“One Lifetime Too Much”
1. If the Balkans did not exist, it would not need to be invented. On this particular issue the consent is vast throughout the world even for those that reside in the Balkans.
The removal of arms held tightly in fists, always new frontiers of miscarriaged states: this is our idea of the Balkans today. Not truly states but the souls of states. Geopolitical neurosis – Balkanization, exactly – that is a crazed eating machine that we never really wanted to touch.
A play in which we participate fully, shoveling with both hands trying to feed the hellish machine and not only that
It will be for this reason that when Kosovo was proclaimed to be an independent state, this past February 17th, by the state’s new. Pristina is the last of the stations of the cross of post-Yugoslavia beginning in 1991 with the secession of Slovenia and Croatia. Finally, the title of “state” has been given to one of the two autonomous provinces of Serbia, Kosovo to be exact, while the other, Vojvodina, is still not on the waiting list.
But enough now. Acta est fibula. “To conclude the last episode of the dissolution of ex-Yugoslavia, it will allow the region to start a new period in its history, based on peace, stability and prosperity for everyone” promised Martti Ahtisaari, United Nation’s negotiator for Kosovo’s status and the author of the homonym Plan that designs the frame of “supervised independence”.
It is thanks to the Finish strategist that created the molecular structure of Yugoslavia, composted of seven atoms: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo. The “Ahtisaari’s law”, that puts him at the same level as Leucippo and Democrito in philosophy, Dalton and Cannizzaro in chemistry, that awaits its experimental verification. If it passes, this little magazine will be glad to have promoted a campaign for the attribution to Ahtisaari for the distinguished Nobel Prize for geopolitics.
While waiting for history to decide, the italic recognition of the state is able to arouse doubts about Ahtisaari’s prediction. We will leave be the internal pause that is Bosnia-Herzegovina and the ethnic-geopolitical tensions that blow through the other republics, Slovenia is not excluded. We will concentrate ourselves on independent Kosovo. How much of it is Kosovo and how much of it is independent?
A distracted look at global politics causes the belief that the new state, admitted that it can be characterized as so, is as large as the Italian region, Abruzzi - rising within the borders that Belgrade continues to consider "the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija” with the capital Pristina (Prishtina in Albanian), where they have the seat of parliament and the government.
Jumping to scale, and analyzing the regional map so that it transmits in principle an idea to us of the territory in question, we soon discover that the Kosovo is noticeably distant from the one that was formalized February 17th 2008 in the declaration of independence read by Premier Hashim Thaçi.
Looking closer, "Independent Kosovo" appears Kosovar in its appearance. For example:
The new state is not Kosovar at all in its identity because the nation of Kosovars does not exist because Albanian-Kosovars (more than 92% of the population) feel that they are, in a way, a part of a great shqiptare family and Serbia-Kosovars (4% approximately) are hyper-Serbs. The other small minorities associated themselves as Roma or Balkan, while others associated themselves with other national states (Turkish, Croatian). Moreover, according to Minority Rights Groups International, their condition is "the worst in Europe” and that "Kosovo is a segregated society."
It is not completely Kosovar. The three municipalities of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac in southern Serbia are areas of strong shqiptare takeover. A strategic exclave along the highway that connects Belgrade to Salonicco, which is an outlet to the sea for Serbia after the loss of Montenegro. No Serbian government would clear such an area without fighting.
Moreover, even if geopolitically correct it imposes a pan-Albanian deafening tone, the representation of “ethnic Albanians” broods under ashes. The example of a second Albanian state, which is in fact Kosovo, confirms these reasons. Examples are the Balkan territories, which have an Albanian majority, western Montenegro, northern parts of Greece, passing for Albania and formally increasing Kosovo’s appendix; weaving new / ancient shqiptare space in the Balkans. Leaving Tirana, Pristina and Tetovo the regional capitals always in competition yet always structurally more integrated. One example under the microscope is the “freeway of national salvation" that will soon connect Durazzo and Tirana to Pristina (Map 1). The axis between the First and Second Albania, entrusted to the American-Turkish consortium Bechtel-Enka – renamed in Tirana the "freeway of patriotic corruption" by the socialist opposition – is configured like a pan-Albanian collector of traffic, which is much more concrete and more efficient than the smoky Pan-European corridors designed by Brussels.
