Images of Kiev

Kiev is a city of hills. One of those, along the bank of the Dnieper, has for centuries been a favoured site for some of the city’s most important monuments. Three of these, spread out along the top of the hill, present very different images of Ukraine from different phases in its history.

At one end of the hill is the colossal ‘Rodina Mat’, the ‘Motherland’ monument, a 62-metre high statue of a female warrior, which sits atop the Museum of the Great Patriotic War. It is an imposing sight, a memorial to the victory that for several decades was perhaps the most important legitimising achievement of the Soviet Union.

Rodni Mat memorial, Kiev

In front of the statue is a park of socialist realism sculptures of Soviet soldiers and workers in heroic poses, biceps bulging, fists punching, weapons held aloft, defiant, all-sacrificing, unconquerable. There is also a series of stone blocks depicting the names of the cities awarded the title of ‘Hero City’ for their courage during the war of 1941-1945. Behind them are photographs of elderly people in uniform, their breasts covered with medals, some of them looking grimly dignified, others with chirpy smiles.

All these images, the statue, the sculptures, the hero cities and the heroic defenders of the motherland appear to have an almost religious significance. Indeed, this is a shrine, as important for the Soviet Union as any Christian shrine, and much of the imagery is reminiscent of and borrowed from Christian images. Rodina Mat reminds at the same time of the figure of Jesus on the cross, arms outstretched, and also of Christ transfigured, shining in glory. Such statues peppered the Soviet Union. They were the cathedrals of communism, marking its victory over its foes. The heroic sculptures are like statues in churches, idealised depictions of workers and soldiers, much like saints and angels in a different setting. The photos of the veterans are like icons of the saints, encouraging people by their example to strive to be model Soviet citizens.

The museum itself walks the visitor through the Soviet Union’s struggle against the German invaders. It is a striking, informative and at times moving display, depicting as well as the titanic struggle between the two countries, the terrible, immeasurable sufferings of the people of Ukraine and the Soviet Union at the hands of the occupiers. But the monument itself stands as a museum to a bygone realm. Like a medieval Christian cathedral standing in a secularised country, a lasting symbol of a religion, in this case communism, that has lost its appeal and its relevance in a world that has moved on.

Next door to Rodina Mat is the Lavra monastery complex. Originating in the 11th Century, it was largely rebuilt in the 18th, in Baroque style, although some medieval elements remain. It did not escape the devastation inflicted on religious buildings around Ukraine and the rest of the Soviet Union during the communist period. At the centre of the monastery, the Dormition Cathedral was blown up during the Second World War, probably by Soviet Partisans. Following the end of communist rule, a replica of the cathedral was rebuilt.

Such vandalism occurred in many places. The 12th Century St. Michael’s monastery in central Kiev was demolished by the Soviets in the 1930s, and rebuilt after the end of the Soviet Union. Thankfully the nearby 11th Century St. Sophia’s Cathedral was left intact.

One of the holiest sites for Orthodox Christians, the revival of Lavra is a turning back to an older spirituality, and away from the discredited prophets of communism represented at the Rodina Mat statue. As at St. Michael’s and elsewhere, the numerous young monks in their long black cassocks (surely horribly uncomfortable in the summer heat) bear witness to the resurgence of Orthodox belief. The Church has recovered its position of respect. Walking through the grounds, monks are repeatedly waylaid by pilgrims asking to receive their blessing and to kiss their hands.

Of particular interest to pilgrims and tourists alike at Lavra is the maze of catacombs, where the original monks lived, prayed and were laid to rest when they died. Their bodies, preserved and mummified in the cool, dry atmosphere, are still there, inside glass cases, in some cases their shrivelled black hands poking out of vestments that cover most of their bodies. For the pilgrims these are saints. They murmur prayers, cross themselves and kiss the glass cases, as they wander through the low, dim passages, lighting their way with candles. For them, it is clearly an intensely moving, even ecstatic experience. For the foreign outsider, it is a little uncomfortable, like a snoop gawping at the private rapture of others which they cannot share and do not understand.

Holodomor and Lavra monastery

A little further on from Lavra is the ‘Holodomor’ memorial, marking the artificially induced famine which killed millions in Ukraine, as well as southern Russia, in the early 1930s, as a result of the disastrous policy of collectivisation. In front of the monument is a small statue of a frail little girl, dressed in a simple dress, distressingly thin, with an empty, hungry expression. It is an affecting representation of the tragedy of the famine. And it is in sharp contrast to the bombastic sculptures with their heroic figures at the Rodina Mat statue. The little girl seems to stand as a quiet admonition to all the false claims and promises of communism glorified at Rodina Mat.

Underneath the monument is an exhibition, including agricultural implements and household objects from the villages of that era. Screened around the interior walls of the monument, a film is shown, detailing the forced collectivisation and the famine that followed. With footage from the time and documents concerning the policy and its implementation, the film is a distressing and moving account of one of the great crimes of the 20th Century.

With its conclusion, that only since the achievement of Ukraine’s independence has it been possible to discuss the Holodomor openly, the film asserts that all Ukrainians need to realise that only in an independent state can they realise their national consciousness. In a country many of whose people remain attached to Russia and to the Russian heritage, and whose identity as a distinct nation is questioned by some, the Holodomor memorial thus also serves a nation-building purpose.

The film’s presentation of the famine as a deliberate attack on the Ukrainian nation, as part of a policy aimed at the subjugation of the country and its people, is disputed by some. As committed communists, Stalin and his regime saw collectivisation as a crucial element in building the future socialist paradise. They were never comfortable with Lenin’s New Economic Policy, the compromise of the 1920s which sought to restore agricultural production by allowing private farmers to continue to work their land as they knew how. For Stalin, socialism meant the end of private enterprise and the extermination of the class of better-off peasants, the ‘Kulaks’, who farmed the land most effectively.

