Review of European Security Issues
03 March 2006
Possible May 21 independence ballot for Montenegro; Kosovo status talks and KFOR restructuring; NATO "can deliver solutions" to global challenges; Caribbean is transit point for Europe-bound drugs; U.N. court to hear Bosnian genocide case; upcoming webchats on Southeast Europe and U.S. strategy in Europe
Following are some recent U.S. government policy pronouncements, hearings and reports on security issues in Europe and Eurasia, as well as some noteworthy announcements by international organizations and nongovernmental organizations.
For additional coverage of the topics listed below and related issues, see Europe and Eurasia.
MONTENEGRO’S PRESIDENT SEEKS MAY 21 INDEPENDENCE VOTE
Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic has asked formally the republic's parliament to call an independence referendum on May 21, the Southeast European Times reported. The request came March 2, a day after lawmakers adopted a new law clearing the way for the vote, which could lead to the Adriatic republic's split from Serbia.
The ballot papers will contain a single question: "Do you wish the Republic of Montenegro to be an independent state with full international and legal subjectivity?" Following European Union (EU) guidelines, the law enacted March 1 requires an approval vote of at least 55 per cent in order for Montenegro to become independent.
Montenegro is the last of the former Yugoslav republics still joined in a bond with Serbia. Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia seceded from Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. An EU-brokered agreement in February 2003, which established the state union of Serbia-Montenegro, stipulated that either of the constituent republics could opt out of the union after a three-year period.
According to Serbia's BETA news agency, if the May vote is negative, Montenegro will not be able to hold a new independence referendum for another three years. But if the required majority is achieved, Montenegro would become Europe's newest independent state, with a population of some 650,000 people.
“Regardless of the outcome,” U.S. diplomat Kyle Scott told the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in early February, “the ability of the people of Montenegro and their political leadership to handle this deeply emotional issue in an open, transparent and democratic fashion will speak volumes about their readiness to integrate into Euro-Atlantic institutions.” (See related article.)
KOSOVO PARTIES REPORT POSITIVE RESULTS FROM INITIAL TALKS
Delegations from Serbia and from Kosovo’s Albanian majority reported generally positive results from their first round of direct negotiations February 21-22 in Vienna, Austria, to settle the future status of the internationally administered province. The next round of talks is scheduled for March 17.
U.S. diplomat Rosemary DiCarlo said February 22 in Washington that the United States does not have a formal position on whether Kosovo should be granted independence or retain its current status as an autonomous province of Serbia. “We feel, though, that we must resolve Kosovo’s status in a way that solidifies democratic development in Serbia and Montenegro,” she said. (See related article.)
During their meeting, Kosovo’s former warring parties found “common ground” in discussing how basic services would be administered at the local level to reflect the ethnic makeup of local populations, U.N. officials said. These are “not earth-shattering matters in the political sense, but they are extremely important for the people concerned,” said Albert Rohan, chairman of the talks and deputy special envoy of the U.N. secretary-general. Delegates exchanged views on municipal concerns such as health care, education, culture, social welfare and police and justice -- issues that will have to be addressed in any resolution on Kosovo’s future status, he said.
The difficult negotiations originally were known as “final-status talks,” but diplomats recently have begun calling them “future-status talks.” Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since 1999, when U.S. and NATO-led military forces fought and expelled Yugoslav Serb troops and police following widespread human-right abuses. At the time, about 90 percent of Kosovo’s two million residents were ethnic Albanians. Following the war, as many as half the province’s ethnic Serbs fled in the wake of violent reprisals by ethnic Albanians. Today, NATO forces protect minority-Serb communities and religious sites.
JONES, DICARLO: KFOR RESTRUCTURED, BUT NO TROOP REDUCTIONS
About 1,700 U.S. troops are among the 16,000 members of the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR). In a February 3 interview with the Financial Times, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the U.S. military remains strongly committed to Kosovo but that he is “personally hoping” for an eventual reduction in U.S. troop levels.
U.S. diplomat Rosemary DiCarlo was asked about KFOR troop levels during a February 22 public policy forum in Washington. She said KFOR is being restructured, not reduced. “The restructuring will allow for a task-force structure, which means that troops are going to be very movable,” she said.
In the past, KFOR troops were organized to patrol specific sectors. However, KFOR came under close scrutiny when troops were in many cases slow to respond to ethnic riots in March 2004. The new task-force structure will make KFOR “much more effective,” DiCarlo said. “While there may be some reductions in KFOR over the coming years, the kinds of people who are going to be reduced are not the combat-capable forces, but those who run the commissaries, the PXs, etcetera.” (See related article.)
U.S. General James Jones, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, discussed KFOR during a briefing February 8.
“Since the disturbances and uprisings of 2004, KFOR capabilities have changed dramatically,” Jones told reporters. “We have been successful in removing a large percentage of national caveats and restrictions which precluded many of our forces from doing certain missions that seriously inhibited our ability to do our work. We have many more forces now that are fully trained and capable with regard to several disturbance-type missions.”
In addition, Jones said, KFOR leaders “have modified the rules of engagement to reflect more capability, and more emphasis has been put on the forces that are out in the field working and establishing better networks with the local populations in Kosovo.” This allows KFOR personnel “to have a better feel for what is actually going on and what people are thinking,” Jones said. He noted that that “there have not been any significant disturbances” since 2004.
