Kosovo Independence: The Hard Road Ahead
February 19, 2008

The dissolution of Yugoslavia began on an inauspicious day in 1987 when Slobodan Milosevic—then a Serbian Communist Party functionary—addressed a crowd of  angry Serbs in Kosovo. After listening to their complaints of abuse at the hands of ethnic Albanians, he proclaimed on national television, “No one will ever dare beat you again.”

There is much controversy over what really happened that day and what were the intentions of Milosevic, but in the fervor of rising nationalism and waning communism, that infamous speech began 15 years of bloody conflict in the Balkans, much of it orchestrated by Milosevic.

By 1990, Milosevic was clearly intent to rallying nationalist Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia (including Kosovo) to create a greater Serbia at all costs—including massacring civilians throughout the region. Amid far too many places where forgotten and unspeakable atrocities occurred, the world has not forgotten Srebrenica. 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were massacred in a few days in July 1995 as the enclave fell from UN protection into the hands of Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic. But that was still four years before the war began in Kosovo, when almost a million Kosovar Albanians were forced by Serb regular and paramilitary forces to flee to neighboring countries—and 10,000 were killed—before NATO intervened to put a stop to Milosevic’s maniacal aggression against yet another region of the former Yugoslavia.

There were no winners in these wars. Where once there was a nation of Yugoslavia that lived by brotherhood and unity (or so we thought), today there are nations of widows, unemployed, mass graves, and legions of youth intent on finding visas to the U.S. and Europe. Today Kosovo is the exception. It was and is the poorest region of the former Yugoslavia and has suffered its share of violence in the breakup of Yugoslavia, but now Kosovo is jubilant because of the promise that new-found independence offers.

The debate between those pro- and anti-independence is now over. Today Kosovo is independent. The government of Kosovo has now shouldered a tremendous responsibility to begin creating a better future for its people—all of its people. And the Serbs of Kosovo and of Serbia have suffered the tremendous loss of a region dear to them since 1389 when they were defeated by the Ottomans on the plains of Gazimestan in the infamous Battle of Kosovo.

We take no relish in seeing Serbia loose this territory. But it could be no other way. It is not because NATO is stronger than Serbia (it is), nor as retribution or punishment for the wars started by Milosevic, Karadzic, and Mladic. In a process that began in 1987 with the ill-fated power grab by Milosevic, Kosovo is yet one more region that must be free from the yoke of Belgrade—poisoned not by Pristina, but by Belgrade. We understand that many Serbs never sided with the fascist policies of their nationalist leaders of the 1990s, but today Serbia must accept that their leaders lead them down a tragic path which today includes the loss of Kosovo.

We of course understand that Kosovo was not a constituent republic of the former Yugoslavia and did not have the constitutional right (at the time) to secede. But the constitution of 1987 went the way of Yugoslavia. The Badinter Commission of 1991, Vukovar in 1991, genocide in Bosnia in 1992-95, the massacre at Racak in 1999, and all the other horrible episodes along the way have given weight to Kosovo’s claim to independence.

Today Kosovo is free and independent  and today the people of Serbia have a choice. They can continue the process of reclaiming their place in the community of nations and accept this change. They can arrest the remaining war criminals still at large including Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic. And they can put this 20-year nightmare behind them and create a prosperous and democratic nation that is fully integrated into modern Europe. Or they can continue to fight the loss of Kosovo and risk losing the rewards that joining their European neighbors can offer.

Today, we congratulate the people of Kosovo for their independence. Today, their euphoria is our euphoria.

When the celebrations are over and the Kosovars wake up to a new day at the helm of a new nation, then the hard work will begin. No longer can they blame their stagnant economy and dysfunctional infrastructure on Belgrade and UNMIK. Tomorrow Kosovo will have to begin turning their ingenuity, creativity, and perseverance toward creating a functional economy—with the welcome help of other nations. Kosovo Albanian leaders will also have a severely disaffected minority that will do almost anything to see that this experiment does not succeed. By the week’s end, Mitrovica may yet be a flashpoint as Kosovar Serbs resist the inevitable and align themselves and their borders with Serbia. Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has made the first step in welcoming Serbs into this new nation. We hope that this is not just for international consumption following the declaration of independence, but will translate into real protection for minority rights throughout the new nation.

The task may seem impossible, but the Kosovars have risen to the occasion in the past and we hope they can rise to the occasion now and demonstrate to the world that peace and prosperity are possible from the ashes of 20 years of war. We wish them well.