An unreal peace follows a surreal war

June 20, 1999

UNITED NATIONS -- Shattered by Serb atrocities, slammed by NATO bombing, and stunned by the refugee exodus, the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo live in a surrealistic twilight between hope and despair. Now that there is an absence of war in the Balkan region, can there ever be true peace?

Carl Bildt, the U.N.'s political supremo for Kosovo admits candidly that the task ahead is "challenging and complex," representing the largest magnitude of a UN mission ever undertaken. The former Swedish Prime Minister from the center right party adds, "that while the hostilities have stopped, there is not a peace agreement."

Addressing what Bildt describes as a "profoundly destabilized region," he advises that Kosovo will become "a de facto UN protectorate, protected by NATO."

British General Michael Rose, former UN Commander in neighboring Bosnia, wrote in the Sunday Times of London--"Having so disastrously failed through its campaign of bombing to prevent the wholesale ethnic cleansing of the Kosovo Albanians, NATO's principal goal must be the early return of the refugees."

Look at the grim statistics. The U.N. High Commissions for Refugees (UNHCR) has listed 783,000 people who fled the disputed Yugoslav province. The overwhelming majority of 444,000 went to neighboring Albania--itself a desperately poor land struggling from the legacy of a ferociously stupid Stalinist regime which fell not a decade ago. The second largest number of 247,000 fled to Macedonia.

Indeed, while the Serbs were ethnically cleansing and uprooting Kosovar Albanians since March of 1998, the vast, almost Biblical, exodus transpired after NATO's bombing campaign started in March of 1999.

U.N. relief agencies state that the number of refugees and displaced persons in the region stands at 1.5 million for which aid in the next six months alone will amount to $473 million.

Naturally, there are two dimensions here--the majority of Kosovars may return primarily because their families have not become widely dispersed as with the Bosnians. The overwhelming refugee numbers are in camps in nearly Albania and Macedonia-- places from which most would rather leave to return to the certainly devastated but at least familiar Kosovar homeland. Hopefully this is not too wishful thinking.

The wider issue concerns the 80,000 Kosovars transferred abroad--the majority to Germany (14,000), Turkey (7,700) the USA (6,000), Canada (5,000) and Austria (5,000). Once overseas, their vistas will become wider and the pull of return less, especially for the young.

Rebuilding will take more than the billions promised by the USA and Western Europeans. As Poland's erudite Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek wrote in the Financial Times, "What is needed is an economic recovery and development plan along the lines of the Marshall Plan. This should not be merely an exercise in philianthophy, but an economic mobilization of southeastern Europe."

The Minister adds that, "There are lots of broken bridges to be rebuilt in Kosovo, Serbia and throughout the Balkans. Linking people and indeed whole nations divided today by a sense of grievance, hatred, and a desire to wreak revenge will be the most difficult task."

Naturally, the political realities must also be taken into account, as unpleasant as they may be. The political chess game between NATO and the Russians for example at the onset of the peacekeeping deployment is a clear signal pointing to the dangerous ambiguities of the UN/NATO mandate. Vice President Al Gore's truly silly and sophomoric statements about Moscow's precipitous military move into Pristina underscores the `now what happened??" nature of U.S. foreign policy.

A new phase of the Balkan saga begins. For the Albanian ethnics, over time, Kosovo's heart may be mended, but can its soul ever truly rest?

John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues who writes weekly for World Tribune.com.