Tag: Balkans
The good, the bad and the unwritten
The EU-proposed draft of the statute for the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities in Kosovo is now widely available. Is it good, or is it bad? The answer of course is complicated and depends not only on what is in the proposed text but also what is not in it. So here is my preliminary assessment:
The good
- The text calls Kosovo the “Republic of Kosovo,” which in my view is the right appellation (in English). I suspect this is a deal-breaker for Serbia, but we’ll have to wait and see.
- It provides for prior Kosovo Constitutional Court review, including of any amendments to the statute, which is vital.
- The procedures for establishment strike me as reasonable and include a role for the Kosovo government’s Ministry of Local Government Administration.
- Joining the Association is voluntary for the Serb-majority municipalities. Non-Serb communities are to be represented, albeit in some undefined way.
- The EU will provide oversight for 5 years, renewable for another 5.
The not so good
- The statute says the purpose is to enable Serbs in Kosovo to take advantage of already existing rights without adding executive competencies beyond those already existing in the municipalities. That isn’t good, as it admits the possibility of executive competences in areas of already existing municipal responsibility.
- It allows the Serbian government to provide financial support without requiring that it flow through the Kosovo government, which has only auditing powers. It also provides for duty and tax-free imports for the Association, which is a giant loophole.
- The Association can adopt regulations, decisions, declarations, rules of procedure and instructions. This provision clearly anticipates executive powers.
- The Serbian government can provide through the Association health and educational services. This essentially makes permanent the current arrangement, which infringes on Kosovo sovereignty. I don’t see a clear provision for Republic oversight of the curriculum offered in the Serbia-provided educational institutions.
- The Serb-majority municipalities get carte blanche in areas of municipal responsibility, including culture, economic development, urban and rural planning, and research and development. I wonder if the Association decided cars should drive on the left whether that might be covered.
What is not said
- There is no quid pro quo. The statute itself does not require Serbia’s recognition of Kosovo or even refer back to the 2013 agreement on which it is based, which had clear provisions implying Kosovo’s sovereignty and recognizing the validity of Kosovo’s constitution on its entire territory. These issues should be fixed before any formal adoption of the statute.
- There are a lot of provisions in the statute that Serbia would not countenance for the Albanian-majority municipalities in Serbia. Reciprocity is among the first rules of diplomacy. Anything Serbia wouldn’t agree to, Kosovo should not agree to unless it serves the Republic’s interest.
- There is no constraint on agenda items the Assembly could discuss. Would it be permissible for it to discuss rejecting the Kosovo judicial system, as the Assembly in Bosnia’s Republika Srpska has done, or declaring independence? Could it issue a regulation prohibiting display of Albanian cultural artefacts within the municipalities of the Association?
- There is no provision requiring that public meetings of the Association and its executive Board, or even public announcement of their decisions.
- The EU and US no doubt intend to cram this proposal down Albin Kurti’s throat. That would be a mistake.
I’m sure many of these points are debatable and that I haven’t got everything right. There may well be other points needing clarification. I’ll be glad to see wide discussion of this draft.
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До свидания [Dasvidaniya] Vulin!
Iva Gajić of Radio Free Europe asked some questions about the resignation of Serbian Security Information Agency head Aleksandar Vulin. He was put on the US sanctions list in July. I answered:
Q: What do you think, why did Vulin resign?
A: He resigned under pressure from the Europeans and Americans. But the fact that it took 3 months rather than 3 days tells you that there was real resistance from President Vucic, who shares Vulin’s view of the world and Serbia’s ambition for political control of Serb populations in neighboring countries.
No shift in Serbian policy
Q: He said that the USA and the EU asked for his resignation in order not to impose sanctions on Serbia. How do you comment on his statement about sanctions against Serbia?
A: I think he is telling the truth. His resignation does not signal a shift in Serbian policy away from support for Russia but rather a defensive effort to avoid more sanctions.
Q: What new demands, after Vulin’s resignation, could be placed on Serbia?
