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations and the Centers of Innovation at the United States Institute of Peace, speaks with guest host, Bridget Conley-Zilkic, about impending decisions on Kosovo’s final status.
TRANSCRIPT:
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Welcome to voices on genocide prevention this is Bridget Conley-Zilkic your host for this week with me is Dan Serwer who is vice president of the Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations and the Centers of Innovation at the United States Institute of Peace. He coordinates USIP’s efforts in societies emerging from conflict especially Afghanistan, the Balkans, Haiti, Iraq and Sudan. Welcome to the show.
DANIEL SERWER: It’s a pleasure to be here.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: We’ve asked Mr. Serwer to join us today to talk about the impending decision about Kosovo’s final status. But I wanted to begin by asking you to give our listeners an overview of why Kosovo’s final status is an international issue today?
DANIEL SERWER: The answer to that is that the NATO-Yugoslavia war ended in 1999 with a Security Council resolution. And that security counsel resolution put Kosovo under a U.N. protectorate, but foresaw an eventual decision on what Kosovo’s status would be. The resolution also acknowledged in the preamble that Kosovo-- that the sovereignty of Kosovo had belonged to Belgrade at that time. The country was called Yugoslavia not Serbian, but it’s clear enough that Serbia is the heir to Yugoslavia. So there-- we now reached the point at which the decision foreseen in Security Council resolution 1244 needs to be taken and that’s why we are where we are.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And who has been leading the talks between Serbia and the now majority ethnic population of Kosovo, the ethnic Albanians?
DANIEL SERWER: The contact group empowered-- actually the contact group and the U.N. Secretary General empowered former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari to lead the effort to negotiate a solution. They could be approved in the security counsel. And along with Martti Ahtisaari you have an American negotiator Frank Wisner and a German negotiator Wolfgang Ischinger. And they worked hard to try to develop something that would be satisfactory to both parties and that could be approved in the Security Council. In fact they didn’t even want the solution approved in the Security Council. The Americans were willing to simply accept a decision of the security counsel that the provisions of 1244-- resolution 1244 -- had been filled, and that it was time to go onto the next stage. Belgrade and Russia have blocked that decision in the Security Council and insisted on a solution that maintains Serbian sovereignty.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And Serbia’s position -- how is that influenced? What are the historical factors that back-up their claims to --?
DANIEL SERWER: With Serbia regards it claim as a historical one. The Serbian state really derives from the Serbian Orthodox Church, whose cradle of Serbian civilization is in Kosovo. There’s no question about that, and you’ll sometimes hear Serbs say that Kosovo is the Serbian Jerusalem, by which they mean it’s inalienable to the Serbian self-concept. That said, Kosovo’s population is today probably about 90, maybe 95 percent Albanian, and Albanian is a language that’s mutually incomprehensible to Serbian. And you have a history in the 1990s, 1980s and 90s, of mistreatment of the Albanian population by the Serbian state.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And how have the various international players you mentioned the U.S. European but also Martti Ahtisaari. What about the European Union and the Russians. How have the various international actors influenced this process today?
DANIEL SERWER: Let me say a word first about the question of sovereignty. I described how Serbian claims to sovereignty are historical, cultural, religious in character. And those claims are very real, especially in the Serbian context. The problem is that the population is not Serb and now rejects Serbian sovereignty and wants independence. From the American perspective sovereignty derives from the consent of the people. And therefore the fact that 90 or 95 percent of the population rejects Serbian sovereignty has great weight with the Americans even though it has no weight with the Serbs. The Europeans have gradually, most of them, have come around to the American perspective on this issue. There are a few holdouts especially Cypress and Greece who have their own particular reasons for not wanting to see Kosovo become independent, mainly that they’re afraid that we’ll set a precedent for the Turkish part of Cypress which is not under Cypriot government control. The Russians come in because Kosovo’s status at the end of the war was settled by a Security Council resolution. And the best way to change a Security Council resolution is with another security counsel resolution. In fact it may be the only way to actually change one. If the Americans and Europeans are going to try to proceed without a Security Council resolution they’re going to have to argue that the terms of resolution 1244 have been fulfilled and the resolution 1244 that ended the Yugoslav/NATO war foresaw a future political process in which the status of Kosovo would be decided. Washington and some European countries, most European countries, want to proceed with that decision. And they would argue that the Security Council in no way controls a decision by a sovereign state like the United States or France or Germany or Britain. The sovereign right of a sovereign state to recognize another sovereign state, it’s the most basic of rights in our international system that sovereign states recognize other sovereign states. And no one certainly in Washington has delegated control over that decision to the Security Council. So Washington and most of the European Union will want to proceed quickly after the negotiators report to the Secretary General on December 10th that they failed. Russia and Belgrade will try to delay the process further.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: How is Kosovo being governed now? Is it ready for full independence?
