Kosovo and Serbia: Contested Options and Shared Consequences

By Branislav Radeljic

Azan on the Moon is an in-depth anthropological study of people's lives along the Pamir Highway in eastern Tajikistan. Constructed in the 1930s in rugged high-altitude terrain, the road fundamentally altered the material and social fabric of this former Soviet outpost on the border with Afghanistan and China. The highway initially brought sentiments of disconnection and hardship, followed by Soviet modernization and development, and ultimately a sense of distinction from bordering countries and urban centers that continues to this day. Based on extensive fieldwork and through an analysis of construction, mobility, technology, media, development, Islam, and the state, Till Mostowlansky shows how ideas of modernity are both challenged and reinforced in contemporary Tajikistan. In the wake of China's rise in Central Asia, people along the Pamir Highway strive to reconcile a modern future with a modern past. Weaving together the road, a population, and a region, Azan on the Moon presents a rich ethnography of global connections

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Release date: Jun 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9780822981572

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KOSOVO AND SERBIA

CONTESTED OPTIONS AND SHARED CONSEQUENCES

Edited by Leandrit I. Mehmeti and Branislav Radeljić

University of Pittsburgh Press

Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260

Copyright © 2016, University of Pittsburgh Press

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Printed on acid-free paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mehmeti, Leandrit I., editor. | Radeljić, Branislav, editor.

Title: Kosovo and Serbia: Contested Options and Shared Consequences / Leandrit I. Mehmeti and Branislav Radeljić, editors.

Description: Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016. | Series: Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016054043| ISBN 9780822944690 (hardcover) | ISBN 0822944693

Subjects: LCSH: Kosovo (Republic)—Ethnic relations. | Albanians—Kosovo (Republic)—History. | Serbs—Kosovo (Republic) —History.

Classification: LCC DR2080 .K667 2016 | DDC 949.7103/2—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016054043

Cover photo by Karrota is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Cover design by Melissa Dias-Mandoly

ISBN-13: 978-0-8229-8157-2 (electronic)

CONTENTS

Foreword

Andrea Lorenzo Capussela

Acknowledgments

Acronyms

List of Municipalities

INTRODUCTION

Leandrit I. Mehmeti and Branislav Radeljić

1. KOSOVO: A CASE STUDY IN THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF COMMUNIST NATIONALITY POLICY, 1968–1986

Veljko Vujačić

2. SETTLING THE SELF-DETERMINATION DISPUTE IN KOSOVO

Arben Qirezi

3. KOSOVO IN THE OFFICIAL RHETORIC OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AND RUSSIA

Branislav Radeljić

4. GOVERNANCE CHALLENGES TO INTERETHNIC RELATIONS IN KOSOVO

Ilire Agimi

5. SERBIAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE KOSOVO QUESTION

Dušan Spasojević

6. THE CAPACITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE EULEX MISSION IN KOSOVO

Mina Zirojević

7. THE ROLE OF MINORITIES IN THE SERBO-ALBANIAN POLITICAL QUAGMIRE

Gent Cakaj and Gëzim Krasniqi

8. MINORITY RETURNS TO KOSOVO: MIGRATION POLICIES, PRACTICES, AND THEORY

Tanja Pavlov

9. ECONOMIC COOPERATION AS A WAY TOWARD RECONCILIATION AND EU INTEGRATION FOR KOSOVO AND SERBIA

Gazmend Qorraj

10. PERSPECTIVES OF THE NORMALIZATION OF RELATIONS BETWEEN KOSOVO AND SERBIA

Leandrit I. Mehmeti

Notes

Contributors

Index

FOREWORD

Andrea Lorenzo Capussela

If one considers the crisis of Kosovo from some distance, one can hardly avoid being struck by its disproportion. For the influence that the crisis, and the international response to it, has had on the recent history of Europe, the evolution of international relations, the practice of state-building, and the emergence of a European common foreign policy bear little relation to the size, importance, or any other intrinsic characteristic of the land that was its occasion.

