At the end of the Kosovo war many Serbs had to fly. The purges were worst in the cities. Except for Mitrovica none of the larger cities in Kosovo has more than a few hundred Serbs left. The remaining Serbs are concentrated in Serb majority villages and the North of Kosovo.
Since then not much has improved. The killings have stopped. But low level violence (throwing rocks at cars, beating people up, systhematic thefts, etc.) still continue. The situation is bad enough that many people don't venture outside their villages and don't dare to work their land. As the Kai Eide report highlighted: the situation is bad enough that Serbs keep leaving. And many more plan to leave once Kosovo becomes independent.
Kosovo's Serbs are perfectly aware that many of Kosovo's Albanians believe that the departure of all of them would be a very good thing. They believe that that will stop all Serb claims on Kosovo territory. I think this Albanian attitude is rather naive: patent injustice may fire nationalist sentiments for a long time to come. For that reason I believe it is essential to get a reasonable solution for Kosovo.
The level of violence in Kosovo is rather low at the moment. But that is mainly because it suits the Albanian side to give the internationals a moderate impression. The march 2004 riots showed that there are still large numbers of Albanians who are prepared to violence against Kosovo's Serbs. Even more significant was that hardly any Albanian condemned the attacks, including the politicians. This showed itself also in the aftermath of the attacks: under international pressure there were an official investigation and criminal prosecutions. But the investigation went nowhere and the criminal prosecutions ended in a few low sentences.
The Serbs know what independence will bring them. Still less protection against aggression and still more discrimination. The proposed privatisation of the Brezovica ski resort is good example. Everyone knows that in the present uncertain circumstances no Serb will invest in them. So the new owner will be Albanian - probably supported by some international consortium. And as Albanian employers tend to discriminate against Serbs it can be expected that soon the majority of the employees will be Albanians instead of Serbs as is now the case.
Another politically correct excuse for making life hard for Kosovo's Serbs is "integration", like proposals to make Northern Mitrovica a showcase for integration by establishing there new institutions. This means that the area will be flooded with Albanians. As many Serbs still don't feel safe in mixed environments the expectable outcome is a flight of the Serbs - what is very probably the real purpose of the proposers.
So it can be expected that half of the remaining Serbs will flee immediately after independence. And that a continuing hostile climate will soon induce most of the other half to leave too. These circumstances give the negotiations in Vienna a surreal character. All the proposed minority rights will do nothing to change the hostile environment. It reminds me of a prisoner convicted to death who may choose his last meal.
Mitrovica
Yet there is one thing that could change the whole situation. It is the split of Mitrovica and the allocation of a special autonomy to the area north of the Ibar. Such autonomy should make sure that the area can resist efforts to Albanisation from Pristina. By allowing such autonomy the Kosovo government would make clear that it is prepared to accept a multi-ethnic Kosovo for the long term.
I believe that this reorganisation should have been introduced several years ago - as soon as was clear how problematic the return of refugees was - specially to the larger cities. It has been proposed many times - most recently in the American "South Tirol" proposal (South Tirol got its autonomy after it protested against an Italianisation policy). However, due to Albanian resistence it has never been implemented.
The uncertainty that is the consequence this non-implementation are clear to everyone. Kosovo's Serbs don't invest in their properties - even north of the Ibar - and enterprising people leave. This comes down to soft ethnic cleansing - with the UN as an accomplice.
Starting the negotiations without this issue being solved was a mistake. This should not be a matter of negotiations but a precondition.
I don't know what moves Belgrade to want to postpone the subject of Mitrovica until the end-negotiations. However, it is clear that making such an essential issue a part of the negotiations puts Belgrade in an awkward position. By agreeing on any solution for Mitrovica they would throw it away as a subject for further negotiations. But on the other hand they want to keep their options open so that they can demand border changes or more far-going autonomy as a price for independence. But this is an all-or-nothing strategy that may fail. And it means giving up on the Serbs south of the Ibar. In this light it is not surprising that Kosovo's Serbs have walked out of the negotiations.
But the main blame for this awkward situation should go to the international community for creating a situation where basic human rights are the subject of negotiations.
I find the recent recommendations from the Contact Group not encouraging. Their talk about "rights to all citizens" seems to imply equal treatment for Serbs and Albanians and to deny this area recognition as a special - Serb majority - case. However, all Western countries with several equal langauges have language borders, and I believe that Kosovo needs one too - that designates the north as Serb speaking with minority rights for the Albanian speakers. The promise of the Contact Group that the international community will stay engaged is not encouraging either: it implies an instable situation without the hard guarantees that real autonomy would offer.
Several objections have been raised against granting the North autonomy:
- "it will leave the Serbs south of the Ibar in the cold": Actually it will strengthen their position. It will covince them that the Albanians are really prepared to live with the Serbs. It will also guarantee them that they will have a Serb city with urban services closeby for a long time.
- "it will reward ethnic cleansing": you may call it the lesser evil. I think it is a necessary step to prevent the cleansing of all Serbs to succeed.
- "the Albanians in Macedonia will demand the same rights": I am sure they will. In fact they do already occasionally - this will be just one more argument. The rashed independence of Yugoslavia's republics has left us with weak countries with which the minorities don't identify. It will take endless negotiations and perseverance to make those states succeed.
The long term
The modern society is not very suitable for living as an ethnic minority. So I expect that even in the best circumstances the size of the Serb community south of the Ibar will continue to decrease... Until at the end only the monastries with some small surrounding communities stay, serving as a tourist attraction that brings Kosovo much money. But under good circumstances this process may take centuries. Only Strpce seems to have a chance to survive as a Serb community. It is the largest remaining Serb settlement south of the Ibar and it lies rather isolated in the mountains. Kosovo's Serbs would like it to have similar autonomy as the North.
Living together
I believe that a democratic society should be based on equality. Unfortunately Kosovo has not known equality for centuries. Always either the Serbs or the Albanians dominated. The present situation is not different: the Serbs are completely at the mercy of the Albanians with the UN in between as a weak buffer. And this mercy is not great: discrimination is widespread. Under these circumstances any minority in a Western country would press for strengthening their position just as the Serbs now do.
Of course there are Serb extremists who believe that one of the two has to dominate and who believe that it should be them. But I believe that it would be a big mistake to discard because of them the justified desire of other Serbs to be treated as equals.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Friday, August 04, 2006
Montenegro's referendum: an evaluation
So Montenegro is independent now. I wish them good luck.
As I wrote in a previous post, secessions are not good for ethnic relations. In its june 23 edition IWPR described how the relations between Serbs on one side and Muslims and Albanians on the other had worsened due to referendum. It describes Serbs refusing to visit a Muslim café any longer, Muslims reproaching the Serbs for getting the best jobs, yet voting "against their country" and a Serb village planning to leave Montengro after hearing their neighbours celebrate the independence with cries like "Montenegro, my dear mother, we will slay the Serbs tonight", "Hang Serbs" and "Traitors, go to Serbia".
In a more recent edition IWPR describes how ethnicity will be much more important in the next elections (september 10) than in the past. Bosnians and Albanians are disappointed that promises about ethnic municipalities have not been kept and the Constitutional Court has annulled part of the Minority Rights Act. And the main Serb party has strengthened because of its anti-independence position.
As on of the articles concludes: some of this sentiment may be temporary and calm down gradually. It may. But people will not easily forget the hard words that have been said.
Of course the Muslims and Albanians have a somewhat inferior position. But I don't believe in revolutionary changes to solve that. Instead of solving problems they tend to make them worse - with people just exchanging the dominant and inferior position.
This brings me to the conditions under which the referendum was held. I think that the adversaries were right: the verdict of the Venice Commission that gave emigrated Montenegrans voting rights while denying the same right to those living in Serbia was unfair. In the ideal situation one should be able to measure how much the immigrants were still attached to Montenegro and only give them voting right when they were enough attached. The number of years that they had lived outside Montenegro might be a good criterion. It might also be reasonable to exclude people who had acquired a foreign nationality. However, the right to vote elsewhere was not a good criterium. It required considerable effort to get voting rights outside Serbia-Montengro, while in Serbia is was automatically. In addition: voting rights in Serbia should be considered as voting rights on the provincial level - not so different from voting rights on the local level that the immigrants in many European countries did have.
