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Colleagues I know and respect think that Serbian President
Aleksandar Vucic aims a) to get neighboring countries to treat their
Serb populations correctly, and b) thereby avoid any mass migration
of Serbs, as occurred in the 1990s when they left Croatia and
Kosovo.
I beg to differ. I see no evidence of these two claims and lots of
contrary indications.
Let us count them:
In Kosovo, Vucic controls the Serbian List, which occupies all the
Serb seats in the Kosovo Assembly. The Serbian List does not
cooperate with other political parties to improve the lot of the
Serbs but instead has conducted itself as a spoiler, boycotting
parliament often. Belgrade has threatened and harassed Serbs who
join Kosovo’s nascent army, and recently deployed army units, as
well as the Russian ambassador, to the boundary/border with Kosovo
in response to a dispute over license plates (sic).
Vucic has toyed with the idea of trading Albanian-majority
municipalities in Kosovo’s south for Kosovo’s Serb-majority
municipalities in the north. But the majority of Serbs in Kosovo
live south of the Ibar river. This “border correction” scheme would
end the viability of those communities and lead to their eventual,
if not immediate, abandonment.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the now Vucic-allied Serb member of the
tripartite presidency (Milorad Dodik) has tried to undermine the
state institutions in preparation for secession and independence of
Republika Srpska (RS), which occupies 49% of the country’s
territory. Dodik objects to any strengthening of the state’s
judiciary, police, army, and parliament.
Vucic has taken up the cudgels in favor of a “Serbian Home,” that is
a state that would annex the Serb populations of Bosnia, Kosovo, and
Montenegro. The idea is indistinguishable from “Greater Serbia” and
“all Serbs in one country,” the slogans that led Milosevic to four
wars in the 1990s, all of which were lost and led to the mass
migration of Serbs to Serbia.
In Montenegro, a new Vucic-aligned government dominated by people
who identify as Serbs is welcoming Russian and Serbian dominance and
undermining the independence and sovereignty of NATO’s newest
member, while also mistreating the country’s minorities.
It is hallucinatory to think that the Serbian Home and the behavior
of Vucic-allied Serbs in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Montnegro is intended
to improve the lot of Serbs in neighboring countries or to avoid
mass migration. This is no doubt a line Vucic uses with Westerners,
as he knows what they want (and don’t want) to hear. But that
doesn’t make it true.
In addition to threatening his neighbors, Vucic is taking Serbia in
a definitively autocratic as well as Russia- and China-focused
direction. Belgrade’s foreign policies are only 60% or so aligned
with the European Union, the lowest ratio in the Western Balkans.
Serbia has joined the free trade area of the Russian-led Eurasian
Economic Union, which is incompatible with EU membership. Belgrade
has declared itself “neutral” with no intention of joining NATO
(unlike all its neighbors). Its media are not free, its judiciary is
not independent, and its economy is largely state-directed, with big
investments from Russia and even bigger ones from China. Belgrade’s
recent arms purchases are likewise largely from Moscow and Beijing.
Vucic faces an election, albeit not a free or fair one, next year.
There is no viable liberal democratic alternative. The only current
threat to his dominance comes from ethnic nationalists. He sees no
hope of joining the European Union within his next five-year mandate
and is behaving accordingly: grab what you can from Russia and
China, promise to protect Serbs in other countries, look for
opportunities to bring them and the land they occupy into Serbia,
and stave off the the Europeans and Americans by telling them that
you are anxious to avoid mass migration and improve the lot of Serbs
in neighboring countries.
No one should be fooled. It is time for Washington and Brussels to
wake up and smell the coffee. The geopolitical challenges from
Russia and China have dashed hopes for early realization of a Europe
“whole and free.” Serbia is lost to the liberal democratic world so
long as this Vucic is president. He is a chameleon. For now, he has
surrounded himself with autocrats and ethnic nationalists. Courting
his favor won’t get us anywhere. Supporting serious liberal
democrats inside Serbia and in the region might get us something.
But we’ll still need to wait six years or more for a serious
alternative. |
