Opinion/Kritike

The unfinished state
Haaretz by Shlomo Avineri

PRISTINA, Kosovo - On my previous visit to Pristina, in 1995, Kosovo was still under Serbian control, and the Albanian population, which is the vast majority in the region, considered itself to be under occupation. I was a member of an international committee that met with the Albanians' leaders, and also with the Serbian governor of the province; when the official spotted the Israeli member of the delegation, he approached me and said: "As you know, for us Kosovo is like Jerusalem." I told him that I knew this was how Serbs felt, but as someone who is prepared to think about dividing Jerusalem, under certain conditions, I was perhaps the wrong person to whom this analogy may appeal.


In the same building where I spoke with the Serbian governor, I met last month with the president of independent Kosovo, Dr. Fatmir Sejdiu, who inherited the place of the Kosovar Albanians' legendary leader, the philosopher Ibrahim Rugova. Like his predecessor, Sejdu belongs to the moderate party, the Democratic League of Kosovo, and likewise has an academic background, although he lacks the charismatic spark that characterized Rugova. As during my earlier visit to Kosovo, the Israeli angle came up again this time around: To date 63 countries have recognized Kosovo's independence, and the question arose as to what is holding up Israel's recognition.

An Israeli visiting Kosovo cannot elude the comparisons, which come from both sides. Memory of the shared struggle against the Nazi Germans unites many Serbs and Jews. But beyond this, Serbs view Kosovo as the cradle of their nation, to which they seek to return. The 1389 Battle of Kosovo, in which the Serbian prince Lazar was defeated by the Turks, formed the centerpiece around which the Serbian national epic was woven in the 19th century.
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On the other hand, if one prefers to deal with current reality rather than distant history, then the relevant point is that ever since Serbia annexed Kosovo in 1912, following its victory in the First Balkan War, Kosovar Albanians have been subjected to various forms of oppression, and have had to contend both with linguistic and cultural discrimination, as well as with an attempt to change the demographic balance in Kosovo in favor of the Serbs. Matters came to a head with the dissolution of Yugoslavia, in the wake of which Slobodan Milosevic turned Kosovo into the tool that helped him rise to power in Serbia.

In 2008, after NATO's intervention, the Serbian army's ouster, and nine years as an international protectorate, Kosovo declared its independence, backed by the United States and most of the European Union's member states. The region's Serb minority, which is partially concentrated in the northern area of Mitrovica, bordering on Serbia, does not accept that declaration of independence. It rejects it even though Kosovo has agreed to have international monitoring on the issue of minority rights, in accordance with the recommendation of a UN committee headed by the former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari.

The Serbian minority boycotted the recent municipal elections in Kosovo, because participation in them was seen as tantamount to recognizing Kosovo's legitimacy as an independent country. The Serbs have the support of their historic ally, Russia, which means that Kosovo cannot at present join the United Nations or other international bodies.

Independent Kosovo's labor pangs are not over yet, and various aspects of this unsettled state of affairs are familiar to an Israeli visitor: the lack of clarity regarding borders, a refugee problem and the United Nation's presence, which means a freeze of the status quo and an inability to resolve the problems.

Because of the disagreement between the United States and most European states, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other, a half dozen or so international organizations still maintain a presence in Kosovo, including the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR), UN agencies and EU organizations. The powers of all these organizations at times overlap, they have no solutions to offer, and their time is devoted to bureaucratic coordination among themselves. KFOR keeps fortified camps throughout the country, and convoys of its units carry out patrols, the purpose of which is not clear.

The failure of the international community stands out particularly in the city of Mitrovica. The Ibar River passing through its center separates its southern part, which belongs to Kosovo in every respect, from its northern part, which is controlled by the local Serbs - and effectively by Belgrade.

Dr. Bajram Rexhepi, a former prime minister of Kosovo and now mayor of Mitrovica, explained the complexity of life in the divided city: There are Albanians who live in the northern part and require protection because they work in the south. Work on infrastructure in the northern part is carried out by the government of Kosovo, but in coordination with the international bodies. The building of every house and the paving of every road thus involve international negotiations, and all development projects encounter red tape and arouse mutual suspicion. Renovation of Albanian buildings in the northern part of the city that were destroyed in the war, for example, is on hold because of Serbian opposition.

The EU recently appointed a special coordinator for Mitrovica: The Serbs see this as recognition of their separatist status, whereas the Albanians complain of capitulation to Serb dictates.

Example for Jerusalem?

