The Politics of Reintegration and War Commemoration. the Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army

Südosteuropa 58 (2010), H. 4, S. 478-519

ISABEL STRöHLE

The Politics of Reintegration and War Commemoration. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army

Abstract. This article examines the contentious question of the appropriate position of veterans in a postwar society, by juxtaposing the externally led reintegration policies with local conceptions of (re-)integration propagated in the veterans’ circles of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Reintegration assistance, a constituent part of post-conflict reconstruction efforts, ultimately aims at demilitarization by supporting the return of former combatants to civilian life in the wake of armed conflict. As is illustrated with the case of Kosovo, reintegration programs can hardly live up to their overly ambitious aims; the assumed division between the combatants and the rest of the society is problematic in the context of partisan warfare. Despite pledges to contextual sensitivity, reintegration programs cannot do justice to the complexity of postwar realities. Hence, if disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) is to be successful beyond dismantling the machinery of war, more attention has to be paid to existing social cleavages and group boundaries formed on the basis of varying wartime experiences.

Isabel Ströhle is pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of History at the University of Munich.

Introduction

The Republic of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence on 17 February, 2008,1 nine years after the war (officially conflict) in Kosovo had come to an end.2 During this decade one of the most complex UN missions in the history of peace-building and postwar reconstruction was launched. The disarmament,

1 The research for this article was financed by the Berghof Foundation for Conflict Studies in the framework of the 28-month research project entitled “The role of non-state actors in the conflict transformation of the conflicts in Macedonia and in Kosovo”, which was housed at the University of Munich and supervised by Prof. Dr. Marie-Janine Calic. I wish to warmly thank Marie-Janine Calic, Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and Vlatko Stojanov for their com- ments on earlier drafts of this paper. Special thanks go to everyone in Kosovo who supported me in realizing my research, but first and foremost to my contact persons and interviewees. 2 Since this article puts strong emphasis on the perspectives of local actors, I will use the term ”war” instead of “conflict” throughout the text. In Albanian the term “war of liberation” (lufta e lirisë) or “armed struggle” (lufta e armatosur) is commonly used to refer to the KLA’s activities and the fighting from February 1998 to June 1999. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 479 demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA; in Albanian: Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës, or UÇK), and its members was considered both a constituent and an essential part of this effort, as well as a prerequisite for the success of the peace-building process. The following case study examines the decade-plus gap to trace the legacy of the former KLA in current Kosovar society and to shed light on the veterans’ social reintegration process under external influences. Through an ethnographic study of the ex-KLA fighters’ reintegration and societal demilitarization, I explore how the reintegration programs applied by the international administration in postwar Kosovo related to local visions of reintegration. I argue that the international actors’ endeavor to impose civilian status on the former fighters and to relativize their militarized collective identity stood in opposition to the attempts by KLA veteransto redefine power relations and to establish new social and political hierarchies in postwar Kosovo on the basis of their contribution to its “liberation”. In the first section, I provide some historical background on the KLA as well as an overview of its social and political relevance in the postwar context, followed by a review of the most recent research on the insurgency’s postwar transformation and a description of the methodology applied in this study. Subsequently, I debate the concept of DDR in theory and practice and develop some theoretical propositions regarding reintegration in the context of partisan warfare. After examining how DDR was implemented in Kosovo and what is known about its impacts, I analyze how the veterans conceptualized their place in the postwar society and why they refused to abandon their military identity. To this purpose, I review how politicians with a KLA background and the veterans’ organizations acted with regard to demilitarization and what their notions of reintegration were. Assuming a “social construction of reality”,3 in the last section, I take a look at how the master narrative of the war of liberation resonates in individual veterans’ self-representations.

The Kosovo Liberation Army

The Kosovo Liberation Army was a guerrilla army that fought against enlisted Yugoslav/Serbian troops for an independent Kosovo.4 In response to the aboli-

3 Peter L. Berger / Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality. A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City/NY 1967. 4 The KLA’s ideological long-term objective was the “liberation and unification of all Albanian inhabited territories”, as is reflected in the official oath that had to be sworn to the Albanian flag with the double headed eagle by most, but not all of the fighters: “I, soldier of the Kosovo Liberation Army, swear that I will fight for the liberation and unification of Albanian inhabited territories. I will always be a faithful soldier, a fighter of dignity and freedom, attentive, brave and disciplined and ready at all times to fight for the holy interest 480 Isabel Ströhle tion of Kosovo’s autonomy and the reinstatement of Serbian centralist rule in 1989, the province’s Albanian majority developed a broad-based and non-violent resistance movement. It set up a parallel system of institutions that was led by the Democratic League of Kosovo (Lidhja Demokratike e Kosovës, LDK), and most of its members belonged to the former socialist and urban elites. When the international community failed to address the situation of Kosovo’s Albanians in the Dayton peace treaty for Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995, passive forms of resistance gradually lost support among the Albanians, and their political leadership split into a pacifist, an activist, and a small militarist camp. Until 1997, only marginal, radical groups like the KLA had actively advo- cated armed resistance. The KLA first came to public attention in 1996, when it issued its first communiqués and carried out attacks on Serbian police stations and officials, as well as on so-called “Albanian collaborators”. Violence in the Kosovar countryside escalated when Serbian troops encroached upon the civilian population in response to KLA guerrilla attacks against Serbian police officers and stations. However, the KLA guerrilla troops were only a marginal force, consisting of a mere 150 members, until 1997, when they catalyzed into an armed resistance movement numbering several thousand members.5 Fol- lowing this unexpected surge in the number of fighters, the troops needed to be professionalized and organized. Their loose command structure and decentralized operative zones were to be transformed into a formally-integrated chain of command over the course of 1998. But the KLA, in fact, never became a professional army. The insurgency’s political position was enhanced when it was accorded a prominent role in the Albanian negotiating team for the peace talks of Rambouillet and Paris in spring 1999 that had been brokered by the Contact Group and NATO. Because the peace agreement was only signed by the Albanian side and the final negotiation attempts failed, NATO, in a controversial move, launched air strikes against Yugoslav targets on 24 March, 1999 which, while aimed at terminating the Serbian offensive, resulted in the large-scale expulsion of Albanians by the Serbian forces. On 10 June, 1999, one day after the Serbian leadership yielded to the key demands of NATO, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1244, which was to be become the guiding framework for the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo. Having agreed to its of the fatherland (atdhe) without sparing my own life. If I will break this oath, I may be pun- ished with the harshest laws of war and if I should betray it, I may pay with my own blood. I swear, I swear, I swear.” 5 The International Organisation for Migration’s registration database counts 411 fighters before 1998, 14,660 said to have joined in 1998, and 9,506 registered to have entered the KLA in 1999, whereas 1,146 did not make any statement regarding their date of entry. Cf. International Organisation of Migration (IOM), Socio-Economic and Demographic Profiles of Former KLA Combatants, Registered by IOM. Prishtina 2000, 22; Tim Judah, Kosovo. War and Revenge. New Haven/CT, London 2000, 118. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 481 own demilitarization in the peace agreement, the KLA was officially disbanded and partly integrated into the new political structures. A first glance at the number of KLA members might suggest that it had a rather limited social impact. Even the veterans themselves consider the number of 25,723 registered fighters to be inflated, and the number of families receiving war-related social assistance schemes levelled off at around 5,000.6 However, despite the considerably lower numbers of veterans, invalids, and surviving dependents in comparison to those of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia,7 the KLA veterans seem to be disproportionally influential in postwar Kosovo. After the war, a number of the former KLA soldiers found employment in the newly established civil protection corps, the police forces, and the civil service. Altogether there are four political parties with a KLA background or with strong personal affiliations to it, of which two hold 47 out of 120 seats in the current parliament.8 Around one third of the Kosovar Albanian deputies were active KLA members, and three out of the five Prime Ministers to date have held leading positions in the KLA. The KLA veterans’ organizations have enjoyed a great deal of prestige among the rural Albanian population as “liberators from Serbian rule”, and in some municipalities even as social welfare branches for those included in the so-called “war categories”.9 Further more, the sheer number of monuments that mushroomed across the rural landscape has made the former KLA hyper-visible in postwar Kosovo, and its partisans have suc-

6 According to the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare (MLSW) of the Republic of Kosovo, in 2008 there were 2,952 war invalids and 2,066 families of surviving dependents registered. Raport mbi nr. e përfituesve të familjeve të dëshmorëve dhe invalidëve të luftës [Report about the Number of Recipients of Families of Martyrs and War Invalids], MLSW, 14 April 2010. 7 In all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are 83,592 war invalids, 139,236 families of surviving dependents and around 425,000 demobilized soldiers, which together constitute about two thirds of the male adult population; cf. Benjamin Bieber, Die Hypothek des Krieges. Eine soziologische Studie zu den sozialen Effekten von Kriegen und zur Reintegration von Vetera- nen, Kriegsinvaliden und Hinterbliebenen in Bosnien-Herzegowina. Hamburg 2007 (Socialia. Studienreihe, soziologische Forschungsergebnisse, 81). In Croatia, there are an alleged 34,610 war invalids and 489,407 war veterans; however this number is known to be inflated and still not ultimately clarified, cf. Ivana Dobrotić, Sustav skrbi za branitlje iz Domovinskog Rata, Revija za socijalnu politiku 15 (2008), n. 1, 57-83. 8 The parliamentary group of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (Partia Demokratike e Kos- ovës, PDK) holds 35 seats and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (Aleanca për Ardhmërinë e Kosovës, AAK) 12 seats. 9 The categories that have emerged from the war (kategoritë te dalura nga lufta) are similar to the “three categories” (tri kategorije) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the war population (boračka populacija) in socialist Yugoslavia, and separate the population into war veterans, war invalids and families of surviving dependents, or, as they are called in Albanian, families of “martyrs”. In his study on social policy, Fred Cocozzelli finds that in municipalities such as Skenderaj, the veterans’ associations co-opted the welfare system in favor of those included in the war categories. Fred Cocozzelli, War and Social Welfare. Reconstruction after Conflict. New York et al. 2009, 119. 482 Isabel Ströhle cessfully occupied the public symbolic space. Two years after the declaration of independence by the Republic of Kosovo and a decade after the war ended, the political discourse remains dominated by militarized narratives about armed resistance, self-sacrifice and the heroic death of fallen KLA fighters.10 In general, research on veterans’ political influence and veterans’ policies in the Yugoslav successor states has been insufficient,and the literature on the KLA is rather inadequate.11 It is striking that relatively few of the existing studies on the region in the field of security-related issues such as demobilization and reintegration choose bottom-up approaches and address those targeted by the respective programs. Although a general sense that reform cannot simply be imposed on local stakeholders has become increasingly accepted in the field, scholars involved in studying the process have refrained from asking what kind of reintegration KLA or other combatants themselves would have wished for. Nor have they examined the local, historical conceptions of such a process on the ground. A distinct group of studies on the demobilization of the KLA has operated within the DDR paradigm. However, insofar as they have attempted to take the local perspective into account, they tended to focus on the leaders’ perspectives, without reflecting on the phenomenon of parallel local discourses.12 Several authors have focused on what is considered to be the central component of the reintegration process: the transformation of the KLA into a civil protection corps called the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), its performance and recent

10 Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and Anna Di Lellio have analyzed the creation of a master narrative for an independent Kosovar state centered on these tropes, cf. Anna Di Lellio / Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, The Legendary Commander. The Construction of an Albanian Master-Narrative in Post-War Kosovo, Nations & Nationalism 12 (2006), n. 3, 513-529; eadem, Sacred Journey to a Nation. Site Sacralisation and “Political Reproduction” of a New Shrine to the Kosovo Nation, Journeys. The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing 7 (2006), n. 1, 27–49. 11 The question whether veterans constitute a distinct social group in the Yugoslav successor states has not yet been answered satisfactorily. However, both in terms of the high percentage of veterans among the male adult population in Bosnia and the centrality of social benefits for those included in the war categories in the definition of social citizenship in the postwar states, research into that topic would be quite valuable. Among the exceptions are the sociological work by Benjamin Bieber on Bosnia and a study on the social support for “Defenders” in Croatia by Ivana Dobrotić; Dobrotić, Sustav skrbi za branitlje iz Domovinskog Rata (above fn. 7); Bieber, Die Hypothek des Krieges (above fn. 7). 12 Local actors tend to make use of the “elasticity of language”, to use Stephanie Schwand- ner-Siever’s term, to assert local concerns in their communication with international actors, cf. Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Bridging Gaps between Foreign and Local Concerns? Com- munication Across Symbolic Divides in the Transformation of the Security Forces in Kosovo, in: Laura Montanari / Roberto Toniatti / Jens Woelk (eds.), Il pluralismo nella transizione costituzionale dei Balcani. Diritti e garanzie. Trento 2010, 145-170. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 483 dissolution, and finally the establishment of the Kosovo Security Force (KSF).13 However, fewer studies have concentrated on the political and economic reintegration process in Kosovo, and all of them try to assess reintegration, as defined from outside.14 While özerdem and Barakat offered a good survey ofthe impact of economic reintegration efforts in Kosovo,15 and Pozhidaev and Andzhelich developed a more encompassing, less technical understanding of reintegration with regard to former combatants in Kosovo,16 in both cases, reintegration was treated as a universal concept. How did the nature of the research object, recent research works, and the scarcity of accessible sources influence my approach? Apart from DDR literature and theory, which are reviewed in detail in the first section, this paper also draws on studies from the fields of social and cultural anthropology. Studies on war memory and commemoration and its influence on national identity politics that emphasize the local combatants’ perspectives can offer valuable information on politics and the economy of prestige in the postwar context.17 Political

