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ICJ Ruling: Blow to Serbia, Boon to Tadić
By Srdja Trifkovic
Thursday, 22 Jul 2010
For some years now Boris Tadić and his cohorts have been looking for a way to capitulate on Kosovo while pretending not to. The formula was simple: place all diplomatic eggs in one basket – that of the International Court of Justice – and refrain from using any other tools at Serbia’s disposal. (For Serbian scroll down to the end)
On July 22 the ICJ performed on cue, declaring that Kosovo’s UDI was not illegal. It should be noted that the ICJ has only assessed Kosovo's declaration of independence; it has not considered more widely Kosovo's right to unilateral secession from Serbia. Furthermore, the ICJ has not assessed either the consequences of the adoption of the UDI, namely whether Kosovo is a state, or the legitimacy of its recognition by a number of countries.
The ICJ decision was unsurprising in view of the self-defeating question which the UN General Assembly posed at Serbia's request: "Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?" As a former British diplomat who knows the Balkans well has noted, international law takes no notice of declarations of independence, unilateral or otherwise; they are irrelevant:
[I]f the town council down the road here in the UK makes a solemn unilateral declaration of the town's independence from the UK, the rest of us will make a wry smile and go back to blogging or working. The declaration is 'in accordance' with UK law - free speech and all that. [ ... ] If citizens of our town en masse support the declaration of independence, put up road-blocks, stop paying taxes to Westminster and proclaim Vladimir Putin their new king with his consent, things begin to get more interesting. Norms are being created and broken in all directions.
The ICJ has done more than its share of norm-creation. Its advisory opinion is deeply flawed and non-binding, but the government in Belgrade now has a perfect alibi for doing what it had intended to do all along.
Following the appointment of Vuk Jeremić as Serbia’s foreign minister in 2007, this outcome could be predicted with near-certainty. As President Boris Tadić’s chief foreign policy advisor, Jeremić came to Washington on 18 May 2005 to testify in Congress on why Kosovo should stay within Serbia. In his subsequent off-the-record conversations, however, he assured his hosts that the task was really to sugar-coat the bitter Kosovo pill that Serbia would have to swallow anyway.
Two years later another advisor to Tadić, Dr. Leon Kojen, resigned in a blaze of publicity after Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer declared, on April 13, 2007, “We are working with Boris Tadić and his people to find a way to implement the essence of the Ahtisaari plan.” Tout Belgrade knew that “Tadić’s people” meant—Vuk Jeremić. Gusenbauer’s indiscretion amounted to the revelation that Serbia’s head of state and his closest advisor were engaged in secret negotiations aimed at facilitating the detachment of Kosovo from Serbia—which, of course, was “the essence of the Ahtisaari plan.” Jeremić’s quest for sugar-coating of the bitter pill was evidently in full swing even before he came to the helm of Serbia’s diplomacy.
In the intervening three years Tadić and Jeremić have continued to pursue a dual-track policy on Kosovo. The decisive fruit of that policy was their disastrous decision to accept the European Union’s Eulex Mission in Kosovo in December 2008. Acting under an entirely self-created mandate, the EU thus managed to insert its mission, based explicitly on the provisions of the Ahtissari Plan, into Kosovo with Belgrade's agreement.
That was the moment of Belgrade’s true capitulation. Everything else -- the ICJ ruling included -- is just a choreographed farce…
The ICJ opinion crowns two decades of U.S. policy in the former Yugoslavia that has been mendacious and iniquitous in equal measure. By retroactively condoning the Albanian UDI, the Court has made a massive leap into the unknown. That leap is potentially on par with Austria’s July 1914 ultimatum to Serbia. The fruits will be equally bitter.
Aiding and abetting Muslim designs in the Balkans, in the hope that this will earn some credit for the United States in the Islamic world, has been a major motive of American policy in the region since at least 1992. It has never yielded any dividends, of course, but repeated failure only prompts the architects of the policy to redouble their efforts.
