Volume 9 Number 4

Fall 2000

 

Kostunica’s “Gaullist” Gamble
Jacques Rupnik

Vojislav Kostunica’s victory in Belgrade, much like that of Ibrahim Rugova in Pristina, announces the arrival of moderate nationalists to power throughout the Balkans. Following a decade of wars that served the aims of radical ethnonationalists, Milosevic’s fall from power confirms the sea change already undertaken by Serbia’s neighbors. In Croatia, after the death of President Franjo Tudjman late last year, a coalition of parties opposed to the former Croatian Democratic Union government brought the moderate Stipe Mesic to power. In Montenegro, Momir Bulatovic, one of Milosevic’s protégés, lost to Milo Djukanovic, a former police chief turned pro-Western politician, who preached a democratic alternative to the Belgrade regime. The Bosnian municipal elections of last April marked a decline of the dominance of Alija Izetbegovic’s Party for Democratic Action, much to the benefit of the Social Democratic Party (though the November general elections showed that the process is likely to be a long and protracted one). In Greece, Papandreou junior showed the way by distancing himself from his father’s nationalist agitations over the Macedonian question. The elections in Belgrade and Pristina help complete this process. Kostunica’s victory not only marks Milosevic’s final loss but also the defeat of his ultra-nationalist coalition partner Vojislav Seselj and of Vuk Draskovic’s Serbian Renewal Movement. Rugova’s success owes, here again, less to his intrinsic qualities as a leader (his policy of nonviolence, after all, failed) than to his rejection of the successors of the Kosovo Liberation Army, who could not manage the transition from guerrillas to local democrats.

The moderates’ rise to power could lead to the region’s stabilization, as well as help create favorable conditions for a much-delayed transition to democracy in the Balkans. Perhaps now we can picture a more optimistic scenario for the Balkans, where the dividends of peace are likely to relax the tensions between Serbia and Montenegro or, following the changes in Zagreb and Belgrade, allow Bosnia and Herzegovina greater room in which to maneuver for the sake of the healing process. But even if—after ten years—war appears to have receded, it would be unwise, or at least premature, to envision Serbia as once again becoming the pivot for regional cooperation.

To understand why, it is sufficient to note the ambivalent reactions of Serbia’s neighbors to Kostunica’s election. This is not merely because they fear that, overnight, Serbia became the center of media attention and also of international aid. Just as in Bosnia, during the Allied intervention in Kosovo, so now the Kosovars themselves and the rest of Serbia’s neighbors fear the realignment of the international organizations that flocked—full of uncritical support—to Kostunica’s side after his victory in Belgrade. Beyond simple “regional jealousy,” there is a deeper reason for this ambivalence. As long as Milosevic was in power, pursuing his methodical plan of regional destabilization, smaller and weaker neighbors could get away with a multitude of sins—both internally and in the eyes of the international community. The fact of their opposition to Belgrade’s regime provided a surrogate legitimacy or cover. With the disappearance of this alibi, the demands of democracy and transparency will undermine the political status quo in most of Yugoslavia’s successor states.

It would be unfair to be ironic toward these unacknowledged “orphans of Milosevic,” but a quick tally is enough to show how the arrival of Kostunica perturbs and complicates the world of Serbia’s neighbors. For example, the Montenegrin president is seeing his campaign for independence compromised by the disappearance of the threat in Belgrade; he is perplexed, too, by the alliance in the federal parliament of his pro-Milosevic adversaries with Kostunica’s friends. Croatia, for a decade had distanced itself from the Balkans, asserting its Central European, as opposed to Balkan, identity, and it remains skeptical of all “regional cooperation” projects, fearing a remake of Yugoslavia.  But Croatia’s new president Stipe Mesic, in an attempt to strengthen ties with the European Union, agreed to host a European Union–sponsored Balkan summit in Zagreb, in November. The irony is that this summit, held under the French presidency of the EU, heralded not only Croatia’s reluctant return to the Balkans, but also the simultaneous return of Serbia to Europe!

But it is in Kosovo where the Kostunica effect produces a mixture of false indifference and real fear. The quest for independence, legitimized by a decade of war, apartheid, and violence on the part of the Milosevic regime, is now thrown into question by the democratic revival in Belgrade. The victory of the moderates in Kosovo should not obscure the fact that independence was their campaign’s main theme and the reason for the high voter turnout.

