By Veton Surroi

1.

At the end of this week, with a signal from the international community, it is expected that Kosovo will announce her independence.

It is the end of a long historic process, much longer than the disintegration of socialist Yugoslavia. In fact, it is the end of the end of Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires and the end of the order built at the Peace Conference at Versailles. For Kosovars, it is the end of a multigenerational journey for self determination, and for Serbia it might be the end of the illusion for a capital like Belgrade dominating over the people and territories of former Yugoslavia. For the international community it might be the end of involvement in the tragic process of Yugoslav disintegration.

But this could have also been said on 12 June, 1999, when NATO troops entered Kosovo and Serbian ones were fleeing.

Why all this wait to define the independent status of Kosovo, when Kosovo became independent of Serbia the day the first NATO soldier set foot on Kosovo?

2.

One answer is hidden in the symbolic of the weekday when independence will be announced.

If everything goes according to the undetermined plan, Kosovo Parliament should announce independence on Sunday, the day when the Western world is resting. The reason for announcing on Sunday (some still mention Monday morning) is that after the act of proclamation there should be enough time for the states individually to begin the act of recognition and not enough time for Russia to act on one point of her anti-independence plan. This point is the introduction of the draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council, with which the declaration of independence will be deemed a violation of international law and likewise will be considered, consequentially, the recognition of this independence. Western states should, then, veto this draft resolution, putting the Kosovo issue on a global contest, which will put pressure on the UN Secretary General not to introduce the formal invitation for the EU mission in Kosovo, within the Resolution 1244 of Security Council, which will remain valid.

So Sunday turns into a needle’s eye for a legal procedure which should recognize the new reality created in 1999.

And Sunday is one of the reasons why Kosovo did not become independent this far, despite the acceptance of internal adjustments in interethnic relations and decentralization, on the verge of a functioning state. The reason is that as much as we were dealing with the Kosovo status, as much we were dealing with the status of Russia.

During the last two years, every time the status of Kosovo was negotiated, the status of Putin’s Russia was discussed in parallel. When concessions on decentralization were asked, it was all done with the hope that Russia will be pleased, so that in the end it will agree to the Kosovo independence resolution at the UN. When 120 extra days of negotiations with the Troika were accepted, Russia was able to show the world her vision of three world dominating powers today: USA, EU, and Russia.

And when on Sunday Russia begins its anti-independence activity, it will in fact attempt to send a global message: Russia is striving for a strong UN (the place where Kosovo status should be decided), whereas the West devalues UN (by taking Kosovo issue out of the Security Council decision making).

3.

The other answer is hidden in the Kosovar reality.

At the moment of independence, a part of the Kosovo territory in the north is de facto administered by Serbia. On the other hand, it has been created disproportionality between what was crucial in the negotiations with President Ahtisaari regarding the future international presence in Kosovo and that which has been proposed in the EULEX mission. During the negotiations, the main draft envisioned an international presence of 200 people, of which 120 would be Kosovar technical staff. Their mission would be the supervision of the Ahtisaari Package, with correction authority. Whereas EULEX numbers 1,800 people, police personnel, judges, and other administrators of law, and their authorizations are intrusive in the work of the state.
The lack of functioning of state institutions in the whole territory and institutional weaknesses of the new state have been since 1999 reasons for the delay of final status.

But, status decision is now being taken taking into consideration despite these handicaps, and moving from the status of an unannounced independence to the status of a supervised independence, and up to a point managed by the international community.

4.

Independence through the needle’s eye has at least two sides. On one side is the fact that despite the shortcomings, a historic boundary is being passed, and whatever it is, supervised, managed, disrupted and handicapped, independence will take Kosovo towards a new legal stage across a wide global space.

On the other side is the challenge of the functioning of the new state. Kosovo sovereignty will be challenged in its international sovereignty, and a long period of time will pass for Kosovo to represent herself in international institutions like the other states. Kosovo sovereignty will be challenged in its northern part, which will be transformed into a frozen conflict. And above all, the new international presence will feel the temptation of power, the unresistable temptation of direct management of Kosovo.

Veton Surroi is a publicist, leader of a Kosovar political party and member of the Prishtina delegation to the now concluded status talks.

Comments (2)

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nick said:

	Thiese are one of the many important decisionsl that Kosovar's will need to embrace collectively. They have encountered many crossroads with patience, frustration, and uncertainty. Opression is always temporary. Freedom with honest concern for all citizens will slowly and surely build a strong foundation for the present and future generations of Kosova.
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February 17, 2008
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Heku said:

There's a point I wanted to clarify here. When we have Sir Surroi talking in NewKosovaReport, is he directly addressing to the site or did the administrators of the site take his declarations from an other media? If the first hypothesis is right, I'd like to ask the admins to organise a think tank about our future and about the challenges that we'll be facing, about the possibilities of emigrant people to go back home and give a hand to our State (not totally delusionnal but still, the will is there). Please guys, try to get our leaders making the connection with their abroad people. Most of us are in some crossroads so why not forgetting all about abroad and making our Aaliah too ;-)

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February 14, 2008
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