It is virtually certain that Washington will be equally supportive of an independent Sanjak that would connect Kosovo with Bosnia, or of any other putative Islamistan, from western Macedonia to southern Bulgaria ("Eastern Rumelia") to the Caucasus. The late Tom Lantos must be smiling approvingly wherever he is now, having called, three years ago, on “Jihadists of all color and hue” to take note of “yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe.”
In the region, the ICJ verdict will encourage two distinct but interconnected trends: greater-Albanian aspirations against Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece, and rump-Serbia (Preševo), and pan-Islamic agitation for the completion of the Green Corridor – an Islamic belt anchored in Asia Minor and extending north-westward across the Balkans into the heart of Central Europe.
Beyond the Balkans, it will breed instability in each and every potential or actual separatist hotspot, from Galilee to Kashmir, from the Caucasus to Sinkiang.
Kosovo is now an expensive albatross costing American and European taxpayers a few billion a year. It will continue developing, not as a functional economy but as a black hole of criminality and terrorism. The ever-rising and constantly unfulfilled expectations of its unemployable multitudes will eventually turn – Frankenstein’s monster-like – against the entity’s creator. There will be many Ft. Dixes to come, over there and here at home.
God acts in mysterious ways. Kosovo had remained Serbian during those five long centuries of Ottoman darkness, to be liberated in 1912. It is no less Serbian now, the ugly farce in Priština and at The Hague notwithstanding. It will be tangibly Serbian again when the current experiment in global hegemonism collapses, and when the very names of its potentates and servants – Boris Tadić and Vuk Jeremić included – are consigned to the Recycle Bin of history.
IN SERBIAN
Nepodnošljiva lakoća nacionalnog propadanja
ODLUKA MSP: REŽIRANA FARSA
Srđa Trifković
Odluka Međunarodnog suda pravde od 22. jula da jednostrano proglašenje nezavisnosti Kosova “nije prekršilo nijednu primenjivu normu međunarodnog prava” samo je za naivne predstavljala iznenađenje. Za vladajuću koaliciju u Srbiji i za njene nalogodavce u Vašingtonu i Briselu, haška odluka je bila odavno programirana u okviru zajedničke strategije degradiranja Srbije u celini i njene kapitulacije po kosovskom pitanju posebno.
Samo se zlonamernim predumišljajem može objasniti činjenica da je Srbija unapred uništila svoje izglede na povoljan ishod time što je krajnje diletantski formulisala pitanje postavljeno MSP-u: “Da li je proglašenje nezavisnosti privremenih institucija na Kosovu u skladu sa međunarodnim pravom?”
Teško je zamisliti da gg. Tadić, Jeremić i njihovi stručni savetnici nisu bili svesni činjenice da međunarodno javno pravo ne zauzima stav prema deklaracijama nezavisnosti kao takvim. Opština Barajevo, grad Kragujevac ili mesna zajednica Kozara mogu da “proglase nezavisnost”, a da tim proglasom ne bude prekršena nijedna norma međunarodnog prava. Kosovo takođe…
Međutim, međunarodno pravo i te kako je prekršeno posledicama jednostranog proglašenja nezavisnosti. Frapantno je da Srbija nije tražila od MSP da se izjasni o tim suštinskim pitanjima: Da li je Kosovo imalo pravo na otcepljenje od Srbije? Da li je Kosovo sada konstituisano kao država shodno normama međunarodnog prava? Da li priznanja Kosova kao države od strane trećih zemalja predstavljaju kršenje međunarodnog prava? (Ovo poslednje bi, naravno, vuklo mogućnost tužbi protiv tih zemalja, što srpskim “evrointegratorima” na pamet nije padalo...)
