(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[kosovo] With 40-50 percent unemployment, a precarious financial situation, major problems with power and water supplies and 45 percent support in choosing 18. November, there is no doubt that Kosovo now needs a final status decision.
The frustration is on top of every Kosovo Albanian I talk to here in Pristina, Kosovo's capital. – It can not continue like this, they whisper, so as not to disturb the necessary sense of unity. – We need a clarification so that we can move forward, build the country that we have never before been allowed to govern ourselves.
The situation of the Serbian minority is also characterized by economic depression and an uncertain future in the "enemy country". They boycott choice 18. November to prevent legitimization of the Kosovo unit and live in enclaves protected by KFOR soldiers.
An independent Kosovo?
Although it is undeniably an unfair affair under international law to recognize Kosovo, it will still be less problematic for the region to perforate the de facto border that constitutes Kosovo today, which also constituted the Kosovo Province in Yugoslavia, than to draw new and far more problematic dividing lines in the landscape. This also applies as a proposal that was presented in negotiation circles this fall to divide Kosovo between Serbia and an independent Kosovo.
The most likely outcome, as it stands today, is that Kosovo declares independence unilaterally in December or January. Such a streak is not worth much without international recognition, but it is certainly not impossible that the US and EU states choose to support such a move. If this were to happen, in addition to a number of regional and international consequences, it is likely that an intense situation would arise with a relatively high risk of armed clashes and new refugee flows in the area. The roughly 100.000 Serbs living in Kosovo will be subjected to intense pressure.
The Albanians, under the rule of Communist dictator Josip Tito (1953-80), were the poorest people group in Yugoslavia, besides the Gypsies. Long traditions of abuses by the purely Serbian police force led to the revival of Albanian nationalism and subsequent revolts against the Serbs in the early 1990s. In the late 1990s, Slobodan Milosevic deployed the Yugoslav Army to fight the UÇK (Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA).
The international community made sure it was the last time Serbian divisions rolled over Kosovo by bombing Serbian targets in 1999 to stop the Serbian war machine. Unmik (United Nations Mission in Kosovo) has since ruled Kosovo. Eight years later, UN cruisers still roar through Pristina's dusty streets.
Internally in Kosovo, the most dramatic scenario, following a declaration of independence, is a repeat of the 2004 uprising, when Albanian gangs attacked the Serbian minority in organized attacks, leaving dozens killed and 150-200.000 new refugees. Militant Serbian groups such as Tsar Lazar's Guard have stated that they will go to war if Kosovo declares independence, and have been seen active in recruitment campaigns in border areas in recent months. Extreme Serb groups from Republika Srpska in Bosnia have also warned that they will go to Kosovo to fight on the Serbian side in independence.
Increasing polarization
Unmik has banned all these groups as "terrorists", but the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) contingency plan is still kept secret by the danger of spreading fear in a tense situation. It is unlikely that Serbia will resort to military force even if the Serbian minority is exposed to danger in Kosovo – Serbia has neither military nor political weight for such an operation. But covert support for "terrorist groups" can prolong and intensify a possible armed conflict.
But where Kosovo has been relatively stable since the 2004 uprising, the border areas of Macedonia and southern Serbia are more exposed to open conflict between the people groups. Here, few or no international forces secure stability, and weak political powers with political headaches are rarely equipped for elegant handling of ethnic turbulence.
Macedonia is particularly prone to spillover unrest in the event of its independence in its western neighbor Kosovo. Albanians make up about 25 percent of Macedonia's population of two million, which also consists of other ethnic minorities such as Turks, Gypsies, Serbs and Walls. This fall has seen an increasing rate of violent episodes in western Macedonia, an area that is becoming purely Albanian.
The Albanian "capital" Tetovo in the west and surrounding areas is almost an uncontrollable area where Macedonian police have been rendered powerless in favor of Albanian security companies, civil protection and paramilitary groups.
In southern Serbia, the Presevo Valley, home to a not insignificant number of Albanians, is next to Serbs, Gypsies and Turks. Three municipalities in the valley area are of particular concern, as Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja have witnessed increasing polarization between the Serbian and Albanian people since the Kosovo conflict in 1999. Although the situation is currently stable, the Presevo Valley is a potential powder barrel where unemployment, investment drought and ethnic contradictions make the prospect of turmoil probable by a change in Kosovo's status.
Serbs in the area fear that the Albanians will take the opportunity to chase them out of Presevo. While some extreme Albanian groupings in the area have stated that they want to include Presevo in a possibly Kosovo Albanian state, most Albanians in Presevo want only a fairer share of Serbia's distribution goods. Especially the municipalities with Albanian majorities are marginalized by Belgrade, who look with unblinking eyes on the "disloyal" inhabitants of the south.
Unfortunately, history shows that it is often extremists who set the agenda in such tense situations and the Presevo Valley is considered the most critical area in Serbia as of 2007.
Can the Balkans afford a new state?
Far from the glossy negotiating table, the reality on the ground in the southern Balkans shows that Kosovo's status is only half the wormhole of the "Albanian question" and Kosovo's final status can easily create an uncertain situation in neighboring countries. It needs time to build a sense of solidarity and nationhood between Albanians and slaves, although bloody wars and Unmik's promises have done a good job of reversing any such feeling.
Kosovo has become a negotiating board for the great powers, and the icy wind blowing between east and west does not appear to be swinging in the direction of an imminent clarification of the situation in southeastern Europe. There is no doubt that the situation in Kosovo is unsustainable and that a final status decision is absolutely necessary to clean up the economy and to ensure that the democratic process that has begun is further developed.
But perhaps, paradoxically, the best solution today is just not a solution, for whatever outcome of the ongoing negotiations, a decision will leave the Albanian question again on the agenda in the region. And the Balkans do not seem ready yet.
