Recognizing Kosovo

The CIA's World Fact Book now contains a page devoted to Kosovo as a separate state. Now that we have it on such unimpeachable authority, I guess that makes it so. If a future PQ government in Québec should pass a unilateral declaration of independence, I assume that means the rest of us should check with the CIA to see whether it really has taken effect.

Warren in the right

Canada's own David Warren can be a bit strident at times. Nevertheless he and I are in agreement on Kosovo.

Europe's tinderbox: Kosovo

It is rare that Russian officials show more political sense than their American counterparts, but I agree, for once, with Vladimir Putin, as well as with our own former prime minister Jean Chrétien, as reported here:

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a sharp warning to the West about recognizing Kosovo's independence. He said the decision would have dire consequences.

"In the end, this is a stick with two ends and that other end will come back to knock them on the head someday," he said in a televised statement. "The Kosovo precedent is a terrifying precedent," he added. "It in essence is breaking open the entire system of international relations that have prevailed not just for decades but for centuries."

In Canada, former prime minister Jean Chrétien said Canada should proceed with caution as it decides whether to recognize Kosovo's independence or not. Chrétien, who described the situation as a political powder keg with far-reaching implications, appeared to back the go-slow approach of the Harper government.

"Canada has to be careful because we have people who want to separate from Canada," he said in Ottawa, where he was receiving the Order of Canada.

But in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was time for Serbs to accept that Kosovo is no longer theirs. She also suggested it was time to drop centuries of grievance and sentimentality in the Balkans.

"We believe that the resolution of Kosovo's status will really, finally, let the Balkans begin to put its terrible history behind it," Rice said Friday. "It's time to move forward."

Needless to say, Rice's statement is naïve in the extreme, amounting to little more than wishful thinking. To expect that Serbs will simply forget their troubled past and give up their own territory because she says so is not a credible policy. In fact, it will only solidify the Serb tendency to focus on past wrongs by adding one more to the litany of grievances. Perhaps it's time for the US to move forward and put aside the notion that it has the authority to act as arbiter over other, much smaller states' territorial integrity.

Recognizing Kosovo

The US President once again displays his lack of foreign policy acumen with this precipitous action: 'Kosovars are now independent': Bush. The United States may have begun with a unilateral declaration of independence back in 1776, but when faced with its own separatist movement in the form of the Confederate States of America, it changed its tune pretty quickly. Bush might wish to inquire why Spain, Greece, Romania, Cyprus and Slovakia are uneasy over the precedent this recognition of Kosovo might establish elsewhere.

Mid-February snippets

• It's finally happened: Kosovo Declares Its Independence From Serbia. A lot of people will not be pleased over this, especially ethnic Serbs living in the province, but also a number of European Union members with their own separatist movements.


• Here is very good news indeed: Cyprus vote goes to runoff, Papadopoulos out. Tassos Papadopoulos has obstructed a settlement in the island since attaining the presidency five years ago. I would still prefer Nicos Rolandis in office, but either Kassoulides or Christofias will be an improvement over Papadopoulos.


• This makes little sense to me: 5 Anglican primates to boycott Lambeth. Ten years ago it became evident that there is a small-o orthodox majority in the Anglican communion. Why boycott the next Lambeth Conference where orthodox provinces would otherwise carry the day once again?


• This I can understand more easily, given the current confessional disarray in the Anglican Church of Canada: Five Anglican parishes set to separate from Church. Archbishop Fred Hiltz is, of course, appealing selectively to the Windsor Report, thereby demonstrating, once more, that bishops are quite willing to defy any authority except their own.


• The WRF's Comment runs an interview with a south central Upper Canadian political scientist of minor renown. It might be worth taking a peek at.


• Tomorrow is the new provincial holiday, Family Day, instituted by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty upon being returned to office last autumn. My wife pointed out to me that it just happens to fall on what in the US is called Presidents' Day. Our holidays tend uncannily to coincide with American ones. Or are we simply copy cats?

Averting more Balkan turmoil

At the end of the Great War, US President Woodrow Wilson was certain he knew how to bring lasting peace to Europe: by advancing the apparently democratic right of national self-determination. Unfortunately he neglected adequately to explain what precisely a nation is and who could be said to possess this right. Two short decades later Europe and much of the rest of the world were at war again.

This unworkable principle is about to be invoked again with the probable recognition by the US and the EU of the independence of the breakaway Serb province of Kosovo. Here, with hat tip to bookforum.com, are two articles alerting us to the folly of such a policy: Gary J. Bass, Independence Daze; and Raju G. C. Thomas, The Case against Kosovo Independence. Thomas paints a chilling scenario for the future:

More broadly, to allow Kosovo’s independence would demonstrate that violent secessionism works. In that case, the world ought to get used to seeing the Kosovo “strategy” applied elsewhere. First, faceless ethnic secessionists attack civilians and police. Not knowing where the enemy is hidden within the civilian population, security forces retaliate indiscriminately. Human rights violations elicit an international outcry and condemnation, followed by intervention and occupation by foreign military forces. And, in the denouement, the state loses control of its province as the secessionists declare independence.

Such fragmentation is a recipe, not for justice for discontented minorities, but for massive injustice as political authorities lose the capacity to enforce the rule of law within their own territorial jurisdictions. There is still time to avoid a potentially dangerous error of judgement. As readers well know, I am no fan of Vladimir "Stalin Lite" Putin. However, in this case the soon-to-be Russian Prime Minister would do well to make clear to the west that Serbia's territorial integrity cannot up for grabs.

Dismembering Serbia, again

Like Canada, Cyprus too is opposed to the West's plans for this Balkan province: Cyprus will not consent to Kosovo's secession. With some justification, the island nation fears that it could suffer the same fate as Serbia.

In the meantime, the Russian news service Interfax keeps tabs on the destruction of Orthodox churches in Kosovo, the traditional heartland of Serbia: The Kosovo Tragedy.

While we're at it, could this mark the beginning of another European Union: Alexy II urges Orthodox [governments] to develop relations based on common spiritual tradition.

Dismembering Serbia

Despite western pressure on Serbia to accept an independent Kosovo, Canada is not enthusiastic about the precedent it would set: Kosovo independence could encourage Quebec separatists. Serbia itself is rejecting a European Union offer to fast-track its membership in the organization in exchange for Kosovo. Perhaps Serbia needs its own Clarity Act.

More on Orthodox Church growth

This year eastern and western celebrations of Easter occurred on the same day. To mark this rare simultaneous observance, the media in several US cities have taken the opportunity to report on the growing numbers of converts to the Orthodox Church. From the Cincinnati Enquirer: Timeless faith sees good times: Orthodox Christianity growing swiftly in U.S. From the Lansing State Journal: Steeped in tradition. From the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal: Where new embraces old. From The Seattle Times: Orthodox churches experiencing a resurgence.

In the meantime the elderly Patriarch Pavle of the Orthodox Church of Serbia has denounced western plans to grant independence to the Serbian province of Kosovo. I am inclined to agree with those who argue that encouraging such a move would establish a dangerous precedent for other states plagued by secessionist movements. It is unlikely that, say, the United States would allow territories in its own southwest with Spanish-speaking majorities to claim independence or to rejoin Mexico.

Tragedy in Kosovo

Has the western world been turning a blind eye to the destruction of churches in Kosovo? According to this Interfax report, the answer is yes.