Independent Kosovo? Why not Vermont?

updated 12:50 a.m. ET Feb. 16, 2008

Sean Connery thinks a Scottish nation is a bonnie notion. How about Spain's Basque country becoming a REAL country? And what's wrong with a People's Republic of Vermont?

Kosovo's looming independence raises all those questions and more. For starters: Why is statehood OK for some people but frowned on for others? After all, isn't the right to self-determination the essence of democracy itself?

There are at least two dozen secessionist movements active in Europe alone, and scores of others agitating for sovereignty around the globe. All of them, experts warn, will be emboldened by Sunday's expected proclamation of the Republic of Kosovo.

"We live in a world which is based around states," said Florian Bieber, a professor of politics and international relations at England's University of Kent.

"The United Nations is based on states. The European Union is based on states," he said. "It's going to continue to happen. New states will emerge, and states will disappear, like East Germany."

Quirky movements
Not all independence movements are created equal.

Some are quirky, such as Second Vermont Republic _ Thomas Naylor's small but spirited campaign to break off his corner of northern New England and make it a nation.

With his spectacles, bald spot and long white hair, the retired Duke University economics professor looks like Benjamin Franklin and quotes Thomas Jefferson. He believes that if Kosovo can become a country, so can Vermont, which was independent until it joined the Union in 1791 as the 14th state.

Yet Naylor concedes: "It's a tough sell. This is not kid stuff. Secession is a radical act of rebellion driven by anger and fear."

Thousands have died in long-running quests for statehood mounted by the Palestinians, and by rebels fighting to gain Kashmir's independence from India and Pakistan.

The Basques have achieved sweeping autonomy from Spain, but militants continue to fight for full independence. On the Mediterranean island of Corsica, birthplace of Napoleon, nationalists still set off bombs to press for independence from France.

There are also many strictly nonviolent movements willing to settle for autonomy rather than secession. And sometimes new states are born by mutual consent, such as Slovakia and the Czech Republic _ Czechoslovakia until they split in 1993.

Kosovo formally remains part of Serbia, but it's been run by the U.N. since 1999, when NATO intervened to stop Slobodan Milosevic's brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

Although the U.S. and key allies _ including Britain, France and Germany _ support its bid, Serbia and Russia fiercely oppose it.

Dangerous precedent?
Russian President Vladimir Putin insists that if Kosovo gains independence without U.N. approval, it will set a dangerous precedent for secessionists in Chechnya, Georgia, Azerbaijan and further afield.

Trouble is, there's no internationally accepted standard for independence, said Marc Plattner, coeditor of the Washington-based Journal of Democracy, which analyzes movements worldwide.

You can let the people decide, he says, but first you have to decide: Who are the people?

"This is the great hole in democratic theory," Plattner said. "There isn't a sound theoretical or moral answer. One simply looks at the individual case."

Skeptics say the increasing flow of cash, goods and information across national boundaries has taken the shine off statehood.

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