If for some Albanians the Kosovar state is little, than for Belgrade it is more than too much. The Serbs claim that the province is their “Jerusalem”. Less irrationally, they know that they will not resume more the control over it since they had previously overwhelmed and mistreated it like a colony of "inferior" people. For these pragmatic nationalists, more likely they want it just to remain a part of the motherland, much less a part of a "Holyland.” And to destabilize the rest using pressure, sabotage or the Albanian collaborators on Serbian Intelligence’s payroll. They are also counting (too much?) on Russian solidarity, on Resolution 1244 of the U.N. Security Council that treats Kosovo as a province of Belgrade and on the refusal of local Serbs to integrate themselves in the new state, confirmed by the revolt against United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the NATO Kosovo Force (Kfor) bursting in the Serbian Mitrovica an exact month before the independence proclamation of Pristina. The municipalities to the north of the river Ibar, including half of Mitrovica, remain a part of Serbia and the Serbian enclave of the central and southern areas start with the reserved domains of the orthodox monasteries to the Church of Belgrade (Map 2) survive outside and against the Kosovar government.
The Serb-Kosovars are constructing their own parallel communities, exactly like the Kosovar-Albanians in the Nineties, under the heel of Milosevic. However, on the behalf of everyone: the "Nordics" are adjoining to mother Serbia allowing them to entrench themselves, as long as the Kfor and the paramilitary Kosovar-Albanians allow them to do so. Secession, not enthusiasm, for the central–southern areas, is forgotten shipwrecks from Belgrade and Mitrovica on their little islands surrounded by an Albanian sea that is preparing to yield, stimulated by soft terrorism (threats and attempts) by local bands. Impatiently waiting for the "biological solution".
Kosovo is, in the end, dependent on external forces. Economically, not withstanding international aids, the remittances of the Diaspora and illegal trafficking (drugs, human beings, prostitution, arms etc.), it is largely a very poor country. Internationally and security wise, Pristina does not have a Ministry of the Foreign Affairs nor a Ministry of Defense, much less an Armed Forces. The fact is the new state is a protectorate, supervised by approximately 16 thousand units from Kfor (comprising of more than 2,500 Italians). The NATO troops guided and placed side by side the residual UNMIK mission – sort of by the rundown viceroyalty – and, in growing cacophonous, the established supervision in the European guide on civil affairs and law (ICO, Eulex) than it will not be able to put a foot in northern Serb-Kosovar. So from the protectors of the newborn communities, a grain of schizophrenia will be requested in order to establish who they are and what they are doing there.
Anyways, "independent Kosovo" is revealed to be more than halved. At least a fifth of the territory has been amputated and with a good part of its governing authority. The majority of the declaration of independence read by Hashim Thaçi had been set up, revised and hammered out at the last minute by American hands (Department of State) and the Europeans. The same International Crisis Group, the most influential think-tank for those who are pro-independence, annotates that Premier Thaçi and President Sejdiu are "bound to the diplomatic office of the USA, a liaison to Pristina". We have created a protectorate and have baptized it a state.
2. But who commands this Babel? Also here, the appearance is a trick. If the Kosovar institutions are vague imitations of the supreme Leviathan, not recognizing what’s written on the walls, the international vigilantes are thinking to make more money by protecting. The "super powers" of the territory are others: the crime bosses dressed as neo-statists that were just yesterday wearing camouflage overalls, who consider Kosovo a contended heritage.
For organized crime, the ethnic barriers do not count. As a state, Yugoslavia is dead, but for the Mafia, it is alive and blooming. The Serbian, Croatians, Albanians, Macedonians or Bosnian mobs collaborate together along with half of the world’s counterparts, including the Italians. "Costoro has bought, sold and exchanged every kind of good, understanding that a high degree of mutual personal confidence is strongly tied to transitory hysterical nationalism. They have fomented the nationalist ideology in order to mask their own greed," stated Misha Glenny. Crack the ultranationalist’s shell and discover the bandit. Many political scientists write that post-communist states are passing from the piracy phase of capitalism to the institutional one. We’ll see.
However, in the crossing between the Mafia and the state, who wins? In the specific case of Kosovo, will the small state succeed to metabolize the Mafia or vice versa? The western supporters, who are “independence watchers” opt for the first hypothesis. Germans, Swiss, Swedes and other Nordics have intention to christen the new state at all costs because they hope that the quota of Kosovar-Albanian criminals, who infest their societies, where they control nearly all of the heroin market, will want to return to their native land (Map 2). Perhaps this is a shared hope by the Americans, inasmuch as the FBI has recently uncovered an important network of the Balkan mafia and the increasing presents of Albanian organized crime – "it has a very deserved reputation of extreme violence" – in America, where traps have been laid for the traditional Italian mob organization, La Cosa Nostra.