13 James Pettifer, The Kosovo Protection Corps in Transition. Conflict Studies Re- search Center, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom 2003, available at ; Erik Petersen, Kosovo Protection Corps in Search of a Future, Centre for European Security Studies Occasional Papers. Groningen September 2005, available at ; Anna Di Lellio, A Civil Alternative, an Evaluation of the IOM KPC Program. Prishtina 2005, available at ; Jens Narten, Security Governance und Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships. Kooptierungsprozesse bei der militärischen Konversion des Kosovo, in: Hans-Georg Ehrhart / Martin Kahl (eds.), Security Governance in und für Europa. Konzepte, Akteure, Missionen. Baden-Baden 2010, 191-207; Ade Clewlow. The Kosovo Protection Corps. A Critical Study of its De-activation as a Transition, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Oslo 2010 (Security in Practice, 4). All internet sources were accessed on 18 January 2011 , if not stated differently. 14 Andreas Heinemann-Grüder / Wolf-Christian Paes, Wag the Dog. The Mobilization and Demobilization of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Bonn 2001 (BICC brief, 20). 15 Alpaslan özerdem, From a “Terrorist” Group to a “Civil Defence” Corps. The “Trans- formation” of the Kosovo Liberation Army, International Peacekeeping 10 (2003), n. 3, 79-101; idem / Sultan Barakat, Impact of Reintegration of Former KLA Combatants on the Post-War Recovery of Kosovo, The International Journal of Peace Studies 10 (2005), n. 1, 27-45, available at . 16 Dmitry Pozhidaev / Ravza Andzhelich, Beating Swords into Plowshares. Reintegration of Former Combatants in Kosovo. Prishtina 2005, available at . 17 Xavier Bougarel, Death and the Nationalist. Martyrdom, War Memory and Veteran Identity among Bosnian Muslims, in: idem / Elissa Helms / Ger Duijzings (eds.), The New Bosnian Mosaic. Identities, Memories, and Moral Claims in a Post-War Society. Aldershot 2008; Mladen Ostojić, Collective Memory in Personal Accounts Of Veterans Of The Croatian War 1991-1995, Socio-anthropologie 23-24 (2009), 75-114, available at ; Di Lellio / Schwandner-Sievers, The Legendary Commander (above fn. 10); Di Lellio / Schwandner-Sievers, The Legendary Commander (above fn. 10);. 484 Isabel Ströhle anthropology and ethnography are essential for investigating the dynamics of political processes at the local level.18 A bottom-up approach can shield from premature empirical generalizations and the application of ethno-centrist concepts devoid of meaning in many particular local contexts. Moreover, ethnography may be of particular value in situations where statistics are difficult to obtain or survey research is impeded for various political reasons. In my research, I have been confronted with a considerable deficit in available data on the war veterans in Kosovo and with a reluctance to make accessible what exists.19 Therefore, an ethnographic approach promised valuable insights into much neglected processes on the ground. Between September 2008 and April 2010, I conducted a total of six months of field research. A first set of qualitative data derives from a dozen informal, in-depth interviews and fifteen narrative biographical interviews.20 These were conducted with KLA veterans both individually and in groups. Those interviewed were former members of the KLA from various military ranks, geographic regions, and age groups. Their military experience before the war ranged from voluntary recruits with no former experience to professionally trained soldiers with a career in the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA). Secondly, I conducted 25 semi-structured expert interviews with international and local actors in the field of veteran politics.21 The interviews

18 Edward Schatz (ed.), Political Ethnography. What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power. Chicago et al. 2009; John Gledhill, Power & Its Disguises. Anthropological Perspec- tives on Politics. London 1994 (Anthropology, Culture and Society, 7). 19 This observation was also made earlier by Pozhidaev / Andzhelich, Beating Swords into Plowshares (above fn. 16), 9. The only systematic set of data was collected by the IOM registration at the point of demilitarization in mid-1999. The Statistical Office of Kosovo is working with Eurostat to allow for a cross-European comparison of data, which does not include separate categories for war veterans, invalids, and surviving dependents. The regis- tries of the General Staff of the KLA were subject to numerical inflation. Although the Office for Veterans’ Issues has been charged with controlling and verifying them since 2008, it has as of yet hesitated to do so, because the war veterans remain an important political constituency for, among others, the current Prime Minister. Nor can the Department for Invalids and Martyrs’ Families (Departamenti i Familjeve të Dëshmorëve, Invalidëve të Luftës dhe Familjeve të Viktimave Civile, DFDIL) provide data about the socioeconomic conditions of those benefit- ting from the scheme, as officially claimed. The veterans’ organizations claim to be in the possession of statistical data, but they do not grant access to it, and members of the DFDIL dismiss this claim altogether. 20 All of the respondents requested the anonymization of their names and can therefore not be identified individually. 21 Among the interviewed were members of the Staff of the Prime Minister’s Office, of the Veterans’ Office in the Prime Minister’s Office, the Department for Invalids and Martyrs’ Families Affairs, members of the leadership of the KLA (Veterans’) Associations on both the central and regional levels, the KPC Legacy Cell, the KPC, the KSF, the Council for the Defense of Veterans’ Rights, journalists, representatives of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Resettlement Scheme and Security Section, and members of the Kosovar parliament, as well as veterans in difficult material conditions. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 485 with KLA veterans were facilitated by contact persons or other veterans, who referred me to former comrades-in-arms. Due to suspicions of a war crimes- related interest, the sensitivity of the issue being addressed and the fact that the interviews were conducted in rural regions, the majority of the interviews took place in the presence of the person who had introduced me to the interviewee. Furthermore, my gender and age meant that I was dependent on an older male intermediary to convey authority. The group settingof the interviews, however, did not diminish their validity, because I was mostly interested in the narrative self-representations and social constructions of the veterans. Nonetheless, the male-dominated research settings forced me, a youngfemale foreign researcher, to renegotiate my research identity and to constantly negotiate safe spaces.22 From 2008 to April 2010, I collected newspaper articles on veterans’ issues and war commemoration from local daily newspapers with varied political leanings (Koha Ditore, Gazeta Express and Epoka e Re). In addition to these, I took into account local literature such as newspaper articles on the veterans’ legislation prior to 2008, TV debates and film documentaries, heroic biographies of fallen fighters, and publications on the KLA and the war. I also conducted participant observations at war-related lieux de mémoire, commemorative events (Alb. Akademi përkujtimore, Akademi solemne) held in the capital, Prishtina, and in former KLA headquarters and hideouts. Lastly, I visited families of invalids, veterans, and fallen fighters in war-torn regions and informally discussed the questions of concern. The fact that the research was carried out between 2008 and 2010 was con- ducive to the study in three ways. First, the parliament of Kosovo declared independence on February 17, 2008. Although this independence was supervised and framed by the condition of codified multi-ethnicity in the Status Settlement,23 war veterans increased the pressure for more institutional support, a demand which has been partially fulfilled. Secondly, the Kosovo Protection Corps, which had absorbed a portion of the former KLA fighters, was disbanded within this period and the new Kosovo Security Force has been established, in accordance with the Ahtisaari Plan. This led to a wider process of public and private retrospection concerning the postwar reintegration efforts. Thirdly, the project coincided with the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the war (March 1998 - June 1999). My observations clearly show that the war experience

22 Cf. Martha K. Huggins / Marie-Louise Glebbeek (eds.), Women Fielding Danger, Ne- gotiating Ethnographic Identities in Field Research. Lanham/MD 2009, on negotiating ethnographic field research from female researchers’ perspectives, and particularly Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Securing Safe Spaces. Field Diplomacy in Albania and Kosovo, 173-198. 23 The UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari put forwardthe Comprehensive Status Proposal after the status negotiations between Serbian and Albanian negotiating teams in Vienna had failed. It became a constitutive part of the Constitution of the independent Kosovar state and its implementation is supervised by the International Civilian Office in Kosovo. 486 Isabel Ströhle has shaped both the ways in which the former war participants and the civilian victims narrate their lives, as well as how they interpret the present and articulate political demands. In this study I juxtapose the international actors’ reintegration policies with local and historical, but also individual conceptions of (re-)integration and (re-)socialization of former fighters into postwar societies. This study has been guided by the following questions: What kinds of reintegration programs did international actors and the international administration in Kosovo impose upon the KLA veterans, and why have they been undermined by local actors? To answer these questions, I will explore the policies of the international actors towards the KLA veterans from a top-down perspective, as well as the veterans’ politics from a bottom-up perspective, both in discourse and in practice. A central hypothesis of this article is that in order to understand the veterans’ collective postwar activities and the way in which they conceptualize their place within society, we need to consider their prewar background, as well as the impact of their wartime experiences and the socio-political postwar setting.

Policies towards Veterans in Theory and Practice

DDR: Overview

International actors and agencies commonly approach combatants during and after a negotiated peace settlement through Demobilization, Disarmament and Re-integration (DDR). In the last two decades, DDR has become a central component of postwar reconstruction and peace-building efforts around the globe. According to the UN Integrated DDR Standards, DDR is “a process that contributes to security and stability in a post-conflict recovery context by removing weapons from the hands of combatants, taking the combatants out of military structures and helping them to integrate socially and economically into society by finding civilian livelihoods”.24 In the period between 1992 and 2005 alone, 36 DDR programs were conducted worldwide.25 The importance of DDR for postwar reconstruction and peace- building efforts is regularly reaffirmed by the actors involved. For example, the 2004 Report of a UN Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change stated that

24 United Nations Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Resource Center, What is DDR?, available at . 25 Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Stockholm Initiative on Disarmament, Demo- bilisation and Reintegration. Final Report. Stockholm 2006, 8, available at . The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 487

“demobilizing combatants is the single most important factor determining the success of peace operations. Without demobilization, civil wars cannot be brought to an end and other critical goals – such as democratization, justice and development – have little chance for success” [emphasis added, I. S.];26 the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called DDR “a prerequisite for post-conflict stability and recovery”.27 Scholarly literature also stresses the centrality of DDR. The need to demilitarize postwar societies to prevent a recurrence of violence has become an increasingly relevant theme in academia.28 In this context, former combatants are seen as a particular security risk, as is exemplified by the following quote: “Failure to reintegrate ex-combatants socially and economically has both immediate and long-term consequences. In the short term, disaffected ex-combatants may threaten peace processes by continuing to fightin the country and/or across borders in neighbouring conflicts. In the long term, ex-combatants may develop into a social underclass of (semi-)illiterate ex-fighters, who have not developed economically viable skills and could potentially hinder a country’s economic and social development.”29 Reintegrating former combatants into civilian life is part of the broader effort to demilitarize a society after a conflict. Demilitarization refers to military draw- down (disarmament, reduction of military spending, Security Sector Reform etc.), which I will call “surface demilitarization”, in reference to Clark. But demilitarization may also be viewed “as a dynamic historical and social process, in which the power and influence of the military in society is significantly reducedand in which the adherence to militaristic behaviour/ideologies/values declines substantially”.30

26 United Nations, Report of the Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Chal- lenges and Change 2004, 61, available at . 27 Kofi Annan, Foreword, in: United Nations, Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Standards, December 2006, II, available at . 28 Cf. Nat Colletta, The Transition from War to Peace in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington/ DC 1996; Paul Collier et al., Breaking the Conflict Trap. Civil War and Development Policy. Washington/DC 2003; Hugh Miall et al., Contemporary Conflict Resolution. The Prevention, Management and Transformation of Deadly Conflicts. Cambridge 1999. 29 Leontine Specker, The R-Phase of DDR-Processes. An Overview of Key Lessons Learned and Practical Experiences. The Hague 2008, 1. 30 Peter Batchelor, The Economics of Demilitarisation in Southern Africa, in: idem / Kees Kingma (eds.), Demilitarisation and Peace-building in Southern Africa, Vol. I: Concepts and Processes. Aldershot 2004, 76-107, 78. It should be mentioned that despite the fact that demilitarization is widely used as a concept, it is also criticised for its vagueness; cf. Guy Lamb, Demilitarisation. A Review of the Concept and Observations from the South African Experience. South African Centre for Defence Information (SACDI) Defence Digest, Work- ing Paper 7, September 1999, available at . 488 Isabel Ströhle

