Pandora’s box opens also in Serbia

Yesterday’s House subcommittee hearing on Kosovo and Serbia focused mainly on Chair Rohrabacher’s strong advocacy of self-determination for everyone.  Why, he asked repeatedly in many different ways, should we force people to live in a state where they don’t want to live?  Isn’t self-determination fundamental to Americans?  Why should we not want it for others?  What is sacrosanct about borders drawn by dictators, monarchs and colonialists?  Why shouldn’t everyone be able to choose the state in which they live?  Why would we give that choice to Kosovars and not to others?

He was joined in these refrains by at least three of the four experts on the non-Administration panel of witnesses.  I was the most vigorous of the dissenters, helped along the way by Democratic Representatives Engel and Keating.  Any newbie watching the show might have thought that there is a real debate on this issue in Washington, and maybe even a partisan divide between Republicans who advocate self-determination and Democrats who want to trap people as minorities in states they do not want to live in.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Representative Rohrabacher is an outlier, not a trend.  There is no real debate in Washington, where both Republicans and Democrats generally prefer the traditional position in favor of state sovereignty except where there is mutual agreement to divorce (e.g., Czechoslovakia, the breakup of the Soviet Union and Sudan’s partition).  Even then, the preference is definitively in favor of changing the status of a pre-existing boundary (from an internal one to an international border) rather than moving it to accommodate ethnic differences.

Why is this the case?  To make a long story short:  it saves lives.  Trying to move a border to accommodate ethnic differences is never simple or straightforward.  There is always someone on the wrong side of the line.  That someone will either try to move the line again, or the majority on his side of the line will try to move him, or both.  This is how ethnic cleansing begins.  It ends in death and destruction, sometimes on a genocidal scale.

Why then did some of us advocate Kosovo independence, which amounts to partition of Serbia?

First, it is important to note that the boundary between the former Yugoslav province of Kosovo and Serbia was not moved.  In the eyes of those who recognized Kosovo’s sovereignty, the status of the boundary was changed to an international border, but it is drawn where Tito left it.  This is not because we think there is something sacrosanct about former Yugoslavia’s internal borders, but simply because redrawing it is problematic and likely to lead to conflict.  There are something like 10,000 Albanians who would like to return to homes north of the Ibar river.  There are more Serbs who live south of the Ibar than north of it.  They don’t want to leave–they’ve proven that by staying this long.  If the border were redrawn at the Ibar explicitly to separate Serbs and Albanians, you’d have a lot of unhappy people unable to return or retain their homes.

Second, there really was no choice.  UN Security Council resolution 1244 removed Kosovo (in principle all of it, including the territory north of the Ibar) from Serbian sovereignty in 1999.  From then until Kosovo declared independence in February 2008, Serbia made no effort whatsoever to “make unity attractive,” in the phrase used in Sudan.  In the meanwhile, the UN was relatively successful in building up democratically validated institutions in Pristina, which now enjoy  substantial but not universal Serb participation.

When Belgrade approved the new Serbian constitution in 2006, it needed a “double majority” (50% of those voting had to approve and 50% of registered voters had to vote).  It got the second majority only by crossing off the Kosovo Albanian names on the voter registration lists, thus denying Kosovars the right to block adoption of the constitution by not voting in the referendum.  This for me was the last straw.  It meant that Belgrade did not regard the Kosovars as citizens of Serbia.  Therefore they had to be citizens of a different state.  That state is now the Republic of Kosovo.

The Kosovo situation is not, as US government officials often claim, “unique.”  There are certainly parallels and worse in Kurdistan.  But the Kurds, for their own reasons, have not yet chosen to declare independence, knowing full well that the US, Turkey and Iran lean heavily against.  That 17% of Iraq’s oil revenue also weighs heavily against.  The fact that the boundary between Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq is not yet agreed would make a Kurdistan declaration of independence a sure-fire way to start a debilitating conflict in a country that is now the world’s third largest oil exporter.  That conflict would likely spread to “Eastern” Kurdistan (which is inside Iran) and to Turkey.

Redrawing the border between Kosovo and Serbia would likewise ignite regional conflicts.  Albanian nationalists would see it as triggering their right to unite with Albanian communities in Serbia, Macedonia and Albania, a right explicitly denied in Kosovo’s constitution.  Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated 49% of Bosnia and Herzegovina, would seek either independence or union with Serbia.

That is enough to deter me, but I’ve saved the worst for last:  Serbia itself would be put at risk.  Its Vojvodina province, or part of it, might well be inspired to seek independence or union with Hungary.  Bosniak-majority municipalities in Sandjak would certainly want to join Bosnia, never mind that they are not contiguous with it.

I trust this “Pandora’s box” scenario is one the international community will choose not to trigger by redrawing Kosovo’s borders.  But I fully anticipate that Albanians in southern Serbia, Bosniaks in Sandjak, Hungarians in Vojvodina and perhaps other minorities elsewhere in Serbia will start asking for the same rights Serbia has gotten in the Belgrade/Pristina agreement for the Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo.  I’ll be interested to hear whether those who want everyone treated equally will advocate for them, or side with Belgrade when it denies them the right to govern themselves, including choosing their own police chief and having a special appeals court panel.

