Kosovo: One year on
Recovering from the war in Kosovo will take many years
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Tuesday, 17, Feb 2009 12:00
Kosovo celebrates its first birthday today. But independence has not proved a miracle cure for this international headache. If anything, the situation is now worse.
It was a truly euphoric moment for Kosovars when, on February 17th 2008, Pristina declared its independence from Serbia. The move had been a long time coming: despite opposition from Russia and Serbia itself, they felt able to take the gamble because of backing from the US and much of the European Union. It was a historic moment.
"The city centre was filled with fireworks and celebratory gunfire," inthenews.co.uk reported at the time. Diaspora joy in all of Europe's biggest cities - including London - was unbounded.
A year later, and all that happiness appears to have turned to dust. The enduring legacy of the 1990s continues to overshadow the Balkans.
Deadlock
Economic woes are making the current situation on the ground especially pronounced. Unemployment is hovering just short of the 50 per cent mark, shockingly high for any western European country. Crime levels remain high. Infrastructure is yet to recover.
And this week a further vulnerable group was brought to attention: the Roma population, which is suffering under the general lack of communication. They are currently in lead-contaminated camps but are not being dealt with by the Serbs running the north.
The reason for all this is the lack of a strong central government. The majority, ethnic Albanians, may run the government but their authority has been eroded by Serbs establishing their own local authorities. Municipalities in Serb-majority areas, especially, have effectively taken over at the local level. A leadership vacuum is the result.
Oisin Tansey and Dominik Zaum, both international relations lecturers at the University of Reading, paint a gloomy picture of the situation in a comment piece for the Survival journal.
They write: "One of the most important consequences of this vacuum has been an inability to reverse the deepening de facto partition between the territories inhabited by Kosovo Serbs and the rest of Kosovo."
They argue the lack of funds from the main government means there is no economic incentive for Kosovo Serbs to play ball. As the international community isn't interested either the uneasy status quo looks likely to continue.
Tomas Velasek of the Centre for European Reform thinktank described the Serbian problem as "tremendously distracting".
"The Kosovo government in Pristina would have a difficult enough time creating a state from nothing, even without the ethnic divide even between the Albanian and Serb parts. The divide and all its attendant problems. are taking away valuable time and attention."
It's all relative, of course. Those in the know had fairly low expectations in the first place and, as Mr Velasek explained, fears of mass displacement of people and widespread violence did not materialise. "Kosovo by those standards has performed reasonably well."
Global failure
Serbia, having kicked out its nationalist government last year, has not financed separatist movements as many feared. But on the wider diplomatic scene this is a rare positive. The overall picture in terms of international politics is far more divided.
For Kosovo's status is very much that of a pawn in a wider confrontation between Russia and the west. Moscow was Serbia's strongest backer when it came to its resistance to independence. Just because Kosovo opted for independence has not changed that.
In the same way Spain has not recognised Kosovo because such a move would have dangerous implications for its own separatist problems, Russia's agenda is entirely self-interested. It used to argue for the principle of territorial integrity; after its unilateral action in support of South Ossetia and Abkhazia the arguments have changed substantially.
The result has been stagnation. The United Nations Mission in Kosovo (Unmik), which should have been wound up following independence, remains in place because Russia has vetoed its disbandment in the security council. The knock-on effect has been Unmik's successor organisations, the International Civilian Office and the European Union rule-of-law mission (Eulex) struggling to make an impact. Deadlock on the international stage has led to gridlock in Kosovo.
"Nothing has gone the right way in terms of international negotiations since independence," Mr Velasek continued.
"In fact, to my eyes, the Russian recognition of South Abkhazia and South Ossetia has only made it clear Russia is going to be capricious and that it is going to make decisions on independence not on the basis of international law but on the basis of what suits its foreign policy."
Dr Tansey and Dr Zaum look to the European Union to solve the problem. Adopting some of the peace and reconciliation efforts tried and tested in Northern Ireland may provide a way forward.
"With some creative strategic thinking, the EU has the potential to fill the current leadership vacuum and significantly improve conditions on the ground," they state.
"Without it, the sense of political and economic stagnation will create frustration and further instability."
It's better than nothing. The reality is always going to be difficult: a country deeply divided between two ethnicities, struggling to overcome the legacy of war and hampered by its status as a political symbol on the international stage. It's going to take more than another year to turn Kosovo into even a basically functioning state.
Alex Stevenson