Le Monde diplomatique
-----------------------------------------------------
July 1999
BUILDING PEACE IN THE BALKANS
The protectorate, a way to dominate
_________________________________________________________________
Just as they did in Bosnia after the Dayton Agreements, the Western
powers are getting ready to place Kosovo under their guardianship,
with the declared aim of restoring peace and democracy. Yet the
protectorate, a modern form of colonialism, risks putting a seal of
approval on the ethnic partitioning of the province.
by ANDEJA ZIVKOVIC
_________________________________________________________________
A spectre is now haunting the world community, one that many believed
was a thing of the past: the return of the empire. Taking its
legitimacy from the implosion of former Yugoslavia and the civil war
in Somalia, the idea of the protectorate has invaded diplomatic
thinking in the West. In the minds of Western leaders, the situation
in Kosovo today has even made it a cure-all.
The policy of the protectorate follows on naturally from the approach
taken by international bodies in the post-cold war world. They see it
as a way of satisfying their need to rebuild democratic institutions,
as well as their wish to be in charge (1). One hears it said, echoing
the paternalism of colonial days, that in states still untouched by
Western liberalism, long-tern international intervention is the only
road to peace and security. This argument was used to justify the
"humanitarian war" waged by Nato to defend the rights of the Albanians
who live in Kosovo. Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, has stressed
the point: "There is emerging international law that countries cannot
hide behind sovereignty and abuse people without expecting the rest of
the world to do something about it"(2).
Yet taking the outcome in Bosnia alone, the most recent of the
protectorates set up by the West after the Dayton accords of November
1995, we see that where peace and democracy are concerned things do
not always work out as they are meant to. Officially the Dayton goal
was to restore an autonomous government in Bosnia, based on national
reconciliation. Account had to be taken of how one or other entity in
Bosnia has dominated the other, and of the inclination of both sides
towards "cleansing". As this exercise in realpolitik aimed at
"stability in the region" progressed, Nato's mandate was extended well
beyond its purely military mission.
Starting from a redistribution of territory, Nato had to take on the
role of a peace-keeping force for which it had not necessarily been
prepared. A high-ranking UN representative, wielding full powers even
though unelected, was able to settle civil conflicts and quarrels, as
he could override judgements by representatives of the Bosnian people
and could even dismiss them (3). With international supervision like
this, elections in Bosnia are no more than high-grade opinion polls
(4).
It comes as no surprise, then, that four years on from Dayton little
progress has been made in either overcoming ethnic divisions or
achieving national reconciliation. Voting along purely ethnic lines is
still the rule, and only a minority of the 2.1 million refugees who
fled because of the war have returned to their homes. The result is a
neocolonial-style protectorate governing a Bosnia weakened at every
institutional, political, administrative and legal level, and whose
affairs are now run by international organisations - from Nato to the
IMF - acting without any real democratic mandate.
In spite of a hotchpotch of powers like this, the international
"protectorate" is unable to do much more than bridge a widening gap
between the Bosnian people and its own institutions. The indefinite
extension in December 1997 of the mandate given to the international
community confirms the impasse in which the idea of a protectorate now
finds itself.
The contradictions in Western policy in the Balkans have now shifted
to Kosovo, where Milosevic at first had free rein to treat the problem
as a Yugoslavian "internal matter" until it became plain that his
campaign in the province was a means of staying in power. The
Rambouillet text of February 1999 was presented to him as a way of
keeping Kosovo an integral part of Yugoslav territory, while shielding
the fate of this province from the diktats of his regime.
In order to avoid a self-appointed Albanian government impeding the
settlement of a local dispute - for instance by proclaiming an
independence that would open the way to a Greater Albania - there was
once again recourse to calling for an international protectorate. This
would mean, if one follows the Dayton logic, that real power in the
region would stay in Nato hands - a situation Milosevic would be
unable to accept, no matter what concessions he made following the
Nato bombing and the Rambouillet negotiations. For Nato at the moment
there is also a consideration that goes beyond its territorial
commitments - the simple fact that it is celebrating its 50th
birthday.
Any protectorate placed under the sovereignty of an independent state
and at the same time cut off from that state by the actions of
external forces has always been bound to create more than merely an
autonomous province - possibly an independent state, though one bereft
of sovereign attributes. Anything that may have been said at
Rambouillet has now been undermined by Milosevic's policies, which
have brought about the flight of at least two million people who have
become wide-scattered refugees. United States Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright admits that it will be "difficult" to envisage
Serbs and Albanians living together again in Kosovo, while conceding
the need to maintain, for Serbs just as much as for Kosovars, access
to their holy places. In other words, an international protectorate
will once again have the task of supervising ethnic segregation of the
communities in Kosovo, and in doing so will be rubber-stamping the
ethnic cleansing that Milosevic sought.
