[Prishtina-E] Independence May Be Only Way to Save the Mission (Los Angeles Times, August 6, 2000)

[Uk Lushi]

>http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/20000805/t000073530.html
>
>Sunday, August 6, 2000
>
>Independence May Be Only Way to Save the Mission
>
>By SUSAN BLAUSTEIN
>
>      WASHINGTON--More than a year ago, the allied nations put an end to
>Serbian-sponsored barbarity in Kosovo and helped nearly a million
>Kosovars return home. But at its current pace, the international mission
>in Kosovo is likely to wind up profoundly disappointing the people it
>intervened to protect.
>      Instead of quickly securing the province, rebuilding its
>infrastructure, establishing the rule of law, creating strong, central
>institutions and encouraging self-governance, allied nations have
>tolerated a porous border with Serbia and permitted a Belfast-like
>partition of the northern city of Kosovska Mitrovica, enabling Yugoslav
>President Slobodan Milosevic to pursue his destabilizing agenda in
>Kosovo. The international presence has morphed into a colonial
>administration hamstrung even in its simplest tasks by a dearth of
>funds, trained personnel and real decision-making authority. Criminal
>and revanchist gangs have filled the vacuum created by the absence of
>law and law enforcement.
>      Despite the impression left by media accounts, Kosovo's postwar
>violence has not been generated by Albanians alone. While it's
>indisputable that Serbs and other minorities have been targeted, it was
>Serb attacks on aid workers that temporarily drove the international
>relief organizations out of the Serb-dominated portion of Kosovska
>Mitrovica in late June. Both Albanian and Serb civilians have been
>gunned down in the streets, and evidence suggests that a recent attack
>on a Serb Orthodox Church was carried out by Serbian state-run "special
>forces."
>      Perhaps this summer's most hopeful sign is the excitement over
>municipal elections slated for October, which have spurred the formation
>of dozens of political parties. But most of the parties are
>distinguished by personality rather than platform, and although voter
>registration was hugely successful among Albanians, only a few hundred
>of Kosovo's estimated 100,000 Serbs registered to vote.
>      Many of Kosovo's woes can be traced to the international
>community's reluctance to come to grips with the issue of the
>territory's final legal status. Under U.N. Security Council Resolution
>1244, the legal authority for the international mission, Kosovo is to
>remain a part of Serbia. Many international actors prefer it that way
>either out of a long-standing sympathy for the Serb people, as is the
>case for France, Greece and Russia; a fear of setting a precedent that
>could have ramifications close to home, as could be the case for Britain
>(Northern Ireland), Turkey (the Kurds) and Russia (Chechnya); or an
>aversion toward rewarding separatist guerrilla movements, in general,
>and fueling pan-Albanian aspirations, in particular.
>      For these reasons, the U.N. resolution has become a convenient
>excuse not to address head-on the pressing issue of Kosovo's
>independence. Continued violence against Serbs, generally interpreted as
>"reverse ethnic cleansing," has also dampened Western appetites for
>bestowing more power upon the emerging Albanian leadership. Any further
>delay of the independence discussion, however, risks allowing this
>pent-up, 800-pound gorilla to be made into more than an imagined threat
>by an increasingly restless population fed up with continued lack of
>security, instability and uncertainty. An open-ended prolongation of
>Kosovo's limbo status can only lead to opportunistic power grabs by
>irredentists, criminal groups and those under Belgrade's sway.
>      There are four additional reasons for a sooner-rather-than-later
>approach to Kosovo independence:
>      * Through its state-sponsored 1998-99 campaign of terror and forced
>expulsions, Serbia has forfeited any credible legal claim to sovereignty
>over Kosovo.
>      * Laying out a path toward independence would help disabuse the
>Serb population, both in Kosovo and in Serbia proper, of any further
>illusions regarding Belgrade's "Greater Serbia" agenda. With
>Montenegro's separation apparently only a matter of time, Milosevic's
>greatest legacy will be to have shrunk Serbia.
>      * It was Milosevic who lost Kosovo and should pay the political
>price, not the feckless Serbian opposition, which is likely to have
>enough trouble running any transitional government without having to
>justify a hand-over of Serbia's "holy land" to Albanians.
>      * The vast majority of Kosovo's residents have demonstrated, in
>both their decade-long management of a parallel system of government and
>the alacrity with which they have rebuilt their homes, impressive
>creativity, industry and follow-through. An expeditious end to their
>status as beneficiaries of international assistance can only spur their
>development as self-reliant citizens eager.
>      The international community should work closely with
>representatives of all constituencies in Kosovo to draw up an
>agreed-upon list of conditions to be met before Kosovo's independence
>can finally be earned. Such a road map should begin with palpable
>improvement in the human rights situation and a fair and peaceful
>outcome to the upcoming municipal elections, which should be followed
>quickly by province-wide elections that can endow Kosovo's leaders with
>real authority and help to build strong institutions.
>      NATO's Kosovo Force (KFOR), the U.N. and donor nations must follow
>through on their respective commitments. KFOR should continue to provide
>vigorous security and adequate detention facilities for the foreseeable
>future. Donor nations, working through the U.N. and the Organization for
>Security and Cooperation in Europe, must deliver on their promises of
>several thousand more international police, functioning courts, salaries
>for teachers and doctors who could be serving Kosovo's residents instead
>of working as drivers and translators for the international community,
>and basic infrastructural repairs.
>      Having freed the people of Kosovo from a repressive regime, the
>allies' mandate should be to help them learn to govern themselves.
>Providing an umbrella of security, a road map and a timetable for
>fulfilling that goal is the international community's only real exit
>strategy. *
>                       - - -
>Susan Blaustein Frequently Writes on the Balkans
>
>Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times

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