Lessons of Kosovo
Two years ago the air forces of NATO member states started bombing Yugoslavian territory. Today Macedonian military forces are trying to oust Albanian terrorist groups out of borders of their republic. Unlike with Belgrade two years ago, nobody seems to intend to bomb Skopje. The Macedonian government is only being called to show restraint and to start a dialogue with moderate Albanian leaders. Current events, which have already escalated into a local conflict and threaten to turn into another large scale war, and the events of 1999 are connected by the word Kosovo. At that time the West in fact supported the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in its struggle against Yugoslavian leaders (who in fact were far from democratic). At that time nobody asked questions about where the KLA had gotten modern Western arms from, on what funds they existed, or where they had gotten impeccable military training. Neither did the questions arise, of what was going to happen next, when after model punishment of the Milosevic regime the Albanian radical leaders still enjoyed support in Kosovo, when eyes were shut to ethnic purges this time conducted by Albanians, when KLA disarmament had not been completed, when Serbs and other non-Albanians were being ousted from Kosovo, and their property taken as spoils of war.
The questions began to arise later, when Albanian groups in South Serbia became more active and then when armed groups of Albanians somehow appeared on Macedonian territory, allegedly crossing the Yugoslav-Macedonian border in Kosovo controlled by KFOR international forces and started fighting with local police. All this happened under absolutely righteous slogans of protecting the rights of the Albanian minority, though in fact the point was something entirely different. When the issue was being solved whether to bomb Yugoslavia to hit Milosevic, who indeed became a reason of a whole chain of Balkan wars, it was completely forgotten why exactly he, at the very beginning of his career in the still united Tito’s Yugoslavia, canceled Kosovo’s autonomy. It was exactly then, when Yugoslavian state power became as weak as it had never been before, that the first Serb massacres by Albanians, who in that way supposedly protested against Serb dominance, took place.
The events in Macedonia where Albanians form a quarter of the population were logical. Equally logical was that the republic until recently alone faced the problem that was caused not as much by Kosovo as by Western policy. Also logical is that today the West wrathfully denounces perhaps same terrorists whom it supported two years ago because priorities have changed, and Macedonia, unlike Milosevic’s Yugoslavia, has never opposed NATO and the West. Finally, in fact the Albanians are also victims since they were used in course of some big geopolitical game that has already caused instability, the illegal transport of arms, drugs, and people. This is why all this also matters for us. Sooner or later the West will learn the lessons of Kosovo and Balkans. What we should learn is that double and triple standards are common things in big-time politics and we must be prepared to it. Today, in spite of a not terribly good situation in Ukraine and a corresponding attitude toward it, it will be harder to wave it away than it was at the times of Kosovo crisis, since Ukraine is now presiding over the UN Security Council. And, incidentally, one of the Kosovo lessons tells us that, as it was with British Empire, there are no permanent friends in politics.
