Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

What a month to debate military intervention in another country’s affairs!  The 24th of March marks the twelfth anniversary of NATO bombing Yugoslavia.  The supposed success of that mission buoyed the interventionists, inspired Tony Blair and set the scene for a bloody decade to come.       Now the Gaddafi regime is proving resistant to concerted internal opposition to remove it and peaceful western pressure for it to go.  Yesterday David Cameron asked his Ministry of Defence to draw up plans for a “no fly zone” in Libya, which could prevent the Colonel bombing his enemies.  It’s not Belgrade 1999, but the rhetoric about not “standing idly by” has a similar ring.  Nick Robinson asks whether this could be "Cameron's first war" . No wonder some Libyans are nervous.  They need only look at Iraq to see the possible costs of western “help“.  The debate still rages as to whether the country is better off, now that its bloodthirsty dictator has been removed and replaced by

Readers of The Times and some other papers may well be startled to learn this morning that Kosovo is a murderous, criminal ‘state’ and that its prime minister, Haksim Thaci, is the biggest villain of all. It’s not exactly news to anyone who makes the least effort to stay independently informed about events in the Balkans.  To be fair, almost uniquely among British newspapers, the Guardian has carried occasional articles taking a fair and balanced look at the Serbian province and its affairs. That newspaper  has acquired the full text of a report to the Council of Europe on organised crime in Kosovo.  It is the result of a two year inquiry headed by the Swiss human rights investigator Dick Marty and it will be published in full tomorrow, although a provisional draft is available on the Council’s website. Its contents are grimly predictable.  Kosovo is a major conduit for heroin into Europe and its prime minister heads the mafia which smuggles the drug. The ethnic Albanian terr

With the International Court of Justice set to rule on the autonomous province’s unilateral declaration of independence, pressure on Serbia to drop its legal challenge from the so-called ’Quint’ has become intense. At Comment is Free, Bancroft argues that Spain’s plan for fresh negotiations offers a reasonable compromise which high handed behaviour from Britain, Germany, France, Italy and the US is designed to prevent. In addition he highlights threats from Kosovo Albanian separatists to foment further secessionism in southern Serbia. From the instant Belgrade decided to test Nato’s Kosovar protectorate against the precepts of international law, it has been subject to bullying from the region’s sponsors. The launching point for the CIF article is a ’strongly worded communiqué’ from the Quint which accuses Serbia of “aggressive rhetoric” and “adventurous actions”. As Bancroft observes, the Serbs have vowed to oppose Kosovo Albanian independence by exclusively “peaceful, diplomatic

The anniversary of last summer’s war between Georgia and Russia has formed a pretext for predictable anti-Russian posturing. Politicians in Britain and elsewhere have been quick to rationalise their initial reactions to the conflict, despite the improvement in tone which Barack Obama’s arrival at the White House has precipitated between western governments and the Kremlin during the last six months. However, despite the residual, reflexive Russophobia which informs much of this analysis, it has generally been expressed in terms which are distinctly more temperate than the (empty) sabre rattling we witnessed last August. Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, is a particularly blinkered critic of Moscow, and compulsively meddles in the affairs of sovereign states. But he met the anniversary of Saakashvili’s invasion with an uncharacteristically muted statement which welcomed President Medvedev’s call for a ‘new security architecture’ in Europe. The Conservative shadow defence minister,

The Foreign Policy Centre has published a pamphlet entitled ‘Spotlight on Georgia’ , timed to coincide with Vice President Biden’s visit to Tbilisi, this week. It is a substantial document and I have yet to plough through all of it. What is clear from my reading so far is that the influential British think tank’s investigations have charted a decline in standards of democracy and human rights under President Saakashvili, despite Western support which is often ‘almost reflexive’. From the 2003 Rose Revolution, and promising beginnings, degeneration in standards has been discerned in recent years, particularly since 2007. Saakashvili’s autocratic style has precipitated a pool of disgruntled politicians prepared to challenge his regime. Opposition has been suppressed, often by violent methods and press freedoms have been curtailed. In its ‘Nations in Transition’ report Freedom House adjudged Georgia to be ‘less democratic’ today than it has been at any point in the last ten years. Th

