Serbia Calling For Partitioning Of Kosovo

March 27 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Serbia’s foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, has announced plans to demand a partitioning of Kosovo along ethnic lines. Why such a request should not be granted is beyond me; if Albanians in Kosovo feel that they need to be independent for fear of another nation, then the situation should be no different for the Serbs now trapped on the wrong side of yet another unilaterally staked border. In fact, the declaration of an independent Kosovo with the old Tito-drawn borders in tact is just another sign that international supporters of Kosovo have not learned anything from the wars that ravaged the Balkans in the 1990s.

Although many Western countries are eager to prevent atrocities, particularly given the legacy of the Second World War, there is a dangerous precipitousness that is common in our approaches to intervention. This is not to say that we should sit around and wait. Indeed, following a newly reunified Germany’s initial support of Croatian and Slovenian independence much of the world did just that and the horrors of what followed continue to scar the Balkans today. I would argue, however, that it was that readiness to take sides with no real strategic insight into the consequences of such partiality that led to the conflicts being as horrible as they were.

The Western world on one hand seems to recognize its own global importance and on the other fails to tread lightly as the giant that it is. Impulsively we react to some claims of human rights abuses, not bothering to consider the validity of those charges (Kosovo); while other allegations are ignored until the fruition of those threats is unbearably manifested (Rwanda). We have no real formulated approach, no objective method for conflict intervention; as a result, we have failed miserably, time and time again. When we realize that blood is on our hands we quietly wash it away under the guise of history or permanently ingrained ethnic tensions that we could not have done anything about. The question is, if history plays such a big part in these conflicts why wasn’t it thoroughly analysed from the outset? If we are so well-educated and -informed there is no excuse for not having acted from our initial involvement in a more rational, objective fashion.

An independent Kosovo with old provincial borders in tact is just another example of our irrational approach to conflict intervention. Having studied the history and travelled in the region it is quite apparent to me: should those Serbs be left in Kosovo more strife will follow. Be wary of those who have been presented the status of victim; they so very often soon become the oppressor. If the West is truly interested in peace in the Balkans this is one request that they cannot deny Serbia.

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