Collectivisation and the end of private enterprise were a part of the communist creed. The policy was identified with Stalin personally. So when agricultural production fell, it could not have been because the policy was wrong. Rather, as Stalin saw it, it must have been because of sabotage by peasants resisting the building of the socialist future, hoarding food and deliberately failing to meet their quotas. And so they had to be taught a lesson. The grain had to be seized. Their resistance spirit had to be stifled. Protestations that the grain being seized was the last they had, leaving them not enough to plant for the following year, were met without sympathy.

Ukraine and southern Russia were the breadbaskets of the Soviet Union. So collectivisation was particularly significant there, and the consequences of its failure especially serious. When Ukrainian peasants did not deliver the quantities of grain expected of them, they were identified as enemies of the revolution, and as such had to be dealt with without mercy.

So where does the tragedy of the Holodomor leave the proud Soviet veterans, bedecked in medals, the saints of a discredited religion? Of course, most of them had no personal responsibility for the mass murder of the Holodomor. But how to be a hero of a wicked regime once its crimes have been exposed?

During a previous stay in Ukraine, I met a regional leader of the lingering Communist Party, mainly a party of nostalgic elderly people disorientated and left out after the end of the regime. He came across as a kindly, decent man, courteous and friendly. But how, I could not help asking myself, in the light of what we know about the famine and other monstrosities of the communist period, could he continue to fly the banner of a party with such a heritage, with such a responsibility? Should he not rather apologise in the name of his party for the horrors perpetrated in its name?

No doubt the positive personal experiences of some during the communist era, like the feted veterans, outweighed for them its dark side, which most of them must have been aware of, even if only at the dim margins of their consciousness. Although the heroic images at the Rodni Mat statue may be a myth, the sufferings of millions who endured Nazi occupation and fought to defeat it were real enough. But the image presented at Rodni Mat has been brought into disrepute. The older image of the onion domes, the icons and the saints of Lavra, has endured and been revived and holds far greater resonance among Ukrainians today. And the image of the Holodomor memorial, with the statue of the innocent little girl, stands as a far truer testament of the nature of the communist regime than the secular idols of Rodni Mat.

Hoxha's villa

Walking along Rruga Ismail Qemali in the Blok district in central Tirana, with its cafes and restaurants, its relaxed couples out for a stroll, it is hard to imagine that two decades ago this was a closed area, a district of villas, the preserve of the communist elite. That Blok is almost gone, a strange past world almost unimaginable in the bustling city of today, wiped out and replaced by blocks of flats, bars and nightclubs. But between the cafes is a quiet, sombre building, set in an overgrown garden, its terraces empty, its closed shutters slightly dilapidated, gently slipping into decay. A rather sad relic of the ‘70s, consciously luxurious, yet with an air of cheap, low-grade materials about it, and completely out of place now.

Hoxha's villa

And if the building has a somewhat ghostly appearance on the outside, on the inside the haunted feel is palpable. For this was the home of the late Albanian dictator, Enver Hoxha. How strange to walk through the rooms where he walked. To stand by the bed he slept in, the desk he worked at, the toilet he sat on, to browse through his books. The house has not been much changed, the remaining furniture and pictures mostly as they were when he was alive. It has been poorly maintained, the damp leaking through the ceilings. No museum this, left alone by a country uncertain what to do with this relic of a painful, unmourned past, but an important and undeniable part of the country’s history for all that.

The building was for a while used to accommodate visiting international delegations. The late Kosovo President, Ibrahim Rugova, slept in Hoxha’s bed, our guide informed us. A colleague told me he slept in the building during a work trip to Albania in the 1990s. He didn’t sleep well, which he jokingly put down to a malign presence.

But joking aside, the place does feel creepy. Eerily quiet now, unpenetrated by the noise of the present-day Blok. The wider Hoxha family lived here, his children with their families, a sister whose husband some believe Hoxha himself had killed. They each had their self-contained apartment. To an extent, the building is like a museum to 1970s design. Isolated from the world Albania may have been, but the elite was in touch with the fashions of the day in the capitalist west. The style is fairly uniform throughout, with just the colours conforming to individual tastes. Some of the tiles, including the green floral pattern in the dictator’s own bathroom, are quite attractive. In a couple of the bedrooms huge posters cover most of a wall, much like many teenagers in the west decorated their private spaces. Almost a normal family perhaps? Who knows?

Quiet and uninhabited now, it is hard to imagine how this family home might once have been. It was not only a family home. Downstairs are offices and reception rooms, a large dining room. But on the two upper floors are the private apartments. Hoxha and his wife had neighbouring apartments, with connecting double doors. What kind of family was this? Was there the noise of children? Did young people play music on their radios or cassette players? What kind of father, uncle, grandfather was Hoxha?

In Hoxha’s apartment, some of the walls are lined with books, mainly in French. Like Pol Pot, Hoxha had studied and learned his communist beliefs in Paris. An interesting, eclectic collection, for a man much interested in political and social theory, not just the standard communist tomes. Among them his own works.

To outsiders, the Albania of the Hoxhas is fascinatingly mysterious, in an almost voyeuristic way. When asked, even Albanians who lived through it seem to find it hard to conjure it up now, a world that has become impossibly alien, but which once really existed. The isolation, the personality cult, the ever-present fear, and the everyday lives that ordinary people carried on despite it all.

Yet to those who lived through it, who were not part of the privileged elite of the Blok, what does this house mean now? Our guide was one of those who suffered at Hoxha’s hands, her father a purged general, the family sent into internal exile in a remote region. Should it be restored as a museum, a monument to that time? For now, it is just left to decay, a gloomy presence which is hardly even noticed by the people who walk past it, or who sit on the café terraces, sipping their drinks, listening to western pop music. The world of the decadent west from which Hoxha tried to isolate his people, but whose styles and fashions he incorporated into his own home.

