When the Men with Guns Rule: Explaining Human Rights Failures in Kosovo since 1999 Author(s): Mark A. Wolfgram Source: Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 123, No. 3 (Fall, 2008), pp. 461-484 Published by: The Academy of Political Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20203050 Accessed: 07-11-2017 18:09 UTC

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This content downloaded from 141.107.150.83 on Tue, 07 Nov 2017 18:09:23 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms When the Men with Guns Rule: Explaining Human Rights Failures in Kosovo since 1999

MARK A. WOLFGRAM

The core argument of this paper is that the early failure to estab lish security for all sides in Kosovo after June 1999, when the United Nations (UN) protectorate and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) peace en forcement mission took responsibility for the territory under UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1244, has created the current deplorable human rights conditions in Kosovo. The failure to establish security first has created a serious credibility burden for the international mission in Kosovo. While this article focuses on the specific case of Kosovo, the lessons from this case can be applied to other humanitarian crises. One core lesson is to understand that the new international norms around humanitarian intervention have created a perverse incentive or moral hazard, which may lead rebel groups to create greater chaos to try and draw in more powerful outside players.1 This dynamic has played a role in the conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia from 1991-1995 as well as the current conflict in Darfur, Sudan. In Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, the unwillingness of the Western powers to commit their own troops to significant combat roles led to a reliance on local combatants, who then committed further violations of humanitarian norms, as with Croatian forces in Operation Storm in 1995. A further lesson, one central to the Kosovo case, is to understand the additional risk that these men with guns then pose for postwar democracy building and reconciliation. One core conclusion from the Kosovo case is that Western democracies, if they are serious about improving humanitarian conditions, should withhold

1 See special issue of Ethnopolitics 4 (June 2005).

MARK A. WOLFGRAM is an assistant professor of political science at Oklahoma State University Stillwater. His research draws upon the culturalist traditions in comparative politics, bringing together the study of culture and politics. His current research on social and collective memory focuses on the legacy of violent conflicts.

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intervention or the promise of intervention unless they are willing to make serious sacrifices in terms of the lives of their own troops and substantial financial resources. NATO's emphasis on force protection in Kosovo led to that organization's failure to protect Kosovo's non-Albanian minorities after June 1999, and to a failure to confront the men with guns. The end result is a failed humanitarian intervention in Kosovo, from which the UN and NATO are anxious to distance themselves. In contrast, the occupations of Japan and Germany after World War II were successful because in both cases the occu piers provided real and meaningful security and forced the marginalization of the worst war criminals. The primary reason for the current crisis in Kosovo was NATO's reliance on the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) (Albanian acronym U?K) in fighting the ground war against Belgrade's forces in the March-June 1999 war. This linkage between the war environment and the postwar environment is not ab sent but weak in the postconflict literature, even in the literature that looks critically at the postwar Kosovo environment.2 While there are many periph eral reasons for Kosovo's failed peace, all other reasons spring from the inabil ity and lack of will of NATO's Kosovo Force (KFOR) to confront the KLA in the postwar setting. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the long-term consequences of this wartime alliance between NATO and the KLA, and to caution against such strategies in the future. One common article of faith in the postconflict peace-building (PCPB) lit erature is that security needs to be established, either by local actors, external actors, or the combined efforts of both.3 Part of securing a territory often in volves a process of disarmament, demobilization, reinsertion, and r?int?gra tion of former irregular fighting units involved in the civil war.4 The KLA committed to demilitarization in June 1999 and eventually surrendered 10,000 weapons. The International Crisis Group (ICG) reported in 2000, "The second major military accomplishment of KFOR's mission in Kosovo has been negotiating the KLA's public commitment to disband itself and the agreement to hand over its weapons to the international mission, although

2 International Policy Institute, "Kosovo Report," 28 February 2003, accessed on the website of King's College London at http://ipi.sspp.kcl.ac.uk/rep005/index.html, 27 May 2006; Iain King and Whit Mason, Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006). For examples from other cases see, Elizabeth M. Cousens and Charles K. Cater, Toward Peace in Bosnia: Implementing the Dayton Accords (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001); Stephen John Stedman, Donald Rothchild, and Elizabeth M. Cousens, eds., Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002); Roland Paris, At War's End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 3 For several articles on this topic see the "Special Section: Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: Security, Welfare and Representation," in Security Dialogue 36 (2005). 4 Mark Knight and Alpaslan ?zerdem, "Guns, Camps and Cash: Disarmament, Demobilization and Reinsertion of Former Combatants in Transitions from War to Peace," Journal of Peace Research 41 (2005): 499-516.

