February 06, 2007 (the date of publication in Russian)
Alexander Sobko
INDEPENDENCE AS THE TROYAN HORSE
Kosovo's Serb population believes that Ahtisaari's plan will bring them new problems
Days ago, UN Special Representative Martti Ahtisaari presented his plan on Kosovo reconciliation both to the Serbia's government in Belgrad and the secessionist authorities in Pristina. The plan's presentation, originally scheduled for last December and later postponed – under the pretext of preventing tensions before the parliamentary elections, actually in order to avoid an additional increase of votes in favor of Vojislav Seselj's Serbian Radical Party, which would definitely happen in case the document were made public at that time.
Only after the election campaign was over, on January 26, Mr. Ahtisaari introduced his plan exceptionally to the members of the Contact Group; still, some excerpts from the text leaked into news wires. Ahtisaari himself disclosed some details of the plan in a number of hints. Although on February 2, the plan was supposed to be conveyed only to the top officials of Serbia and its breakaway province, it "miraculously" surfaced on the same day in a number of information agencies. Officially, the full text is supposed to be made public only in spring, before being discussed at the UN Security Council.
Obviously, this approach was undertaken for the purpose of screening the public response to the document's major provisions, to be corrected in most sensitive details in case of necessity.
For this or another reason, on February 2, the details of the UN Representative's proposals were disclosed before a broad public audience, causing a wave of political declarations, along with newspaper comments.
Though formally, the term "independence" is not used throughout the text, the plan suggests that Kosovo possesses a large number of attributes of an independent state. According to Ahtisaari's initiatives, the breakaway province should be allowed to use official state symbols, including a flag and an anthem, which are to "reflect Kosovo's multiethnic character". At the same time, the province will be granted the right for control over its borders. The document includes recommendations on Kosovo's constitution and its right "to be a side in negotiations, and sign international agreements, including application for membership in international organizations".
In order to display an illusion of a balance of interests inside the province, Ahtisaari considered a special provision, concerning guarantees of rights of the Serb minority. For a person who quite recently spoke of a "collective guilt of the Serb nation" for prosecution of ethnic Albanians, this is a step forward.
Still, Marko Jaksic, chair of Association of Kosovo's Serb communities, claimed that Ahtisaari's proposals on Kosovo's status practically provide independent statehood to the Albanian majority of the province, in which the Kosovo Serbs will achieve much less than they have today. Later, Ahtisaari's plan was harshly disapproved by Serbia's Premier Vojislav Kostunica, who even refused to meet with UN Special Representative. On this political background, Serbia's President Boris Tadic, having a reputation of a pro-Western politician, also couldn't help criticizing the plan, as otherwise, the coalition of Tadic's and Kostunica's parties, indispensable for the selection of the new government, would collapse.
From the opposite side, Ahtisaari's plan, with a number of reservations, was supported by Kosovo's Albanian leaders, as well as all of the members of the Contact Group on Kosovo Reconciliation (the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, and Italy) except Russia. Russia's view (supported, particularly, by China) remains unchanged: the problem is to be solved in a way which would not drive any of the sides of the negotiations into a time handicap, and not create artificial time frameworks. Verbally, Moscow also emphasized that the Russian side would not support any plan unacceptable for the Serbs.
In late January, Russia already succeeded in its demand to exclude the recommendation of granting independence to Kosovo from the text of PACE's resolution. Moscow's reluctance for a "compromise" with the US and the European Union on Kosovo's status was confirmed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who indicated that the disagreement on the subject between the US and Russia are "of principal character".
This standing of Russia echoed with a number of critical articles in Western press, most notably in Washington Post, which urged President George W. Bush to "avoid hesitation" and to choose "a harsh approach".
Still, during the last week, more sophisticated methods of pressure on both Moscow and Belgrad were used. On Thursday, February 1, Bosnian paper Oslobodenje (Liberation), referring to an anonymous source in the Bosnia-Herzegovina intelligence, reported that Radovan Karadjic, the fugitive leader of Bosnian Serbs, is hiding from international prosecution on Russia's territory. In its turn, The Daily Telegraph reminded that in accordance with the recent German legislative initiative, suggesting criminal prosecution for the negation of the Holocaust across the whole territory of the EU, negation the fact of genocide of ethnic groups, populating the former Yugoslavia in early 1990s should also become a subject of prosecution. It is easy to guess that this legislation, echoing with the decisions of the Hague-based International War Tribunal on Yugoslavia, will be directed exceptionally against the Serbs, who still express an independent view on the process of Yugoslavia's disintegration.
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