Anyone who thinks that a solution with an international dimension might be helpful in Jerusalem should pay a visit to Mitrovica: The slightest argument over a street's route is grounds for an international crisis, and the involvement of rival international agencies creates redundancies in nearly every area. An individual attempting to find out who calls the shots is handed a dizzying list, in acronyms, of various international forces and institutions, whose precise authority cannot be defined by anyone.

This interim situation - independence with ambiguity regarding basic questions such as borders and international standing, alongside dependence on international bodies - is aptly described by Veton Surroi, Kosovo's most brilliant intellectual and statesman. The American-educated Surroi is the owner and editor of the new state's largest newspaper, Koha Ditore, and a former member of parliament, who represented the Kosovar Albanians in negotiations over the province's future. Kosovo has no spokesman more impressive than he, and in an ideal world Surroi would have been prime minister, or at least foreign minister. Today he chairs the Kosovo Foreign Policy Club, and even though he holds no official position, he is sought out by ambassadors, journalists and visitors who want to understand what's going on.

According to Surroi, until the status of Kosovo is stabilized, there can be no stability throughout the region. Because its permanent borders have yet to be finalized and general international recognition has not been secured, Kosovo remains "an unfinished state." But the same goes for Serbia, whose borders have not been finalized, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is far from having achieved peace and stability, as well as Macedonia, whose relations with Greece remain tense (because of Greek opposition to the country's name), and where agitation is still rife among the Albanian minority. Therefore, in Surroi's opinion, only accession to the EU of all the countries that arose on the ruins of Yugoslavia will bring stability to the region.

Culture of dependency

In the meantime, though, Kosovo is having a tough time emancipating itself from a culture of dependence on international bodies, and in particular on the United States, which paved the way for its independence. Kosovo's leaders still believe that the U.S., or the international community, will solve their problems. Economic development has also suffered, because Kosovo is not a member of many international organizations (for example, it does not have an international telephone code, and its sports teams have trouble competing abroad because of a Russian-backed Serbian veto).

Not all these problems can be resolved immediately, but the culture of dependency doesn't do Kosovo any good. Focus on the country's international standing also diverts attention from domestic problems: economic stagnation, public corruption on a frightening scale, apathy toward the political process (voter turnout in elections is steadily dropping).

I heard things of this sort not only from Surroi, over dinner at a small, superb restaurant tucked away in a hidden courtyard just a few steps from Pristina's busy main thouroughfare, but also following a lecture that I delivered at the Foreign Policy Club. There the matter of Israel's non-recognition of Kosovo was brought up repeatedly. I explained the domestic and foreign contexts, but the puzzlement remained. During a television interview, I was asked why Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had said during an October visit to Belgrade that talks on Kosovo's future status should be reopened, whereas the matter had been decided already. Why is Israel siding with the Russian position instead of that taken by the Americans and Europeans?

Without publicly disagreeing in Pristina with Israel's foreign minister, I gingerly replied that I, too, did not understand Lieberman's position.

Meanwhile, several Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, have recognized Kosovo, and Kosovo's deputy foreign minister is preparing to visit Kuwait shortly, to hold talks about investments. However, it is difficult to see what considerations are guiding Israel's policy and keeping it from establishing normal ties with a country that may be small, but has a Muslim population that is actually favorably inclined toward Israel.

Pristina is a sleepy town, on the one hand, and a dynamic capital, on the other, noisy and a bit chaotic. Its narrow streets are packed with new cars, and high-rises and shopping malls crop up on every corner, alongside old buildings in danger of collapse. Hundreds of thousands of members of the Kosovar diaspora - mainly in Germany and Switzerland - are pumping in money to finance this construction spree, which is sometimes marked by bombastic and ugly architecture.

But so far, independent Kosovo has not managed to channel this diaspora power, which during the heroic period of the fight for independence provided financial aid and political support, into organized assistance that benefits overall national economic development. In this regard as well there is a desire to learn from Israel and from its ability to enlist world Jewry, although the history and social makeup of the Kosovar diaspora - which includes mostly poor migrant laborers - are both very different from those of the Jewish Diaspora.

Is unification of Kosovo with Albania possible? The answer for now is "no." Kosovars see themselves as more advanced and educated than Albania's citizens. But should Kosovo's ambition for international recognition continue to run into problems, and should its economic development suffer as a result, the balance could tip the other way. Paradoxically, the Serbs, who fear a "Greater Albania," are the ones who should be rooting for independent Kosovo to succeed as a distinct state, but in conflicts like this, it is not always rational interest that has the upper hand.