Belgrade
mulls plans to annex the mainly Serbian far north of the province if
Kosovo declares independence.
By
Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade (Balkan Insight, 19 April 07)
In
a new attempt to defy the western-backed United Nations plan for
Kosovo, Serbia appears to be considering the partition of the
breakaway province.
Serbian
officials - in Belgrade and Kosovo - and members of the politically
influential Serbian Academy of Sciences have talked about the
possibility of a change of the current borders of the disputed
territory.
The
idea is that if Kosovo proclaims independence, Serbia could annex the
mainly Serbian far north around the town of Mitrovica.
Oliver
Ivanovic, a Serb leader from northern Kosovo, said partition sounded
very appealing to many of his constituents as an alternative to life
under Pristina.
“If
the Albanians [in Kosovo] declare independence, northern Kosovo will
do the same,” he said this week.
Earlier
this week, Martti Ahtisaari, who drafted the plan that envisions
Kosovo’s “supervised” independence, warned against attempts to
alter the plan, or widen the divide between the Serb-dominated north
and the Albanian authorities in Pristina.
“If
this goes [any] further, I think Kosovo becomes an unmanageable
society,” said Ahtisaari in Helsinki.
The
UN plan has the backing of the major western powers but has been
rejected by Serbia and UN veto-holders Russia and China. They have
indicated they will not endorse any solution that goes against
Serbia’s wishes.
Russia
and Serbia both say they want more talks on Kosovo, while the UN
Security Council is sending a fact-finding mission in late April to
Belgrade and Pristina following Russia’s suggestion.
With
hopes of an agreement on Kosovo’s final status receding, Serbia is
pondering the options and increasingly mentioning partition as a
solution.
This
is mainly because even diehards in Belgrade recognize the country has
little hope of holding onto Kosovo as a whole.
Northern
Kosovo is already in many ways a de facto part of Serbia. The three
municipalities of Zubin Potok, Leposavic and Zvecan and the northern
half of Mitrovica are overwhelmingly Serbian with a total population
of 40,000. The area adjoins Serbia geographically and enjoys close
financial, logistic, administrative and cultural ties to Belgrade.
While
officially Belgrade still claims it will never accept any option that
does not involve keeping the whole of Kosovo – and it has included
the claim to Kosovo in Serbia’s new constitution – important
Serbian circles are in practice considering partition.
Significantly,
the Serbian Academy of Sciences, which frequently takes a key part in
formulating the country’s strategy, recently published two books on
Kosovo that contain prominent articles about partition.
One
article has detailed the possible scenario of an exodus of Serbs from
the enclaves in central and southern Kosovo, including maps of how
partition might occur and how the Serbs trapped in the south could
leave the enclaves.
Dragan
Bujosevic, of the Belgrade weekly magazine NIN, told Balkan Insight
that partition might be least-worst option for Serbia. “In that
case Serbia would save face and appear at least as a partial winner,”
he said.
Politicians
have also hinted at this outcome. The former Yugoslav foreign
minister, Goran Svilanovic, earlier this year said Serbia might seek
a “correction” to Kosovo’s borders if the province gained
independence.
This
correction was widely taken to mean the inclusion of Kosovo’s
Serbian northern districts into Serbia proper.
Sanda
Raskovic-Ivic, head of the Serbian government’s Coordination Centre
for Kosovo, has made the same point. “Why wouldn’t it be possible
to change the borders of an independent Kosovo?” she asked.
James
Lyon, Balkans analyst for the International Crisis Group, goes
further. He recently claimed that everything the Serbian government
had done in Kosovo since 1999 “has been aimed at partition”.
Partition
plans were “a big dirty secret that everyone in Belgrade knows
about but no one is willing to speak about it publicly”, he added.
During
futile Kosovo talks held in Vienna last year, Belgrade suggested the
“South Tyrol - Alto Adige” model as a possible basis for Kosovo.
The
mountainous region of northern Italy was seized from Austria after
the First World War and has a mainly German or Austrian population.
After years of low-level conflict, Rome offered the area wide-ranging
autonomy in 1972, which has since defused the conflict.
Belgrade
proposed that Tyrol become a model for Kosovo’s relationship to
Serbia, with the whole of Kosovo remaining a part of Serbia and
enjoying a Tyrolean-style level of autonomy.
Although
the Kosovars - unsurprisingly - rejected that idea entirely, the
South Tyrol model has resurfaced in a different form recently.
Last
week, Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer suggested applying it to
northern Kosovo alone. This would mean the mainly Serbian area
enjoying almost complete autonomy from the Kosovo government in
Pristina.
However,
Serb nationalists are no keener on that idea than the Albanians were
about Serbia’s own Tyrolean concept. “But if this idea fails and
it now has little backing from nationalist circles in Belgrade, we
will try to go for partition,” said one senior Serbian official
that asked not to be named.
Talk
of territorial division has worried Kosovo Albanian politicians, some
of whom fear that the future of their country will resemble that of
Cyprus, the Mediterranean island partitioned on ethnic lines in 1974
with the support of Turkey.
Emrush
Xhemajli, a parliamentary deputy from the Kosovo National Movement,
told Balkan Insight that Serbia had “a unique chance to achieve
final reconciliation with Kosovo [but] every plan for partitioning or
dividing Kosovo will destroy this chance”.
Ulpiana
Lama, a Kosovo government spokeswoman, said it was not up to Serbia
to decide the country’s future in any case but the international
community.
“The
process over Kosovo’s status has not been initiated by Belgrade or
by Pristina… it has been initiated and led by the UN,” she said.
“There
can be no other processes for Kosovo but this one. Serbia should
understand that, drop other alternative solutions for Kosovo and
focus on European integration process.”
Many
Belgrade-based analysts and diplomats also fear that talk of
partition could spark Albanian attacks on the more isolated Serbian
enclaves.
A
separate but related worry is that it could also reignite the armed
insurgency among ethnic Albanians in the restive Presevo Valley of
southern Serbia, where many people see their future as lying in an
independent Albanian-run Kosovo.
An
operative with Serbia’s security agency told Balkan Insight that
their findings indicated that “partition could spark conflict”.
The
same agent added, “We don’t see it as leading to all-out war but
to a period of prolonged regional instability and low level conflicts
throughout Kosovo.”
Aleksandar
Vasovic is BIRN Serbia editor. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online
publication.