Europe boasts another nation siphoned off from what once was Yugoslavia. Not much is different from the spree of independence staked in the region during the early 1990’s: the same unilateral declaration has been made, the same precipitous recognition by much of the West has followed, the same spew of misinformation on the history surrounding the region flows endlessly into the unquestioning English-language media as the Serbs react in frustration to the continued piecemeal destruction of their ever-shrinking country. Of course, anyone who cares to take a page from history will realize that the only thing that will be achieved by creating the latest tiny nation will be continued regional instability. Knowing this the question begs, what’s the real reason behind the Western alignment with yet another Balkan ethnic group?
It certainly can’t be some exclusive Albanian historical claim to the territory.
The history of Kosovo, like that of much of the region, is complex often involving the forced migration of one group of people by the incoming of another, always with traces of departed populations clearly left behind. In this sense, the situation isn’t much different than other “border” regions in Europe – Alsace-Lorraine or Sudetenland, for example – rulers come and rulers go and with them the average person is swept often suffering the consequences of such change. Birth rates and the favour of local overloads generally indicate which group of people will dominate a land at any given time.
Before the Slavs pushed into the area from the north in the 6th and 7th Centuries CE what is now Kosovo was ruled by Illyrians, Romans, Byzantines and Bulgars, only to be reclaimed again by Byzantium. From 1180 to 1455 Kosovo was part of the Serbian Empire and as such became the heart of Serbian Christian Orthodoxy. When the Ottoman Turks took over the region in 1455 their cadastral tax-census, defter, indicates that Kosovo was predominately inhabited by Slavs but with others such as Albanians, Vlachs, Armenians, Greeks, Saxons and Bulgarians living there as well.
By the 17th Century, a growing minority of Albanians can be identified concentrated in Metohija. Although the growth of this Albanian minority could have been supplemented by migration from neighbouring Albania (which also included parts of Kosovo at times), it is also likely that the community was existing and after having converted to Islam from Catholic Christianity, enjoyed the benefits under Turkish rule which helped make numbers flourish. (Even this history, however, is a far cry from the claims made in Western media of ethnic Albanians waiting for a thousand years for independence.)
In 1690 some 37,000, mainly Serbian, families – close to 200,000 individuals – fled Kosovo to escape further persecution for supporting Austrian troops in a short-lived take over of the region. This was followed by further waves of emigration throughout the 18th Century.
What is perhaps interesting throughout all of this history is the oft forgotten co-operation that did occur between Serbs and Albanians (such as against the Turks during the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 or under the Austrians in 1689.) Much like Croat and Serb collaboration over the 20th century, (in seeking independence from respective ruling empires during the Balkan Wars or as Partisans in the Second World War, for example) the Western media, quite possibly in a bid to over-simplify a complex situation, has either skirted such instances or ignored them entirely. Instead, “age-old hatreds”, of which is mainly rooted in the inter-ethnic fighting of only the Second World War, are danced across as headlines. All of this is not to minimize the ethnic tensions that clearly exist in the region, but is to say that often conflicts drawn along national lines are not as black and white, nor historic, as they are portrayed in the media.
With the Ottoman Empire collapsing, Serbs pushed back into Kosovo driving some 160,000 Albanians out of the north-eastern section of the province in the late 1870’s, signifying the first real instance of ethnic tensions along strictly Serbian-Albanian lines. Following the Balkan Wars at the outset of the 20th Century, Kosovo was awarded to Serbia and Metohija to Montenegro. Serbian populations continued to grow in the region, and, with further forced Albanian expulsions, Kosovo was re-colonized by more Serbs. This period of increasing Serbian dominance in the region would last until the dawn of the Second World War.
The tides would again turn in 1941 when much of the territory was annexed by Axis Powers to Italian-occupied Albania. The Serbs were now expelled by Nazi-backed Albanians with anywhere between 10,000-40,000 ethnic Serbians killed and 70,000-100,000 pushed out of Kosovo. After the war and under Tito, Kosovo gained distinction as one of only two autonomous provinces in Former Yugoslavia, both of which were located inside Serbia. Those Serbs who had fled during the war were prohibited from returning to Kosovo and, as a result, Albanians experienced a growth in population.
Such movement of peoples back and forth complicates any claims made by either side to exclusive historical ties to the land that would justify the creation of a new country. Then again what real precedence is there for staking claim to a region based on historical ties – how far back in time can a claimant go to justify right of ownership and how long do a people have to live on a land before it can be claimed theirs alone? Obviously, this wouldn’t be the first time that a country was created on such an unsound principle, but given the ease with which both sides can lay clear historical ties to the region wouldn’t this be too blatantly insupportable to be the real reason for independence?
It certainly can’t be an ethnic group’s right to self determination.
