KOSOVO:
The Lost Chances and Continuing Dangers
By Robin Blackburn
We know that the Kosovan Albanians, and not
a few Serbian civilians, have already paid a terrible price for
the limited war between NATO and Yugoslavia. Some see this as
a good reason for continuing the bombing or even escalating to
a ground assault. Yet reports from Belgrade and Moscow make it
clear that a deal is, and has been, available which would secure
the withdrawal of the great bulk of Serb forces from Kosovo and
their replacement by an international security force. Even prior
to the air attacks the Yugoslav government was willing to sign
up to such a package but refused to do so when presented at the
last moment with a 'military annexe' to the proposed Agreement
which stipulated that the international security force would
be NATO-led, that it would have the right of inspection throughout
the Yugoslav republic and that its members would be exempt from
responsibility for their actions before local courts.
Of course the willingness of Milosevic to
strike a deal does not come from the goodness of his heart but
because of his fear of NATO striking power and because of his
craving for international respectability, precisely the motives
which brought him to endorse the agreement at Dayton in 1995.
It might be thought that the fear element in the Serbian leader's
motivation to agree a settlement itself justifies the air assault
so far. But this would only be the case if the terms of the settlement
now were very much better than those already available at Rambouillet
in February and this is not the case. The composition of the
security force and the 'military annex' were the stumbling block
in February and similar factors doomed the attempted Russian
mediation in early May. In public both sides overstate their
position a bit but the composition of the security force is the
sticking point, with the West insisting that NATO supplies the
'core' of the force and Belgrade rejecting this, sure in the
knowledge that all sectors of Russian opinion will support them
in this.
Some Kosovans and their supporters have argued
all along that what they want is a complete Serb withdrawal,
immediate return of refugees and full self-determination for
the people of Kosovo. And they have hoped for the overthrow of
Milosevic rather than yet another deal which would leave him
in place. After what has happened these are all perfectly understandable
reactions but that does not mean they should be endorsed. In
fact NATO has not allowed the Kosovans to dictate its strategy.
At no point has NATO asked Belgrade to renounce all claim to
Kosovo. The obstacle to agreement has always been the character
of the international force to be introduced as Yugoslav security
forces withdraw.
NATO has all along been willing to allow a
token Yugoslav presence at some border points as a sop to the
notion that, in some loose way, Kosovo is still, like Montenegro,
part of Yugoslavia. The justification offered for this is that
the presence of the security force would allow refugees to return
and would lay the basis for some new political structure. Of
course if the security force were NATO-led the corollary would
be that Kosovo becomes a Bosnia-style NATO-protectorate. For
different reasons, and to differing degrees, this would be unwelcome
to both Serbians and Kosovans, though that is not the only reason
to oppose such a scenario.
The alternative to a NATO-led security force
would be one drawn broadly from the UN and OSCE countries and
including substantial Russian participation. If the European
powers were prepared to pay the greater part of the cost of such
a force, which is only fair considering their large contribution
to the escalation of the Yugoslav wars, there is every reason
to suppose that such a broader security force would do just as
a good a job as a NATO-led force. So long as their wages are
paid armies are structured to obey orders; this is as true for
the Russian, Irish and Finnish armies as it is for NATO forces.
And because it would not provoke the Russians, it would contribute
to regional security rather than undermining it. From the Kosovan
perspective much would depend on whether there was an economic
package for returning refugees as well as security guarantees.
The horrendous air war was unleashed, and
is being continued, for one reason, and one reason only; that
nothing less than a 'NATO-led' solution and NATO-protectorate
status for Kosovo is acceptable to those running the war. In
pursuit of this policy some are even willing to contemplate the
huge risks of a ground war. But even the more cautious remain
wedded to a NATO-centric strategy that does not produce results
for the Kosovans and is pregnant with future danger. In other
words the war has a strategic dimension which has been allowed
to blight every prospect of settlement and to poison East-West
relations - and for which the peoples of the region are paying
an ever-higher price.
When former President Mikhail Gorbachev visited
Kings College, Cambridge, in March he expressed astonishment
that the West was prepared to follow up the expansion of NATO
by making a bonfire of all the international accords and organisations
that had been put in place to safeguard peace and human rights.
Those who went to war treated the Helsinki agreements as a scrap
of paper and shunted aside the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). They denied Russia a real say in
the crisis, notwithstanding the obvious contribution which the
Russian government could make to a settlement. Those who heard
Gorbachev, and had the opportunity to speak with him, could not
fail to be impressed by his alarm. Gorbachev's views have weight
not only because of his experience, but because of his good relations
with Primakov, the popular ex-premier and a possible successor
to Yeltsin. They chime in with those of most sections of Russian
opinion which has achieved a rare unity on this issue.
