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Freeing the Balkans

Less than 20 years ago, the Balkans were all but destroyed by savage ethnic wars. The troubled mountain region remains a stubborn reminder of the failure of the various Western European bodies and NATO to prevent the catastrophic fallout that so traumatised the peoples living there. Yet, interestingly, today, at least two Balkan states, Serbia and Croatia, are in line for European Union membership, with Bosnia not far behind in the queue. These developments are to be welco med. Despite the often superficial and ill-informed criticism by some of its member states, the EU remains the most sought-after gated condominium in the world, not just for the promise of economic benefits but for its stated commitment to a decent life for all citizens under largely social-democratic political systems. Within the Balkans too, the changes of government and the shift in some public attitudes have been significant. The Serbian president, Boris Tadic, has made the most of a narrow vote to proceed with an application for EU membership. He has also made strong efforts to expedite the process of bringing the former Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, indicted for genocide and other grave war crimes, to trial in the International Criminal Court.

But the reality is that a region so steeped in ethnic hatreds cannot transform itself overnight. In Croatia, official bodies apparently condone or at least do nothing about public gatherings of supporters of the Ustashe, the Croatian Fascist movement, despite the fact that such activities involve breach of the law. In Serbia, despite his clear involvement in the most grotesque of crimes towards Bosnian Muslims and Croatians, Karadzic still has wide popular support. His collaborator and fellow-accused Ratko Mladic is still at large, quite possibly protected by elements of the Serbian security establishment. Other problems arise in respect of Kosovo, whose unilateral recognition by the U.S. in February 2008 sent political shock waves across the world. It is not just that allegations of Serbian war crimes against Kosovo remain hotly disputed internationally. Kosovo is understandably seen, not just by Serbia and Russia, as a metaphor for what is often called the U.S.-led dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia. The evidence for that is unhappily persuasive, and it is no accident that Russia has acquired a substantial stake in the Serbian oil industry. The Western powers must back away from their exploitative approach to the predicament of the Balkan states, respecting their sovereign right to develop.

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