Tag: Balkans
Courting justice
Pristina-based daily Zeri posed some questions a few days ago about the proposal for a new special court to try cases emerging from the EULEX Special Investigative Task Force. My understanding is that Kosovo’s parliament approved the proposal yesterday, but here is my pre-approval interview in English:
Q: Should Kosovo’s Members of Parliament (MP) vote in favor of the Special Court that will deal with the outcome of Special Investigative Task Force (SITF) report? If yes, can you elaborate, please why should they?
A: MPs should make up their own minds what is best for Kosovo, but from an international perspective the Special Court solves a number of problems. It will be formed, as I understand the proposition, as a court under Kosovo law. It therefore represents a step towards giving Pristina authority over difficult cases. It will meet outside Kosovo, therefore enabling better protection of witnesses, judges and prosecutors. It will handle sensitive cases that would be difficult to try in Kosovo without creating undesirable political backlash.
If a Scottish Court can try the Pan Am 103 bombers in The Hague, it seems to me a Kosovo court meeting outside Kosovo is not such a stretch.
Q: Having in mind that EULEX, the EU’s largest and costliest rule of law mission ever is operational in Kosovo since 2008, why should the country’s Parliament approve a new Court?
A: As I understand it, the court will be part of the Kosovo legal system. It will lend credibility to that system and resolve cases that have attracted a lot of attention.
Q: Does the creation of a new Special Court also mean that the locals and the EU failed on their rule of law mission?
I might prefer in principle that the already existing Kosovo legal system handle whatever cases emerge from the SITF report, but there would be little international confidence at present in such a solution. Six years however is not a long time to accomplish the tasks EULEX was given. It is not surprising that the ultimate goal has not yet been achieved.
Q: In Kosovo, there are some people that believe that with the creation of the new Court the country’s image will suffer even more, while some other people say the opposite – what is your opinion on this?
A: From an international perspective, the creation of the court will be seen in a positive light. It will signify commitment to justice for all those who suffered.
Q: There are a lot of speculation’s regarding the number and the identity of the people who could be indicted by the new court – remembering that Mr. Dick Marty’s report made a mention of Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, can the latter be one of the indictees?
A: I can be one of the indictees, if they have evidence against me. No one is above the law. One Kosovo prime minister has already been tried and acquitted at ICTY, more than once.
But I would underline: the Marty report mentioned Prime Minister Thaci but offered no evidence against him that would even begin to stand up in court. That is one of the prime reasons for creating the SITF: the Marty report unfortunately created suspicions that it did not even begin to prove.
Q: Albin Kurti’s party “SelfDetermination” says that a similar Court/Tribunal should have been created for Serbia, and not Kosovo. Your comment, please?
A: Most high-level Serb indictees have been tried and many convicted by an international court, namely the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which is not taking new cases and in any event cannot—as I understand it—try cases where the violations in question occurred outside Yugoslavia. Some serious cases have been tried and convicted in Serbian courts.
I don’t think the international community has any objection to Kosovo trying war criminals in its existing courts, which it has sometimes done, but as in Serbia doing so in politically sensitive cases would be difficult. Serbia relieved itself of difficult burdens and gained credibility with the international community when it relied on ICTY.
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Peace Picks April 21 – 25
1. America’s Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East
Monday, April 21 | 4 – 5:30pm
6th Floor, Woodrow Wilson Center; 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Reservations requested because of limited space: WHS@wilsoncenter.org
The CIA has an almost diabolical reputation in the Arab world. Yet, in the early years of its existence, the 1940s and 1950s, the Agency was distinctly pro-Arab, lending its support to the leading Arab nationalist of the day, Gamal Nasser, and conducting an anti-Zionist publicity campaign at home in the U.S. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Hugh Wilford uncovers the world of early CIA “Arabism,” its origins, characteristic forms, and eventual demise.