This second process, which Clark labels “deep demilitarization”, addresses the causes of the militarization and the heritage of war and tries to build (not rebuild) the society on new grounds by organizing the social values into a new hierarchy.31 Both processes are dialectically connected with one another. Despite some recent efforts at theory-building, scholars of reintegration consistently lament its lack of a convincing theoretical basis.32 In particular, only a small part of the literature addresses the contradiction between labelling reintegration as a long-term economic, social, and political process of former combatants reintegrating themselves into society and the fact that the processes to reintegrate combatants are mostly externally designed. However, in recent years the importance of contextual factors shaping DDR processes has been increasingly acknowledged,33 and the literature aims at filling the gap between reintegration understood as the technical organization of externally assisted programs, and reintegration as a theoretical concept. In contrast, the broaden- ing of the reintegration concept from one that focuses on security and economic concerns to one that includes wider political and social dimensions has not yet sufficiently translated into practice. DDR studies tend to ignore two questions that determine what kind of reintegration will take place: Into what kind of society are the veterans to be (re-) integrated? And, what can DDR achieve in terms of societal, that is, “deep” demilitarization beyond the mere “dismantling the machinery of war”?34 In particular, scholars who have conducted qualitative research on reintegration have raised concerns about its underlying assumptions and theoretical flaws. The list of criticisms includes the ignorance of the former combatants’ needs and abilities;35 combatants’ frustration over unfulfilled promises;36 exaggerated

31 Howard Clark, Demilitarising Minds, Demilitarising Societies. A Discussion Paper, Presented at the Committee for Conflict Transformation Support. London 2001 (CCTS News- letter, 11), available at . 32 Anders Nilsson, Reintegrating Ex-Combatants in Post-Conflict Societies. Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) 2005, 35, available at ; João Gomes Porto / Chris Alden / Imogen Parsons, From Soldiers to Citizens. Demilitarisation of Conflict and Society. Aldershot 2007, 19. 33 Mats Berdal / David Ucko, Reintegrating Armed Groups After Conflict. Politics, Violence and Transition. London, New York 2009; Stina Törjesen, New Avenues for Research in the Study of DDR, Conflict, Security and Development 9 (2009), n. 4, 411-424. 34 Kimberly Theidon, Reconstructing Masculinities. The Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration of Former Combatants in Colombia, Human Rights Quarterly 31 (2009), n. 1, 1-34, 3. 35 Kieran McEvoy / Peter Shirlow, Re-Imagining DDR. Ex-Combatants, Leadership and Moral Agency in Conflict Transformation,Theoretical Criminology 13 (2009), n. 1, 31-57. 36 Kathleen Jennings, The Struggle to Satisfy. DDR Through the Eyes of Ex-Combatants in Liberia, International Peacekeeping 14 (2007), n. 2, 204-218. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 489 and unrealistic ambitions of reintegration programs;37 subjective, arbitrary, and externally imposed evaluative criteria of reintegration;38 the lack of local ownership;39 and a general lack of understanding of the relationship between the war-affected societies/communities and the combatants themselves.40 In addition, this study argues that DDR does not provide an appropriate analytical framework to account for the veterans’ social, political, and commemorative activities in the postwar context. Policy studies on the demobilization and reintegration of former combatants of the intra-state wars that have occurred since the end of the Cold War tend to be detached from the traditional body of academic literature on the reintegration of war veterans. Rarely have scholars endeavored to include comparisons with studies on irregular combatants and paramilitary fighters of the civil wars that preceded the so-called “new wars”.41 As Jessica Schafer points out in her study of veterans in Mozambique, “this literature generally takes as a starting point the objective of ‘reintegration’ as defined by external agents, with little recognition that internal actors may hold very different ideas about the appropriate position of veterans in postwar society”.42 The tensions between the veterans’ policies applied by external actors, on the one hand, and the socio-political circumstances and historical experiences that influence the ex-soldiers’ attempts to negotiate their space and status in postwar society, on the other, are largely ignored or are merely considered as a source of irritation. Due to their problematic status within international law and the difficulty in holding them accountable for human rights violations, the legitimacy of non-state armed groups is often disputed, and “rebels”, “guerril- las”, or “combatants” are therefore differentiated in status from “soldiers” of regular armies, even after hostilities have ceased. In contrast to “veterans”, who are entitled to welfare benefits and a particular status in their home societies,

37 Gomes Porto / Alden / Parsons, From Soldiers to Citizens (above fn. 32). 38 Norma Kriger, Guerrilla Veterans in Post-War Zimbabwe. Symbolic and Violent Politics 1980-1987. Cambridge 2003. 39 Jessica Schafer, Soldiers at Peace. Veterans and Society after the Civil War in Mozam- bique. New York 2007. 40 Kieran McEvoy / Peter Shirlow, Beyond the Wire. Former Prisoners and Conflict Trans- formation in Northern Ireland. London 2008. 41 Possible comparisons could be drawn to paramilitaries during and after the First World War and to partisan warfare in Eastern Europe, Indochina and Latin America. Cf. two research projects at the UCD Centre for War Studies, Dublin: Paramilitary Violence after the First World War, 1918-1923. Towards a Global Perspective (2008-2010), available at ; and: The Limits of Demobilisation. Paramilitary Violence in Europe and the Wider World, 1917-1923, available at . 42 Schafer, Soldiers at Peace (above fn. 39), 8. 490 Isabel Ströhle

“the word ‘entitlement’ is conspicuously absent from recent policy manuals originating from international institutions centrally involved in ‘reintegration’ programs for former combatants”.43 This practice appears to be rather ethnocentric because it ignores the historical context of socialist countries such as the former Yugoslavia and Albania, where partisan fighters enjoyed an institutionally protected and privileged status. Both states continuously drew legitimacy from the struggle of the communist partisans in World War II. In order to understand the social dynamics in a postwar context and the self-representations and politics of the veterans, one must locate the war within its precise social contexts and read it as one social project among many.44 Therefore, I will make some theoretical propositions concerning the concept of reintegration against the background of its overrid- ing aim of demilitarization in the context of partisan warfare. To this purpose, the conflation between veterans and the societies from which they come has to be considered on three different levels. Case studies examining local perspectives on civil war show that drawing a clear line between the civilian and armed population in the context of partisan warfare is an artificial endeavor. As Duffield contends, “the Clausewitzian idea of contained warfare that functionally distinguished people, army and state never applied outside of Europe and even there had visibly broken down by the time of the Second World War”.45 The DDR model and the majority of the available literature, however, start from the assumption of a Western model of warfare based on the Clausewitzian concept, which constructs civilian and military populations as separate entities, and is based on a Manichean contrast of regular vs. irregular troops. Neither a narrow definition of reintegration as a “process bywhich ex-combatants acquire civilian status and gain access to civilian forms of work and income”46 nor a broad definition as a “societal process aiming at the economic, political, and social assimilation of ex-combatants and their families into civil society“47 fits the realities of partisan warfare. Counterinsurgency theory, but also empirical studies such as Benjamin Valentino’s on civil war suggest that mass killings of civilians by ruling regimes are significantly more ikelyl to occur during guerrilla

43 Ibid., 11. 44 Paul Richards, New War. An Ethnographic Approach, in: idem (ed.), No Peace, No War. An Anthropology of Contemporary Conflicts. Athens, Oxford 2005, 1-21, 4. 45 Mark Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War. Governing the World of Peoples. Cambridge, Malden 2007, 116. 46 Ian Douglas et al., Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration. A Practical Field and Classroom Guide. Eschborn 2004, available at , 65. 47 Nilsson, Reintegrating Ex-Combatants (above fn. 32), 8. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 491 wars than during other kinds of wars, and that the likelihood of mass killing is greatly increased when guerrilla armies enjoy strong popular support.48 Con- sidering this, communities that provide a hideout for guerrilla fighters, support them with food and medicine, and are willing to run the risk of being targeted by retaliatory attacks are likely to support the armed struggle to a certain degree and to become increasingly militarized as hostilities intensify. Former combatants are thus part of a broader social and political movement and do not act in isolation. Whether or not their concerns and demands are taken into consideration during post-conflict reconstruction will affect how they will relate to the newly created political order. The concept of reintegration, however, creates an artificial distance between the fighters and their next-of-kin. The term implies “that they (ex-combatants) are somehow other or apart from such communities or are required to change in order to ‘fit back’ into society”.49 Combatants should not be seen in isolation from their milieu. Secondly, the characteristics of society and the ex-combatants’ position within prewar society shape their outlooks and postwar expectations. This refers as much to local historical forms of war commemoration, for example the partisan veneration in socialist Yugoslavia, as to the divisions within society rooted in deeply entrenched social and historical structural inequalities. McEvoy and Shirlow, who draw on the specialist criminological literature and the debates surrounding the reinsertion of convicted ordinary criminals into society, point out that instead of merely focusing our attention on the former combatants and former prisoners, their behavior and their attitudes, we have to include the societies from which they originate into our analysis. Structural inequalities and power relations that became part of the normative fabric of social and political life are often overlooked, despite being the major driving forces of many conflicts. Douglas et al. have noted that this is connected to a conceptual problem: “It is only possible to speak of re-integration to a limited extent, as war and violence considerably change the perceptions and abilities of ex-combatants. They cannot and often do not want to revert to their pre-war social roles. In many cases it is a society’s social situation and condition that contribute to the causes of war and conflict. […] To return to the social situation and conditions that existed before the war is rarely possible or desirable.”50 This leads me to the third aspect of the interconnection between society and former combatants, which is their attempt to restructure society after the end of the armed conflict. It is questionable whether the adoption of a civilian identity is attractive for demobilized combatants in the wake of protracted conflicts,

48 Benjamin A. Valentino, Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century. Ithaca/NY 2004; cf. Schafer, Soldiers at Peace (above fn. 39), 10. 49 McEvoy / Shirlow, Re-Imagining DDR (above fn. 35), 34. 50 Douglas et al., Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (above fn. 46), 65. 492 Isabel Ströhle because coming to terms with a past regime creates societal conflicts as a result of suffering, marginalization, or collaboration that occurred before and during the war. Especially in postwar contexts that have an additional post-colonial or post-socialist dimension, conflicts within society and conflicting forms of commemoration will have a more complex texture that might sustain the durability of militarized narratives. In this context, it is necessary to point out that militarization can also be read as a way of asserting certain interests, as a means to construct a power base.51 This is exemplified by the phenomenon that “many politically motivated ex-prisoners themselves bridle at the term ‚reintegration’, suggesting that it undermines their ‚hard earned’ status as political rather than ordinary offenders”,52 which can be similarly observed for former combatants. Therefore, DDR, as currently conceptualized, can contribute to “dismantling the machinery of war”,53 but is unlikely to achieve ”deep demilitarisation”, because it is blind to structural inequalities, as well as to the structural violence that lies at the heart of the continued militarization of many societies. Rather than differentiating between combatants and the rest of society, attempts at social reconciliation and integration should focus on communities divided by different experiences of war and by structural inequalities that have deep historical roots.

