Begegnungen
Schriftenreihe des Europa Institutes Budapest
Band 29.

The European Union, the Balkan Region and Hungary
Volume 3

Edited by
Ferenc GLATZ

Budapest 2009
Europa Institut Budapest • Social Research Center of HAS

This book was prepared in cooperation with and supported
by the National Programme for Strategic Research

Translated by Vera Gáthy
Proof-read by Rita Besznyák

ISBN 963 87275 2 7
ISSN 1416 3055

CONTENTS

Begegnungen
Schriftenreihe des Europa Institutes Budapest, Band 29:113–120.

TIBOR VÁRADY*

Minority Rights in the Successor States of Former Yugoslavia

Formulae of Solutions in the Light of the Kosovo Crisis

I would like to focus on minority issues in the light and current of the Kosovo events. When in the mid-1970s I tried to launch education in Hungarian language at the University of Novi Sad I had two supporting pillars. One was the Serbian Dean of truly European orientation and the other one was the fact that the same process was already in progress in Albanian in Pristina which served as a basis of reference. Since that time I have often seen models serving somehow as points of reference. I think it will always be this way even if we claim that there are no precedents.

It is also interesting that when Milošević ended the autonomy of Vojvodina in the late 1980s, the actual target was the autonomy of Kosovo. Vojvodina was linked to it, to use NATO terminology, as ‘collateral damage’. The discontinuation of the autonomy of Vojvodina was not so much a target but rather a collateral damage. Now even a lesson can be drawn from the termination of autonomy. The propaganda of Milošević repeated time and again that autonomy had to be terminated because it was leading towards independence. The example of Kosovo, however, shows that it is not autonomy but its termination that may drift one towards independence.

Remaining with the example of Kosovo, international efforts towards a solution were often governed by short-term priorities rather than by a principled or long-term thinking. If the objective is truly the independence of Kosovo, and apparently this is the case, it would have been far more expedient to take Kosovo away from Milošević. Perhaps it seemed to be inconvenient at that time. Today I think it is clear that it would have been simpler because now the Serb leadership is confronted with an almost impossible expectation. They are not only expected to accept a fact, but to declare that they agree to the independence of Kosovo. This is practically impossible. The Hungarian parallel has often been cited. Today Europe expects any Hungarian government to forget about the alteration of borders and to act in the interest of the collective and individual rights of Hungarians living beyond the borders. And this is exactly what is happening. But which Hungarian government would be ready to sign that some parts of the country would be eliminated or separated with their consent? This is impossible politically, humanely and in practice as well. Actually this is exactly what is demanded from the Serb Government that have overthrown Milošević, and from Serbia where the party of the extreme nationalist Šešelj has more than 30% voters. Surely this does not work. I must say that it would be just as difficult to make the Albanians accept that they should give up independence. Now, when they believe in it and have grounds for hope based on encouragement.

Surely an almost impossible task has emerged. Perhaps this is the reason why attempts at solution move along a somewhat forced track. Controlled independence, figuring in the Ahtisaari proposals is not really a solution but the picture of the currently existing situation. Namely that Kosovo is de facto independent. There is no Serbian police in Kosovo, Serbian law is not enforced, the Serbian judiciary have no authority whatsoever in Kosovo. In other words, the basic pillars of the state are unoperational there. If a President of Serbia wishes to pay a visit to the Serbian grammar school of Budapest he can easily do so and would be most welcome. If the same Serbian President tries to visit a Serbian school in Kosovo it would be extremely difficult, despite the fact that in theory Kosovo is part of Serbia. On the other hand, Milošević projected the Kosovo settlement as victory. It is stated in Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council of 10 June 1999 that Kosovo is part of Serbia. This was so often repeated by Milošević that everyone in Serbia knows about the UN Resolution, even those who do not precisely know what the UN is. Therefore the loss of Kosovo is at stake today in Serbian politics. Meanwhile Kosovo is de facto not part of Serbia anymore.

As far as the principles of the Contact Group are concerned I also agree with those who believe that it has good intentions, but one can rather observe a tendency of explaining things and looking for an alibi instead of a quest for reality. Let us take, for instance, the principle, that Kosovo cannot unite with Albania. If Kosovo is truly an independent state, I do not see any legal obstacle hindering it. What could hinder the union of Kyrgistan and Turkmenistan if both countries wanted it? What could hinder the Benelux states (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) to form a federation if they wish? There is no such international legal principle. Surely, there are political realities, but legally such a position has no validity.

Non-partition has also been mentioned as a principle. In this respect it is truly a rational argument, for as we have seen, partition may lead to a chain reaction. Independence, in its turn, may also have the same result. Also, the principle of non-partition has become a ‘fashion’ one hundred years ago, as one of my American colleagues holds. This principle has led to catastrophic solutions in Africa and in the Middle East, where the setting of borders was not guided by ethnic realities, but rather by a ruler that set straight lines that became country borders. The painful effects of those solutions are felt even today. Here, of course, one remembers that partition not based on ethnicity was the guiding principle of Trianon too. So this has indeed been the dominant principle for one hundred years but this does not mean that it is a good solution. It is difficult to understand why partition is an option excluded right from the outset, when presumably this could have been the point where even a Serbian-Albanian compromise might have been reached.

The Contact Group has yet another important principle, namely whatever solution is born, safeguarding far-reaching minority rights should be ensured for those who would be in minority. And this is already a basis of reference. I would try to avoid the word ‘precedent’, because it has become a mantra (having independence in mind) that Kosovo cannot become a precedent. (This is not fully convincing and it usually suggests a solution that is neither ideal nor principled if someone introduces a proposal that is not supposed to be a precedent. Besides, I do not know how people could be deterred from referring to it in Abhasia or in Kurdistan, in the Basque Country or on Pashtun territory in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.) It is impossible to prohibit political arguments in advance. Therefore a rhetoric denying precedent is not very convincing, but this rhetoric does not extend over the issue of autonomy either. Autonomy, however, is important from the angle of European values; it is important from the angle of Hungarian interests, and very important with regard to the humanity and living conditions of people who live there. In Kosovo it is not only strong national sentiments but also mutual intolerance that characterise the present reality and therefore it even more important to ensure a far-reaching protection of minorities. It is unimaginable without individual and collective rights. I think this is a point where there cannot really be doubts and there are no basic differences of opinion.