As I wrote in a previous post, secessions are not good for ethnic relations. In its june 23 edition IWPR described how the relations between Serbs on one side and Muslims and Albanians on the other had worsened due to referendum. It describes Serbs refusing to visit a Muslim café any longer, Muslims reproaching the Serbs for getting the best jobs, yet voting "against their country" and a Serb village planning to leave Montengro after hearing their neighbours celebrate the independence with cries like "Montenegro, my dear mother, we will slay the Serbs tonight", "Hang Serbs" and "Traitors, go to Serbia".
In a more recent edition IWPR describes how ethnicity will be much more important in the next elections (september 10) than in the past. Bosnians and Albanians are disappointed that promises about ethnic municipalities have not been kept and the Constitutional Court has annulled part of the Minority Rights Act. And the main Serb party has strengthened because of its anti-independence position.
As on of the articles concludes: some of this sentiment may be temporary and calm down gradually. It may. But people will not easily forget the hard words that have been said.
Of course the Muslims and Albanians have a somewhat inferior position. But I don't believe in revolutionary changes to solve that. Instead of solving problems they tend to make them worse - with people just exchanging the dominant and inferior position.
This brings me to the conditions under which the referendum was held. I think that the adversaries were right: the verdict of the Venice Commission that gave emigrated Montenegrans voting rights while denying the same right to those living in Serbia was unfair. In the ideal situation one should be able to measure how much the immigrants were still attached to Montenegro and only give them voting right when they were enough attached. The number of years that they had lived outside Montenegro might be a good criterion. It might also be reasonable to exclude people who had acquired a foreign nationality. However, the right to vote elsewhere was not a good criterium. It required considerable effort to get voting rights outside Serbia-Montengro, while in Serbia is was automatically. In addition: voting rights in Serbia should be considered as voting rights on the provincial level - not so different from voting rights on the local level that the immigrants in many European countries did have.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Vienna: real negotiations or another Rambouillet?
Since the negotiations on the future of Kosovo have started there have been two currents: one current sees it as real negotiations; the other believes that independence is inevitable and considers the negotiations just some formality before independence can be imposed.
Specially on the American side one can see the latter attitude. The two sides will never agree on the future of Kosovo, so these negotiations are pointless is the reasoning. And so it is inevitable that in the end the international community will have to impose a solution. And so one hears diplomats talking about the end of the year as a deadline. If there is no agreement by then a solution will have to be imposed.
In practice this functions as an encouragement for all three sides to stall the negotiations. For the Albanians it is clear: why should they do concessions when they will get souvereignity (and a much stronger negotiation position) in the end anyway. On the Serb side few politicians will risk making consessions when in the end they will be "rewarded" with an imposed solution. But probably worst is that even on the international side there seems to be little motivation to make the negotiations a success.
For most negotiations it doesn't make a difference whether Kosovo becomes independent or not. If it does not become independent it will be a province with a high degree of self-governance and so the issues of property and minority rights will be the same. In my opinion it is very important that the international community takes an active role in these negotiations. Here there are many issues that some good international negotiator with moral authority could solve in a way that is acceptable to both sides. It is here that even some imposed partial solutions for small problems might have good results.
As for the status: it doesn't take rocket science to understand that no Serb government is going to accept Kosovo's independence if it means that immediately most of Kosovo's Serbs will leave for Serbia. So - allthough I am in favor of independence - it does not astonish or bother me that Serbia only offers autonomy. It just means that the Albanian side will have to stop hiding behind legalistic barriers. As the proverb says: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Only when most of Kosovo's Serbs want to stay their position is really adequately protected in an independent Kosovo.
Negotiations will about status will be a lot easier when other stumbling blocks have been removed. For Albanians autonomy will become less unacceptable once Serbia is no longer seen as blocking Kosovo's economic progress. And Serbs will be more prone to accept independence once minority rights function well.
Ahtisaari has been an expert in doing the wrong things as a negotiator. He is hardly involved in real negotiations. Instead he speculates about what should happen if the negotiations fail and wants to talk about the status resolution at a moment that the other problems are far from solved (as aI demonstrated above such talks are doomed to fail). I think Ahtisaari is a very good demonstration of why I am against further European centralisation: it is too far from the citizens and so the powers ends often up in the hands of the lobbies - just like in the US. Ahtisaari was formerly involved with the ICG - a lobby group that pleads for Kosovo's independence.
I see some flexibility on both sides and I believe that a real solution for Kosovo is possible. Some real international involvement might help a lot by encouraging both sides to accept reasonable solutions. But there is a danger that the negotiations will end up as a similar farce as the Rambouillet negotiations in 1999 - that served to justify starting the Kosovo war. Statements of Burns and others about deadlines and an imposed "solution" if this deadline is not met piont in that direction. The low level of international commitment to the ongoing negotiations makes this scenario even more credible.
Specially on the American side one can see the latter attitude. The two sides will never agree on the future of Kosovo, so these negotiations are pointless is the reasoning. And so it is inevitable that in the end the international community will have to impose a solution. And so one hears diplomats talking about the end of the year as a deadline. If there is no agreement by then a solution will have to be imposed.
In practice this functions as an encouragement for all three sides to stall the negotiations. For the Albanians it is clear: why should they do concessions when they will get souvereignity (and a much stronger negotiation position) in the end anyway. On the Serb side few politicians will risk making consessions when in the end they will be "rewarded" with an imposed solution. But probably worst is that even on the international side there seems to be little motivation to make the negotiations a success.
For most negotiations it doesn't make a difference whether Kosovo becomes independent or not. If it does not become independent it will be a province with a high degree of self-governance and so the issues of property and minority rights will be the same. In my opinion it is very important that the international community takes an active role in these negotiations. Here there are many issues that some good international negotiator with moral authority could solve in a way that is acceptable to both sides. It is here that even some imposed partial solutions for small problems might have good results.
As for the status: it doesn't take rocket science to understand that no Serb government is going to accept Kosovo's independence if it means that immediately most of Kosovo's Serbs will leave for Serbia. So - allthough I am in favor of independence - it does not astonish or bother me that Serbia only offers autonomy. It just means that the Albanian side will have to stop hiding behind legalistic barriers. As the proverb says: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Only when most of Kosovo's Serbs want to stay their position is really adequately protected in an independent Kosovo.
Negotiations will about status will be a lot easier when other stumbling blocks have been removed. For Albanians autonomy will become less unacceptable once Serbia is no longer seen as blocking Kosovo's economic progress. And Serbs will be more prone to accept independence once minority rights function well.
Ahtisaari has been an expert in doing the wrong things as a negotiator. He is hardly involved in real negotiations. Instead he speculates about what should happen if the negotiations fail and wants to talk about the status resolution at a moment that the other problems are far from solved (as aI demonstrated above such talks are doomed to fail). I think Ahtisaari is a very good demonstration of why I am against further European centralisation: it is too far from the citizens and so the powers ends often up in the hands of the lobbies - just like in the US. Ahtisaari was formerly involved with the ICG - a lobby group that pleads for Kosovo's independence.
I see some flexibility on both sides and I believe that a real solution for Kosovo is possible. Some real international involvement might help a lot by encouraging both sides to accept reasonable solutions. But there is a danger that the negotiations will end up as a similar farce as the Rambouillet negotiations in 1999 - that served to justify starting the Kosovo war. Statements of Burns and others about deadlines and an imposed "solution" if this deadline is not met piont in that direction. The low level of international commitment to the ongoing negotiations makes this scenario even more credible.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Castro, Milosevic and Lukashenko
Today some musings about three leaders that are not very popular in the Western world and that have been the target of consistent international efforts to bring them down - mostly without effect. Only Milosevic was brought down in the end.
Let's face the similarities:
The whole smells for me like old fashioned power politics. China did follow a similar independent policy with good results. But they are big and can affor to ignore the West. Unfortunately small countries get badgered. The West simply isn't prepared to allow independent politics.
Western support for the opposition has an adverse effect. By favoring those politicians who oppose the popular policy it makes life difficult for opposition leaders who support it and it gives the dictatorial leader the chance to wrap himself in the flag of this popular policy. And so we that people like Milosevic after more than 10 years in power still got nearly 50% at the polls. This is a very impressive result - in most countries politicians last only one or two terms.