DDR in Kosovo

In this section, I will review DDR as conceptualized and implemented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) at the behest of UNMIK and KFOR in Kosovo. “Surface demilitarization” in Kosovo was initiated on 10 June, 1999 by UNSCR 1244, which demanded that the “KLA and other armed Kosovo Albanian groups immediately end all offensive actions and comply with the requirements for demilitarization” [emphasis added, I. S.].54 The subsequent “Undertaking of Demilitarisation and Transformation by the UÇK”, signed by the KLA chief Hashim Thaçi and KFOR commander Lieutenant-General Mike Jackson on 20 June, 1999, served as the guiding framework of the process.55 According to the agreement, the former KLA members were to be granted the opportunity “to participate in the administration and police forces in Kosovo,

51 Clark, Demilitarising Minds, Demilitarising Societies (above fn. 31), 1. 52 McEvoy / Shirlow, Re-Imagining DDR (above fn. 35), 33. 53 Theidon, Reconstructing Masculinities (above fn. 34), 3. 54 UNSCR 1244/99, paragraph 15, available at . 55 Undertaking of Demilitarisation and Transformation by the UÇK, signed 20 June 1999, available at . The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 493 enjoying special consideration in view of the expertise they have developed”, as well as preferential access to the newly founded Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC). The International Organization of Migration (IOM) first faced the challenge of establishing the number of active KLA members in Kosovo. From July to November 1999 it registered 25,723 fighters, a figure that was more than twice the initial estimations by KFOR and IOM of 8-10,000 fighters.56 It seems that the number was highly inflated for political and pragmatic reasons, because the leaders of the former KLA had an interest in backing up their political demands with a considerable fighting force and individuals hoped to benefit materially from the international support in the face of postwar hardship. In contradiction with the registered number of former fighters, a member of the KLA’s General Staff claimed in an interview that the organization had about 17,000 active soldiers in March 1999; in a subsequent conversation, however, he reduced the number to 9-10,000.57 These extreme variations in the number of KLA fighters can be explained, among other things, by the different definitions of KLA membership that are in use: in some estimates, all armed members of village guards are included, whereas others include only those who had been officially recruited and were integrated into the KLA’s formal command structure. There is evidence that many persons were registered who had worked for the KLA in supporting roles, a practice that had long been used in socialist Yugoslavia that counted not only those who fought with a weapon in their hands, but also those who “actively supported it by other means”,58 as part of the war population (boračka populacija).59 Subsequently, the IOM’s re-integration program followed two main routes. The first was to transform the KLA into a civil protection corps modelled on the French Sécurité Civile. The second was to assist former combatants who did not enter the protection corps in their search for civilian employment. The transformation of the KLA into the KPC and from KPC into the KSF will not be examined here in detail, as this would necessitate a separate study, including a review of the Security Sector Reform (SSR).60 Moreover, as illustrated above,

56 özerdem, From a “Terrorist” Group to a ”Civil Defence” Corps (above fn. 15), 85. The registration process was problematic since it was conducted on the basis of witness testimony, while members of the registration staff admitted in interviews that questionable cases were added to the list. 57 Interview no. XXI. 58 Zitat aus dem Statut des Veteranenbundes (SUBNOR), cf. Heike Karge, Transnational Knowledge into Yugoslav Practices? The Legacy of the Second World War on Social Welfare Policy in Socialist Yugoslavia, in: Natali Stegmann / Katrin Boeckh (eds.), Veterans and War Victims in Eastern Europe During the 20th Century. Comparativ 20 (2010), no. 5, 75-86. 59 On the other hand, it seems as though women were systematically excluded from registration, as the IOM registered only 857 female veterans, although it can be assumed that a high number of women had been active in the KLA’s supporting and medical teams. 60 Cf. Narten, Security Governance und Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships (above fn. 13). 494 Isabel Ströhle this particular aspect of the demobilization process has already received exten- sive academic attention. However, I would like to point out that the SSR and related policies paradoxically institutionalize precisely the functions of former combatants in society that reintegration policies were formulated to reduce. For the purpose of this study a short overview will suffice. The Kosovo Protection Corps Training Programme (KPCPT), which lasted from 2000 to 2004, aimed at transforming the newly created Kosovo Protec- tion Corps (KPC) “into a civilian, multi-disciplinary, multi-ethnic, uniformed indigenous emergency service agency”.61 The KPCPT was a success in that it apparently managed to integrate and bind those former combatants into the KPC who had constituted the committed core of the KLA. Among the 18,000 registered former KLA fighters who applied, 4,552 took part in the program’s 12-month training course, constituting 90 % of the 5,052 members of the KPC. Of these, 1,798 were transferred to reserve status in the autumn of 2001. 85 % of the KPC’s members claimed to have spent more than 12 months in the KLA, although only 38 % of the former KLA combatants have claimed to have been in the KLA for more than a year.62 Although only 2 % of the initially registered former KLA members declared that they were with the KLA before 1998, 33 % of the KPC’s key personalities were part of this early movement. The latter mostly originate from Skenderaj (15.2 %), Gllogoc (10.9 %), and Peja (10.9 %), and only 4.3 % were born in Prishtina.63 The selection process for the KPC was supported by a joint international and local selection commission, and it seems that social considerations led the commission to prioritize those candidates for the KPC who came from KLA strongholds, where they enjoyed local authority, as well as those who had provided ”outstanding services” to their community. On the basis of the Ahtisaari Plan, which was included in the Constitution of the Independent Republic of Kosovo, the KPC was disbanded and the new Kosovo Security Force founded. Ultimately this step aimed at disrupting continuities from the KLA in both service personnel and symbolism. KPC members were not to have any automatic right of access to the 2,500 active duty posts and 800 reservist posts of the KPC. However, the possibility that the KPC could become the future Kosovar army provided the main motivation for ex- combatants to join, as surveyed by özerdem and Barakat.64 The dissolution of the KPC was therefore a critical rupture for many of its members. It is for

61 Description of the KPCT Programme, available at . 62 IOM, Socio-Economic and Demographic Profiles of Former KLA Combatants (above fn. 5), 10f., 22. 63 IOM Kosovo, Socio-Economic and Demographic Profiles of the Kosovo Protection Corps Key Leaders, Vol. II., Prishtina 2000. 64 özerdem / Barakat, Impact of Reintegration of Former KLA Combatants (above fn. 15), 38. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 495

Table 1: Number of KLA fighters in the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) and the Kosovo Security Force (KSF). KLA KPC KSF Members in total (incl. reservists) 5,052 3,300 Number of ex-KLA 25,723 4,552 1,000 Cited according to the figures presented by Narten, Security Governance and Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships (above fn. 13), 12. this reason that the currently running UNDP “resettlement program” is being conducted under the motto of “dissolution with dignity” and will be another critical step in the reintegration process. Because the project is still running, it is too early to evaluate its outcome and impact. The second pillar of the program supported those who did not find occupation in the KPC or the Kosovo Police Service (KPS). Support was provided through the Information Counselling and Referral Service (ICRS) and the Reintegration Fund (RF), which was modelled on DDR programs undertaken by the IOM in other parts of the world.65 Within the framework of two applied schemes for vocational training and enterprise development between 1999 and 2002, the IOM facilitated economic reintegration through “counselling, referrals, training, capacity building, employment and other income-generating opportunities, also supporting the on-going overall reconstruction and economic development efforts within the heavily war-damaged Kosovo province”.66 Altogether, by the time the program was phased out in 2002-2003, 14,510 of the registered ex-combatants had received reintegration assistance of one form or another.67 What do we know about the program’s impact? özerdem / Barakat and Narten come to the conclusion that the IOM has succeeded in reintegrating the majority of the former combatants into the labor market.68 The problem is, however, that these claims are not substantiated by any statistics. In fact, very little statistical data concerning the veterans exist and no information on their socioeconomic situation, housing situation, employment status, health, num-

65 Pozhidaev / Andzhelich, Beating Swords into Plowshares (above fn. 16), 33. 66 The programs issued by the IOM Kosovo were called “Employment through Vocational Training and On-the-Job-Training” and “Employment through Livelihood and Enterprise Development”. A list of the completed projects is available at . 67 özerdem / Barakat, Impact of Reintegration of Former KLA Combatants (above fn. 15), 32; Pozhidaev and Andzhelich set the number of former combatants having received assistance at 14,339, cf. Pozhidaev / Andzhelich, Beating Swords into Plowshares (above fn. 16), 35. 68 Narten, Security Governance and Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships (above fn. 13), 6; özerdem / Barakat, Impact of Reintegration of Former KLA Combatants (above fn. 15), 40. 496 Isabel Ströhle

Table 2: ICRS Beneficiary Projects Financed by the Reintegration Fund. Classification Number of projects Direct beneficiaries Indirect beneficiaries Agriculture 572 2,152 13,848 Education 14 528 1,478 Employment/ Apprentice- 221 1,544 8,021 ship/ On-the-Job Training Personal Housing 12 173 1,526 Psychosocial Assistance 2 15 105 Rehabilitation Therapy 6 380 232 Small & Micro Enterprise 659 2,676 16,987 Vocational Training 29 2,317 16,078 Total 1,515 9,785 58,275

Source: IOM, IOM Programme on Reintegration of Former Combatants through the Infor- mation Counselling & Referral Service (ICRS) and Reintegration Fund (RF). A Background Paper, Prishtina 2002, 6. ber of suicides, etc. is available. To date no follow-up surveys examining the economic circumstances of the assisted former combatants over an extended period of time have been published. In order to conduct a valid study of the impact of a reintegration program, at least ten years would be necessary, as elaborated by the International Labor Organization (ILO).69 Considering the design and implementation of the ICRS, reintegration was mainly understood in security-related and economic terms. In their study on economic reintegration in Kosovo, özerdem and Barakat contend that “economic recovery was probably not the main or only motivation for training so many former combatants in different sectors. The aim of keeping former combatants busy was as important as economic considerations”.70 With regard to economic reintegration, one of the most problematic weaknesses of the program was its lack of knowledge about the “context of re-integration” and its lack of attention to the economic context and potential labor market developments.71 The skills of the combatants were not assessed beforehand to enable a targeted approach, nor was there a taxonomy of skills according to different labor markets and occupations provided, which resulted in vocational training courses being organized on an ad hoc basis.72 Although the former combatants were offered a variety of training programs, these were rather arbitrarily organized due to the lack of any previous skill assessment. The main motivation for

69 Pozhidaev / Andzhelich, Beating Swords into Plowshares (above fn. 16), 66. 70 özerdem / Barakat, Impact of Reintegration of Former KLA Combatants (above fn. 15), 36. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 497 many of the former combatants to participate in the training programs seems to have been the conditional stipend of about 150 Deutschmarks.73 Another problem, which Lala describes as ”reintegration into poverty”, is the strong focus placed by the training programs on agricultural micro-enterprises. Agricultural occupations are seldom desirable for former combatants and those “who manage to subsist on the basis of their own activities such as agriculture, cattle breeding or informal commerce and are not formally employed, tend not to perceive themselves as reintegrated”.74 Although agricultural programs, ac- counting for almost 40 % of the subsidized projects, might indeed have helped to supply one’s own family in the immediate postwar period, it was repeatedly stated that people had sold the capital equipment (machinery etc.) that they had received for their start-ups by the time the program ended and that they were not interested in working in agriculture any longer.75 This can be explained by the more general economic and environmental conditions of Kosovo, but it must be also taken into account that 62.7 % of the participants were under the age of 30 and could hope for more profitable employment in other economic sectors.76 Moreover, the IOM’s focus on agriculture reinforced and reproduced the rural-urban dichotomy in terms of hindering social and geographical mobility. It was subsequently opposed by veterans and many of them who had been rural inhabitants opted to move to urban areas in the postwar years. Employment recovery through DDR programs has its structural limits. In the case of Kosovo, reintegration was undermined by the socioeconomic context, including unemployment rates as high as 70 % and a devastated infrastructure aggravated by a decade of neglect.77 Therefore, much broader development and poverty reduction strategies would have been useful. This points to the dilemma inherent to DDR: Although in the last decade there has been increas- ing recognition of the fact that “reintegration is a social and economic process with an open time frame”,78 DDR programs are implemented within a short- to-medium time frame, and in Kosovo they were phased out by 2002-2003. In addition, the ICRS suffered from chronic under-funding due to the fact that the

73 This is my own interpretation, resulting from my interviews. 74 Anicia Lala, Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration in Mozambique. The Borderline of Success, in: Ann M. Fitz-Gerald / Hilary Mason (eds.), From Conflict to Com- munity. A Combatant’s Return to Citizenship. Shrivenham 2005, 173, available at . 75 In contrast, only 8.4 % of the former KLA fighters had been active in agriculture before the war, and only 3.1 % wanted to work in agriculture after the war, cf. IOM, Socio-Economic and Demographic Profiles of Former KLA Combatants (above fn. 5), 23-26. 76 Ibid., 8, 23. 77 özerdem / Barakat, Impact of Reintegration of Former KLA Combatants (above fn. 15), 41. 78 United Nations, Report of the Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Chal- lenges and Change 2004 (above fn. 26), 61. 498 Isabel Ströhle number of registered combatants had exceeded the projected figures, and some international donors did not honor their initial commitments.79 With hindsight, the veterans’ representatives believed that the “IOM attempted to help”, but it has been merely a ”drop in a bucket“.80 In fact, the doubts of local officials with regard to the effectiveness of DDR programs, “bearing in mind the perceived limited result of the precedent programme for former demobilized KLA” played a major role in the competition for the KPC resettlement program in 2008, and apparently top KPC staff members opted against the IOM conducting a second resettlement program.81 On a theoretical level, the chosen approach treated the ex-combatants as passive recipients with certain needs that were to be reintegrated by actors from outside, rather than acknowledging and promoting their abilities to integrate themselves. McEvoy and Shirlow draw our attention to a parallel with criminal offenders, who likewise see themselves characterized by correctional treatment programs as “deficient, ineffectual, misguided, untrustworthy, possibly danger- ous, and almost certain to get into trouble again”.82 As argued by several authors, this normative view tends to wrongly depoliticize the former combatants’ mo- tivations and overlooks their strong potential as agents of their own fate, which could be useful in the reconstruction process.83 McEvoy and Shirlow recognize the leadership potential of former political prisoners and combatants and the credibility, respect, and legitimacy that they conferred to community projects in the Northern Irish process of conflict transformation.84 Although the members of the KPC surveyed by özerdem and Barakat expressed a strong desire and willingness to be actively engaged in the reconstruction process, they “did not feel actively involved” and “felt that the international community did not take them seriously”.85 The Northern Irish case is particularly interesting with regard to debates concerning local ownership. On the ground, the DDR process was conducted with relatively little involvement by the international community.86

