Kosovo independence sparks elation, concern on campus

The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy have all recognized Kosovo’s independence and pledged their support to the new state. Neither Serbia nor Russia recognizes Kosovo’s new status, however, and the Serbian government has withdrawn its ambassador from Washington D.C.

As Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hashim Taci and President Fatmir Sejdiu were making the announcement of independence before its parliament, Wilson School professor Wolfgang Danspeckgruber was in Munich, Germany discussing the declaration’s potential impact at a conference.

“This is a watershed event for the future of the self-determination movement in the post 9/11 era,” he said in an interview. Danspeckgruber has written several books on self-determination and runs the Princeton-based Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination.

Kosovo is the last province of the former state of Yugoslavia to become independent. Its population comprises about 90 percent ethnic Albanians and 5 percent Serbians. Most of the Albanian population in Kosovo is Muslim, while most Serbians are Orthodox Christians.

Sunday’s declaration of independence was not Kosovo’s first. In July 1990, Kosovo’s parliament declared the territory to be an independent country. No other states, however, recognized this declaration of independence. In 1992, the parliament put an independence referendum before Kosovo’s people, 98 percent of whom voted for official secession from Serbia. The referendum, though monitored by international organizations, carried little international recognition.

Throughout the 1990s, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) continued to fight a guerrilla-style conflict against Serbian forces with the goal of eventually breaking away from the Serbian state. After numerous bloody conflicts between the KLA and Serbian forces and allegations of ethnic cleansing, NATO initiated a 78-day campaign that included the bombing of Serbia. The violent conflict ended with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, which placed the province under U.N. administrative control.

Reactions on campus

While Kosovars cheered in the streets of their capital, Florentina Mulaj GS was having a celebration of her own.

Mulaj, a native of Kosovo and an MPA candidate in the Wilson School, called the event “Kosovo’s greatest political achievement” and attended a celebratory dinner last night.

“This has been the end of a very prolonged journey that the ethnic Albanians have gone through for more than 100 years,” Mulaj said in an e-mail.

Reactions from Serbian students have been mixed, however.

Serbian student Djordje Radicevic ’11 called the violence and riots in cities in Serbia and northern Kosovo an “inappropriate response” to Kosovo’s secession. He added, “I can only hope that we will get past this as quickly as possible and press on to join the European Union.”

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Andrea Nedic GS has said she is “opposed” to Kosovo’s independence. “There are numerous ethnic and religious enclaves within territories of other sovereign countries which have and have had an even stronger claim to independence than the Albanians in Kosovo do,” she said in an e-mail. “So long as other such populations are not fully and equally supported in their attainment of independence, Kosovo’s ‘independence,’ in my view, cannot be justified by the rights of nations to self-determination.”

International effects

An emergency meeting of the Security Council was called Sunday night after Russia called for the United Nations to declare Kosovo’s independence illegal. The Security Council was unable to come to a resolution about the legality of the declaration, but U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon said that his organization would continue to aid Kosovo as it shifts to independence.

“This issue affects the relationship between Moscow and the west,” Danspeckgruber said. “Russia is adamantly opposed to Kosovo’s independence.”

The announcement has not come as a surprise to those who follow the region.

“The secession isn’t anything new or unexpected, and we felt it was inevitable for a long time now,” Radicevic said.

Danspeckgruber had been aware for two weeks that the announcement was coming and attended a conference in Munich this past weekend to discuss the future of self-determination in light of Kosovo’s independence.

He called this a turning point “in terms of symbolism for other peoples that would like to be independent,” citing the Basques and the Kurds as two groups who might see the declaration as setting a precedent.

This concern was echoed by several other scholars and students.

Ledina Gocaj ’11 said she was also worried about the example that Kosovo’s declaration provides. Gocaj, who is from nearby Albania — a country that has historically supported Kosovo’s independence movement — added that “it might not be seen as precedent because of Kosovo’s unique history, in that it did undergo ethnic cleansing, and their independence movement has been going on since the ’80s.”

Forbes College fellow and former sociology professor Allen Kassof said, “The U.S. will argue this is a unique case, and the people who want to see this as a precedent will argue it is not a unique case.” Kassof is also the president emeritus and senior adviser of the Princeton-based Project on Ethnic Relations.

Kassof, who has organized round-table discussions in Kosovo between Serbs and Albanians since the mid-1990s, added that Russia will argue that this sets a precedent for Abkhazia and South Ossetia to secede from Georgia.

While many Serbs on campus did not feel that this would have a dramatic affect them or their families, Kassof said there was a possibility that disagreement about how to handle the issue might escalate tensions within the Serbian government.

“This is an important event to watch, and it shows the limits of the EU,” Danspeckgruber said. “They weren’t able to act with one voice.” He is planning to organize a round-table on Kosovo in the coming weeks.