The world turned upside down

Jim Hooper, who is a treasure trove of Balkan experience, wrote to interested friends yesterday (and kindly gave me permission to publish):

It is interesting to watch the battle over the Brussels (i.e. Belgrade/Pristina) agreement. No one in Serbia has ever stood up to the northern Kosovo Serbs this way before.  Tadic started, but timidly, during the previous technical talks and after the July 2011 attempt by the Kosovars to seize the northern border posts, but he flinched.  The heavy lifting was done by KFOR–and they are used to getting their own way.

The northerners portray themselves as the “conscience of the Nation” on the Kosovo issue  and have ready-made allies among the Democratic Party of Serbia (Kostunica’s DSS) and Seselj’s Radicals. They also assume they can tap into the deep emotions of the Serbian people on Kosovo, tug on the heartstrings, and thus shape the agenda. They believe they will have no difficulty, should they wish to continue on their current path, in creating an emotional atmosphere in Belgrade in which violence is possible and indeed likely. They will have sympathizers in the Progressive (SNS) and Socialist (SPS) parties as well as in the security services and military.

The situation bears a modest similarity to what happened in France when DeGaulle returned to power and, against everyone’s expectations, decided to give Algeria its independence. That violent period in France is largely forgotten now, only a distant memory because things all worked out well in the end.

It is hard to make a prediction on whether there will be a referendum in Serbia on the agreement. Vucic is standing firm on a 15-day campaign and the government defining the question:

Do you support the Brussels agreement?

or words to that effect.  Whereas the anti-agreement forces want something rather different

Do you agree to allow the regime to betray the birthright of every Serb to keep Kosovo forever as our eternal homeland and resist the rule of the vicious terrorists who seized power in Pristina and duped the international community into supporting their war to steal our beloved homeland?

or words to that effect.

Vucic is insisting that for any referendum to take place, opponents of the deal would have to agree in advance to abide by the outcome, which obviously would be anathema to the northern Kosovo Serbs, Kostunica and the Radicals.

The parliamentary debate on Friday went well for the government.  The vote was overwhelming in support of the agreement.  Neither the Progressives nor Socialists has split on the agreement.  The Democratic Party and most of the smaller parties joined them to vote in favor. Vucic, Dacic and Nikolic have all taken firm supportive positions in public on the deal moving forward.  So far, things appear under control in Belgrade.

So far. A referendum won by the government that did not lead to significant violence would be another watershed for the Serbs.  It would enable them to move forward on Kosovo and EU accession without constantly looking over their shoulders prepared to flinch whenever a northern Kosovo Serb mayor began clearing his throat. Such an outcome would delegitimize the “Kosovo forever” crowd in Serbia and leave them as outliers rather than major players with a future.

A referendum won by opponents of the agreement would obviously have different repercussions. In the Serbian context, this is a titanic struggle, though not much noticed outside Serbia. It may turn out that there is no referendum, but that the debate and political battle over whether there will be a referendum will become the proxy for the referendum itself. The stakes in all this are pretty high in Serbia, and of some importance for Kosovo and Bosnia, the region in general, the EU and the US.

I continue to be amazed that it is the Progressives who are leading this fight and standing up to the anti-agreement extremist forces. One has to get used to the world turned upside down.