Does Kosovo set a precedent for a two-county unionist homeland?

If Kosovo has the right to secede, why not other nationalities or ethnic groups living as minorities within someone else’s state?

PARTITION was wrong, right? Certainly, that was the loud and clear message from most speakers at a UCD debate last week on that old chestnut “This House believes in a United Ireland”.

It was a poor show: none of the proponents of the motion detailed how unionists were going to be persuaded out of what Sinn Féin calls their “false consciousness”. A united Ireland is inevitable, and that’s that.

When one considers how much blood and sweat was spilled before Northerners could agree on a mere powersharing assembly, this seems dangerously naive thinking. When I dared to suggest that republicans need to get a bit more serious — by proposing ways in which the State could be changed to take account of unionists’ identity, for instance — Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou MacDonald started barracking, prattling on about “national self-sufficiency” — a concept most of us thought was best left behind in 1940s Germany.

The upshot was that I lost my (normally quite even) temper and Mary Lou got away in the smoke.

But back to partition. It is too easily forgotten that no one, not Carson any more than de Valera, Collins or Connolly, wanted to see Ireland carved in two. Even the first Stormont prime minister, James Craig, thought it was probably just a temporary expedient.

But as it became clear that the border was going to become a permanent fixture, anti-partitionism became a central tenet of Irish foreign policy. From India to Vietnam to Korea, dividing countries on ethnic lines was no answer to disputes.

All changed, changed utterly this week. The three main Dáil parties have not just come to accept partition for the time being — they actively support it.

To avoid Mary Lou MacDonald having the vapours, however, I should point out that I’m not talking about the North. Rather, I refer to the declarations of support for the partition of Serbia, also known as the independence of Kosovo.

On Monday, much of the west — led by the US, Britain and France — seized on Kosovo as an opportunity to parade before the world as democracy’s champion and Muslims’ protector.

For the US to act without UN sanction might be par for the course; for Ireland to nod it through next week — as Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern has promised — should raise eyebrows.

For once, you see, Russia and China, supported by Spain and Greece, have a point. Kosovo’s status since 1999 has been governed by UN Security Council Resolution 1244 which envisages only self-government for Kosovo and acknowledges the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia”. Inconvenient as it might be for Washington and Brussels, Kosovo’s status can’t be changed legally without a new UN resolution.

The status quo might be unsustainable, but it is one entirely of NATO’s making. Eager to demonstrate that it still had relevance, NATO pulverised Yugoslavia with cluster bombs, depleted uranium and cruise missiles for 11 weeks. As an adoring media told the story, the US and its allies were knights in shining armour, selflessly killing and destroying in order to rescue the oppressed Kosovo Albanians from the bloodthirsty Serbs.

In reality, NATO-led forces marched into Kosovo, stood by passively as more than 250,000 Serbs fled or were driven out of the province, and then cowered in the safety of their barracks in 2004 as the Kosovo Albanians went on a vicious anti-Serb rampage.

Eventually, talks did take place under the aegis of Martti Ahtisaari of IRA decommissioning fame. The negotiations inevitably went nowhere, as they were meant to. Given that key NATO and EU officials had already declared independence was inevitable, the Kosovo Albanians knew they only had to sit tight, reject all other options and prepare to collect their reward.

Ahtisaari claimed his proposals would provide “the foundations for a future independent Kosovo that is viable, sustainable and stable and in which all communities and their members can live a peaceful and dignified existence”.

Presumably we are meant to overlook the fact that for Kosovo’s Serbs — the few that remain — living a “peaceful and dignified existence” means cowering behind barbed wire and needing armed escorts whenever they step outside their enclaves.

But what is this independence anyway? A flag, yes, but Kosovo will have no say on taxation, on foreign and security policy, on customs, on law enforcement. The only thing independent about Kosovo is its independence from Serbia. Kosovo has never been a state and its parliament isn’t deemed worthy to do anything very much beyond collecting rubbish.

If Kosovo has the right to secede, why not other nationalities or ethnic groups living as minorities within someone else’s state?

President Vladimir Putin might enjoy reminding the world of Russia’s seat on the Security Council, but he can point to numerous better examples in the former Soviet Union. For good measure, he could throw in the Hungarians in Slovakia and Romania, the Basques, the Catalans, the Corsicans, the Flemish and many others.

The great powers claim the suggestion that Kosovo has any bearing on any other territorial dispute is spurious. Britain’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, says Kosovo is unique. Why? Because, with Russian support, the UN was given authority to decide the future of Kosovo. But the UN resolution is clear: the authorisation was merely “to provide an interim administration for Kosovo under which the people of Kosovo can enjoy substantial autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia”.

YUGOSLAVIA is no more, but Serbia is acknowledged by all, including the US and the EU, as the successor state. Dermot Ahern argues that, never mind UN resolutions, Serbia under Slobodan Milosevic forfeited its right to rule. If bad treatment of the local population disqualified a state from exercising sovereignty over part of its territory, then an awful lot of countries would be eligible for enforced amputation, including some which receive vast chunks of American or EU aid.

Serbia is a legal entity entitled to self-determination; Kosovo is not. If Muslims cannot be expected to live under non-Muslim rule, why does no-one recognise the Turkish Cypriots right to independence?

The international community’s message to other ethnic groups is clear. First, grab a piece of territory. Then permit unrestricted immigration by its co-nationals from a neighbouring state. Next, ethnically cleanse the territory of all other groups to create an artificial overwhelming local ethnic majority. Last, demand that these actions be rewarded by the bestowal of independent statehood.

Anyone for a Free Derry? Independence for west Cork? More seriously, if the North ever voted for Irish unity, Kosovo would provide an excuse for Ulster loyalists to set up an independent homeland in counties Antrim and Down.

The cabinet should think before it acts on Kosovo and not just follow the herd.