Ethnic Tensions Rise in Kosovo
Trucks block a road leading to the border with Serbia. Photo: Florion Goga/Reuters
In recent weeks, tensions between Kosovo and Serbia have sharply risen. Kosovo’s political leaders announced this weekend that upcoming local elections will be postponed until early next spring in several northern municipalities. The decision comes amid widespread protests and increasingly violent conflict in these regions with significant ethnic-Serb populations.
The source of much of the conflict occurred earlier this year, when disputes grew over a government plan to ban Kosovar residents from using Serbia-issued license plates. In response, hundreds of ethnic-Serb police officers, judges, and other state officials quit their positions. European Union (EU) security forces from Italy and Poland are stationed in areas with little to no presence of local law enforcement.
On Saturday, the former police officer Dejan Pantic, who participated in the mass resignation in November, was arrested near the border on suspicion of terrorist activities. In response, Serb truckers have been blocking several roads leading to border crossings with Serbia, and violence has increased between Serb and Albanian Kosovars. Some protestors have attacked police, including one instance of a stun grenade thrown at EU peacekeeping forces.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic requested to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) this weekend that Serbia be allowed to deploy its military and law enforcement in the regions of Kosovo with predominantly ethic-Serb populations, although he admitted that Belgrade expected the request to be denied.
Kosovo has a very tumultuous political history.
It remained a part of Serbia after the fall of Yugoslavia, but was overwhelmingly populated by ethnic-Albanians. Insurgency against Serb rule led to war in the late 1990s, resulting in roughly 14,000 deaths and subsequent NATO mobilization. Though Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, the young country is not officially recognized by Belgrade or by many of the Serbs living within its territory.
American soldiers in Kosovo under NATO command (2017). Photo: Laura Boushnak/NYT.
Kosovo’s sovereignty is recognized by the United States and much of Western Europe. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock voiced support for Kosovo against the Serbian president’s desire to send troops to the struggling regions, saying on Sunday that "any hint of sending Serb forces into Kosovo is completely unacceptable,” and that Vucic is not helping to solve the problem: “Kosovo reduced tensions by postponing local elections. Serbia's recent rhetoric has done the opposite.”
Serbia’s position, however, is supported by countries like Russia and China, neither of which recognize Kosovo’s independence. Russian media cites United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, adopted at the end of the war in 1999, which granted Serbia’s right to “send military and police personnel to Kosovo in certain situations, including in the event that the ‘peaceful and normal life’ of its population there becomes threatened.”
KFOR, the Kosovo Security Forces, is a mission of NATO that has operated within Kosovo since before the country’s declaration of independence. It was intended to gradually reduce reliance on the military alliance, until it could become self-sufficient as a national armed service. However, with the increased tensions both between ethnic groups within Kosovo, and over international borders, it is more likely that the international presence will remain longer than expected; so too, will questions about Kosovo’s sovereignty and the future of its relations with Serbia.