The Gotovina trial and collective guilt

The conviction by the international war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of the retired Croatian generals, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac, for their roles in the 1995 Operation Oluja (Storm), which recovered large swathes of Serb-controlled territory, has reopened old wounds in Croatia. Most Croats reacted with fury against a verdict they saw as a gross distortion of the conflict, a reversal of the positions of aggressor and victim. For them, Oluja was a just campaign to take back territory that had been occupied, and from which its Croat population had been expelled four years earlier.

This furore invites responses on several levels. Firstly, one can only react with distaste to the Croatian portrayal of Oluja as a heroic victory. There was nothing heroic about a campaign that involved the indiscriminate bombarding of civilian areas, the murder of hundreds of people, inhuman acts of cruelty and revenge, the terrorised flight of almost the entire Serb population, and the plundering and destruction of their property in a deliberate attempt to prevent them ever returning.

The whole ‘Homeland War’, as Croatia remembers the Wars of the Yugoslav Succession, was far from the glorious affair that many Croats like to remember. From the massacre of Serbs in Gospic in 1991, to the shameful collusion with Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic in the attempted carve up of Bosnia, to the crimes committed against Serb civilians in the Medak Pocket operation in 1993, Croatia’s war was a shabby affair. If Croat crimes were on a lesser scale than those of the Serbs, they were no less barbaric. And Oluja was the crowning stain on Croatia’s wartime record of shame and infamy.

But if the way that Croatia carried out its war was repellent, that does not mean that its resort to military means to recover its territorial integrity was unjustified. The court in The Hague was careful to stress that it was not ruling on Croatia’s right to resort to war. Yet its description of Oluja as a ‘joint criminal enterprise’ appeared to come pretty close to such an evaluation.

The point of this concept of a ‘joint criminal enterprise’ was to establish a general political guilt for those that planned and ordered the campaigns during which atrocities were committed. On the Serb side, ex-Serbian President Milosevic was indicted, as were the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, as well as General Ratko Mladic and others. On the Croat side, all the most obviously responsible people, President Franjo Tudjman, the wartime Defence Minister, Gojko Susak, the Bosnian Croat leader, Mate Boban, were already dead by the end of the 1990s. So Gotovina was targeted as a senior figure who could take the rap for the “joint criminal enterprise” behind Operation Oluja.

The whole concept looks dubious in principle. What it means is that those who were involved in the decision-making behind an operation are held responsible for any crimes committed, even though they may have had no involvement in the crimes, may not have intended that crimes would be committed, and may not have approved of any crimes that were committed. This is not about personal responsibility, but about general, collective guilt for anyone involved in the operation, whatever their personal responsibility.

The results can be perverse. Thus Gotovina is held to have been guilty of crimes for which, in a repeatedly shown video recording, he angrily harangued his officers after the operation. That he should be held guilty of crimes in which he had no personal involvement, and which he condemned, would seem to be a perversion of justice according to any standard that I can think of. Sure, he could have done more to see to it that the actual perpetrators were brought to justice. But that is a charge that can be levelled at the whole Croatian justice system, which was pitifully remiss when it came to investigating crimes committed by its own side. That omission on Gotovina’s part is worthy of condemnation, but should never have been used as a basis for international justice to lay the collective responsibility for the crimes of others, in which he did not personally share, on his shoulders.

A further perversity is that, while Gotovina pays the price for the crimes of Oluja, hundreds of others, including middle and lower ranking officers, who were directly responsible, are allowed to walk free. Gotovina is forced to take on himself the sins of all the guilty ones. This is a consequence of a general flaw in the ICTY’s approach of focusing on the ‘big fish’, the leaders held responsible for the crimes committed by lower-ranking soldiers and militia hoodlums. Of course, the ICTY did not have the capacity to try all of those lower-ranking individuals. But by going after the senior figures on the, in some cases, dubious principle of command responsibility, while letting numerous others directly responsible for atrocious crimes walk free, they have seriously harmed the credibility of their undertaking throughout the region.

It is, of course, not just the ICTY that is at fault here. In taking such a partial, ethnically biased approach to the dispensation of justice, going after every Serb they could identify, on whatever tenuous grounds, while letting all but the most egregious cases of Croat war criminals walk free, the Croatian judicial authorities undermined every principle of accountability.

But the international community’s approach of piling huge funds into the ICTY, to go after the big fish, has singularly failed to achieve one of the original key goals; by establishing the individual guilt of those responsible for the horrors of the Yugoslav wars, to extirpate any notion of collective guilt of the nations that fought the wars, and thus contribute to reconciliation. With cases like the Gotovina trial, the ICTY has destroyed its credibility in every one of the former combatant states.

The trials that have actually helped the nations of former Yugoslavia face up to the crimes committed in their name have always been those carried out on their own soil, by their own courts. The trial in a Croatian court of General Mirko Norac for the crimes committed in Gospic, in which he had a direct hand, confronted Croats with the fact that some of their people too had committed crimes. By contrast, the Gotovina trial in The Hague has set that process of establishing accountability back years. It would have been much better if, from the outset, rather than spending so much money on the failed enterprise of the ICTY, the international community had put its funds into building the capacities of the judicial systems in the former Yugoslav states, so that proper trials could be held there, as has anyway, gradually, started to happen in recent years.