DANIEL SERWER: Kosovo has been governed for the last seven-and-a-half years as a U.N. protectorate with local governing institutions. It has what’s called a constitutional framework, I think. It has a parliament, it has ministries. The U.N., because of resolution 1244 has maintained control over security and justice questions. And even after status is decided under the Ahtisaari plan, and under any plan anybody is seriously thinking about, Kosovo would continue to be under international supervision. In particular its treatment of Serb and other minority populations would be tightly supervised under the Ahtisaari plan so that Serbs are not subjected to intimidation or violence, and that certain monuments and churches are properly protected. That, anyway, is the plan. And so there’s a certain irony here that Belgrade is objecting to a plan which has the best prospects of protecting Serbs in Kosovo because it doesn’t want independence.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Are there any questions that a declaration of independence on Kosovo’s part and recognition from some nations, although obviously not all, that could spark renewed violence?
DANIEL SERWER: Definitely there is concern about that. And for that reason it’s important that any thing that’s decided be carefully coordinated and consulted between Washington, Brussels and Prishtina. Some people have talked about a unilateral declaration of independence. In my way of thinking which has been heavily influenced I’m happy to say by my colleague Jim Dobbins, whatever is done should not be a unilateral act it should be a coordinated declaration of independence. And in exchange for recognition Prishtina will have to agree to implement the Ahtisaari plan under tight international supervision.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And what about ramifications of Kosovo’s independence on the larger region, in particular the Serb Republic portion of Bosnia, which has still indicated some interest in declaring its own independence?
DANIEL SERWER: Yes. What you have to understand, you have to compare apples and apples. The question is not just what might happen if Kosovo declares independence; it’s also a question of what might happen if Kosovo doesn’t get independence. And in that case, I can guarantee you instability in the Balkans because the Albanian population, almost two million people will be very upset and will likely get rid of the current, relatively moderate leadership, which has committed itself to these negotiations. And therefore, there’s a real problem with bringing extremists to power in Prishtina. There’s also a problem, frankly, with Serb provocations. The Serbian effort to delay a decision is clearly intended in part to provoke Albanian violence, because if the Albanians attack the Serbs in Kosovo, Belgrade assumes, and I think quite rightly, that it will become impossible for quite a few countries to recognize Kosovo’s independence. So protection of the Serbs in Kosovo has become an absolutely vital factor for the Albanians, not just for the Serbs. And it’s my hope that with independence will come a very concerted effort by the Albanians to protect each and every Serb who lives in Kosovo.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And for Bosnia?
DANIEL SERWER: For Bosnia... Look. In Bosnia, we have a peace settlement, the Dayton Agreement. As part of that peace settlement Republika Srpska got a certain level of international recognition so long as it stayed within the Bosnian state. I don’t think a Republika Srpska that declares independence will get recognition from anybody but Belgrade, and maybe not even Belgrade. I also think that you have to take into consideration that Republika Srpska is the entity in Bosnia that was responsible for extensive ethnic cleansing in the 1990s, in the early 1990s. And its claim to sovereignty or independence is really negatively affected by the mistreatment of the Croats and Muslims who once lived on that territory and many of whom still have not been able to go home, and those who go home are living in difficult conditions to say the least, in some places, at least. So I don’t think Republika Srpska has a claim here. Might the claim be made? Sure, but only if encouraged by Belgrade. I don’t think Republika Srpska would move on its own to try to seek independence. In addition the high representative of Bosnia has in the last day or two been able to negotiate a settlement of a series of difficult parliamentary, constitutional and police issues in Bosnia and with that agreement, I hope we’ve seen a shoring up of the Bosnian state that will enable it to resist any aftershocks of Kosovo’s independence.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Then you believe, this is what I hope I’m hearing, that Kosovo independence, with all the guarantees in international monitoring, that it can happen in a way that is non-violent, and hopefully will be the groundwork for building a more stable region.
DANIEL SERWER: It must happen in a way that’s non-violent, because Kosovo won’t get any recognition unless it’s non-violent and that’s essential to understand. Independence is something you can declare for yourself. Sovereignty is something you can only get by recognition of other sovereign states. And other sovereign states aren’t going to recognize Kosovo’s state if it doesn’t behave properly toward all of its citizens.
You might also ask me about Macedonia, because Macedonia, like Bosnia, is a multi-ethnic state consisting of a majority of Macedonians and a minority, but a big minority, around 24 percent, of Albanians. And the short answer there is that Skopje has decided long ago, some years ago, that it prefers a clear decision on Kosovo to continuation of the current uncertainty, so long as that decision is not partition of Kosovo. Why does Macedonia worry about partition of Kosovo? Because they are afraid it would lead to Albanian demands to partition part of Macedonia and join it to Kosovo. But the Macedonian state has decided that it will even support independence of Kosovo, so long as there’s no partition of Kosovo.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Well, hopefully, we’ll see all of these factors come to pass.
DANIEL SERWER: Well I do hope that things are peaceful. The reason for America to support independence of Kosovo under tight international controls is in fact the preservation of peace and stability. It’s true that some people would also claim we owe it to the Kosovars, but that’s no reason why we have to do it right now. The reason why we’ve got to do it right now is to prevent violence, and I think we can accomplish that. It would have been much better with the Security Council resolution, but I think we can do it even without one.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Daniel Serwer, thank you so much for speaking with me today.
DANIEL SERWER: My pleasure.
NARRATOR: You have been listening to Voices on Genocide Prevention, from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. To learn more about preventing genocide, join us online at www.ushmm.org/conscience. There you’ll also find the Voices on Genocide Prevention weblog.