79 Pozhidaev / Andzhelich, Beating Swords into Plowshares (above fn. 16), 65. 80 Interview with Head of Department for Invalids and Martyrs’ Families Affairs; Interview with Head of OVL, 10 September 2008. 81 Interview no. XXV. 82 McEvoy / Shirlow, Re-Imagining DDR (above fn. 35), 37. 83 Clark, Demilitarising Minds, Demilitarising Societies (above fn. 31); Nathalie Powels, War Force to Work Force. Global Perspectives on Demobilisation and Reintegration. Baden- Baden 2000; özerdem / Barakat, Impact of Reintegration of Former KLA Combatants (above fn. 15); Andreas Heinemann-Grüder / Tobias Pietz / Shay Duffy, Turning Soldiers into a Work Force. Demobilization and Reintegration in Post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bonn 2003. 84 McEvoy / Shirlow, Re-Imagining DDR (above fn. 35), 41. 85 özerdem / Barakat, Impact of Reintegration of Former KLA Combatants (above fn. 15), 37f. 86 Bill Rolston, Demobilization and Reintegration of Ex-Combatants. The Irish Case in International Perspective, Social and Legal Studies 16 (2007), n. 2, 259–280, 260. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 499

This gives reason to reflect on the interconnectionbetween the structure of local ownership and the success of DDR processes in general. The majority of former combatants had a rather clear vision of their own integration into postwar society. It can be ascertained from both the IOM’s survey of the demobilized KLA fighters’ future plans in 1999 and the qualitative interviews conducted by the author that the veterans saw their engagement in the KLA not only as their contribution to liberation but also to the establishment of an independent Kosovar state. They believed that they had invested in the Kosovar state in advance and that the newly independent state should recognize their services. Half of the registered caseload expected to work in the state sector and about one third of the veterans aimed at future employment in the military sector. As many as 18,000 former KLA fighters applied for the KPC.87 The fact that in 1999 only 0.3 % of the veterans doubted their chances to find employment testifies to their belief in the potential for upward social mobility.88 A large proportion of the veterans originated from rural, traditionalist, and industrially underdeveloped regions (Skenderaj, Gllogoc, Podujeva, Gjakova89) that were disproportionally affected by the destruction of houses and infrastructure during the war. Particularly important was the aspiration to restructure the social hierarchy and to compensate for the structural inequalities between the urban communities and their elites, on the one hand, and the rural communities on the other, the latter of which, in many cases, did not benefit from modernization in socialist Yugoslavia. The widespread aim of “appropriating the state after liberation” is also reflected in the following utterance: “Drenica has fought, Gjakova has profited, Drenica has fought, Mitrovica has profited, now Drenica has fought and will profit itself.”90 This saying implies that the cities of Mitrovica and Gjakova were privileged after the Second World War in terms of investments and industrialization, while the rural region of Drenica was neglected. Here, the traditional social cleavage between rural and urban communities in Kosovo should be noted and is equally valid for most other parts of Southeast Europe. The rural-urban dichotomy was reinforced rather than ameliorated by the socialist concept of modernization, which ultimately stigmatized so-called ”backward” communities.

87 86 % of the 20,271 applicants for KPC had been in the KLA, cf. IOM, Socio-Economic and Demographic Profiles of Former KLA Combatants (above fn. 5), 25; IOM Kosovo, Socio- Economic and Demographic Profiles of the Kosovo Protection Corps Key Leaders (above fn. 63), 3. 88 99.95 % of those unemployed prior to joining KLA foresaw employment, cf. IOM, Socio- Economic and Demographic Profiles of Former KLA Combatants (above fn. 5), 4. 89 Gjakova is a more complex case, because within this municipality considerable power struggles have taken place between the inhabitants of the city of Gjakova and the surrounding rural population. 90 Interview no. XXV. 500 Isabel Ströhle

To summarize, although the externally guided reintegration process in Kosovo placed strong emphasis on the issue of economic assistance, evidence suggests that such economic reintegration was primarily aimed at serving security concerns. Reintegration efforts in this case became a tool for maintaining local and regional stability. However, the economic reintegration program faced many obstacles, e.g. limited funding capacities, insufficient knowledge of the social contexts, and too narrow of a time frame. Societal and political factors of reintegration, as well as the question of how particularly war-torn regions and their inhabitants could be integrated into the overall society were sidelined.

Veterans’ Politics and Self-Representations

Veterans’ Politics from Above

In this section, I examine the discourse of KLA leaders-turned-politicians with regard to demilitarization and reintegration. In the postwar context these new elites, who had gained local authority through their active participation in the armed struggle, challenged those politicians who had been prominently involved in the non-violent resistance movement of the early 1990s. While supporting ”surface demilitarization”, they clearly objected to ”deep demilitarization”. In fact, they based their political legitimacy on this very military identity. In October 1999, part of the political directorate of the KLA under Hashim Thaçi’s leadership transformed itself into a political party, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (Partia Demokratike e Kosovës, PDK), which was portrayed as the political continuation of the KLA. In spring 2000, Ramush Haradinaj, the former commander of the KLA’s Operative Zone of Dukagjin and deputy commander of the KPC, followed Thaçi’s example and formed the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (Aleanca për Ardhmërinë e Kosovës, AAK). Other leading KLA figures, such as Rrustem Mustafa,91 entered the political arena as candidates for one of these parties. They considered the war to be the foundation of the nascent state and strove to maintain their constituencies’ support by perpetually militarizing the political discourse, bolstering their claim to power: “Nowadays with the building of today and the work for the future of Kosova, the primary duty, which should not be left aside by any means, is giving the great figures [sic] of the war the place they deserve.”92 The KLA commanders and leaders, most of whom had not pursued a political career during socialist times, became famous during the war, although their faces and their backgrounds were hardly known to the broader public until after the

91 Rrustem Mustafa was the KLA’s Commander of the Operative Zone of Llap, the KPC’s Commander of the Operative Zone V from 1999-2000 and Commander of Zone VI in 2001. 92 Safet Zejnullahu, War for Kosova. Commander Remi Speaks. Prishtina 2001. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 501 peace agreement. For this purpose, several books containing long, biographical interviews with several of the former KLA leaders were published from late 1999 until the run-up to the first Kosovar elections held in 2001. The purpose of these publications becomes clear from the following introductory words: “[…] as the recent history, present and future of Kosova cannot be understood without the KLA, […]. This short booklet serves a modest purpose, to help the public get to know Hashim Thaci better, in the context of the first democratic elections to a Kosova Assembly in November 2001.”93 The soldiers-turned-politicians possessed the necessary authority within their communities to justify “surface demilitarization” through their militarized discourse: “The KLA supported demilitarisation knowing that we cannot maintain the situation of liberation […]. This would have constituted a risk even for us [as] a nation. I said this already earlier, for this reason, the idea for demilitarisation was our idea, so that we could liberate ourselves from the war.”94 Accordingly, former KLA members had to become political actors, because they were the only ones who would be able to guarantee the end of Serbian hegemony and the achievement of Kosovar independence: “The only real and final argument that people in Kosova will have against the return of Belgrade hegemony in the region is the Kosova Liberation Army military and political tradition, and the certainty of an effective response if the international community ever tried to follow this Yugoslavist path.”95 There are precedents to the veterans’ claims to moral and political qualifica- tions gained or proven through the war, as Schafer points out in her study on Mozambique: “Veterans across cultural and historical boundaries have expressed a sense of superiority over civilians which frequently includes the idea that they possess unique political knowledge as a result of war service.”96 Their heroic self-representation also helped the personalization of power and the establishment of powerful clientelistic networks surrounding those leaders. However, it would be wrong to assume the existence of an integrated and coherent “KLA-network”, as the KLA had not been a homogenous entity itself, but a coalition of various small groups with different experiences, motives and

93 James Pettifer, Koncept pёr Realitetin e Ri. Dialog me Hashim Thaçin [Concept for a New Reality. Dialogue with Hashim Thaçi]. Prishtina 2001, 6, available at . 94 Ramush Haradinaj, cited in: Bardh Hamzaj, A Narrative about War and Freedom. Dia- logue with the Commander Ramush Haradinaj. Prishtina 2000, 162. 95 Pettifer, Koncept pёr Realitetin e Ri. (above fn. 93), 12. 96 Schafer, Soldiers at Peace (above fn. 39), 152. 502 Isabel Ströhle ideologies. This heterogeneity had been reflected in their inconsistent form of organization and their decentralized structure of command.97 To put it pro- vocatively, the KLA was merely an umbrella for all those who had decided to resist the Serbian state authorities with armed force. Correspondingly, in the postwar period we can observe several political networks, sometimes overlap- ping, sometimes in conflict; the cleavages between them run along various regional, political, and ideological lines or are based on personal hostilities.98 What unites them is a common cultivation of narratives of stigmatization and marginalization under the old Yugoslav system, which function both as a legitimation for their use of armed force and as ”moral claims”, analogous to what Bougarel et al. have observed for the Bosnian context.99 Emphasizing one’s distance from the Yugoslav state authorities prior to the war has increasingly become symbolic capital (Bourdieu) in a situation that can be characterized as both postwar and post-socialist; this is also exemplified by the professional cur- ricula vitae (CV) uploaded to the internet by Kosovar officials on the municipal or national level, which emphasize their experiences as political prisoners or their participation in acts of resistance. These deployments of symbolic capital sometimes even substitute for cultural capital, when it is lacking. For example, the information on the prewar political activities of the former director of the municipality of Deçan, a KLA stronghold in western Kosovo, presented on the municipality’s homepage, states: “Born in 1963, from 1978-1980 in the illegal movement, head of the group L.N.Ç.K [illegal organization for the ‘national liberation’], 1981-1984 political prisoner, 1986-1989 organizer of demonstrations. Founding member of the campaign for the reconciliation of blood feuds in 1990, politically persecuted from 1990-1998, from 1998 member of ‘Homeland Calling’ and collaborator with the KLA.”100 Even today the public CVs of local officials in the highest state institutions include information like “1973-1981 activist of the illegal movement LPK” (illegal organization called Popular Movement for Kosovo‘); “1981-1991 political prisoner”; and “1991-1997 member of guerrilla units”.101

97 The KLA attempted to integrate these heterogeneous groups into one coherent structure only after February 1999, under the new KLA commander-in-chief Agim Çeku. 98 These cleavages tend to be of an ambiguous nature. The best example for disloyalty and rivalry between KLA commanders from the same operative zone is the open hostility between Hashim Thaçi and Gani Geci, as well as between the latter and Sabit Geci. All are from the Drenica region and Operative Zone I. While Gani Geci and Thaçi are waging a personal conflict, disagreement has also been provoked by the Enverist and leftist orientation of several LPK members who joined the KLA after returning from a stay in Switzerland. 99 Bougarel / Helms / Duijzings (eds.), The New Bosnian Mosaic (above fn. 17). 100 Available at , accessed on 1 December 2010. 101 To name but a few examples, cf. the Curriculum Vitae of Gani Geci, available at ; of Jakup Krasniqi, available at