Turning back to my actual topic, let me speak about minority rights in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia. In the years prior to the system change, by which I do not mean the last decade in Serbia, hallmarked by the name of Milošević, but rather the 1960s and 1970s, Yugoslavia was undoubtedly the state where the Hungarian minority was able to live under the most favourable circumstances and this was not only true for the Hungarian minority, but for the other minorities as well, if compared to Ceauçescu’s Romania or to the Slovakia of those days, or even to Zakarpattia Oblast. I think this is beyond doubt. Perhaps to some extent it is also due to the fact that Tito was a dictator and did not belong to the majority nation. Tito was a Croat, therefore he could not build his dictatorship on majority nationalism. He could have built it on party ideology, as well as on some kind of balance among nations, the benefits of which could be enjoyed by the minorities too, as far as the given framework allowed them. However, the factor that kept this mechanism alive was primarily the Communist Party. And when not only Yugoslavia but communism also disintegrated, the question newly emerged what principles should be adopted and what instruments could be applied to implement those principles. Law came to the foreground from among the possible instruments but when minorities are involved legal instruments can only be effective if people have some opportunities of self-determination. After the disintegration of Yugoslavia several models were born and this was not illogical. The birth of several models can be partly explained by the fact that problems have emerged in various settings. And here again, the destiny of Hungarian and Albanian minorities is interrelated to some extent. It is interrelated because the two minorities, differing primarily in their language, carry in themselves a specific aspect of minority rights. In the 1970s at the railway station of Novi Sad and Subotica the arrival of trains was announced in Serbian and in Hungarian. This is not the case any more, it is only an objective. I have quoted a relatively weightless example but there are far more serious problems. I took this example to demonstrate that there are minority demands and rights that have little significance for the Serbs in Croatia or the Bosnians in Serbia. In fact within the former Yugoslavia minority destinies and minority demands are typically not determined by linguistic dividing lines. Consequently, different structures have developed. Minority rights and destinies take shape and develop differently when the basis of being different is language. Therefore minority cooperation between Hungarians of Vojvodina and Muslims of the Sandžak can only partially be based on common objectives and arguments. For instance, both communities may claim to have schools or a television of their own, but for the Hungarians these demands primarily arise due to the difference of language, therefore most arguments are also based on language use. This is not the case for the people living in the Sandžak. Cultural autonomy is seen differently by the various minorities. Therefore it is natural that different models develop. I do not have the opportunity now to go into detail about these models, I only wish to refer to some specificities.

In Slovenia the attitude to minorities is based on a distinction of key importance, namely the difference between indigenous and other minorities. The indigenous minorities are the Hungarians and the Italians. These are relatively small minorities. The other minorities are Serbs and Bosnians who settled in during Tito’s time, and there are more minority problems in relation to them than to the numerically more moderate indigenous Hungarians and Italians. This time the Hungarian minority is on the more favourable side, but surely their numbers are very modest in Slovenia.

In Bosnia once again an entirely different image has emerged based on the Dayton constitution worded in Dayton (in the United States). Up to now Dayton was only interesting because the largest number of books on Virgin Mary is kept in the library of Dayton. Now it is also interesting because the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina was produced there. Next it was formally signed in Paris. When this constitution was born the primary aim was to terminate a war situation, looking for peace. This was more or less successfully accomplished. The text of the constitution is mostly linked to the name of the American adviser James O’Brian. The drafters were aware that ethnic tensions should somehow be made manageable there. The way it was done shows that they had been perfectly aware of what they had to do but it also indicates that this was done by people who where not really at home within the world of minority rights. Therefore the instruments are rather intensive. For instance Article IV(1) of the Constitution declares that there should be five Serb, five Bosnian and five Croat delegates in the House of Representatives. In other words, ethnic composition is set in advance. This totally contradicts Article II(4) of the Constitution which says that every single person and nationality is equal, and prohibits every kind of discrimination. Article IV(1) practically means that according to the Constitution a Hungarian from Sarajevo, a Jew from Sarajevo, or a Ukrainian from Banja Luka can never become a member of the House of Representatives despite the fact that they are citizens.

This bizarre solution was obviously inspired by the necessity of creating some kind of balance but it could have been achieved by other, more refined and less incongruous instruments as well. For instance, instead of saying that there must be five Serbs in the House of Representatives it could have been said that the Republic of Serbia (where 90% of the population is Serb today) would delegate (or elect) five members of parliament. It would obviously mean that in all probability five Serbs would be sent there yet it would not be constitutionally excluded that an inhabitant of different nationality of Republika Srpska could be elected. Similarly Article V of the Dayton constitution states that there is a Serb, a Muslim (that is Bosniac) and a Croat in the Presidency. And even the ethnic composition of the national bank is specified. It has produced some kind of balance but not by instruments that are considered as ’European’ tools of minority rights.

In Croatia a new ethnic composition emerged after the war. According to the data of the UN HCR 195,703 people left Croatia between July and December 1995. They were almost all Serbs and the majority of them went to Vojvodina. It means that the number of Serbs in Croatia was significantly reduced and it also means that the ethnic composition of Vojvodina has been significantly altered. There is a Hungarian and an Italian minority in Croatia and other minorities too, but naturally the primary minority problem continues to be the situation of the Serbian minority. In Croatia a so-called ’constitutional law’ was passed which ensures minority rights and, what is important, also personal, i.e. cultural autonomy. This cultural autonomy is limited, and the competencies of the national councils are also limited. Nevertheless, the constitutional law can undoubtedly be assessed as a step forward. National councils are organised at local and county (županija) level as well as on the national level. On the national level it is not only the national councils of the different minorities that can be organised but all the minorities can form a common national council, which, however, does not seem to be the best solution. In Croatia minorities have a right for parliamentary representation, and due to this solution there are Hungarian and Serbian MPs in the Parliament, with more Serbs among them reflecting their proportion in the population. The Serbian MPs play an important role behind the current government.

