Washington Times, DC
Sept 7 2008

Kosovo prelude to Georgia?

James George Jatras
Sunday, September 7, 2008

COMMENTARY:

In anticipation of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s recognition of
the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, President Bush said
"Georgia’s territorial integrity and borders must command the same
respect as every other nation’s."

Critics of Russia’s action include Sens. Barack Obama, Joseph Biden
and Joseph Lieberman; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former
United Nations Ambassador Richard Holbrooke; and many others in the
bipartisan establishment.

Among the specific criticisms are Russia’s violation of the sovereign
territory of Georgia, a fledgling democracy and a member of the United
Nations; a disproportionate response to Georgian President Mikhail
Saakashvili’s attempt to settle South Ossetia’s status by force,
including Russian military operations well outside of South Ossetia;
and Moscow’s tardiness in withdrawing its forces under a deal brokered
by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Evidently irony is not much appreciated in Washington. It seems
critics have forgotten President Bush’s recognition of the
independence of Kosovo, a province of democratic, U.N. member
Serbia. President Bush’s reference to "every other nation" whose
"territorial integrity and borders must command the same respect"
apparently has at least this one exception. If he can violate the
United Nations Charter and the Helsinki Final Act, which guarantee
sovereign borders, what right does he have to accuse others of doing
the same?

If Moscow stepped over the line in its crushing military response to
Mr. Saakashvili’s offensive, what do we call 78 straight days of
NATO’s bombing throughout Serbia, destroying most of that country’s
civilian infrastructure? If Russia is to be faulted for imperfect
implementation of the Sarkozy agreement, what can be said about
Washington’s violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, which
ended the 1999 Kosovo war and reaffirms Serbian sovereignty in the
province?

The standard reasons cited for making Serbia an exception to the rule
we demand in Georgia is that NATO intervened to stop genocide of
Kosovo’s Albanians and that they will never again accept being part of
Serbia. But after the war actual casualties among all ethnic groups –
whether by military action, atrocities committed by both Serbs and
Albanians, and the toll of NATO’s bombing – proved to be far fewer
than those cited in justification for the war. Compared to South
Ossetia’s much smaller population, mutual accusations of genocide
against South Ossetians and Georgians, respectively, are
proportionally larger than those at issue in Kosovo. And are South
Ossetians and Abkhazians less adamant that they will not submit to
Tbilisi’s rule than Kosovo’s Albanians are with respect to Belgrade?

It also should be kept in mind that Kosovo’s legal status is very
different from that of entities in the former Soviet Union. Under the
Yugoslav constitution – the same authority that justified the
secession of Croatia, Slovenia, etc. – Kosovo, part of Serbia since
before Yugoslavia was formed, has no legal claim to independence. In
contrast, the 1990 Soviet law on secession – which was the legal basis
of the independence of Union Republics such as Georgia – required that
autonomous entities within their borders be allowed, via referenda, to
remain in the Soviet Union, and by extension its successor, Russia.

Thus, while Kosovo’s status as part of Serbia is unquestionable, South
Ossetia and Abkhazia can make a good case they were part of Soviet
Georgia but never the current independent state of Georgia. (The same
would apply to Transdniestria with respect to Moldova and
Nagorno-Karabakh with respect to Azerbaijan. When will they follow
suit?)

By trashing the accepted international "rules of the road" on Kosovo,
Washington has created what amounts to the rules of the jungle. Each
power acts as it will, either to suppress restive minorities or to
compromise other countries’ borders: The United States tries to force
Serbia to accept Kosovo’s independence and pressures other countries
(without much success) to recognize it; Georgia tries to subdue the
Ossetians and the Abkhazians and fails; Russia moves to establish the
Ossetians’ and Abkhazians’ independence and now also will try to
secure wider recognition. In turn, the U.S.-supported separatist
Kosovo Albanian administration itself threatens a miniature version of
Mr. Saakashvili’s South Ossetia offensive to subdue Serbian enclaves,
where the remaining one-third of the province’s prewar community finds
refuge. Where does the logic of "big fish eat little fish" end?

In Kosovo, Washington sowed the wind, and now Georgia has reaped the
whirlwind. Only a return to the negotiating table to address
comprehensively Kosovo, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and similar trouble
spots elsewhere can prevent this malignant precedent from spinning
further out of control with incalculable consequences for global peace
and security. With each step down this road it will be harder to put
the genie of might-makes-right back in the bottle.

James George Jatras is a lawyer and director of the American Council
for Kosovo in Washington, an activity of Squire Sanders Public
Advocacy, LLC, and Global Strategic Communications Group, which are
registered agents for the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and
Metohija. Mr. Jatras formerly served as a foreign policy analyst of
the U.S. Senate Republican leadership.

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