The myriad of biographies of fallen fighters and living heroes seems to merge the individual life-stories into a “collective biography of the nation”,102 based on shared themes such as social marginalization and oppression in socialist Yu- goslavia, activism in the illegal movement, armed struggle, and heroic sacrifice for liberation from Serbian rule: “Raised with the strong illegality movement of Llap, being part of it in the eight- ies [sic!], Rrustem Mustafa until the beginning of what could be described as ‘pre-war’ in Kosova was just one of those who thought that Kosova could not be liberated without a war and who were working that conditions for it [sic] were as good as they could be.”103 A similar narrative is presented for Ramush Haradinaj: “As a child he [R. Haradinaj] experienced the arrests of many members of the family in the year 1981, later he saw the peaceful demonstrations in Kosova. And since then he came to the conclusion that for the liberation of Kosovo the creation of a force would be indispensable. In the search for that mechanism he spent years in exile. He returned to Kosova as often as it was necessary to work towards this mechanism. Towards that aim, he invested everything he had: his wealth in Kosova, his wealth created in the West, his family and his own life.”104 The presented narrative of the national destiny and its mark on the biographies of the former guerrilla fighters also served them to determine what constitutes “Albanianness”, which they locate in the rural, traditionalist society105 and in the peripheries of socialist Yugoslavia. As Khalili demonstrates in her study on the politics of commemoration in Palestine, “national commemoration draws a great deal of its authority from its conflation of the history of the nation with the life stories of the nationals”.106 Implied is a mechanism for the exclusion of those who have a different biography and who were integrated into the old system. The emphasis on early participation in illegal, clandestine Enverist organizations,107 such as the cited Popular Movement of Kosovo (Lëvizja Popullore e Kosovës, LPK) and the National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo (Lëvizja Kombëtare për Çlirimin e Kosovës, LKÇK), distances them from the former socialist elites, who appear as collaborators with, or at least as corrupted by, the old system. In this context, ”time served” as political prisoners figures as a popular trope, assembly-kosova.org/?cid=1,192,521>; and of Hashim Thaçi, available at . 102 Laleh Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine. The Politics of National Commemora- tion. Cambridge 2007. 103 Zejnullahu, War for Kosova (above fn. 92), 5. 104 Hamzaj, A Narrative about War and Freedom (above fn. 94). 5. 105 Cf. Schwandner-Sievers / Di Lellio, The Legendary Commander (above fn. 10). 106 Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine (above fn. 102), 226. 107 These groups followed the mixed ideology of Marxism-Leninism and nationalism cultivated by the late leader of the Socialist Republic of Albania, Enver Hoxha. 504 Isabel Ströhle symbolizing an early preparedness for ”sacrifice”. In this narrative, the LDK and Ibrahim Rugova’s non-violent approach are delegitimized in their entirety: “Its morbid pacifism turned into a vein [sic] preaching. It is neither magnificent nor noble to submit to a fate imposed by the enemy and appear as a victim from [sic] the misfortune of an entire people.”108 The competition over the purest patriotic commitment is also waged among the politicians who have emerged from the war. Parallels can further be drawn to Palestinian narratives of commemoration in the occupied territories, in that “all past activity, sacrifices, heroism, and even defeats and setbacks are presented as pre-determined stages in the emergence and evolution of the state”.109 Similarly, Prime Minister Thaçi celebrated the culmination of the KLA’s sacrifices in the realization of the independent state of Kosovo on the occasion of a ”Solemn Academy” shortly after the declaration of independence: “On the ten year anniversary of the KLA’s Epopee, Kosova is an internationally recognized state. The Kosovo of our dreams cannot simply be independent. The Kosovo of our dreams is a place of unlimited possibilities for every single one of its citizens. This is our obligation to those we honor today. This is our obligation towards future generations. We are proud of our history. The values of the KLA are national and political values of all, values and merits of all Albanians wherever they may live.”110 The various annual commemorative events constitute an important link between the KLA-leaders-turned-politicians and their political constituency. In commemorative events held at lieux de mémoire111 and in so-called “commemorative academies” (Akademi përkujtimore)112 the leaders perform both their former military and their current political functions. These memory-performing events reassert the roots of the local leaders in their communities and the polity and evoke their local authority and legitimacy based on their past “sacrifices”. The fact that there is no unitary commemorative day for the war in today’s Kosovo, neither on a national nor on a municipal level, fuels such dynamics, because the casualties of the various former KLA brigades are all separately commemorated,

108 Hashim Thaçi, quoted in: Pettifer, Koncept pёr Realitetin e Ri (above fn. 94), 35. 109 Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine (above fn. 102), 191. 110 The Prime Minister’s Public Communication Office, Broshura “Një vjet qeveri pas pavarsisë së Kosovës”, 20, available at . 111 On the concept of lieux de mémoire cf. Pierre Nora, Les lieux de mémoire. 7 Vols., Paris 1984-1992; Schwandner-Sievers and Di Lellio provide a detailed ethnographic account of the sacralization of the central lieux de mémoire in Kosovo, as the Jashari-compound in Prekaz; cf. Di Lellio / Schwandner-Sievers, Sacred Journey to a Nation (above fn. 10). 112 Commemorative academies were also held in socialist Yugoslavia as part of the veneration of the partisan movement of World War II (Serbocroat. spomen akademija). The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 505 resulting in intense commemorative activities in certain weeks of the year. These events are not included in the official festive calendar of the Republic of Kosovo, which is attuned to religious and international holidays, and now includes the recognition of Independence Day, 17 February, 2008. There is, however, an unofficial parallel festive calendar that revolves around the commemoration of the war. The key dates on this ”KLA calendar” are: –5-7 March: ”Epopee of the KLA”; –24 March: ”Epopee of Dukagjin”; –5 May: ”Day of the Martyrs of the Albanian nation”; –28 November, with a quadruple meaning as the ”Birthday of the Legendary Commander Adem Jashari”, the ”Day of the Albanian flag”, the ”Indepen- dence Day of the Republic of Albania”, and the ”Coming into the open of the KLA”; –30 December: the ”Day of Veterans”. Furthermore, at both the national and municipal levels the calendar includes recognitions of the creation of the Operative Zones, the death dates of regional heroes, and similar events. War memory is unmistakably appropriated and instrumentalized for party politics. The former KLA commanders that became politicians cultivate their proximity to fallen regional heroes, thereby transferring the “glory of the dead” to themselves. The emphasis on the war of liberation as a source of political legitimacy did not translate into systematic institutional support for the military categories (civilian victims are not included here). Prior to independence, steps in this direction had been repeatedly blocked by UNMIK and the SRSG respectively. Meanwhile, support for war invalids and surviving dependents has been gradually increased. After the declaration of independence in February 2008, pressure for greater institutional support for those to be included in the war categories has increased, and these demands were partially fulfilled with the introduction of an ”Office for the Veterans of the KLA War” in September 2008.113 With the national elections approaching, Prime Minister Thaçi announced a new draft law, regulating the war categories’ status and benefits, on 3 August, 2010. However, it is unlikely to be implemented in the proposed form due to its grave implications for the budget. Furthermore it will possibly be vetoed by the ICR as being in conflict with the Status Settlement.114

113 The office’s website, however, does not provide any additional information on its activities, cf. Zyra për veteranët e luftës së UÇK-së, available at . 114 For a detailed debate on the issue of war victims’ benefits, cf. Isabel Ströhle, Veterans’ Politics and Policies Towards the Veterans of the Kosovo Liberation Army, in: Natali Steg- mann / Katrin Boeckh (eds.), Veterans and War Victims in Eastern Europe during the 20th Century: A Comparison. Comparativ 20 (2010), no. 5, 87-103. 506 Isabel Ströhle

Although the politicians who emerged from the war had officially ended their military careers, they have never ideologically closed this chapter. Instead, they have used the local legitimacy that they gained through their participation in organized resistance and in the war to establish their political power bases. They also have labored to create a new political order by writing a collective biography of the nation, based on a hierarchy of ”sacrifice”, which was to en- hance their positions in the internal political competition and to challenge the formerly socialist elites. However, despite declaring the war to be the foundation of the new society and despite the war categories constituting their power base, the government has as of yet pursued no coherent strategy privileging the war categories.

The Veterans’ Organisations

In this section, I examine the veterans’ organizations’ politics in discourse and practice with regard to “deep demilitarization” and visions for reintegration. The “war associations” (Alb. Shoqata e dalura nga lufta) openly opposed the international agenda of building a multiethnic Kosovo. They publicly celebrated nationalist values and cultivated a distinct model of partisan veneration inherited from socialist times, including claims for a distinguished ideological-political and social role for the veterans and their organizations. The main representative organs of the “war categories” in Kosovo are the umbrella Organization of the KLA War Veterans (Organizata e Veteranëve të Luftës së UÇK-së, OVL) and its sister-organizations, the Association of the KLA Invalids (Shoqata e Invalidëve të Luftës, SHIL) and the Association of the KLA Martyrs’ Families (Shoqata e Familjeve të Dëshmorëve, SHFD).115 While “veteran associations across a range of contexts have commonly succeeded in uniting only a minority of veterans within their organisational fold”,116 those in Kosovo encompass the majority of former KLA fighters. The claim of being a voluntary collection of all fighters of the KLA is a legacy from the socialist Yugoslav veterans’ organization Association of Combatants of the National Liberation War (Serbocroat. SUBNOR, Alb. LANÇ). The aspiration to have all former fighters represented by one organization is to communicate homogeneity, and the OVL statute portrays the former KLA fighters as a distinct social group. However, because the tally of members of the OVL more or less corresponds to the number

115 The OVL’s leadership abandoned the initial endeavor to establish one integrated organization with sub-divisions because the artificial division between the three organizations allowed them to obtain a monthly governmental subsidy of 2,500 € each. Interview with the leadership of OVL; Republic of Kosovo, Agreement of Understanding between the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and the Non-governmental Organization SHFD, signed Febru- ary 2009. 116 Schafer, Soldiers at Peace (above fn. 39), 139. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 507 of fighters registered by the IOM, it can be concluded that, despite the OVL’s exclusivist rhetoric, admission to it has also followed the logic of including not only those that have fought in the KLA, but also those who ”supported it actively by other means”.117 Every brigade was transformed into a branch of the OVL, with branch offices situated in the municipality centres; these branches are tied together by a system of branches, zones, and the central organs located in the capital. OVL, SHIL and SHFD are non-governmental organizations, and their official separation allows them to obtain additional funds, although they have close personal and institutional links among each other.118 The OVL claims a central socio-political role, following the precedent of the Fighters’ Associations in the Antifascist War of Liberation both in socialist Yugoslavia and in socialist Albania.119 Apart from the continuities that can be drawn between the SUBNOR/LANÇ and the OVL, the two organizations not only work together, but are also geographically close to one another. In Prishtina, the headquarters of the two organizations share offices; fallen KLA soldiers have been buried in ”Martyrs’ Cemeteries” (Alb. Varrezat e dëshmorëve) established during the socialist era, and even in places that are otherwise known as strongholds of the nationalist KLA, such as the municipality of Drenas, both wars are commemorated by monuments that are located next to each other. The socialist Yugoslav legacy is clearly present in rituals, practices and in the expectations of individuals. Yet, when studying the OVL’s program, it is the sister organizations and the legislation in the Republic of Albania that seem to be the direct ideological reference points. From its introductory words, the OVL program references the “partition of the nation” during the creation of the independent state of Albania in 1912 and the failed attempt to unite its “chopped-off parts” during the Second World War, when “the death of thousands of martyrs, in all Albanian territories, was not sufficient to fulfill the hundred-year-old aspira-

117 Women are, again, suspiciously absent. The same logics had been applied by the veterans’ organization in socialist Yugoslavia, cf. Heike Karge, Steinerne Erinnerung – versteinerte Erinnerung? Kriegsgedenken im sozialistischen Jugoslawien. Wiesbaden 2010, 44. 118 Similarly, the Yugoslav SUBNOR was founded with the aim of unifying all partisan fighters in one organization. Heike Karge, Transnational Knowledge into Yugoslav Practices? (above fn. 58). 119 To my knowledge, no study on the Unified Organisation of Veterans of the Antifascist Struggle of Liberation of the Albanian People (OBVL) has yet been conducted. In her study on the commemoration of World War II in socialist Yugoslavia, Heike Karge defines three different functions of the SUBNOR: first, to provide social welfare for war-affected partisans and the families of fallen partisans, as well as the integration of the former fighters into society and their compensation with certain privileges; second, to cultivate the memory of the national war of liberation and to strengthen the readiness of the population to take up arms for the defense of the country; third, the public representation of war veterans. Karge, Steinerne Erinnerung – versteinerte Erinnerung? (above fn. 119). 508 Isabel Ströhle tions for the freedom of the people”.120 The KLA is presented as the natural continuation of the historical Albanian struggle for liberation and national unification. One of the OVL’s main tasks is to preserve and protect the “holy values of the liberation war”.121 In the spirit of the declared aim of “cultivating Albanian nationalism and patriotism”, clear attempts have been made at bridging antagonisms between various regions and at balancing those centrifugal forces by celebrating the equally important contributions of all operative zones to the war of liberation. This was similarly practiced in Albania during Enver Hoxha’s rule and beyond, where regional identities were actively fought in favor of strengthening a unitary national identity.122 The OVL’s resistance to any form of demilitarization also manifests itself in its claims about its mobilizing potential and its declaration to support the “organs of the Republic of Kosovo towards enabling the functioning of the state, the defence of its sovereignty, its territorial integrity and the defence of the state at whatever risk”.123 Before independence, the OVL’s potential for mobilizing the veterans and its claims to have maintained the KLA’s military command structure were deployed as a threat should the status negotiations not result in Kosovo’s independence. Until the present day the OVL has maintained its “watchdog” function over political developments. The OVL recently declared its hostility towards the EULEX mission, when the latter arrested a veteran on charges of war crimes: “Considering that nothing positive came from this mission and it only took care that Kosova and its development were neglected, we are forced to consider a change in our form of response.”124 The war associations’ vision of reintegration is intimately linked with its core function to advocate the recognition and advancement of the legal status of all ”war categories” by government law, to secure their legal and social protection and provisions for their health, and to promote their professional advancement and employment. The war associations have lobbied for legislation on these topics and have actively influenced the drafting process. Knowledge on war benefits regulations seems to have been transferred from sister organizations