The Russian government itself has repeatedly
warned that a NATO land invasion would provoke a new cold war,
with unending instability in a wide arc of countries and the
final burial of both nuclear and conventional disarmament. If
NATO attempted to occupy most or all of former Yugoslavia with
the help of its new Eastern European members the military encirclement
of Russia would be complete. The already tense situation in the
Caucasus and Ukraine, where there are the ingredients for a civil
war, or for preemptive coups, between pro and anti-Western forces,
would deteriorate further.
NATO commanders know the huge difficulties
of landing a significant force in Kosovo and therefore would
be strongly tempted to move against Belgrade directly from their
bases in Bosnia and Hungary with the help of allied local forces.
However it was done, a military plunge into Serbia, could detonate
the political minefields in Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro.
If Hungary, Rumania or Croatia are given any role then territories
such as the Voyvodina and Moldavia could be dragged in. The implications
for Russia and the Ukraine, and their respective borderlands,
are a nightmare.
So, have the NATO leaders forgotten about
Russia's possession of 3,500 intercontinental ballistic missiles,
with their nuclear warheads? Does the fragility of the political
order in Russia need to be pointed out to them? Did it require
the Chinese reaction to the bombing of their Belgrade embassy
to notice that Russia, the military giant, and China, the rising
economic power, are exploring economic and military cooperation?
For whatever reason most Western commentators
rarely refer to such matters preferring to maintain the comfortable
illusion of an end to the Cold War. But it would be absurd to
suppose that Pentagon or State Department strategists do not
register their over-riding importance. US Secretary of State
Madeleine Allbright, with encouragement from veteran cold warriors
like Senator Jesse Helms, has certainly managed to focus on such
issues even if the US President and Congress have had other matters
on their mind. When justifying the size of the US military budget
complicated formulas are put forward about the need to confront
two major regional crises at the same time; thinly-veiled hints
then make it clear that the military establishment is designed
to be able to confront and contain Russia and China. With Kosovo,
the hawkish strategy of containment moved from diplomacy and
budget planning to fait accompli and unilateral military initiatives.
Whether or not he fully understood what was afoot, Britain's
callow and histrionic premier furnished needed support to the
war party.
It was at US insistence that Russia was cut
out of the process that led to the war, and excluded from its
implementation. The NATO political directorate, won to the view
that the best way to deal with the Russian threat was by encircling
that country with military bases, client states and NATO protectorates,
preferred this further expansion of NATO to Russian good offices
in its tussle with Milosevic. This crassly provocative posture
evidently had its opponents in NATO counsels but they tamely
followed where the US and Britain led, sending out pathetic little
signals of concern as the military juggernaut headed for the
abyss.
The rigorous exclusion of Russia from any
other than a messenger boy role is especially notable since Javier
Solana, the NATO Secretary General, declared in a speech on June
23rd 1998 that it was essential that 'Russia must be on board'
if the West was to tackle the critical issue of Kosovo. (The
text of this speech will be found on the website Kosova.newsroom).
At this time it was obvious to Solana that Russia should be involved
both because that would maximise the chances of a successful
settlement and because to leave Russia out would be a colossal
strategic snub. Yet a little while later, at US insistence and
with the advent of a new government in Moscow, Russia was by-passed
in the decision for war and all implementation was to be under
tight NATO control.
The peoples of Europe are deeply divided about
this disastrous limited war, and opposition to any reckless and
perilous wider conflict is growing. This is a European crisis
and it would be far better if European governments, who will
have to live with the consequences of the war, took charge of
resolving it. If the United States rather than Russia had been
excluded from the negotiating process then the chances of a peaceful
outcome would have been much greater. US involvement may gratify
the hawks in Washington but overseas military adventures, with
limitless prospects of further entanglements, are of no interest
to the great mass of US citizens. It serves to distract the US
public from such alarming problems as the growth of its prison
population, and promises to erode those budget surpluses which
make possible Clinton's surprisingly bold approach to the problem
of social security retirement funding. No country should arrogate
to itself the role of global policeman and the US is particularly
unsuited to it because the structure of its politics make it
so vulnerable to special-interest lobbies. The reluctance of
US political leaders to envisage casualties to their own forces
is, so far as it goes, a positive fact but it is largely cancelled
out by their ability and preparedness to launch destruction from
afar.
