The Irish EU Presidency can help to defuse the powder keg of the Balkans,writes Valerie Hughes.
It is a tragic fact of international affairs that political violence usually attracts the attention of governments and that its cessation - however superficial and temporary - leads to the neglect of the very problems that brought about violence in the first place. It is clear that the Irish Presidency of the EU is aware of this reality. In the context of the negotiations for a new European Constitution at the recent summit meeting in Brussels, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, stated in regard to security strategy: "It's not looking just at military crisis management but at civilian crisis management and conflict-prevention strategy... as a means of maintaining peace and security." (The Irish Times, December 12th)
The situation in the western area of the Balkans perfectly illustrates Mr Cowen's concerns. The recent electoral success of war crimes suspects in the Serbian elections highlights the urgency of addressing the problems of the region.
In Kosova, Michael Steiner, former Special Representative of the UN, commented that: "Astronomical unemployment and grinding poverty in Kosova are major stumbling blocks to a lasting peace in the region." That view has been confirmed by Misha Glenny, the Balkan commentator, who observed: "Unless the pressure that has built up in Kosovo since 1999 finds some controlled release soon, there is a danger it will explode."
Bosnia has been ranked second to last among EU Stability Pact countries, according to the human development index of the United Nations Development Programme. Richard Holbrooke, who played a key role in the Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995 which ended military hostilities, belatedly recognised the Dayton Agreement's very serious shortcomings. Quite apart from the terrible injustice of its effectively partitioning the country to appease Slobodan Milosevic's campaign for a Greater Serbia, enormous strategic failures quickly followed.
Speaking recently at the London School of Economics, Paddy Ashdown, current representative of the EU in Bosnia, confessed that the failure to implement the rule of law in the first six years after Dayton had brought very destructive consequences. Now that the Hague Tribunal for war crimes is being phased out, an Amnesty report (November 2003) warns that: "Thousands of perpetrators continue to enjoy impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed during the war in Bosnia -Herzegovina." Ever since the signing of the Dayton Agreement, the so-called Republika Srpska has tried to undermine the authority of Bosnia's central government.
Serbia's ongoing designs on the region were highlighted in a report of the highly respected International Crisis Group which stated that: "Even the more enlightened of Belgrade politicians all too frequently mention the possibility of partitioning and annexing portions of Bosnia-Herzegovina."
In Kosova, 90 per cent of its population insist that independence is the only option and that they want no political links to Serbia. While the long-awaited programme "Standards for Kosovo" has been recently published by the UN civil administration in Kosova, the reality is that it will be possibly 2005 before talks on final status begin. Only then can any EU pre-accession procedures begin.
The implications of this agenda are that the already impoverished Kosovar people are destined to endure at least a decade of increasing economic hardship.
In view of the relatively very small numbers involved, surely it is high time for the EU to extend to all Bosnians and Kosovars (as victims of genocide and ethnic cleansing) visa rights for access to the EU. These rights already pertain in the case of some half-million Bosnian citizens who enjoy the privilege of visa-free entry to the EU because they hold Croatian passports.
One of the most distressing current issues in the region is that of missing people. Albin Kurti, a leading human rights activist in Kosova Action Network, has excoriated the international community for allowing 800 bodies of Kosovar Albanians to lie unidentified in a Serbian "special police" centre in Belgrade - four years after they were killed!
Ambassador Eric Hayes, delegate of the European Commission to Canada, has stated: "A glance at the map makes the importance of south-east Europe for the EU easy to understand. From 2007, the western Balkans will become an enclave of non-members, completely surrounded on all sides by the EU. We therefore have a deep vested interest in their stability, security and prosperity." (January 24th, 2003)
There is a real danger that, due to the very complex task of absorbing 10 new members into the EU (with Bulgaria and Romania scheduled for entry in 2007), the urgent need to promote the stability and prosperity of Bosnia and Kosova will be sidelined.
Paddy Ashdown condemned Milosevic's aggression from its outset and predicted the catastrophic consequences that would follow.
In his LSE address, he argued that "Bosnia has a clear destination. It's called Europe".
Its people "know and believe that Europe means stability, visa-free travel, prosperity and the best guarantee that history will not repeat itself. The hope of getting into NATO and the EU has now become the main driving force of reform in Bosnia."
This prospect also propels reform in Kosova, such as the urgent need for increased tolerance towards minorities who are among the poorest and most vulnerable in the region.
In the light of the EU's high aspirations regarding international justice and human rights, it is not acceptable that peoples who lost tens of thousands through systematic murder - not to speak of hundreds of thousands whose lives were traumatised and destroyed as a consequence - should be denied the level of investment and support that is crucial for their recovery and early accession to the EU.
The Irish Presidency of the EU should be directed towards inspiring the European Community to defuse for future generations the powder keg of the Balkans.
Valerie Hughes is a member of Kosova/Bosnia Ireland Solidarity