LMD feb08 pp08-09.

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1/2/08

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Page 8

8 FEBRUARY 2008 Le Monde diplomatique

INDEPENDENCE FOR KOSOVO: THE DOMINO EFFECT

An end to Balkan national states

Kosovo is likely declare unilateral independence this month, to which the probable EU response will be an agreed statement accepting the change and
allowing individual European countries to recognise Kosovo if they want to. The Serbian government intends to break off diplomatic relations with
those who do. There are proposals to redraw the border maps, but another round of conflicting aspirations could cause worse chaos
BY JEAN-ARNAULT DRENS
MAPS BY PHILIPPE REKACEWICZ
hen Kosovo declares independence, as seems likely, there
will be serious consequences for the whole region. The
Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina will regard the event as
a precedent that confirms their own right to secede from
a state that has never really functioned. Independence will also disrupt
neighbouring states, especially Macedonia and Montenegro, and play
havoc with the map of the Balkans.
Despite this prospect Balkan specialists and diplomats now suggest
that it is time to break the taboo of untouchable borders. The conflicts
of the 1990s were waged in the name of Greater Serbia and Greater
Croatia, and Kosovos claims to independence raise the ghost of a Greater
Albania. Has the time come to re-examine territorial grievances, and
define new, fairer borders, more representative of ethnic geography? A
lasting peace in the area may require a new map for the Balkans, indeed
for Europe. The idea is not new, but it wont go away.
During the troubles in Macedonia in 2001, the French writer Alexandre
Adler called for surgery rather than homeopathy (1) and suggested
the division of the post-Yugoslav republic into distinct Albanian and
Macedonian regions. That year David Owen, co-chairman of the
International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, also made proposals
in Le Monde for redefining Balkan frontiers (2). These were echoed by
a key figure in the Albanian nationalist movement in Macedonia, Arben
Xhaferi, who called for the creation of ethnic states (3).
The failure of the negotiations on Kosovos future and the impossibility
of an Albanian-Serbian compromise have resuscitated old ideas of
partition, though this has long been considered taboo by the international
community. Last August Germanys Wolfgang Ischinger, the European
Unions envoy on the diplomatic troika leading the talks, said that any
option capable of uniting the parties would have to be taken seriously;
if Belgrade and Pristina could reach an agreement on the division of
Kosovo it hasnt happened the EU would have to endorse partition.
The idea seems logical: if people do not want to live together, why
not let them live separately, even if that means displacement as
populations reshuffle to adjust borders to ethnic distribution in the area?
Imagine that, by waving a wand, an international conference led to a
peaceful agreement on new frontiers for the western Balkans, drawn up
on lines of ethnicity.
Plans would need to be made to unite the areas with an Albanian
majority Albania, Kosovo, and the northwest part of Macedonia, as

Czech Republic
Germany

Slovakia
Hungary
Austria

Switzerland

GREATER
CROATIA

GREATER
SERBIA

Slovenia

Romania

Croatia

GREATER
ROMANIA

Bosnia and
Herzegovina
Serbia

GREATER
BULGARIA

Italy

GREATER
ALBANIA

Macedonia
Albania

GREATER
MACEDONIA
GREATER
GREECE

well as the Presevo Valley in the south of Serbia and the eastern fringes
of Montenegro, around Vusanje and Ulcinj. (However, none of these
redivisions of territory and people will deal with such practical matters
as power generation and distribution, which will remain cross-border in
many cases: the Serbian government has already threatened to cut
electricity supplies should Kosovo become independent and is hardly
likely to offer any resources to a Greater Albania.)
This would leave Macedonia truncated and barely recognisable as a

What borders for Albania?

n 1878 at the Congress of
Berlin the German chancellor
Bismarck declared that Albania
was no more than a
geographical expression. In the
same year, however, influential
delegates from the Albanian
regions of the Ottoman empire
gathered to found the League
of Prizren, establishing the first
modern claims to national
status. Austria-Hungary
defended the Albanian claims in
the years that followed, in a
standoff with Serbia and
Greece who had entered
alliances with Great Britain,
France and Russia.
Ismail Qemal proclaimed a
first, and ephemeral, Albanian
republic at Vlora in 1912. But a
year later the London Peace
Conference created the
Kingdom of Albania over only
half of the regions with Albanian
populations. The treaty also
split Kosovo (predominantly
Albanian) between Serbia and
Montenegro. The Albanians
have never accepted the
prejudice to their people, and
today its nationalists are intent

SERBIA
MONTENEGRO
KOSOVO

BULGARIA

Pristina

Podgorica

Presevo

Djakovica
Shkodra

Skopje

ADRIATIC SEA

Peshkopi
Tirana

Percentage of todays
Albanian population

ALBANIA

Debar

MACEDONIA

Lake
Ohrid
Lake
Prespa

1 to 10 %
10 to 30 %
30 to 50 %

GREECE
Vlora

50 to 80 %
80 to 100 %

50 km

Source : Rexhep Qosja, La Question albanaise,

Fayard, Paris, 1995. Brought up to date with
the most recent national censuses.

on rectifying the historical

injustice.
It is true that there was little
guarantee of a future for the
state of Albania at the time. It
almost disappeared in the first
world war, and there was no
real settlement on its borders
until the treaty of 1926, which
was based on doubtful logic.