Economic sanctions have similar negative effects. Both Milosevic and Saddam used sanctions to enrich their environment and strengthen their grip on power. That now economic sanctions have been announced against Belarus looks to me like a stupid move.
The magic of the CIA-backed "revolutions" in Serbia, Georgia and the Ukrain seems to have finished working. By now every dictator recognizes the mechanism and knows how to stop it before it gets dangerous. And so we are back to the old-fashioned way of dictator fighting from the "bomb them to the stone age" of the Kosovo War to the economic sanctions that have targetted Cuba for decades.
There was a time when foreign support for political parties was frowned uppon. It distorts the political landscape and destabilises a country. It still amazes me that Western leaders have to such an extent embrazed such a dubious policy. Their belief that they can't do wrong because they fight for the right cause sound to me like hubris.
Semi-dictatorships like Milosevic's tend develop along a certain path. Just as with every politician they wear out. Their good ideas are implemented and become mainstream while their weaknesses become more and more apparent. The Western intervention however makes that the original idea keeps its appeal. The US will never get on with Cuba as long as they attack his whole model including successes like health care. No Western politician will attack the welfare state - even if they personally hate it - but when it comes to international politics this feeling for the attainable seems to get lost.
The continuing attacks on the basic policy also make it harder for these semi-dictators to move on. It is believed that acknowledging the points where they are right will strengthen their position. But in fact the opposite is true. The criticism makes them feel that they are needed and that their achievements might be endangered once they leave. It gives them even some justification for human rights violations.
Politicians seldom get much rewards for what they have done. Instead the voters look to what they can do in the future. The most famous example of this is probably Churchill who lost the elections just when he had won the war. What politicians can achieve is establishing their credentials. Hitler's successful occupation of the Rhineland for example only gave him only a short during popularity. However, it established his authority as an expert versus the military. But this was only relevant because the military at that time was the factor in the country that still could challenge his authority.
This explains why some of the western policies versus Milosevic were failures. The exodus of Serbs from Croatia and Kosovo for example was greated by quite a few Western leaders with a self-satisfied "that will teach them". In fact it teached Serbia's voters that Milosevic was right: the Serbs in the new republics were indeed endangered. A policy aimed at solving those questions in a decent way would have worked much better: it would have confronted Milosevic with the question about his achievements in other areas - mostly the economy.
Similarly it explains why Western support for Serbia's opposition was such a failure. As it was widely believed that the Serbs were endangered most opposition leaders followed the same line. Western support for the few politicians who thought different only divided the opposition.
Pinochet is a good example of the better strategy. He was prepared to step down after he was given some guarantees that his policies would be continued.
I would like to see a policy that gives countries more freedom to pursue their own policies. Dictators should be harassed - but only for what they do wrong - not for what they just do different. A dialogue should begin with recognising what those dictators do right. That gives us moral power to critisise them for what they do wrong (human rights - corruption).
Let's face the similarities:
- all are very effective leaders, who get the trains running on time and also achieve a lot of other things.
- all three pursue(d) a policy that is quite popular in their country. Castro's revolution, Milosevic's nationalism and Lukashenko's go-slow reforms all are/were directed at serious problems. Their self-image seems to be that they are working for a good cause.
- all three are the target of heavy western criticism. However, this criticism is often insincere. While Castro's and Lukashenko's human rights and economic performance are the main targets, the real criticism is their economic policy. And while Milosevic's nationalism was criticised, that of his neighbours was seen with a more benevolent eye - as it favored the Western policy to break up Yugoslavia.
- all three understand very well how to stay in power. In the course of time they develop dictatorial traits. They emprison people and are occasionally involved in political murder.
- Western policy consists of sanctions that are aimed to empoverish the country.
- Experience learns that ousting the dictator (Yanukovich, Milosevic) doesn't make their policies disappear. Both the Ukrain and Serbia still face the same kind of issues and offer to a large extent the same answers.
The whole smells for me like old fashioned power politics. China did follow a similar independent policy with good results. But they are big and can affor to ignore the West. Unfortunately small countries get badgered. The West simply isn't prepared to allow independent politics.
Western support for the opposition has an adverse effect. By favoring those politicians who oppose the popular policy it makes life difficult for opposition leaders who support it and it gives the dictatorial leader the chance to wrap himself in the flag of this popular policy. And so we that people like Milosevic after more than 10 years in power still got nearly 50% at the polls. This is a very impressive result - in most countries politicians last only one or two terms.
Economic sanctions have similar negative effects. Both Milosevic and Saddam used sanctions to enrich their environment and strengthen their grip on power. That now economic sanctions have been announced against Belarus looks to me like a stupid move.
The magic of the CIA-backed "revolutions" in Serbia, Georgia and the Ukrain seems to have finished working. By now every dictator recognizes the mechanism and knows how to stop it before it gets dangerous. And so we are back to the old-fashioned way of dictator fighting from the "bomb them to the stone age" of the Kosovo War to the economic sanctions that have targetted Cuba for decades.
There was a time when foreign support for political parties was frowned uppon. It distorts the political landscape and destabilises a country. It still amazes me that Western leaders have to such an extent embrazed such a dubious policy. Their belief that they can't do wrong because they fight for the right cause sound to me like hubris.
Semi-dictatorships like Milosevic's tend develop along a certain path. Just as with every politician they wear out. Their good ideas are implemented and become mainstream while their weaknesses become more and more apparent. The Western intervention however makes that the original idea keeps its appeal. The US will never get on with Cuba as long as they attack his whole model including successes like health care. No Western politician will attack the welfare state - even if they personally hate it - but when it comes to international politics this feeling for the attainable seems to get lost.
The continuing attacks on the basic policy also make it harder for these semi-dictators to move on. It is believed that acknowledging the points where they are right will strengthen their position. But in fact the opposite is true. The criticism makes them feel that they are needed and that their achievements might be endangered once they leave. It gives them even some justification for human rights violations.
Politicians seldom get much rewards for what they have done. Instead the voters look to what they can do in the future. The most famous example of this is probably Churchill who lost the elections just when he had won the war. What politicians can achieve is establishing their credentials. Hitler's successful occupation of the Rhineland for example only gave him only a short during popularity. However, it established his authority as an expert versus the military. But this was only relevant because the military at that time was the factor in the country that still could challenge his authority.
This explains why some of the western policies versus Milosevic were failures. The exodus of Serbs from Croatia and Kosovo for example was greated by quite a few Western leaders with a self-satisfied "that will teach them". In fact it teached Serbia's voters that Milosevic was right: the Serbs in the new republics were indeed endangered. A policy aimed at solving those questions in a decent way would have worked much better: it would have confronted Milosevic with the question about his achievements in other areas - mostly the economy.
Similarly it explains why Western support for Serbia's opposition was such a failure. As it was widely believed that the Serbs were endangered most opposition leaders followed the same line. Western support for the few politicians who thought different only divided the opposition.
Pinochet is a good example of the better strategy. He was prepared to step down after he was given some guarantees that his policies would be continued.
I would like to see a policy that gives countries more freedom to pursue their own policies. Dictators should be harassed - but only for what they do wrong - not for what they just do different. A dialogue should begin with recognising what those dictators do right. That gives us moral power to critisise them for what they do wrong (human rights - corruption).
Saturday, June 17, 2006
The myth of peacefull separation
Once international law on borders was simple: borders were sacred and inside those borders a state had full authority. Separatists were completely dependent on the goodwill of the mother country. It was sometimes (Biafra, Kurdistan, Eritrea) rude, but everyone knew what to expect. And the net effect was a rather peacefull world.
However, it was not perfect and so the pressure for something better remained. We had allowed the colonies to become independent, so why shouldn't we allow minorities who had been colonized by neighbouring countries to become independent? This was the right of "self determination" too.
An important argument to be soft on seperatists is that Western countries have been quite successfull in pacifying separatists by giving them more autonomy. So seperatism is seen as something that stimulates countries to pay attention to minority rights.
Unfortunately this ignores that the Western situation is a very special situation:
The principle in the West is still the inviolability of borders
In the West the idea of the inviolability of borders is still quite strong. So all parties negotiate under the conviction that there is no alternative. This helps very much in finding a solution that is agreeable for all.