Tako formulisana pitanja bila bi neprijatna stranim mentorima vladajuće koalicije i stoga nisu dolazila u obzir. Vlast sada ima smokvin list ove tobože “iznenađujuće”, “nepravedne” i “razočaravajuće” odluke kao konačno pokriće za predstojeću konačnu kapitulaciju. Eto, vidite, učinili ljudi šta su mogli, borili se vala k’o lavovi, ali avaj…
Tačnost ove dijagnoze dodatno potvrđuje predlog Rezolucije koji je 28. jula Srbija podnela Generalnoj skupštini Ujedinjenih Nacija. U tom nacrtu, koji ničim ne dovodi u pitanje odluku MSP već je samo prima k znanju, traži se novi dijalog o Kosovu – ali je upadljivo (i frapantno) da se ne traži ponovno otvaranje pregovora o statusu Pokrajine. Daleko od toga: zvanični
Takav predlog rezolucije UN u gruboj je suprotnosti sa prethodno usvojenom odlukom Skupštine Srbije o nastavku aktivnosti u cilju odbrane Kosova i Metohije, koja izričito zahteva nastavak pregovora o statusu. Pred UN zvanična Srbija sada izlazi sa predlogom koji je stopostotno u skladu sa težnjama ilegalnog režima u Prištini i sa željama zapadnih sila koje su taj režim priznale. Svi se oni odavno zalažu za pregovore sa Beogradom “o otvorenim pitanjima” čime se podrazumeva da je problem statusa rešen u albansku korist, da Srbija takav ishod implicitno prihvata kao nepromenjivu datost i da je cilj pregovora u suštini uspostavljanje dobrosusedskih odnosa dve međusobno priznate države.
Drukčije nije moglo da bude. Početkom leta 2008. spoljni mentori Demokratske stranke presudno su doprineli ustoličenju sada vladajuće koalicije u Beogradu. Zauzvrat su između ostalog dobili njenu obavezu da prihvati svršen čin nepovratnog gubitka Kosova i Metohije. Jedini problem predstavljala je moguća reakcija domaće javnosti ukoliko bi kapitulacija bila odveć očigledna. Da bi se umanjila politička cena takvog čina rešenje je nađeno u stavljanju celokupnog srpskog političko-diplomatskog kapitala na kartu Međunarodnog suda pravde u cilju stvaranja alibija za prihvatanje neprihvatljivog.
Farsa sa MSP-om i sa najnovijim predlogom Rezolucije GSUN potvrđuje da vladajuća koalicija od prvog dana postojanja pre dve godine samo obmanjuje srpsku javnost pretvarajući se da se “bori za Kosovo”, a njeni spoljni nalogodavci samo se prave da im zbog toga nije pravo. Pod gg. Tadićem i Jeremićem drukčije nije moglo da bude.
Prošlo je preko pet godina od kako sam u Politici 29. juna 2005. izneo da je prilikom zavanične posete Vašingtonu, šest nedelja ranije, glavni savetnik jednog od najviših beogradskih državnih funkcionera u neformalnim razgovorima sa svojim američkim domaćinima prihvatio otcepljenje Kosova kao svršen čin – i izjavio “da je najvažnije naći formulu da se ta nezavisnost sprovede na način kojim bi se sprečio preveliki politički dobitak za nacionaliste”. Implikacija je bila jasna: “nema dileme hoće li srpska strana prihvatiti nezavisnost, nego kako da se to zapakuje sa što manje roptanja u narodu i sa što manje posledica za pobornike opcije koja pristaje na sve.”
Nepune dve godine kasnije, 13. aprila 2007, austrijski kancelar Alfred Guzenbauer je dao intervju agenciji Rojter u kome je obelodanio da su „Tadićevi ljudi“ sa svojim austrijskim kolegama razgovarali o sprovođenju „suštine Ahtisarijevog plana“ – a ta suština dobro je poznata. Guzenbauerova indiskrecija bila je propraćena mlakim demantijima koji nikoga nisu ubedili da se nije desilo to šta se desilo.