Kosovo’s declaration of independence on Sunday has “sparked major diplomatic divisions around the world, and sporadic violence in the Balkans”, says Harry de Quetteville in The Daily Telegraph. Nato peacekeepers rushed to Kosovo’s northern border on Tuesday after a demonstration by more than 1,000 Serbs amid growing fears that the minority Serbs living in the north of the new state would secede.
Kosovo’s two million population comprises 90% ethnic Albanians, with Serbs living mainly in three municipalities, including the northern half of the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica. Though Serbia may have been vilified in the 1990s for wars launched by Slobodan Milosevic, the “aggrieved men in Belgrade’s corridors of power are finding unusual allies”, as the likes of Spain and Sri Lanka oppose Kosovo’s independence, fearing it could encourage separatism in their own countries.
Such fears are groundless, says Kim Bytyci in The Guardian. “If anything, Kosovo’s independence will be a reminder for everyone in Europe that, if they abuse their ethnic communities, they risk losing them.” Kosovo’s independence is “justified, unique and unavoidable”, says Roger Cohen in the International Herald Tribune. Serbia lost its “nationalist gamble” on Kosovo long ago. Milosevic’s revoking of Kosovo’s automony in 1990 was central to his conversion of Yugoslavia to ‘Serboslavia’; “the revolt against his bullying brought independence to former Yugoslav republics from Croatia to Macedonia”.
Serbs will “kick and scream” – they regard Kosovo as the heart of its state since medieval times – but there is no other way. Kosovo is an “anachronistic remnant of a now defunct country”. And whatever the pictures of street celebrations in Kosovo suggest, this declaration of independence is about security, says Bytyci. It is the promise that no “new Milosevic” will one day force them to shut their schools and universities or ban their media. A guarantee that no army will take their possessions, brand them terrorists and drive them from their homes. Far from breaking international laws, it amounts to the “repair of laws that have been broken for two decades… It is a final green light from the international community to restart their lives free from state-controlled order, fear and intimidation.”
The irony is that the last thing Kosovo will be is independent, says John Laughland in The Guardian. It may be sovereign in name, but in practice it is a US-EU protectorate. Kosovo would have had more real independence under the terms offered by Belgrade (negotiations eventually broke down). There are 16,000 Nato troops in Kosovo which even now are being reinforced with an extra 1,000 from Britain. They, not the Kosovo army, are responsible for the province’s security. Kosovo is also home to the vast US military base near Urosevac.
As in Bosnia, billions have been poured into Kosovo to pay for administration but not to improve the lot of ordinary people. Kosovo is a “sump of poverty and corruption”, with no jobs or proper energy supply. The new official government will be controlled by its international patrons, but they will never accept accountability for its failings: a “tragic situation” made possible only because there is a “fatal disconnect in all interventionism between power and responsibility”.