When secession becomes a real possibility everything changes. Look at the negotiations in Kosovo where virtually no progress has been possible even on simple things because the Albanians don't want to do anything that might endanger independence (and the Serbs anything that furthers it). Sensible proposals are so defeated because they might mean some implicit recognition. Recently in Bosnia Muslim extremists rejected a new constitution because it would mean recognising the Dayton agreement - that they reject.
Yugoslav politics between 1981 and 1989 was largely paralized because several republics aimed for independence and didn't want to do anything that might strengthen the federal state.
Secession is a zero-sum game: if one side wins the other looses. And because the stakes can be so high and the step is more or less irreversible both sides will defend their position fiercely.
Even in democratic Quebec one can hear irreconcilable language. The separatist claim that "50% plus 1" is enough while the government wants a higher threshold (without specifying it). One wonders what will happen when other issues have to be solved.
Separatists is seldom about ethnic things first
When 90% of the Ukrainians voted for independence in 1990 it was mainly a vote against communism and the unpopular Gorbachov.
Similarly the independence referendums in former Yugoslavia were mainly a vote against communism. In this case the economic motive was even stronger as the EU promissed membership and the US economic aid. Yet at the same time Yugoslavia as a country was still very popular among the population. If the EU and the US had pushed for national elections and reforms on that level Yugoslavia might very well have been saved.
Separatists are often from rich provinces, who believe that they will be better of without the motherland. In the West this has been (partially) neutralized by giving economic autonomy. The premature independence of its republics made that impossible in Yugoslavia.
As Clinton said: it's the economy, stupid!
Sometimes you see arguments that are neither economic nor ethnic. At the Bosnia independence referendum the Croats voted en masse for independence. At that time it felt in logical in view of the war that was going on between Serbs and Croats in Croatia. But now some of them probably regret it.
Poor countries are seldom perfect democracies
Democracy supposes a certain level of wealth. People should be able to buy newspapers, to understand other languages good enough to see what happens outside the country and to travel around to see what happens elsewhere. In poor region without such preconditions it is the local elite that determines what people believe and how they vote.
Kosovo's separatism was long fed by the belief that everything was be better in Albania. When finally many people came in Albania in 1999 it was a shock for them to discover that it was Europe's poorest country. But the myth just shifted: after 1999 one saw instead the belief that Kosovo's mineral wealth was enough to make it a rich country.
Another example is Montenegro. In 1992 the elite was in favor of a union and in an independence referendum 95% voted to stay inside Yugoslavia. In 2006 the elite had changed its mind and 55.5% was in favor of independence.
Secessionists are often extremists
Separatists tend to be political extremists. Many had suffered for a long time in the political margin for their extreme ideas before the political winds blew their way.
Separatism is also often connected with non-democratic organisations. Croatia became a semi-fascist state under Tudjman, where dissent was suppressed and militias intimidated the governments afversaries. The ETA in democratic Spain is a very similar organisation. In Kosovo too the margins for free thinking are quite narrow.
Secession very often induces discminination
Just being greedy doesn't sound good as a motive and so we see the need for a more ideological explanation. This is always something that explains that "we are different" and such it often comes quite close to rascism. Slovenia "erased" many of the migrants from the rest of Yugoslavia. Croatia maltreated its Serbs. Macedonia initialy ignored its Albanians. Bosnia even now treats its Croats and Serbs as second rate citizens. Many of the former Sovjet Unions Asian republics now have a steady outflow of Russians - partially motivated by rascism. And so one can go on.
There is also the problem of the cost of the separation. Allthough secession may be profitable in the long turn it can have a heavy price in the short turn (administrative reorganisation, economic stagnation, war) and voters don't like that. So the nationalist government will be tempted to let the minorities pay the bill.
Given this mechanism that I believe we should be very careful in giving some area independence because a government is repressive. Very probably the government of the new separatist state will be worse.
Etnnic cleansing has many stages
When Quebec had its first wave of nationalism many companies and people left Montreal for the English speaking parts of Canada. The lost the independence referendum. But when they had won they would very probably have introduced more maws that made life uneasy of English speakers. And as a consequence more people would have left. Would this be ethnic cleansing?
In former Yugoslavia too one saw around 1990 the introduction of laws that were meant to induce the minorities to emigrate, specially in Croatia and Kosovo. These laws were much harsher as in Quebec and they robbed the minorities of their job.
Legal discrimination is often accompanied by illegal discrimination and other forms of harassment. It legalises not only those specific actions but also changes the climate to something where discrimination is acceptable.
In former Yugoslavia one could see all the steps from simple harrassment up to mass murder. I believe that the international community should have intervened when it was still in the phase of discrimination. Now they only got awake when people were being killed. And even then they were to much consumed by the power game (in which they were involved) to see the humanitarian fundamentals.
The supremity of the state
In 1991 the Soviet Union send in its army into the Baltics who claimed independence. In Lithuania and Latvia there was some resistance but given the overwhelming force this was mainly token. I believe that this is exactly what saved the Baltics from worse. The primacy of the state was maintained and so the dispute was forced into the political realm.
Compare this to Slovenia that attacked the Yugoslav troops, who had as orders to restore order without violence. In Slovenia the consequences were rather restricted. But in Croatia the concept that everybody with a gun can declare himself independent and shoot at those who don't accept that proved disastrous.
The same now applies to Kosovo. In my eyes the obvious solution would be to press Serbia to give Kosovo independence - under Serbia's conditions. This very probably would include border changes. The present idea of negotiations between equals is in my opinion a mistake. Serbia holds the key (souvereignity and the power to give or withhold independence) and that should be recognized.
The Yugoslav constitution contained the right to secede. However, I believe that the souvereignity of a state is absolute. When a memberstate seceded it would still be an internal affair and it would be up to the Yugoslav government to decide whether the conditions for independence had been met. And in this they might include the consideration that the constitution was meant as communist rethoric, not as actual rights.
The consideration of the Badinter Commission that Yugoslavia was a state in dissolution I also consider false. Sure, some states wanted to secede and the Presidium was paralised. But the fact that it was a dictatorship with a temporary power vacuum doesn't mean that it was in dissolution. Many elements of the federal state still worked - including the army. It is conspicuous that no Western leader has dared to declare Somalia a "state in dissolution" and recognize Puntland. The arguments there would be much stronger.
The course of action I propose might have left Milosevic with more power. But that is a different problem. I may come back on that in another blog post.
However, it was not perfect and so the pressure for something better remained. We had allowed the colonies to become independent, so why shouldn't we allow minorities who had been colonized by neighbouring countries to become independent? This was the right of "self determination" too.
An important argument to be soft on seperatists is that Western countries have been quite successfull in pacifying separatists by giving them more autonomy. So seperatism is seen as something that stimulates countries to pay attention to minority rights.
Unfortunately this ignores that the Western situation is a very special situation:
The principle in the West is still the inviolability of borders
In the West the idea of the inviolability of borders is still quite strong. So all parties negotiate under the conviction that there is no alternative. This helps very much in finding a solution that is agreeable for all.
When secession becomes a real possibility everything changes. Look at the negotiations in Kosovo where virtually no progress has been possible even on simple things because the Albanians don't want to do anything that might endanger independence (and the Serbs anything that furthers it). Sensible proposals are so defeated because they might mean some implicit recognition. Recently in Bosnia Muslim extremists rejected a new constitution because it would mean recognising the Dayton agreement - that they reject.
Yugoslav politics between 1981 and 1989 was largely paralized because several republics aimed for independence and didn't want to do anything that might strengthen the federal state.
Secession is a zero-sum game: if one side wins the other looses. And because the stakes can be so high and the step is more or less irreversible both sides will defend their position fiercely.
Even in democratic Quebec one can hear irreconcilable language. The separatist claim that "50% plus 1" is enough while the government wants a higher threshold (without specifying it). One wonders what will happen when other issues have to be solved.
Separatists is seldom about ethnic things first
When 90% of the Ukrainians voted for independence in 1990 it was mainly a vote against communism and the unpopular Gorbachov.
Similarly the independence referendums in former Yugoslavia were mainly a vote against communism. In this case the economic motive was even stronger as the EU promissed membership and the US economic aid. Yet at the same time Yugoslavia as a country was still very popular among the population. If the EU and the US had pushed for national elections and reforms on that level Yugoslavia might very well have been saved.