Barack Obama is in Russia today. Thus a proliferation of articles and editorials urging the US President not to trust perfidious, semi-Asiatic barbarians adorn the newspapers. Predictably. In contrast, few media outlets chose to cover an assassination attempt last month on reforming Ingushetia president, Yunusbek Yevkurov, which constitutes part of a reinvigorated Islamist campaign in the Russian Caucasus. Encouraged by Dmitri Medvedev, Yevkurov has implemented a regime built on principles of glasnost in Russia’s most dangerous region. The terrorist attack was targeted very deliberately at a force for normalisation and transparency, which Wahhabi militants wish to undermine. Fewer reporters still have highlighted the ongoing struggle for democracy in Georgia and the government’s repressive tactics against the country’s opposition. But with Obama in Moscow to meet his Kremlin counterpart, all the clichés about a totalitarian Russian regime, intent on snuffing out democracy al

In the wake of Nato's exercises in Georgia Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, has admitted that no new Russia - Nato Council meeting is planned. Whilst it is hardly surprising, this represents a blow to any nascent partnership with Moscow. Although I have acknowledged the Kremlin's excitability as regards the alliance and its activities, I also believe that the choice of Georgia for manoeuvres was an unnecessary provocation. Inevitably the trickiest aspect of western relations with Russia to 'reset' will revolve around a military organisation which was brought into existence to combat the Soviet Union. A genuine spirit of respect and compromise is a prerequisite, and unfortunate posturing in Georgia has set the process back, almost before it had begun.

The turbulent history of the Balkans is sustained by myth and counter myth. Elision and half truth mark different interpretations of recent events, never mind proto-national narratives, which often delve deep into the medieval past and beyond. I am currently reading Noel Malcolm’s ‘Short History of Kosovo’ . Although the writer is heavily predisposed towards an Albanian understanding of the province’s story, he is prepared, at least, to test nationalist shibboleths on either side of the Serb / Albanian divide. Malcolm assures us from the outset that he does not believe that prior habitation by antecedents comprises sufficient evidence to sustain current political claims to a territory. Given that he is correct in this contention, he invests surprising energy in bolstering his argument that Albanians are not recent arrivals in the Balkan region. Although the author deconstructs one side’s myths with greater vigour, and although he requires his deconstructions to bear more weight th

Two ‘Comment is Free’ pieces today reflect on the tenth anniversary of NATO’s bombardment of Serbia and the legacy which it bequeathed the region. The immediate aftermath of bombing, when a humanitarian crisis was precipitated by military action which had the purported aim of halting just such a catastrophe, which was said to be ongoing in Kosovo, has been well documented. Ian Bancroft finds, a decade later, that diplomacy and international law have been two of the chief casualties of NATO’s action whilst Simon Tisdall believes the universal declaration of independence by the Albanian regime in Kosovo has not had a stabilising influence on the west Balkans. Bancroft , “Pre-intervention portrayals of the conflict in Kosovo were not, however, a failure of intelligence, but an act of willing deceit; designed to reduce the conflict to terms that betrayed the complexity of a situation involving a previously designated terrorist organisation, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), and a heavy-

To follow up a little on the piece below, it seems the US under Obama is keen to direct NATO policy towards re-engagement with Russia. Work in this regard had already begun with an informal meeting of the NATO-Russia Council. As its foreign ministers met today , with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in attendance for the first time, the alliance pledged to recommence the work of the Council on a formal basis. Predictably there were differences of opinion, and Clinton described a ‘vigorous discussion’ on Russia. But what is particularly significant is that the Americans are no longer aligned with the more belligerent anti-Russian voices. Indeed the US joined Germany, traditionally less frosty in its relationship with Moscow, and tabled a motion calling for Russia to become, “equal partners in areas of common interest”. Predictably David Miliband struck a less conciliatory note. But if the temperature of Russia-NATO relations begins to cool he will be forced to temper his anti

