Correcting the record

David Kanin, with whom I share a longstanding interest in the Balkans and service in the US government as well as the privilege of teaching at the Johns Hopkins School of International Study, writes:

In an interview with me published over the past couple of days, the Serbian daily Politika claimed I said Kosova was “taken illegally” from Serbia.  I did not say this and do not believe it to be the case.  In my view, Serbia lost its former province through its own mismanagement in the 1990s, and because Milosevic miscalculated NATO’s willingness to use force in 1999.  Serbia lost Kosova the old fashioned way–on the battlefield.  Legality had nothing to do with it.

For all our commonalities, David and I have often differed on the Balkans.  I agree with him that Kosovo was not taken away illegally and that Milosevic’s mismanagement and miscalculation were important  aspects of the story.

But I would not describe the loss of Kosovo as a loss only on the battlefield.  There is nothing “old fashioned” about a group of foreigners intervening militarily to protect a population and then working closely with them for the better part of a decade to prepare them for self-governance and eventually independence.

More importantly, I share with David a desire to be quoted and cited correctly.  I am acutely aware of the ease with which the Balkans media–of all ethnicities–bends what we say in their preferred direction.  I talked recently with a Kosovar who thought–on the basis of an article by my friends at Koha Ditore, that I had suggested Herzeg-Bosna (the Croat war-time parastate in Bosnia) as a model for northern Kosovo.  In fact, what I had suggested was the dissolution of Herzeg-Bosna as a model for the dissolution of the Serbian structures in northern Kosovo.

Of course mistakes will happen, especially when there are language and cultural barriers to clear communication.  But I hope David’s complaint–and mine–are taken as a signal to the Balkans press to take care in citing the foreigners who still follow events in your not quite settled corner of the globe.  We are only asking that our views be accurately presented.