Separatists are often from rich provinces, who believe that they will be better of without the motherland. In the West this has been (partially) neutralized by giving economic autonomy. The premature independence of its republics made that impossible in Yugoslavia.
As Clinton said: it's the economy, stupid!
Sometimes you see arguments that are neither economic nor ethnic. At the Bosnia independence referendum the Croats voted en masse for independence. At that time it felt in logical in view of the war that was going on between Serbs and Croats in Croatia. But now some of them probably regret it.
Poor countries are seldom perfect democracies
Democracy supposes a certain level of wealth. People should be able to buy newspapers, to understand other languages good enough to see what happens outside the country and to travel around to see what happens elsewhere. In poor region without such preconditions it is the local elite that determines what people believe and how they vote.
Kosovo's separatism was long fed by the belief that everything was be better in Albania. When finally many people came in Albania in 1999 it was a shock for them to discover that it was Europe's poorest country. But the myth just shifted: after 1999 one saw instead the belief that Kosovo's mineral wealth was enough to make it a rich country.
Another example is Montenegro. In 1992 the elite was in favor of a union and in an independence referendum 95% voted to stay inside Yugoslavia. In 2006 the elite had changed its mind and 55.5% was in favor of independence.
Secessionists are often extremists
Separatists tend to be political extremists. Many had suffered for a long time in the political margin for their extreme ideas before the political winds blew their way.
Separatism is also often connected with non-democratic organisations. Croatia became a semi-fascist state under Tudjman, where dissent was suppressed and militias intimidated the governments afversaries. The ETA in democratic Spain is a very similar organisation. In Kosovo too the margins for free thinking are quite narrow.
Secession very often induces discminination
Just being greedy doesn't sound good as a motive and so we see the need for a more ideological explanation. This is always something that explains that "we are different" and such it often comes quite close to rascism. Slovenia "erased" many of the migrants from the rest of Yugoslavia. Croatia maltreated its Serbs. Macedonia initialy ignored its Albanians. Bosnia even now treats its Croats and Serbs as second rate citizens. Many of the former Sovjet Unions Asian republics now have a steady outflow of Russians - partially motivated by rascism. And so one can go on.
There is also the problem of the cost of the separation. Allthough secession may be profitable in the long turn it can have a heavy price in the short turn (administrative reorganisation, economic stagnation, war) and voters don't like that. So the nationalist government will be tempted to let the minorities pay the bill.
Given this mechanism that I believe we should be very careful in giving some area independence because a government is repressive. Very probably the government of the new separatist state will be worse.
Etnnic cleansing has many stages
When Quebec had its first wave of nationalism many companies and people left Montreal for the English speaking parts of Canada. The lost the independence referendum. But when they had won they would very probably have introduced more maws that made life uneasy of English speakers. And as a consequence more people would have left. Would this be ethnic cleansing?
In former Yugoslavia too one saw around 1990 the introduction of laws that were meant to induce the minorities to emigrate, specially in Croatia and Kosovo. These laws were much harsher as in Quebec and they robbed the minorities of their job.
Legal discrimination is often accompanied by illegal discrimination and other forms of harassment. It legalises not only those specific actions but also changes the climate to something where discrimination is acceptable.
In former Yugoslavia one could see all the steps from simple harrassment up to mass murder. I believe that the international community should have intervened when it was still in the phase of discrimination. Now they only got awake when people were being killed. And even then they were to much consumed by the power game (in which they were involved) to see the humanitarian fundamentals.
The supremity of the state
In 1991 the Soviet Union send in its army into the Baltics who claimed independence. In Lithuania and Latvia there was some resistance but given the overwhelming force this was mainly token. I believe that this is exactly what saved the Baltics from worse. The primacy of the state was maintained and so the dispute was forced into the political realm.
Compare this to Slovenia that attacked the Yugoslav troops, who had as orders to restore order without violence. In Slovenia the consequences were rather restricted. But in Croatia the concept that everybody with a gun can declare himself independent and shoot at those who don't accept that proved disastrous.
The same now applies to Kosovo. In my eyes the obvious solution would be to press Serbia to give Kosovo independence - under Serbia's conditions. This very probably would include border changes. The present idea of negotiations between equals is in my opinion a mistake. Serbia holds the key (souvereignity and the power to give or withhold independence) and that should be recognized.
The Yugoslav constitution contained the right to secede. However, I believe that the souvereignity of a state is absolute. When a memberstate seceded it would still be an internal affair and it would be up to the Yugoslav government to decide whether the conditions for independence had been met. And in this they might include the consideration that the constitution was meant as communist rethoric, not as actual rights.
The consideration of the Badinter Commission that Yugoslavia was a state in dissolution I also consider false. Sure, some states wanted to secede and the Presidium was paralised. But the fact that it was a dictatorship with a temporary power vacuum doesn't mean that it was in dissolution. Many elements of the federal state still worked - including the army. It is conspicuous that no Western leader has dared to declare Somalia a "state in dissolution" and recognize Puntland. The arguments there would be much stronger.
The course of action I propose might have left Milosevic with more power. But that is a different problem. I may come back on that in another blog post.
Monday, June 12, 2006
The emptiness of trophy hunting
With the fall of Mogadishu in Somalia to Islamic militias, a heated discussion has started about the role of the CIA in Somalia. The CIA is believed to have supported the war lords with lots of money. The goal was to get their help in finding Al Qaeda fugitives and (to a lesser extent) to strengthen their position versus the Islamic militias. However, it would have alarmed and united the Islamic militias, resulting in the fall of Mogadishu. The main criticism is that the CIA had only short term goals and no longterm strategy.
So far the summary of this NY Times article.
This reminds me very much of the Balkan. Here we have trophies like Milosevic, Mladic, Karadzic and Gotovina that have all the attention of the US and Europe. And here too a larger strategy seems to be lacking.
Trophies are empty victories. In fact nothing changes. And so after one trophy has been catched the focus immediately shifts to the next. Once it was believed that if only Milosevic was in The Hague everything would be over. But then the focus shifted to Mladic and Karadzic. And only the naive believe that when they have been caught we won't hear about some new "indicted war criminals" who absolutely have to be arrested.
The trophy hunting for Milosevic didn't stop after he was arrested. Next we saw a prosecution that tried to make its trophy as big as possible by overcharging. In the end they never got beyond circumstantial evidence and even there their performance was stained by many unreliable witnesses. No wonder many observers found Milosevic the most rational and credible man in the courtroom.
It leaves one wondering what would have happened if Milosevic had stayed in Belgrade. Very probably he would now be in jail for some political murder or corruption. But even when he was still politically active he would have been put in a political straightjacket just like Meciar in Slovakia.
A similar case applies to Mladic and Karadzic. Getting them in The Hague will be satisfying for their victims. But it is very doubtful whether it will deliver political results. From the political point of view it is irrelevant whether they are in some remote refuge in Bosnia, Serbia or Montenegro or in a jail in The Hague. They will land in jail sooner or later and until that they will be largely polical irrelevant. It is just a waste to spend lots of political energy on them.
Kosovo's Albanian war criminals are very interesting in this respect because here the international community has adopted a more pragmatic approach. Of course it helps that there is less media attention and as a consequence less trophy value in those people.
There is an age-old strategy to deal with popular extremist groups: fight them, but also listen to them and pick up their valid points so that they will loose appeal. Unfortunately the Western trophy hunters do exactly the opposite: their focus on their trophy is so strong that they identify the whole nationality with the trophy. This has as effect that the local people (just as everywhere else mostly innocent people) start to odentify with the war criminals and to believe that they can't be that bad.
In my opinion we should stop trophy hunting and instead concentrate on creating a stable situation. As for the war criminals: indict them, arrest them when possible and for the rest ignore them. They are politically irrelevant.
So far the summary of this NY Times article.
This reminds me very much of the Balkan. Here we have trophies like Milosevic, Mladic, Karadzic and Gotovina that have all the attention of the US and Europe. And here too a larger strategy seems to be lacking.
Trophies are empty victories. In fact nothing changes. And so after one trophy has been catched the focus immediately shifts to the next. Once it was believed that if only Milosevic was in The Hague everything would be over. But then the focus shifted to Mladic and Karadzic. And only the naive believe that when they have been caught we won't hear about some new "indicted war criminals" who absolutely have to be arrested.