This piece by James Marson on Comment is Free is worth reading. The pertinent point is that Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yushchenko, has not become unpopular because he has bravely held a pro-western, pro-Nato line against a perfidious Russian conspiracy. Although Yushchenko’s anti-Russian stance, and in particular his hard line during the war in South Ossetia, has scarcely helped heal divisions in Ukraine, he is unpopular chiefly because of his inability to, “deal with the problems that the Orange revolution targeted: primarily, the concentration of power and money among a venal elite who are immune to prosecution”. David Miliband take note.

Encouraging news that NATO’s relationship with Russia might be normalising in the aftermath of war in South Ossetia. Radio Free Europe reports the first meeting of the Russia NATO Council since the alliance suspended contact citing Russia’s ‘disproportionate response' to events in the Caucasus. The Kremlin’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said ‘the ice is thawing’. Russia is keen to cooperate as regards transport routes to Afghanistan. It sees continued insurrection there as a threat to the stability of its borders with Central Asia. Treating Moscow with respect and consideration affords opportunities to build meaningful partnership. Barack Obama has a window of opportunity to pursue constructive policy toward Russia. An early meeting with President Medvedev would offer a chance for Obama to demonstrate good faith.

Taking its cue from European Union foreign ministers , Nato has agreed to limited reengagement with Russia . The decision represents a victory for those European states which favour a less belligerent approach to their eastern neighbour and a defeat for ‘new Cold War’ hawks in Washington. Germany and France have reiterated their determination that no shortcuts to Nato membership should be available to Georgia or Ukraine. In the States, the meeting, which took place in Brussels between Nato foreign ministers, is being spun rather differently . By this interpretation, the US government, represented by Condoleeza Rice, has agreed to reengagement only on condition that work continues to prepare Georgia and Ukraine’s route to membership. The Germans and French now insist that the two aspirant members must fully complete the MAP process, reversing the position they assumed at the Bucharest conference earlier this year. War in South Ossetia exemplified the danger associated with subsumin

Peter Rutland writes in the Moscow Times , highlighting the disparity between intentions which have been ascribed to Dmitri Medvedev and Vladimir Putin and the language which the men themselves have used. Often their pronouncements have been misreported, or at least reinterpreted in more sinister language, in order to imply more bellicose intent than careful examination of their statements actually yields. Neither Medvedev nor Putin have ever actually used the term ‘sphere of influence’, despite widespread reporting which suggests that both men have explicitly laid out a doctrine asserting such a sphere exists within the former Soviet Union. Even ‘near abroad’ which was common parlance to describe adjacent states throughout the 1990s, has fallen into disuse to be replaced be the more diplomatic ‘near neighbours’. Russia has not used the language which the foreign press has ascribed to it. Rather, the Kremlin’s foreign policy has been outlined in terms of interests. Russia has leg

The Ukrainian Rada is often presented as an example of rude democratic health in comparison to anaemic parliaments in other former Soviet republics. That is to say that it is so fractured as to be almost unworkable, with a myriad of tiny parties forming larger blocs which must in turn coalesce in order to form a government. Ukraine’s president is Vistor Yuschenko whose Our Ukraine faction claims just 14% of Rada deputies. In 2004 he enjoyed the support of the Bloc of Yulia Tymoschenko when he sought election in the disputed presidential election against Victor Yanukovich (whose Party of the Regions forms Ukraine’s biggest single bloc). Having pulled his bloc out of coalition with the BYT, he is reportedly providing more time for Prime Minister Tymoschenko to form a coalition with Yanukovich. Yuschenko refuses to reconstitute the BYT’s preferred coalition with his bloc, because the Prime Minister has refused to follow his slavishly anti-Russian line on the Georgian conflict. The U

