May not be 100% with the author but his keen sense of observation makes for a good read. Enjoy!
A small region of Serbia remains an
important part – and possible flashpoint – in the Kosovo debate.
There is very little that should make the Presevo Valley an important regional security issue.
The far south of Serbia is home to some 60,000 members of the ethnic-Albanian minority in a country of 7.5 million. While Serbia cannot boast a distinguished record when it comes to the treatment of minorities, things have been steadily improving over the past seven years, most notably in the Presevo Valley. Serbian and international officials frequently reassure the public that the region is stable.
Yet it has been impossible to ignore since 2000, when the leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) decided to organize a limited insurgency in the Presevo Valley.
The valley borders eastern Kosovo, whose ethnic-Albanian majority hopes to gain full independence from Serbia. It hugs northern Macedonia, with its large ethnic-Albanian minority. Ethnic-Albanian politicians see the region as
“a chess piece in the larger game,” says a newly published report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG).
Ideally, they would like to see it united with an independent Kosovo. But most accept that this is not realistic and instead think that the valley could be brought into play should a partition of Kosovo be on the agenda. Since the Serbian government never really oppressed the Presevo Valley Albanians in the way it did the Kosovars, it is reasonable to suspect that the 2000 insurgency was organized with a view to putting this piece of land on the map for any future endgame over Kosovo.
All concerned sides have so far rejected the partition of Kosovo into two parts – the northern area bordering Serbia proper that traditionally had a Serbian majority, the remainder of the province with an Albanian majority. There is little reason, however, to take these official positions as set in stone.
If the whole of Kosovo is the name of the game, the best that Belgrade can hope for is an interim solution, with an internationally supervised Kosovo becoming independent. Serbian leaders know perfectly well that having Pristina as a subordinated party in a long-term relationship with Belgrade is no longer feasible, nor is re-establishing the Serbian state’s physical presence in the province. Many Serbians think partition is a more realistic option.
Had Belgrade offered Pristina anything remotely resembling a fair partition deal a decade ago, chances are the Kosovars would have considered it. That’s no longer the case. The chief reason why they have stayed clear of partition publicly is that NATO ruled it out after the alliance evicted Serbia from most of Kosovo in 1999. Partition was seen as inherently destabilizing, with a potential to trigger unwanted trends in places such as Macedonia or Bosnia.
SECOND THOUGHTS
While there are few signs today that international officials consider partition as a desirable way forward, many are having second thoughts about the promises given to the ethic Albanians in the aftermath of the 1999 intervention.
In 1999, NATO did not attack Slobodan Milosevic so much for what he had done in Kosovo as for what Western leaders feared he would eventually do. In early 1998, as the Kosovo Albanian insurgency had just started in earnest, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright argued the West should not repeat the mistakes it made by not intervening earlier in Bosnia. The view was shared by many NATO allies.
While standing up to Milosevic back then could be credibly described as primarily, motivated by humanitarian reasons, the intervention was always going to have far-reaching geopolitical implications as well. Put simply, NATO was hardly going to chase Serbia out of Kosovo only to let it come back one day. Independence emerged as the only logical solution.
Except that resolutions are rarely logical. Punishing Milosevic’s Serbia hardly needed any justification. But what makes some Western leaders apprehensive now is taking things away from an undoubtedly improving Serbia eight years later. And some are uneasy about punishing the very Serbian politicians who helped remove Milosevic from power.
That is why we rarely hear the case for independence argued in any great detail. If they have to utter the I-word, Western leaders now prefer just to state their position without explaining it, moving on quickly to expressing hopes for the success of the current talks between Belgrade and Pristina.
The strategy of the international community – with the exception of the United States, which wants to blaze ahead with independence – is probably best described as hoping that a better solution will emerge. And that’s where partition inevitably comes into play one way or another, for the only imaginable alternative to making the whole of Kosovo independent is making most of it independent, with the rest remaining part of Serbia.
Some Western officials have indicated they would accept any solution that Belgrade and Pristina might forge, including partition. The problem is the two are very unlikely to agree on anything concerning the status of Kosovo, let alone a partition deal.
It is often thought the Serbians would want to get the very north of Kosovo. But that’s unlikely to satisfy them as Serbia already controls this part of the province. The odds are they would want a bit more – perhaps a face-saving piece of territory containing an important monastery – but the Albanians would probably go to war to prevent this from happening.
The only partition scenario the Albanian leaders have been prepared to discuss involves swapping the north of Kosovo for the Presevo Valley. But this just won’t happen.
The most likely scenario remains the one in which the Kosovo government unilaterally proclaims independence, with Serbia maintaining its control of northern Kosovo and re-integrating the territory more openly. This would very likely trigger a new insurgency in the Presevo Valley, spiraling into a refugee crisis and more regional unrest.
This is why the attention paid to Presevo Valley is fully justified. Copyright © Transitions Online. All rights reserved
Tihomir Loza