2. Iraq After 2014
Tuesday, April 22 | 12:30 – 2pm
Kenney Auditorium, SAIS (The Nitze Building), 1740 Massachusetts Ave NW
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, counselor at CSIS, President and CEO of Khalilizad Associates, and former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the United Nations, will discuss this topic.
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Kosovo gets an army and a special court
With the kind permission of Belgrade daily Danas, here is the report on its interview, published Monday under the headline “Prishtina is creating an army and is not afraid of a special court,” with Kosovo Deputy Foreign Minister Petrit Selimi. I have made minor editorial changes to the English version, supplied by Petrit:
Our international partners have already met key Kosovo demands regarding the investigations of Special Prosecutor Clint Williamson into the Dick Marty Report. Unfortunately, Serbia has tried all propaganda means to use Dick Marty to re-write the history of Kosovo war and also to return the issue of Kosovo under the UN. There were more than 10 formal requests by Serbia to the UN to deal with allegations from the Dick Marty Report, but now it’s clear that these allegations will be investigated by a Kosovo court, within Kosovo’s law and Constitution, with international legal staff supporting our Special Court – stated today for Danas Petrit Selimi, Kosovo’s Deputy Foreign Minister, who Pristina media regard as the person who is leading public relations efforts in the cabinet of PM Hashim Thaci.
Selimi says that “because Kosovo wants a credible and transparent process that will close once and for all this chapter,” a special chamber will be set up in a European country, with a bilateral agreement between Kosovo and that country, in order to enable international judges and prosecutors to conclude any process that might arise from the EULEX investigation.
“Now it’s clear that no UN court but rather a Kosovo court with international staff will work to deal with any accusations made against any Kosovo citizen. Kosovo setting up a Special Court will also ensure to distance the liberation and independence movement in Kosovo from any individuals that might have engaged in criminal activities.” – stated Selimi for the Danas interview.
Danas: Will the allegations made against senior members of the Kosovo government have an impact on the election agenda in Kosovo? It’s known that Marty also accused Prime Minister Thaci of organ harvesting?
Selimi: A major part of the allegations are science fiction and this will be proven by the investigations. But some allegations are very serious, and Kosovo will open a Special Court to deal with these. As we will apply for membership tothe Council of Europe in near future, it’s also important for Kosovo’s society and state to show it can deal with it’s own rotten apples. We know that even Nelson Mandela’s ANC had its own criminals. Unfortunately any guerrilla resistance can attract bad people with bad intentions. That is why it’s important that Kosovo parliament approves the creation of Special Court and the President extends the EULEX mandate for the final two years: to silence once and for all those keen to systematically attack Kosovo’s reputation. NATO intervention in Kosovo and the KLA uprising marked the single most successful Western intervention, which helped both Serbia and Kosovo move towards European future. The Special Court dealing with the Dick Marty allegations will cement Kosovo’s legitimacy as a modern, European state. We should not fear but rather fully embrace the creation of the court, knowing that the families of civilian victims on both sides, not only Albanian, need answers about their beloved ones.
Danas: Do you expect that the principle of the “reserved places” in the Parliament will be preserved?
Selimi: The Ahtisaari Plan asked for Kosovo to have “reserved seats” for two mandates for minorities, which gave them up to 1/4 of all seats in Kosovo Parliament, despite having only 5% of the population. This type of positive discrimination was needed to ensure Kosovo Serb leaders would join Kosovo institutions after independence. This formula is now automatically transformed into “guaranteed seats” which enable Serbs to have minimum 10 MP seats. The extension of the old formula is possible and is being supported by Prime Minister Thaci and the international community, but right now there is simply no 2/3 majority in the Parliament to support this extension of “reserved seats.”
Danas: Do you think it is feasible to form the Kosovo’s armed forces soon?
Selimi: The Kosovo Armed Foces have already been formed, as a result of recent National Security Strategy, written with the support of the US and other NATO allies. Parliament will confirm this decision soon, but during the next year we will see creation of dynamic, defensive force that will provide Kosovo with an important element of the security architecture in the Balkans. The Kosovo Parliament was also been accepted as an observer in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, hence we will move firmly towards NATO integration. So Kosovo’s multi-ethnic army is not only feasible, but it’s a reality of a fundamental and irreversible state-building project that is unfolding every day.