The move to make Kosovo autonomous, like the carving up of the Balkan peninsula into Yugoslavian republics, was calculated and effectively contained the Serbs, (who were easily the biggest ethnic group comprising some 36.3% of the total Yugoslavian population in 1981 compared to the Croats at 19.7%, Muslims at 8.9% and Albanians at 7.7%.) In placing the Serbian-dominated areas of Knin and Krajina in Croatia and Republika Srpska in Bosnia, Serbian populations were caught on various sides of republic borders. Furthermore, the two autonomous provinces complete with state-level veto power, Kosovo-Metohija in the south and Vojvodina in the north, helped further limit ethnic Serb domination even in Serbia. Far from being some indication of where various ethnic groups resided, the creation of Tito’s Yugoslavian map was directed at curtailing nationalism.
With the break up of Yugoslavia each of the new countries sought to maintain the same territory enjoyed as former republics. Much hype in the media was given to nationalist claims for independence, and as a result some invoked the U.N.’s always problematic vague rights of a nation to self-determination. However, little attention was given to the rights of the ethnic groups comprising sizeable majorities in territories claimed by these newly independent nations except in the case of Albanians in Kosovo.
When Croatia claimed independence in 1991, (encouraged by a newly reunified Germany’s impetuous recognition, making the subsequent war no longer civil in nature but of one country against another) along with it went a sizeable Serbian minority trapped on the wrong side of an imaginary line. Croatia, the country, maintained the same borders it had enjoyed as a republic regardless of whether all of its claimed territory was populated by a majority of ethnic Croats. (It should perhaps also be noted that the chief differences between Serbs and Croats is but a version of Christianity, Croats are Catholic and Serbs Orthodox and an alphabet, Croats use the Latin and Serbs the Cyrillic. To say that they each have a separate dialect would be misleading as a Serbo-Croatian speaker learns the dialect of where they are born and raised, meaning a Serb born in Zagreb would speak like any other person living in that area and vice versa a Croat in Belgrade.) The fallout of Croatian independence, as we know, was horrific. Most of the Serbian population was “cleansed” from the region, meaning they fled or were killed. If Croatia were to have been created based on a nation’s right to self-determination, wouldn’t it have been more reasonable to allow the Serbian-dominated areas to remain within Yugoslavia?
Bosnia and Herzegovina, that patchwork of ethnicity, is to this day a country of peoples held together by international intervention. With Croatian independence and the subsequent war went, too, Bosnia with its three main ethnic groups – Serbs, Croats and Muslims – into the depths of armed despair. For some reason the international community felt a need to keep this unfortunate country together, locking considerable communities (47% Bosniak , 37.1% Serb and 15.3% Croat) into an uncertain future. Granted, Bosnia being so diverse would have been more difficult to carve up along ethnic lines, but a quieter alternative it might have made.
The pattern is no different with regards to Kosovar independence. A little-talked about Serbian minority in the north, next to Serbia proper, is being forcibly swept away with the borders of the former province turned independent nation. It is ludicrous to expect that leaving this area as part of Kosovo will be any less bloody than was the inclusion of Serbian-dominated areas in Croatia or Bosnia. Why, knowing what we do from past Balkan experiences, would the international community even consider granting Kosovo independence with the Serbian enclave? Why not allow that region to remain as part of Serbia, particularly if the basis for independence is based on a people’s right to self determination?
Using ethnicity as a basis for country building in the Balkans is dubious at best. Only in homogeneous Slovenia can this be a concrete reason for recognizing them as independent. Otherwise, why would ethnic minorities, that could so easily become part of the often neighbouring country where the population is ethnically similar, be forced to remain a part of a country with a rival, frequently hostile, nation. Furthermore, like historical claims, what real precedence is there for such nation-state building – how large must a minority be to claim independence, how different must a culture be to make a nation and should ethnicity really determine independence? Russia and China can’t be alone in seeing the hypocrisy of recognizing Kosovo as independent because of ethnicity…
It certainly can’t be a matter of freedom and democracy.
There are some peculiar aspects to the Western backing of Kosovo independence given the Albanian use of terrorism as a tactic and open connections to Islamic extremist groups.
Throughout the 1970’s, Kosovo witnessed a rise in Albanian nationalism. The Albanian population soared to over 90%. Following Tito’s death in 1980, the Albanians began to press increasingly for independent republic status within Yugoslavia – a change which would give them the right to secede from the country. Tensions grew and violent incursions followed, causing further emigration of what remained of the Serbian population. The autonomous provincial government was heavily dominated by Albanians resulting in discrimination and abuse of Serbs and other ethnic groups. The Yugoslavian government not only suppressed Albanian protests but also the Serbs seeking protection from the abuse sustained.