A: Serbia attempted an insurrection in Kosovo on September 24 that was intended to create conditions for a Serbian military intervention. In my view, it should take public responsibility for this plot, apologize for it, and pledge that it will never happen in the future. It should also turn the perpetrators over to the Kosovo authorities for prosecution.
Serbia has also rejected the February and March agreements on normalization with Kosovo. Washington and Brussels should be requiring President Vucic to sign them, but of course he won’t do that before the December 17 election (and probably not afterwards either).
Vulin is not the only problem
Q: Do you think Serbia would fulfill them now, after Vulin’s resignation?
A: No. Vulin is not the only problem in Serbia or in its intelligence services. And President Vucic has shown no sign of regretting the September 24 plot.
The simple fact is that Serbia has embraced not the West but the East. Moscow and Beijing support Belgrade’s refusal to normalize with Kosovo and also the turn towards autocracy inside Serbia. Serbia is lost to the West for now.
Q: How much damage was done by putting him in charge of the Security Information Agency?
A: I don’t think we should assign to him personally the damage done. My understanding is that the Agency is deeply penetrated by the Russians. He allowed and cultivated the Moscow connection, but so too did others in the Agency who are still there.
Washington will be happy, but Russia has other assets
Q: In your opinion, how will Vulin’s resignation be received in Washington, and how in Moscow?
A: Washington will welcome the resignation. Moscow will be unhappy. But the Russians and Americans both know that Vulin was not the only Russian proxy in the Agency.
Q: Did Vulin’s resignation eliminate the possible Russian influence on the secret service in Serbia?
A: No, obviously not.
I should have added this:
Of course Vulin will remain a figure in Serbian politics and do his best to steer Belgrade in Moscow’s direction. I expect him to continue to be successful.
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A failed terrorist provocation
A month ago, the Kosovo police foiled an attempted insurrection near a Serb Orthodox monastery Banjska, in the northern part of the country. A 51-page preliminary investigative report by the Republic of Kosovo is now circulating in the US government. Here is my plagiaristic summary. The original is better.
Conclusions first
- A paramilitary group of about 80 cadres recruited, trained and specifically designated for the purpose carried out the attack, with heavy arms Serbia provided.
- Belgrade’s goal was to instigate a Kosovo police response to firing from the Banjska monastery that could be used to justify a Serbian military intervention, allegedly to save endangered Serb citizens of Kosovo and pilgrims from Serbia.
- The plan entailed challenging, threatening, and potentially killing members of KFOR as well as Kosovo police, who lost one officer to a land mine.
- The chain of command included the Serbian state, whose President and security structures are culpable legally and morally.
- Dozens of perpetrators who escaped to Serbia are now protected from justice by Belgrade.
- There is a risk of repetition , as evidenced by the continued offensive posture of Serbian security forces surrounding Kosovo as well as the intense pro-invasion propaganda campaign still ongoing inside Serbia.
A few details of the investigation
The Serbian Armed Forces trained the paramilitary perpetrators over a period of two years at army and Interior Ministry bases. US-donated Humvees were used in the training. The Kosovo authorities have captured detailed plans based on military-supplied maps for the paramilitaries to open routes into Kosovo for weapons and supplies from Serbia. Serbian special forces and drones entered into Kosovo in the leadup to the insurrection, and medical ambulances transported weapons into the country.
The operation was led by Milan Radoicic, then deputy leader of the Belgrade-sponsored political party in Kosovo, a close associate of Serbian security officials, and a political ally of President Vucic. The paramilitaries used vehicles disguised with KFOR labels and false license plates. The plan included attracting the Kosovo Police by blocking roads, firing on them from the Banjska monastery, and provoking an attack that would serve as a pretext for Serbian military intervention.
The paramilitaries were well-equipped with military-grade weapons almost entirely made in Serbia. This included 66 AK-47s, 9 machine guns, 6 sniper rifles, 41 anti-tank rocket launchers, 2 automatic grenade launchers, 8 anti-tank mines, and 122 hand grenades, along with the appropriate ammunition and over 350 units of explosives. Documentation that some of these weapons were definitely supplied by Serbia is available.