Let me also say a few words about the situation in Serbia. After the fall of Milošević there was a wave of changes following a European orientation and this produced results under the Ðinđić government. In 2002 an Act on Minorities was passed which was published in seven languages including Hungarian. There are a number of provisions of this Act which deserved to be mentioned. One significant achievement is the inclusion of the provisions about national councils. There are other results: at the universities entrance exams in several languages were restored, and personal documents and certificates were to be issued in several languages. I mention it with some bitterness that after the personal documents were not only issued in Serbian but also in Hungarian (in Serbian on the left and in Hungarian on the right side) the Hungarians from Vojvodina who turned with those certificates to the Hungarian authorities were told that they had to get them translated. I also regard it a result that it was the Hungarian National Council that decided on the Hungarian variant of place names and on making them official in Vojvodina, and consequently, the Hungarian place names were indicated. There were places where it provoked resentment, and in other places multilingual plates of place names were pulled down, or scrawled on, but they were restored and multilingualism has grown to be a reality in this respect.

I cannot be silent about the unfortunate decline in the field of minority rights during the recent years and I would try to give an explanation for this trend. The 2002 federal law referring to the national councils acknowledged cultural autonomy which was subsequently also confirmed by a Hungarian–Yugoslav interstate agreement. That agreement emphasised the legitimacy of collective rights. The 2002 law had, however, a shortcoming, because it said very little about the competencies of national councils. This could be explained legally, because the competencies of the national councils extended primarily over education, culture and the area of the press, and those fields were not in Yugoslav but within Serbian competencies. Therefore the federal law could not settle them and it would have been the task of a Serbian law, which was supposed to be elaborated later on. It was understandable but I do not quite see why the relevant Serbian legislation was not enacted.

The issue became really problematic when the validity of the law became questionable after the disintegration of Yugoslavia. The mandate of the national councils and particularly of the Hungarian National Council expired and it could not be re-elected because there was no legal norm on the basis of which it could be done. The legislation on the competencies of national councils has also been delayed for three years. This is a serious legislative omission. I very much hope that the new Serbian government and parliament will solve it, because this is the point where Serbian legislation truly turned in the European direction and they should progress further rather than retract their steps. All the more so because I do not see real conflict of interests there, and I believe that a Hungarian living in Novi Sad will more willingly accept Novi Sad and Serbia as his/her home if there are inscriptions in Hungarian there, if there are Hungarian schools as well, and if there is a Hungarian self-government.

Usually rhetoric formulae are also tabled in the majority–minority dispute. Almost every state where there are minorities says that there is no other country in the world where minorities have more extensive rights. This is a rhetoric formula. The minorities rather say that the sphere of those rights is limited and very narrow. But let us focus on another battle of rhetoric formulae. The majority likes to project minority rights as ‘extraordinary’ rights, as being something more than what the minority actually deserves, and the expression ‘additional right’ fits well into this formula. According to this rhetoric scheme there are general human rights and there are additional rights. Equality before the law is a general human right. The price of shoes cannot be fixed according to the nationality of the customer, and the nationality or religion of the culprit should not be considered when punishments are imposed. Further on, there are rights that are ‘additional rights’ according to the majority rhetoric (or by the rhetoric of some majority actors). Such an ‘additional’ right is if someone can use his/her mother tongue, may attend school in that language, can have newspapers and television in the mother tongue. Surely these rights can also be regarded from a different perspective. From another angle additional rights are also general rights. Actually to speak Hungarian in Serbia is not an ‘additional’ right but precisely the same right that the Serbs have who obviously can speak their own mother tongue, can attend school and read newspapers. We can speak of equality if the Serbs may speak Serbian, the Romanians Romanian and the Hungarians Hungarian. Thus ‘additional right’ is just a rhetoric trick because the yardstick of equality is surely not the language of the majority. We can speak of equality if everyone is allowed to use his/her mother tongue. Collective rights do not fall under the category of a special favour provided for minorities either, because the majority also has collective rights. To have Hungarian schools in Serbia or in Transylvania is a collective right, since after all both Serbs and Romanians have their community rights to education in Serbian and Romanian respectively. Similarly in Hungary Hungarians have the community right to study in Hungarian. Therefore collective rights are not some kind of suspicious minority demands but they are elements of the equality of citizens. Thus this is not a matter of additional rights.

Well, these rhetoric positions were put in a very interesting light on the occasion of the attempted settlement of Kosovo in 1998–99. The talks at Rambouillet resulted in two drafts. One was worded by American, Austrian and Russian diplomats, and there was also a Serbian counter-draft. General human rights and ‘additional rights’ were mentioned in both drafts. The well known rhetoric links ‘additional rights’ to minorities. This, however, raises the question as to which group of people ranks as a minority and who is supposed to get additional rights. That was a problem because it could not be decided in advance who was in a majority position and who was in a minority position in Kosovo. As the majority–minority formula could not be used, the makers of the draft had to step forward from behind the curtain in order to define who are entitled to have ‘additional rights’? Facing this issue the international and the Serbian drafts reached the same conclusion. Both drafts state that there are general human rights that are equally the rights of Albanians, Serbs, Turks, and Croats, etc. There are further additional rights to which the Albanians as well as the Serbs and other ethnic groups of Kosovo are again equally entitled. (For instance, the right that place names should be indicated in the language of various groups and in their script, the right that the various groups should have their own schools in their own language, etc. were all listed under the heading of additional rights.) So, it was revealed that actually everybody has additional rights. The curious situation gave an opportunity for an interesting clarification, a kind of exposure. This is an interesting product of the otherwise unsuccessful Rambouillet experiment.

Finally, let us understand that whatever happens to Kosovo, it is truly important that those who live there should have an opportunity and incentive to stay there. I think this is simply unimaginable without truly high standard individual and collective minority rights. This also applies for rights that are called by some ‘additional rights’.

* Professor of Central European University

Begegnungen
Schriftenreihe des Europa Institutes Budapest, Band 29:101–106.

IVÁN UDVARDI*

Kosovo and Hungarian Foreign Policy

The settlement of the Kosovo issue has been in the frontline of international politics during the past years and I think it will be there all the more so in the coming one and a half months.

During the past, almost twenty years enormous changes and transformations have taken place in the Balkans. New states have been founded, and some of them have been successfully integrating into the Euro-Atlantic structures. There is a country, Slovenia, which is already member of NATO as well as of the European Union. Croatia is conducting its accession talks with the European Union. Several countries have become partner countries of NATO, and the accession of some of them is on the threshold in 2008. Since the Thessaloniki Summit all those countries have the European Union perspective. Thus it can be stated that a rearrangement of historical scale has taken place in the region and we have reached its final phase. The Kosovo settlement will close this process in our immediate neighbourhood, in the Western Balkans.

