Kosovar independence was instrumental to ending genocide in the region, and international recognition of Kosovo’s sovereignty is essential to the country’s future stability, according to Jason Steinbaum, senior foreign affairs committee staffer for Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., who has focused on issues surrounding Kosovo for over 15 years. Steinbaum discussed the history of the region and his personal experiences in Kosovo in a lecture entitled “Free Cold Soda to Free Kosovo: From Ethnic Cleansing to Independence” in the Haldeman Center on Monday.
Steinbaum said he first began studying the region with Engel after joining his staff in November 1993. When Engel was elected in 1998, a group of Albanian-Americans drew Engel’s attention to the “quiet ethnic cleansing” orchestrated by Serbians living in Kosovo. The group brought Engel to a rally, where the participants’ heavy accents led Engel to think they were chanting “free cold soda” instead of “free Kosovo,” Steinbaum said.
Congressional response to the Kosovar conflict was much quicker than many Americans believe is possible from their government, according to Steinbaum.
“If anyone ever tells you that members of Congress don’t listen to their constituents, I can tell you that after 20 years of doing this, they do listen,” he said. “They have to listen to their constituents or their constituents will throw them out.”
Steinbaum said he and Engel helped form the Albanian Issues Caucus, an informal Congressional group dedicated to solving the crisis in Kosovo. As his focus on the violence against Albanians intensified, Steinbaum travelled to the region with other American government officials on numerous occasions, he said. His first trip may have been the most eventful. When his visa was denied, Steinbaum found his way into the country with the help of Mercy Corps, an international relief organization, by pretending to work with a peace group called the International Hope of the Planet, an organization that Steinbaum fabricated for the occasion in homage to the International House of Pancakes, he said.
As Steinbaum traced the history of the region, he urged audience members to support the Kosovar independence movement. The violence began when Slobodan Milosevic, who served as the president of Serbia at the time, delivered a speech calling Serbians to regain their “national heritage,” which led to the treatment of Albanians as second-class citizens and began the widespread genocide, according to Steinbaum.
The Albanians, led by a pacifist president, responded to the genocide by creating their own “parallel system,” including a separate government, schools and health clinics, according to Steinbaum. Serbia could have ended the conflict at this point but instead chose not to compromise, Steinbaum said.
Steinbaum helped advise the Albanians to settle for autonomy rather than independence, a provision they correctly guessed the Serbians would not grant them, at a conference in France, Steinbaum said. As a result, Albanians appeared willing to compromise in the eyes of the international community, causing NATO to begin bombing Serbian forces, he said.
Despite the prolonged fighting, the war did not end Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo, Steinbaum said. When three Albanian children were found drowned in the Ibar River, the Albanians quickly blamed the Serbians and proceeded to burn hundreds of Orthodox churches, according to Steinbaum.
When the Albanians began to commit atrocities against the Serbians, Steinbaum said he and other government officials realized that Kosovar independence was the only long-term solution to the problem. Although Kosovo declared independence on Feb. 18, 2008, Steinbaum said more countries need to recognize Kosovar sovereignty and the international community needs to aid Kosovo in solving its internal economic and corruption problems.
The lecture was sponsored by Dartmouth Hillel, which is planning a trip to Kosovo this summer directly following Commencement. The program, now in its 10th year, sends between 12 and 15 Dartmouth students around the globe annually to study the issue of genocide, according to Rabbi Edward Boraz, executive director of Hillel. The Dartmouth students on the trip, who made up most of the small audience in attendance at the lecture, will partner with students from the American University in Kosovo while studying issues relating to conflict and resolution.