Serbia continues to promote violence against Kosovo
Since September 24, Serbia has continued to threaten violence against Kosovo. It has celebrated the paramilitaries involved in the foiled plot and declared a day of mourning for the three terrorists who were killed. High production value graffiti in Serbia, including in soccer stadiums, and in the four northern municipalities in Kosovo with Serb majorities, has promoted the idea that Serbian forces will soon return to Kosovo. Serbian armed forces are still on high alert.
President Vucic and media he controls uses hate speech in referring to Kosovo, its political leaders, and Albanians in general. Ambitions to create the “Serbian world,” a pale copy of Putin’s “Russian world” that includes Ukraine, are rife. Serbia has dramatically increased its military exercises with Russia. Belgrade intimidation of Serbs in northern Kosovo to prevent cooperation with Pristina continues, as do covert operations against Kosovo institutions.
It didn’t start on September 24 and it didn’t end then
There were four prior attacks in northern Kosovo since December 2022. The same units and some of the same personnel were involved, including in the attack on KFOR troops in May. None of the perpetrators have been returned to Kosovo to face charges. They are sheltered by the Serbian state and remain available to conduct future violent operations. So far, there has been no diplomatic action taken against Belgrade by either the US or EU, which will encourage Vucic to pursue future destabilization efforts in order to justify Serbian military intervention in Kosovo.
The precise Russian role in the September 24 plot is still unclear, but Russian backing for escalating Serbian efforts to challenge Western resolve in the Balkans is apparent. The Russians will not have failed to notice the lack of Western response. Moscow and Belgrade will amplify their efforts.
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What Serbia and Croatia are trying to do
I spoke via Zoom at Krug 99 in Sarajevo this morning. Here is pretty much what I said:
- It is a pleasure to join you, if only virtually, for this Circle 99 session. It has been more than 25 years since I attended one in person, though I enjoyed the privilege virtually two years ago.
- I was focused then mainly on the political and constitutional situation inside Bosnia and Herzegovina. That has not improved.
- I’ll again focus today on Bosnia, but in the regional context. And I’ll get, as I know many would like, to the question of American policy towards the end.
The Serbian world in Montenegro…
- The primary regional factor is Belgrade, which is trying to create what some there now term the “Serbian world.” President Vucic wants to control the political fate of Serbs in neighboring countries. That includes not only Bosnia and Herzegovina but also Montenegro and Kosovo.
- He is using his security and intelligence forces, financing, disinformation, and the Serbian Orthodox Church to overcome resistance and ensure that serious, Western-aligned democracies cannot emerge on Serbia’s periphery.
- He has been most successful in Montenegro, where he exploited genuine unhappiness with President Djukanovic and the long-ruling DPS. That discontent empowered an avowedly pro-European opposition that is reaching out to Belgrade and its proxies for support.
- The irony is that Djukanovic presided, with dignity, over a mostly peaceful and entirely constitutional transition that is bringing his hypocritical opponents to power.
…and Kosovo
- In Kosovo, Vucic’s overt political effort to control the Serb population is conducted through the Lista Srpska. But he also uses the Serbian secret services and their allies in organized crime to ensure that the Serb population, especially in the north, stays loyal to Belgrade, not Pristina.
- We saw that combination at work September 24, when Lista Srpska and the secret services attempted an armed uprising. The Kosovo police and KFOR foiled that.
- Vucic since then has leaned heavily in the direction of Russia and China. He no doubt fears that the US and Europe will demand that he apologize for the September 24 insurrection and promise it won’t happen again.
- The media campaign against Albanians inside Serbia is intense, as is Vucic’s use of the media to support his increasingly autocratic role.
As well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina
- In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vucic has in Milorad Dodik someone who is part proxy and part rival. Belgrade backs Dodik’s efforts to separate the Serbs from Sarajevo authority. But Vucic won’t want Dodik to fulfill his ambition of declaring independence.
