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Kosovo Tactics May Split Serbia

07 09 2007  Serbia’s threats to pull back from closer links with NATO over Kosovo are widely perceived as a step away from the West, and might shake the ruling coalition.

By Julijana Mojsilovic in Belgrade

On Wednesday, September 5, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic presented to NATO officials in Brussels a document listing Belgrade’s objectives which did not include full membership in NATO as Serbia’s ultimate goal.

Earlier, the nationalist Democratic Party of Serbia, DSS, of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica called for a parliamentary resolution stating that “Serbia cannot join NATO," if the United States unilaterally recognizes the independence of Kosovo. Kostunica himself was quoted as saying: “He who causes you harm, cannot expect less in return."

While some believe that such threats are just a case of bluffing to increase pressure on the international community ahead of a decision on the long-term status of Kosovo, others take them more seriously.

The latter warn that if this policy is carried out, it may destabilize the governing coalition, lead to international isolation and jeopardize Serbia’s further integration into the European Union.

Meanwhile, the international shuttle diplomacy between Belgrade and Kosovo Albanian leaders on the status of Kosovo has started with the two sides as far away from a sustainable solution as ever.

Kosovo's 90 per cent Albanian majority will accept nothing short of full independence from Serbia, while Belgrade says it will never concede sovereignty and can offer only broad autonomy.

The gap is mirrored within the international community with the West generally backing Kosovo’s complete split from Belgrade, and Russia, a traditional Serbian ally, opposing it.

Back in Serbia, several ministers from the DSS have been accusing Washington of siding with the Kosovo Albanians, and have charged NATO with trying to turn Kosovo into a NATO “mini-state”.

Recent opinion polls show that pulling out of the process of joining NATO might be popular. While two-thirds of Serbs polled support EU membership, less than a third feels the same way about NATO.

There is still anger over the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, which ended in Serbia's enforced withdrawal from Kosovo.

Such opinion polls along with the graffiti, declaring “NO to NATO.org” and “We won’t give up Kosovo”, seen all over Belgrade, are seen as the outcome of the DSS’s intensifying political campaign in which NATO is marked out as a key target in what is believed by many to be a lost battle for Kosovo. It is also reflected in ordinary citizens’ statements, full of bitterness towards the Alliance, that are carried in the local media.

This anti-NATO campaign, supported by the two main opposition parties, the ultra-nationalist Radicals and the Socialists, might endanger the fragile ruling coalition made up of the DSS, the centrist Democratic Party, DS, of President Boris Tadic and the moderate, pro-market G17 PLUS.

The DSS’s coalition partners, both considered pro-Western, have stayed away from what has become a loud anti-NATO campaign.

The government was formed in May after months of tough negotiations ended in an agreement, stipulating that Kosovo should remain part of Serbia, while Serbia is to continue EU integration and expand cooperation with NATO.

Military analyst Daniel Sunter believes that if the DSS stands by its threat to withdraw the country from NATO integration, neither the DS nor G17 PLUS will follow suit. He says that “could open a serious rift within the coalition.”

Dusan Pavlovic, a political analyst, warns that if the DSS really intends to carry on with a more confrontational policy towards the West, Serbia’s political path, adopted after the fall of Slobodan Milosevic’s authoritarian regime, could undergo a major change.

“No one, except top DSS officials, can say if that is maybe a bluff, but if it is not and if the Kosovo settlement is unfavourable, they will accuse the DS of treason,” Pavlovic told Belgrade B92 radio.

He said that the DS was continuing to ignore what he viewed as DSS blackmail, with its leaders pretending that there was still unity within the coalition, in order to preserve their party’s place in power.

But, he warned, “if Kosovo is gone, a DSS-Radical coalition is probable.”

For now, differences are being played down, and the DS is perceived to be the party making the most compromises, by shying away from confronting the DSS.