120 Cf. the Statute of the OVL, Organizata e Veteranëve të Luftës të Ushtrisë Çlirimtare të Kosovës, available at . 121 Ibid. 122 Cf. the official organs of the veterans’ organisation Kushtrim Brezash, available at , and of the National Organisation for the Martyrs of the Antifascist Liberation War and Other Martyrs of the Homeland, Pavdekësia. 123 Statute of the OVL (above fn. 120). 124 OVL, Reagim kundër arrestimit të Veteranit të Luftës Sabit Geci [Reaction against the Arrest of War Veteran Sabit Geci], 6 May 2010, available at . The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 509 in Albania and Croatia, and by the Kosovar branch of SUBNOR/LANÇ.125 This transfer is suggested by the kinds of provisions and benefits that were requested for the “war categories”, such as a legally protected special status for veterans, an exemption from all direct tax payments, a monthly pension, free medical treatment and medication, privileged access to housing facilities, free holiday accommodation, and free public transportation for veterans and invalids.126 In early 2006, the Kosovo Assembly passed a law “on the status and rights of the families of martyrs, invalids, veterans and members of the KLA”.127 However, the SRSG subsequently vetoed the law’s key terminology, for it contradicted the tenet of multiethnicity.128 In response, the war associations mobilized their followers against what they called a miswriting of their history.129 For the war associations the terminology was non-negotiable, as it reflected the core of their self-definition and their political project. Although the attempt to unify the Alba- nian territories and to attach Kosovo to its ”external homeland” (Brubaker) had receded into the background, the war associations continued to work towards assimilating its commemorative practices to those of the ”homeland” Albania, thereby creating a Greater Albanian commemorative space. The concept of the martyr (dëshmor) had been used both in socialist Albania, to honor fallen partisan fighters who had died in the name of ”freeing the Al- banian nation from Nazi-fascism”, and in socialist Kosovo, to designate fallen partisan fighters in the name of Yugoslav “brotherhood and unity”.130 While

125 All of them practice a form of partisan veneration. 126 This becomes clear when comparing Law no. 7874 of the Republic of Albania “on the Status of the Veterans of the War against the Nazifascist Occupier of the Albanian People” with the Kosovar “Law on the Status and Rights of the Families of Martyrs, Invalids, Veterans and Members of the KLA”. 127 Ligji për vlerat e luftës miratohet, zbatimi pritet më 2008 [The law on the war values is passed, implementation expected in 2008], Koha Ditore, 25 February, 2006, 3. 128 Çeku në presion rreth ndryshimeve në ligjin për UÇK-në [Çeku under pressure due to the changes made in the KLA law], Koha Ditore, 13 May, 2006, 3. 129 OVL, Organizatat e dalura nga Lufta e UÇK-së kundërshtojnë ashpër ndryshimet në ligj [The KLA successor associations Hharshly oppose the changes of the law], 6 May 2006; Organizatat në Komuna të gatshme për mbrojtjen e Vlerave të Luftës [The Municipal Asso- ciations are ready to defend the values of the war], 15 June 2006, available at . 130 Schwandner-Sievers and Di Lellio have elaborated on the KLA’s concept of martyrs, and Schwandner-Sievers and Ströhle have discussed the continuity of the concept from socialist Yugoslavia, cf. DiLellio / Schwandner-Sievers, The Legendary Commander (above fn. 10); Schwandner-Sievers / Ströhle, Der Nachhall des Sozialismus in der albanischen Er- innerungskultur im Nachkriegskosovo, in: Ulf Brunnbauer / Stefan Troebst (eds.), Zwischen Amnesie und Nostalgie. Die Erinnerung an den Kommunismus in Südosteuropa. Köln, Weimar, Wien 2007, 217-236. Due to the fact that dëshmore, as has been noted in these studies as well as in Eqrem Çabei’s dictionary, is a linguistic derivative from the Greek martur, it is likely to have its origin in the Rilindja period of the 19th century (I thank Dr. des. Lumnije Jusufi for this information.) The concept began to be institutionalized in Albania with the 510 Isabel Ströhle the ”cause” and the ”collective” for which the martyrs had died have been defined differently throughout history and in socialist Kosovo had even been used to bridge national divides, the activities of the OVL aim at establishing the nationalist variation of the concept in postwar Kosovo.131 According to the latest statute of the Albanian Martyrs’ Organization, the following groups are considered ”martyrs”: those who died while fighting for Albanian ”freedom and national independence in 1912”, for the defense of the territorial integrity and independence of Albania ever since its independence, in the Antifascist War of National Liberation, and for the War of Liberation of Kosovo from Serbian Occupation.132 The OVL’s attempt to assimilate the forms of war commemoration in both Kosovo and Albania is exemplified by the debate on determining a date for the “Day of Martyrs of Kosovo”, for which 6 March was suggested. The OVL proclaimed that “Kosovo is not a nation, but a territory or region of Albania, and [...] the date of 5 May is the ‘Day of the Martyrs of the Albanian nation’. Therefore, calling 6 March, as it was preliminary chosen, the ‘Day of the Martyrs of Kosovo’, is the same thing as if we would call it the ‘Day of the Martyrs of the Kosovar Nation’. [...] Therefore, a national consensus in the transitionary phase until national unification will be achieved only by strengthening the national unity and not by destroying it, as it is happening today in the case of the spreading of personally preferred symbols, and in the case of the Martyrs’ Day of Kosovo.” It further argues that “for the sake of avoiding a national division, the suggestion of the OVL with regard to the date of March 6 is that the Parliament of Kosovo and the Parliament of Albania coordinate each other and adopt this day as the ‘Day of Albanian Heroism’.”133 From the examples that were presented here with regard to social welfare mea- sures and the politics of commemoration, it is apparent that the OVL resisted both ”surface” and ”deep demilitarization”. The war associations’ vision of creation of the Albanian state in 1912, when it also found its way into the Albanian national anthem. The Second World War led to a similar form of partisan veneration in Albania as in the neighbouring Yugoslavia. The fact that there is no direct Serb-Croatian equivalent to the word ”martyr” (which is translated as ”hero” – heroj) suggests that the term had been bor- rowed by the Kosovar Albanian partisans of World War II from their Albanian counterparts and had been introduced by them into the context of socialist Yugoslavia. 131 Ibid., 233. 132 Statuti i Organizatës Kombëtare Për Dëshmorët e LANÇ Dhe Dëshmorët e Tjerë të Atdheut [Statute of the National Organisation for the Martyrs of the Antifascist Liberation War and Other Martyrs of the Homeland], in: Pavdekësia. Organ Periodik i Organizatës Kombëtare Për Dëshmorët e LANÇ Dhe Dëshmorët e Tjerë të Atdheut. Tirana 2008, 60. 133 OVL, Qëndrim në dëgjimin publik të Projektligjit për ditën e dëshmorëve të Kosovës [Statement on the Public Hearing of the Draft-Law on the Martyrs’ Day of Kosovo], 25 April, 2006, available at . The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 511 reintegration has been directly influenced by the historical model of partisan veneration as it was cultivated in socialist Yugoslavia and Albania. Accord- ingly, they tried to secure an influential role in society and politics by preserv- ing and further cultivating a militarized group identity. The leadership of the OVL attempted to unify all fighters under its organizational structure and to homogenize them as a group, thereby claiming to be the legitimate guardian of social rights for the ”war categories”, as well as of war memory, which was to be integrated into a Greater Albanian commemorative space.

Veterans’ Self-Representations

In this section, individual veterans’ self-representations are reviewed in order to understand how they relate to the master narrative propagated both by politicians with a KLA background and by the veterans’ organizations. Secondly, I investigate why many veterans rejected the attempts at a demilitarization of their identity. I conducted the interviews with veterans of the KLA after its stated goal of an independent state had been achieved on 17 February, 2008. Despite the high hopes for an economic upturn after independence, the devastating economic and social crisis persists.134 Corruption charges against the PDK-led government, which have recently led the EULEX mission to conduct several investigations into economic crimes, have also characterized post-independence affairs. The third aspect providing the contextual ackgroundb for the interviews is the suspension of the law regulating the status of those interviewees as veterans and their subsequent struggle for recognition, which constitutes, as I argue, the substance of their vision for reintegration. The interviewed veterans, invalids, and families of fallen fighters assign a prominent place to the war in their biographies and postwar lives. This finding is supported not only by the biographical narrative interviews, but also by the fact that their war service is inscribed into their living space through the different kinds of war memorabilia decorating the interior of most war veterans’ houses. These include photographs of fallen comrades-in-arms, iconographic representations of deceased regional heroes, oversized reproductions of KLA- emblems, and calendars of veterans’ organizations. Similarly, the postwar organization of their family life and the family’s festive calendar have been deeply influenced by the losses suffered in the war, because many families have been actively mourning their dead for ten years and some do it to this day. Out of

134 One third of the estimated 2.1 million inhabitants of Kosovo live in poverty, and another 15 % suffer from extreme poverty; that is, they live on less than € 0.90 per day. The World Bank, Kosovo Poverty Assessment, Vol. I, Accelerating Inclusive Growth to Reduce Widespread Poverty, Report no. 39737-XK, October 2007, 8f., available at . 512 Isabel Ströhle respect for the deceased they have also denied themselves openly festive family celebrations, for instance on the occasion of weddings. The breakdown of social and political hierarchies in post-socialist and postwar Kosovo provided fertile ground for the power and persistence of the official war narrative, which resonates strongly in many of the individual veterans’ self-representations. Claims to upward mobility, employment opportunities, and precedence in other forms of competition over resources are reproduced from the highest political level to that of everyday social relations, in which any proof of activity in illegal organizations, time served in prison, and commitment to the KLA has been deployed as symbolic capital. While society was, in the immediate aftermath of the war, mainly centered on questions of past suffering, suppression, and accusations of collaboration with the Serbian authorities during the 1990s, the debate has subsequently gained depth with regard to historical references. The majority of those interviewed were between thirty and fifty years old during the war. They embedded the war into a continuum of violence as part of their own and their families’ life stories. It is characteristic of this age cohort’s narratives to start with an overview of the suppression and the resistance of their own families: “My father’s family is from Llap. While my grandfather fought with Isa Boletini in the uprising of 1910, my father and his brother were in Shaban Polluzha’s brigade. In the aftermath of the Second World War, my father’s brother (axhë) was shot, while my father was convicted to ten years of prison, of which he served four. Subsequently he had problems to find employment. Also our property was taken away, apart from a very small strip of land around our house. [...]”135 The life stories further merge with the aforementioned construction of a collective biography of the nation and are embedded in the rural landscapes of resistance and the extended family’s (real or fictional) history of resistance. Here also, the narratives of victimization are not only used as a justification for resistance, but are directed against those living in the urban centres. This is exemplified by one group interview, which transformed into a heated argument among its participants. Present were my contact person, a KLA sympathizer from the capital Prishtina, who had spent the entire period of the war in Kosovo, a KLA veteran from Drenica, and a man from Drenica, who had lived in Germany during the war, but who had supported the KLA financially. Accusations were exchanged back and forth, with the man who had lived in Germany denounc- ing the citizen of Prishtina with the often-quoted dictum: “While people were dying in Drenica, you in Prishtina were celebrating parties and did not care about your own people.” The man from Prishtina replied: “You have not even

135 Interview no. III. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 513 been in the war, but nicely and safely in Germany, so you don’t have a right even to talk about this.”136 The different war experiences, with rural regions such as Drenica being affected more directly, further deepen existing cleavages and antagonisms between rural and urban communities. Those interviewees who profited from the PDK being in power relate to the master narrative and the geography of heroism. This is exemplified by an interview with a 40-year-old KLA veteran who had been in the KPC and in 2008 was transferred to a position in the ministerial administration: “I am with Drenica and I am with Dukagjin, as far as it concerns the war. You cannot politicize blood. [...] I am a sympathizer of the PDK, but I am a supporter of Limaj [Minister of Transport, PDK]. This government has to be in power, because it is built on blood, even against the resistance of Europe.”137 Taking into consideration the consistencies on the different narrative levels,138 it is important to emphasize that “we should perhaps be more suspicious when accounts do not vary, for it is here that we find social pressures acting most strongly to constrain individual memories and narratives”.139 The extent to which my attempts to access different kinds of interviewees were controlled and sanctioned by both my contact persons and my interview part- ners, particularly revealed the contentious character of the subject. In particular, the question about the KLA’s geographical origins was hotly contested. My respondents from remote rural regions, such as Drenica, Dukagjin, Vushtrri and Llap, insisted that the KLA was a legacy of earlier resistance movements from these regions “against the Ottomans in 1912, against the Yugoslav authorities in the early 1920s, against the occupying forces and the Yugoslav partisans at the end of the Second World War”, the memories of which, they claimed, were cultivated and preserved in the stories told in the traditional houses’ reception rooms (oda). A different interpretation, put forward by interviewees from Prishtina, disqualified the first interpretation as folkloric romanticism and contended that the establishment of the University of Prishtina, which henceforth constructed political and na-

