What a surprise...

It is clearly noticeable that some contributors on this blog feel disappointed by what happened in Serbia today. I am honestly surprised by their reactions considering how deeply the Serbian society is divided on fundamental socio-political issues which date back long before Milosevic came to power. This partition on backward nationalists elements on one side and democratic oriented citizens on the other was further magnified during the last 20 years of political turbulence in the Balkans.

I believe such actions were actually secretly celebrated by those parties who recently lost elections in Serbia. Their argument is that aggression against Western companies and embassies will entail a sharp response from abroad which would further alienate the people in Serbia from the West. In addition, Kosovo’s crisis, evocation of the Kosovo's mythology, and calls for national unity are actually going to serve the purpose of diverting attention from more important domestic issues such as war crimes, economic issues, and origins of “dirty money” for a period to come.

On the other hand, there is an obvious responsibility of the West for the situation in Serbia. The ultimate questions that most of the Serbs would ask their counterparts in the West are: "How would you feel if 15% of your territory is forceably taken away from your country by breaking the international law (U.N. resolution 1244)? How would you feel if your country is bombed for three months because of the so-called humanitarian crisis? How would you feel if every nationality except yours has rights to self-determination?"

Additionally, the E.U., represented by the E.U. High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Mr. Javier Solana, actually put pressure on the Democratic Party to accept Mr. Vojislav Kostunica as the prime minister of Serbia even though he got only 13% of votes on the last parliamentary elections held last year in Serbia. This move kept the common and secret police under the control of nationalists. Moreover, due to a strong U.S. pro-Albanian stand, the so-called talks between the Kosovo and the Serbian leaders were condemned even before they started. Not to mention the U.S. claim of Mr. Milosevic as a "factor of stability and the main peacekeeper in the Balkans" in the mid-1990's as well as the role of the former U.S. ambassador in Serbia, Mr. William Montgomery, in defaming the reputation of the former pro-liberal prime minister of Serbia Mr. Zoran Djindjic.

Finally, I would like to address to Americans who found themselves hurt by seeing the pictures of the U.S. embassy on fire. At the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States ambassador, said he was “outraged” by the attack on the Embassy and would be seeking a unanimous statement today from the 15-member Security Council condemning it. “The government of Serbia has the responsibility under international law to protect diplomatic facilities, particularly embassies.” Now, I would like to quote my friend’s response, a graduate student of the New School at New York, Mr. Rados Piletich to Mr. Khalilzad’s demand. “Responsibility under international law, huh? Like the kind of responsibility when we invaded Iraq without UN Security Council approval? Or maybe the kind of responsibility we took when we decided not to pay Nicaragua one penny of the $17 billion in reparations that the International Court of Justice ordered it to pay for arming, training, and supporting the Contras, and mining the coast off of Nicaragua to prevent international trade? Or, perhaps the same kind of responsibility exhibited by the country that bombed Cambodia from 1969 to 1973, leading to the deaths of scores of thousands of civilians in that country, and preparing the way for the genocidal Khmer Rouge?
Mirror, mirror, on the wall... eyes wide shut."

The Pitiable Serbs

Such an outrageous display of virulent nationalism as we have seen today makes me ashamed for every time I defended the Serbs going all the way back 1991. While I have been careful to balance my position on Kosovo’s independence over the past week, I can no longer hold my tongue. The Serbs who have attacked the US embassy in Belgrade are manifesting a form of nationalism which I can only describe as pitiable.

This once proud nation has fallen behind the curve of history. Such chest-thumping nationalism in the Europe of Regions smacks of medieval backwardness. Let the Kosovars and their lignite mines go. Serbia has other more precious resources to protect. Why preserve the Field of Kosovo? To remember the loss to the Turk? Again, such backward-looking nationalism not befitting the once and future great power of the Balkans.

Why do the Serbs blame America for their loss of Kosovo? Thousands of cascading decisions led the country to this point—no small number of which were made in Belgrade, Brussels, London, and Berlin. Burning the US embassy will do nothing to reverse that long trend line.

I take back my defense of Serbia as more ready to join the EU than Croatia. I take back my defense of Serbia as the victim of a neo-liberal war of attrition in the 1990s. I take back my defense of Serbia as a misunderstood and wronged nation. Those rioters have made it clear that we in the West have often understood Serbia and sometimes Serbia is simply wrong.

Kosovo's case - consequences and implications

In a recent visit to Albania, President Bush received a much needed warm welcome by local officials, as well as by the local population. The reason was very simple: in contradiction with international law, Mr. Bush promised Albanians that Kosovo would be recognized as an independent country in a reasonable time period, thus rewarding the region that has the highest level of the organized crime in Europe. He looked very satisfied knowing that there exists a single European nation that actually likes him.

On the other side, the Russian president Vladimir Putin is very satisfied that the current political situation in Serbia corresponds to Russian interests in that part of Europe. Not long ago, the current prime minister of Serbia Vojislav Kostunica declared himself a big follower of the Western ideas in politics. Unfortunately, he did not take into account that he would sacrifice most of his former principles just to stay in power. From making a political union with former Milosevic and Arkan allies to the recent change of the party's status (Democratic Party of Serbia, not to be confused with Democratic Party in Serbia) which explicitly says that the party is against joining the NATO alliance in the future.

Taking into account the strongly entrenched views between the U.S. and Kosovo on one side and the Russian Federation and Serbia on the other, it seams that the (unified?) view of the European Union will have a decisive impact on the future solution of the breakaway region. But again, will it be there a unified EU view regarding Kosovo's future status? It is hard to confirm, particularly since there are many regions in Europe that have similar problems (including a recent widening chasm of distrust between Belgium's two main language communities). The long-run worst case scenario would be a possible recognition of Kosovo's independence without the resolution of the U.N. Security Council, which is unfortunately the most likely scenario considering the current situation.

What impact will it have on world politics? Will other problematic regions in the world take Kosovo's case as a prime example for their ultimate political goals (just to mention the cases of Abhkazia and Taiwan)? I would not be able to give a conclusive answer right now because there is, I believe, currently none.

In the case of the Balkan peninsula, there would be a long term animosity, not only between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia, but also between Bosnia (why the Republic of Srpska should not have the same rights as Kosovo?) and Serbia; not to mention a most likely scenario of Serb's rebellion in the northern part of Kosovo (where Serbs make up the majority of the population) against a unilateral declaration of Kosovo's independence. Depending on the general political relations between the Russian Federation and the U.S., Serbia actually might go more quickly into political and economic reforms than it would otherwise do with the region that is economically underdeveloped and has two million insubordinate people.

Yet, by accepting this fact, Serbia would have to give up its highly valued national pride which plays a huge role among the majority of Serbs.