I have always admired the way the former Czechoslovakia allowed the two major ethnic components in its population — Czechs and Slovaks — to go their separate ways and establish their separate independent nations. They have been maintaining cordial relations after their separation.
The Balkans on the other hand presents the very opposite. Marshal Tito, because of his success against Germany in World War II, accomplished the miraculous job of uniting Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Montenegrins, Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Albanians in Kosovo under one strong communist nation. This heterogeneous collection of races and cultures and religions could remain as a single entity only as long as Tito was at the helm.
With the demise of Tito in 1980 the struggle for seceding and independence started to erode the stability of the communist republic. The political squabble in Balkans ended with Serbia and Montenegro emerging as the greatest winners while the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo were the victims. The Muslim regions in the erstwhile Yugoslav Republic were dismembered. The Serbian control of the weaker elements in the region was distasteful to the United States who did not want to have a Russian protégé on the European mainland. Serbia is considered the only remaining support base for Russia in Europe after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.
While the US was looking for an excuse to undermine the Serbian power, it got an opportunity to challenge Serbia in the region as a champion of the deprived rights of the Muslims in Kosovo.
The Russian Federation and Serbia opposed Kosovo’s attempts to gain independence with the open support of the West. Moscow mounted its criticism of the European Union and NATO’s Kosovo policy. Under the cover of NATO, the US sent its forces to Kosovo to drive out Serbia from the region. The US move was supported and appreciated by leading members of the European community such as Germany, France, Italy and Britain.
As the efforts for Kosovo’s independence gained momentum, Russia threatened to use force if the US interfered in the internal affairs of Serbia while Russia’s permanent representative to the NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, warned of straining the relations between his country and NATO, unless NATO maintained a policy of nonintervention and neutrality in the internal affairs of other countries. He said his country was committed to stand by Serbia as both had a common Slav ethnic origin and religious identity.
The Serbian public launched a wave of protests and demonstrations demanding their government send its military to Kosovo to stop its attempt to break from Serbia. However, the Serbian government could not take a unanimous stand on how to deal with the precarious situation, as it did not want to invite the fury of the NATO on the one hand and the hostility of its own people on the other.
With Washington’s recognition of the independence of Kosovo last month, however, Russia withdrew its threats while the Serbian government resigned because it could not fulfill the wishes of its people. Meanwhile, the United States directed the NATO forces to take necessary steps to protect the nascent state from any hostile move from the furious Serbians at least until 120 days passed over which time the independence of Kosovo would be universally recognized.
Though the US would have preferred to portray its Kosovo policy as a typical conduct of a benevolent superpower promoting virtue and preventing vice on the earth, impartial political analysts did not have to look far to see what was the real US motive. What really motivated the US was a desire to humiliate Serbia. Another reason was that the US and Europeans feared that a protracted freedom struggle in Kosovo would create a breeding ground for Muslim terrorists in Europe. The US also did not want a new communist star to emerge on the Serbian sky. Further, the US wanted to encourage various ethnic entities and minorities within the Russian Federation to revolt and form independent states, which would eventually lead to the breakup of the Russian Federation just as such developments led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The US and European support to Kosovo is, basically, part of the Western strategy to stamp out any communist attempt to regain its lost glory, and never out of any solicitude for the Muslims of Europe as some Muslims mistakenly believe.