- That would put Serbia in a difficult position. It could not recognize Republika Srpska for fear of the European and American reaction. Vucic will be careful not to allow Dodik to outflank his ethnonationalism by declaring independence and demanding annexation of Republika Srpska by Serbia.
- That said, Vucic has edged closer to Dodik as he moves increasingly into the orbit of Russia and China. Preventing successful democratic governance in Bosnia and obstructing its path towards Europe are Vucic’s aim. Dodik serves that purpose well, so long as he doesn’t go the final mile.
Croatia’s role
- What about Croatia? How does it fit into this picture?
- Zagreb, like Belgrade, wants control over its co-ethnic population inside Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is willing to cooperate with Belgrade to that end, cozying up as well as Moscow.
- Zagreb’s objective, however, is not secession but the third entity, de facto if not de jure. It wants political representation of Croats inside Bosnia and Herzegovina loyal to Zagreb, not Sarajevo.
- The irony here is that the Bosnian Croats did not ask for the third entity at Dayton, because they got a better deal: half the Federation and one-third of the state.
- But they failed to take political advantage of that situation and now are looking to exploit the High Representative to achieve their maximalist political goals.
The HiRep at risk
- His electoral decisions have favored Zagreb’s ambitions. He has ignored the European Court of Human Rights decisions that would counter group rights, like Sejdic-Finci and Kovacevic.
- At the same time, the HiRep has made himself persona non grata with Milorad Dodik, by countering Dodik’s efforts to remove Republika Srpska from Sarajevo’s authority.
- The failure of the international community to respond effectively to Dodik’s challenge risks vitiating the HiRep’s role and ending any hope that he can play a constructive role in dismantling the group rights that plague Bosnia’s politics.
- This is nub of the issue for both Serbia and Croatia. Zagreb and Belgrade want group rights and the constitutional provisions to protect them to prevail over individual rights, thus ensuring a permanent hold on power for ethnic nationalists friendly to Croatia’s and Serbia’s interests.
Washington and Brussels are not the answer
- That brings me to Washington and Brussels. The Americans and Europeans, who for a long time regretted the group rights granted at Dayton and backed the European Court decisions against them, are no longer fighting that fight.
- They seem content to allow Bosnia to wallow in its current dysfunctional state, so long as no major violence erupts.
- Lenin asked a good question: “what is to be done?”
- My colleagues and I in the diminished Balkan-watching world in Washington will continue to speak up for individual rights, for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and against Serbia and Croatia’s efforts to monopolize politics among their co-nationals inside Bosnia.
- But the center of gravity of Bosnian politics is properly inside Bosnia, not outside it.
Bosnia is the center of gravity
- The media and civil society can play a vital role. I’d like to see them mobilize as many voices as possible to press for implementation of the European Court decisions.
- Anything that reduces the salience of group rights and increases the commitment to individual rights would constitute progress.
- Ideally, the Bosnian state should have all the authority required to negotiate and implement the acquis communautaire while everything else is delegated to the municipalities (opstine).
- I’d like to see the entities and cantons, which are the power-sharing embodiment of ethnic identity and division, gradually disempowered and eventually eliminated.
- But that is an American’s version of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is your vision that counts.
- Democracy is not an easy system to manage. It requires courage and commitment. The majority of Bosnians showed lots of courage and commitment during the war.
- I hope they can summon that same spirit in 2023 and beyond.
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Breaking up Bosnia is not the thing to do
Ismet Fatih Čančar is an independent researcher, a former Partnership for Peace Fellow at NATO Defence College, and a former advisor to the Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes:
On August 30, The Spectator published an article by Swansea law professor Andrew Tettenborn in which the author exults in the break up of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He believes this is a natural course of events, the inevitable ending of “the pantomime horse democracy.”
He is wrong. The break up of Bosnia is not a safe roadmap to sustainable peace in the Balkans. His argument is consistent with nationalist Serb and Croat actors who claim Bosnia is an aberration with no future, due to its ethnic differences and diversity.
