The road to Priština leads through Accra

The road to Priština leads through Accra

When the issue of Kosovo finally came before the UN Security Council on April 3, the results were predictable. First there was a conflict between Russia, a permanent member, and Britain, the president of the Council this month, over whether the session should be open or closed. Then followed an argument over whether Fatmir Sejdiu, the president of Kosovo, would be allowed to speak officially or only unofficially.

Once these issue were dealt with, the parties simply reiterated their well-known positions. The European members of the Council spoke in favour of the plan drawn up by Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president tasked by the UN with tackling Kosovo’s final status, and whose plan advocates internationally supervised independence.

Russia, which holds a veto, repeated that it opposes any deal that Serbia does not endorse. Serbia, represented in New York on April 3 by Vojislav Kostunica, its caretaker prime minister, said that Belgrade will never accept independence for Kosovo.

The Security Council needs to pass a new resolution to replace the UN’s current jurisdiction in Kosovo and implement the Ahtisaari plan.

Without a new resolution, Kosovo Albanians will most likely declare independence anyway and hope for international recognition. But in that case the Ahtisaari plan would be dead.

So, what happens next? Consult the April schedule of the Security Council and what is striking is that Kosovo is not even on it.

Of course, Kosovo could yet be placed on the agenda at short notice and there is some talk of a draft resolution by the end of the month. But as of today, the Security Council will not be revisiting the Kosovo issue in April. Unless, that is, it actually visits Kosovo.

This looks increasingly likely. Russia has demanded that the Council examine how Resolution 1244, which established the UN mission in the province, has been carried out. It has also proposed that ambassadors to the Security Council or their deputies visit the region.

For the Russians and Serbs, this has the advantage of buying time. After all, it is unlikely that European and Russian diplomats stand to learn anything new about the province, eight years after it came under the jurisdiction of the UN.

However, that is not the case with the diplomats representing the non-permanent members of the Security Council, whose votes are needed to pass or block any resolution.

Many of them are much less well versed in the political and ethnographic intricacies of this small part of Europe. They also look at the region through the perspectives of the experiences of their own countries and regions.

For example, African states, many of which have artificial colonial-era boundaries, have a particular antipathy to secessionist movements.

This is why, in the apparent forthcoming lull in public diplomatic activity over Kosovo, Ahtisaari is hoping to visit Accra, in Ghana, next week, to explain his plan and why he believes Russia’s argument that Kosovo’s independence would be a precedent are wrong.

Ghana is currently one of the non-permanent members of the Security Council. Sitting alongside it is Congo. Its delegates may be puzzled by the fact that Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, backs the Ahtisaari plan. They will recall that UN troops went to war in the early 1960s to help suppress the secession of the mineral-rich Katanga region at the time of the independence of neighbouring former Belgian Congo.

Indonesia is another non-permanent member of the Security Council with pronounced views about secessionists. Its diplomats may not know much about Kosovo but they are very well acquainted with Ahtisaari. In what was widely regarded as a diplomatic triumph in 2005, the former Finnish president brokered an end to the 30-year rebellion in Indonesia’s secessionist Aceh province.

There, the Aceh rebels were persuaded to end their struggle for independence in exchange for broad autonomy. Indonesia, which remains wary about secessionist regions in general, is deeply sceptical about the Ahtisaari plan for Kosovo.

In an interesting twist, the Ahtisaari plan for Aceh was monitored by an EU-led body headed by the Dutch diplomat Pieter Feith. He is now tipped to lead the proposed EU-dominated International Civilian Office, ICO, which would play a major role in running any post-resolution Kosovo.

Clearly, Ahtisaari has a lot of explaining to do if he is to persuade countries like Indonesia and Congo to back his plan for Kosovo.

In the meantime, much of the real diplomacy will now take place off-stage and underground.

Serbia and Russia will be trying to persuade these sceptical Security Council members that independence for Kosovo threatens to establish a dangerous precedent.

The United States and the Europeans, on the other hand, will argue that Kosovo’s eventual statehood cannot be prevented and it is better to assist in the birth of the country than to try - and then fail - to stop it.

No one knows if there will be a resolution on Kosovo. Because Russia has been so vociferous in its opposition to the Ahtisaari plan, it is hard to imagine it striking a deal on the question, even if a deal could be found through the means of secret diplomacy.

Russia is clearly gambling that violence will not break out in Kosovo, as the US and the EU will certainly blame the Kremlin if it does, thanks to its delaying tactics.

Western diplomats fear Russia has misjudged the situation in the province. “The prospect of resolving Kosovo’s final status without a Security Council resolution is grim,” Daniel Fried, the US Assistant Secretary of State, said on April 2.

“One way or another the status quo will end and it will either end through a controlled organised process that gives guarantees to the Kosovo Serbs, the maximum of transparency and an orderly process, or it will be uncontrolled and more violent.”

Tim Judah, a leading Balkan commentator, is the author of The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, and Kosovo: War and Revenge. Balkan Insight is BIRN's online publication.