If one studies the role taken up by Hungarian foreign policy in the region, the question arises what the interests of Hungarian foreign policy and of Hungary in general in this region are, with special regard to Kosovo. I assume, and this is what I want to stress first and foremost, that Hungarian interests are mostly European interests as well, and our interests are not separated from the interests of the European Union or of the Euro-Atlantic community in the region. First of all, I wish to emphasize our interest in the stability of the region. It needs no explanation and I think it is evident: the past period has excellently proved that the stability or instability of the region directly affected Hungary. Therefore, we are fundamentally interested in the survival of long-term stability in the Western Balkans. It is particularly the case for Hungary in respect of Serbia. We are of the view that a stable Serbia is the pledge for the stability of the entire West Balkan region. We would like to see that the Kosovo settlement moves in a direction that takes the interests of Serbia into consideration and strengthens Serbia’s stability, which is also reflected in the final solution.

We have often spoken at Hungarian and various European international forums about the changes taking place in the internal conditions in Serbia and the strengthening of Serbian democratic forces as being an all-European, or ‘all-Euro-Atlantic’ interest. In this respect I am of the view that the settlement of the Kosovo issue would also greatly influence the development of Serbia.

The second such interest is the Euro-Atlantic integration of the region. We are convinced that it will ensure a lasting and sustainable stability if all the states of the region become part of the Euro-Atlantic community. This process has begun and is progressing, and Hungary is one of the vanguards championing that process. We stress the outstanding importance of the issue at every forum from the angle of all countries there and of the region as a whole.

In addition to the Euro-Atlantic interest naturally there are specific Hungarian interests also in relation to Kosovo. First of all they are related to the Hungarian minority living in Vojvodina. The fate and changes in the situation of that minority is the constitutional responsibility of the Hungarian government of the day. As the stability of Serbia also affects the situation of minorities, Hungary is perhaps more interested in a stable Serbia than other states.

During the past 10 to 15 years Hungarian foreign policy has contributed to the stability of the South Slav region rather actively and positively, in a manner over-arching governments. I do not wish to give details of every element, but let me mention some highly important issues proving that Hungary is not only geographically present in the region, but also by its policy and way of thinking.

Firstly, I wish to mention the so-called Szeged Process. The Szeged Process, launched in 1999, was and remains to be one of the most successful instruments of Hungarian foreign policy. It has successfully contributed to the democratisation process of the region, and now we hope it will successfully contribute also to its Euro-Atlantic integration. Thus, in the case of the Szeged Process there is continuity, and a naturally changing priority. Naturally, because the original objective, namely democratisation has been essentially completed in the countries of the region. This was one of the well known and highly important Hungarian contributions to the stability and integration of the region.

The other, perhaps less emphasized Hungarian initiative was the launching of the Budapest Forum. The countries of the Regional Partnership (such as the countries of the Visegrad Group plus Austria and Slovenia) decided in 2005 to launch a process under the name ‘Budapest Forum’ which gives specific assistance and support to the countries of the West Balkan region in their process of integration. In this process Hungary has undertaken to prepare the region in the field of justice and home affairs. The programmes of the Budapest Forum are functioning and this is a specific contribution on our side that promotes stability and integration.

Hungarian activity at the forums of the European Union in issues relevant to the region can also be mentioned as specific Hungarian contributions. Such an issue is, for instance, visa liberalisation. We have always held the view that the Schengen system, the common visa system should not be a dividing line between the European Union and the countries outside the Union, particularly not in respect of the countries of the Western Balkans, not in a region which has European perspectives. Hopefully, talks on visa liberalisation will be successfully completed and from January 2008 a less complicated visa system may enter into force between the European Union and countries of the region. Surely this will be only one stage of the process. The aim of Hungarian foreign policy is that all the countries of the region should become visa-free states of the Schengen area after fulfilling the conditions set for them.

I wanted to indicate by some specific examples that Hungary takes responsibility for the entire region, and has had a number of successful initiatives since the second half of the 1990s.

Now I wish concentrate exclusively on Kosovo.

First of all we should specify the scope of action that the Hungarian foreign policy has in respect of the Kosovo settlement. It is commonly known that the Kosovo settlement has been in progress in a framework on which Hungary has no direct impact. Countries of the so-called Contact Group have determined the still prevailing basic principles of settlement. Hungary agrees with those principles without reservation.

The principles of the Contact Group are based on three ‘Nays’. The first one is that there is no return to the pre-1999 conditions. The second one is that the partition of Kosovo is not possible. The third one is: no matter what kind of settlement would emerge, it is not possible for Kosovo to join an already existing state formation. I think that those three basic principles and their assertion is extremely important because they reflect that the settlement of the Kosovo issue is an absolutely unique situation which cannot be regarded as precedent to the settlement of any other disputed issue. The basic principles reflect that the Kosovo settlement would emerge under specific historical conditions, with totally unique historical background and antecedents, and now the international community has to find a solution by joint effort. Stressing the fact that the settlement is “without precedent” will play an important role in achieving an international consensus. I wish to emphasize that Hungary, although it is not member of the Contact Group or of the Security Council where the final discussion of the issue is in progress, as member of the European Union, has been able to contribute to the elaboration of some elements of the Kosovo issue. For instance, this was the case when Hungary initiated the elaboration of a Kosovo paper within the framework of the regional partnership, which later on became one of the foundations of the policy of the European Union and some elements of which are reflected in the Ahtisaari report as well. In that document it was stressed, for example, that community minority rights should be provided for in Kosovo, and that it is a key issue to safeguard the collective rights of the Serb community living there. It was also this paper that dealt with the importance of the preservation of religious sites, with ensuring security in Kosovo by NATO and with the elaboration of a robust security guarantee. Thus Hungary succeeded in using European Union membership for introducing certain elements into public political thinking and in positively contributing to it.