The optimism is implicit in documents and in official declarations by these "international" groups in Kosovo, beyond the respective governments. There exists a literary genera in which UNMIK excels, like the famous OK reporting, that paints the earth like an Eldorado. Therefore the same head of the U.N. mission, Joachim Rücker, establishes that, in Kosovo, they will enforce "a working democracy and a market economy", while "it is a false impression that the Serbs here cannot move around freely". One commissioned secret study at the Institute for European Politics in Berlin by the German Armed Forces – punctually ended up on the Internet – there is a "grotesque removal of reality by the international community" and offers a less engaging analysis but tightens its hold on Kosovo in actuality.
The thesis of the relationship is clean and clear. The Kosovar mafia is constructing a state in their image and likeness. From German academia, the authors classify the case study in the concept of "State capture". Discusses the "mafia’s seizure of the State structure", which is typical of territories that hardly felt the repercussions of civil war. It is a phenomenon that expresses the interest by a part of the “consolidated elites of organized crime in the legalization of its own affairs" (they cite examples by first Montenegrin Minister Milo Djukanovic, "they (the mafia) are deeply involved in the contraband of cigarettes", and his counterpart Slovene Janez Jansa says, "they are active in the trafficking of arms"). With the progression to "highly developed institutions", such elites search to satisfy "the desire for international acknowledgment and the "movement for freedom". Therefore they obtain a form of double protection: internally, parliamentarian immunity, externally, international rights.
Here are the details of the Albanian mob bosses’ enterprises. Cited are names, last names and profession. Like Hashim Thaçi, called "the Snake", while already commander of the Uçk guerrilla force, today he’s the prime minister and head of the PDK; Ramush Haradinaj, leader of the AAK party and under accusation by the Aia Tribunal; Xhavit Haliti, called "Bunny", a manager of the PDK. Often the respective private militias fight one another, according to the canon of vendetta. Conclusion: "an atmosphere of a conspiracy of silence, a clan-type organization that is impermeable to infiltrations by the extended control of the government apparatus trying to complete the picture of local power, that, with independence, will enter a new phase". After the baptism of the new republic, we will assist "to further the increase of actors within the criminal cupola, therefore nearly taking total control of the political, legal and administration destiny of Kosovo from part of various Albanian criminal clans".
This reading coincides with the thesis of the relationship – also it is theoretically secret – produced in 2005 from German intelligence on the "existing close connections thanks to ‘key-player’ Albanians, citing the Thaçi-Haliti-Haradinaj triad, in politics, the economy and criminal structures based in Kosovo that operate on a international scale". And the same can be said for Kfor, which was in a document produced in March 2004, labeling the Haradinaj clan as “the most powerful criminal organization" in the region.
Nevertheless, civil employees, diplomats and international observers, that are active in Kosovo, pretend to do nothing. Demanding geopolitical correctness: it would give enough room for Serbian propaganda, incapable of admitting past errors and horrors completed for many years, desiring to demonize their enemies. They recommend it to respective governments. In multiple .cases, it helps the coincidence of interests: the best customers of the Kosovar brothels are the protecting foreigners. And some civil employees on the first floor – like the ex-number 2 of the U.N., Steven Schook, who is close to Haradinaj – have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar while working with local mafia politicians.
Every country, from the United States down, has its own "sons of bitches". Avni Zogiani explains, of the Ong Çohu! (Wake Up!), a Kosovar- Albanian that has bravely denounced the trafficking of his leaders: "the UNMIK has tolerated these organized criminal structures in Kosovo for many reasons. One is that if you have a politician in which one can burden them with a police dossier, you can control them more easily. Another is, with the control of such structures, one can raise stability and the security of Kosovo".
In other words, the "protected" must fight against the "protectors". No one seems able to break this vicious cycle. "Independent Kosovo" is founded on dependency and the code of silence. First to suffer from this are the Kosovars, Albanians and not only them that aspirer to liberate themselves from the mafias much like from humiliating international surveillance. If Kosovo never truly becomes a state then the rights of its citizens will be denied to them by the oligarchic monarchs.
3. So how will it end for the westerners? The Serbian dietitians imagine a grand American conquest. Many Albanians share such certainty, only they see it a bit differently: if they remove themselves from the grasp of Belgrade, they’d have to befriend the Americans. And, in order not to make a mistake, on the 17th of February they celebrated in the public square with two "foreign" flags: the Albanian – theirs – and the American – the one of their liberators.
