The Serbs have long-considered Kosovo as a cradle of their heritage and nationalist struggle. However, it is ironic that as the legend of the Serbian defeat against Ottoman forces in 1389 in this small province gave it almost a mystical significance to Serbian nationalism, the recent drive towards full independence by Kosovo Albanians, marks the distinct end of the old Yugoslavia and Serbian imperialism.
In a further twist of irony, it was in Kosovo where the seeds for nationalist bloodshed were planted by former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, resulting in a costly ethnically- enthused civil war and the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990’s.
Under UN administration, since NATO bombing halted Serbian forces brutally quelling an insurgency in 1998, the Kosovo independence motion has gained firm momentum.
This week after a deadline for international mediation efforts passed, the EU announced virtual unity on Kosovo. Crucially supported by the US administration, it is widely except that leaders of Kosovo’s Albanian majority would declare independence before May 2008 or even sooner.
Serbia, supported by Russia, has vehemently opposed independence. This week Russia warned that unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) could set off a vicious ripple affect across the Balkans and beyond.
However, calls for more discussions were seemingly deemed pointless by EU and the US. Mediators from the United States, European Union and Russia announced in a report to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, that months of talks had found no compromise on whether Kosovo should be independent or just self-ruled. The outcome was to virtually place the matter in the hands of the EU and crucially not the UN, making a resolution unlikely.
This paved the way to implement a roadmap orchestrated by United Nations envoy Martti Ahtisaari, which proposes a scheduled transition to independence.
Doubters fear that such a movement will only add venom to separatist campaigns across the world. After all, no resistance or national movement is launched without a solid basis or popular support. Why should the situation of a couple of millions Kosovo Albanians be any different?
Russia is dead-against the motion primarily as it would ignite tensions in Chechnya and other volatile restive provinces in its borders. Georgia is watchful over Abkhazia, where Cyprus, the main EU country to oppose independence, is deeply concerned fearing that it may promote a degree of legitimacy to the rogue state of Northern Cyprus.
Serbia may well launch a campaign to annex the Serb province of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania or Macedonia may attempt to form a union with Kosovo. The unpredictability and potential instability this brings to the region can well be off-set by the carrot of future EU membership for the likes of Serbia, however beyond the region, no country as much as Iraqi Kurdistan will be looking at the situation more avidly.
After all, Kurdish culture, history and heritage run thousands of years before the Kosovo Albanians. The population of the Kurds in Iraq alone is 6 million and close to 40 million beyond. With all the markings for a state of their own, Kurdistan was selfishly carved amongst highly oppressive regimes and the Kurdish question was left to rot like an unwanted corpse outside the United Nations and left to linger in the streets of international diplomacy.
Perhaps, double standards were common and almost excepted in the days gone by. However, this is a new age and Turkey in particular, remaining suspiciously quite over the Kosovo debate, will be taking firm notes.
If the United States and the EU can endorse and encourage a nationalist movement to safeguard the security of a minority then it should have no choice but to support a Kurdish state, oppressed on a much larger scale. Clearly, any logical and wise observer can see that the time is not right to declare independence in the age of such great hostility by the Turks, Persians and Arabs, but the international community should at a minimum champion the right of the Kurds to statehood and crucially setup and implement a similar roadmap it has so passionately supported in Kosovo and Palestine.
At a minimum, looming Kosovo independence sets a yard-stick for political struggles and adds a new dimension to the right of self-determination.
The Kurds around the world should take great heart form this debacle and celebrate Kosovan independence as much as the Albanians.