A democratic competition between Pristina and Belgrade, although infinitely preferable to that between radical nationalists, may foster two dangerous illusions. The first is that since authoritarian nationalism leads to fragmentation and separation, then democracy, logically, will help reunite. Nothing of the kind is on the horizon: Djukanovic boycotted Kostunica’s election, and Kostunica, in turn, refuses to recognize the election of Rugova’s friends in Kosovo. The Kosovar Albanians did not participate in the Yugoslav elections, just as the Serbs of Mitrovica boycotted the municipal elections in Kosovo. The democratic process consolidates ethnic divisions and will not be able to help overcome them so long as there is no consensus on the territory in which such democracy operates. Like it or not, the ethnicization of politics remains a precondition for the consolidation of democracy. The sooner this question is resolved, the sooner the Balkans will be able to turn this war-ridden page in their history.

The second illusion may arise if the “international community” thinks that Milosevic’s departure means that Yugoslavia (or a rump version of it) can be revived. Although the renegotiation of confederate relations with Montenegro may still be open, the question of Kosovo should call to mind certain “stubborn facts.” Since NATO’s intervention, Kosovo has for all practical purposes been removed from Serbian administration: UNMIC oversees its administration, and the deutsche mark is its currency. To imagine that Serb soldiers, policemen, or government officials could be allowed to return is a dangerous delusion. In the words of Veton Suroi, editor of Koha Ditore, the Albanians will no longer allow themselves to be governed by Belgrade, even if the Serbs were to elect Mother Teresa. The first decision of a democratically elected assembly in Kosovo next year will be to declare independence. Any attempt to return Kosovo to a “substantial autonomy” within Yugoslavia would compromise the victory of the moderates around Rugova and set the stage for a new escalation of violence.

Can Kostunica abandon the fiction of Yugoslavia and thereby free Serbian (and Albanian) nationalism from the burden of the “Kosovo question”? Nothing predisposes him to play such a role. A nationalist by conviction rather than (like Milosevic) from opportunism, Kostunica is a lawyer who has just pledged to uphold and defend the Yugoslav Constitution. He could be content to reiterate the position on an autonomous Kosovo within the framework of a revamped Yugoslavia, conforming to UN Resolution 1244—as he recently did in Moscow—while saying to himself that time is on the side of the Serbs and that the election of George W. Bush, Jr., is likely to lead to a disengagement of American troops in the area. He could also claim that political tactics, such as forming an alliance with Milosevic’s Socialist Party of Serbia, make any constitutional changes very unlikely. And, since he owes his victory to the rallying of the nationalist electorate of Seselj and Draskovic, he is not about to compromise the upcoming elections (to the Serbian parliament on December 23, 2000, and to the presidency in one year) by any ill-considered steps. Kostunica can, echoing Winston Churchill, say that he has not been elected to “preside over the demise of the Yugoslav ‘empire.’”

When questioned about his nationalism, Kostunica claims to emulate that of France’s General Charles De Gaulle. But if Yugoslavia’s president is really in search of “gaullist” inspiration, the pertinent role model is less the De Gaulle who resisted during World War Two than De Gaulle the decolonizer who put an end to the war in “French Algeria.” (In the 1960s, André Malraux, one of the general’s ministers at the time, told a Yugoslav visitor “Kosovo is your Algeria.”)  Like De Gaulle, Kostunica should use his strong mandate to make a courageous decision, even if it goes against the expectations of his supporters. Kostunica should tell the Serbs in Mitrovica that he understands them but then return to Belgrade anticipating the inevitable—independence for Kosovo. Such an independence should be conditional on the Kosovars’ respect for the rights of minorities and their explicit rejection of all notions of a Greater Albania. Kosovo’s independence would be the price paid for liberating the new Serbian democracy from the burden of war and nationalism, and it would open a road to reconciliation with its neighbors and a true return to Europe. It would also respond to the deeper message of the September elections: that the country was exhausted not only by the arbitrary rule of the last holdover from the communist regime but also by its self-proclaimed role of eternal victim, condemned by the civilized societies of the world. After a decade of stalemated wars and military defeats, Serbia is a society in search of normality, where the last wish of the young people who helped bring Kostunica to office is to “die for Kosovo.” Kostunica is strengthened by a democratic mandate without precedent in his country. With “Yugoslavia” freshly readmitted to the UN, it is now time to take a “gaullist” gamble and to start by proclaiming that such a country no longer exists.

Jacques Rupnik is director of research at the Centre d’Études et de Récherches Internationales, Paris, and is coauthor of the report of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, chaired by the Honorable Richard Goldstone. The Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

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