By (Mrs) Amb Narinder Chauhan
“Kosovo is the heart of Serbia, stop the violence”, wrote Novak Djokovic, the 22-time Grand Slam Serbian tennis star, on a TV camera at the French Open in Paris this week. He wrote this following the latest round of protests by the Serbs in the northern Kosovo town of Zvecan, where Djokovic’s father grew up. Serbs, who comprise a majority in Kosovo’s north, have never accepted Kosovo’s 2008 unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia. The clashes came as ethnic Albanian mayors took office in Serb majority areas following elections that the Serbs had boycotted. The Kosovo peacekeeping force KFOR is trying to maintain peace.
President Aleksandar Vucic of the ruling progressive party (SNS) of Serbia has consistently rejected Kosovo’s 2008 unilateral declaration of sovereignty and has waged a decade-long campaign to discourage others from recognizing Kosovo. Ethnic Albanian majorityKosovo had rebelled against Serbia in 1998-99 culminating in the79-day bombardment by NATO to turn the war against Serbia. Serbia’s Constitution declares the autonomous province of Kosovo as part of Serbia. Close to 100 countries, led by the US, recognize statehood of Kosovo, others that do not include India, Russia, South Africa, Brazil, China and includes 40 odd countries of the NAM. Some 5 countries of the EU also do not recognize the statehood of Kosovo. Apart from the overarching political issue of the recognition of Kosovo, there is the more immediate question of how to integrate Kosovo’s minority Serb population into its government architecture, particularly in the four northernmost municipalities where Serbs form the majority.
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Though Serbia formally continues to claim sovereign right to all of Kosovo, it has given up trying to exercise its writ in most of Kosovo’s territory, except in northern Kosovo where both Belgrade and Pristina (Kosovo) hold elements of State power, and where local authorities, who retain close ties to Belgrade, enjoy substantial self-rule, all in an uneasy equilibrium. Serbs want the north’s autonomy extended and made official, but Kosovo is dragging its feet.
The sharpest point of friction currently, thus, is the level of self-rule in four north Kosovo municipalities and their connection with Serbia. Since 2011, Pristina has been slowly bringing these Serb-majority northern areas of Kosovo under its full jurisdiction. Previously, these territories had two parallel municipal authorities, one set reporting to Belgrade and the other to Pristina. The EU began pressing Serbia to make the reluctant northerners integrate into the Kosovo administrative system, as a part of the process of normalization which won Serbia candidate status for eventual membership of the EU. In 2013, Belgrade formally dissolved its Kosovo municipal authorities and pushed the Kosovo Serbs to turn out for elections organized by Pristina. The result was a jumble of crisscrossing jurisdictions and loyalties. On the one hand, by 2015, municipal governments, police and the judiciary were all officially answering to Pristina, on the other, the ethnic Serb leaders were looking towards Belgrade for leadership. Important Serbian institutions remained in place, including a large university and medical center in North Mitrovica, and the Serbian social security and pension schemes continued to operate in the region. Northerners in Kosovo clung to elements of Serbian identity even as they grudgingly accommodated to the Kosovo system, retaining Serbian personal documents, and driving cars with Serbian license plates; they even participated in the Serbian national elections for the President and the Parliament.
Soon after coming to power inMarch 2021, new Kosovo PM Kurti took more assertive steps toward integrating the north with the rest of Kosovo, resulting in a backlash that has set the scene for escalating protests. He cracked down on smuggling, prohibited use of Serbian license plates and arrested several prominent Serbs. In response northern Serbs revolted and in November 2022, northern Serb representatives withdrew from Kosovo government institutions. In late December the European Union (UN) got involved in peacemaking efforts leading to a 27 February 2023 agreement which has not made any headway. Serbs boycotted the early municipal elections held on 23 April 2023 to replace those who had quit. With only the tiny non-Serb minority voting, the election brought in a slate of new local officials comprising exclusively ethnic Albanians.This poses the greatest risk of violence at present. French President Macron has blamed Pristina for the escalation.
Significantly, Kosovo is the heartland of Serbian civilization and Serbian orthodox church, it is the Jerusalem of Serbia. In medieval times, Kosovo was part of the original Serbian kingdom: together with some neighboring areas, Kosovo became part ofStaara Serbia or Old Serbia. The Serbian rulers from 12th century onwards built churches, monasteries and fortresses in the area including in Deccani, Pec and Prizren. The Serbs founded their own independent Christian Church in 1219headquartered in Pec, one of the major cities in today’s Kosovo.
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The famous Battle of Kosovo of 1389 established the Serbian pride in resistance to the Turks and as the bulwark ofChristendom that had blunted the force of the Ottoman invasion. The battle, though lost, symbolizes the survival of Serbian culture and language during the centuries of Ottoman rule, partly because of the non-intrusive style of the Ottomans and partly due to the structure and intellectual feats of the Serbian Orthodox Church which kept alive Serbian identity, unity, and territorial claims. Thus, the battle stands in Serbian history as a symbol of suffering, of the struggle against invaders, and of cultural survival against the odds. In theBattle of Kosovo, the Serbs were assisted by the Albanians who were also Christians. After the defeat, many Albanians gradually converted to Islam, as did other Europeans in Bosnia and Bulgaria. Kosovo reverted to Serbia after the Balkan wars of 1912-13 when Serbia defeated the Turks on Kosovo soil, thereby ending over five centuries of Ottoman rule.
Being the cradle of Serbian civilization, Kosovo is sensitive and a powder keg.It stirs up Serbian emotions like anything. Aleksandar Vucic, the Serbian President in a speech this week acknowledged that the costs of the principled stand are high. “We will stick to our Kosovo policy until the damage caused to Serbia is so much greater that we would have to accept a different reality. Maybe a future government will make a different decision”. Without Kosovo, Serbians will forever be in search of their identity!
Vucic has regretted very much that France and Germany have encouraged Serbia to allow Kosovo to join international institutions and organizations, including the UN, in exchange for early membership in the EU and significant economic benefits for Serbia. Kosovo’s accession process to the Council of Europe is to begin soon. Vucic added that such a solution was unacceptable to Belgrade and contravened Serbia’s constitution. The EU, for one, would like to draw the curtains on the remaining unresolved issue, Kosovo. Russia has leveraged its diplomatic support for Belgrade in the Kosovo dispute into trade, weapons, and other ties, in addition citing it in criticism of western decisions or justification for Moscow’s actions in Ukraine. Vucic has further said Serbia will maintain its refusal to sanction Russia, now on its eighth round, a position that has raised tensions given Serbia’s candidate status for EU membership and accession talks ongoing for nearly ten years now. Vucic has also criticized Croatia for removing a paragraph that would have granted Serbia and other landlocked western Balkan countries an exemption allowing them to continue receiving Russian seaborne crude oil. Vucic said as part of the energy diversification effort Serbia planned to build a $100 m oil pipeline toward Hungary; another plan would be to see a pipeline via North Macedonia.
Meanwhile, KFOR’s peacekeeping presence is trying to keep the situation in northern Kosovo under control. KFOR enjoys unique respect equally among Serbs due to its formal neutrality and Albanians because it represents NATO. KFOR also plays an important diplomatic role in cooling down tempers on both sides in the province. Clearly, this time round, KFOR has been tested: the NATO Secretary General has now ordered reinforcements and a standby force too.
The author is a former Indian Ambassador to the Republic of Serbia.
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