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Georgia Breaking Apart, Separatists Cite The “Kosovo Precedent” |
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When Kosovo declared independence on the 17th of February, Georgia and Russia agreed on something for perhaps the first time since the Rose Revolution, their condemnation of the US for supporting Kosovo. The reason for this is simple. Since the break up of the Soviet Union, two regions of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia have strived to become independent of Georgia, and Georgia fears that support for Kosovar independence will bring legitimacy to these claims.
Just about every country that has a minority population calling for more autonomy or independence has condemned the recognition of Kosovo by the US and several major EU countries. Spain, a close ally of the US and a member of the EU was one of the more outspoken as they struggle with a long standing conflict with Basque separatists.
The US and its supporters insists that Kosovo is a special case and sets no precedent, and the EU countries who have a problem with Kosovo should accept that. Kosovo’s independence was only successful because it had the backing of several major powers who had troops on the ground. The US, Britain, France, and Germany are unlikely to support other separatist movements or to invade northern Spain any time soon and so these countries should calm down. But in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, there is the possibility of real problems. These areas are strongly pro Russian, are being financially and militarily supported by Russia, and have Russian peacekeepers in the country under the guise of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). South Ossetia yesterday called on the world to recognize their independence citing the “Kosovo Precedent” and Abkhazia is expected to do the same next week.
What Russia will do is anyone’s guess. They have recently been backing away from reassurances made previously that they would not recognize these two regions. However they have their own problems in Cechnia that they will not want to inflame and it would look hypocritical of them to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, given the fuss they have made about Kosovo.
If South Ossetia and Abkhazia do succeed in their independence bids, the West could easily lose a major ally in the region. Mikheil Saakashvili, the President of Georgia has staked a lot on his pro Western outlook and the dismemberment of Georgia, in part provoked by a Western act could seriously damage him. Without going to the brink of war, there would be little the West could do for Georgia.
Although the US has tried to make the argument that independence for Kosovo brings an end to the conflict and stability to the region, it may also bring new beginnings to other conflicts and instability to their regions. Unfortunately, we may just have to accept the loss of this ally as a consequence of our support for Kosovo, and hope that the fallout from Kosovo’s independence ends there.
In the end the choice was either allow Kosova to become independent in accordance with the wishes of the vast majority of Kosovars, or prevent it at gunpoint.
In view of recent history, convincing Kosovars they have nothing to fear from staying in political union with Serbia is going to be a very hard sell, which leaves either acquiescence with the inevitable consequence of that (independence) or the use of force to prevent independence. Simply stopping the political declaration was not within US power. Was the option of opposing independence really even an option? I think not and it would be an illogical end to a rare example of a creditable bit of US politics at the end of the break up of Yugoslavia.
And anyway, as you correctly point out, the West is as helpless to assist Georgia as the Russians were to assist their Serbian allies.
Couldnt agree more Havilland. However, I think that going as far as to say that the West couldnt prevent Kosovo’s independence is a little too much. We, rightly so from my point of view, actively encouraged Kosovo’s independence. There were a few opportunities to have widespread autonomy for the region without independence, most notably the failed Rambouillet agreement.
I think you need to look at Yugoslavia s a whole as well as the component parts. No of the other parts. Rambouillet failed because of the attitudes of Serbian nationalists that caused the whole crisis to begin with. I think that the options were either a: ‘leave Kosova to its fate’ (and the recent examples of what Yugoslavia did in Bosnia made it clear what was that meant) or b: ‘use force to prevent yet another horror in the Balkans’.
Having (rightly in my view) selected option b, it became inevitable that with the threat of military force removed, the Kosovars would do what every other part of the former Yugoslavia did… dis-unite themselves from the Serbian nationalist riddled body politic in Belgrade who were seen not unreasonably as the root cause of the problem.
The entire disintegration of Yugoslavia started in Kosova when Slobodan Milosevic’s regime in Belgrade revoked Kosova’s autonomous status, causing all the other parts of Yugoslavia to see what was in store for them too. Getting that sort of genie back in the bottle was not likely to be achievable with mere politics given everything that came before in Bosnia and Croatia.
Well Madeline Albright has said that the Rambouillet agreement was purposefully made so unacceptable for the Serbs that they would be forced to reject it, nationalist or liberal, no country would have accepted a treaty that allowed to NATO to move freely around the whole country whenever they chose.