Public opinion in the NATO countries is only
gradually becoming aware of the dangers of the war already engaged,
with its logic of uncontrolled spread and its capacity for sowing
the seeds of new and wider conflicts. So long as hostilities
continue there remains the likelihood that incidents will occur
which will prompt and legitimate a stampede to military escalation.
It should also be realized that NATO's supposed objective of
'degrading' the 'control and command' function of the Yugoslav
forces only makes sense to those bent on a wider war since, if
successful, it would prevent Belgrade from ordering its forces
to withdraw. And it would release Serb units in Kosovo from any
remaining restraint. Accordingly the bombing offensive should
be halted and negotiations should immediately begin. Such negotiations
must now include, as they should have from the beginning, the
government of Russia and representatives of the European Union.
Only this will allow the Kosovo crimes to be addressed in a way
that minimises further destruction and loss of life. The advent
of peace would necessarily discomfort the Western hawks but also
expose Milosevic to the attacks of all those Serbs now bound
to him by the military onslaught but who have good cause to rue
his long history of disastrous leadership.
The principles enunciated by the Council of
Europe, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe,
and the United Nations furnish the appropriate basis for conducting
negotiations with Yugoslavia. They do so because past and present
Yugoslav governments have subscribed to them, as have the NATO
powers. These bodies have been established by arduous international
agreement, and subsequently ratified by parliaments and assemblies,
for the very purpose of regulating relations between states and
monitoring their observance of human and civil rights. When the
new Yugoslav Federation was established it vociferously insisted
that it assumed all the international obligations of the old
Federation. Of the previously-mentioned organisations the Council
of Europe, a body specifically established to safeguard human
rights and civil liberties, would be by far the most appropriate
for dealing with the Kosovan crisis, so long as it was given
appropriate facilities by the European Union. The Council represents
the region threatened by the crisis and as a body has had no
responsibility for the recent chapter of disasters.
The international organisations referred to
are far from perfect and their mode of operation is open to improvement.
Both in principle and in practice the Western powers, as important
member states, have had every opportunity to obtain improvements
to the operating principles of these organisations. In the past
they have used their influence to block the emergence of more
effective systems for making and executing decisions, notably
Russian proposals for an OSCE secretariat and Security Council.
The OSCE and the Council of Europe do include Russia and would
ensure its participation in both negotiation and implementation
of any agreement. Such participation would still boost the chances
of a settlement as well as beginning to contain the threat of
a new cold war.
A huge wrong has been done to the people of
Kosovo. The European countries, who allowed this to happen, have
a special responsibility for repairing the damage, so far as
may be possible. For two decades the Western ignored or even
aggravated the plight of the Kosovars. In the seventies it seemed
that the people of Kosovo were at last emerging from a semi-colonial
condition but, following Tito's death, the growing strength of
the racist variant of Serbian nationalism led to a worse subjugation
than before. The Western powers aided and abetted the disorderly
disintegration of the old Federation which had acted as a restraint
on the Serb authorities. The IMF made worse a vicious economic
crisis and denied the last Yugoslav government the money to pay
its soldiers. Without a squeak from the West Milosevic imposed
a brutal and arbitrary regime on the so-called province. The
recent conflict in Kosovo has the elements of a classic anti-colonial
struggle, as in Algeria, with guerrilla attacks and military
repression, with some localised massacres, but not on a big scale,
up to Rambouillet. Kosovan self-determination was a more justified
and urgent cause than the secessions of Slovenia, Croatia or
Bosnia which were so precipitately and fatally recognised by
the Western powers. The Kosovan cause should have been supported
throughout the nineties in appropriate diplomatic and material
ways, much as, say, Sweden, the Soviet Union and the Anti-Apartheid
Movement supported the cause of the African National Congress
in South Africa.
The bombing has transformed a colonial conflict
into ethnic cleansing on a large scale, a phenomenon which in
the 20th century has so often required the cover of war to carry
through - as the wartime fate of Armenians, Jews, Palestinians,
Germans, Bosnians and, most recently, Serbs in the Krajina, demonstrates.
The glib analogy that has been so often made between Hitler and
Milosevic forgets that Britain and France did not declare war
on Nazi Germany because of its practice of genocide; the Holocaust
was the product of war not the casus belli. War was declared
against Germany because it broke treaties and invaded neighbouring
countries in the name of defending German minorities from persecution.