Where are we now? In 1999 the international community decided by Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council on the way of development it regarded desirable in Kosovo. It is that Resolution which is still in force to this day. Two years ago the Security Council gave authorisation for opening talks between the representatives of Serbia and the Albanians of Kosovo about the future in general and in particular the future status of Kosovo, and has appointed Martti Ahtisaari as Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General. Those talks were not successful. Hungary was not part of those series of negotiations because not a single country of the region was invited to participate. Naturally, as an EU member state we continuously received information about the process. The series of talks were essentially terminated because the conditions of a peaceful separation or peaceful accord had seized to exist. Thus settlement is left to the international community. Obviously everybody hoped for a series of talks that could have led to a peaceful agreement of the parties. The Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General, Mr Ahtisaari presented his proposals and the Hungarian Prime Minister summarised Hungary’s position in a letter addressed to Angela Merkel, to José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission and to High Representative Mr Javier Solana. The Hungarian position outlined in the letter has four essential elements.

The first element is that it is expedient to exploit all negotiating possibilities. The letter was written sometime in early February, at a time, when it was not sure if there would be a continuation of talks. This idea met the position of the international community and set a timeframe for talks extended by yet another two weeks. Unfortunately the series of extended talks broke off without result around 10 March, so no essential progress was made. Yet the contents of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s letter reflected that according to Hungary’s opinion Serbia had the right to expound its interests in negotiations and to present its proposals.

The next element of the Hungarian position is extremely important and will, presumably, be a central issue in the future. According to this a decision has to be made at the UN Security Council, in other words a UN SC Resolution is necessary to the emergence of a sustainable long-term settlement in Kosovo. This initiative involves many things. Partly we would like to achieve that no country should be able to veto the settlement in the UN Security Council. Consequently, a solution should be found that is acceptable for all members of the Security Council, in other words, the objections aired by Russia in the Contact Group should be treated properly, a compromise has to be reached and that accord has to be achieved in the Security Council.

On the other hand, the unity of the European Union can only be based on the Security Council Resolution. All of the 27 Member States of the European Union are committed to the settlement of the issue, but each Member State has its own, well understood interests. According to the Hungarian position a Security Council Resolution may help in finding a joint stand. Thirdly, we are of the view that it is in the interest of Serbia as well as of Kosovo that their common future should be based on a SC Resolution. Finally, the SC Resolution is also supported by the fact that the European Union and the NATO have to take up significant tasks in Kosovo in the post-settlement situation, and the authorisation for that is ideally provided by a Security Council Resolution.

In this issue we have reached the point at which all the Member States of the European Union accepted this proposal at the March meeting of Foreign Ministers of the EU, and this expectation was also formulated in the Foreign Ministers’ Conclusion. The Council of Foreign Ministers did not speak about the nature and quality of settlement. But it did say that it should be approved by a SC Resolution. We regard it as a significant achievement. We have also emphasized that a SC Resolution not unambiguously stipulating the status of Kosovo should be avoided. In fact after a hazily worded Security Council Resolution it may happen that independence is unilaterally declared causing further complications in Kosovo as well as in Serbia and in the international community. Therefore the position of Hungary, as it was stated by the Hungarian Prime Minister, is that the UN Security Council should specify the future status of Kosovo.

I consider the third element of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s letter as a matter of outstanding significance. Accordingly Hungary considers the part of the Ahtisaari report referring to community rights as of special importance pointing forward. Community rights spelt out there that can be regarded as collective rights may offer guarantees for ensuring the legal position of minorities living in Kosovo. Without assessing it as a precedent we are of the view that these safeguards could be exemplary in other regions as well. If these collective community rights are not realised in Kosovo, a major Serb exodus can be envisaged which would also affect Vojvodina negatively among others. It should be avoided by all means, and the right to secure living conditions must be ensured for all nationalities living in Kosovo.

I would like to lay special emphasis on the fourth element of the Hungarian position, and that is the Euro-Atlantic integration of Serbia. In his letter Prime Minister Mr Ferenc Gyurcsány clearly stated that parallel to the settlement of Kosovo the Member States of the European Union have to strengthen the European perspective for Serbia. This would not necessarily mean an immediate candidate status but surely the European Union perspective. It is well-known that Hungary is among the countries that would like to see that the talks on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement are started or re-launched as soon as possible after the Serbian government is formed. We are of the view, and we are not alone with it in the European Union, that it is the indispensable duty of the Serbian government to fully cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, nevertheless, it should not be a precondition to the reopening of the SAA talks. In our view full cooperation should be investigated after the closure of the talks but before the Agreement enters into force. Let us not waste the time unnecessarily but progress with talks. In addition, Hungarian diplomacy also urges the European Union to word a clear message about the future of Serbia. It cannot be permitted that Serbia and the Serb society should feel isolated due to any type of settlement. We wish to contribute with a positive perspective to the dynamic progress of Serbia along the way of Euro-Atlantic integration. For this purpose we continuously hold consultations with our partners in the European Union, as well as with the Presidency.

We also consider it as an outstanding aim that Serbs should approximate NATO besides the European Union. I am of the view that Hungarian diplomacy, in close cooperation with the United States and other countries, has accomplished a significant result in this respect, for Serbia received invitation to NATO’s Partnership for Peace Programme at the NATO Summit in Riga in 2006. This is an extremely important step forward. In the recent past we have sent a delegation of security policy experts to Serbia and offered to the Serb leadership that Hungary would grant all support to meeting the conditions of Partnership for Peace. In addition we have offered to the future Serb government to participate (even if only by symbolic presence) in the Hungarian mission to Afghanistan. Let us jointly demonstrate that Hungary and Serbia are ready and capable of participating in such an extremely important NATO mission.

Those are the four elements of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s letter summarising the Hungarian position. Discussion has started in the Security Council, but it is not expected to continue this month (April 2007). According to the available information the Security Council will decide in the coming days on sending out a group of observers to Pristina and Belgrade upon Russia’s request and would continue the discussion on the basis of its report. As far as the timeframe is concerned it would be irresponsible to forecast anything, but I think that the dynamism of the discussion in the Security Council will speed up in May, and hopefully a reassuring solution may be born in June, which would be acceptable to all the parties involved besides the international community.

* Secretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Begegnungen
Schriftenreihe des Europa Institutes Budapest, Band 29:175–182.

