The Balkans have always been the stuff of myths and historical legends. Now, the so-called “international community”—half-way through its SIXTH year of what has sadly been turned into a neo-colonial mission in Kosova—has begun reinventing a tradition of political myths to counter the growing resistance to its presence here.

The notion that the Albanians and the Serbs will have to negotiate the terms of the final status question is one of the most persistent and dishonest tactics used by the “international community” to sidestep its own responsibility. The Albanians and Serbs will never decide this issue between themselves. To the Albanians, there is no alternative to statehood based on majority rule. But the Serbian Government will never accept an independent Kosova for internal political reasons, even if individual ministers have privately admitted that Kosova is “lost.” It is an illusion to think that the West—particularly the United States and the EU, which control the agenda in the Balkans—will walk away from the Kosova question without settling it on power terms.

Another myth is the claim that the fulfillment of the “standards” will somehow ensure Kosova’s admission to what has, euphemistically, been termed “Euro-Atlantic structures.” The “standards” exercise entails no assurances or vision of any sort. The EU has habitually—and cruelly—dangled a carrot in front of Kosovars without offering any framework or timetable for Kosova’s association/admission to the European Union. The message is unmistakable: BEHAVE and, then—PERHAPS—you will be rewarded. Indeed, the EU has always been more interested in words than deeds when it comes to what it has, orientally and stereotypically, termed the “Western Balkans”—a term that, incidentally, nobody identifies with in the whole region. In one of his ritualistic, moralistic tirades, Javier Solana managed after the March riots, to stigmatize All KosovaRS by calling Kosova a “sick society”; last month, he claimed to be, somewhat less dramatically to be sure, “astonished” by “the lack of progress” on the “international community’s” latest project: “decentralization.”

What is truly “astonishing,” however, is something entirely different: namely, the passivity and lethargy of the EU itself in Kosova. Having lost the wars in the Balkans by sitting idly by, the EU—wounded by its internal crisis—has shown itself to be indifferent to the peace. For six years, the EU has been consciously suppressing its own identity in Kosova. It has stayed on the sidelines by limiting its role to an economic reconstruction “PILLAR” as part of UNMIK (yes—the modern architects of “nation-building” certainly know how to pick virile/masculine terms to describe their imperial projects!). That the EU does not want to be seen as a colonial power cannot be said publicly; otherwise the whole “standards” policy would be unmasked as violating the “standards” of a “NORMATIVE EMPIRE.” To counter the argument that the reconstruction of Kosova is impossible because of its lack of access to IMF loans or foreign capital tied up with its unsolved final status, the European Bank of Reconstruction threw a pittance at Kosova—with the less than subtle message of keeping quiet. The EU was, of course, not hesitant when it came to using its blackmailing power to force the Montenegrins to stay against their will in a state union with Serbia. But with respect to Kososva, it is all about political evasion, diversionary tactics, empty rhetoric. Kosovars have had six years to see through this postponement strategy. It is high time that individual EU members take an independent and principled stand, for a change, and do what the Swiss have done in their own national interest, that is, to utter publicly what many are doing privately: the (FORBIDDEN) I-WORD—independence.