“As to the possibility of any withdrawal of KFOR,” Jones said, “I'm not familiar with any of that. Occasionally, I'll read stories about it, but KFOR is one of NATO's primary missions, and we intend to make sure that we're successful in 2006, particularly at this very delicate time.”
A transcript of Jones’ briefing is on the State Department’s Foreign Press Center Web site.
NATO CAN “DELIVER SOLUTIONS” TO TROUBLE SPOTS WORLDWIDE
NATO is important politically and militarily because it can effectively respond to some of the globe’s most challenging problems, said Kurt Volker, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. In remarks February 23 in Washington, Volker said NATO was involved in eight simultaneous operations in 2005 and is looking at a range of possible new missions and partnerships. (See related article.)
The 26-nation alliance “is politically important for our leaders because it can deliver solutions,” Volker said. “It can deliver assets on the ground. It can bring capabilities to bear to deal with the problem. … That’s what leaders look for.”
NATO currently has partnership relationships with 30 countries in Eurasia and another 22 countries in the broader Middle East and it is looking at other relationships, Volker said. For example, Russia has agreed to join Operation Active Endeavor, NATO’s naval counterterrorism efforts in the Mediterranean, and countries from North Africa have also been invited to participate. NATO would be interested in expanding the Mediterranean ship patrols into the Black Sea, although regional concerns first would have to be overcome.
In other initiatives, officers from countries in the greater Middle East and North Africa have been invited to attend NATO schools, Volker said. Another possibility is for NATO to work with countries in the region to develop a training center that would offer local forces “anything from special police to leadership training to logistics,” he said.
Asked about alliance membership for Israel – which has been discussed recently in the media – Volker said it would likely be too controversial without first solving the Israeli-Palestinian issue. “This is not an issue on the table in NATO” and the U.S. government has not taken a position, he said.
Regarding the Palestinian Territories, Volker said, in 2005 NATO was starting to discuss a possible mission to help train Palestinian security forces but the idea is “off the table” for now. A training mission might be possible “if we had a Palestinian Authority that rejected violence and recognized Israel’s right to exist,” he added.
NATO also is interested in developing formal working relationships with countries such as Japan and South Korea, democracies with which the alliance expects to cooperate with on global missions, Volker said. Partnership with Asian and Pacific countries might be discussed at the NATO summit this November.
ILLICIT DRUGS SHIPPED THROUGH CARIBBEAN TO U.S., EUROPE
Many Caribbean nations are utilized as transit countries to shift cocaine, marijuana and other illicit drugs from South America to the United States, Europe and elsewhere, according to the U.S. State Department's 2006 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR). (See related article.)
The report identifies the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica as "major" transit points for illicit narcotics bound for the United States and elsewhere. The report further indicates that the United States considers the broad geographical area of the eastern and southern Caribbean as an area of concern and notes that Haiti is "a key conduit for drug traffickers." Cuban territorial waters and airspace also offer an attractive transshipment corridor.
The full text of the two-volume INCSR for 2006 is available on the Department of State Web site.
UNITED NATIONS COURT TO HEAR BOSNIAN GENOCIDE CASE
Thirteen years after it was first filed, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s case against Serbia-Montenegro for violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention will be heard publicly by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague -- the principal court of the United Nations for disputes between States -- the U.N. News Service reported February 27. Public hearings began the day of the announcement.
Numerous individuals already have been charged with crimes against humanity by the separate International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in connection with violence committed during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. A formal study by the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina concluded in 2005 that 100,000 people were killed in the country’s 1992-1995 war for independence. Many were singled out based on their ethnicity.
The government of Bosnia-Herzegovina first filed its case in March 1993 against the state then known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, according to a press statement released by the ICJ. (See statement on the ICJ Web site.)
In July 1996 the court determined that it had jurisdiction to adjudicate on the dispute on the basis of Article IX, on State responsibility, of the Genocide Convention.
To be held at the ICJ’s seat in Hague, the hearings on the merits of the case are expected to last until May 9.
For background on U.S. policy in the region, see Southeast Europe.
UPCOMING WEBCHATS ON SOUTHEAST EUROPE, U.S. STRATEGY
The State Department is hosting two web discussions in the days ahead to highlight European issues.
In a March 7 webcast, America's 21st Century European Strategy, U.S. scholar Robert Lieber will answer questions about President Bush's approach to interacting with European countries in a way that protects and promotes American security, values and national interests. Lieber is professor of government and international affairs at Georgetown University in Washington.
The hour-long Internet broadcast begins at 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (1400 GMT).
On March 9 and 10, the State Department’s Rosemary DiCarlo will hold a webchat on the Future of Southeast Europe during two 40-minute online sessions, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (1630-1710 GMT) both days.
DiCarlo is deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. She plans to discuss how the United States plans to aid democracy development and promote peace with Kosovo status negations under way, Albania’s upcoming election and the possibility of Bosnia-Herzegovina joining NATO’s Partnership for Peace program in 2007.
To register for either web event, send an email to iipchat@state.gov. Participants are encouraged to send questions to iipchat@state.gov prior to and during the webcasts. Use of full names is neither required nor encouraged.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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