Posted on 01/02/2005 12:04:16 PM PST by Andy from Beaverton
Morton Abramowitz and Heather Hurlburt are right to urge strong U.S. involvement to help resolve the festering problem of Kosovo ["Where to Start With Europe," op-ed, Dec. 23]. They, however, do not go far enough. Any settlement of the situation in Serbia must include the province of Vojvodina.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
As President Bush begins a new year's effort to rebuild ties with European allies, one good place to start would be in the heart of Europe, with Kosovo. Europe needs this festering problem resolved -- and strong U.S. involvement to do it.
Kosovo is becoming increasingly dangerous. Five years of uncertainty about its future -- in or out of Serbia -- has left its U.N. overseers unable to foster economic development and, despite a series of democratic elections, unwilling to give the Kosovo government more power to run itself. The result is enormous popular frustration, leading to new and ugly violence against Kosovo's Serbs and renewed talk of unilateral action. A further complication is the possible Hague tribunal indictment, for alleged wartime atrocities against Serbs, of the newly named prime minister, war hero Ramush Haradinaj. Sending him to the Hague could generate massive popular anger, leading to violence not just in Kosovo but also among Albanians across the border in fragile Macedonia.
The situation in Serbia continues to decline. Recent elections generated gains for extreme nationalists and produced a government that barely functions. Leading politicians are afraid to publicly accept an independent Kosovo, even while privately recognizing that Kosovo's 2 million ethnic Albanians would make Serbia unviable. They have put forth a plan to gather Serbs in Kosovo's north and east, apparently aiming to establish a strong basis for partitioning Kosovo. Kosovo's Serbs, frightened by Albanian violence and unwilling to accept Albanian rule, have come firmly under Belgrade's thumb and refuse to participate in Kosovo's political life.
Concern is growing that this spring the perception of international indifference or division will unleash more undesirable results: massive popular protests, pressure on Kosovo's politicians to move on independence somehow and attempts by Kosovo's hard men to use force to further their ends. Belgrade's leaders see such violence as increasing the prospects for Kosovo's partition, and they may want to use provocation to help matters along.
That would be tragic for the people of Kosovo and a great embarrassment to the West. Continued uncertainty over Kosovo's future and over a possible flare-up in violence does more than just hold the region back economically; it brings into question the viability of multiethnic states, and it particularly threatens fragile Macedonia and even Serbia with all its minorities. That is a distraction that neither Brussels nor Washington wants.
The present situation is a direct result of dawdling in Washington, New York and European capitals. For too long the difficulties of working out a Kosovo solution that would stick were just too painful to face. From 1999 on, all sides resorted to hoping something would turn up. When nothing did, they foisted a neocolonial administration on Kosovo and saddled its citizens with standards for government that were desirable but unrealistic -- while offering little economic development and no reason to hope for a permanent solution.
Today it is the prospect of stalemate and renewed violence that is too painful to face. The United States usefully nudged the process along this year by declaring that 2005 would be the crucial time for starting the resolution of Kosovo's status. Now the time has arrived.
Western countries and Russia -- the so-called "contact group" -- must work out both the tricky nature of a solution and the difficult process for getting there. A settlement must bite the bullet on independence, provide ironclad protection for Kosovo's Serb population and offer Serbia a fast track toward membership in the European Union once it resolves the Kosovo problem. Any solution will also require the rest of the world to continue providing resources, troops and careful monitoring for years.
The process of reaching a solution will be equally difficult. The road to resolution will, at some point, have to traverse serious negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia, proceed through a balky and sovereignty-obsessed U.N. Security Council, and, ultimately, be expressed in a final act or international conference.
Time was that the U.S. and European presence in the Balkans symbolized a robust commitment by NATO to defend its interests and values. Today, instead, that presence poses this serious question: If the United States and Europe can't work more vigorously together to resolve conflicts in Europe, how can either hope to deal successfully with much larger conflicts outside Europe? President Bush should commit the United States, working with its European friends and allies, to thrash matters out on Kosovo this year.
Morton Abramowitz, former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. Heather Hurlburt wrote speeches about foreign policy for the Clinton administration and was deputy director of the International Crisis Group's Washington office.
Atomic Vomit alert!
yep, klinton loved his ragheads, didn't he?
There's something wrong with this sentence, isn't there? The author asks, "Why haven't the U.S. and Europe fixed a problem in Europe?" Well, if the problem is in Europe, shouldn't the Europeans stand up and take charge of getting it right? How come the hated Yankee imperialist has to show up to make a solution happen?
Our MSM is always telling us that Europeans are cool and sophisticated and oh-so-smart. Well, let's let them show us how smart and sensitive they really are.
Christian communities in Serbia have been forced by the world to respect the rights of Muslim minorities. Muslim lands should be required to do likewise, and when religion is not taught at the point of a sword, perhaps the message of Christianity can be restored to an ancient province. That may solve the problem of Balkan ethnic violence.
