The negotiations on a compromise for the brand status of Kosovo are in front of the failure
The diplomatic thaw is already months. Already since February, in Vienna, in the Finnish Unterhandler, Martti Ahtisaari, delegations of the Serbian and Albanian side ordered by UN General Secretar Kofi Annan meet the future of Kosovo to negotiate. The debate is the market status of the controversial province. While the Albanian population demonstration demonstrates the complete independence of the province, the Serbian government Kosovo only wants to have a far-reaching autonomy. Now a failure of the diplomacy is distinguished. Violence threats from both sides provide for a fear of a hot autumn.
Grob Albanic Traumes: Memorial Stone for an uck-camphor at Vustrii / Vucitrn. Photo: Boris headcurs
It was a surprise coup: In an unknown unity, last weekend, the Serbian parliament in rapid proceedings unanimously decided to design for a new emergence. Brisant is above all the praambel of the text. The Crisis Province Kosovo, which has been UNMIK, since the NATO intervention in the 1999 1999, has been defined in unambiguously defined as a "constitutive component" of the Serbian State Territorium:
All state organs are obliged to protect and defend the interests of the Serbian State in Kosovo and Metohija in all internal and radiation relations and defend.
Thus, the government coalition is no longer a doubt that they will agree with no circumstances of an independence of Kosovo, taking the government coalition to the government coalition of the National Conservative Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica -. This position should be on 28./ 29. October to be credited by a referendum. Then the approximately 6.5 million voters in Serbia are supposed to submit their vote for the new pace. Among the given circumstances, it will be a referendum for the whereabouts of Kosovo in Serbia.
Violence threats from both sides
With the for most international observers and diplomats surprising tendering of the commander-in-the party, the Serbian government has submitted the starting signal for the heading phase in the race for the future Kosovos. Your opposite is the position of the Albanian side. It is categorically excluded from her as well as intended libs Kosovos in Serbia. The Albanian government functions under the lead of Kosovo Minister President and former bench deficiencies of Kosovo Liberation Army Uck, Agim Ceku, have already made it clear at the beginning of the negotiation that only the independence is acceptable. The negotiation team in Vienna was committed to this position by a resolution of the Kosovo Parliament. In numerous opinions of high-ranking Albanian politicians, it has been uncovered since then. Particularly officially supported the Kosovo Albanians from the Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha.
Brisant becomes the escalation, above all, by violent threats, which are pronounced by both sides. Guided Albanian intellectuals and politicians have repeatedly warned in recent months that another delay of independence clarification could provoke a new violent uprising. Already in the autumn of last year, the Prasident of the writer’s association and former Uck spokesman, Adem Demaci, warned against a "new war". In another way, two weeks ago Kol Berisha, the reigning Prassident of the Kosovo Parliament formulated. He explained the International Community Must Kosovo as an independent state, because otherwise it will come to a "revolt of the population".
Exactly the opposite is announced in Belgrade. By Serbian side is threatened with violence, if it should come to an independence. The boss of the influential Serbian Radical Party (SRS), Tomislav Nikolic, explained at the end of July, the "armed defense" is the last possibility to maintain Kosovos in Serbia. The SRS represents the biggest faction in the Serbian parliament, but is not involved in the government. But also high-ranking government functionaries coocet with the use of the army. At a militar parade in Belgrade, in mid-September Prime Minister Kostunica said before graduates of the Officer School: "I confess that Kosovo is deeply included in your heart and your thoughts, because Kosovo is the heart of Serbia and the soul of our people."And of course, Kostunica’s status was not lacking, which he has repeated in almost everyone for months:" Kosovo was always and will always be Serbia."
"Kosovo is Serbia": demonstration against the independence Kosovos in North Mitrovica. Photo: Nebojša Markovi?
Negotiation process without success
With the categorical insistence of both sides on their starting positions, the negotiation process can now be considered largely failed. The United Nations Office of the Special Envoy for Kosovo’s Ahtisaari (United Nations Office of the Special Envoy for Kosovo) has no single substantial success. Because not only in the main priority of the status ie no agreement or even one account was reached. Also in other controversial topics, the numerous meetings of the delegations has not yet come to a single agreement between the conflicting parties last six months in Vienna. To pay questions such as the protection of ethnic minorities, the protection of historical cultural heritage and above all the important question of decentralization and municipal form. This was considered by the international intermediaries as the final element to land the ethnic minorities in Kosovo – especially Serbs and Roma – limited self-determination rights and security guarantees.
As Ahtisaari emphasized from the beginning of the negotiating process to repeatedly, a solution should be found by the end of this year. In view of the steady situation, Ahtisaari now wants to work out a document in which he submits his own proposal. As media report to sources in the Balkan contact group, this proposal in diplomatic circles has been intended to provide a "conditional independence" Kosovos with security guarantees for the Serbian minority. The previous UNMIK administration was solved by a mission of the European Union. The KFOR troupe was stationed in Kosovo. As Ahtisaari said last Tuesday, he rated with the submission of his compromise proposal, however, waiting to wait the new elections in Serbia, who are likely to be in December after the string referee.
