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Serbia lost Kosovo in 1999

By Savo Heleta

February 24, 2008

Gather.com

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977267213

Kosovo declared independence on February 17, 2008, after a number of talks between the Serbian and Kosovo’s governments failed to bring any agreement on the status of the Serbian province.

While the violence is unacceptable, Serbian anger is understandable. The Economist notes that Serbs consider Kosovo as “the cradle of their civilization.”

But the fact is that Serbia lost Kosovo long before February 17^th and the self-proclaimed independence.

After the short war against NATO in 1999, then Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic signed an agreement to withdraw Serbian troops from Kosovo. Since then, Kosovo has been a protectorate of the UN, even though still formally a part of Serbia.

Yet everyone who was reasonable knew that Slobodan Milosevic lost Kosovo in 1999.

The biggest mistake the new Serbian government that came into power in 2000 have made was that they did not come out clean and announce to the nation that Kosovo was de facto lost as a part of Serbia. They should have blamed it on Milosevic and his policies, as it was the case.

Instead of Milosevic being rightfully portrayed as someone responsible for the loss of the Serbian “Jerusalem,” they will now get the blame. The Economist writes that “for the past couple of years Serbian leaders have repeated that Kosovo would never be independent. No wonder ordinary Serbs are angry and confused.”

Acceptance of Kosovo’s self-proclaimed independence will definitely have consequences around the world. In the near future, we may see escalation of conflict in the Basque region of Spain and parts of France, fighting for independent Kurdistan, problems in Romania, Slovakia, and many other countries. German Spiegel comments that “many countries fear that their separatist groups could choose to emulate developments in the Balkans.”

The current Turkish offensive against the Kurds who are fighting for independence since the 1980s should not come as a surprise just a few days after Kosovo proclaimed its independence. Interestingly, Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Kosovo. Does that mean that they will accept future self-proclamation of independent Kurdish state that would take a substantial piece of Turkish territory?

Another country that could expect a lot of uncertainty is Bosnia. In December 1995, Bosnia ended its three-sided bloody war that lasted for almost four years. Since then, the country is formally divided into two, and informally into three ethnically homogeneous parts. It is very possible that some ethnic groups in Bosnia could decide to follow Kosovo’s path and seek partition of the country. German newspaper Handelsblatt writes that “the West will have problems explaining why one is against Republika Srpska [Bosnian Serb entity in Bosnia] when Kosovo's secession was deemed acceptable. Keeping the artificial state Bosnia-Herzegovina together against the will of the Bosnian Serbs will, in any case, be difficult.”

After Kosovo’s self-proclaimed independence received support around the world, it will be hard to say no to others who attempt the same.