Kosovo Seething

David Rohde

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2000

Article preview: first 500 of 5,250 words total.

Summary:  Kosovo is again erupting with ethnic killings. Just who is to blame for the ongoing violence: hard-line extremists or the embittered populace? Western leaders have avoided this central question because they are unhappy with the answer and its implications for their peacekeeping mission. It is time to face reality: Serb and Albanian grievances run deep, NATO troops are stuck in Kosovo for the long haul, and the West must take a stronger hand in governing this battered province.

David Rohde has covered the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia for The Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times and was awarded the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for foreign reporting. He is the author of Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica. Copyright (c) 2000 by David Rohde.

ORDINARY PEOPLE

During February's ethnic killings in Mitrovica, a divided town in northern Kosovo, the local NATO commander blamed militants on both sides for fomenting the violence that left 11 civilians dead. A handful of radicals, he warned, were poisoning relations between average Serbs and Albanians.

"There are extremists who want the peace to fail," French General Pierre de Saqui de Sannes told The New York Times. "I am worried that we may be in the process of an escalation of intolerance."

But the events that the general went on to describe suggest that widespread support for the attacks exists among ordinary Albanians and Serbs -- not just extremists. An elderly Albanian woman had been caught concealing a Kalashnikov rifle under her skirts, and an Albanian ambulance had tried to smuggle 180 grenades and antitank rockets into the divided city. Earlier, after rocket and grenade attacks on a Serb bus and a cafe, hundreds of Serbs rampaged through the city, killing eight Albanians. A stone-hurling Serb mob then forced American soldiers searching for weapons to beat a hasty and embarrassing retreat.

The general's comments cut to the heart of the troubled NATO and U.N. mission in Kosovo. Can the current policy -- quelling extremists on both sides, a quick infusion of resources, and municipal elections -- calm the province? Or are Kosovo's problems and hatreds so endemic that the international mission should either end immediately or shift to a large-scale, long-term effort?

Whether or not one agreed with NATO's bombing last spring, it is clear that the Clinton administration and its European allies must now bolster their efforts in Kosovo. One year on, NATO's largest-ever military intervention appears to be creating a "new Kosovo" that is the polar opposite of the alliance's stated goals. The province remains widely corrupt, lawless, intolerant of both ethnic and political minorities, and a source of instability. The mission in Kosovo is proving even more daunting than the one in nearby Bosnia.

Although extremists on both sides clearly exacerbate tensions, dozens of interviews with average Serbs and Albanians suggest that the problems run far deeper. After ten years of political repression and conflict in Kosovo, there is scant evidence of, or experience with, the rule of law, political moderation, ethnic tolerance, or civil society.

The current middling policies -- which involve U.N. rule by consensus, an understaffed criminal justice system, and inconsistent economic aid -- are a recipe for quagmire. Western capitals must not minimize the province's deep-rooted problems. The key to stabilizing Kosovo does not lie in political gestures, rushed elections, or short-term steps that keep the province out of the headlines.

The solution will be much more difficult. It requires a firm commitment to a politically aggressive, properly funded, long-term mission that uses the rule of law and economic reform to affect the lives, livelihoods, safety, and, to the extent possible, views of average Albanians and Serbs. Changing the destructive aspects of ...

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