Serbia: Separation Anxiety

The dark-clad crowd at a cemetery in the Serbian town of Novi Sad listened respectfully to the tributes at the Feb. 26 funeral of Zoran Vujovic. The rector of his university said the 20-year-old Serb had died expressing “justified anger” at the West. His uncle called him “one of the many martyrs of Kosovo.” And the tabloid Pravda declared: FAREWELL TO THE SERBIAN KNIGHT! Amid the eulogies, the circumstances of the engineering student’s death bear recalling: having broken into the U.S. embassy in Belgrade on Feb. 21, he was incinerated when a fellow protester tossed in a Molotov cocktail. For the mourners, Vujovic was simply doing his duty as a Serb by opposing Western recognition of the breakaway province of Kosovo.

Vujovic was hardly alone in embracing that cause. Since Kosovo’s declaration of independence on Feb. 17, thousands of demonstrators across Serbia and Kosovo have taken to the streets. They have thrown grenades at the United Nations courthouse in northern Kosovo, destroyed two customs posts, and clashed with ethnic Albanian police. Student demonstrators have rallied daily along the Ibar River that divides Serb from Albanian areas in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica, chanting, “Kosovo is Serbia!” and “Kosovo is ours!” For Marko Jaksic, head of the Serbian National Council in Mitrovica, such action is not optional; a failure to rebel against “the formation of another Albanian state,” he told a Serbian crowd in northern Kosovo, is “tantamount to treason.”

The targets of this latest round of Serb bitterness are the mostly Western countries — around 20, so far — that have officially recognized Kosovo as a new state. The Serbian government itself, diplomats say, may have indirectly sanctioned the brazen attack by hooded protesters on the U.S. embassy and other Western embassies. Belgrade is also taking steps to undermine the fledgling state itself by encouraging the partition of Serb-dominated areas in northern Kosovo. Though a new Balkan war seems unlikely, Kosovo’s birth is proving messier than its backers expected. And Serbia, which had been edging toward membership of the European Union and NATO, instead faces a degree of international isolation not seen since strongman Slobodan Milosevic was in power. Taken aback by all this anger and acrimony, Goran Svilanovic, a former Foreign Minister now working on regional cooperation, admits: “We didn’t see this coming.”

Not many did. But it’s not wholly by chance that Serb fury over Kosovo’s secession has outstripped expectations. Serbia’s nationalist leaders have been stoking confrontation. For example, surveillance cameras recorded police being ordered to leave their posts minutes before the crowd gathered for the attacks on foreign embassies; some did not return until 45 minutes after the first rocks began to fly. Yet Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica later declared himself satisfied with the performance of his police force, and Transport Minister Velimir Ilic even remarked that the damage done to the embassies pales next to Serbia’s suffering over the loss of Kosovo. Foreign ambassadors, he said, “fared really well, considering what they deserved.”

The U.S. has reacted by sending non-essential staff out of the country, and other nations may follow suit. Germany has suspended the issuing of visas from Belgrade. U.S. ambassador Cameron Munter slams “hardliners” for inciting violence. “We’re really angry that this happened,” he says of the embassy attacks. “It must not happen again.” He adds, however: “We aren’t yet confident that we are safe.”

An even bigger problem is unfolding in Kosovo itself. About 10% of its population are Serbs, most of them living in scattered enclaves. The largest adjoins Serbia north of the Ibar. Its main town, Mitrovica, which is split between ethnic Albanians and Serbs, is one of the most dangerous flash points in the Balkans. Serbs there, as elsewhere, not only refuse to recognize the authority of the ethnic Albanian government in Pristina; they are also taking steps to make that intransigence permanent.

The day after Kosovo’s declaration, Belgrade’s Minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, went to Mitrovica and told local Serbs that Belgrade, far from abandoning them, would increase its presence in Serbian enclaves by strengthening parallel institutions there. Although Belgrade has, for example, paid the salaries of doctors and teachers in Kosovo since the war in 1999, Samardzic now says it will extend that largesse to “all government departments.” And while Serbia’s spending on Kosovo has already jumped tenfold in the past year, to $750 million, it will now grow further. At the same time, Belgrade is opposing U.N. and E.U. attempts to carry out their missions to Serb areas in the north. Attacks on two U.N. customs posts in northern Kosovo on Feb. 19 were not ordered by Belgrade, but they were “in accordance with government policy,” Samardzic said. (The minister declined TIME’s request to be interviewed.)Serbian hardliners have some powerful allies. Russian presidential candidate Dmitry Medvedev, in his first official trip abroad since being named likely successor to Vladimir Putin, told Serbs in Belgrade that Russia would join with Serbia in a “common policy” against “illegal recognition” of Kosovo, noting: “We have made a deal to coordinate our efforts to get out of this complicated situation.” Medvedev, who also chairs the gas giant Gazprom, came to Belgrade to cement a $1.5 billion pipeline deal and the purchase of Serbia’s state oil monopoly; some observers see that latter deal, on favorable terms for Moscow, as a quid pro quo for Russia’s support of Serbia over Kosovo.

Some Serbs don’t much like the direction their country is taking. President Boris Tadic, for example, is a moderate who still wants Serbia to join the E.U. But he and his backers are being sidelined by Prime Minister Kostunica, who wields more power, and Tadic’s photo has been burned at rallies. In the current atmosphere, pro-Western positions are increasingly untenable. Tabloids are whipping up nationalist sentiment with attacks on the West and on moderate Serbs alike, and about a dozen journalists have been beaten up in recent days. “It’s not funny anymore,” says Pedja Obradovic, news editor of B92, an independent broadcaster whose founder has received death threats. Western officials have called on Kostunica to show restraint. He has replied that he will “normalize” relations with the E.U. only when its members rescind their recognition of Kosovo. “He wants to keep the pot boiling,” says a European diplomat.

From one perspective, Serbia’s reaction has been a success. Most countries have yet to recognize Kosovo, a fact that some Serbs attribute to their vocal protests. The new state certainly won’t be joining the U.N. any time soon, and partition of Serb areas in northern Kosovo is starting to look inevitable, diplomats say. But for those gains, Serbia risks sacrificing its relations with much of the world. The loss of Kosovo may be bitter, but the loss of ties with Europe could be more bitter still. “The danger is that voices of moderation, like stones in a stream, are being washed away,” says a European diplomat. The consequences could far outlast Serbia’s current rage.