Pandora’s box opens also in Serbia.  Best to keep it closed.

PS:  Here are the videos of the hearing.

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6 thoughts on “Pandora’s box opens also in Serbia”

  1. how do you justify vojvodina seeking union with Hungary?They make up 13% of the area hungarians.even the sadjak the bosnians barely make a majority.Big difference then THE RS that you created.its 95% serbian and continious and connected to serbia,the sandjak is not to bonsia.Lets not leave it there what about uljic in Montenegro they should join albania?Herceg novi and the other serb munipalities in Monetenegro should join serbia?THe bulgarian outerlands of serbia should join bulgaria?what about northern epirus to greece?turkish and pomak regions of grece and bulgaria join Turkey?cyprus divided and each unit join greece and turkey?

    Do you see what you statrted with Kosovo?

    vojvodina ethnic map:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Backa_ethnic2002.png

    im sure the serbs are willing to trade the eastern hungarian municipalities for the RS AND A THIRD OF MONTENEGRO

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MontenegroEthnic2011.PNG

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Raska02i03.png

    Mark Twain said :

    God created war so americans can learn geography

  2. This whole situation could have been handled better if Serbia and Kosovo swapped Territory,The argument could have been that:

    Serbia and her provence have come to a MUTUAL accepted divorce ie “velvet” and have decided to go their seperate ways.This was a internal matter that the two entities have agreed”

    something along tthe lines of sudan and southern sudan.

  3. The Helsinki Treaty says that borders should only be changed when both sides agree. That is not only a condition but also a right. In Switzerland just a few years ago the Jura province was divided along ethnic (=linguistic) lines. I haven’t heard of any ethnic cleansing as a consequence.

    Changing borders without negotiations – as now happens with Kosovo’s independence – is in my opinion a violation of the Helsinki Treaties.

    I don’t believe the line of thinking according to which the primitive natives of the Balkans are not capable of agreeing on border changes in peace – as “civilized” people are assumed to be able to do in the Helsinki Treaty. On the contrary, I believe that is was the Western decision to impose a breakup of Yugoslavia without allowing border changes that set up the region for war.

    As for that famous domino effect – I don’t see other places where the “mutual agreement” clause applies.

  4. “It got the second majority only by crossing off the Kosovo Albanian names on the voter registration lists, thus denying Kosovars the right to block adoption of the constitution by not voting in the referendum”

    So Kosovo Albanians would vote to block adoption of Serbia’s constitution? Yeah right. Albanians have not been voting since late 80’s. For them voting would mean that they would recognize Serbia’s authority over Kosovo and Albanians would never to that. They did not even want to vote when Panic was begging them in order to win against Milosevic. Why would they, they knew that independence is possible if Milosevic is on power.

    So to mention here that Albanians were not allowed to vote for Serbian constitution as Belgrade would not consider them as their own citizens is complete nonsense. This was just lousy excuse for you to propose them to declare independence. Just ask any Albanian if they would have voted on referendum on new Serbian constitution in 2006? Remember that you proposed Kosovo’s independence already in 2004 after Serbs were attacked and churches were burnt, referendum was two years after that.

    I fully support Vojvodina’s autonomy initiated by DS (myself supporter) and Bojan Pajtic, an ethnic Serb. But Vojvodina joining Hungary? On which basis? Serbs were always majority in Vojvodina, they were even majority in southern Hungary itself before 17th century.

    Who would join Hungary where right wing Jobik is in government? You and me know very well what are their views about people of certain religion and also everybody who is not Hungarian.

    It is really amazing what you Daniel can write here. You can promote you Kosovo Albanian propaganda on your blog, but this what you wrote in this article are just lousy excuses to carve Kosovo from Serbia and then to claim that Kosovo Serbs should not have right for independence.

    You can do better that this.

    1. I did not say Albanians would voe in a Serbian referendum. I said they had a right not to vote, and by so doing block its adoption. You can do better than this.

      1. So outcome for Kosovo’s independence would have been different if referendum on Serbian constitution did not take place? I don’t think so. You already proposed in April 2004 “No return of Kosovo to governance from Belgrade” which we all know what it means.

        And also you state “It meant that Belgrade did not regard the Kosovars as citizens of Serbia. Therefore they had to be citizens of a different state”. What would be the outcome if Belgrade regarded “Kosovars” as their own citizen? Same, independence.

        It was never negotiations between Serbs and Albanians, it was Ahtisaari to communicate what you and others in US administration have decided. One K. Albanian journalist call those negotiations as “farce directed by International community”. Everything was decided even before “negotiations” about Kosovo’s final status have started. So to say that Serbia failed to make “Union attractive” is completely lousy statement.

        Those articles which you write here are meant for some of those who don’t even know where Kosovo is. Only K. Albanians can agree with them.

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