When the Serbian province seceded from Belgrade in February, South Ossetia was quick to reassert its own claim to international recognition.
As a spokeswoman for separatist leader Eduard Kokoity told Reuters at the time: “The Kosovo precedent has driven us to more actively seek our rights.”
Those remarks will not have gone unheard in Tblisi and could well have added some urgency to Georgia’s desire to impose its rule over breakaway South Ossetia.
A similar, though more general question was raised on this blog in February.
When super powers support breakaway republics or enclaves, the implications of these endorsements are often felt around the world.
The EU Rule of Law Mission (EULEX, for some reason) are currently recruiting up to 1,900 international staff to provide police, legal and customs services to the independent state of Kosovo.
News that the EU has delayed its planned police mission to Kosovo suggests that rocky times lie ahead for Europe's newest country.
Once the mandate for the UN mission in Kosoko (UNMIK) ended in mid-June, the EU was due to take responsibility for providing a police service to help stabilise the republic during its transition to independence.
Having threatened to use its veto in the UN to stop the EU initiative, Russia has effectively blocked the establishment of the EU police force in Kosovo. The result will be months of uncertainty, during which Serbia, from whom Kosovo succeeded in February of this year, will continue to attempt to derail the emergence of a fully-fledged Kosovon state. Russia backs Serbia in its rejection of Kosovon independence.
Meanwhile, Serbia continues to try and consolidate its position over districts in northern Kosovo (which boarder Serbia and have Serb majorities.) Leposavic, Zvecan and Zubin Potok have had little input from UNMIK and, in the absence of a Kosovon or European police force, are vulnerable to Serbian annexation, a move which the US says they "absolutely oppose."
The Kosovon government, meanwhile, has come under criticism for its failure to secure sufficient recognition by other nations to be granted a place at the UN general Assembly. 97 is the number of endorsements required. So far, less than 50 countries have formerly recognised the Republic of Kosovo. Recent countries to do so include Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Funny things happen when provinces declare independence. Other provinces start down the same path.
Perhaps it's too early in the process to hear such a call quite yet, but when US Under Secretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns is forced to comment on calls for Kosovo's northern, Serb-dominated enclaves to break away and join with Serbia proper, you know that a nationalist genie has been let out of the diplomatic bottle.
"We absolutely oppose the partition of Kosovo. And a great majority of countries around the world are not going to stand for that" announced the Secretary.
Quite right. Such a move would require a unilateral declaration of independence by the provinces of Leposavic, Zvecan and Zubin Potok and the fragmentation of a European nation state along ethnic lines, something the US and Britain would never agree to.
On January 10, 5 weeks before the Kosovan Parliament made its unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia - the Swiss-based Manas Petroleum Corporation broke the news. A survey of the company's exploratory fields in northern Albania had identified "large prospects" of oil and gas, close to the boarder with Kosovo.
Estimates of the find are up to 2.98 billion barrels of oil and 3.01 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, a find that Manus describes as "giant" in its official press release.
None of which, of course, had anything whatsoever to do with the enthusiastic American and British support for the new Republic of Kosovo located 50 km from the oil fields - a course of action that has set these countries on a collision course with Serbia and Russia and which has divided the European Union.
With delegates from more than 120 national governments meeting in New Zealand to discuss a world ban on the use of cluster bombs, Britain, the US, China and Russia are all opposing the idea. The latter three are not even attending.
New Zealand Defense Minister Phil Goff opened the 5-day conference by informing delegates that its aim was "to build agreement among a sufficient mass of countries, including those who possess cluster munitions, to form a legally binding treaty to stop unacceptable harm to civilians."
Figures for the percentage of mini-bomblets contained within a typical cluster bomb that fail to detonate on impact are, not surprisingly, heavily disputed. While the MOD figure is 6%, Landmine Action places the total between 7-11%, based on the failure rate of cluster bomblets in the Kosovo campaign of 1999.
With some types of cluster bomb containing bomblets (technically sub-munitions) that are brightly coloured, they are about the size of a soft drink can and have proven a particular danger to children.
Unicef estimates that about 1000 children in Iraq have been injured or killed by such munitions since the 2003 war, the sub-munitions remaining live for months or years after their initial deployment. After the first Gulf War, there were over 1,600 deaths or injuries to Kuwaiti citizens from unexploded cluster bomblets used in that country to drive out Iraqi forces.
The following table indicates the number of cluster bombs used in Iraq by American and British forces since 2003. Figures are in the public domain and are from the British Ministery of Defence and the US Pentagon.
Type
Quantity
Number of bomblets (sub-munitions)
Originator
Location
RBL 755 (arial delivery)
66
147 per bomb (=9702)
RAF
Not stated
L20 Cluster Shells
2,098
49 per shell (=102, 802)
Royal Artillery
Basra
CBU-103
818
202 per missile (=165,236)
USAF
Not stated
BBU-105
88
202 per missile (=17776)
USAF
Not stated
CBU-105
6
202 per missile (=1212)
USAF
Baghdad
China, Russia and the United States - the main producers of cluster bombs - are not participating in the Wellington Conference either directly or by sending observers. Meanwhile, France, Germany, Japan and the UK have been tabling motions to restrict the terms of any agreement reached at the conference - including excluding certain weapons from a ban, allowing their use in conflicts with countries which do not sign the treaty and building in a transition period before any ban becomes law.
Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch responded: "The treaty must not be weakened to pander to the interests of users, producers and stockpilers."
With a declaration of independence expected today in Kosovo, it is worth noting how the emergence of the new state is serving the purpose of strengthening American and British interests in the region at the expense of Russia, who are strongly backing Serbia's opposition to any such unilateral declaration.
In one sense, this last twist in the tale of the dismantling of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia is evidence of the growing antagonism between Russia and "the West". Relations have turned sour over a range of issues:
the creation of a US missile defense shield in eastern Europe - an act which Moscow has described as "provocative"
the increase in Presidential power at the expense of the Russian Parliament and the corresponding reduction in democratic checks and balances on the President
numerous instances of press intimidation inside Russia including the murder of several investigative journalists
the Litvenenko affair - British authorities seeking the extradition of a former KGB agent to stand trial for the murder of a Russian exile in London
tensions over gas and oil supplies from Russia to the west
Western support for anti-Russian political movements in the former Soviet Union - most notably in Ukraine and Georgia
Alleged incursions of Russian military planes into NATO air space in recent months
Seen against this backdrop, Western support for the new state of Kosovo is a convenient way of supporting democracy while also dealing a blow to Russian influence in the Balkans. The PR value of America and Britain supporting a Muslim-majority democracy will also not have been lost on policy makers in London and Washington.
