The UN and the Post-intervention Stabilization of Kosovo

Abstract

It has been argued that the decision of key Western states to support Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia, in 2008, was driven by the fear that had this not happened there would have been a danger of renewed violence and instability. This begs the question as to whether this situation could have been averted had the United Nations taken a more active role in pacifying Kosovo following the intervention in 1999. This article argues that this was not in fact possible. For a variety of reasons, which will be explored, it was simply impossible to institute full-scale disarmament. Moreover, efforts to tackle the elements of organized resistance, which was built around former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, would have precipitated a conflict in the territory at a far earlier stage.

Notes

The Russian government has explicitly stated that it will block Kosovo's membership of the UN without an agreement from Belgrade (Russia Today, 2010).

As Crawford (1997) has stated, ‘In international practice there is no recognition of a unilateral right to secede based on a majority vote of the population of a sub-division or territory, whether or not that population constitutes one or more “peoples” in the ordinary sense of the word. In international law, self-determination for peoples or groups within an independent state is achieved by participation in the political system of the state, on the basis of respect for its territorial integrity’.

Moreover, at this stage the KLA was widely seen as an illegal insurgency. Speaking in Pristina, Robert Gelbard, the US special envoy for the Balkans, famously described the KLA as a terrorist organization (BBC News, 1998).

As noted, Milošević believed that NATO forces could be used either to detach Kosovo from Serbia, or to depose him. While this issue has often been cited as the main reason why Milošević rejected the agreement, many have viewed it as little more than a smokescreen to disguise his overall opposition to the deal. Whatever the truth of the argument, in a review of the events surrounding Kosovo, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons concluded that, ‘whatever the actual impact of the Military Annex of the Rambouillet proposals on the negotiations, NATO was guilty of a serious blunder in allowing a Status of Forces Agreement into the package which would never have been acceptable to the Yugoslav side, since it was a significant infringement of its sovereignty’ (House of Commons, 2000, para. 65).

Specifically, the intention would be to establish ‘a political process towards the establishment of an interim political framework agreement providing for a substantial self-government for Kosovo, taking full account of the Rambouillet accords and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other countries of the region’. Annexe 1, UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999), 10 June 1999.

Paragraph 5 of Annex 2 states: ‘Establishment of an interim administration for Kosovo as a part of the international civil presence under which the people of Kosovo can enjoy substantial autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, to be decided by the Security Council of the United Nations. The interim administration to provide transitional administration while establishing and overseeing the development of provisional democratic self-governing institutions to ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants in Kosovo.’

For instance, John Bolton, who had served as the US permanent representative to the UN throughout 2006, noted on several occasions the deep-rooted anti-Serbian attitudes within the State Department and argued that the US should not recognize a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI). The comments were made in an interview with Voice of America in October 2007. He had made the same comments about State Department bias and the dangers of recognizing UDI in an interview with the Serbian service of the BBC a few months earlier (BBC Serbian Service, 2007). Others within the US hierarchy also agreed with this position. See, for example, Lyons (2008).

In fact, a taste of this had occurred in 2000, when two French peacekeepers had been wounded by a Kosovo Albanian sniper. As a joint statement issued by UNMIK and KFOR stated, ‘two young French soldiers, who came here as peacekeepers, are lying in hospital beds suffering from gunshot wounds inflicted on them by the very people that they came here to protect’ (UNMIK, 2000).

UN Resolution 1244, para. 15: ‘Demands that the KLA and other armed Kosovo Albanian groups end immediately all offensive actions and comply with the requirements for demilitarization as laid down by the head of the international security presence in consultation with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General.’

By way of an indication of the problem, one observer (Stohl, 1999) explained that: ‘In 1997, Albania's democratically elected government was toppled by a population frustrated and ruined by fraudulent pyramid schemes which cost the majority of people their life savings. As protesters took to the streets, Albanian civilians raided and looted military bases, bunkers, arms depots, and police stations. When the damage was totaled, over a million weapons and 1.5 million rounds of ammunition had disappeared from military and police control. Astoundingly, estimates of the total weapons taken ranged as high as 80% of the total weapons’ holdings—that is, somewhere between 750,000 and one million light weapons. More specifically, 2,500 rocket-propelled grenades, 200,000 AK-47s, 800 mortars (mostly 60 mm), 1.5 million rounds of 7.62 ammunition, 3.5 million hand grenades, and 1.4 million anti-personnel mines were stolen from government arsenals by civilians. Larger conventional weapons, such as small cannon, armored personnel carriers and tanks were also taken but were later recovered.'

As the official explained, it was Wesley Clark, the commander of NATO in Europe, who was responsible for this. In a meeting with KLA leaders he said that, as a military man, he would never give up his sidearm.

As one military officer who was in Kosovo at the time noted, it was doubtful whether the Kosovo Albanians saw the KPC as anything other than a reason to allow the KLA to continue to exist (former KFOR official, interview, March 2011).

As one observer put it, ‘From the perspective of a peasant in Kosovo, the prospect of another war in southeastern Europe is not far fetched at all … In the past few centuries, anyone who wasn't armed in this region has quickly found themselves at the end of someone else's barrel. In that context, keeping a gun is simply good common sense’ (Christian Science Monitor, 2003).

This was also confirmed by a former senior UNMIK official (interview with the author, April 2011). As a KFOR official noted, had the KLA decided to fight NATO, it would have had plenty of targets (former KFOR official, March 2011).

For example, the Russian members of UNMIK expressed deep concern about not pursuing the KLA (UN official, interview, February 2011). As another UN official noted, there was a shaky coalition in place, with the French often being seen as as troublesome as the Russians (former KFOR official, interview with the author, March 2011).

Ceku had been an officer in the Yugoslav National Army, joining the Croatian National Guard when Yugoslavia split apart and rising to the rank of General. He was therefore seen by NATO officials as a ‘real soldier’. He also had a tough-guy image. One official told the story of how, after Serb forces had left Kosovo, reports emerged that Serbia was planning to assassinate KLA leaders. Apparently, several went white at the news; but Ceku ‘didn't give a shit’. Indeed, that very weekend he was seen having lunch in Gracanica, a Serbian enclave (UN official, interview, February 2011).

As Gallucci (2011) put it: ‘From the start, the only credible force in Kosovo as far as the Kosovo Albanians were concerned was the US. For them, it was the US that had bombed the Serbs and forced their withdrawal. The Kosovo Albanians saw value in the UN mission as they could use it to consolidate control over Kosovo. As long as it was their “vehicle”, they accepted UNMIK.’

Having said this, it is worth noting that the Western states were aided by the fact that they also had almost complete political control over UNMIK as well as over KFOR. It was not a matter of putting pressure on UNMIK to behave in a certain way. They had the ability to decide what the UN mission would and would not do. As one UNMIK official put it to the author in an interview: ‘The West Europeans and Americans ran UNMIK. They ran the UN police. They were the NATO forces. The UN mission in Kosovo was essentially theirs. And they all wanted to avoid regional instability and to make a place where—this was important for the Europeans—they could “corral” the Kosovo Albanians, give them a “homeland” as it were, to keep them from undertaking criminal activities and illegal migration elsewhere. The ruling internationals had little interest in making their situation more difficult by pushing on things like clean government and minority rights.’ The importance of the criminal element was also noted by Lovelock (2011).