MIKLÓS TAKÁCS*

Historical Arguments and Future Solutions

Two kinds of behaviour can be observed among historians speaking about the province/country of Kosovo/Kosova. Members of the first group present emotionally heated monologues about the given region, repeating the arguments of one or the other national stand with painful monotony. Colleagues in the other group try to approach the problem indifferently. Their argumentation often appears to be dry, sometimes disillusioned, and in some cases even cynical. Yet I would rather choose to apply the second approach in the following. I accept the odium that some of these negative attributes could be applied to what I wish to say. I think it is much worse if a historian, not belonging to either of the national communities adopts the set of arguments of one of them and enthusiastically propagates it. Moreover, he tries to preserve the nimbus of impartiality, which might seem convincing for those who do not adequately know the processes.

From the antecedents given here a fact surely well known by the audience becomes visible. It is not only the political and military elites of the Serb and Albanian people who are struggling for the land of Kosovo/ Kosova by arms and/or at the negotiating table but also the historiography of the two nations. As a result of that behaviour Serb historiography discusses almost exclusively the history of the region between the 13th and 15th centuries. The reason for that is that Kosovo was part of the Kingdom of Serbia during that period. It is due to the same basic stand that archaeologists of Kosovo favour to study the Iron Age. They want to prove that the Illyrians, regarded as their ancestors, were already living on the territory of the two disputed karst fields at that time and have been living there since the implicity.

Real facts are curiously mixed with over-interpreted and even false elements in both historical reconstructions. Let us take examples from the latter one. It is not true that Kosovo is the cradle of the Serb people. The Serb state was founded by Stefan Nemanja, Grand Župan (tribal chief) of the castle of Raška (1168–1196) on the territory of the present-day Sandžak, Eastern Herzegovina and Northern Montenegro in the last third of the 12th century. Only his sixth successor, the Serb King Uroš Stefan II Milutin (1282–1321) extended his rule over Kosovo or the land of ‘Rigómező’ (Kosovo Polje) by its medieval Hungarian name in the early 14th century. Due to its rich ore mines Kosovo became the wealthiest part of 14th-century Serbia. This is why the decisive battle had to take place there between Serbia sinking into internal strife after the death of Tsar Dušan and the Ottoman Turkish Empire surging ahead. The battle of Kosovo Polje on 14 June 1389, with which the fall of the Serb state began plays a central role in Serb historical consciousness. This is usually regarded as the fountainhead of everything bad and the beginning of the process excessively altering ethnic proportions. It is, however, a misconjecture that the population of Kosovo was homogenously Serbian before 1389. Not only because there was no such state at all in medieval Europe, but also due to the fact that there are written documents available about Albanian inhabitants in the town of Prizren in the 14th century, as it is referred to in the collected data of Sima Ćirković. However, it can be reliably proved on the basis of available written sources that the majority of the population of Kosovo consisted of South Slavs of Pravoslav ethnicity, namely Serbs and not Albanians.

With the latter remark I wished to refute a thesis of Albanian historiography considered as of axiomatic value. Let us accept as a starting point that the Albanian language originates from, or mostly from Illyrian because actually this is supported by most arguments. Even then, it is questionable to take an unbroken continuous Albanian settlement of 2500 years for granted in the case of Kosovo. The series of events of the Great Migration Period stands against the concept of people living in the same place continuously without interruption. At the end of the 6th century Avars and their Slav allies broke through the Lower Danube frontier, and the Slavs swarmed into the Peninsula. Byzantine administration and the system of cultivation collapsed on the Balkan Peninsula, together with urban civilisation as well as the Christian ecclesiastic organisation deriving from it. The Slavs settled down on the karst fields and in the river valleys and squeezed out the original inhabitants from their settlements, namely the Romanised or Grecised subjects of the Empire or the ones retaining their tribal language. Richer people moved to the cities of the marine coast not affected by the Great Migration, the poor went to the high mountainous regions where they shifted to transhumant animal husbandry. These processes are usually taken into consideration when defining the Albanian ancestral homeland. According to a widely accepted theory formulated in Western Europe the Albanian people originate in the mountainous area of present-day Northern Albania, along the upper course of the River Mati. The author of a more recent concept, Gottfried Schramm thought to have discovered the site in Eastern Macedonia. Both territories are rather distantly located from the land of Kosovo/Kosova.

Summarising we could say that the land of Kosovo/Kosova cannot be regarded as the cradle of Serbs neither as an Albanian land with continuous settlement for 2500 years. With these two statements the historical processes can be divested of the emotional charge by which they become, or may become suitable for whipping up negative passions. It is not ‘past merits’ that are to be considered in ethnic issues. The emergence of today’s ethnic proportions can thus be viewed in a far more realistic framework, better supported by sources.

The migration of the Northern, so-called Geg group of the Albanian population to Kosovo/Kosova speeded up from the 17th century. The transformation of ethnic proportions was so big, as it can be inferred on the basis of sources, that by the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries Albanians constituted the majority population of the province. If we also take this fact into consideration, one has to draw the conclusion that Serbia, step by step becoming independent during the course of the 19th century, was fatally late for the liberation of Kosovo from the Turks. By the time Serb troops entered the province during the First Balkan War in 1912, they were seen by the majority of the population as an occupation force and not as liberators. The contradiction between ethnic proportions and the actual affiliation to a state was and has remained the basic conflict of the 20th-century history of Kosovo/ Kosova. Moreover, the basic situation was significantly aggravated by the fact that the Albanians of Kosovo became the most dynamically growing population of Europe in the post-1945 period. Thus their proportion reached 80 per cent in the total population already by the 1980s and 90 per cent by the turn of the millennium. Finally, the attempt of solving the Albanian issue verging into genocide resulted in the 1999 intervention of the NATO member countries.

I do not wish to go into detail about the events that took place in the decades before and after the millennium. The tragic events of those two decades in fact can be linked only indirectly to the research into the history and material remains of past ages. In the following I wish to deal with this aspect, with the issue of heritage. Monuments in Kosovo represent an utmost explosive material for ethnic disputes, particularly for Serbs. The keynote of these disputes was set at least a century ago. May I only recall the poem of Milan Rakić entitled Simonida. Rakić was an eminent figure of Serb literature in the early 20th century, one if those who introduced symbolism in the region. In the years before the First Balkan War he undertook tasks related to foreign affairs as Serb consul in Priština – we all know, as the land of Kosovo/Kosova was still part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire at that time. The poet chose the perhaps most famous fresco of the Serb Orthodox monastery of Gračanica as the topic of his poem of 1907, often quoted in Serbian literature. Rakić wrote about a detail of the fresco representing Queen Simonida whose eyes were scratched out. The introductory thought of his poem was that this heinous deed could only be committed by a supposed Albanian rascal. It should be noted that there is yet another explanation for the scratched out eyes. The eyes of the Simonida fresco and of similar works of art could be scratched out by Orthodox believers who hoped for the healing of their eyes by using that powder.