The theories of the stars and stripes conspiracy do not seem founded. American geopolitics in the Balkans – and not only there – is unintended and often conflicting. An example is the parties in defense of a "united and democratic Yugoslavia" (Bush’s father), participation in Bosnia and the war in Yugoslavia (Clinton) and the baptism of the seventh little state of post-Yugoslavia (Bush Jr.). The Balkan ego may be wounded but that region will never be the center of attention for Washington. Sure, it was not only selective humanitarianism by Clinton that drove the U.S. to the Balkan dinner table; sure, the anti-Serbian lobbyists, Albanians and former-Yugoslavs have done an optimal job in the average media and in the American establishment, where balkanology is a lightly used science; there isn’t even doubt that Bush wants an "independent" Kosovo and to exhibit his own form of Islam to the Muslims of the world, in order to refute those who sees the House White in the hands of a kabala of nostalgic Lepantians; still, the U.S. base, Camp Bondsteel, near Ferizaj, is expanding and creating a comfort-zone in the arch of the Balkans-Middle East crisis replacing Guantanamo; finally, in the context of the war against Muslim terrorism, it is best to keep an eye on the pupils and emulators of the Muhammed extremists, who Clinton opportunely left to penetrate Bosnia in order to combat the planned "genocide" by the Serbs, contributing to feed the jihadist network in the Balkans (Map 4). If it is alright to add a psychological note, Bush will not be remembered for creating a state of Albanian stock, one of the little nations in the world that was not well received like a Hollywood star.
The American sponsorship of the new state is an "unavoidable" consequence of the "humanitarian war" first against Bosnia and then against Yugoslavia. "Unavoidable" is an adjective with various meanings when it is used by European and American diplomats. Like Daniel Serwer, an American analyst that operated within the Balkans, said "You just have to wait and see what happens". And that which needs to happen, in Bush’s opinion, is that the prophecy by the Luxembourgian Foreign Minister, Jacques Poos, “it is Europe’s time.” Where the father and Clinton failed, Bush Jr. believes he can succeed. It has pushed recalcitrant Europe (see Appendix) to recognize independent Kosovo now and in the way Bush wants. Moreover last June, in Tirana, Bush anticipated what the theatrical Ahtisaari had, in the end, already written: "there is the certainty of independence". Still, with the sabotage of those in government, the Europeans grabbed hold in order to delay the “inevitable”.
The result: Kosovo is still ours to deal with. If history disproves the "law of Ahtisaari" then it will be the Americans and us Europeans, who will have to pay the bill – including the Finish. And us Italians will be the first to be exposed for our mafia connections and dirty trafficking practices.
4. Today, the optimism of the Finnish statesman seems unfounded. The unilateral declaration of independence does not resolve the Kosovo case. It deepens it and increases it.
It deepens internally. In the ill-fated territory seeks to emphasize hate, reignite secular geographies, disguise the Mafia as democratic institutions and certify that we Europeans act contrary to our proclamations: we disintegrate states instead of integrating them, we offer a Tortuga to organized criminals that we expect to fight, we stress ethnicism while we disseminate multi-ethnic societies. We have been Balkanized while pretending to Europeanize the Balkans.
It increases externally. Nobody believes the joke that this is a "unique case". Probably not even those that tell it. They do not count all intentions, only the good ones.
They count the consequences of those intentions. The “Kosovo effect” is already visible on a world-wide scale. From the Basques to the Turkish-Cypriots, from the Palestinians to the Magiars in Transylvania, from the Taiwanese to the Tibetans and the Chechens, from the Saharawi to the Tamil, thousands of these auto-proclaimed nations that are trying to become states just drank a toast to independent Kosovo. From Madrid to Nicosia, from Jerusalem to Bucharest, Beijing to Moscow, Rabat to Colombo, many of these chancery democracies or autocracies will remember the 17th of February 2008 as a day painted in black. Or, at least, they will not celebrate it. Not even thirty States wanted to have recognized the new entity (various others will follow, for sure), in spite of the grand event for Thaçi, who announced that "more than one hundred countries" would have done it "immediately".
Like every tragedy, even Kosovars have their comedies. To see the Third Rome approach the podium of international rights was good humor. To listen to President Bush, who proudly tells Albanians in Kosovo how the Serbian people know that "America is a friendly nation" helping against the attrition of modern life.