Ignoring the law…
The complexities of the constitutional and political system of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the power-sharing structure under the Dayton Agreement, and the division of the society along ethno-national groups are well-known. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled against this system August 29 in Kovačević vs Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Court identified a series of systemic, institutional discriminations that need to be amended if Bosnia wants to progress on the Euro-Atlantic path.
Critics oppose implementation of this verdict, stating that any implementation, or even the mere thought of reforming or upgrading the Dayton Agreement, will lead to conflict and Bosnia’s break up. Discarding such a landmark decision is a brazen attempt to undermine the significance of the verdicts of an international court, in this case the highest legal and judicial institution in Europe in charge of implementation and protection of basic human rights.
The opinion of the ECHR in the case of Kovačević vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a lethal blow to the foundations of the discriminatory, ethno-national, backward oriented, immoral social contract embodied in the Dayton Agreement, which deprives a large number of Bosnian citizens of their basic civic rights. This is the greatest strength of the verdict: it directs Bosnia and Herzegovina to reject a system that subordinates individual citizens’ rights to the priorities of the country’s three major ethnic groups.
The argument that Bosnia cannot exist if it is not strictly an ethnic electoral system is a lazy, watered down excuse of anti-Bosnian actors who receive support from Moscow and wish to keep the country trapped in the chains of ethno-national politics. The alternative, a citizen-based civic model for Bosnia and Herzegovina, requires more political will and resources, but it is the best path towards a functional constitutional democracy like those other European citizens enjoy across the continent.
…and the facts
In an attempt to make the idea of Bosnian break up more digestible, domestic actors and international observers often display ignorance towards basic historical facts. Contrary to the statement that Bosnia and Herzegovina is “an entity set up following Bill Clinton’s brokering of the Dayton Accords in 1995,” Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina derives its continuity from the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina accepted into the United Nations three years earlier, in 1992. Before that it was for centuries a stable European state with borders defined by natural geographical features and state structures. It was the Bosnian Kingdom in the Middle Ages, Bosnia during Ottoman rule, a Corpus separatum during the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and one of six republics within Socialist Yugoslavia. The claim that Bosnia’s diversity has produced animosity of “historical memories” lacks substance. Its civilizational space and international subjectivity are historic constants. Diverse religions and beliefs have coexisted in Bosnia and Herzegovina for centuries in peace and harmony.
The problems come from Serbia and Croatia, not Bosnia
The constant effort to break Bosnia up comes mainly from Serbia and Croatia, which have throughout history sought to annex parts of its territory. The source of the problem in the Balkans is not the allegedly irreconcilable religious, ethnic and national differences among people, but rather the “Greater-state” ambitions of Serbia and Croatia.
A series of judgments of international courts have unequivocally established the fact that the war pillage and destruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina resulted from the political projects of Belgrade and Zagreb to ethnically clean territories. They used both ethnic and religious factors to inflame interethnic hatred, mistrust, and instability, culminating in mass war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
These ambitions continue to serve as the political focus of Serb and Croat nationalist and secessionist actors, thus slowing nationbuilding in Bosnia. To save peace in the Balkans, the US and EU should raise their voices against the ethnonationalists, who deny genocide and glorify war crimes and their perpetrators.
Bosnia and Ukraine
The main reasons to reject the idea of breaking up Bosnia are not historical, but moral and political. Accepting Bosnia’s breakup would legitimize genocide and ethnic cleansing, posing a dangerous precedent for similar campaigns of killing and persecution. Such a precedent could also serve as a potent initiator of militant ethnocracy on European soil, which can easily consume other hotspots across the continent in pursuit of ethno-national exclusivity. The logic of blood and soil would return Europe to the 1930s.
It would be hypocritical for the democratic world to insist on defending democratic ideals under attack in Ukraine, while permitting the break up of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Ukrainian struggle is also the Bosnian struggle. The secessionist leader of the Bosnian Serbs has openly praised and publicly awarded Putin for the atrocities he has committed against Ukrainians. The recent visit of members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Kiev conveyed the right message. The campaign of Russian “denazification” of Ukraine is a campaign that Bosnia and Herzegovina also went through in its struggle towards freedom and international affirmation.
