Sep 17, 2015

A Constructive Journey towards Independence – A Journalist’s Perspective


On 2 July 2015, on the occasion of the XII Session of the UNPO General Assembly at the European Parliament in Brussels, Mr Agron Bajrami took the floor at the Conference entitled ‘’Auctioning Human Rights? Democracy and the Right to Decide’’ to speak about his country, Kosovo, one of the most recent success stories of self-determination. Mr Bajrami, Editor in Chief of Koha Ditore, delivered a remarkable and effective speech giving his overview on the path followed by his country in its journey towards independence, which is yet to be fully achieved.

While describing the underestimated obstacles and hardships of an independence struggle, Mr Bajrami underlined how the two parties involved, the one seeking independence and the one that is trying to stop it from being achieved, are often strongly opposed to the point of hating each other. However, what the parties often forget is that one day or the other they will have to restart a relationship with the other party, as they will be neighbours forever.

Mainly addressing the challenges that a country has to face in the aftermath of gaining independence, Mr Bajrami stipulated that ‘’… achieving independence does not end with getting actual independence itself. You have to fight for democratic values. You have to fight for rules. You have to fight against your own.’’


Below is the transcript of Mr Agron Bajrami’s speech titled ‘’Seven Years of Independence: The Kosovo Story’’
 


I am glad to be here and I just want to have a conversation rather than a speech. I have to confess that I feel a little bit guilty [at this forum] as my country has managed to do something that you all want to achieve, but you were not as lucky as we were.

On the other hand, if you look at the history, you will see that luck has nothing to do with [our case]. It has been a long journey. It is not seven years as it says here, as seven years ago we have declared independence for the second time. It is been more than 100 years that Kosovo has been trying to find a way to determine its own fate and to manage its own affairs. I think the whole crisis in the Balkans that we have witnessed in the 1990s, not only Kosovo’s issue but also the Bosnian issue before, were described as events that came about because of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the socialist country that existed there. I think it is not completely untrue but it is only partially true, because I feel that the full truth has to be taken into account that the process of independence of Kosovo as well as independence of Bosnia, Croatia and some other countries like Macedonia, are the final acts of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. This is where the whole story has to be served and looked upon and this is where, when we look at it, we will find that the notion which many states trying to impose that there is one set of rules which cannot be breached, doesn’t [exist]. Because as an example, I’ll give you [my personal background]; my grandparents were born in the Ottoman Empire, my parents were born in Italian-ruled Kosovo during World War II, while I was born in the Communist Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia, and my son was born in a United Nations-run protected area and hopefully my next kid or my grandkids will be born in a fully independent country. I say ‘fully’ because we are not fully independent yet.

When I look at the list, there is a flag of Kosovo which is also a member of UNPO, but unlike the rest of you, Kosovo has been recognized by more than 100 countries including USA and 23 out of the 28 EU Member States, which is a huge difference and a great help for us to get our independence in reality.

But when I started I said that this was a second time we declared our independence. It is because in 1991, we did so for the first time but it didn’t work. You have to take into account what didn’t function the first time and how come it functioned the second time. […] One of the questions which has been posed constantly and now again, is whether one can achieve success without resorting to violence. Whether you can actually become independent or autonomous, or whether you can get rid of slavery or else without violence.

This is why we had to struggle twice. Unfortunately, we had a big movement of peaceful resistance which was concluded or which tried to achieve the goal of independence without using any violent means, by what Christians refer to as ‘turning the other cheek’. It didn’t work and the international community didn’t want to listen. The point is the responsibility for war, not only with the side you are fighting but also the ones who are [passively] watching.

For years Kosovo tried to achieve some sort of negotiated solution with Serbia without guns. Nobody was interested to listen. When guns started being used, then everyone was listening. So the message was clear, unless you are a trouble maker, you will not [get] any attention!

This was the case for us. But the problem with using guns is that it is two folded. In majority, excluding Scotland and places [alike] where the systems are democratic and they actually function, you need to have rebels who are willing to die for the cause. What we also learnt later on, is that once you start using guns then you start using them on yourselves afterwards. People who bring you freedom with guns then will be your next oppressors! This is the problem with the countries that get liberated.

The Balkans are full of these sorts of stories because the former Yugoslavia was liberated like that, and the [post- Yugoslavia governing] systems kept going on under dictatorship. Yes, we did gain independence by using violence. And we all in the region are paying the price for it.

Because when you start using guns, then you are [causing] distance between people on the two sides. What we should not forget is that after all is done, we have to live next to each other again.  Kosovo is now in the process of new negotiations with Serbia, even though we have declared independence and we have been recognized by majority of what we consider to be the western world and important countries, [despite our] problems with Russia and China, we are in a much better position than - for example - Palestine.