It is too early to discern who has won and who has lost the Kosovar game. On the local scale, the verdict is clear: Serbia loses and the mob bosses win in Kosovo. It is clear too that the western Balkans is the champion of the ethnic solution. Not only the Albanians, but also the Serbs of Bosnia and the Croatians of Herzegovina see a closer favorable moment to reconnect to their respective motherland.
Only on one point do Serbs and Albanians agree: the Europeans are quantité négligeable. We put in the ingredients – money and soldiers – but the sad thing is they cook it with the Americans and, more and more, with the Russians.
On a global scale, it is possible to see some advantages for the launch of a Balkan state for Washington and Moscow. Bush finally realized a dream of his father’s and entrusts the Kosovar hot potato to the Europeans. If things go well then they go well. However, if things go a little wrong then it easy for the White House to point their finger at the European fat cats and savor the taste of the Schadenfreude. If things go really bad then the choice will be made to remain or pull out and both will appear to be attractive options.
Russia has made a strike. Entrenching themselves behind the rhetoric of international legality, pretending to be interested in the best interests for Serbia while, at the same time, it has positioned itself on the borders watching, and enjoying, while the Europeans and the Americans battle it out. It avoided the ticket booth and is sneaking into the backdoor. In Southeastern
Europe, Moscow has constructed a sphere of influence, the Serbian satellite. Its influence extends from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, slowly creeping towards the center of the continent. Moscow is constructing a corridor (South Stream) and energy-based assets in the region (Lukoil and Gazprom), the geopolitical-criminal platforms (from Southern Ossetia to Abkhazia, from Transnistria to Kosovo and Montenegro). The great European countries, with Germany leading the way, are tightening bilateral relations with Moscow (thanks to Barroso). The importance of recognizing this threat helps to hinder the plans of the American expansion of NATO in the east and the incubus of Putin.
The potent voice of the Kremlin, its assertiveness in the Kosovar case, signals that the Old World has no strategic choice without considering Moscow. Some decisive Americans even seem to accept this as fact. Persuaded that Putin, Medvedev or not, convenes to create compromises, settling things with an iron fist without losing too much time melting the European allies’ charade and shutting up Brussels.
5. The fantasy that is the Balkans is exciting. An earthquake in Kosovo – in the neglected periphery that is not much bigger than Serbia – could be felt at every angle of the orbe terraqueo. The Greats dispute its status, while depending on the equilibriums of the world. More, the United States, world-wide impotence, declared it a state of necessity: we must recognize Kosovo. Otherwise the Albanians would revolt, not only against the Serbs or the U.N., but against NATO. Against us.
Therefore, we cut off the infected limb before the infection spreads. This logic stems from the former (?) guerrillas of the Uçk that are in a position to dictate Bush’s agenda. Perhaps political scientists will have to go over again their handbook on the paradigms of power. To put it better, these "humanitarian wars" can perhaps stop one crisis (or perhaps aggravate it) but, certainly, not resolve it without referencing geopolitical thought.
The theorists of the state of necessity are turning reason upside down. We are doing that because we don’t want there to be an alternative. Recognizing Kosovo is the least worst possible option. Because, remember, there are no other options. At first glance, this is fascinating even somewhat convincing. Let’s reflect and then ask ourselves something: why is it that when we see an open door, we all hustle to pass through it? Why? If the Americans are there to establish and please the Kosovar-Albanians then why are we just as happy to go along with them when the problem is right at our backdoor? Balkan states, under the control of the mafia, can easily access Europe while our buddies the Americans are across the Atlantic. This act to follow is not a decisive one for us Europeans, us Italians, who have decided to close our eyes, slam the peddle to the metal and pray.
We just continue to hope and celebrate the triumph of the "Ahtisaari law" and to assist in the praise for this idealist. We fear the impossible. Not because the formula is wrong but because it expects to resolve an insoluble problem. A problem without solution is not a problem. If we want it to remain a “problem” then we can pretend to manage it.
The Balkan issues, of which Kosovo is perhaps the epicenter, were not born yesterday and there will not be a clear solution tomorrow. We have already contributed to the acknowledgement of one state however we have just made it a protectorate. In the Balkans, quick fixes solve nothing because the sickness is chronic. It is only possible to deal with some of the crisis and contain the rest. With patience, geopolitics implies the presence of relevant interests. None of the western countries seem to see, in this segment of Europe, sufficient reasons for commitment and stability.
No, it’s not that the Balkans is the beginning and that geopolitics is the end but we have to realize that they do go hand in hand. It has been for ninety years and that is one lifetime too much.