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UNITED NATIONS -- All is well in Kosovo except the United Nations mission is financially broke, the NATO peacekeepers are under attack from all sides, and a political solution to this simmering Balkan bouillabaisse remains as elusive as ever. Other than that matters are proceeding quite smoothly a year after Western military intervention against Serbia.
While NATO has done a truly remarkable job in bringing a boiling pot to a simmer since June of 1999, and the United Nations administration has equally made the best of a horrible situation inherited in the wake of Serbian ethnic cleansing, the fact remains that Kosovo's majority Albanian population does not want to live alongside the Serb minority. Equally the Serbs fear for their lives given the hatred they had sewn in the years previous to NATO's intervention.
According Dr. Bernard Kouchner the UN's political supremo, "While it is still too early to speak about reconciliation, coexistence is still possible." Addressing correspondents, he rightly compared the situation in Lebanon, Cyprus, and Ireland, to illustrate that peacekeeping takes time. "It took between ten, twenty or thirty years to change the behavior, mentality and spirit of the people," Kouchner implored, "We are quicker."
But expecting contemporary Albanians to forgive and forget the horrors of 1999 remains naively presumptuous especially for a people who clearly recall the sanguinary events of 1912 also perpetuated in the name of Serb nationalism.
Part of the problem rests with the way in which the war ended. While the U.S. and NATO won the war, the June cease_fire was followed by the rapid occupation of the Serbian province by NATO forces. Fine. Lacking were clear political guidelines for the road ahead. Though Belgrade was militarily stunned, the Clinton Administration fell for the ruse that Kosovo remains a legally recognized part of Yugoslavia.
In a sense the UN's Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has the unenviable job of trying to square a political circle. Squaring the circle means that hapless NATO troops acting as peacekeepers are viewed by both sides as provoeteurs as often as they as viewed as protectors. Clashes in the flashpoint city of Mitrovica between Serb and Albanian militants highlight a wider malaise that 36,000 American, British, French and German troops cannot forever suppress.
While many diplomats glibly speak about "substantial autonomy" for Kosovo, the sullen truth glares -- Kosovar Albanians do not wish to be part of Yugoslavia in any form any more than East Timorese want to be Indonesians. The obvious is not seen or at least disregarded. The emotional goal remains -- Kosovo wants either independence or integration within a Greater Albania.
As Le Monde of Paris implores editorially, "None of the problems brought up at the time of the NATO intervention in March 1999 have been resolved...Engagement, courage and the goodwill on the ground -- military and civil -- is not in question. Kosovo holds a disagreeable impression that the international community does not have a strategic policy, and that Belgrade, and Milosevic the `fox' awaits his moment."
Beyond high politics, there's the day to day bottom line for the U.N. Kosovo (UNMIK) mission which literally runs the province and pays local teachers, civil servants and workers in the state run enterprises. This tab come to $325 million -- much as been pledged, but timely cash infusions are rare. Kouchner, a medical doctor by profession, warned that due to the fiscal shortfalls, "The Kosovo mission is barely alive."
Kosovo's murky political formulae and its dicey fiscal future, often overshadows the good news from this formerly forsaken Balkan canton. Despite the Milosevic regime's best efforts to ethnically cleanse the Albanian majority from their homes last year, most of the one million refugees have returned to Kosovo. In the year since the height of Belgrade's brutal chase and burn policies, the majority of the fleeing Albanian masses who captured the world's attention and hearts have returned home!
Moreover due to massive aid projects financed by the European Union, homes are being rebuilt, roads repaired, and public services restored. Fully ninety percent of children are back at school. This year, the EU's total contribution to Kosovo for reconstruction assistance, humanitarian aid, and public sector assistance stands at an impressive $360 million. The USA has donated admirably too.
Kouchner of France who acts as a kind of U.N. Viceroy for Kosovo while leading the hymns of "substantial autonomy," along with the Security Council choir and pressing for local elections later this year, conceded "Final status was something that was very far away." Given the emotional hatreds on all sides, a political solution will remain elusive, especially if the Security Council tries to square the circle.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