Turkey

Greece

Dreams of empire

Jean-Arnault Drens is editor of the Courrier des Balkans and author with
Laurent Geslin of Comprendre les Balkans: Histoire, socits, perspectives,
Non Lieu, Paris, 2007

Moldovia

The town of Gjakov/Gjakova,

for example, became part of
the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes, despite the small
size of its Serbian population.
Similarly, territory that had
always been part of the
important municipality of
Debar/Dibra was shared
between the kingdom and

Albania; today the city is part of

the Republic of Macedonia,
although its traditional
hinterland lies in Albania
(around the town of Peshkopi).
There are two issues
intertwined here. The delicate
balance between Albanias
neighbours (Montenegro, Serbia
and Greece) and their powerful
protectors had an influence on
the definition of Albanian
territoriality, as did Italys
historical claims over the
Albanian coastline. Also there
are the problematic notions of
an Albanian region or
Albanian cultural area.
Albanians have always lived in
the midst of other national
communities in these areas.
Can we say that this or that
town is part of the Albanian
world because 50%, 60% or
80% of its inhabitants are
Albanian? What percentage do
we take and, more particularly,
what scale of settlement do we
include?
J-A D
TRANSLATED BY ROBERT
CORNER

state, unless the pro-Bulgarian lobby succeeded in attaching the country

to its eastern neighbour. Then there would be the question of minorities
in Albania: the Greeks in the south could claim attachment to Greece,
while Albanians expelled from Epirus in the north of Greece after 1945
(amria as it is known in Albania) would also stand up for their longneglected rights. Montenegro could seek compensation in the Shkoder
region where there are still Serbian-Montenegran minorities, and
Macedonia could reclaim the Slav villages around Lakes Ohrid and
Prespa.
Bosnia and Herzegovinas Serbs would return to their mother country.
This would destroy Bosnia, especially if the Croats in western
Herzegovina, central Bosnia and Bosanska Posavina (Orasje, Odzak)
returned to Croatia. What remained would be a microstate, Muslim
Bosniak, centred around Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla. This would be just
like the famous plan to divide up Bosnia and Herzegovina devised in
1991 by Franjo Tudjman and Slobodan Milosevic (4). Bosnia would
make efforts to defend the eastern enclave of Gorazde, and would claim
the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, today shared between Serbia and Montenegro
(5).
The state of Montenegro would no longer exist within its present
borders. Apart from the secession of its Albanian and Bosniak regions,
it would also be likely to lose its Serbian regions in the north. As Bosniaks
and Serbs in this area are totally intermingled, a period of conflict would
be inevitable, as the different communities reorganised and new borders
took shape. Croatia would gain the Bay of Kotor, which has a long
Catholic tradition and only became a part of Montenegro in 1918.
Montenegro would soon find itself back at its mid-19th century borders,
although it might have a hope of a maritime outlet at Budva.
Serbias position would be equally strange. Although it would have
lost its Albanian and Bosniak regions, it would have gained Bosnia and
Herzegovinas Republika Srpska, as well as the Serbian areas in the north
of Montenegro. It would also have to deal with Vojvodina. This
autonomous region in the north of Serbia is home to some 20 different
minorities, nearly 50% of the overall population. Its largest community
is Hungarian (some 350,000) and the communes of Subotica, Senta and
Kanjiza would return to Hungary, unless Vojvodina decided to declare
independence and become the only island of multiethnicity remaining
in the Balkans.
Countries within the EU would also be affected by the reorganisation.
There are minorities in Greece, and not just the Albanians: the Muslims
of western Thrace (Turks and Pomaks) would demand their return to
Turkey and Bulgaria, cancelling the Lausanne treaty of 1923 (6). The
issue of the Slav population in Greek Macedonia would also need
attention, although this has always not been spoken about in the country.
Slovenia would finally obtain satisfaction in its micro-territorial conflicts
with Croatia (7). It would demand the cancellation of the 1918 plebiscites
(8) and expand its territory into Austrias Carinthia where there are still