Mirrorlike, the literature on the Kosovo crisis is concerned less with the roots and nature of the political conflict that gave rise to it, which are often taken as given, than with the external intervention in the crisis, and its causes, justifications, consequences, and legacy. The introduction to this book notes this bias, and I would add that neglecting that political conflict has assisted neither the interpretation of the crisis nor, arguably, the attempts to revolve it.

This volume is an important contribution to the literature on the Kosovo crisis because the essays it collects offer an insightful and balanced analysis of the origin and the features of the political conflict concerning the territory of Kosovo. The discussion is always linked to the broader issues mentioned above and the main studies devoted to them, allowing the reader to reconstruct a fuller, more nuanced, and also more colorful picture of this important episode.

The introduction provides an excellent overview of this volume, to which I cannot usefully add. Rather, I shall try to offer some reflections on the role played by the international community in the resolution of the political conflict that this volume analyzes. I hope this may assist the reader in linking the perspectives taken by the essays collected here, focused on the competing claims over the territory of Kosovo, and that taken by much of the existing literature.

Before I begin, however, I would like to underline a rare merit of this book. Both international response to the Kosovo crisis and its conclusion have provoked intense and heated political controversies: not even the scientific literature has always succeeded in maintaining the necessary distance from them, and among the many studies that discuss the political conflict over Kosovo that I have read, few can be defined as genuinely balanced. This volume stands out, from this viewpoint: because each essay is balanced, and because the conversation among them equally achieves balance. The table of contents, which alternates essays by Albanian-language researchers with essays by Serbian-language researchers, well reflects this quality of the book.

In 2011 two dramatists, a Kosovo Albanian and a Serb, wrote a play that weaves together the thoughts of ordinary citizens from Kosovo, Serbs and Albanians. Near the end of the play, one of their characters—identified as Serb from Kosovo, 42 years old—says that

Kosovo is a stage. A stage for the little Serb and his partner, the little Albanian. It is certain that the audience will eventually get bored with the show. When the show is over and the curtain falls, that little Serb and little Albanian will have to raise their heads. They will have to look each other in the face and ask themselves: why did we have to do this? Then and only then will the true dialogue between Belgrade and Priština begin. When we realize that, as two small nations who reside here, we will have to look at each other and admit to one another that we should not have demolished churches and mosques, raped our neighbors’ daughters. . . . Why did we have to do this to each other? Where did we get the idea that an American or a Dutchman will be interested in an argument between Jusuf and Živorad? Or between Milorad and Agim? They will all go away. The Americans and the Dutch will complete their mission, but little Agim and little Milorad will have to stay here. At some point little Milorad will have to drink a cup of coffee with someone. That coffee will have a bitter taste, and the awakening will be a rude one.¹

This passage came back to my mind while reading the essays collected here: the Americans and the Dutch will all go away, whereas little Agim and little Milorad will have to stay here and, sooner or later, will have to drink a coffee together.

The American and the Dutch will all go away because they generally stay in Kosovo for one, two, or three years. And they often know, or learn, rather little about [w]hy did [Agim and Milorad] have to do this to each other (just as I did, in all honesty). Their job, however, was, and still is, to assist Kosovo in creating the conditions for peaceful and productive political, economic, and social exchange, after a long period of repression, conflict, and economic deprivation. This is the stuff of founders of new states, resistance leaders, visionary reformers. Yet the Americans and the Dutch did not receive this mandate from the citizens of Kosovo and are not accountable to them: everything leads them to treat this mandate as one step in their ordinary careers as civil servants, aid workers, peacekeepers, which is a far cry from the approach of a visionary reformer or the founder of a new state.

This striking dissonance between the nature of the mandate and the approach to it is inevitable, however, as it is the direct implication of the external intervention. Yet it cannot be denied that it poses serious risks, for the Americans and the Dutch lack not only direct knowledge but also the necessary incentives to perform their job as its nature requires.

These incentives, of course, can be built into the mandates they receive from the governments or organizations that assigned them to Kosovo. But such incentives too are only as strong as the political interests of those governments or organizations. And I would argue that their interest in the creation of a well-governed polity in Kosovo may not be strong enough to sustain the necessary incentives.