Principles of justice and legality, inviolability of sovereignty and territorial integrity, respect for human rights, and the promotion of peace and security are of crucial importance for the European continent. They need to be defended in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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Appeasement is as appeasement does
It is difficult to write about the Balkans when something far more serious is happening in the Middle East, not to mention Ukraine. But Kosovo as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina still merit some attention. The European Union and the US have de facto reversed their positions and now are favoring de facto ethnic partition of both entities.
Clearer in Kosovo
This is clearer in Kosovo. The EU is insisting that Kosovo reduce its overwhelmingly Albanian police presence in the north, which on September 24 responded professionally and effectively to a terrorist attack. The threat of a repeat performance is clear and present. The EU is explicitly ignoring the attempted insurrection on September 24:
This insistence on ignoring the September 24 terrorist insurrection is difficult to fathom. But it jibes with EU insistence on the immediate formation of the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities, which Belgrade explicitly proposes be a vehicle for separate governance of Serbs in Kosovo. Hungary and the five member states that have not recognized Kosovo have become the bottom line of Europe’s position on Kosovo: no recognition and ethnic partition.
Same story in Bosnia and Herzegovina
In Bosnia, the situation is almost as bad. The West is supporting governments at both the state and entity levels that are under the control of ethnic separatists. Serb nationlist Milorad Dodik and Croat nationalist Dragan Covic are busy plotting the takeover of the Central Electoral Commission as well as the Constitutional Court. While they generally oppose the authority of the High Represenative, they naturally supported his post-electoral decisions that favored ethnic nationalists.
Dodik and Covic of course oppose implementation of several European Court of Human Rights decisions that would reverse the ethnic nationalist stranglehold on governance in Bosnia. The EU is ignoring those decisions and proceeding as if they don’t exist. The US has done nothing for years to encourage their implementation.
No priority has consequences
Why are the US and EU supporting, or at least not opposing, efforts to ethnically segregate populations in Bosnia and Kosovo? In part, the explanation is lack of horsepower. The Balkans have fallen off the priority list in Washington. It is hard to get any attention for the region. Secretary Blinken is not interested in doing any heavy lifting on Balkan issues while war rages in Ukraine as well as Israel and Gaza.
In Brussels, the main responsible officials come from Spain, Slovakia, and Hungary. Madrid and Bratislava have not recognized Kosovo. Budapest has, but its current leadership is explicitly ethnic nationalist. Prime Minister Orban is besties with Dodik and Serbian President Vucic, who can rely on his support. The EU higher ups are leaving the Balkans to people who have their own interests.
Appeasement is the policy
But there is more to it than that. Key officials in both Washington and Brussels have deluded themselves that they can attract Serbia into the West. President Vucic, they allege, is only concerned with getting a good deal for Serbs in neighboring countries. He is not serious about partitioning Kosovo or Bosnia. Buttering him up is easier and will work better than the alternative, tough love.
Labeling their current approach “appeasement” offends my colleagues at the State Department. But the US has done nothing more than a few talking points in response to Vucic’s sponsorship of the September 24 terrorist insurrection. The EU has done likewise. They are hoping the incident will give them leverage on Vucic in private but all blow over in public.
Of course that is not possible for Kosovo Albanians or for supporters to liberal democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. But the former lack an international backer willing to press the case for serious sanctions against Vucic. The latter lack not only international backing but also political traction in their own country.
The West has abandoned its friends. It is supporting opponents of liberal democracy in both Kosovo and Bosnia. Appeasement is as appeasement does.
#Serbia’s 33 acquis chapters, level of preparedness for membership, as assessed by the European Commission since 2015. https://esiweb.org/publications/scoreboard-true-state-accession-what-commission-assessments-reveal…
That was tweeted in response to this, from the EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement:
Open discussion w/ Serbian Minister of European Integration Tanja Miscevic I encourage #Serbia to continue show its dedication to deliver on outstanding rule of law issues & to ensure implementation of recent laws Our meeting confirms that Reform agenda is a top priority for Serbia.
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