The trophy hunting for Milosevic didn't stop after he was arrested. Next we saw a prosecution that tried to make its trophy as big as possible by overcharging. In the end they never got beyond circumstantial evidence and even there their performance was stained by many unreliable witnesses. No wonder many observers found Milosevic the most rational and credible man in the courtroom.
It leaves one wondering what would have happened if Milosevic had stayed in Belgrade. Very probably he would now be in jail for some political murder or corruption. But even when he was still politically active he would have been put in a political straightjacket just like Meciar in Slovakia.
A similar case applies to Mladic and Karadzic. Getting them in The Hague will be satisfying for their victims. But it is very doubtful whether it will deliver political results. From the political point of view it is irrelevant whether they are in some remote refuge in Bosnia, Serbia or Montenegro or in a jail in The Hague. They will land in jail sooner or later and until that they will be largely polical irrelevant. It is just a waste to spend lots of political energy on them.
Kosovo's Albanian war criminals are very interesting in this respect because here the international community has adopted a more pragmatic approach. Of course it helps that there is less media attention and as a consequence less trophy value in those people.
There is an age-old strategy to deal with popular extremist groups: fight them, but also listen to them and pick up their valid points so that they will loose appeal. Unfortunately the Western trophy hunters do exactly the opposite: their focus on their trophy is so strong that they identify the whole nationality with the trophy. This has as effect that the local people (just as everywhere else mostly innocent people) start to odentify with the war criminals and to believe that they can't be that bad.
In my opinion we should stop trophy hunting and instead concentrate on creating a stable situation. As for the war criminals: indict them, arrest them when possible and for the rest ignore them. They are politically irrelevant.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Jessen-Petersen still can't get it right
It is going well in Kosovo. At least that is what UNMIK chief Søren Jessen-Petersen tells us. Only 19 potentially ethnically motivated crimes in the first quarter of 2006. And as only in 12 cases the victims were Serbs, the Serbs seem even overrepresented as aggressors.
Yet there is something fishy about those figures. The official statement mentions also that the police has an operation "Stringent Security" aimed at improving the security of the minorities and that this has led to 1735 people being arrested. There are no further details but it certainly looks as if there is more wrong than those 12 cases.
Many Serbs are still afraid to work on their lands, returns are still low and Serbs are still leaving Kosovo. To blame this all on propaganda from Belgrade seems just cheap to me.
Just today HRW published a report Not on the Agenda that discusses the failure to bring people to court after the march 2004 riots. Work to do for the SRSG...
Jessen-Petersen has all rights to be proud of his achievements. But he should give a honest description of the present situation and not hide the remaining problems under vague generalities. By being honest he will give both sides homework to do and he will build trust that there is progress towards some common future.
What mr. Jessen-Petersen is doing now is just making propaganda aimed at promoting the independence of Kosovo in the Western world. Inside Kosovo it will have only negative effects. The Albanians become complacent that everything is right and they don't have to do any more. And the Serbs (and some other minorities) loose the trust that he is really working to guarantee a position for them in a future Kosovo.
Mr. Jessen-Petersen has been appointed to take care that Kosovo is governed in an acceptable way. Instead he is working as a goodwill ambassador for the Kosovo government. In a case like this he is doing so to such an extent that it is detrimental to his real job.
Unfortunately he is stepping in a long tradition at the UN and UNMIK. Many UN diplomats prefer not to rock the boat. They will leave in one or two years anyway. By ignoring problems they don't get associated with them and they don't risk making errors. Unfortunately that leaves it to outsiders like Kai Eide to formulate the problems.
Yet there is something fishy about those figures. The official statement mentions also that the police has an operation "Stringent Security" aimed at improving the security of the minorities and that this has led to 1735 people being arrested. There are no further details but it certainly looks as if there is more wrong than those 12 cases.
Many Serbs are still afraid to work on their lands, returns are still low and Serbs are still leaving Kosovo. To blame this all on propaganda from Belgrade seems just cheap to me.
Just today HRW published a report Not on the Agenda that discusses the failure to bring people to court after the march 2004 riots. Work to do for the SRSG...
Jessen-Petersen has all rights to be proud of his achievements. But he should give a honest description of the present situation and not hide the remaining problems under vague generalities. By being honest he will give both sides homework to do and he will build trust that there is progress towards some common future.
What mr. Jessen-Petersen is doing now is just making propaganda aimed at promoting the independence of Kosovo in the Western world. Inside Kosovo it will have only negative effects. The Albanians become complacent that everything is right and they don't have to do any more. And the Serbs (and some other minorities) loose the trust that he is really working to guarantee a position for them in a future Kosovo.
Mr. Jessen-Petersen has been appointed to take care that Kosovo is governed in an acceptable way. Instead he is working as a goodwill ambassador for the Kosovo government. In a case like this he is doing so to such an extent that it is detrimental to his real job.
Unfortunately he is stepping in a long tradition at the UN and UNMIK. Many UN diplomats prefer not to rock the boat. They will leave in one or two years anyway. By ignoring problems they don't get associated with them and they don't risk making errors. Unfortunately that leaves it to outsiders like Kai Eide to formulate the problems.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
The lessons from Bosnia's reform debacle
It was a big disappointment for many Western leaders. American diplomats and the European Venice Commission had put a lot of effort in uniting the Bosnian political parties. And then rejection by radical parties on all sides made it miss the quorum.
Some commentators are nostalgic for Ashdown who would have pushed the Bosnians until they did what he wanted. But others note that any reform will only work if the people really want it.
Some arguments for reform are valid: Bosnia needs for example a ministry of Agriculture if it wants to receive EU subsidies. But I find the argument about too many officials always a bit risky: there are more reasons for that than Dayton.
But changing a constitution is a dangerous process. It provokes radicals from all sides who believe that the fight for control is open again. And so we see Serb radicals who want to block every centralisation and Bosniac radicals who see their chance to attack the RS.
The Bosniac argument is rather tricky. They deny the legality of the Dayton agreements as a constitution for Bosnia because it didn't follow all the procedures for constitutional change. And they see the reform as some cosmetic improvements that would force them to accept something very similar to Dayton - including the hated Republika Srpska. By rejecting Dayton they reject the very basis for a dialogue. They know that a second and a third phase of reform are planned but they don't trust that it will really happen.
Bosnia's independence was not a product of Bosnian nationalism but a product of Muslim nationalism. It's core document was the Islamic Declaration by Izetbegovic that promoted the traditional Muslim beliefs about Islamic states. And allthough it didn't stress that point most Bosnians knows their Ottoman history and are well aware of the inferior "dhimmi" status of the Christians in that period.
It is not that Bosnia was in danger of becoming fundamentalist. The secular tradition is strong enough. But the document provided an ideological basis for Bosnia's Muslim elite to aim for independence.
The danger is for the other ethnic groups to become second rate citizens who are discriminated against on the labor market and elsewhere. A Croatian party that voted against the reform mentioned discrimination as their main reason.
It is very seductive for a nationalist party that gains control and independence to follow a policy that pushes the other ethnic groups out. Croatia could not resist this tendency: that was a major reason for its war. In Bosnia with its bloody past one sees tendencies to follow a similar path.
Dayton was meant to be a guarantee against such discrimination. The entities as a territorial solution it is a clumsy solution for a mixed population. But for the moment it is the best there is. The canton model as proposed before the war already looks a lot better. So it would be logical to decentralise to the district level so that the entities become more or less superfluous.
The road from here seems clear to me. Each of the ethnic groups should work on improving the situation in the territory under their control. And as that procedes trust will increase and the ethnic borders become less important. The question is whether all groups want to do this.
As I argued before in a previous post, the basis for minority rights is respect. That is the reason why discriminated minorities want their own institutions. Even if these institutions are inefficient and corrupt they form a better basis for emancipation than plain integration. There is a lot of conflict between those institutions. But I think that we should see those conflicts are a reflection of the general distrust between the communities. So the solution is not to impose a unitary structure where one side has all the power, but a tedious process of dialogue where the differences are worked out into a solution that is acceptable for all.