It is a safe bet that the Kosovo agenda is going to include a second
Dayton meeting, which will mean a partition along ethnic lines, quite
independent of the actions or effects of a UN protectorate.
At the time of writing, diplomatic activity seems to be heading
towards partition (6). Whatever the arrangements in the final
agreement are, it is certain that hundreds of thousands of refugees
will not go back to their homes in a compartmentalised Kosovo. The
Serb minority is likely to continue its exodus from the province.
Corralled in areas defined on ethnic criteria, Serbs and Albanians
will end up once again facing one another - grist to the mill of
nationalists in both camps, and leading inevitably to the breakdown of
national institutions whose unity only international pressure can try
to preserve. What is more, political instability in a fragmented
Serbia could well provide the excuse for extending this cordon
sanitaire within Yugoslavia.
Kosovo will, in the words of Peter Galbraith, former US ambassador to
Croatia, be "a de facto independent state", though without real
independence or a real autonomous government. While the Western
coalition is preparing in practice to separate Kosovo from the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, it will remain resolutely opposed to true
independence for the province for fear of opening up a Pandora's box.
One can therefore expect there to be clashes before long between an
armed Albanian nationalist movement and the colonial authorities. At
stake will be partition, the nature of an autonomous government, and
ultimately the future of Kosovo. So it is easy to see why the
protectorate will, just as in Bosnia, be extended indefinitely to
prevent any further disintegration of the status quo in the region.
And as a consequence it will become an obstacle to democratic
settlement of the problem of nationality in the Balkans.
Rules, and applying them
Where reconstruction proper is concerned, one has only to turn to the
texts discussed at Rambouillet. Chapter 4a of article 1 specifies that
the economy of Kosovo is to operate in accordance with market
principles. Once again Dayton supplies the rule and says how it is to
be applied (7). Supervised by a governor appointed by the
International Monetary Fund who does not know the region, the Bosnian
central bank has been able to play only a secondary role since it has
not been allowed to create the currency needed to finance credit. The
state is authorised to share in the reconstruction only if it
contracts with the international financial institutions a substantial
debt that will ensure their domination of Bosnia in the future. Thus
Kosovo, like Bosnia, finds itself in the same situation as many a
developing country.
The European Union, now that it has upset the stability of the region
and caused massive dislocation of the economy, is talking - somewhat
hypocritically - about full-speed-ahead reconstruction of democracy,
security and prosperity in the Balkans. The "stability pact"
established under its aegis speaks of integration via a new kind of
contractual relationship (8). In other words, the EU is staying in the
wings. Only Albania and Macedonia have been offered stabilisation and
association agreements - though these fall apart when one looks at the
European agreements signed by the countries of central Europe.
We cannot talk about a new Marshall plan. This is more a hierarchical
grouping of states decided on by the EU, where countries find greater
or lesser favour depending on how they align themselves with Western
economic and security interests. Rebel states, like Milosevic's
Yugoslavia, will be left out of this new deal. The pact is basically
designed to introduce market mechanisms wherever possible, and it is a
fair bet that many of the Balkan states are going to find this kind of
reconstruction just as painful as the war.
The war will certainly help Nato reposition itself, and indeed rearm
itself for the 21st century. It will have brought the Yugoslav
republic to its knees, sown the seeds of future regional conflicts,
and opened up for the colonial governments that will be succeeding
each other in Kosovo a future that can be counted in decades. The
Trojan horse of a fake Marshall plan fits in with Western interests.
The only outcome will be nationalist backlashes, and in the long run
democracy and peace will have been sacrificed on the altar of
"humanitarian intervention". As Tacitus put it, "They made a
wilderness and call it peace".
(1) See David Chandler: Faking Democracy after Dayton, Pluto Press,
London, 1999
(2) Quoted in the Financial Times, London, 26 May 1999.
(3) This power to dismiss properly-elected persons was illustrated in
March 1999 when the UN representative Carlos Westendorp evicted the
republic's president, Nicola Poplasen, because the latter had himself
sacked the prime minister, Milorad Dodik.
(4) David Chandler, op. cit.
(5) See Peter Gowan, "The Nato Power and the Balkan Tragedy", New Left
Review No 234, March-April 1999, pp. 83-105
(6) See Guy Dinmore, "Belgrade may still secure a better deal",
Financial Times, 5 June 1999.
(7) The European Commission has put the cost of reconstruction in
Kosovo at between $2-3_ m dollars. See Charles Pretzlik, "UK plans
company task force", Financial Times, 5 June 1999.
(8) According to an Agence France Presse despatch of 27 May 1999, this
pact would involve no less than bringing together Albania, Bosnia,
Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Slovenia,
Turkey, the US, Nato and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation
in Europe as international donors.
Translated by Derry Cook-Radmore
<http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/1999/07/?c=04balk>