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Double Standards on Russia-Kosovo
Russia, Georgia, and the Kosovo Connection
By J. Victor Marshall
"By selectively turning principles into propagandist slogans for
scoring points, the United States no longer occupies the
political high ground. Washington’s lectures sound like
hectoring, not sincere admonitions that could sway international
public opinion and restrain Russian actions."
27/08/08 "MMN" -- - In
Russia even more than in America,
“Kosovo” rhymes with “I told you so.”
Many Americans don’t realize that the former Serbian province of
Kosovo, which broke away in 1999 after US-led NATO forces bombed
Serbia for 78 days, helped set the stage for the recent conflict
between Russia and neighboring Georgia.
But Russian leaders, who like most leaders care intensely about
what happens at their borders (Georgia) and to their longtime
allies (Serbia), warned earlier this year that support for
Kosovo’s independence would set a precedent that could trigger
separatist conflicts in places like Georgia.
It was a warning that Washington and several of its European
allies foolishly, even recklessly, failed to heed.
In negotiations over the final status of Kosovo, which had been
under United Nations jurisdiction since 1999, Serbia promised
the province autonomy but not independence.
While many observers questioned Kosovo’s readiness for
independence, given corruption in its civil administration and
the murderous campaign of ethnic cleansing waged by Albanian
nationalists against Serbs in their midst, Kosovo unilaterally
declared its independence on February 17.
Although Kosovo’s move arguably violated UN Security Council
Resolution 1244, which recognized Serbia’s ultimate sovereignty,
many NATO countries including the United States sided with
Kosovo.
“The Kosovars are now independent,” declared President Bush.
Humiliated by NATO’s military intervention in 1999, Russia now
chafed at the political intervention of NATO countries in favor
of Kosovo’s secession, which Russian President Vladimir Putin
condemned as “immoral and illegal.”
Russian leaders warned that unilateral recognition of Kosovo’s
independence would open a “Pandora’s box” by appearing to
support similar claims by other separatist movements in some 200
regions of the world.
The Russian Foreign Ministry declared, “Those who are
considering supporting separatism should understand what
dangerous consequences their actions threaten to have for world
order, international stability and the authority of the U.N.
Security Council's decisions that took decades to build.”
Outside of NATO, many countries sided with Russia’s statement of
principles.
Surprisingly, one of the most outspoken was Russia’s hostile
southern neighbor, Georgia. And the reason wasn’t hard for
experts to fathom.
As Richard Weitz at the Hudson Institute noted at the time,
Russia could seize upon Kosovo as a precedent for fomenting
separatist movements in the former Soviet republics, including
South Ossetia’s drive for independence from Georgia in the
Caucasus.
Jonathan Eyal, director of international security studies at the
Royal United Services Institute, warned similarly, “if the
Kosovo precedent is used, the Russians can also recognise ethnic
Russian enclaves in places such as Georgia or Moldova. What's
good for Kosovo is good for other places as well.”
Their unheeded warnings have just come to pass, at the expense
of thousands of dead and wounded.
Just as NATO justified its intervention in 1999 as a
humanitarian defense of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians against
Serbian atrocities, so Russia said it came to the defense of
South Ossetia, which suffered terrible atrocities at Georgian
hands in the early 1990s, after Georgian troops shelled its
capital earlier this month.
In addition to Kosovo, Russia can justify its intervention on
behalf of South Ossetia by pointing to any number of other
precedents set by the United States: the Bush administration’s
doctrine of preemption, its invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan,
its silence in the face of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, and
many more.
What difference do all these precedents and broken principles
make?
By selectively turning principles into propagandist slogans for
scoring points, the United States no longer occupies the
political high ground. Washington’s lectures sound like
hectoring, not sincere admonitions that could sway international
public opinion and restrain Russian actions.
In short, by squandering its moral authority, the United States
has unilaterally disarmed itself of “soft power” that was once
one of our greatest weapons. And Kosovo was one of the fields
upon which the United States laid down its moral arms.
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