In the beginning the Serbs were the most recalcitrant. But more and more the Muslims are taking over. We see a continuing propaganda that tries to assign a kind of collective guilt to the Serbs and the Croats. The does not bode well for the future. You cannot have a fruitful dialogue when you use the word "genocide" in every other sentence.
There was a war and many Serbs and Croats committed war crimes. But Bosniacs committed war crimes too. And from all populations most people are innocent.
In my opinion the West should give the Bosniacs an ultimatum: if they don't stop this propaganda and don't accept the Serbs and Croats as equal citizens there is no common future for Bosnia and the West will support partition. It is impossible to have a real democracy where half the population consists of second class citizens.
At the moment there is still some ethnic balance in Bosnia. But the Muslim population is growing faster than the others. And discrimination and propaganda is driving Croats and Serbs away. Some publications already estimate the Muslims above 50%. The CIA World Fact Book has an estimate of 48%. Whatever the real figure, it is clear that guarantees for the Serbs and Croats will become even more important in the future.
It is also interesting to note that opinion polls show that the Bosniac population generally supports the reforms while the Serbs and Croats have more reservations. Yet with the politicians it was exactly opposite: the largest group of opposing politicians were Bosniacs. This suggests that - in contrast to what the international community often wants to believe - it is the Bosniac politicians who play the most active role inciting ethnic polarisation, while the Serb and Croat give a moderate version of what their voters believe. If the international community wants to reverse the ethnic polarisation in Bosnia it definitely should pay more attention to the Bosniac politicians.
Some commentators are nostalgic for Ashdown who would have pushed the Bosnians until they did what he wanted. But others note that any reform will only work if the people really want it.
Some arguments for reform are valid: Bosnia needs for example a ministry of Agriculture if it wants to receive EU subsidies. But I find the argument about too many officials always a bit risky: there are more reasons for that than Dayton.
But changing a constitution is a dangerous process. It provokes radicals from all sides who believe that the fight for control is open again. And so we see Serb radicals who want to block every centralisation and Bosniac radicals who see their chance to attack the RS.
The Bosniac argument is rather tricky. They deny the legality of the Dayton agreements as a constitution for Bosnia because it didn't follow all the procedures for constitutional change. And they see the reform as some cosmetic improvements that would force them to accept something very similar to Dayton - including the hated Republika Srpska. By rejecting Dayton they reject the very basis for a dialogue. They know that a second and a third phase of reform are planned but they don't trust that it will really happen.
Bosnia's independence was not a product of Bosnian nationalism but a product of Muslim nationalism. It's core document was the Islamic Declaration by Izetbegovic that promoted the traditional Muslim beliefs about Islamic states. And allthough it didn't stress that point most Bosnians knows their Ottoman history and are well aware of the inferior "dhimmi" status of the Christians in that period.
It is not that Bosnia was in danger of becoming fundamentalist. The secular tradition is strong enough. But the document provided an ideological basis for Bosnia's Muslim elite to aim for independence.
The danger is for the other ethnic groups to become second rate citizens who are discriminated against on the labor market and elsewhere. A Croatian party that voted against the reform mentioned discrimination as their main reason.
It is very seductive for a nationalist party that gains control and independence to follow a policy that pushes the other ethnic groups out. Croatia could not resist this tendency: that was a major reason for its war. In Bosnia with its bloody past one sees tendencies to follow a similar path.
Dayton was meant to be a guarantee against such discrimination. The entities as a territorial solution it is a clumsy solution for a mixed population. But for the moment it is the best there is. The canton model as proposed before the war already looks a lot better. So it would be logical to decentralise to the district level so that the entities become more or less superfluous.
The road from here seems clear to me. Each of the ethnic groups should work on improving the situation in the territory under their control. And as that procedes trust will increase and the ethnic borders become less important. The question is whether all groups want to do this.
As I argued before in a previous post, the basis for minority rights is respect. That is the reason why discriminated minorities want their own institutions. Even if these institutions are inefficient and corrupt they form a better basis for emancipation than plain integration. There is a lot of conflict between those institutions. But I think that we should see those conflicts are a reflection of the general distrust between the communities. So the solution is not to impose a unitary structure where one side has all the power, but a tedious process of dialogue where the differences are worked out into a solution that is acceptable for all.
In the beginning the Serbs were the most recalcitrant. But more and more the Muslims are taking over. We see a continuing propaganda that tries to assign a kind of collective guilt to the Serbs and the Croats. The does not bode well for the future. You cannot have a fruitful dialogue when you use the word "genocide" in every other sentence.
There was a war and many Serbs and Croats committed war crimes. But Bosniacs committed war crimes too. And from all populations most people are innocent.
In my opinion the West should give the Bosniacs an ultimatum: if they don't stop this propaganda and don't accept the Serbs and Croats as equal citizens there is no common future for Bosnia and the West will support partition. It is impossible to have a real democracy where half the population consists of second class citizens.
At the moment there is still some ethnic balance in Bosnia. But the Muslim population is growing faster than the others. And discrimination and propaganda is driving Croats and Serbs away. Some publications already estimate the Muslims above 50%. The CIA World Fact Book has an estimate of 48%. Whatever the real figure, it is clear that guarantees for the Serbs and Croats will become even more important in the future.
It is also interesting to note that opinion polls show that the Bosniac population generally supports the reforms while the Serbs and Croats have more reservations. Yet with the politicians it was exactly opposite: the largest group of opposing politicians were Bosniacs. This suggests that - in contrast to what the international community often wants to believe - it is the Bosniac politicians who play the most active role inciting ethnic polarisation, while the Serb and Croat give a moderate version of what their voters believe. If the international community wants to reverse the ethnic polarisation in Bosnia it definitely should pay more attention to the Bosniac politicians.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
How careless discrimination creates war crimes
Sudetenland
One of the most successfull strategies in wars is the incitement of each other's minorities. The Allied forces used this trick with great success in World War I and the result was the creation of a number of new states, including Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary. The Allies were indulgent towards their new states and gave them more than the ethnic borders justified. Czechoslovakia got Sudetenland with the argument that the old borders of Bohemia shoulf be respected and Poland got the so called "Polish Corridor" because it wanted access to the sea.
Both areas were populated mainly by Germans, who would have preferred to stay with Germany or Austria, but the Allies determined differently. The situation was most painfull in Sudetenland. Allready on januari 1919 the Czech president Masyrek had said (in an interview with Le Monde) that the German population was the result of immigration and that only very loyal Germans had a future in Czechoslovakia. For the rest he expected that the German element would fastly disappear. This announcement of an assimilation or emigration policy did not have any effect. In september of that year the Treaty of Saint-Germain definitively allocated the area to Czechoslovakia.
Many elements of this period are very reminiscent of the present situation in former Yugoslavia, including a strong Czech lobby in the US and France insisting on keeping as much Germans as possible in Czechoslovakia in order to weaken Germany.
Sure, the Czech government had signed a treaty in which it promissed to protect its minorities. But this did not prevent them from a policy of Czechization and from pursuing a policy that changed the Germans from the richest population group into poverty. But the real danger was in the long term. Only a piece of paper protected the Germans from a hostile government. And for anyone who has studied history this is a very poor protection. In 1945 it would prove to be insufficient indeed when they were actually chased from their homes. The Allies - including those in the West - knew it would happen and did not object in any way.
It is usually believed that the cruel behaviour of the Germans in Poland and the Sovjet-Union during World War II was a consequence of a theory that saw the Slavs as Untermenschen. I believe it is the other way around:
For the Czechs the Treaty of Saint-Germain may have been just a matter of nationalism. But for the Germans it was a matter of survival. Allocating Sudetenland to a country that made it clear that it wanted to purge them was a crime that must have made an enormous impression on a man with a sense of history like Hitler. I believe that the obsession about Lebensraum and the dislike of the Slavs was a direct consequence of this situation. The Untermenschen theory was a just a justification for an existing feeling when it was translated in policies.
Krajna
The situation in former Yugoslavia has many similarities with that after World War I. Here too we see the Allies playing the ethnic game in order to weaken an enemy - in this case the "communist" Milosevic. And in this case too the Allies tend to give the new states more territory than strict ethnic criteria would allow them.
Tudjman was brutally clear about the Serbs. During the 1989 elections he made his infamous remark that he thanked God that his wife was neither a Serb nor a Jew. And on Serb complaints about discrimination he asked why they didn't go to Serbia if they liked it better there.