136 Interview no. V. 137 Interview no. XXI. 138 These consistencies may also be connected to formulaic storytelling, which goes back to the strong oral tradition in the region, where epic songs and stories are retold on social occasions. Formulaic storytelling has been observed with regard to the memorialization of one KLA commander’s death at the site of the event, cf. Di Lellio / Schwandner-Sievers, Sacred Journey to a Nation (above fn. 10), 33f. 139 Schafer, Soldiers at Peace (above fn. 39), 16. 514 Isabel Ströhle tional awareness and supported the work of the illegal movement, provided the ideological breeding gound for the future KLA. Although the majority of the interviews followed a very similar plot, de- viations from the official narrative could be detected along several divides. In particular, interviews with female combatants and younger soldiers who were between 17 and 25 years of age when they entered the KLA, differed from the heroic master narrative. In contrast with the older interviewees, the younger ones emphasized that they did not know what war was about and point out situations of extreme fear: “I still have problems with sleeping. During the war there were days when I smoked seven packs of cigarettes, because there wasnothing to eat. You know, it was such a problem to keep food up in the wood, it would either start molding, or bugs would eat it. Once I had not eaten for four days, with only cigarettes between my teeth. I fainted. It was one big nightmare, but I didn’t wake up.”140 They also stressed their unpreparedness and lack of professional experience on these occasions: “I was born in 1974 and was 24 years old when I joined the KLA. I had never held a gun in my hands before, but I was sent to the front one hour after I had been mobilized. It took me some time until was able to handle the gun; fortunately, I was not killed during this time.”141 Generally, however, the younger ex-KLA members assign much less importance to their service in the war and, in fact, critically reflect upon their participation. Rather than leveraging their participation in the war into symbolic capital, the younger ex-combatants relied almost exclusively on their formal education – mostly obtained in the postwar period – to advance their social positions. Differing accounts can also be found among those former KLA soldiers who had obtained a previous military education in the JNA, as opposed to those without such previous military experience. Former JNA military personnel would contextualize their participation in the war against the background of their professional military career and, in some cases, their participation in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina: “I came to the military school in Sarajevo in 1972, as a twelve-year-old. Later, I went to the military academy. Because I had lived in Bosnia for twenty years it was not reasonable for me to leave those people, amongst whom I had lived for so long, simply like that, and escape on my own. For that reason I stayed. Apart from that the fact they were my colleagues, my comrades. So I joined the Bosnian Army [...]. When the war began in Kosova, I came back to my birthplace to help out” (KLA invalid, born in 1960; from Podujeva).

140 Interview no. XI. 141 Interview no. XV. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 515

Professional soldiers repeatedly asserted that economic “reintegration” and employment opportunities in the local institutions were strongly influenced by party politics and one’s regional origin, and that they were characterized by a marginalization of those who had been integrated into the Yugoslav system through the Yugoslav army: “The reintegration process was not proportional. Neither in the civil administration, nor in the police and KPC. Depending which party was in power, one could see a political influence and not a correct system of recruitment. [...] Those so-called local commanders would be scared of anybody who is more professional and better educated. So that’s why they would rather sideline them. To look better.”142 However, independent of prior military education, the veterans aspire to reintegration through a legal regulation of their status. In fact, much of the veterans’ discourse is shaped by their fight for recognition and an institutionally regulated status. In a group discussion with veterans, the opening words of a 55-year-old veteran were: “Before we start the interview, I have to tell you. We are not integrated at all; there is still no law, so many years after [the war].“143 One observation made in a documentary on the situation of the KLA veterans that was broadcast in April 2010 was confirmed in many of the interviews I conducted: “The veterans are most disturbed by the fact that they are treated as welfare cases.”144 The portrayal of veterans, invalids, and families of martyrs as welfare cases is perceived as an offense: “Don’t turn the soldiers into parasites, by making them depend on benefits, but the demand is to support them so they can earn their own money, keep their dignity, as they kept it during the war.”145 From this statement it can be understood that the veterans construct themselves as consciously acting subjects following the model of the partisan hero, but also more traditional images of male heroes (kaçak), and therefore reject their treatment as passive recipients in need.146 However, the invalids in particular want to see their services recognized:

142 Interview no. XVII. 143 Interview no. III. 144 Veteranët e luftës së UÇK-së. Jeta në Kosovë debaton për veteranët e luftës së UÇK-së [Life in Kosovo Debates about the KLA War Veterans], Jeta në Kosovë, 5 March 2010, available at . 145 Ibid. 146 Of course this also touches on the issue of constructions of masculinity, which are not debated here. For an examination of the issue of masculinity and gendered nationalism in Kosovo cf. Jamie Munn, National Myths and the Creation of Heroes. A Narrative Perform- ance in Post-Conflict Kosovo, in: Jane Parpart / Marysia Zalewski (eds.), Rethinking the ”Man” Question in International Politics. London, New York 2008; Nita Luci, Transitions and Tradition. Constructions of Gender, Nation and Family in Kosova, in: Karl Kaser / Elisabeth 516 Isabel Ströhle

“I just want to live my life, but since I allowed myself to be wounded for my state, my life is not the same as it was. At least I want to have my status, by the state, or some other definition, that I was a soldier of the Kosovar state.“147 There is a broadly shared consensus among simple fighters that a small group of the KLA leadership has illegitimately profited from the war and became rich overnight, whereas the mass of ordinary fighters has not received the assistance and respect that they deserve.148 Subsequently, demands for recognition are formulated in opposition to the soldiers-turned-politicians, as expressed by a former fighter of the Kosovo Liberation Army who participated in a collective hunger strike in April 2009: “We don’t ask for more than any simple citizen possesses. At least a war veteran deserves some welfare support from his government. Jobs should be found for those who don’t have work to reach a subsistence level. We don’t ask from the government to build us luxurious palaces and to send us luxurious cars, like the ones they have themselves, we only ask that some wellbeing (mirëqenie) is created for the veterans, invalids and all those who contributed to the liberation of Kosovo.”149 Many of my interviewees raised objections against the political instrumentalization of the war status in daily relationships as well as with regard to party politics: “They [the politicians] have profited from the KLA emblem, but also from us. Because we elected them; because we thought they would have more consideration for our situation.”150 Furthermore, harsh criticism is raised against the war associations, which are perceived as being party branches for those parties that have been founded by KLA leaders. A number of veterans refused to join the veterans’ associations on the grounds that people were declared as veterans through nepotism, without really having fought in the war.151 This criticism also challenges the veterans’ organisations’ claim to comprehensively represent the war veterans.

Katschnig-Fasch (eds.), Gender and Nation in South Eastern Europe. Graz 2005; Vjollca Krasniqi, Imagery, Gender and Power. The Politics of Representation in Post-War Kosova, Feminist Review 86 (2007), 1-23. 147 Ibid. 148 Veteranët e luftës së UÇK-së (above fn. 144). 149 Veteranët e luftës ndihen të lënë pas dore [The War Veterans Feel Neglected]. Iliria News Agency, 22 April 2009, available at . 150 Veteranët e luftës së UÇK-së (above fn. 144). 151 There is, however, no possibility of verifying how many veterans refused to enter the associations, nor is it possible to find out how many members were not actively involved in the KLA. The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 517

The political instrumentalization of the war commemoration on certain occasions, such as the remembrance of massacres and battles, is understood to be particularly shameful. However, a multilayered reference to the institutionalized commemorations can be identified, going back to the intimate link of the veterans to the war and particularly to their fallen comrades. While they would reject the instrumental character of the event, they would still participate and pay respect to the fallen fighters of their brigade. A veteran I accompanied to the “KLA Epopee of Dukagjin” ironically distanced himself from a big poster awaiting us at the entrance reading ”Uncle, we still have to finish it” and from the related political competition between the PDK and the AAK: “Look, Ra- mush [Haradinaj] now thinks he has to pay it back to Hashim [Thaçi].” After visiting the martyrs’ graveyards and observing part of the ceremonial speeches, he told me: “On these days, I don’t wanna speak much. You can observe it – we all come here, but we don’t talk. Yet you want to be around those with whom you were in that war.”152 The individual veterans’ accounts shed light on the question of why and to what extent the official war narrative resonates in the war-affected communities and among those who have participated in the war. The experience of war and war-related losses loom large in the life narratives of the interviewees. Despite a private discomfort with the politicization and instrumentalization of war commemoration in the political realm, the veterans seem to comply on a representative level. My research shows that young veterans in particular, as well as those with a professional military education, make less use of their participation in the war as a form of symbolic capital. However, the multiple transitions and the social cleavages in Kosovo also present real obstacles that, for the majority of the former fighters, made it harder to abandon their militarized identity. Taking into account historical forms of war commemoration and the precarious economic situation, the majority of the veterans imagined integration into society by way of a legally regulated status and related benefits.

Conclusion

By juxtaposing the externally led reintegration policies with local conceptions of (re-)integration propagated in the KLA veterans’ circles, this study examined the contentious question of the appropriate position of veterans in a postwar society. Reintegration assistance, being a constituent part of post- conflict reconstruction efforts, ultimately aims to demilitarize society by supporting the former combatants’ return to civilian life after conflict, and to make

152 KLA Veteran, born in 1974, from Peja. 518 Isabel Ströhle the ”former combatant” label meaningless as a basis for constituting a distinct group identity. The assumed division between the combatants and the rest of society is problematic in the context of partisan warfare. As various studies using bottom-up approaches, as well as my own research have shown, social cleavages appear between communities that supported and backed the armed resistance and consequently had intense, first-hand war experiences, and those who were opposed to the armed struggle and/or whose exposure to combat was rather limited. The position of the former fighters is better accounted for by interpreting them as embedded in a community of experience and as participants in a related political movement. A further problem evidenced in this article is that reintegration programs are, in practice, conceptualized very narrowly, although the theoretical concept of “reintegration” would allow for a much broader understanding. The externally guided reintegration programs for the ”demilitarized” (sic) KLA combatants had the objective of providing assistance to the creation of civilian income opportunities. Additionally, the IOM reintegration program has put a strong emphasis on security concerns by transferring the core group of KLA fighters into the KPC. However, limited funding capacities, insufficient understanding of the economic context, and the limited short-to-medium-term perspective of the program resulted in impaired attempts to create sustainable employment opportunities for many of those targeted. Another problematic ”reintegration” paradigm applied in Kosovo is that the former fighters were, contrary to their self-representation, treated as passive recipients of aid, thereby ignoring their agency and potential for contributing to Kosovo’s reconstruction. Local power struggles, as well as conflicting interests and demands based on cleavages enforced by the war experience were not accounted for. Similarly, societal aspects of the ex-combatants’ reintegration and “deep demilitarization”, as well as local ideas of social integration have been neglected in the process. As became clear in the case of Kosovo, reintegration programs can hardly live up to their overly ambitious aims; despite pledges to contextual sensitivity they can hardly do justice to the complexity of postwar realities, and their limited focus does not take into consideration the veterans’ own agendas and postwar politics. The warring parties interpreted the international administrations’ approach to reintegration and their intention to relativize veterans’ collective identity as an attempt to diminish their sacrifices. They perceived UNMIK’s policies towards the veterans as illegitimate and as running counter to their own interests. Subsequently, the international administrations’ efforts to impose a civilian status on the former fighters have been undermined by a powerful combination of veterans’ politics from above and below, which together strive to construct a new political order and a new moral hierarchy based on participation in the KLA’s armed struggle. The KLA’s leaders-turned-politicians derived their The Case of the Kosovo Liberation Army 519 claims to power from their ”sacrifices” and the local authority that they accrued through their wartime leadership, which also increased the personalization of power and the establishment of a support base characterized by clientelistic relationships. The veterans’ organizations, for their part, resisted any form of demilitarization and claimed the right to play a prominent role in society and politics, following the historical model of institutionalized partisan veneration under socialism. Both the OVL’s activities and individual veterans’ narratives demanded societal integration for the veterans through the establishment of a regulated legal status, institutional support, and the recognition of the veterans’ personal sacrifice for the liberation of Kosovo. My study of the individual veterans’ accounts sheds additional light on the question of why, and to what extent, veterans relate to the official war account produced by the politicians with a KLA background and the veterans’ organization. If DDR is to be successful beyond dismantling the machinery of war, more attention must be paid to existing social cleavagesand group boundaries formed on the basis of wartime experiences of varying intensity, beyond a simple distinc- tion between combatants and non-combatants. Hence, the focus on providing assistance for economic inclusion has to be widened to include various aspects of societal and political integration. An integrated approach coordinating reintegration policies with social policy and war victims’ benefits has so far been neglected, but it is a necessary step to provide an integrative mechanism for both individuals and communities.