Translated material
Kosovo is vetoed
Dissatisfaction with the Ahtisaari Plan is growing in Moscow
The closer the start of discussions in the UN Security Council on the status of Kosovo , scheduled for April 3, the more passions are heating up. At stake are the principles of international law and the post-war structure of Europe. Never before in modern European history has autonomy received the right to secede from a UN member state without the consent of that state itself. The collapse of the USSR and the “velvet” divorce of Czechs and Slovaks happened by mutual agreement of the parties. The bloody collapse of the Yugoslav Federation claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, but it also occurred strictly in accordance with the borders of the republics of the SFRY. International mediators who met at the American air base in Dayton in November 1995 religiously guarded the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina and did not allow either the Bosnian Serbs or the Bosnian Croats to create their own states.However, Martti Ahtisaari, who was authorized to conduct negotiations on the status of Kosovo on behalf of the UN in the fall of 2005, decided not to take this experience into account. The 69-year-old ex-president of Finland expressed his opinion on eight pages of a report presented recently to the UN Security Council. He stated that the “reintegration” of the Kosovo region, which has been under UN administration since 1999, into Serbia “is not a viable option.” According to him, “autonomy for Kosovo within the borders of Serbia, even purely theoretically, cannot be considered a sound decision.” Hence his conclusion: “Kosovo’s independence under international supervision is the only viable option.”
Not everyone in the UN Security Council agrees with this logic. Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a recent telephone conversation with his American counterpart George Bush, confirmed that Moscow is “against imposing any scenarios on the parties” and is “in favor of developing a solution that would be acceptable to both Belgrade and Pristina.” And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday warned Mr. Ahtisaari that if he “decided to ignore the differences between Belgrade and Pristina, nothing would work out for him.” According to the minister, the Kosovo problem “cannot be resolved without taking into account the opinions of the two conflicting parties.”
“The world capitals are still far from unity on the Kosovo issue,” Elena Guskova, head of the Center for the Study of the Contemporary Balkan Crisis at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in an interview with Vremya Novostei, Doctor of Historical Sciences Elena Guskova. “Some consider the Serbian and Kosovo cards to have already been played, but "The outcome of the problem is a foregone conclusion. Others, on the contrary, are confident that Russia can play a key role in the most decisive phase of this story. After all, if the options for the political structure of Kosovo come into conflict with the UN Charter, no one and nothing can prevent Russia from using the veto."
The balance of votes in the UN Security Council foreshadows tough debates in April. Russia and China, who are opposed to Kosovo's independence, may be joined by a number of non-permanent members of the Security Council. First of all, this is Slovakia - based on the example of its own ten percent Hungarian minority, it is familiar first-hand with interethnic problems. The country's parliament recently adopted a resolution declaring the unacceptability of granting independence to Kosovo: “Otherwise, the region of South-Eastern Europe faces destabilization.”
Italy faced a difficult choice. Tens of thousands of people from Albania and Kosovo live in this country legally and illegally. The government of Romano Prodi is unlikely to want to quarrel with them. But encouraging Albanian separatism in Kosovo, which is closely linked to organized crime and human trafficking, is no less dangerous. As for Belgium, only the lazy do not remember the danger of the country breaking up into French-speaking Wallonia and Dutch-speaking Flanders.
“Before deciding the status of Kosovo, Europe needs to answer the question of how many Albanian states it is ready to have on its territory,” says Elena Guskova. “Albania, Kosovo, Albanian-populated areas of Macedonia and Montenegro, the southern Serbian Presevo Valley, Northern Greece - the list of territories where Albanian nationalism is on the rise is extensive.” As for the development of the situation in the Kosovo region itself, there should be no illusions. “International recognition of Kosovo’s independence will confirm that independence can be achieved through terror and “ethnic cleansing.” The Albanians of Kosovo, creating their own state, want to see its territory without Serbian and other non-Albanian peoples,” says our interlocutor.
While consultations on the “Ahtisaari Plan” are taking place in world capitals, Serbia itself is remembering the tragic events of eight years ago. On March 24, 1999, NATO launched an operation against what was then Yugoslavia to force its military and police forces to leave Kosovo. This goal was achieved, but peace and stability did not come to Kosovo soil. Participants in the current demonstrations in Belgrade and other Serbian cities, dedicated to the eighth anniversary of the start of the bombing of Yugoslavia, continue to rely on Russia.