Yet the international community insisted that the Krajna and the other Serb-majority areas should stay with Croatia. For the international community it was just a matter of making a good treaty that guaranteed minority rights. But for the Serbs no treaty could make up for the fact that they would live on borrowed time in a country that would use the first available excuse to throw them out.
I think this explains much of the war crimes. While the Croats and the Muslims lived in a world where the international community would interfere if the situation got too much out of hand the Serbs lived in an existential void. If they didn't defend themselves there was no hope.
Kosovo
In Kosovo the international community is once again in the same situation. It is clear to everybody that many Albanians want all Serbs out and that there is a big chance in 10 years no Serbs will be left in Kosovo. Yet the international is moving forward with the same cynical opportunism as in Sudetenland and the Krajna towards a solution that will give the Serbs - even those in the Serb-majority north - only some token guarantees that are bound to be worthless in the long term.
I am worried about the despair and distrust that this will leave. I cannot predict the future, but it certainly has the potential to be very destabilising, both for the Balkan and the rest of the world.
Conclusion
Like it or not, ethnicity is the only valid argument for creating new states nowadays. All other arguments come down to the use of force - whether it is by barbarian soldiers or polished diplomats.
One of the first things newly independent countries usually do is trying to prove their ethnic credentials. Minorities are marked as intruders without rights or as apostates who should be assimilated back into the nation. Ethnic territories outside the borders are claimed.
This nationalistic first phase of new nations has obvious risks for ethnic minorities. For that reason I believe that the international community should be careful that new nations are formed along ethnic lines.
Instead the intenational community has chosen a policy that declares some "historic" borders sacred. Behind this is usually some partiality on the international side. In the case of the Sudeten the policy was that Germany should be as weak as possible and that to achieve that as much Germans as possible should stay behind as minorities in neighbouring countries. It seems that the international community has nowadays a similar policy towards Serbia and the Serbs.
It is interesting to note that in all three cases local politicians feel a bit uneasy about the situation. The presence of the minority undermines their nationalistic claims. It would be political suicide for them just to give up the contested territory. But if the international community would exert some pressure they would be happy to use that as an excuse.
Treaties alone cannot protect minorities. Every nationalist knows the tricks to make life hard for minorities without violating the letter of those treaties. This varies from the subtle economic and linguistic discrimination in Sudetenland to the situation in Kosovo where the Serbs are denied the most basic police protection.
"Special circumstances" form a good excuse to push treaties aside altogether, as the Sudeten Germans experienced in 1945. If necessary, such circumstances can be created, as the Greeks in Turkey experienced in 1955 and the Serbs in Kosovo in march 2004.
With many ethnic conflicts in the world still waiting to be resolved it would be fortunately when the international community finally realized that it cannot pursue its personal grudges without great risk of the stability of the whole world.
One of the most successfull strategies in wars is the incitement of each other's minorities. The Allied forces used this trick with great success in World War I and the result was the creation of a number of new states, including Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary. The Allies were indulgent towards their new states and gave them more than the ethnic borders justified. Czechoslovakia got Sudetenland with the argument that the old borders of Bohemia shoulf be respected and Poland got the so called "Polish Corridor" because it wanted access to the sea.
Both areas were populated mainly by Germans, who would have preferred to stay with Germany or Austria, but the Allies determined differently. The situation was most painfull in Sudetenland. Allready on januari 1919 the Czech president Masyrek had said (in an interview with Le Monde) that the German population was the result of immigration and that only very loyal Germans had a future in Czechoslovakia. For the rest he expected that the German element would fastly disappear. This announcement of an assimilation or emigration policy did not have any effect. In september of that year the Treaty of Saint-Germain definitively allocated the area to Czechoslovakia.
Many elements of this period are very reminiscent of the present situation in former Yugoslavia, including a strong Czech lobby in the US and France insisting on keeping as much Germans as possible in Czechoslovakia in order to weaken Germany.
Sure, the Czech government had signed a treaty in which it promissed to protect its minorities. But this did not prevent them from a policy of Czechization and from pursuing a policy that changed the Germans from the richest population group into poverty. But the real danger was in the long term. Only a piece of paper protected the Germans from a hostile government. And for anyone who has studied history this is a very poor protection. In 1945 it would prove to be insufficient indeed when they were actually chased from their homes. The Allies - including those in the West - knew it would happen and did not object in any way.
It is usually believed that the cruel behaviour of the Germans in Poland and the Sovjet-Union during World War II was a consequence of a theory that saw the Slavs as Untermenschen. I believe it is the other way around:
For the Czechs the Treaty of Saint-Germain may have been just a matter of nationalism. But for the Germans it was a matter of survival. Allocating Sudetenland to a country that made it clear that it wanted to purge them was a crime that must have made an enormous impression on a man with a sense of history like Hitler. I believe that the obsession about Lebensraum and the dislike of the Slavs was a direct consequence of this situation. The Untermenschen theory was a just a justification for an existing feeling when it was translated in policies.
Krajna
The situation in former Yugoslavia has many similarities with that after World War I. Here too we see the Allies playing the ethnic game in order to weaken an enemy - in this case the "communist" Milosevic. And in this case too the Allies tend to give the new states more territory than strict ethnic criteria would allow them.
Tudjman was brutally clear about the Serbs. During the 1989 elections he made his infamous remark that he thanked God that his wife was neither a Serb nor a Jew. And on Serb complaints about discrimination he asked why they didn't go to Serbia if they liked it better there.
Yet the international community insisted that the Krajna and the other Serb-majority areas should stay with Croatia. For the international community it was just a matter of making a good treaty that guaranteed minority rights. But for the Serbs no treaty could make up for the fact that they would live on borrowed time in a country that would use the first available excuse to throw them out.
I think this explains much of the war crimes. While the Croats and the Muslims lived in a world where the international community would interfere if the situation got too much out of hand the Serbs lived in an existential void. If they didn't defend themselves there was no hope.
Kosovo
In Kosovo the international community is once again in the same situation. It is clear to everybody that many Albanians want all Serbs out and that there is a big chance in 10 years no Serbs will be left in Kosovo. Yet the international is moving forward with the same cynical opportunism as in Sudetenland and the Krajna towards a solution that will give the Serbs - even those in the Serb-majority north - only some token guarantees that are bound to be worthless in the long term.
I am worried about the despair and distrust that this will leave. I cannot predict the future, but it certainly has the potential to be very destabilising, both for the Balkan and the rest of the world.
Conclusion
Like it or not, ethnicity is the only valid argument for creating new states nowadays. All other arguments come down to the use of force - whether it is by barbarian soldiers or polished diplomats.
One of the first things newly independent countries usually do is trying to prove their ethnic credentials. Minorities are marked as intruders without rights or as apostates who should be assimilated back into the nation. Ethnic territories outside the borders are claimed.
This nationalistic first phase of new nations has obvious risks for ethnic minorities. For that reason I believe that the international community should be careful that new nations are formed along ethnic lines.
Instead the intenational community has chosen a policy that declares some "historic" borders sacred. Behind this is usually some partiality on the international side. In the case of the Sudeten the policy was that Germany should be as weak as possible and that to achieve that as much Germans as possible should stay behind as minorities in neighbouring countries. It seems that the international community has nowadays a similar policy towards Serbia and the Serbs.
It is interesting to note that in all three cases local politicians feel a bit uneasy about the situation. The presence of the minority undermines their nationalistic claims. It would be political suicide for them just to give up the contested territory. But if the international community would exert some pressure they would be happy to use that as an excuse.
Treaties alone cannot protect minorities. Every nationalist knows the tricks to make life hard for minorities without violating the letter of those treaties. This varies from the subtle economic and linguistic discrimination in Sudetenland to the situation in Kosovo where the Serbs are denied the most basic police protection.
"Special circumstances" form a good excuse to push treaties aside altogether, as the Sudeten Germans experienced in 1945. If necessary, such circumstances can be created, as the Greeks in Turkey experienced in 1955 and the Serbs in Kosovo in march 2004.
With many ethnic conflicts in the world still waiting to be resolved it would be fortunately when the international community finally realized that it cannot pursue its personal grudges without great risk of the stability of the whole world.
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