Analysis
No, Kosovo is not unique!
By Bojan Ratkovic
March 17, 2008

In a recent Globe and Mail essay, former senior policy advisor to Jean Chrétien, Eddie Goldenberg, cleverly observed that “Kosovo is not on the St. Lawrence”. According to Mr. Goldenberg, if Canada were to recognize the illegal and unilateral declaration of independence made by ethnic Albanians in Serbia’s Kosovo province, no precedent would be set for Canada’s divided province of Quebec to one day declare its own independence in a similar way. The Kosovo case is one of “special circumstances”, Goldenberg claims, and therefore “Canada would be justified in according recognition to Kosovo”.

DANGEROUS PRECEDENTS

Although Goldenberg is quite correct in noting that Kosovo is geographically not located on the St. Lawrence River, and is therefore not the same as Quebec in a literal sense, there seems to be a significant gap between Goldenberg’s assertions and global realities. Aside from the fact that separatists in Quebec were among the first to congratulate their counterparts in Kosovo on attaining unilateral “independence” from Serbia, Goldenberg himself concedes that Daniel Turp, the international relations critic for the Parti Quebecois, has already forecasted that his party may pursue a similar path in Quebec, irrespective of Canada’s domestic laws and UN regulations.

Mr. Turp knows that when it comes to international law, there really are no “special circumstances”; there are only precedents. International laws and norms are very vulnerable to unilateral breaches, as witnessed in the tragic failure of the League of Nations; a failure that led to the outbreak of the Second World War. The unilateral invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the current Kosovo situation are threatening the UN with a similar fate. Canada must stand firm on both issues.

Goldenberg is right in saying that Kosovo is not on the St. Lawrence, but its implications most certainly are. Undoubtedly Kosovo is no more on the St. Lawrence than it is in the Southern Caucasus, and yet the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have already evoked the Kosovo precedent to declare their own unilateral independence from the Republic of Georgia. Ironically, Goldenberg calls fears of the Kosovo precedent “nonsense unsupported by international law”. Others have called them “reality”.
 

OPPRESSION AND INDEPENDENCE

Goldenberg argues that Serbs committed atrocities against the Albanians in Kosovo, and that as a result, Kosovo can successfully demand independence from Serbia. Goldenberg underlines that, under international law, if a “people has been governed as part of a colonial empire, has been subjugated, dominated or exploited, or denied any real exercise of political rights within the existing state’s framework” then that people has a right to self-determination. According to Goldenberg, as Quebeckers are not an oppressed people within Canada, they cannot possibly demand the same.

However, if Goldenberg took the time to speak to some separatists in Quebec, and to hear their arguments for independence, he would find that most of them do indeed consider themselves an “oppressed people”. Quebeckers feel that ever since the British military conquest of New France in the 18th century, Quebec’s distinct French culture and language have been marginalized by the invading Anglophones. What’s more, Quebeckers deeply resent that Canada’s Constitution was unilaterally imposed upon the province in 1982, despite fierce opposition by Quebec’s own government. Realistically speaking, in 2003 the government of Serbia offered Kosovo a more comprehensive autonomy than Quebec ever enjoyed as part of Canada, hardly an indication of colonial domination and denial of political rights.

The simple fact is that much like the Quebeckers in Canada and the Albanians in Serbia, most separatist throughout the world consider themselves an oppressed people to some degree, and they certainly all believe that their claim for self-determination is as good as any other. The case of Kosovo has shown that when it comes to unilateral declarations of independence, opinions like Goldenberg’s really do not count for much. All that matters is the sentiment of the separatists themselves.

PAST TO PRESENT

Kosovo’s history is one of ethnic and religious conflict spanning across many centuries. All sides have suffered immensely as a result, and to emphasize the suffering of one ethnic group over another would be counter-productive to achieving reconciliation and stability in the region. The most pressing issue at the present time is the current situation in Kosovo and the suffering that still goes on to this day in the troubled province.

One needs only to look at the most recent Freedomhouse, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch reports on Kosovo to understand the current situation on the ground. Since the Serbian military and police withdrew from the province in 1999 and Kosovo came under joint UN and NATO administration, over 250 thousand Serbs and other non-Albanians were forced to flee the province as a result of organized terror and ethnic cleansing. More than 180 Christian churches were burned and destroyed by Islamic extremists, countless graveyards were desecrated and unknown numbers of non-Albanian homes and other properties were torched. The remaining Serbs and members of other ethnic minorities, including the Roma and Gorani, live in ghetto-like enclaves, protected by barbed wire for fear of further racially-motivated violence by the majority Albanians. Most are afraid and unwilling to leave their enclaves at any cost, despite a dangerous lack of schools and hospitals in those areas. Fear and suffering are omnipresent in these isolated minority communities.

Meanwhile, the KLA-aligned government in Kosovo has done virtually nothing to protect its threatened minorities, preferring instead to concern itself with drug-trafficking and other criminal activities. Although Freedomhouse rates the rest of Serbia as “free” and democratic, Kosovo itself remains classified as “not free”. As the 2007 report outlines, “within Kosovo, little progress was made on improving human rights and political and civil liberties for non-Albanian ethnic communities, and violent attacks on non-Albanians continued on a regular basis.” The real reason no official referendum was ever held on the Kosovo independence question is clear: the province lacks an adequate democratic system that would allow for it.

As a nation that played the key role in establishing the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) concept for humanitarian intervention, Canada has an obligation to refuse rewarding an undemocratic and oppressive government with independence and recognition. A functioning sovereign state is directly responsible for protecting its own people, including its minorities, and Kosovo’s government does not come even close to meeting that one simple criterion. Contrary to Goldenberg’s assertions, Canada would NOT be justified in recognizing an independent Kosovo.
 

HOW UNIQUE IS KOSOVO?

The ethnic Albanian push for independence in Kosovo differs little from most other separatist movements throughout the world. The separatists feel oppressed and marginalized by the federal government and they consider independence as the only solution to their difficulties and frustrations. The same argument has been made in Quebec, in Abkhazia, in South Ossetia, and elsewhere. Where Kosovo differs from Quebec, aside from its geographical location, is Kosovo’s governmental and political inability to run a successful state and protect the very people living within it.

If the Canadian government says yes to the illegal and unilateral independence of an undemocratic and discriminatory regime in Kosovo, how can the democratic and civil government in Quebec be denied its own independence?