The 1980’s were a particularly bad time for all of Yugoslavia. The economy was in an increasingly bad state which only helped fan the flames of nationalist sentiments throughout the region. The country was in a precarious state of disintegration. Kosovo was no exception, and indeed, was considerably worse off economically than most other regions of former Yugoslavia. With a state-dominated economy, 70% of it’s provincial budget was coming from outside of Kosovo. There were many cases of sabotage against state owned-industries, particularly in the power sector, which helped to cripple the local economy, stifling growth. Serbian companies subsidized the province’s economy with forced taxation of 10% of their wage fund being diverted into a Kosovo Development fund, in addition to state sponsorship.
In 1989, instead of being granted status as a republic, Kosovo lost it’s status as an autonomous province, but not its rights to cultural autonomy, such as schools and hospitals. Although many in the West saw this as a Serbian nationalist move meant to suppress the Albanians, the structure of Yugoslavian government, as mentioned earlier, was such that the autonomy of the two provinces effectively distorted the leadership of the entire republic of Serbia. The Kosovo Provincial Assembly had the power to veto anything the Serbian government put forward regarding the entire republic. Conversely, the Serbian government did not enjoy the same privileges over decisions made in Kosovo. Thus the change of Kosovo’s status could very well be seen as a levelling of powers regarding decision making in the republic of Serbia as opposed to an ethnic-based attack on Albanians.
The Albanian response to the governmental changes were disastrous for Yugoslavia. At a time when the economy was already floundering, Albanian supporters closed, through strikes and sabotage, the state-owned Trepca mining complex which was pivotal to the Yugoslavian economy. (Continued controversy surrounds Trepca, in the northern city of Mitrovica which is today divided along ethnic lines. Following the takeover in 1999 of the mining complex by the international community due to alleged environmental issues ownership battles rage on with several companies and countries staking claim. It should also be noted that the mineral deposits in the mines are estimated at US$3 Billion.) Such activity on the part of the Albanians was openly supported by the West.
The situation in Kosovo continued to escalate and in 1992 the Kosovo Liberation Army, an organization designated as a terrorist group by even the United States until they became allied against Serbia, was formed. The KLA terrorized Serbians and Albanians who co-operated with the state government, until at least 1999, with the principle objective of gaining independence for Kosovo. The KLA enjoyed other interesting support in the form of Mujahideen, as did Muslims in the Bosnian war. Given the European and American stance on not just the use of terrorism as a means of achieving political goals but also the spread of Islamic extremism, the KLA makes a strange bedfellow. After all, are not the Mujahideen the same people the U.S. and its allies find themselves now fighting elsewhere in the name of freedom and democracy? In fact, the U.S. army base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel, has been allegedly used as another detention centre for suspected terrorists.
Much press coverage has been given to the brutal repression of the KLA by government forces, which in retrospect was probably less violent and less oppressive than the U.S. “war on terror”. Certainly, there is no intermediary such as the U.N. mitigating the effects of that war, as there was in Kosovo. Accurate figures on death tolls related to the repression of the KLA are fleeting only proving that the first casualty in war is, in fact, truth. Other numbers don’t seem to add up as well, for example, how feasible would it really have been for Serbia to ethnically-cleanse Kosovo with its more than 90% Albanian population, far more than 1.5 million people, who were protected by the KLA, Mujahideen and eventually the international community? This is not to say that there were no deaths, in most wars there are deaths – many deaths – but questions should remain around the legitimacy of claims made, particularly when they are used to substantiate independence.
Finally, and this is not to be facetious, are there really no questions as to how earnest a people are in their desire for freedom and independence when they haven’t even developed their own national flag? After all every nation currently seeking independence has one – Basques, Quebecois and Chechnyans do – why did the Albanians not have one? Surely the independence of Kosovo didn’t come as that much of a surprise.
Should Kosovo be independent?
That’s a good question. It seems unlikely that the Albanians in Kosovo could ever be enticed to live happily within Serbia. Moreover, it seems doubtful that most Serbs would even really want that. However, the way in which independence was achieved – much like independence in Croatia and Bosnia – is troublesome, particularly in the reasoning behind it. Historically, the claim for independence is shaky. Ethnically, independence makes more sense – but then let the Serbian areas remain in Serbia. Hiding behind the right to freedom and democracy is hypocritical taken in the context of the “war on terror.” What remains of a justification for the independence of Kosovo? Just a muddled explanation – much like the logic behind all of the Western side-taking in the Balkans that leaves us wondering why the West became involved in the first place. That is to say if the reasoning behind the West’s involvement is, in fact, altruistic, as it claims.
If humans were at all genuine in their desire to curtail conflict, perhaps we might begin by approaching such situations far more objectively, being careful not to take sides. Just think what bloodshed might have been avoided if the international community had reacted with more of a level headed approach to the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the first place.
International Perspectives 
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