Independence for Kosovo

Charles A. Kupchan

From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2005

Summary:  Given the atrocities they have suffered in the past and the autonomy they are enjoying now, Kosovo's Albanians will never accept continued Serbian sovereignty. The time has come to give them what they want -- independence.

CHARLES A. KUPCHAN is Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His most recent book is "The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century."

It is true that extreme nationalists might come to power in Serbia in the wake of Kosovo's independence. But if Belgrade becomes more belligerent, turns its back on the war crimes tribunal operating in The Hague, and veers away from integration into Europe, Serbs will only find their country more isolated and impoverished. By making clear that the nationalist agenda has been leading the country down a blind alley, Serbia's loss of sovereignty over Kosovo could well result in the strengthening of Serbian centrists.

Rather than threatening doomsday scenarios if Kosovo becomes independent, Serbia's leaders should be doing just the opposite: talking about life after separation and preparing the public accordingly. Yet to date, only one high-ranking Serbian politician, former Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic, has publicly endorsed letting Kosovo go. Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and President Tadic, both of whom have the nationalist credentials necessary to call for moderation and compromise, have failed to rise to the occasion.

Instead, the Serbian government has encouraged Kosovar Serbs to boycott elections in the province and distance themselves from Pristina, only intensifying the Serbian minority's political isolation. Belgrade has played down Serbia's culpability in the ethnic violence of the 1990s, tolerating nationalist myths and strengthening popular belief in the inviolability of Serbia's territorial claims. Belgrade is correct to worry about how Kosovar Serbs would fare after independence, but its behavior has done little either to strengthen its case for keeping Kosovo in the fold or to ready its citizens for the impending loss of their southern province.

MAKING THE INEVITABLE TOLERABLE

As it eases Kosovo away from Serbian sovereignty, the international community should make independence contingent on three conditions. first, Pristina must make substantial progress on putting in place the essentials of a functioning state. To accomplish this goal, Kosovo's government must strengthen democratic institutions and the rule of law, clamp down on corruption and crime, and redress widespread poverty and unemployment.

Second, Pristina must do much more to ensure the well-being of those Serbs who choose to stay put. Many Serbs intend to quit Kosovo if it becomes independent simply as a matter of principle. To encourage them to remain, ethnic Albanian leaders will need to capitalize on the prospect of independence to promote tolerance and protect minority rights. Reviving multiethnicity will become easier as Kosovo formally moves beyond Belgrade's reach, enabling Albanian moderates to neutralize militant voices. As Ruzhdi Saramati, a former brigade commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army, put it in a meeting in Prizren, "Independence will help end extremist elements within the Albanian community."

As part of its effort to safeguard minority rights, Pristina should also agree to put Christian sites throughout Kosovo under international supervision. Well over a hundred churches and monasteries have been destroyed or damaged since 1999, many of them during the 2004 riots. Numerous religious sites are now armed camps, guarded by NATO troops and barbed wire. To ensure that they remain secure and accessible, these sites should be given international protection for the indefinite future.

Third -- and most controversial -- the international community should reconsider its blanket opposition to the partition of Kosovo, indicating instead that it is prepared to accept partition provided that Pristina and Belgrade both consent. From the Ibar River north to the boundary with Serbia proper, Kosovo is populated almost exclusively by Serbs. The area is about 15 percent of Kosovo's territory and contains about one-third of its Serbs. Pristina makes no pretense of governing the region, which in most respects remains functionally a part of Serbia.

Granting northern Kosovo to Serbia while the rest of the province becomes independent would relieve Pristina of the futile task of trying to assert control over a region that, come what may, intends to maintain its links to Belgrade. In Mitrovica, the area's main city, Albanian and Serbian communities already reside on opposite sides of the Ibar, making it an attractive location for Serbs who choose to relocate from other parts of Kosovo. As long as Pristina is disabused of any hope of swapping northern Kosovo for Albanian enclaves in southern Serbia, partition would also represent a compromise of sorts, enabling Belgrade to claim that it has not been left empty-handed. As one of President Tadic's advisers stated, "If we are looking for a compromise solution, partition seems to be the easy way out."