First at home, then the Nation, and then the World.. I believe that is the way it is to be done.......
It is not something that "we" can do collectively. It is something for churches and individuals to do. Our government should not be in the business of converting people, but it is in our interests that the injustice of Turkish forced conversions be undone, to promote peace in the Balkans, and "we" should make sure that peaceful people doing missionary work are allowed to do so, just as they are allowed to do so in this country.
Below is an excerpt from the 2004 International Religious Freedom Report on Kosovo: (Scroll to the end of the Serbia section)
Kosovo has a total land area of approximately 4,211 square miles and its population is approximately 2 million. Islam is the predominant faith, professed by most of the majority ethnic Albanian population, the Bosniak, Gorani, and Turkish communities, and some in the Roma/Ashkali/Egyptian community, although religion is not a significant factor in public life. Religious rhetoric is largely absent from public discourse, mosque attendance is low, and public displays of conservative Islamic dress and culture are minimal. The Kosovo Serb population, of whom about 100,000 reside in Kosovo and 225,000 in Serbia and Montenegro, are largely Serbian Orthodox. Approximately 3 percent of ethnic Albanians are Roman Catholic. Protestants make up less than 1 percent of the population but have small populations in most of Kosovo's cities.
Foreign clergy actively practice and proselytize. There are Muslim, Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant missionaries active in Kosovo. There are approximately 64 faith-based or religious organizations registered with UNMIK who list their goals as the provision of humanitarian assistance or faith-based outreach.
The present situation is a direct result of our sticking our Clintonista/europhile noses into the affairs of an absolutely nonthreatening sovereign nation.
It's about time we faced THAT central 'difficulty'.
I have read that the Saudis and other Islamic groups are actively working to solidify the faith in the Balkans. They donate funds for mosques, and send in clerics that help radicalize the population. I am glad to read that there are missionaries countering that activity. I hope that the people respond, and reject the Islamic death cult.
I am (not) surprised by the Serbian-Hungarian u-turn on the issue. Not six months ago they were stating that Vojvodina and Kosovo are "two completely different matters." Now they want the same "solution" that has made Kosovo a hell-hole applied in Vojvodina. Not in my home province, they won't.
A minority (not neccessarily an ethnic one) cannot impose its will on majority.
Vojvodina has its own Charter, its own Government (Executive Council) and Parliament, Ministries (called Secretariats, since they are Provincial bodies), its own budget, and each of its 45 counties acts more or less independent of the central gov't. It also holds its own free elections whenever it wants.
The only thing all these provincial and regional bodies have to do is follow the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia to the letter. Nothing more, nothing less. If these critics have a problem with that, maybe they should first win enough votes to get into the Parliament and demand changes to the Constitution before they hire Abramowitz to vomit via Washington Post, IHT, etc.
Well, that's what the problem is -- they can't win enough votes and they are blaming Serbia for it. These people are hardline Communists -- err, sorry, Social Democrats -- they don't know any better. It's Bolshevik Democracy.
i cannot disagree more with the article. The US should NOT take any position on Kosovo as it would contradict US foriegn policy in Kurdistan, Taiwan, Chechnya etc etc. Not to mention, post 9/11, what sane politician would support an ISLAMIC seperatist group with a violent past? Political Suicide. If anyone thinks any new UN resolution would pass in the security council with Russia and China sitting on it...needs to check their medicine again.
Bill Clinton knew who and what the KLA were... There is no reason anymore US money, troops, tax money should be invested in a region INSIDE of europe. Where is the EU? Its in their backyard, they should deal with this.
PS. i am albanian. Not all of us are radical, gun toting, thugs.
In 1998 Ahmed Ibrahim Nagar, the head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad in Albania, was reportedly also a financial official for the al Haramain Islamic Foundation, a Saudi charity designated by the Treasury Department in 2002 as a financial, material and logistical supporter of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
The Treasury Department cited reports that Osama bin Laden might have opened the office as a cover for terrorist activity in Albania and elsewhere in Europe. Mr. Nagar was extradited from Albania to Egypt in 1998 to stand trial; he reportedly has voiced support for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda's August 1998 terrorist attacks against the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
In July 1999 then-Defense Secretary William S. Cohen canceled a visit to Albania to avoid a "hornet's nest" of Osama bin Laden militants and operatives, as one television network described the situation.
Al Haramain offices in Albania, which also had operational ties to Hamas, have since been closed by the government, but an employee of the Tirana office was involved in support for al Qaeda and was implicated in the 2002 murder of a senior official of Albania's moderate Muslim community.
Not long ago, I met an Albanian guy (from Albania) and he simply couldn't care less about Kosovo. When I mentioned Kosovo, he just smiled and shook his head.
They are perceived at violent, corrupt, mafia-linked thugs. A lot of albanians in albania blame Kosovars for importing corruptian and crime to albania post-Enver Hoxha period.
i know Vovjodina is not a problem. Its just radicals that bring that up to add stress to the entire conflict.
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