Such a compromise proposal had to be adopted first by the UN Security Council and then unilaterally enforced by the international community, if – as expected – especially the Serbian side was not agreed. The prerequisite for this emergency scenario, however, is that the UN Security Council is available at all. It is uncertain that it comes without further ado. For the Veto-made Russia and China have repeatedly pronounced against a solution in the Kosovo question, which is no consent of Serbia. Serbia’s Prasident Boris Tadic has also been rebuilt in front of it, a "imposed solution" to "Ethnic clashes with difficult to predictable consequences" drove. Thus, for the international community in the Kosovo question in the next few months, a hazardous sack.
How serious the situation is raised, show the emergency planning of the UN escape leaflet UNHCR, which has been in Sudserbia for quite some time on the recording of up to 60.000 Serbian escape plants prepared. However, the publicity is promised purpose-optimism. The current boss of the UN administration and former surveyors of Sindelfingen, Joachim Rucker, wants to see dangers despite the unuitable storm clouds that raise over the Kosovo.
What is the reason for the for many international observers surprising categorical insistence Belgrads on Kosovo? The answer to this question can by no means be clearly clarified with a reference to the "Serbian nationalism" that survived the Milosevic Ara, as Western politicians and media often emphasize. Although it is correct that the much-fashioned "Kosovo myth" from the Amselfeld as the "Weighing of the Serbian Nation" and the "Serbian Jerusalem" is mainly propagated by the Serbian Orthodox Church. She has her spiritual center in the numerous medieval monasteries of Kosovo. On the other hand, there is beyond the national-religious terms but also a series of other weighty arguments and tangible reasons for the Serbian capture at Kosovo.
Tense security situation for minorities
In the first place here is the tense security situation for the remaining in Kosovo Uber 100.000 head paying Serbian minority. Despite prayer-meter assets of UN administration, the security situation for the ethnic minorities has improved significantly in recent years, realitat is completely different from.
Hardly respected by the international media, Kosovo regularly relates to violent surprises of Albanian extremists on the Serbian minority and other ethnic minority groups such as the Roma and Goran. Over the past few months, it was almost weekly and sometimes more often to bombing like Last Monday in Dragaš. In a letter from the Kosovo coordination center of the Serbian Government to UNMIK alone is reported for the period of half a year between October 2005 and June 2006 of 188 ethnically motivated attacks of Albanian extremists on Kosovo Serbs. According to Serbian government information – which are essentially enforced by international organizations – have been far above 200 since the invasion of NATO in June 1999.000 Kosovo Serbs and more reluctants of other non-Albanian minorities from Kosovo fled and murdered several hundred.
But there are not only Serbian jobs drawing a duster picture of the situation. International human rights organizations also demonstrally point to the externally tense location. The prestigious Minority Rights Group from London explains in a report of August:
Nowhere in Europe there is such a level of fear for so many minorities, persecuted or attacked.
The situation of non-Albanian minorities is "little away from a disaster". There is a "high risk of renewed ethnic cleans". The minority experts also print criticism of UN administration and their ignorant behavior: "It is almost unimaginable that all these mistakes have been made from an international administration."
In fact, the years of negligence of the security requirements of the Serbian and other non-Albanian minorities in Kosovo through the UN administration and KFOR today weighs heavily. It is water on the Muhlen of the Serbian government who claims, in the case of independence, the minorities were completely without protection against the surpasses. Above all, two years of experiences that have far-reaching consequences. How the US Human Rights Organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) makes it clear in several reports, UNMIK and KFOR troops are neither in the summer and autumn 1999 still in Marz 2004 the coarse-bearing ethnic cleans, which exceeded Albanian extremists, effectively stopped. At the same time, there were practically no criminal persecution of the TATTER from the pages of the UNMIK judiciary. The expulsion of non-Albanian minorities remained largely punishable. Holly Cartner of HRW explains: "The solution of Kosovo status without putting the justice system on the legs will poison Kosovo’s future".
"Jo Negociata – Vetevendosje": "No negotiations – self-determination" – Parole of the Albanian youth movement "self-determination" is handed over by UNMIK employees. Photo: Nebojša Markovi?
Secession as a precedent
In addition to the security situation, the Serbian side can make a second argument against independence, which is not easy to deception. As the Serbian Au-Abin Minister Vuk Draskovic explains, an independence declaration would be a "promacy", which provoked further border conflicts in the whole Balkans and the labile stability in the region was able to.