And a final perversity of the Gotovina trial is its double standards, in that there has been no accountability for the international actors that also stood behind Oluja. For the United States, Oluja was a vital prelude to the military actions that ended the war in Bosnia shortly afterwards. Washington approved the operation. The United States helped train Croatian forces, and provided support and intelligence. If this was a ‘joint criminal enterprise’, as the ICTY contended, then where were the American defendants in the dock? Unfortunately the choice of indictments at the ICTY was always politicised. Western forces that intervened in the conflicts were never going to be held accountable for any of their actions. And Gotovina, whatever his personal merits or lack of them, has been made into a hero and a martyr in Croatia.

Latvia and Estonia

Spending a couple of weeks in Estonia in February and March, I inevitably found myself making comparisons with my experiences in Latvia six months earlier. In many ways, Estonia has tremendous advantages. Efficient, well-run, self-confident, benefiting from the close relationship with nearby Finland. Not afflicted by the corruption that burdens Latvia, economically successful, a trail-blazer in internet technology, one of the earliest ex-communist adopters of the Euro, Estonia is a thoroughly modern country, with a bright future.

When the prime minister asserted recently that Estonia would be among the five richest countries in Europe (a claim that would be laughed out of court in any other ex-communist country), even many foreigners in Estonia were convinced they would do it. Proud of their achievements, for example in having successfully fought off an organised cyber attack a few years ago, many Estonians are convinced they are one of the most developed, most advanced countries in Europe. They are years ahead of almost every other country in terms of IT penetration, they assert, waving aside the doubts of foreigners that their on-line systems, including internet voting, as well as on-line banking and sophisticated ID cards, might be open to fraud as elsewhere in the world. They are simply better and more advanced than the rest of us, they maintain. Is this smugness, or just an honest appraisal of their strengths?

That self-confidence is in marked contrast to Latvia, buffeted as it has been by the recent global economic crisis, racked by multiple corruption scandals. Yet in important respects Latvia seems healthier, more at ease with itself than Estonia.

The two countries share in common a heritage of deep trauma from the Soviet period, with its mass murder, deportations, colonisation by Soviets, the drip drip effacement of the native Baltic cultures and languages. Both of them have struggled to come to terms with the large Russian populations that remain. Latvia contains more Russians than Estonia, yet seems to have had greater success in integrating them, and in earning their adherence to the independent Latvian state.

It is striking that in Estonia, despite the large proportion of the population that is Russian, there are very few Russians in prominent positions. That the mayor of Riga is a Russian, that the head of Latvia's anti-corruption office was a Russian, and that prominent positions in other state bodies have been held by Russians, seems to have been widely accepted by Latvians. In Latvia, Russians have become an important factor on the political landscape that cannot be ignored. Not so in Estonia, where many Russians complain of feeling unwanted, treated like aliens. Why is that?

One suggestion put to me was that there was quite a large number of Russians in Latvia, especially in Riga, even before the colonisation policy that followed the Second World War, going back to the annexation of the territory to imperial Russia in the 18th Century. Russians have been a part of Latvian life for a long time. Many of the longstanding Russian residents are educated people, well-integrated, able to take on prominent roles. In Estonia, by contrast, there were relatively few Russians before 1945. Most of the Russians who came since then were industrial workers, not educated people, who have since lost out and been marginalised by the decimation of old Soviet industries in the 1990s. Perhaps that is a partial explanation.

It seemed to me that the two countries have different approaches to citizenship. That in Latvia, they have gone further towards embracing a more civic understanding, according to which all citizens, whatever their national origins, can be accepted as belonging, and can participate equally in the country's life. Watching a film about Soviet rule in Estonia, and the independence movement at the beginning of the 1990s, with its stress on Estonian folk traditions and songs, I felt there was a more 19th century type of ethnic belonging at work here, according to which only ethnic Estonians could ever be truly felt to be part of the national life and culture of the country. That Russians would always be outsiders, no matter that they may have been born there and have no other country.

The result is that, whereas Russians have taken big strides in Latvia, many of them being well integrated in the country's public and business life, that has not been the case in Estonia. There, by contrast, a large Russian population feels unwanted, resentful, marginalised. But they are not going to go away. Most Russians who wanted to move to Russia did so long ago. Fearing the threat from their big neighbour, many Estonians seem anxious that their Russian population might be a potential fifth column. That the majority of them are not Estonian citizens, even 20 years after independence, seems not to trouble them unduly, however. Most Estonians are unwilling to take steps that would ease the naturalisation of more of the Russian residents in their country. But that is surely a mistake. As fully integrated, Estonian citizens, would not the Russians of Estonia be more likely to be loyal to Estonia? I believe that is the lesson from Latvia that Estonians would do well to learn. Not to say that everything is perfect with the Russians in Latvia. But in bilingual Riga, Latvians and Russians appear more at ease with themselves and with each other than is the case in Estonia. Being rich will not solve all Estonia's problems.

Was international intervention in Kosovo a mistake?

The recent allegations in Dick Marty’s Council of Europe report linking Prime Minister Hashim Thaci with organised crime, including the murder of people for their organs, were shocking. The levels of corruption and organised crime, and the involvement of leading political figures cast doubt on Kosovo’s fitness for inclusion in European integration. They have also added new grist to the mill of those who see the disputed international recognition of Kosovo’s independence, as well as the NATO bombardment and expulsion of Serbian forces that made it possible, as huge mistakes, and one more shameful episode in the record of ill-conceived international interventions.

First to the history. Let us be clear, the KLA was a terrorist organisation. Frustrated with the failure of the peaceful resistance policy of Ibrahim Rugova to bring about the goal of independence, the KLA sought to advance that goal by violent means. Its attacks were not only against Serbian security forces, but against Serb and other non-Albanian civilians and against Albanians who did not agree with their tactics. The KLA was responsible for serious war crimes, in which several of its leading figures were directly implicated. Its terror tactics continued after the departure of Serbian forces, as it carried out indiscriminate revenge against Serb, Roma and other perceived enemies.