The poem is of mobilising force, as a result of which a monument becomes a factor encouraging for action and fight. The South Slav ethnic war in the first part of the 1990s proved that all the combating parties had taken the role of national heritage into account. The planned and merciless destruction of the monuments of the other party was an organic part of that ‘dirty war’. The keynote was set by Božidar Vučurević, a truck driver of Trebinje, grasping the command of the local defence committee at the time when Dubrovnik was bombarded in December 1991. He in fact stated that “If necessary we will build a much lovelier and more ancient Dubrovnik”. The absurd logic of the statement well illustrates the attitude of the warlords of different kinds and rank to the built or archaeological heritage of the Balkan region, more specifically to the part of heritage that they regarded as alien. Taking full possession of areas, usually of mixed ethnic composition was to be accomplished not only by a violent alteration of ethnic proportions, by the so-called ethnic cleansing but also by a violent modification of the past of the region. According to the inhuman logic of the warlords not only the undesirable ethnic groups were to disappear without trace, after being humiliated and desecrated but also the buildings that would remind other of them. This is how the concept of ethnic cleansing of absurd logic can be supplemented by yet another one, by ‘heritage cleansing’. Naturally, it played no role whatsoever in the warlords’ set of ideas that the ‘wiping out’ of monuments was also a war crime similarly to locking up civilians in concentration camps, to their torture, rape and murder. The warlords could not even notice that destroying heritage is useless from a certain point of view. For in Croatia or in Bosnia there has been heritage protection for more than one hundred years and as a result of this work there is abundant documentation available about the destroyed buildings. Thus the murderous passion aiming at “damnatio memoriae” could not result in total oblivion, neither in the case of some buildings of Dubrovnik, i.e. of medieval Ragusa, or the Eltz Palace of Vukovar (or Valkóvár), or the Aladza Mosque of Foča, nor the old bridge of Mostar and the list could be continued almost endlessly.

Those who are interested in the history and antiques of the region should try to avoid two things. It is very bad if we accept the destruction of heritage with a kind of resignation and try to explain the rage of destruction with the accepted stereotype of the “eternal popular spirit of the Balkans”. Further on, it may lead to a negative result if we distinguish various types of destruction and are more forgiving in respect of war crimes committed by the party we find more sympathetic. The South Slav ethnic war shows that the roles of the sinner and the victim can be exchanged if destruction is not viewed uniformly, on the level of countries but taken by regions and by smaller periods of time. Thus at the beginning of the war the people’s army serving greater Serb interests or the Serb paramilitary units caused more extensive and 'professional' destruction. However, by emphasizing the crimes committed by the Serb party we cannot argue for the impunity of the two other parties. Several heinous deeds are weighing on the conscience of the Bosnian and Croat units as well because of the destruction of heritage sites between 1991 and 1995. A single but characteristic datum is that the duly world famous bridge of Mostar was completely destroyed with bombing by the Croat military troops, by a tanker unit of the HVO of Herzegovina on 9 November 1993. It was done with murderous patience and a bit less precision. They tried to cause damage to the Muslims of Herzegovina by their action.

The Kosovo conflict also proves that all the warring parties are responsible for the destruction of heritage sites. Stray yet significant quantity of data suggest that the destruction of religious buildings, namely Muslim, Catholic, or Serb Orthodox shrines have been demolished since the beginning of the armed phase of the Kosovo conflict. Naturally, both parties blame the other in this respect too. They are probably right in doing so because these tools were used by both sides as far as it can be assessed on the basis of press news. For instance, the special Serb police force, launching the campaign for the liquidation of UÇK did not only destroy and set on fire the houses of better-off Albanians in 1998 and 1999, but also several mosques claiming that they were centres of resistance. And if it is proved that the Kosovo command of the Yugoslav army set up its headquarters in the building of the Kosovo Museum of Priština at the time of the NATO air strike of 1999, thus hoping to avoid the danger of being bombed, it would be a telling example of war crime. (The destruction done by the Serb military and police forces was precisely taken into inventory by András Riedlmayer in an internet periodical.) The turning point in the destruction of heritage sites was the accord of Kumanovo and the entry of NATO forces to Kosovo/ Kosova. Parallel to the appearance of NATO a series of Serb Orthodox churches were set on fire and/or pulled down. (The blacklist of destruction can be studied on the homepage of the Rasi-Prizren Bishopric.) The Albanian side, as far as it can be reconstructed on the basis of rare press statements, usually says that a number of Serb Orthodox churches were built in places exclusively inhabited by Albanians with provocative intentions during the dictatorship of Milošević, and the local population destroyed only those buildings. Since a series of medieval or early modern age Serb Orthodox churches also fell victim to this wave of destruction, this argument is obviously deficient and apologetic.

What can a researcher do who is interested in the built heritage of the region, but does not belong to either of the national communities? The only possible approach is anxiety for heritage. Due to objective criteria, the built heritage of the Serb Orthodox Church is currently exposed to greater danger in Kosovo/Kosova, therefore greater anxiety should be expressed towards the Serb Orthodox churches and that too, regardless of what we think about the political steps of the Serb government and particularly of Vojislav Koštunica. Further on, it should not be used as a cause for turning away that the Serb communities, living under the military protection of certain heritage sites, have almost moved to extremities. Let me just refer to the billboard posters praising the Serb Radical Party of Vojvoda Šešelj placed next to the Gračanica monastery. The heritage sites themselves have a real and symbolic value: naturally not only of the buildings, but of the continuous maintenance of the liturgical events performed there.