Furthermore, the Americans and the Dutch will all go away because the international intervention is necessarily, and rightly, transient. International organizations and Western governments intend to go away from Kosovo, and one day will declare themselves satisfied and leave. Indeed, some, like the International Civilian Office, have already left. But when will they declare themselves satisfied with what they did there? What objectives, in other words, do they still pursue?

The disproportion to which I alluded at the outset suggests an answer to this question. The powers that chose to intervene in the crisis of Kosovo used it as an opportunity to pursue objectives that are linked to political interests, which far exceed the confines of Kosovo or the Balkans. This, and the far-reaching consequences of their intervention, explains as well the frequent neglect by the literature of the roots of the Kosovo crisis: that political conflict for control over a rather small piece of land was merely the occasion for the implementation of policies that belonged to a much larger game, which concerned the revision of the norms that organize international relations.

The broader interests of the intervening powers are not the only reason that dictated their choices, and especially those of the main Western capitals, whose concern for the human and political rights of the population of Kosovo was certainly genuine. But there is little doubt that in 1999 and, to a lesser degree, also in 2008, Western capitals, and especially Washington, viewed the crisis of Kosovo as a suitable justification for taking actions, and establishing precedents, whose long-term aim was to revise, if not rewrite, some cardinal norms of international relations, seeking to adjust them to the balance of power that had emerged after the end of the Cold War. Indeed, the objective effect of both the 1999 military intervention and Western support for Kosovo’s secession from Serbia—as well as for the termination of the transitional UN protectorate, which was the unsung casualty of the declaration of independence—was to challenge the prohibition of the use of force, undermine the authority of the Security Council, and weaken the principle of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. The result was diminishing the capacity of international law to constrain the actions of the main powers.

Russia, for its part, resisted this attempt, often assisted by China and other powers. It resisted feebly in 1999, and slightly more effectively in 2008. But it, too, invoked the Kosovo precedent when this suited its short-term interests: in Georgia in the summer of 2008, and in Crimea in the spring of 2014. Russia’s justifications appeared disingenuous, especially in the latter case, and its purported reliance upon those precedents highly questionable. Many have argued that Russia’s use of those precedents is entirely misplaced, and that its actions have disfigured both the idea of humanitarian intervention and of remedial secession, or external self-determination. But from the perspective of the more fundamental question, namely whether international law can constrain the actions of the main powers, this is immaterial: Russia did make use of the opening that the two Kosovo precedents had created, and has thus widened it. The fact, moreover, that Moscow’s actions met a rather weak response by the international community only compounded the damage that this second blow has inflicted to the credibility of international law.

It is too soon, and not for me, to tell whether these precedents have taken root and can gradually solidify into new norms. Or, indeed, whether they have set the evolution of international relations in a desirable direction: my remarks should not eclipse the fact that the Western response to the Kosovo crisis inaugurated the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, and might have strengthened the standing of the external self-determination principle, none of which can be viewed as inherently undesirable.

The point I would like to make, rather, is that the crisis of Kosovo provided the stage on which a much larger game was played, in respect to which Kosovo was neither the object nor the aim, but merely the occasion. So, just as one cannot fully understand the acute phase of the Kosovo crisis without an analysis of its roots, so would neglect of these broader motivations and implications of Western intervention into it cloud our understanding of the evolution of the crisis.

Theaters in Belgrade and Priština cooperated in a production of Romeo and Juliet, which was staged in both cities in the spring of 2015.² The tragedy is used as a metaphor of the political conflict between Albanians and Serbs over Kosovo, and the symmetry of Shakespeare’s text—two households, both alike in dignity—is so carefully constructed, in the apportionment, for instance, of cruelty and bravery, as to be impeccable.³ But the metaphor crumbles at the end, when the prince of Verona persuades both sides to lay their weapons and makes peace. This is Shakespeare:

Prince. . . . Capulet, Montague! / See what scourge is laid upon your hate! / That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love: / And I for winking at your discords too, / Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish’d.

Capulet. O brother Montague, give me thy hand, / This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more / Can I demand.

Montague. But I can give thee more, / For I will raise her statue in pure gold . . .

