TIME EUROPE
MARCH 6, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 9
VIEWPOINT
Sticks and Carrots
Post-Soviet trauma is to blame for the soaring number of Russians in a sad state of mental health
By MICHAEL IGNATIEFF
"Kosovo has become a quagmire," a weary french military officer was heard to remark last week. "Nobody has a solution." There are solutions, but they require NATO and the West to face up to the real issues. Should Kosovo be partitioned? Should it become independent? Or should it remain a Western protectorate forever?
Partition is the solution being imposed right now by the remaining Kosovar Serbs in Mitrovica and the region next to the Serbian border. This is where the mineral wealth of the province is concentrated and where most of the Serbs in Kosovo have fled since NATO troops entered in June 1999.
What's wrong with partition? Members of the Serbian minority have just as much right to remain in Kosovo as the Albanian majority. Just because the Serbian leadership brutalized Albanians, innocent Serbs shouldn't be driven from their homeland. But so long as the bitterness of the Albanians remains, the Serbs can only remain in Kosovo under NATO guard. Keeping the two sides apart as NATO is doing in Mitrovica should not slide into permanent partition, giving Serbia effective jurisdiction there. NATO didn't fight a war to reward Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic with a portion of the province. Serbian leaders in northern Kosovo have to be given an ultimatum: either cooperate with NATO and with responsible Kosovar Albanian leaders in new institutions, or head north to Serbia.
If not partition, then what about independence? After what has happened, it is unrealistic to think that Kosovo can remain within Yugoslavia or that it could ever become an autonomous region in a post-Milosevic Serbia. No Kosovar will ever be willing to pay taxes to Belgrade, serve in the Yugoslav military or carry a Yugoslav passport.
The U.S. and its allies did not go to war for the sake of Albanian independence, and even now they do not want to reward the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army with independent statehood. But after what has happened, the only possible long-term solution is that Kosovo becomes self-governing. Its people need elections to choose their own leaders and begin to create institutions to bring order out of chaos.
But self-government is not the same as independence. Full independence now would empty Kosovo of its Serbian and Roma populations. Giving statehood to a province without courts, police or even the most rudimentary institutions of government would precipitate even more anarchy.
Besides, an independent Kosovo is neither economically nor politically viable without substantial investment from the Kosovars living abroad. It would be tempted to solve its economic and political problems by seeking to unite with neighboring Albania--which would terrify Greece--and with the Albanian parts of Macedonia, which might trigger a civil war between Albanians and Macedonians.
Having fought a war to return Kosovars to their homes, the U.S. and its NATO allies have the right to set tough conditions for Kosovar self-government. The first condition should be: no Greater Albania. The second: self-government and minority-rights guarantees for the remaining Serbs.
If Kosovar self-government is the objective, then the current Western protectorate should start heading for the exit. The U.N. has failed to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of all institutions. Into the vacuum have poured the Mafia, vendettas and revenge. There have never been enough soldiers and policemen to stop the killings. The hard truth is that Western governments have neither the interest nor the commitment for an open-ended protectorate in Kosovo. This makes it all the more important that they prepare the province for self-rule and get out.
To regain the initiative, NATO and the West need to brandish some sticks and dangle some carrots. The stick is the threat of NATO withdrawal. Albanians need to understand that if they don't stop killing their Serb neighbors and start creating shared institutions, NATO will simply pull out and leave them to defend their own border against the Serbs. The carrot is access to the European Community. Eventually, the whole Balkan region, including Serbia, will have to get access to Europe's product markets, then to her labor markets and finally, in 15 years perhaps, full membership.
This is a huge undertaking, and it scares the daylights out of many Europeans. The Italians are already overburdened with illegal Albanian immigration. Yet the fact is that the prostrate Balkan economies are already being kept afloat by the money their legal and illegal migrants send home from their jobs in the rich Western economies. The Balkan peoples are entering Europe by the back door. It's smarter to offer entry through the front door in return for good behavior. Once inside as members in good standing, the rules for being a good European, as Jörg Haider of Austria is discovering, are clear: discard your hatreds at the door if you want to join the rich man's club. The Balkan nightmare will end only when its people are inside the European house.
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