The UN Special Envoys governing the civil issues of the province since 1999 have recognised this situation relatively early, therefore, after the chaos of the first few months the KFOR has been ensuring the protection of the Serb heritage sites assessed as the most important ones, having symbolic significance by a spectacular stationing of armed units there. Such is, for instance, besides the above-mentioned Gračanica monastery the ensemble of buildings of the Visoki Deçani, the Patriarchate of Pečij, or Ipek in its medieval Hungarian name), or the 20th-century memorial built in the venue of the battle of Kosovo Polje, at the so-called Gazimestan, shaping a medieval tower. The defence of the latter one was unfortunately only organised after it had been partially exploded. According to press news it is not churches of emblematic significance and of basic importance to art history that are exposed to the greatest danger today but buildings considered as of smaller significance. Obviously the size of KFOR troops is not big enough to send spectacular protective forces deploying even armoured vehicles. The solution has to be sought elsewhere. The local representatives of the international community should encourage the local Albanian political elite to recognise the fundamental importance of the protection of Serb heritage. In fact the destiny of those heritage sites is of strategic significance. Their contingent destruction could lead to the radical deterioration of the security situation.

With this remark I have already shifted to the issue of “How to go on?”, which is indeed a question difficult to answer. At this point I have to confess sincerely that I go beyond the competency of an archaeologist and historian. A circumstance of the Southern Slav wars of the 1990s should also warn us to be cautious. Namely that during that war several West European or American archaeologists, working earlier in the region, got involved in discussing the future events and their predictions usually did not come true. I do not feel competent to elaborate possible scenarios for the events of the coming weeks and months. I do not wish to dwell upon the issue of either how big the possibility of a low-intensity armed conflict is or of a series of events in the ‘grey zone’ between armed conflict and peace or, last but not the least, of a peaceful solution so very much desired by the outside world. I have to concentrate on aspects that directly do not touch upon issues of military policy.

It is obvious that the Serb political elite will not accept Kosovo becoming independent, at least not in the short or medium term. It can be stated for sure on the basis of the local press that realities would play only a minimal role in the process of accepting separation. Such realities are the ethnic image of Kosovo/Kosova, or the change that had taken place in 1999, namely the withdrawal and the winding up of Serb public local administration after a lost war. Even the public opinion of countries of a less turbulent history would not easily give up part of the territory of their state. At any rate, defiance, inat in Serbian is a basic trait of the Serb popular mentality. The Serb political elite should understand a painful fact in order to be able to accept independence. Namely, that the national action programme, worded in the mid-19th century was unrealistic right from the outset because it set two incompatible objectives. It simultaneously demanded the restoration of the 14th-century empire of Tsar Dušan in the south, namely the elimination of the territorial consequences of Turkish occupation. In the north it wanted to annex areas where Serbs settled down in the late middle ages and in the early modern age, such as the western rim of the Balkans and the southern third of the Carpathian Basin. The latter areas could be inhabited by Serbs exactly because they had given up part of their earlier habitat, namely the land of Kosovo/Kosova.

For a long time the Serb political elite seemed to succeed in realising both aims. They achieved this by transforming the Serb national objectives into a common South Slav issue and by making their claims, with clever foreign policy, part of the principles of settlement of the victorious Great Power alliance of World War I. In the new territorial arrangement, closing down World War II, once again Yugoslavia became a basic element of the Southeast European stability, and this situation, as it is commonly known, survived up to the fall of the one-party system states based on communist ideology. According to some approaches the foreign political failure of Slobodan Milošević in the early 1990s was caused by not succeeding in dividing the Western allies in the issue of the Serb–Croat and Serb–Bosnian conflict, and also by the fact that the old-new political elite of the Soviet Union transforming into Russia did not show sufficient interest in the question. Even on the basis of press news it is fully obvious that the situation was different in respect of Kosovo/Kosova in 2007. Russia, the Russia of the Putin era pursues a resolute and far more confrontational foreign policy than the Yeltsin era, and the protection of the territorial integrity of Serbia enjoys definite priority among its aims, together with hindering efforts of the Kosovo Albanians to gain independence. To approach the situation from another side: knowing the modern-age history of the Balkan Peninsula it can be justly assumed that not only the so-called contact group had talks about Kosovo/Kosova but also the foreign politicians of different rank and position of the various Great Powers. Public opinion orienting itself on the basis of press reports usually gets information belatedly, if at all, about such talks. Remaining at our profession, the analysis of these issues is not the task of the present but of the future generation of historians.

I wish to reflect on facts that a present-day Hungarian historian and archaeologist may have a good chance to encounter. Surely the issue of the Serb Orthodox churches would emerge in several conferences and meetings. It can be justly assumed that a long line of reports will describe their condition and deteriorating state. Therefore one will have to return to this topic many times. Hungarian experts have to show enhanced empathy towards such presentations. After all we are quite familiar with the decay of built heritage with reference to minorities, such as Hungarians in some successor states including Serbia. A further disputed issue may be the case of the archaeological material of the Kosovo Museum in Priština. Actually the most valuable finds of the Museum were taken to Belgrade for a representative exhibition installed in 1998, and as far as I know they were not returned to their original repository, with the exception of a Neolithic idol. This latter work of art, the so-called enthroning Goddess was returned on the occasion of the visit of the then Special Representative to Kosovo, Michael Steiner in 2002, obviously in order to illustrate the bona fide of the Serb party. It can be justly assumed that this gesture would remain an exceptional procedure and the issue of the return of the complete set of finds will not be settled in the near future and not at the cost of a single round of talks.

*

Earlier I have just cursorily mentioned the Hungarians of Vojvodina but it was not accidental. I cannot conclude my contribution without calling attention to that small but certainly not insignificant group of Hungarians. The existence of Hungarians in Vojvodina places enhanced responsibility on all of us. We cannot approach the northern Balkan region as foreigners elegantly standing aloof and the same applies for the problem of Kosovo/ Kosova. At the discussion of the independence of Albanians in Kosovo, which has come to the foreground of world power competition we have to call attention to the fact, on each occasion, either we speak about historical or of actual political aspects, that it is of basic importance to Hungary to help the survival of Hungarians in Vojvodina and the assertion of their minority rights without any reservation. We have to continuously strive for the enrichment of our knowledge in the service of that objective. Our words, in fact, would only be authentic if they are based on the solid knowledge of irrefutable facts.

* Senior Researcher, Institute of Archaeology, HAS