Blogging on Meds

Sorry this is a bit late, but…

BBC reported yesterday that “United Nations police in Kosovo have been forced to withdraw from Serb areas in the divided city of Mitrovica after clashes with Serb demonstrators” while Al Jazeera reported that “at least three UN vehicles were attacked and one set on fire as protesters broke doors and freed about 10 Serbs detained in the court raid.”

One international soldier is reported to have been shot, while the explosion from a hand grenade injured dozens others. Reuters reports that NATO troops claim to have come under “automatic gunfire”, which is a far cry from rock-throwing and may be an indication demonstrators are being supplied with more sophisticated weapons. Serbia’s B92 media reports up to 70 civilians were injured, and UN troops were forced to withdraw.

The clashes began on Friday when hundreds of Serb demonstrators seized the UN-run court in Mitrovica, the scene of a number of incidents of ethnic violence over the past few years, and occupied it over the weekend. A dawn raid yesterday by UN forces re-took the courthouse, only to spark the subsequent riots which signify the worst violence yet since Kosovo declared its independence on February 17.

While it’s no surprise the UN bailed or, according to some reports, was “asked to leave”, allowing NATO to patrol the flashpoint area might be an even more dangerous prospect. The Western military alliance bombed heavily both Kosovo and Serbia less than 10 years ago, and resentment remains high. Case in point: the unrest also falls on the anniversary of violence four years ago that left up to 19 people dead.

Adding to the fun, last week the Serbian government dissolved; rifts among the governing coalition prompted Serb prime minister Vojislav Kostunica (a hardliner) to call snap elections on May 11. If clashes continue, the elections may become a de-facto referendum on Kosovo and the West’s recognition of it, ushering in an ultra-nationalist government willing to take a more aggressive stance on what many Serbs consider to be the “cradle” of the Serb nation.

Either way, it’s going to be interesting…

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The international media is giving little play to Kosovo this week (a skim through BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera International sites turned up virtually nothing), and maybe rightly so. The declaration has been made, no embassies have been torched since Thursday, and without Milosevic at the helm, who is going to march in the ultra-nationalists in the name of a greater Serbia?

Hopefully the days of the so-called Balkan powder keg are dying — where wars are fought under the pretense of religion, territory, and ethnic purity — and Kosovo’s “ethnic cleansing” of the 1990s will be the last we’ll hear of the region in turmoil.

But a far more interesting story is playing out in Kosovo right now, one that the media is largely missing and that could have major implications for how things play out in the Balkans.

The international newswires, for their part, have been fairly consistent in reporting from the ground, and several decent pieces have been picked up by the International Herald Tribune. In this case, it’s not so much the writing, but simply the documentation of events.

It’s the “creeping” partition of northern Kosovo by ethnic Serbs. It’s true, Serb tanks aren’t rolling into Mitrovica (yet), but this division is a grassroots one — one that makes it all the more genuine and all the more likely to spark violence later on down the line.

I hate being alarmist and writing unending predictions of bloodshed. We shouldn’t assume they’ll start killing each other just because it’s the Balkans. But the groundwork is being laid for another territorial-cum-ethnic conflict in Kosovo and southern Serbia, whether it comes in several months or 50 years.

Per the Reuters story on Zupce, makeshift border posts are being set up by ethnic Serbs. Robinson writes:

“In Zupce, Serb cars without registration plates drove slowly up to the ‘checkpoint’ every 20 minutes, turning and driving back below Serbian flags flying from trees. A policeman waved through a Serb car, and stopped an Albanian to check his papers.”

This certainly isn’t the most frightening piece of news, but I think it’s an indication of what’s to come: an ethnic-based division.

Danish soldiers set up camp in the northern Albanian village of Cabra — complete with armored vehicles — that, if Kosovo were partitioned, would be severed from the rest of Kosovo by majority Serb areas.

Ethnic Albanian police forces have yet to return to man the border posts burned by Kosovo Serbs last week, and Serb policeman, who make-up part of Kosovo’s “multiethnic” police force, coordinate their movements through the United Nations mission rather than Pristina.

Hardline Serb leaders in the north are pledging more violence if Thaci’s government exercises jurisdiction, and even Pristina hasn’t been forthcoming about how it intends to assert control over Serb-dominated areas.

AP reports:

“Milan Ivanovic, a Serb leader from the northern Kosovo town of Kosovska Mitrovica, said Kosovo’s new leaders were wrong to assume that they might assert the authority of the new state in the predominantly Serb area. About 50,000 Serbs in the north have pledged not to recognize the new state and to continue to consider themselves part of Serbia.”

While talk is cheap, as they say, and an all-out conflict in an internationally-supervised nation seems unlikely, we should continue to watch as the Serbs set up checkpoints — albeit flimsy ones — drive out Albanian bureaucrats and policeman, and slowly establish their defacto Serb Kosovar entity in the north.

Not only will it thwart the construction of a viable Kosovo — if such a thing existed — but is likely to become a major factor in the establishment of a pro-Western, energy-rich satellite in the Balkans, and might explode as part of the Euro/US-Russian resource wars expected to play out in the region in the coming decades.

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Erin Cunningham was recently in the Balkans for Kosovo’s independence. I asked her take on the situation in the Balkans. She says this is about nationalism for the Serbs and resources for the West and Russia, and believes the violence will continue for some time. This is her first Medicine piece.

Hey look a US soldier caught in the middle of anti-US/West protest! AP

While the response coming from Serbia (and ethnic Serbs in surrounding nations) is at present minimal — burning embassies is quite a stretch from sending in troops — it certainly has the potential to spread, and could very well de-stabilize the entire region, as well as be a part of a larger Belgrade-sponsored plan to partition northern Kosovo. As I write, Montenegro’s shops are closing and the US embassy is beefing up security in preparation for a massive demonstration in support of the Serbs.

This is all speculation, of course—regarding partition—but Kosovo won’t go easy. Serbia’s president, Boris Tadic, knows what’s at stake for Serbia with the European Union if the violence escalates, and has appealed for calm. What is important, however, is the so-called “radical” elements (literally members of the Serb Radical Party, remnants of the Milosevic vanguard) that hold prominent positions in the Serb government. Serbia’s Prime Minister, Vojislav Kostunica, is a case in point.

I spoke with a Serb several weeks prior to the declaration who said while the Serb army certainly wouldn’t engage (at least initially), he predicted that nationalists in power would mobilize ex-Yugoslav army officers and would-be guerrillas to carry out actions in northern Kosovo to provoke a split.

The “demonstrators” who attacked and subsequently torched the border posts at Banja and Jarinje were 1,000-strong. But nobody is worried about a substantial military threat, or even a veritable insurgency.

The violence will likely go in two directions. One will be vandalism directed at Western institutions — embassies and UN and EU offices — in northern Kosovo, Belgrade, and perhaps other areas in the region with large Serb populations (i.e. Montenegro).

The other, which is more dangerous and has far greater implications, is violence among Serbs and ethnic Albanians in the north — in Mitrovica and other flashpoint towns. Serbs have already chased ethnic Albanian policeman, who were patrolling with fellow Serbs as part of Kosovo’s multi-ethnic police force, out of a key village, as well as shown they are ready to demonstrate, if violently, against the loss of their southernmost province. While this seems minor compared to the ethnic-based violence of the 1998 - 1999 conflict, it could certainly be an indication of further clashes and outright war between the two sides, resulting in a Northern Ireland-type division of Europe’s newest state. Serbia’s Minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, announced that these actions, however small, are “in line” with Belgrade’s policies, who seeks to extend its jurisdiction over the north.
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