According to the classic Western theory of
the just war the means should be proportionate to the ends, the
decision for war should be made only after all prospects of mediation
have been exhausted and as an act of legitimate authority. A
war which causes massive harm to those on whose behalf it is
undertaken, where a vital prospect of mediation has been shunned,
which is in violation of treaties, and not put to the prior sanction
of elected bodies, cannot be a just war. Those who brandish crusading
causes, like Tony Blair, can be the most dangerous militarists
of all. There is a world of difference between a just war and
a holy war. The carnage of the First World War was held to be
justified by the wrong done to Belgium. The colonial partition
of Africa was undertaken in the name of suppression of the slave
trade. In pursuing a justified cause we should always be alert
to the ulterior motives and vested interests which might distort
it, seeking, so far as may be possible, to favour approaches
which stymie those interests and motives. Thus the more principled
and effective abolitionists found it quite possible to support
resistance to slavery and international covenants against the
slave trade without endorsing wars of colonial conquest.
Both the UN and the OSCE have been involved in the peaceful and/or
negotiated resolution of difficult cases of national oppression,
decolonisation and conflict containment in the past. The Council
of Europe and European Union might aim to improve on their record.
They would at least be able to do better than NATO which has
not only mishandled a local crisis but managed to turn it into
a threat to world peace.
How can the Kosovan cause be protected from
cynical exploitation by great power interests? An alert public
opinion and active peace movement would act as one check. But
potentially so does an inclusive network of international and
regional agreement. The pressures of international negotiation,
agreement and military disengagement can help to neutralise or
restrain both great power interests and reckless emotional spasms.
It obliges participants to justify themselves in terms of international
norms and public opinion. In a context of structured negotiation
and cooperation the whole is a bit better than the parts since
the participating states hold one another in check. We should
not forget or discount the appalling role of Serb security forces
in Kosovo or much of former Yugoslavia, nor of Russian forces
in Chechnya, nor of Turkish forces in Kurdish areas, nor of US-backed
and advised military regimes in Central America. We should press
for a world where the special military units responsible for
death squads are disbanded. But faced by the Kosovo crisis we
cannot ignore the reality that Western military power acts as
a potential check on Serbia and that Russian military capacity
acts as a check on NATO. Without endorsing either military establishment
we should be able to see the merit of pressing for a pacific
accommodation between them, one which leads to a further programme
of disengagement and disarmament.
And without giving any blank check to the
KLA we can see that it offers a means of self-defence to the
major national group in Kosovo and that its armed methods have
drawn away support from the pacific parties which have previously
won elections there. In any settlement there will have to be
a role for the Yugoslav armed forces - though not for the paramilitaries
and police battalions which were specially created to carry out
the lawless terror and ethnic cleansing which the regular army
found distasteful. If it is true that only an agreement can produce
a peaceful Serbian withdrawal from Kosovo then the cooperation
of the Yugoslav armed forces will be essential to this. Those
who wish for peace in the Balkans and in Europe cannot simply
wish away the various bodies of armed men that are in contention
but must rather seek to disengage them in the most effective
way possible.
At any peace conference convoked by the Council of Europe it
would be essential to insist on the presence of representatives
of the people of Kosovo, including the party of Ibrahim Rugova,
the KLA and representatives of minority groups. The KLA might
well demand full and immediate self-determination for the people
of Kosovo. While the KLA should have every right to put its point
of view, the Conference would not be bound to accept it. Given
the extensive bombing of Kosovo and the terror campaign conducted
there by Serbian forces an immediate vote on the future of this
territory is not possible anyway.
If the bombing was halted immediately Belgrade
would also still have an incentive to settle to prevent any resumption.
Does this mean that the policy of the doves will reap a dividend
earnt by the hawks and thus prove that the latter were right
all along? No, because the situation would have been better for
the Kosovars at every stage if their case had been strongly pressed
by all means short of war in 1991-2, in 1995 at Dayton,
and in 1998-9. If the Western governments who now pose as champions
of human rights had been genuinely concerned with the fate of
the Kosovars on any of these occasions they could have achieved
a decent settlement and avoided the humanitarian catastrophe
we face. And similarly a settlement reached now, with a cease-fire
and Russia's good offices, would be better for the Kosovars,
and better for Europe and the world, than the war, with all its
incalculable long-term and short-term dangers. CP
Robin Blackburn
is a Senior Research Fellow at King's College, Cambridge, and
editor of New Left Review, whose latest issue, NLR 234,
has contributions on the war from Tariq Ali, Peter Gowan, Edward
Said and Slavoj Zizek, price $$10 or £6 from 6, Meard St,
London W1V 3HR, UK.
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