Danas: The President of Serbia Tomislav Nikolic mentioned the possibility of the creation of a new resolution on Kosovo that would be adopted by the Serbian Parliament. In your opinion, what would be the significance of such a document?
Selimi: Any documents, resolutions, constitutions approved by Serbian institutions since 1999 have no bearing on Kosovo. The Serbian Parliament can declare that Mars is part of Serbia, but the reality on the ground and the historic Brussels Agreement between Kosovo and Serbia prove that there is a state called Kosovo, it’s a neighbor of Serbia, and we both must normalize relations if we want to become members of EU.
Danas: What should be the main topics in the next phase of the Brussels dialogue?
Selimi: We must implement all agreements, including complete closure of all justice and police institutions of Serbia in north Kosovo and full integration into the Kosovo constitutional system. All new agreements will slowly but surely cement the separate roads of Kosovo and Serbia towards EU membership, which in the end will only be possible when both countries recognize each other’s existence. This will be sine qua non of our future political dialogue.
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A potent symbol
Montenegro’s Prime Minister Djukanovic is in DC today (and yesterday) to plump for his country’s NATO membership. His talking points were good (extrapolated from what he said):
- Montenegro has prepared well and meets the membership criteria, even if its population is still more or less evenly divided on the proposition;
- an invitation to NATO at the September Summit in Cardiff will have a positive impact on Balkans regional stability, including by encouraging Bosnia and Serbia to move in the same direction;
- the Alliance needs to send Russia a strong message about its willingness and ability to expand and defend its members in response to the Ukraine crisis.
The trouble of course is that Montenegro is tiny (Google says 621,081). However meritorious its candidacy, it is hard to see Montenegrin membership in NATO as a serious response to Russian malfeasance or even to regional instability.
Cardiff requires a broader vision , with an invitation to Montenegro as one component. How to frame this broader vision is the issue. Here are some possibilities:
- the Alliance could explicitly state its intention to invite, when they are ready, all the remaining Balkans non-members (Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Macedonia in addition to Montenegro) to join;
- the intention could be broadened to all European democracies, including not only the Balkans but also Moldova, Sweden and Finland as well as Ukraine and Georgia;
- it could even include some non-European democracies, like Colombia, which cooperates closely with the Alliance.
3. is a stretch. 2. risks provoking further Russian reaction in what it regards as its “near abroad,” even if much of it has been said before. It would also potentially saddle NATO with members whose defense would be difficult (especially Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia). In this era of constrained resources and retrenchment, the Alliance should be looking for members whose net contributions will be positive, not negative. I’d plunk for 1., which is neither a stretch nor likely to provoke the Russians, who will campaign against NATO membership for Serbia and Bosnia (as they are already doing in Montenegro) but can do little more than that.
The Balkans owe their current democratic institutions to NATO action. Kosovo in particular sees things that way. More than ninety percent of its population supports NATO membership, which isn’t possible right away because the six-year-old country is just now beginning to build its armed forces. The Albanians of Macedonia are likewise heavily in favor of NATO membership, which they regard as a guarantee of Skopje’s continued adherence to democratic norms (and decent treatment of its Albanian citizens). The ethnic Macedonians are not far behind. The only thing that holds Macedonia back is Greek refusal to accept it as an Alliance member. Bulgaria’s echo of Greek objections will fade quickly if Athens changes its mind.
Serbia and Bosnia are more equivocal. NATO bombed Serbs in both countries–notably Bosnia towards the end of the war there and Serbia in the 1999 conflict over Kosovo. Nevertheless, the current leadership in Belgrade seems to be ready to at least start down the path towards NATO. Membership for Montenegro would encourage them to do so. Once Serbia embarks, it will make no sense for the Serbs in Bosnia to hold back, especially as the Serb units of the Bosnian army are reputedly highly professional and won’t want to suffer exclusion from the club.