And beyond that, facing elections to newly created representative bodies in the couple of years after the establishment of a UN mandate in Kosovo in 1999, the political parties the KLA spawned carried on their terror against Rugova’s Democratic League of Kosovo, with numerous cases of political violence. These were not heroes and liberators as still portrayed by many Albanians and their foreign cheerleaders. Many of them were vicious criminals. That they have continued their criminal activities to the present day, and, having gained political power, have used it to subvert political structures to their criminal ends and to undermine the development of democratic institutions, should surprise no one.

So was NATO wrong to take the KLA’s side in 1999 and bomb Serbian forces out of Kosovo? Given the nature of the KLA, the readiness of NATO forces to treat them as allies was to say the least distasteful. Yet the decision to use force to stop Milosevic in Kosovo was understandable. Whether there was any viable alternative will long be debated. If there had been another government in Belgrade, an international policy of urging restraint in responding to the KLA’s attacks and negotiations with legitimate Kosovo representatives, above all Rugova, would have been reasonable.

But Milosevic did not respond to the KLA with restraint. His forces embarked on a terror policy of their own, with massacres designed to panic Albanians into fleeing. Add to that evidence of a pre-conceived plan to drive out a large part of the Albanian population, and an international policy of standing by looked indefensible. And Milosevic had form, having sparked the earlier wars of ethnic cleansing in Croatia and Bosnia. The international community had indulged him during the Bosnian peace process, treating him as the indispensable factor for peace in the Balkans, despite his earlier warmongering record. But here he was at it again in Kosovo. Any notion of Milosevic as a peacemaker had surely lost whatever little credibility it had ever enjoyed.

Restraint in Kosovo was not on Milosevic’s agenda. Neither were serious negotiations or a fair deal for the Albanian population. Again, Milosevic had form. He was the instigator of the apartheid-like exclusion of Albanians from all public positions during the 1990s. If he had, thanks to Rugova’s pacific policy, largely kept the lid on violence for most of that period, as much of the rest of former Yugoslavia burned, the whole basis of his approach in Kosovo for a decade before the NATO bombardment was to humiliate Albanians and make their life there impossible. The greatest burden of responsibility for the surge in violence at the end of the 1990s lies at the door of Slobodan Milosevic.

The argument made in some quarters that it was NATO’s bombardment itself that sparked the greater conflagration and the flight of Albanians in early 1999 should be dismissed. Given the violence that the Milosevic regime was already employing in Kosovo, and his past record in Croatia and Bosnia, the decision to employ NATO force, rather than standing by and let Milosevic have his way with the Kosovo Albanians, was justifiable (although the liberal definition of legitimate targets for aerial bombardment throughout Serbia and Montenegro was far more questionable).

Once Serbian forces had been expelled from Kosovo, the whole picture was irrevocably altered. If until 1998 talk of negotiations for Kosovo’s autonomy within Serbia might have seemed plausible, after 1999 such ideas were wholly unworkable. Independence was the only possible outcome, as was privately acknowledged even by some wiser heads in Belgrade. Those who continue to dispute Kosovo’s independence should answer the question of how Kosovo’s Albanians would ever be forced back under Serbian rule, and who would force them? The nastiness of the KLA and of several of today’s leading politicians in Kosovo is not the issue here. It is just about what is possible and what is not. Kosovo cannot be made part of Serbia again.

Marty’s report is of great importance. Many things that were already known about the nature of the government in Kosovo, the prevalence of corruption and organised crime, and the involvement of leading figures, has now appeared with great and refreshing clarity in a document bearing the stamp of a credible international organisation. It cannot be ignored, and its findings must be addressed. There is something rotten at the heart of Kosovo that has its origins in the inclusion of unreformed terrorists and criminals in the new state’s public life.

That this came about is not just a result of the NATO bombing campaign. The real blame is with the failure over many years since 1999 of the international community to face up to and confront the real nature of the KLA’s successors, due to its fear of their capacity for violence and terror and its misguided belief that it could tame and control them, and coax them into normal democratic politics. What is needed is a much tougher and less indulgent policy towards Kosovo’s government, but not any wrong-headed notions that international intervention in Kosovo and Kosovo’s independence were mistakes.

What to do about northern Kosovo?

From Balkan Insight, 2 January 2011

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/europe-must-stay-the-course-in-north-kosovo

Europe Must Stay the Course in North Kosovo

The recent past shows EU pressure on Belgrade can deliver results in northern Kosovo. The question is whether Europe has the will to keep it up.

By Peter Palmer

Among the recent WikiLeaks disclosures, cables from Belgrade and Prishtina confirmed the unease US diplomats felt about the support of officials in Belgrade for the partition of Kosovo.

Frustration with the lack of progress in integrating the mainly Serb-inhabited north has led some international commentators to advocate Kosovo’s partition, perhaps as part of a mutually agreed territorial swap with Serbia’s Albanian-inhabited Presevo valley going to Kosovo in exchange.

But what are the prospects for such a solution, and is it necessary, or desirable?

Partition or territorial exchanges are not publicly stated policy in either Belgrade or Prishtina. When Serbia’s President, Boris Tadic, raised partition as a possible solution in September 2008, he faced condemnation in both capitals, leading him to reaffirm the official Serbian line that the whole of Kosovo remains part of Serbia.

Nevertheless, as the WikiLeaks documents show, some Serbian officials are interested in partition. While acknowledging that most of Kosovo is lost, they assert that the government in Prishtina will never rule the north.

Could Prishtina be persuaded to accept such a loss of territory? The answer would seem to be “no”, unless Kosovo were offered something in return. It is here that the idea of a territorial exchange comes into play. While it is certainly not official Kosovo policy, some officials in Prishtina are prepared to entertain the idea.

