Politic Analytics

Kosovo. Ukraine. Separatism.Part 2. Political expediency.

At the moment the ideas about separatism in our country are out of time and they are not “sprouted” in the society. But the threat is still in the air that is why the ethic and historical ground for separatism exists. For the threat to become reality the occasion, “favorable” circumstances and their concourse are needed.

 

Any event can be an occasion, for example, desecration of the Muslim cemetery on the Crimea and conflict of Crimean-Tatar population with law machinery. Such events also remind the Crimean Tatars of the unfair deportation which 64^th anniversary was commemorated on May, 17-18 2008. Thus in this context the precedent of the self-declaration of independence in the Serbian Kosovo and parallels with the Ukrainian Crimea are rather logical.

 

But the component “favorable circumstances” is more important. This term should be interpreted as the complex of global and regional political, economic, social and other factors. They can be conventionally divided into two groups: external and internal.

 

External factors.

 

The situations like in Kosovo happen when there are actors who stand up for these communities (ethnic-national, confessional etc.) and are able to provide them with sufficient resources in order to bring the problem out to the global level. If it is convenient for any international communities that some part of a country has its independent sovereignty, it could be implemented regardless of whether the others want it or not.    

 

1.       Global processes.

 

The precedent in Kosovo is “know-how” for pragmatic politicians. To declare independence of the part of the territory (where there are e.g. oil pools) and to “put” there their government is much cheaper than to start a revolution or civil war in the whole country.

Any serious participant of the global geopolitical game can use the precedent in Kosovo. By supporting separatists it would be possible to get the territories under control which importance is defined by treasures of the soil or geopolitical situation. In view of spreading global crisis including the energy crisis, the Crimea with its shelf resources of energy carriers can be of interest of global forces.

Ukraine is considered by some countries as a potential “donor” for delivering its territories, and as other countries of the CIS (except Russia) is not finally accepted by European and global community as an all-sufficient national-state unit, “deserving” independence.  

 

2.       Muslim factor.

 

In geopolitics there is a term of “south arc of instability” which means the territories where not simple but civilization conflicts have been happening over the ages. The Crimea also belongs to this region. Kosovo is an example how Muslims start playing more and more important role in the region of South Europe. By certain similarity of base circumstances of the conflict it might develop on the Crimea in the same order and in the same progression. Kosovo is a challenge in the context of the regional politics. It should be taken into account that the Muslim Crimean-Tatar population of the peninsula demonstrates rather good demographic dynamics.

 

Of course, Kosovo and the Crimea are very different at the moment. But there are no guarantees that in several years firstly the “Macedonian scenario” of expanded autonomy and then the radical “Kosovo scenario” would not repeat in the ARC.

 

Internal factors.

 

1.       Elite.

 

The response of the Ukrainian elite (or, rather, no response at all) makes the issue of the Ukraine’s incorporation into the sense of global history important in the wide sense. The political “beaumonde”, in fact, did not react to the events in Kosovo because nothing has happened to it – it, in fact, demonstrated its inability to compare the Kosovo situation with our historical tradition since Ukraine has no historical awareness, no historical scale which would let consider correctly the situation. Taking into account that the ruling class of Ukraine is disorganized and can not work with challenges of such scale, Ukraine becomes very vulnerable in several aspects: foreign policy, regional development etc.

 

2.       Citizens.

 

The research conducted by the company Research & Branding Group at the beginning of March 2008 lets make some conclusions regarding the response of Ukrainians to the events in Serbia.   

Ordinary Ukrainian citizens as well as the elite do not have clear idea of this situation: 44% have not heard about it at all or found it difficult to define their attitude to the self-declaration of independence in Kosovo.

About a third of the Ukrainian citizens do not support in general the one-side declaration of independence in Kosovo because they consider it as violence of the territorial integrity of Serbia and think that it could provoke the stirring up of separatism motions in other regions.

At that about a half of the citizens of the country think that in Ukraine in general there are no real threats of stirring up of separatism motions in light of the declaration of independence in Kosovo.

Among the regions of Ukraine where there are potential possibilities of repetition of the “Kosovo precedent” the respondents noted the Crimea. It is noteworthy that in the West of the country the most citizens (33%) think that it is impossible in Ukraine; and in the Center (34%) and South-East (38%) – that the threat of separatism according the Kosovo scenario comes from the Crimean Tatars.

Both the elite and ordinary citizens have no clear stand whether Ukraine should officially recognize the independence of Kosovo or not. At that it is interesting that almost a fourth of Ukrainians are more or less indifferent to this.

3.       Constitution.

 

Despite the fact that the Constitution of Ukraine states the unitary structure of the country it also secures the autonomy status of the Crimea. From the legal point of view it is one of the steps for declaration of independence by the certain territory. It means that the territory with the autonomy status in the structure of the unitary state has perspectives for further referendum about independence. This formal factor might get urgent in the conditions of the current conflict process of development of the new edition of the Constitution taking into account that main attention in it is paid to distribution of regulatory powers and not to viability, efficiency and functionality of the state in general.

 

 

Thus, in Ukraine having no united information and cultural space, no developed economic organism and moreover suffering from lack of energy carriers with the lower cost-of-living level than in many neighbor states, there are not only ethnic-historical but also rather relevant modern internal factors creating favorable circumstances for separatism. Out the Ukraine’s borders – in all directions – there are influential forces ready to play the card of separatism anytime. Inside the country there is total lack of responsibility of the citizens for political processes. The society – the elite and ordinary citizens – have no (or do not want to have any) more or less clear attitude to situations similar to Kosovo as a result of the habit to act in accordance with the current benefits, political expediency. And this political expediency in the wide sense can “start up” the Kosovo scenario in Ukraine.   

Kosovo is a warning. And it would be useful to draw conclusions in time so that one day the Kosovo variant of solving ethnic, regional or just political problems could not be imposed in Ukraine.

 

 

May 26, 2008 // Aleksey Lyashenko, analyst of «Research & Branding group»