Another proposal

Serbia does it again. We have another proposal, now offering 95% autonomy. Or 5% reduced independence. You can call it whatever you want, because this last proposal is all about compromise.

All this affair has started to smell like the Schools Agreement brokered by Sant'Egidio in 1998 which gave Albanian students school space while the villages were burning and KLA was growing.

A top Serbian official in charge of dealing with Kosovo said Monday that the government in Belgrade was ready to offer its UN-administered territory a level of autonomy that rests on the principle of minimum integration.

...

”Belgrade is ready to give Pristina full jurisdiction even in the fields of the economy and tax collection”, Samadrzic told reporters.

First of all, I thought Serbia had already offered all of these. How is this new? Is Serbia withdrawing bits of old offers only to offer them again as a new package?

"If they get 95 percent of authority, the question is why they would want to be in Serbia. That's why Kosovo and Metohija would not have the need to integrate within (Serbia), because the (Serbian) parliament would not interfere in the competencies” of the government in Pristina, Samardzic said at a news conference.

Source: BIRN

Second of all, it's the genocide, stupid. And when trying to argue over that, you better come up with something better than circular arguments. It's not about the percentages, but about your recent history of genocidal behavior. See, if Serbia were a person, with its record, two years back it wouldn't even able to get a subprime loan in America, let alone the right to have any say whatsoever in the lives of 2 m. I'm talking of genocide in Bosnia and attempted genocide in Kosovo, of which it has not apologized yet.

So let's ask the question repeated often here, now in Samardzic's words: "If they get 95 percent of authority, the question is why they would want to be in Serbia." I can come up with two answers: Serbia wants the market of 2 m people but not the government obligations that would force her to pay pensions,  teachers teaching irredentist history to "little terrorists," Albanians policemen, Albanian soldiers (you gotta keep the quotas; besides, its 2020 and 50% of your youth is Albanian), Albanian mothers along with the Serb ones for making more than two babies, and finally..."Milivojo from Sumadija, meet your new 360 degree neighbor Hasan. Hasan has just bought all the lands around yours for his six sons." If it comes down to getting less than 100% (the only way to prevent a future genocide), I would be first to say to Serbia, "take back another 45%, we're content with 50% only. 50-50 and we have deal, my frriend.

That first scenario assumes a rational Serbia. The second possibility is that Serbia wants to buy time in wait of more favorable geopolitics when it can implement its final solution for Kosovo, something it was stopped at in 1999.

Especially to my Serb readers: which one is it?

Technorati tags: kosovo, kosova, serbia

,