( . . . )

Prince. A glooming piece this morning with it brings, . . . ⁴

Unlike the Prince, however, the international community will go away: it is not the permanent ruler of the polity whose peace was breached by the conflict. Unlike the Prince, moreover, the international community is a plural actor. And a divided one: because during the discords it did not wink at them, but took sides (and not always justifiably so) with one or another of the contenders; as well as because the question of Kosovo has divided, and still divides, both the United Nations and the European Union. Unlike the Prince, finally, the international community hasn’t yet succeeded in persuading the two sides to call each other brother.

To sum up, therefore, the international community is represented by officials who lack the necessary incentives to perform the difficult and delicate task that has been assigned to them; it is divided; and each of its components is primarily pursuing its own interests, not those of Kosovo. If so, what can the international community still do to favor the resolution of the political conflict discussed in the following pages? What contribution can realistically—I shall try to eschew a more normative perspective—be expected from it?

If viewed from the perspective of the broad political interests of the main powers involved, and of the divisions that still separate them, the current phase of the Kosovo crisis is largely about loose ends, as it were: secondary matters. I refer, on one hand, to the building of acceptably stable and efficient institutions in the new state; to the question of the status and administration of the portion of Kosovo—its northern corner, contiguous to Serbia and predominantly inhabited by ethnic Serbs—that rejected its independence; and to the settlement of the differences between Kosovo and Serbia. And, on the other hand, I refer to the continuing struggle between the West and Russia (and, to a lesser degree, China and others) about the recognition of the new state; to the transfer of the leadership of Western engagement in Kosovo from Washington to the Europeans; and, finally, to the attempt to absorb the split that Kosovo’s independence has opened among the member states of the European Union.

These two sets of issues involve different interests and different players. The first concerns the organization of Kosovo’s society and the resolution of the political conflict that this volume richly illuminates, whereas the second concerns the resolution of some of the broader political problems that arose from the West’s support for the independence of Kosovo.

My own contribution to the literature about the Kosovo crisis mainly concerns the first question, the building of Kosovo’s institutions, and argues that this work is far from complete.⁵ The main reasons why Kosovo’s political and economic institutions are gravely inefficient, and unfair, are domestic, and are linked to the distribution of power—political and economic, but also military—in its society. But one important reason why the international community failed to reform, or improve, those institutions is that the broader political implications of the second set of issues—which are Kosovo’s external problems, in Priština’s perspective—have weakened the West’s incentives to erect a well-governed democracy in the new state. This was not inevitable, I also argue, because it would have been possible—and preferable, from both an idealist and a realist perspective—to keep Kosovo’s internal and external problems separate: work on them could, and should, have run in parallel, with little positive or negative interference. This did not happen for reasons that are linked to the political interests of the main Western powers.

Kosovo’s disputed international status, the too few recognitions it received, and its failure to take control of the northern area not only damaged the new state but were also the sign of a partial political defeat of the main Western powers, which had not anticipated that independence would meet such stiff resistance. Kosovo’s relegation to an international limbo had political and reputational implications for such powers too, therefore, which went beyond their preoccupation with its development. And as presenting a good image of Kosovo assisted their efforts to solicit wider international recognition, Western governments were often keener to create an appearance of progress than to achieve sustainable results, especially when incisive reform carried the risk of upsetting superficial political stability. The main reason for this is that, as I have suggested above, to such powers Kosovo mattered much less for its intrinsic interest than for the occasion it presented for them to pursue broader policy aims.

This is even truer for the current phase of the Kosovo crisis, for two main reasons. First, the larger game for which Kosovo served as an occasion has more or less ended: the actions pursuing those aims, as well as the counteractions, have been taken; and the precedents have been set, contested, and acted upon. Second, the question of the status of Kosovo has been solved, and the Balkans seem far more stable than they were in 1999, and arguably also in 2008. So, both reasons that explain the intervention of external powers—that larger game, and the risks of a broader conflagration in the Balkans—are largely gone. Consequently, the primary interest that leads foreign governments to desire a resolution of (the remnants of) the political conflict about Kosovo is of an indirect nature: they wish to secure the benefits they have achieved, or limit the losses they judge they have suffered, and disengage. They will seek to achieve a sustainable solution, for this is a condition for disengagement, but not necessarily a just one.

