An inescapable and historical law. Perhaps it's not diplomatic to say openly at this time but it is necessary: in the long term, the Kosovo affair can only be concluded by sovereignty for the territory. Why? Because experience has taught us that in this kind of case, the hypothesis of an armed re-conquest is out of the question and the conclusion inevitable: that the people living in this disputed territory have the last word. We'll go through some formulas for transition, guarantees will be introduced on behalf of the minority that remains there but the definitive solution is already in the offing - because the Albanian population in Kosovo is not just slightly more numerous, it is overwhelmingly so.
Before giving my view on this dossier, I did my best to buff up on the subject. Everything that I read explained why the Serbs have so much difficulty in agreeing to the issue in question. They believe that Kosovo has never been a field of conquest: it was even the cradle of their civilisation. Whoever is interested, should go to a bookshop or library and try and find the book, “The Significance of Kosovo in the History of the Serbian People” (a major book published by “L'âge d'homme”) by Slobodan Despot, a Swiss writer and intellectual of Serbian Origin. In it we find out about monasteries, churches and other orthodox religious buildings, “One thousand three hundred monuments that have been preserved or are in ruins, confer this region (which is as large as two French departments) with the highest density of saints in the Christian world”. The Serbian population was partly expelled from this territory when it was occupied by the fascists and Mussolini re-annexed Kosovo to Albania. Later, Tito prevented the majority of Serbs returning because he wanted a certain equilibrium between the different nations making up the Federation to be respected. After Tito, the Serbs made the mistake of seeking to reconquer their former lands by force, at a moment when the epoch of invasions was finished - NATO intervention and bombs. Today demography is the decisive factor: there are only around 100,000 Serbs, weakened and demoralised facing 2 million Kosovans of Albanian descent. The currency is no longer the Serbian Dinar but the Euro or dollar. Legally it is still a Serbian province but in practice Kosovo has several characteristics of a state.
Transition and conditions. The Serbians believe that a religious and historic link still exists. But they will only be able to obtain a gradual approach in a gradualist process of abandonment and guarantees (we hope) for the historic monuments. The report by the international commission on the Balkans, chaired by Giuliano Amato (vice president of the Convention that drafted the EU constitutional treaty)) underlined that the relative stability of the zone was exclusively due to the military presence of NATO and the EU, as well as their economic support.
Mr Amato will put forward a stage-by-stage procedure that leads to a kind of “shared sovereignty” within the EU, based on the usual conditions required for accession: rule of law, democracy, freedom, respect for minorities etc. I don't get the impression that the question of this draft will figure largely in the negotiations that opened last week in Vienna. Since the Amato report was submitted attacks took place on Christian monasteries (March 2005), which provoked a lot of emotions and which were described as “cultural genocide”. Kosovars burned or destroyed monasteries that were seven or eight centuries old and which had been respected in the centuries of the Ottoman invasion and occupation. A certain artificial calm was re-established, thanks, mainly, to the prestige, desire for peace and other unanimously recognised qualities of Ibrahim Rugova, partisan of non-violence and who, unfortunately, passed away at the age of 61. His replacement made a commitment to continue in this direction and appears to follow the same peaceful objectives. It is therefore possible that there is a softly-softly legal transformation that is unaccompanied by tragedy or victims. The new power, however, has clearly indicated that the conclusions can be nothing less than independence and in the long term, it is right.
According to the French writer Patrick Besson, Kosovo, for the Serbians represents what the Charters of Saint Denis represent to the French (“cradle of their saints and their kings”). But the current inexorable reality is that the modes of transition and its conditions have to be respected but a territory will always belong to those who inhabit it. This is a general and sometimes painful rule that is in some cases difficult to accept but which can never be forgotten in many others scenarios as well as Kosovo, if infinite tragedies and conflicts are to be avoided.
(F.R.)