So far as I am aware, Montenegro and Macedonia are the only fully qualified NATO aspirants at the moment. Macedonia would have to enter as The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as provided for in a 1995 interim agreement between Athens and Skopje, whose applicability to NATO membership has been confirmed by a decision of the International Court of Justice. The merits of the case aside, getting The FYROM into NATO will require some heavy political lifting by the United States and Germany, which will need to convince Athens to drop its objection.
In addition to stating its intentions, the Alliance should add substance to its vision by advancing each of the Balkans aspirants as far as possible along the path towards membership. What this means for each country would vary, but the clever bureaucrats at NATO headquarters can figure it out. If Sweden or Finland wants to take some additional steps towards membership, that would be icing on the cake.
A substantial Balkans/Scandinavian move towards NATO would shore up the Alliance’s flanks. It would be a serious diplomatic blow to Moscow, one for which it has no ready diplomatic or military response. All the countries involved would be net contributors to the Alliance. The move would help stabilize the Balkans and give Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia hope for the future. It would demonstrate that aggression in Ukraine has real costs and give contemporary substance to traditional US sloganeering about “Europe whole and free.”
Montenegro is tiny, but wrapped in the right package it could become a potent symbol of an alliance prepared to pursue its ideals, come what may.
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“Macedonia” is not exclusively Greek
Let me first grant to my critics that ancient Macedonia before the conquests of Alexander the Great was mostly in what is today the Hellenic Republic. I have no doubt about that. Never have. But that in no way gives modern Greece exclusive rights to the term “Macedonia.” Let me illustrate:
- The modern country that borders Greece to the north fancies itself the Republic of Macedonia. There was no Republic of Macedonia in ancient Greece and no serious possibility of confusion with ancient Macedonia by the use of that term.
- According to the US Geological Survey, there are eight “locales” in the United States with “Macedonia,” in their names and 1519 other places (many churches, most not of the orthodox variety).
- There are 28 locales named Athens in the US, three of them towns. Anyone in Greece objecting?
- In France, a macedoine is a fruit salad. Want to make an issue of that?
- The United States calls one of its 50 states “New Mexico.” Mexico’s official name is Estados Mexicanos Unidos. There is a lot more history of irredentist claims across the Mexican/American border than across the Macedonia/Greece border. I don’t know anyone who has bothered worrying about the names though, except that some Mexicans would like to get rid of the Estados Unidos part in their own official name.
- For those concerned about identity theft: citizens of the United States call themselves “Americans.” So do citizens of all the other countries of the Western Hemisphere. I’ve never heard a citizen of the US claim exclusivity, though I have heard citizens of other countries object to the US usage.
- Macedonia under Alexander expanded into the territory of ancient Paeonia. That’s one of the many reasons he is termed the Great. Aren’t those who want to limit the term to modern Greece depriving their hero of some of his glory? How about the Egyptian city of Alexandria: is that offensive?
- For those who find the recent architectural innovations in Skopje offensive, please visit Washington DC, which was built as the “New Rome” and mercilessly plundered late-18th century understanding of Greek and Roman architecture. There is even an imitation of the coffered dome of Rome’s ancient Pantheon in the entrance hall of the National Gallery of Art, built however in the 20th century.
- Those who argue that Skopje should be satisfied with a name like “Republic of Upper Macedonia” need to explain why then Greece is vetoing membership in NATO, which would occur under the country’s UN-accepted name “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.” The latter, which Greece has rightly accepted under the Interim Accord for many other purposes, is no less distant from the supposedly offensive “Macedonia” or “Republic of Macedonia.” It has three or four “modifiers,” depending on how you count.
- The only excuse for making an issue of Macedonia’s name is if it were to lay claim to Greek territory. Amendment 1 of the constitution of the Republic of Macedonia reads: “The Republic of Macedonia has no territorial pretensions towards any neighboring state.”