Yet the questions that still need to be solved are difficult ones. In particular, the contemporary avatar of the political conflict that this book explores, the question of North Kosovo, is the mirror image, in quarto, of the political conflict that opposed Serbs and Albanians over the territory of Kosovo. Solving it might prove as hard as solving the Kosovo question.

After about two years of negotiations, in the spring of 2013 the European Union did succeed in persuading the governments of Kosovo and Serbia to sign an agreement, which covers also the question of North Kosovo. But this part of the agreement is rather vague, and rather unpopular among both electorates. In August 2015 Belgrade and Priština reached a second agreement, which translates the broad principles agreed two years earlier into more precise and implementable arrangements. This agreement, however, has sparked a serious political crisis in Kosovo, and its implementation remains somewhat uncertain.

The agreements on North Kosovo and the mediation provided by the European Union are discussed in this volume, and I shall not add my own analysis of them. Rather, I should like to underline the different perspectives from which analysts from the Balkans and foreign analysts have described them. The former mainly discuss the merits of the agreement and the prospects of its implementation. Among the latter, conversely, the emphasis is as much on the importance of the agreement—often qualified as historic, as the introduction notes—for the solution of the underlying conflict, as on its significance as a success of the mediator, the European Union.⁶ The Union, in fact, and its newly established External Action Service have chosen to invest considerable energy and political capital on this issue—which appeared to be their highest priority, until the 2013 agreement was reached and, almost in parallel, the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear energy program began—also in order to achieve a result that would strengthen their credibility in the global arena.

This ulterior motive is a target of the articulate criticism of a Kosovar analyst (and writer and former politician), who argues that its aim to score a foreign policy success has led Brussels to support, or perhaps propose, mistaken or even unworkable arrangements about North Kosovo.⁷ This ulterior motive can hardly be criticised per se, except from a markedly idealistic perspective, but it does offer a good illustration of the problem I have tried to describe, and of its possible consequences. Parts of the agreements about North Kosovo do, indeed, seem highly problematic, and are now at the center of a heated and disorderly political conflict between Kosovo’s government and the opposition, which might threaten the stability of the new state. More importantly, on account of their contents, credibility, and circumstances, these agreements do not seem sufficient to solve either the political conflict about North Kosovo or whatever remains of the conflict between Albanians and Serbs for the control of Kosovo: for instance, the population of North Kosovo was never meaningfully included in the discussion about who shall govern their territory.

Drawing from this the conclusion that the main purpose of these agreements was to allow the European Union’s External Action Service to score a success would probably be mistaken, however. First, in order to be a success those agreements must be sustainable, and implementable: and no unfair, or externally imposed agreement is likely to be sustainable. Second, it has plausibly been argued that the EU’s attempts to deconstruct sensitive political questions into acceptable piecemeal agreements which pave the way for wider solutions might prove fruitful.⁸

To conclude, it remains possible to expect a positive contribution from the international community, and especially from the European Union, for the solution of the political conflict over Kosovo, because disengagement requires sustainable solutions, and unfair solutions can hardly be sustainable. And although recent experience suggests that the combination of weak incentives and conflicting interests can lead the international community to embrace mistaken solutions, more careful study of the features of that political conflict, which this volume competently dissects, can certainly reduce this risk.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Kosovo has occupied center stage in numerous debates, both locally and internationally. It is not an overstatement to say that they are usually dominated by harsh words, problematic statements, policy recommendations that would please some but not all, and so forth. In many cases, the context and circumstances, either past or present, are ignored. This volume seeks to elaborate on some of the dominant issues, hoping to offer clarifications and inspire additional analyses of the complex relations between the concerned parties. Accordingly, we would like to express our appreciation to the contributors, as without their hard work this collection could not have happened. We were truly impressed by their support for our initiative to edit a volume gathering scholars of both Serbian and Kosovo Albanian origin. Apart from the authors, it is a pleasure to thank Peter Kracht, director of the University of Pittsburgh Press, Jonathan Harris, editor of the Russian and East European Studies series, Alexander Wolfe, editorial and production manager, and Leslie English, copyeditor, for their advice and support throughout the publishing process. Also, it is important to thank the anonymous reviewers for providing constructive feedback and suggestions on earlier versions of the individual chapters as well as the volume as a whole. Finally, we thank our colleagues and respective schools for their continuous support—the School of Communication, International Studies and Languages, University of South Australia, and the School of Social Sciences, University of East London.

