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Abstract
During the August 2008 war in South Ossetia and in the subsequent Russian recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, Russian authorities repeatedly made explicit references to the ‘Kosovo precedent’ and consciously mimicked the rhetoric of NATO during the 1999 Kosovo war. This article explores precisely how Kosovo was deployed rhetorically in Russian foreign policy in the South Ossetian and Abkhaz cases, as well as the reception of this and other ex‐Yugoslav analogies in Serbia. The article points to inconsistencies in both Russian and Western foreign policy and concludes that, notwithstanding numerous similarities in the three cases, Russia’s use of the Kosovo precedent was coldly instrumental.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge the comments of Mark Biondich and Zurab Karumidze and the assistance of Galina Starikova. He would also like to thank the Center for the Humanities of Washington University in St. Louis and the East Central European Center at Columbia University for the opportunity to present a draft version of this paper. Any errors are those of the author alone.
Notes
1. Declaration of the President of the Russian Federation, Dimitry Medvedev, 26 August 2008. http://www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2008/08/205744.html.
2. UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999), http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N99/172/89/PDF/N9917289.pdf?OpenElement.
3. As of October 2007, EU financial assistance to Kosovo alone since 1999 amounted to €2.4 billion. European Commission, ‘Kosovo: An Economy on Hold’, European Economy News, Issue 8, October 2007. http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/een/008/article_6170_en.htm.
4. Gamsakhurdia’s son has claimed that his father never actually used this phrase, but as so often in situations of territorial dispute and ethnic conflict, the attribution of the phrase stuck (Rimple Citation2007). On perceptions in contested areas, see Mertus Citation1999.
5. The background of the Serbian political and paramilitary leader Vojislav Šešelj and the Georgian paramilitary leader Jaba Ioseliani would make for an interesting comparative study. In both cases, an erstwhile intellectual emerged as a paramilitary leader whose nationalism and power proved difficult for the respective national leaders – Milošević and Gamsakhurdia.
6. Serbian fears of a resurgent Germany in the 1990s are in this sense somewhat analogous to Georgian fears of Russia.
7. ‘Rules on Internal Organisation of the Division of State Security within the Ministry of Internal Affairs [of the Republic of Serbia]’, January 1992, Article 3.
8. This was not the first time in recent history that Russian officials had accused Georgia of committing genocide in South Ossetia. The controversial chairman of the Duma in 1991, Ruslan Khasbulatov, and the Russian Vice President Alexander Rutskoi had launched such accusations in June 1991 (Birch Citation1995, 46).
9. Putin’s comments significantly understate the number of victims in Srebrenica and inject inappropriate moral ambiguity (‘one of the attacking sides’). Putin reiterated and slightly amplified this analogy in an interview on Russian TV on 6 September 2008: ‘We protected the peaceful inhabitants of South Ossetia. And this is our peacekeeping mandate. In 1995, the European peacekeeping contingent was represented by the Dutch and they simply have not engage in the conflict. The contingent ran away. What did they expect from us? That we would react the same way, and not fulfil our duty towards those people, whom we were supposed to protect? All until this day they remember this, asking for forgiveness. But the people were killed in Srebrenica’ (‘Iz Intervyu Predsedatelya Pravitel’stva Rossii V.V. Putina programme ‘Vesti v subbotu’ telekanala ‘Rossiya’’, 6 September 2008, http://www.comreform.ru/docs/iz-interviu-predsedatelja-pravitelstva-rossii-vvputina-programme-vesti-v-subbotu-telekanala-ros). Despite Putin’s comments about Srebrenica, Russia’s support for the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has been lukewarm at best, and has evolved into demands that the Tribunal be shut down as soon as possible. Russia has also harboured several ICTY fugitives.
10. Given the historical memory of the genocide perpetrated by the fascist puppet ‘Independent State of Croatia’ during World War II, any Croatian national movement was inevitably perceived with extreme suspicion by Croatia’s Serb minority. A prudent leader of Croatia’s independence movement should have kept this in mind. Tuđdman did not, flirting instead with the symbolism of fascist Croatia and downplaying or denying its crimes.
11. This is not to deny that Russians and Serbs share a sense of fraternity. Historically, however, Russia’s actions in the Balkans have been more clearly aligned with Russia’s own geopolitical and national interests than with decision‐making premised on emotional ties. As James Headley argues in his incisive book on Russia and the Balkans, ‘if there was any thread running through Russia’s nineteenth‐century Balkan policy, it is the hardly surprising principle that Russia’s interests came first’ (Headley Citation2008, 12).
12. Comments of Zurab Karumidze, ‘Georgia and Russia: National Narratives in Conflict’, Center for the Humanities, Washington University in St. Louis, 17 October 2008.
13. The absence of support from Belarus has come as an unexpected shock. Despite initial public announcements that Belarus would faithfully follow Russia, President Alexander Lukashenka postponed the decision. This has lead to rumours that Lukashenka was trying to leverage non‐recognition with the EU as a way of shedding his pariah status. ‘Will Belarus Recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia?’, European Radio for Belarus, 1 September 2008, http://www.belradio.fm/en/593/reports/23142/.