25 September 2008
Russia's Use of Kosovo Analogy for Georgia False, Experts Say
U.N. and humanitarian aspects of Kosovo lacking in Georgia conflict
Washington — U.S. officials and foreign policy specialists virtually all agree that Russia’s attempts to cite Kosovo as a precedent for its military actions in Georgia are both misleading and unsupported by even a cursory examination of the facts.
In justifying its assault on Georgia in August, Russia has attempted to echo NATO’s military campaign to halt the systematic ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians with its own campaign based on charges of atrocities committed by Georgian forces — charges now shown to be without foundation.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has also charged the West with having a double standard by supporting independence for Kosovo but not for South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Among the many specialists who reject that view is Andrew Kutchins, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Kosovo involved years of negotiations with international partners, a very intensive, diplomatic process,” he said in an America.gov interview. “Russia overreached in Georgia with a fait accompli that undermined its case.”
Joseph Nye of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government agrees. “If the Russians had stopped their invasion just in South Ossetia, they might have been able to generate a certain degree of support,” he told America.gov. “But by humiliating the Georgians, they raised widespread fears and were unable to generate diplomatic backing.”
“THE KOSOVO PRECEDENT”
Kosovo's emergence as an independent state earlier this year was the culmination of an exhaustive international process to address the human rights disaster perpetrated by the Milosevic regime in Serbia that displaced more than half the province's population.
In 1999, after the ouster of Serbian forces, the U.N. Security Council — with Russia’s full agreement — established an interim U.N. administration, provided for local self-government, and provided for a political process to determine Kosovo’s future status, which contemplated possible independence.
U.N. Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari developed a plan for independence only after arduous negotiations with all parties, incorporating detailed obligations to protect Kosovo Serbs and other ethnic communities.
To date, 47 countries have recognized Kosovo, including all G7 states and more than three-quarters of European Union members.
It is noteworthy that Russia fails to even mention the remarkable international effort that was at the heart of Kosovo's long road to independence.
The contrast with the Russian role in Georgia could not be more stark. U.S. diplomat Matthew Bryza, who served as a member of the U.N.'s “Group of Friends on Georgia,” said, “I have been struck by Russia’s consistent refusal to discuss any of the substantive issues that must be resolved if there was ever to be a peaceful resolution in Abkhazia.”
LAW AND HUMANITARIAN ASPECTS
Russian claims do not stand up to legal scrutiny, according to Paul Williams of the Public International Law and Policy Group, which has studied conflicts in the region.
The repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo “occurred in direct defiance of the U.N. Security Council,” Williams said in a commentary on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, while “Russia's claims of genocide in South Ossetia appear wholly unfounded.”
Kosovo was an autonomous province under the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution, Williams argues, and had “virtually the same rights and responsibilities as the six Yugoslav republics, granting Kosovo an implied right of secession.”
South Ossetia had no such right, according to Williams. “According to Article 72 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, only the 15 republics possessed the right to secede from the union. Georgia emerged from the Soviet Union as an internationally recognized, independent state, and South Ossetia was considered part of its territory.”
By citing a Kosovo precedent, Russia has tied itself in contradictory knots, as a recent commentary in the Economist magazine pointed out: “Russia itself is being incoherent in continuing to insist that Kosovo's independence from Serbia is still illegal.”
The United States and most European countries have long recognized Kosovo's unique status. “We don't see the independence of Kosovo as some kind of precedent that should in any way encourage other groups to break away from nation-states in Europe,” said Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns in a February briefing on formal U.S. recognition of Kosovo.
Russia’s actions in Georgia also contradict a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions, which explicitly recognize Georgia's territorial integrity, including UNSCR 1080, which was passed as recently as April 2008 with Russia’s consent, according to officials.
Nevertheless, some experts anticipated that Russia might undertake a “mirror event” to NATO's action in Kosovo, according to Sarah Mendelson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"I was struck by the cynicism of Russian officials in citing 'genocide' by Georgia,” she said. “They were using examples from Bosnia and Kosovo in a very inflammatory way.”
It is clear now that, far from protecting civilian populations, Russia failed to prevent human rights abuses by ethnic militias. Human Rights Watch charges that Russia has fostered lawlessness and brutality by these militias by withdrawing Russian forces but preventing the entry of Georgian police into border areas.
"Perhaps the biggest difference between Kosovo and South Ossetia is this: The Kosovo campaign was, fundamentally, about Kosovo,” said Olga Oliker, policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, in a news commentary. “The conflict between Georgia and Russia is not about South Ossetia. [It is] the pretext Russia has used to demonstrate its power to its neighbors and to the world.”
For more information, see Crisis in Georgia.