There has been so much bad blood, so much crime, so we still need to negotiate with Serbia and you cannot disregard the fact that we are neighbours and we are going to be there forever.

 Even if guns are the only solution for some situations, you will also have to take into account that at some point you have to sit down and talk with the people you are fighting against, which would create a very difficult situation. The aftermath of independence which I think I wanted to tell you a little bit more about, is about something that we never thought of while we were fighting for it. That is, what will [happen] the next day when we get independent? What are we going to do next?  Are we actually ready to have our own [governing and administrative] system? Are we ready to get our economy running and so on?

The majority of countries in the region of the Balkans are not ready for that. Bosnia is not ready for that. In Kosovo it is simpler, as there are more than 90% Albanians, where the remaining 10% are minorities of 5% Serbs who are opposed to independence, and 5% of [mixed] Turks, Bosnians etc. who are [pro] independence. We learnt that achieving independence does not end with getting actual independence itself. You have to fight for democratic values! You have to fight for rules! You have to fight against your own!

In our case […] we were lucky, as we had the support of the USA and the EU, which made it easier. But that support cost us other parts of the world, i.e. Russia, since it is opposed to the USA. Palestine is also against us because of the USA. Some countries in Arab world also detest the political solution in Kosovo, because of the USA involvement.

Whatever you do, you end up being held by somebody because you  cannot do it [on your own], but then whoever helps you is going to have an influence on whatever you are going to experience afterwards!

The second problem that we faced [after our independence] is the fact that no matter how hard you try and how right you are, you will never get that 100%.

Kosovo independence is a compromise solution. Because as I said, Kosovo is comprised of 90% Albanians and the problem of Kosovar Albanians is the fact that when in 1912 the nation state of Albania was created, we [Kosovars] were left out, just like your people [referring to the rest of participants at the conference]. When time came for us to solve that issue, the big major forces of the world said ‘you cannot join Albania but you can only make an independent country which is not Albanian but which is a citizens’ country’.

Our constitution is the Constitution of the people, where there are no nations in the Constitution. It’s a state of all who live there, [as it is read] in the Preamble. The minority communities have special rights, the 5% Serb community [holds] 10 reserved seats and any change into the Constitution cannot be [adopted] without their vote.

So, whatever change we want to make in the Constitution, [Kosovar] Serbs also have to accept it. In every community where there are more than 5000 people of a minority group, they can form their own municipality and their language is official.

I am not against these sorts of rights because what we have found out is that the oppressors are usually afraid of giving rights, because they think ‘’if you give rights, the slaves will be free and they will get their revenge’’. Being extra generous is not necessarily a bad thing, but what we have also found out is that [this approach] can function. Unfortunately, in some stances it doesn’t function because - for example - the Serb minority in Kosovo, if I am allowed to say, are still representatives of Serbia and not of themselves. Therefore, they act the way they are told by the other state [Serbia]. Serbia doesn’t want to recognize us while it blames us that we shouldn’t be independent, [whereby] it is doing its best to prevent us from getting any sort of progress. [Serbia] is even willing to sacrifice the well-being of its own compatriots who live in Kosovo, in order to get Kosovo’s state to fail.

This is the essence of the problem: on the one hand you have people and their rights and on the other hand you have states that do not care about people. They care about the land, they care about the resources probably in some places, but in some places it is not even the resources. Kosovo is not as wealthy as one might think, so it is difficult [for us] to fight and I think that the Kosovo case, which the international community wanted to present as sui generis – a special case without becoming a model for other cases - shows that many in the world are afraid to break the current status of international relations by giving you what your right is.

[As a journalist, I only represent myself and my own opinion] and I think that if luck had anything to do concerning the case of Kosovo, it is [to do with our geographical location]. If we were situated anywhere closer to you [referring to the audience at the conference] probably we would not have been any better than you. This is the reality of today’s world.  Even in Europe, you have the case of Spain which doesn’t want to allow for what should be the normal procedure for people who want to decide for themselves.

I didn’t want to delve much into our history, [yet] one major point is that our independence was not the consequence of international community suddenly deciding that they want to do things better and differently, but it was maybe because of the fate of circumstances; one of them being that at that time, in 1999, when NATO intervened against Serbia to save us, Russia was so weak, that the USA could do whatever it wanted. Today that’s not the case and this is where we are.

Mr Bajrami’s answer to a question set forth by Mr Daar (Representative of Somaliland to UNPO and Vice- President of UNPO at the time): The EU is good as an idea, if it would fulfil what it [theoretically] stands for, but it is not fulfilling. Spain doesn’t recognize Kosovo [because of its civil conflict on the same topic with Catalonia etc.], Romania and Slovakia do not recognize Kosovo [probably because of their Hungarian minorities]. Politically [speaking], the EU has not been able to impose on us the need to utter the values it stands for, as the EU itself sometimes doesn’t stand for its own values in the first place.