However, when considering a territorial exchange, problems of principle and practicality present themselves. International acceptance of the break-up of Yugoslavia has since 1991 been based on two principles, affirmed throughout the wars of the Yugoslav succession and the peace implementation process that followed. One is no change to the former internal boundaries between Yugoslavia’s federal units. The other is no acceptance of the logic of ethnic cleansing, or of the idea that multinational states are unworkable.

These principles remain valid and important, not least for Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose unity continues to be questioned. After the International Court of Justice’s opinion in July on the legality of Kosovo’s independence declaration, the Republika Srpska Prime Minister (now President), Milorad Dodik, drew a parallel with the Serbian position in Bosnia.

And in Macedonia, although relations between the majority and the Albanian minority have improved since the 2001 conflict, the relationship of the latter to the Macedonian state is far from settled. And, if we accept an ethnic redrawing of borders between Kosovo and Serbia, why not elsewhere, in the Caucasus, or in Moldova? Some would welcome the precedent.

Since the break-up of Yugoslavia, the international community has insisted that minority rights should be respected within existing borders. Serbia and Kosovo are both multinational states. If Serbs in the north cannot live in Kosovo, what place does that leave for the Serbs in the south? And what about the Albanians who live in the north of Kosovo and ethnically cleansed Albanians who would like to return there?

Then there are the practicalities. If Prishtina won’t give up the north without compensation in southern Serbia, would Belgrade accept such a swap? If it would, where would the new boundary be drawn? As when discussing border changes anywhere in former Yugoslavia, there is no clean ethnic boundary.

Of the three southern Serbian municipalities in question, Presevo is almost entirely Albanian-inhabited, but Bujanovac and Medvedja are ethnically mixed. Wherever the line would be drawn, some would be left on the wrong side.

Such playing with maps does not provide solutions. It just creates more disputes. By sanctioning partition, the problem of the north would not be solved. More likely, it would ignite the tinderbox of frustration felt by many Albanians, that nearly three years after independence their country has yet to establish control over all its territory.

The premise that partition is the only possible solution for the north of Kosovo is flawed. The main point is that the north’s non-integration in Kosovo is only sustained by institutional and financial support from Belgrade. That Serbia provides funding for Kosovo’s Serbs would be fine, if its purpose was legitimate support for Serbian cultural, educational, social and healthcare needs. But not when it is used as a political tool to undermine Kosovo’s integration.

Belgrade’s obstructionist tactics include enfeebling the EU’s rule of law mission in Kosovo, EULEX. Belgrade’s consent in December 2008 to EULEX’s deployment in the north followed EU pressure and its insistence that if Serbia wanted to proceed with EU integration, it should not undermine EULEX’s mission.

EULEX is now present in the north but is barely able to carry out its mandate. The courts are scarcely functional. EULEX police can do little more than sit in the police stations. Serbian interior ministry police, in plain clothes, continue to operate. On the border, EULEX customs officials are not able to collect duties.

Given Serbia’s EU aspirations, the European Union holds leverage over Belgrade to insist that it stop its obstructionism in the north. Following the ICJ’s opinion in July, that Kosovo’s independence declaration did not violate international law, the EU put huge pressure on Serbia, including high-level visits from key member states, to get it to agree to technical talks with Kosovo.

Whether such contacts go ahead has been complicated by the Council of Europe report naming Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, as an organised crime boss. But questions about high-level crime and corruption in Kosovo are separate from the issue of the country’s future relations with Serbia.

EU pressure will need to be stepped up anew, both to ensure the talks proceed, and to make sure they have meaningful content. Enabling the courts, police and the customs service to function properly in the north are key technical matters that should be addressed. Brussels should not allow its mission to continue to be humiliated.

If Belgrade were pressurised into taking a more accommodating approach, there is no reason why things should not change in the north. In more than a decade since the UN mandate in Kosovo began, the pattern has been one of gradual progress, with occasional setbacks, as things that had once appeared impossible became possible.

Who would have thought three years ago that one would see the level of Serb participation in Kosovo’s institutions in the south seen today? That was possible because Belgrade did not have the means to control Serbs in the south, whose daily reality is that they live among Albanians and unavoidably come into contact with Kosovo’s authorities.

And in the north, while Kosovo institutions are present only to a very limited extent, pragmatic accommodation by some Serbs there is already greater than many in Belgrade realise. From the contacts between Kosovo Serb police and their counterparts in the south, to the acceptance by many northern municipal officials of Kosovo salaries, some northern Serbs already balance between Serbia and Kosovo.

Such pragmatism should be encouraged. But the prerequisite is that Belgrade cease shoring up the hard-line, obstructionist holdovers from Slobodan Milosevic’s era who continue to hold sway there.

It is no time to despair about the integration of the north into Kosovo, nor to look for the type of solution that has rightly been rejected elsewhere in the Balkans. The EU has the means to secure a change of policy from Belgrade. It is true that the EU is divided over Kosovo’s independence but the five non-recognisers have all lined up behind the call for technical talks. None opposes EULEX’s mission in the north. Spain and Greece have taken a pragmatic line of late, making a more robust EU approach realistic, if the same will that was evident following the ICJ opinion is sustained.

Peter Palmer is a former Kosovo Project Director and Balkans Project Director of the International Crisis Group.

Five weeks in Latvia

At the end of my five-week stay in Latvia, I visited the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, in Riga, which commemorates the Soviet and German occupations of the country from 1940 to 1991. I had been there five years earlier, during my first visit to Riga. I found it moving then. The story of a small nation, caught between two much larger powers led by wicked regimes, struggling for survival.