Tim Judah is The Economist’s Balkan correspondent and, however justified O’Neill’s reservations about that magazine might be in general terms, he remains arguably the most authoritative British journalist writing about the region. ‘Kosovo, What Everyone Needs to Know’ , is his latest book, a slim, but surprisingly detailed account of Kosovo’s history, up to and including the unilateral declaration of independence and its aftermath. In previous books Judah has drawn on personal experience and enlivened his histories with a smattering of anecdote. The confines of this OUP series demand a more concise approach. Nevertheless, the book is readable and manages largely to furnish its readers with both sides of the story. Occasionally impartiality is achieved at the expense of the flow of prose, often place names are provided in two or even three languages. Judah ably charts the current conflict’s origins in a low intensity Albanian terrorist campaign. He notes the unwitting role which

Georgia’s president, Mikhail Saakashvili, has his own singular methods for dealing with opposition to his corrupt regime. Recent history which has been conveniently forgotten in the rush to acclaim his country as a bastion of freedom in the Caucasus. Saakashvili is not the only American client in the region. Azerbaijan is corrupt, anti-democratic, repressive and an important strategic ally of the US and Nato. Ilham Aliyev is currently holds the presidency which was conferred on him in much the same fashion as a family heirloom. On Comment is Free, Nina Ognianova highlights continued abuses of human rights, oppression of press freedom and the lack of democratic credibility which will attend forthcoming elections. Don’t hold your breath for a storm of western opprobrium. Azerbaijan is too conveniently placed geographically and too rich in oil and gas to consider rocking the boat. Now if the regime were pro-Russian, that would be a different matter.

Russian president Dmitri Medvedev has recognised unilateral declarations of independence by both Abkhazia and South Ossetia, some 15 years after the republics broke away from Georgia. Very clearly it is a deplorable thing when the internationally recognised territorial integrity of a state is disregarded. The dismemberment of a state, or the attempted dismemberment of a state, cannot be applauded. However, whilst two wrongs do not make a right, it has been pointed out several times on this site that Kosovo formed a precedent which would encourage separatist regions to declare independence, and, specifically in the cases of several frozen conflicts in the former Soviet Union, would encourage Russia to respond by affording recognition of its own. Saakishvili’s attempt to bombard South Ossetians into accepting his government’s sovereignty provided a pretext for Russia to harden its support for independence in the two regions. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are illegal states which shou

When the US, UK and others assented to the dismemberment of Serbia along ethno-nationalist lines, there was an expectation that separatist movements throughout Europe and beyond would garner encouragement. Two autonomous republics of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, that are de facto independent from the authorities in Tbilisi, were said to be amongst those which might take the opportunity to make their own unilateral declarations of independence. These regions of the Caucasus did not assent to Georgia’s own claims of independence, asserted as the USSR split up in 1991. Majorities in both regions claim close allegiance to Moscow. In 2006 80% of Abkhazians had taken Russian citizenship. When Russia objected to Kosovo’s declaration of sovereignty being recognised, and was ignored, the temptation to further underpin pro-Russian breakaway republics elsewhere was inevitably going to be strong. So it has proved. Vladimir Putin recently urged his government to consolidate ties with

Robert Skidelsky opposed Nato intervention against Serb counter insurgency in Kosovo from the opposition benches of the House of Lords in 1999. His dissent from the Tory party line cost him his job and put an end to the economist’s brief political career. In the Guardian’s Comment Is Free he argues that hind-sight has proven him right . Skidelsky explicitly equates Kosovo with the subsequent Iraq debacle, seeing in it a precedent for intervention on flimsy evidence, with disregard to international law, which actually caused the situation on the ground to deteriorate. The first strand of Skidelsky’s argument against intervention at that time, was in fact precisely that it would set up a dangerous and damaging precedent for intervention. Human rights, democracy and self-determination are not legal grounds for going to war against a state unless there is an international consensus as framed and enforced by the UN Security Council. Where human rights abuses are particularly severe, he