ACRONYMS

LIST OF MUNICIPALITIES IN KOSOVO

INTRODUCTION

Leandrit I. Mehmeti and Branislav Radeljić

The establishment of nation-states in the Balkans, a process made possible due to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, was nevertheless accompanied by various pretentions over territories inhabited by different ethnic communities. By trying to examine Serbian and Albanian pretensions over the territory of Kosovo, one is likely to be caught between two rather opposing historic narratives of truths, each aimed at defending one of the two party’s entitlement to the ownership of Kosovo. In fact, Serbian and Albanian versions have often gone as far as to deny any possibility of a jointly inhabited space, meaning that Kosovo can belong to either Serbs or Albanians, but not to both.¹

According to the Serbian narrative, Kosovo was liberated from the Ottomans in 1912—an understanding seriously challenged by the Albanian narrative, which has mostly maintained that its territory was actually occupied and annexed by the Serbs. After 1912, the territory of Kosovo was embodied first in the Kingdom of Serbia and then in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in 1918. Later, during the Second World War, it was partitioned among Albania, Bulgaria, and Germany, with some Albanian groups cooperating with the Nazi regime against the Serbs. The 1946 Yugoslav constitution provided Kosovo with an autonomous status that was revalidated and, in fact, upgraded in 1974 with the adoption of a new constitution.² The general pessimism characterizing the 1980s, although mainly inspired by the possible problems emerging across Yugoslavia after the death of Josip Broz Tito, was also sustained by increasing tensions among Kosovo’s dominant ethnicities.

In 1987, Slobodan Milošević visited the province and called for the defense of the sacred rights of the Serbs.³ Following the Serbian decision to take over Kosovo’s institutions, the local Albanians formed a parallel state and proclaimed Kosovo a republic within the Yugoslav federation, in 1990, and then an independent state, in 1991. As expected, the province became exposed to frequent disputes and confrontations between the Serbian troops and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a largely terrorist unit, as viewed by the Serbian authorities, or a guerrilla force fighting for freedom, as viewed by the Kosovo Albanians. The confrontations culminated in January 1999, when Serbian military forces committed a crime against humanity in the village of Račak, in central Kosovo.⁴

The consequent NATO bombing of the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was subject to numerous assessments, ranging from the ones directed to its legality, mostly due to the lack of a specific United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution that would authorize the intervention, to those perceiving the external involvement as a legitimate instrument to stop the ethnic cleansing campaign of Belgrade authorities against the Kosovo Albanian population. More precisely, many commentators described the attack as aggression against a sovereign state that had not attacked another sovereign state, as, for example, Iraq did when it invaded Kuwait in 1990. In addition, many other countries around the world had been involved in or contributed to similar or even worse atrocities than Serbia was accused of, and in some nations such violations were still occurring, but most were largely, perhaps hypocritically, ignored when compared to the Kosovo crisis, although they also presented a strong case for humanitarian intervention.⁵ With this in mind, NATO’s intervention had nothing to do with humanitarian impulses and was all about defending the West’s geopolitical interests in the region.⁶ Other commentators went even further and perceived the aggression as a war of expansion by NATO, a war designed to push United States power right up to the borders of Russia.⁷ Thus, the intervention was criticized as a colossal error, an example of a policy applied too late, in the wrong place, and even in ignorance of history. It was inconsistent and perceived as something that would create problems regardless of whether the outcome was a failure or a success.⁸ By contrast, other commentators viewed the intervention as legitimate based on other UN documents and UN Security Council resolutions that had clearly recognized the violations of human rights, with the Council being warned of an impending humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo.⁹ However, regardless of the debates on the NATO intervention or the scope of the Yugoslav authorities’ actions against the Albanian population in the sense of whether it constituted genocide or a lesser crime, the developments during the conflict in Kosovo, with more than a million displaced, undoubtedly shocked the ‘conscience of mankind,’ and therefore provided a satisfactory ground for humanitarian intervention,¹⁰ so that a new chapter in the relations between the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians could begin.