In fact, an independence of Kosovo – whether "conditionally" or not – break a central principle of the international community, which has always been maintained in the decay of Yugoslavia. According to the guidelines of the BadInter Commission of 1991, only the secessions of the republics of the former documentation have always been recognized. These should maintain their limits. With this argument, in 1991, the Sectional Test of the Serbic population group in Croatia was prevented. And the ethnic division of Bosnia was ultimately prevented on the basis of this principle.
Kosovo never enjoyed the status of a republic in the Fruher Yugoslavia, but was only an autonomous province of Serbia. An independence of Kosovo was therefore excluded from the international community in 1992. If she is now being done, the principle of the Badinter Commission was broken and a double standard was created. This became a number of smoldering border conflicts in former Yugoslavia again. Especially in Bosnia this could lead to severe conflicts.
The head of the Serbian Entitat in Bosnia, Milorad Dodik, has announced several times in elections in Bosnia, Milorad Dodik, has increased several times in recent months, an independence of Kosovos became the occasion for a Secession Referendum of the Bosnian Serbs. Like the New York Times writes, western diplomats fledged to break up new violence in Bosnia, if this development occurs. The extremely hard-conducted election campaign has further deepened the ethnic division in Bosnia.
Pandora’s Box"
Also beyond the Balkans, the example of an unilaterally established independence Kosovo was able to effect deferred conflicts. The Moldova expert of the Berlin Foundation Science and Politics, Anneli Ute Gabanyi, warns, for example, before the forgotten of the forgotten conflict for the province of Transnistria, which has explained independently a few weeks ago with a referendum of Moldova and aims to union with Russia. The employee of the renowned Think Tanks prepared by the Federal Government was warned at the end of September to the German wave:
I was among the first to establish a turning point throughout the international policy in the solution of Kosovo conflict. Europe and the US are simply on the way to the opening of the socket of Pandora. It may be that Europe and the West generally will experience unpleasant surprises – not only in Kosovo -. In my opinion, we have to do it for the first time with a separation of a non-state unity. Kosovo were the first case of cleavage of a unified state. I see a rough danger and concrete again that I am convinced that we will have gross problems if this policy is continued in Kosovo.
In addition to the Transnistria conflict, which has already escalated militarically in 1992, as awise stored conflicts in the Caucasus area could win a danger momentum. In this context, the exercises of the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin are significant, which he repeated several times in recent months. Putin poses to compliance with "universal principles" in the solution of the Kosovo question. In fact, if it should come to an independence, Putin indicated that in addition to Transnistria, Russia was also able to support the Secession Provinces of Abkhazia and Sud Ossetia with their independence claims. These envisages meet harsh comments of Georgia’s Government’s Government, on the territory of the two provinces. The Kosovo conflict is carefully persecuted by both sides and used as an argument.
Unentual status quo
In addition to all warning signals that speak against an independence of Kosovo, however, the maintenance of the status quo deals with many hazards. The main problem is in the outstanding situation of the Albanian population majority, which accounts for about 90 percent of the two million Kosovo residents. Your demand for independence is by no means just as an ethnonational ideology to be compiled. Because indeed, it is difficult to expect that the Albanic population group would like to integrate into a state again, which has just told the ground to Kosovo in its commitment to the right to Kosovo and has defined itself as a national state of Serbian people.
Also six years after the fall Slobodan Milosevics there has been no serious work-up of war crimes in Kosovo in Serbia. High-ranking militars such as the former headquarters of the Army, Nebojsa Pavkovic, and the boss of the special police, Srequet Lukic, which were responsible for war crimes in 1998/99, were still on the way to the war criminal tribunal in the past year in the past year with sympathy warrants in the Haag sent.
At the same time the economic situation in Kosovo is desolate. About 50 percent of the population is unemployed. The economy lives primarily on utility programs and the transfer of migrants in Western Europe and the USA. In this situation, the majority of population hopes by independence to an improvement. Although this seems more than doubtful in view of the close linking of the political elite emerged from the ECU-emphasized political elite with the rampant organized criminality, as determined by the Federal Reimbursement Service, for example. Corruption and legal uncertainty are a few potential investors in any way. Nevertheless, the illusion, the solution of the status question KONNE will quickly lead to improving the economic situation, not only emphasized by politicians of all Albanian parties, but also from UN functionaries like Joachim Rucker. It is therefore no wonder that the Albanian majority raff is considered the independence as a panacea.
At the same time, in recent years, the displeasure has grown over the patronization by the UN administration. In the eyes of many Kosovo Albanians, UNMIK is mainly from highly paid Burokrats, who have so far little for the future Kosovos have done, but the arrogant behavior. Last but not least, the radical youth movement has Vetevendosje (self-determination). Under the leadership of the charismatic former student driver Albin Kurti, the movement for the termination of all negotiations, the immediate independence and the deduction of international administration. On their numerous protests throughout Kosovo, UNMIK is referred to as "colonial power". Numerous activists of the movement were arrested in demonstrations in recent months.