One of my antagonists on Twitter called me a clown for claiming Greece does not have an exclusive right to the term “Macedonia.” But he wasn’t laughing. I laughed at him. Who’s the clown?
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Is Syria like the Balkans?
I have long resisted parallels between the Balkans, in particular Bosnia, and Syria. Here are the notes on the subject I prepared for a recent presentation on the subject:
1. Context counts. One sense in which the context is similar is that the Balkans and Syria were once part of the Ottoman Empire. Their populations were not homogenized into nation states. They preserve distinct ethnic and sectarian characteristics to a far greater extent than in Western Europe.
2. But otherwise the context really is different
• Ethnic nationalism was a cause of the war in Bosnia, among the most important of them. Heightened sectarian and ethnic feeling is a consequence of the war in Syria.
• In Bosnia, the neighbors were actively trying to divide the territory. In Syria, the neighbors are supporting proxies but still trying to avoid getting too involved and fearing division of the territory.
• Russia is supplying and financing the regime in Syria. It was not playing nearly so active role in supporting the Serbs in Bosnia.
• Russia was Yeltsin’s, not Putin’s: it was retreating from the world stage, not trying to force its way on.
• The United States in the 1990s was at the peak of its unipolar moment. Today it faces serious challenges throughout the Middle East and in Asia and war fatigue at home.
3. The Dayton negotiations produced a territorial division of Bosnia along ethnic lines and saved the Serbs from defeat.
• Milosevic came to Dayton suing for peace, because he feared a mass exodus of Serbs from Bosnia along the lines of what had happened a few months before in Croatia.
• The Americans compelled President Izetbegovic to agree to a settlement he regarded as unjust.
• Almost 20 years of effort has not reversed the ethnic cleansing and separation caused by the war, whose territorial dimension is a major barrier to peace implementation.
4. If there is a parallel to Syria in the Balkans, it is Kosovo, not Bosnia.
• There Milosevic was trying to assert control over territory that belonged to Serbia.
• He violated even minimal standards of decency by attacking civilian populations, chasing people from their homes and rendering something like half the population refugees.
• The US took advantage of the unipolar moment to launch a war without UN Security Council approval. Milosevic was indicted at The Hague Tribunal during the war.
• The outcome in Kosovo was not ethnoterritorial, except for a small portion in the north that is now being reintegrated with the rest of the territory.
• Ethnoterritorial separation may look desirable to end a war, but it creates conditions in which a real peace process is difficult if not impossible to implement within the context of a single sovereign state.
5. The military intervention against Yugoslavia was a vital prelude to the Kosovo settlement.
• Serbia became concerned that damage to its infrastructure from NATO bombing would be irreversible, making it difficult for Milosevic to remain in power.
• The Serbian army withdrew from Kosovo, Belgrade lost all control of the situation there, and the refugees returned en masse.
• Though defeated militarily, Milosevic remained in power for another year or so, until his own people brought him down at the polls.
• He fell at an election, having allowed local observers and vote counting at the polling places.
6. Nothing like these conditions exist today in Syria.
• Assad is winning, not losing. From the opposition perspective, leaving him in power is not an option. From the regime perspective, removing him is not an option.
• Military intervention by Iran and Russia continues. Any definitive military intervention on behalf of the opposition seems far off.
• An election in Syria today would unquestionably produce an outcome favorable to Assad, with many people not voting and the polling far from free and far.
7. (only if needed) A quick word also about Crimea.
• President Putin’s playbook there is not borrowed from the Americans in Kosovo, as he sometimes implies.
• The US did not in Kosovo unilaterally occupy and annex a province. There was no quicky referendum, but rather a well-coordinated declaration of independence after eight years of UN administration and several years of UN-led negotiation.
• Kosovo is now recognized by over 100 sovereign states.
• Putin’s playbook is copied from Milosevic, who used military force claiming to protect co-nationals and re-establish full control over territory he regarded as rightfully his own.
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