Balkanalysis.com

On the same summer day that London was reeling from terrorist bombings, NATO and the army of Serbia & Montenegro were conducting a “joint military exercise.”

A bitter irony in more ways than one, the turn of events — once unthinkable, considering that NATO had pushed its way into Kosovo by taking on (and almost losing to) the very same army — attests to a continually worsening security situation in the occupied province.

The joint exercise was agreed, stated KFOR spokesman Col. Yves Kermorvant, during the recent visit to Kosovo of Serbian Defense Minister Prvoslav Davinic.

What is, essentially, so significant about this turn of events? It appears that NATO (in its local incarnation as KFOR) needs the Serbs more than the latter need them. Sporadic but violent attacks on UNMIK police and property in Kosovo in the run-up to final status talks, motivated by not only political intrigue but in some cases religious fundamentalism, have put Kosovo’s international minders on high alert. It was only too obvious in 1999 that the once joyous ethnic Albanians would sooner or later come to see their NATO “liberators” as occupiers. And when they did, the latter’s days in the province would be numbered.

While UNMIK continues to claim publicly that each bombing, shooting, murder or threat is an “isolated incident,” it is all too clear that an organized campaign of intimidation, chiefly against the Serbian minority but also against the UN, is being waged in order to put pressure on the case for independence, and to rob the Serbs of a bargaining chip in the negotiations by removing their minority populations in advance of the talks, thus making an ethnically pure Kosovo a fait accompli.

The occupying force came away from the mass riots of March 2004, which strained operational capacity and put the NATO detachments in their first real siege position, with a lot of lessons learned. Albanian disinformation had drawn attention away from the real areas to be hit, with claims that Serbian troops were massing on the border turning to have been false alarms. The shell-shocked NATO troops who came away from the engagement were determined to not be fooled again, and to avoid falling into such a vulnerable position in the future.

But with the threat of future large-scale violence nevertheless a distinct possibility, NATO has been forced to come up with a Plan B. In a repeat version of March 2004 (Albanian extremists have been hinting that that was just a “warm up” compared with what’s to come”), KFOR troops, or at least the wounded, may be forced to evacuate into inner Serbia, to be treated by Serbian medics and to recuperate in Serbian hospitals while they ride out the storm in Kosovo- to where it will be difficult to return once expelled. At such a point the unimaginable could come to pass and the Serbs be allowed to send in police and army detachments to protect the minorities- were there any left to be protected at such a time.

They would never say any of this as such, of course, but there’s really no other interpretation that can accurately describe the evolving relationship between NATO and the Serbs as evidenced in the recent exercise. According to Makfax on July 7, the joint military exercise, held at the Land Safety Zone, would involve “a simulation of traffic accident involving large number of injured KFOR troops in the safety zone, along with emergency medical aid.”

A “large number of KFOR troops” injured in a traffic accident? What kind of situation could possibly arise that would put a “large number of KFOR troops” in danger from traffic? And do they even have traffic in Kosovo?

It is obvious that the joint exercise (appropriately codenamed “Medevak”), whatever officials might say, is driven by a more likely fear: large numbers of KFOR troops injured or killed in anticipated firefights with Albanian paramilitaries from the various shadowy terrorist groups that have been reactivated over the past few months. There can be no other conceivable explanation for simulating an emergency of such scope.

According to the KFOR spokesman, the cooperative exercise between NATO and the Serbs was “envisaged by the Military-Technical Agreement, signed in Kumanovo in 1999.”

On July 20, Brussels journalist David Ferguson quoted NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer as saying that despite all the bad blood, “I firmly believe that Serbia and Montenegro and NATO have a common future.”
Indeed they do. They already had a common past. In 1999, the latter was strained almost to the political breaking point while achieving remarkably little military successes (only some 13 Yugoslav tanks were destroyed, despite inflated early reports) – though NATO did prove quite talented at destroying civilian infrastructure. Six years later, the humiliation continues, as NATO appears to be begging the same people they came to kill to save them from the people they came to liberate.

But this heady dose of Balkan surrealism got better in the rest of de Hoop Scheffer’s visit to Belgrade, where he “also signed an agreement allowing NATO to cross Serbia and Montenegro in order to supply its troops in Kosovo.”

One recalls that it was a similarly outrageous request in violation of national sovereignty, the Rambouillet Agreement of February 1999 that the Clinton regime disingenuously held up as its own paean to peace. By failing to agree with it, the Yugoslav government was tarred as thoroughly recalcitrant. The Western public didn’t hear much about the part that had mandated a foreign military occupation by NATO as part of winning a “peace” deal- something no self-respecting country would tolerate. (Although it could be argued that allowing the NATO ground troops in could have benefited the Serbs by making them sitting ducks and greatly reduced the ability of air bombers to kill only the “right” people).

The NATO boss scoffed at Serbia‘s hurt feelings over the bombings that killed more than 5,000 civilians, urging the country not to remain “a lonely dissenter dwelling on perceived historic injustices.” Certainly de Hoop Scheffer and his fellow Dutchmen would be happy to suck it up and deal if 17 foreign countries had bombed their nation.

But now the situation has swung full circle. Regardless of what happens with Kosovo, the Serbs have won a tremendous symbolic victory. NATO walked into a trap of its own making and now is relying on the goodwill of its hand-picked old adversary to get them out of the developing quagmire. After all, what are friends for?