During my visit this time, a controversial issue that raised its head again and again was the Latvian Legion; Latvian Waffen SS units formed to fight with Nazi Germany against the Soviets. It was impressed upon me that most of the young men drafted into the legion were not volunteers, that they had no real choice. For Latvian men who refused service in Germany’s war effort, the alternative was labour camps. Yet I felt uncomfortable with the fact that the legion is widely celebrated.

On 16 March every year, the date of a battle against Soviet forces, ceremonies mark the legion as national heroes. While Latvia was part of the Soviet Union, Latvian émigrés, many of them ex-legionnaires, marked the event abroad. And following the restoration of independence, it was marked in Latvia itself. 16 March was an official national remembrance day in the late 1990s, although that official status was removed in 2000, under international pressure.

But the day is still marked. Young men from far-right organisations, one of which, All for Latvia, has just secured six seats in the 100-member Latvian parliament, line up with Latvian flags. Even some mainstream politicians visit the cemetery where members of the legion are interred.

I think Latvians who mark 16 March have got the balance wrong. One Latvian American who had moved to Latvia in the 1990s told me of his admiration for an uncle who had been in the legion, who had inspired him to be a Latvian patriot, and to return to the country. That Latvia found itself in such an impossible situation, occupied by the brutal Stalinist regime in 1940, which eradicated its independence and murdered or deported many of its people, and then by Nazi Germany the following year, was a national tragedy. Latvians were traumatised by the events of 1940 to 1991, when their land was colonised, their language and distinctiveness threatened with extinction as they came close to being a minority in their own country.

In 1941, many Latvians welcomed the Germans as the lesser of two evils, and saw in Germany the hope of greater respect for Latvian culture, and even for restored autonomy. It was a misplaced hope. The Nazis’ long-term aim was to deport much of the Latvian population to Russia, colonise the country with Germans, and Germanise the remaining Latvians. And what of Latvia’s Jewish population, sent to death camps, with the involvement of some Latvians, some of whom later joined the legion? Even though there is no suggestion that most legionnaires subscribed to Nazi ideology, is it really right to commemorate them as national heroes, as freedom fighters? Some did, it is true, carry on the hopeless struggle in the resistance for years after the Soviet return to the country.

Like all those, Latvian, Jewish and others who suffered at the hands of the appalling Stalin and Hitler regimes, the legionnaires should be commemorated as victims. For half a century, Latvians had no control over their own destiny, buffeted as they were by the forces of geopolitical affairs. Like in some other occupied countries, Latvians sometimes found themselves fighting on opposite sides. Some had been drawn into the Red Army in 1940, and others were committed communists. What I liked about the Museum of the Occupation was that it acknowledged all sides, and the tragedy that afflicted all Latvians, those who found themselves fighting for the Soviet Union and for Nazi Germany, the massacred Jews and the long-suffering civilians caught in the middle. Latvians were tragic victims in the war, and that is what should be marked. There was nothing heroic about the legion. Martial celebration of the legion’s military prowess on behalf of Nazi Germany is out of place. I found the Museum of the Occupation moving this time too, because it gets the balance right.

Zagreb's Dolac market

Strolling in Zagreb. Walking without any particular purpose, just for the pleasure of being there and the things around me. Walking slowly, quite often meeting someone I know, stopping for a chat, or joining them at one of the many street cafes, being introduced to the people they are sitting with. Slowly wiling away the time. Coffee at Pif, on Preradovićeva, with all the other thirty and forty-something wannabe intellectuals, or in the garden of the archaeological museum; Ice Cream on Bogovićeva; beer at Mali Medo, on Tkalčićeva, or on Kaptol, opposite the cathedral.

Dolac

For a feeling of general well-being, ambling up to Dolac market, past the flower sellers, and up the steps. Visiting Dolac was one of my most striking impressions of Zagreb when I first went there 24 years ago. Walking among the stalls, with the peasants from the surrounding Zagorje region selling their own produce. The fresh cottage cheese and soured cream (delicious with garlic); the filthy eggs (the dirtier, the better is a good rule); little bundles of vegetables and herbs, all you need for the base of a great soup; the seasonal fruits – lots and lots of plums at the moment; the Dalmatian section, with figs, and olive oil. In the autumn there are piles of chestnuts. In spring, it is wild asparagus. In years past, there used to be wild mushrooms, including ceps (vrganji). Unfortunately those have gone, apparently due to the annual toll of poisonings (which I suspect were mostly suffered by people who picked their own, rather than buying them on the market). Although I am told they can still be bought under the table.

And there are some nice little restaurants around the periphery of the market, selling fresh, wholesome produce. Especially worthwhile is the little seafood place next to the fish market. On my first trip to Zagreb in 1986, I was enthralled by the tanks of live fish, even quite large carp. My landlady from student days, the inestimable Sonia Bićanić, told me that when they bought a carp, they used to keep it alive in the bath for a few days to get all the mud out of its system. Sadly, the tanks have gone. But the fish is fresh and good. The little restaurant is well supplied from the market. Its food is simple and unpretentious, low-priced and satisfying. You can eat anything from the market, but most people take sardines, and bakalar (dried codfish) on Fridays. I love bakalar. At this place, it is a thick soup, heavily laced with garlic. Why do Zagreb restaurants only sell it on Fridays?

Dolac is still an invigorating place. Twenty years ago, staying in Zagreb with my dear, late friend, Darka, I told how in England such markets had found it hard to compete with the large-scale distributors of mass-produced, homogeneous, tasteless fruit and veg. I feared the same would happen in Croatia. “No”, she said confidently, “we like our markets”. I was partly right. New hypermarkets have indeed sprung up around the outer rings of the city. And much of Dolac is now taken over by commercial sellers rather than peasant producers. Finding a tasty tomato on Dolac is no longer so easy. But some of the peasants cling on, smiling faces and delicious produce. I hope there continues to be a place for them. With the spreading fashion for farmers’ markets, there is surely hope.