Boris Tadic’s latest conciliatory move, according to media reports, was to accept the last-minute changes from the DSS to the document on Serbia’s goals within NATO's Partnership for Peace, PfP, programme. The document was presented to NATO officials by Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic – a DS representative in the government -- on Wednesday.

Some observers think that the split within the coalition will only come into the open after Kosovo’s eventual independence, due to the expected tough stance of the DSS towards those who might recognize the independent state. It is believed that the DS and G17 PLUS would prove to be more flexible.

Djordje Vukadinovic, a political analyst seen as close to the DSS, said on B92 TV station that there was for now goodwill on both sides in the coalition to preserve the government’s stability. But he also warned that they would face “a serious test” over Kosovo.

“I’m not sure that they would be able to reach a compromise over the reactions [to Kosovo’s independence] which, for sure, cannot work if the compromise involves only cosmetic touches.”

Among the possible DSS moves, a variety of sanctions could be imposed, mainly towards Serbia’s neighbours.

Miodrag Radojevic of the Institute for Political Studies told the popular Belgrade Press daily on Saturday that if, for example, Slovenia unilaterally recognized Kosovo’s independence, “Serbia’s first measures would be to withdraw diplomats, reduce all kinds of cooperation to a minimum, including the economy, and a total boycott in the end.”

Suggestions like this fuel fears that Serbia might lose many of its foreign friends and partners – although few would expect even a partial return to the kind of isolation Serbia lived through in the 1990s when UN sanctions were imposed because of Milosevic’s war policy in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Political analyst Zoran Stojiljkovic, told Balkan Insight that no one should underestimate the DSS's seriousness. He warned that such an attitude towards the West could push Serbia "into a kind of isolation."

Sunter said that "the DSS obviously believes that if Kosovo became independent, Serbia should be isolated from the region." He added that almost all countries in the region already are -- or soon will become -- NATO members. "The consequences [of the withdrawal from NATO integration] would therefore be regional as well."

“Such extensive verbal attacks on NATO could do Serbia more harm than Kostunica’s people can perceive,” he said, adding that Serbia has done a great deal to build a good relationship with NATO and much of that might now be wasted.

He warned that the security situation in the south of Serbia, bordering Kosovo and populated mostly by ethnic Albanians, has been good for years due to cooperation between the Serbian Army and the NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers in Kosovo.

As part of coordinated efforts, KFOR patrols have been preventing ethnic Albanians from illegally crossing into the Presevo valley in Serbia’s south – where armed Albanians challenged Serb security forces in an insurgency in 1999-2000.

A Western diplomat, dealing with the Balkans, said the move, based on the DSS ideas, to reduce cooperation could harm Serbia in the long run.

“Both NATO and the EU have made it clear that there is a welcome awaiting Serbia. But if Serbia does not want to join, well, no one can force it,” he told Balkan Insight, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Pavlovic expects that, in case the current coalition were to break up, the DSS would turn to the Radicals. That will then be followed, according to Pavlovic, by the freezing of any European and other forms of integration.

An EU diplomat in charge of Balkan affairs told Balkan Insight in Brussels that “Serbia can hardly join the EU without being a NATO member first... NATO membership is not explicitly necessary for EU membership, but membership of the Alliance implies that many conditions for the EU are already met,” the diplomat said.

Not everybody in Belgrade is pessimistic. Some think that the DSS rhetoric is for the short term and is aimed at gaining support at home, as well as at dissuading the West from granting Kosovo independence.

That thinking is reflected in the views of Serbian Minister without Portfolio, Dragan Djilas, who played down the significance of the DSS campaign. He said that “such statements will last five or six days… We have a DS and G17 PLUS cabinet majority for the European and other forms of integration,” Djilas, a high-ranking DS official, added.


Julijana Mojsilovic is a freelance reporter in Belgrade and Balkan Insight contributor. Gjeraqina Tuhina, Brussels correspondent for Kosovo`s RTK TV also contributed to this article. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication.