[ Kosova-o ]

In a new report, Kosovo: The Challenge of Transition, the International Crisis Group urges Martti Ahtisaari and the UN to "prepare for the possibility of imposing an independence package for Kosovo, however diplomatically painful that may be in the short term", as "it is extremely unlikely that any Serbian government will voluntarily acquiesce to the kind of independence, conditional or limited though it may be, which is necessary for a stable long-term solution."

ICG on the present Belgrade - Pristina - international community triangle:

There is
much truth to Belgrade’s protest that Kosovo’s other
communities merely provide decoration for what would
be a second Albanian state. The international community,
however, requires significant multi-ethnicity in both
appearance and substance. Otherwise, justification for
preserving the existing borders, with territories settled
by Serbs inside, melts away. In imposing its agenda,
the international community has struggled to find
forms for multi-ethnicity, whether through standards
or decentralisation, in the face of Kosovo-Albanian
inflexibility, ambition and insecurity.

Pristina and Belgrade remain tone deaf to the messages.
Albanians still lazily assume their case will make itself,
and the U.S. will ultimately rescue them from their own
flimsy preparations. Serbia refuses to acknowledge the
“I” word, clinging to legalistic arguments and hopes of
salvaging something by partition, and failing to take on
board that its appalling treatment of the Kosovo Albanians
in the 1990s has lost it Kosovo. (ICG, Kosovo: The Challenge of Transition, Europe Report no. 170, 17.2.2006, p. 10)

The report, full of interesting facts, e.g. about the secret services (p. 4 + 6) and the negotiation assumptions and strategies of both sides, lacks unity, but has at least two interesting (if not new) recommendations:

1. The powers of the international representative heading the post-UNMIK international mission in a Kosovo with conditional independence should be defined by the new constitution of Kosovo, and this constitution should be put to referendum in the course of 2007. (p. 31)

2. A new transitional international authority for North-Kosovo should be set up along similar
lines to the 1996-1998 UN mission in Croatia’s Eastern
Slavonia, in order to prevent the North's reabsorption into Serbia.
"The result would be the substance
of a Serb entity in the north, without its formal constitution." (p. 31) (cf. the recommendations of the ICG report Bridging Kosovo's Mitrovica Divide, Europe Report no. 165, 13.9.2005)

Are we heading towards a new Bosnia-Herzegovina?