The old town of Tbilisi

I love wandering the streets of the old town in Tbilisi. Not the streets which have been smartly renovated, and are now crammed with cafés. Rather those that have not been renovated, with their uniquely Georgian style and charm. With their often brightly coloured facades and balconies, sometimes going right the way round the building, and the colourful plants that twine among them, they give the streets a feel of romance. Many of the streets are shabby and dilapidated, the houses cracked and broken, beyond repair in some cases. If to the outside visitor they appear picturesque, to the residents they probably seem draughty and uncomfortable, images of poverty rather than of charm.

I find it peculiar that these beautiful, albeit rundown streets of central Tbilisi are not more attractive to better-off residents of the city. Rather, it is the Vera, Vake and Saburtalo districts, with their modern apartment blocks, that are favoured by the smart Tbilisi elite. In some cities, such as Zagreb, it has been the newly prosperous, the advertising executives and bankers, moving into the older central districts, buying up from impoverished residents who could not afford the maintenance or renovation of their buildings, that has been an important dynamo for restoration and repair. Not so Tbilisi.

For all the charm of the ramshackle dwellings in Tbilisi’s old town, they must of course be renovated, and in some cases, unfortunately, the only solution is to tear them down. The main hope is that the rebuilding will be done sensitively, in keeping with the style and traditions of these neighbourhoods; that there will be the same attention to detail, for example in the often ornate trellises around the balconies.

Some recent constructions give cause for concern about the aesthetic taste of the current leadership. The gaudy footbridge over the Mt'k'vari river is placed right next to the old town, below the castle, and surrounded on all sides by fine old churches. Some modern constructions built among older buildings, such as the pyramid at the Louvre, seem inspired. This bridge seems horribly out of place. When I first saw it, I thought it looked like a sea monster, or a giant slug. More disrespectful Tbilisi residents dubbed it “the tampon”. And then there is the president’s residence, a rip-off of the Reichstag. Perhaps the policeman who tried to stop me photographing the residence was actually motivated by embarrassment.

The president's residence, behind the giant slug bridge

There is a place in Tbilisi for larger, more monumental buildings, around Rustaveli and the squares at either end. The beauty of the narrow streets of the old town is in their small-scale simplicity. For now, I am grateful I can enjoy walking those streets, aware that they will not for long be as are now.

Post-industrial wastelands

Tbilisi nowadays is a scene of feverish construction and renovation work. Spending time there, a visitor can easily be seduced by the obvious progress being made. Over recent years, the city has visibly changed for the better, even if not all the new landmark constructions are to everybody’s taste. It is not only the appearance. Chic new cafés have appeared, and new restaurants appealing to more exotic tastes, such as Japanese and Thai. In spite of problems, and despite the nearby Russian threat, Tbilisi is a city on the up.

And the same can be said for one or two other towns in Georgia. Central Batumi is a building site, with tall buildings going up along the seafront that seem to be more Dubai than Black Sea. As in Tbilisi, perhaps even more so given that it is concentrated in a much smaller town, the gardens and fountains, the cafés, all give an impression of rising prosperity.

But travelling across Georgia, the country in between Batumi and Tbilisi presents a different picture, which reminds of how much hardship the country has endured, and continues to endure. Following the end of the Soviet Union, and the collapse of the Soviet market, most of Georgia’s economic base was wiped out, almost at a stroke. The series of wars, civil strife and near anarchy of the early 1990s, and the decent of the country more or less into a failed state, added to the woe. The visible legacy of this is the industrial wasteland around several towns across Georgia, industrial zones that no longer have any industry, just the skeletal remains of industrial buildings. On my first visit to Georgia, at the end of 2003, I was told one of Georgia’s main exports was scrap metal from its abandoned factories. Another major export has been its people, who left in droves in the 1990s, unable to make any kind of living in their homeland.

Six years ago, as an election observer, I spent a few days in the western town of Samtredia, the ugliest town in Georgia I was informed by our interpreter, who hailed from Tbilisi. Yes, our driver, a native of Samtredia, agreed readily, smilingly, almost proudly, Samtredia was indeed the ugliest town in Georgia. Driving through the town’s former industrial zone, we passed acres of decay and decrepitude; tumbled-down warehouses and factories, their windows smashed, ceilings falling in; twisted, rusted metal and old bits of machinery. And among all this were people, somehow scratching a minimal living in this de-industrialised wilderness.

And yet I and my colleagues enjoyed wonderful hospitality in Samtredia. Right there, at polling stations in amongst that wasteland, we were offered food and wine, coffee, and, on a couple of occasions, even marriage (surely a sign of desperation, even if delivered with a smile). One evening in Samtredia, we were invited to a party at a local restaurant. There we were treated to a typically Georgian, gargantuan spread, complete with the obligatory toasts, to which I was able to respond with genuine warmth and emotion, so moved was I by our welcome.

And there are many other towns depressing to visitors, much like Samtredia. This trip, I stopped briefly in Khashuri, a town in central Georgia, a grim, dusty, dilapidated place, with almost nothing I could see to provide relief and give its residents cheer. The obligatory fountain, almost identical to ones placed in towns around Georgia under President Saakashvili, designed, no doubt, as a simple, quick measure to brighten places up and make their people feel a little better, seemed out of place to me, as if mocking its dismal surroundings. What can it be like to live in such a place?

And yet, as I found in Samtredia, some do manage to keep their spirits alive. But the people of Samtredia, Khashuri, and other towns in a similar plight deserve better. The spending being lavished on Tbilisi and Batumi should be shared around a bit more evenly.