After the intervention, the European Union understood that the region was in need of aid and managed to convince the international community to collaborate in the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, which was adopted in Cologne in June 1999. At the same time, the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 established the UN Interim Administration Mission (UNMIK), exercising a full executive, legislative, and judicial role. The resolution declared the establishment of an interim administration for Kosovo as a part of the international civil presence under which the people of Kosovo can enjoy substantial autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, to be decided by the Security Council of the United Nations. The interim administration was to provide transitional administration while establishing and overseeing the development of provisional democratic self-governing institutions to ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants in Kosovo.¹¹ Back then, Javier Solana, the European Union’s High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, reminded Kosovo Albanians that independence was not on the agenda and that technically Kosovo was still part of Yugoslavia. He argued that the main task of an international presence was to establish standards first, and then discuss the final status.¹²

In Serbia, the dominant figures of the post-Milošević political scene did not share the same view about the status of Kosovo. As explained elsewhere, while for the new prime minister Zoran Djindjić there was no time to waste—in order to prove his commitment to rapid resolutions, apart from organizing the arrest and extradition of Milošević to the Hague tribunal in June 2001, he claimed that Kosovo was de facto independent and Serbia had to move on with the processes of democratization and Europeanization—the newly elected president Vojislav Koštunica, who was also welcomed by the European officials as a representative of new democratic elite, insisted that it was unacceptable to talk about Kosovo as independent.¹³ In his view, Serbia had to find an alternative that would let it keep the province of Kosovo as its constituent part. What various analysts found problematic was that Koštunica easily linked the final status of Kosovo to a secession of Republika Srpska from Bosnia and Herzegovina: Koštunica’s Bosnia policy will result in continued Western frustration with implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords in Republika Srpska, as well as a strengthening of separatist Serb elements in Bosnia.¹⁴

However, in January 2003, Prime Minister Djindjić launched an initiative aimed at an appropriate and timely resolution of the Kosovo status question. As summarized elsewhere, [t]aking a proactive, forward-looking approach that advocated a ‘European, democratic, rational, and de-emotionalized’ path towards resolution, he caught many stakeholders off-guard. Principally Djindjić realized that (a) too much complacency was leading dangerously towards uncontrollable developments; (b) all stakeholders, first of all Belgrade and Prishtina, but also including the UN, EU, United States, the Contact Group countries and all neighboring states, needed to work hand in hand towards a relatively speedy solution.¹⁵ Soon after, during the EU-Balkans Thessaloniki summit, in June 2003, it became obvious that the European Union was slowly replacing Washington’s leading role in the Balkans. For the Kosovo Albanians, this was not a positive sign, as they feared that a greater EU involvement could have supported Belgrade’s position and eroded their own. Still, what the summit unselfishly stated was that [t]he future of the Balkans is within the European Union, a path conditioned by a successful fulfillment of various prescribed criteria.¹⁶

The subsequent Vienna talks, aimed at bringing the Serbian and Kosovo Albanian parties together and trying to determine the future status of the province, did not generate any solution. The policy of standards before status, originally inaugurated by the third UNMIK chief, Michael Steiner of Germany, and covering a whole range of issues, ranging from the establishment of democratic institutions and rule of law to the development of market economy and dialogue with Belgrade authorities, was welcomed by the Serbian side and, in fact, often seen as the central pillar of the talks—an approach abandoned shortly after, following the Kai Aide report on the implementation of the UNMIK policy.¹⁷

What the Vienna sessions demonstrated was that the parties concerned were not ready to change their positions. Vojislav Koštunica, who became Serbia’s prime minister soon after the assassination of Djindjić, argued that "the existence of Kosovo and Metohija as part of Serbia and the existence of the Serbian