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compliance in this regard has clearly been less than perfect."5 The imperfection of the disarmament soon became clear. One report estimates that 330,000 to 460,000 weapons flooded Kosovo during the nationalist Albanian struggle against Belgrade, which left at least 320,000 weapons in the hands of the KLA as of 2003.6 Recognizing this earlier failure, the UN tried to encourage the voluntary surrender of weapons, which had been successful in Albania. The UN collected an additional 155 weapons in Kosovo.7 The KLA was supposedly demobilized and turned into the Kosovo Protec tion Corps (KPC), although this has by and large been window dressing for outside observers. The KLA has been able to maintain its structure within the KPC and has also sought to have influence in the Kosovo Police Service (KPS).8 Members of the KPC were regularly involved in some of the worst violence during the first three years of the international protectorate in Kosovo, although the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and NATO officials regularly denied that this was the case.9 These "demobilized" KLA fighters later turned up as fighters in Macedonia in 2001.10 Nonetheless, misperceptions about the effectiveness of this demobilization and disarmament continue to appear in the literature on Kosovo.11 A RAND report from 2003 concluded, "Kosovo has been the best managed of the U.S. post-Cold War ven tures in nation-building. U.S. and European forces demilitarized the KLA; local and national elections took place two years after the conflict ended; and eco nomic growth has been strong."12 After June 1999, KFOR and UNMIK were either indifferent or slow to react to the wide-ranging pattern of well-organized Albanian revenge killing and violence that spread throughout Kosovo. As Benjamin Ward reported in the Helsinki Monitor, Western political and military officials did condemn

5 ICG, "Kosovo Report Card," ICG Europe Report 100, 28 August 2000, 10, accessed on the website of the ICG at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=1587&l=l, 13 March 2007. 6 Anna Khakee and Nicolas Florquin, Kosovo and the Gun: A Baseline Assessment of Small Arms and Light Weapons in Kosovo (Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2003). 7 Keith Krause and Oliver J?tersonke, "Peace, Security and Development in Post-Conflict Envi ronments," Security Dialogue 36 (December 2005): 447-462. 8 William O'Neill, Kosovo: An Unfinished Peace (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002), chap. 8. 9 King and Mason, "Peace at Any Price," 59. 10 Victor Roudometof, Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria and the Macedonian Question (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002), chap. 6; Robert Hislope, "Between a Bad Peace and a Good War: Insights and Lessons from the Almost-war in Macedonia," Ethnic and Racial Studies 26 (January 2003): 129-151. 11 Christopher P. Ankersen, "Praxis versus Policy: Peacebuilding and the Military" in Tom Keating and W. Andy Knight, eds., Building Sustainable Peace (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2004), 72. Richard Caplan, International Governance of War-Torn Territories: Rule and Reconstruction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 154-155. 12 James Dobbins, John G. McGinn, Keith Crane, Seth G. Jones, Rollie Lai, Andrew Rathmell, Rachel Swanger, and Anga Timilsina, America's Role in Nation-building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003), 118, 126, accessed on the website of RAND at http://www. rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1753/, 15 March 2007.

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the attacks, but "frequently placed in the context of 'understandable but un fortunate revenge.'"13 For example, in the middle of the bloodshed on 29 July 1999, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright commented, after the mas sacre of 14 Serb farmers in Gracko, "here was obviously a dreadful incident. We can't forget that there were some pretty disgusting things that took place before, but the system is set up in order to protect them [the Serbs]. They should stay."14 In August of the same year, General Wesley Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in Europe, stated flatly about the con tinuing violence, "I'm not going to point fingers at the KLA."15 Such formula tions hardly signaled an international presence dedicated to protecting property and innocent lives, however "unforeseen" the upswing in ethnic vio lence and criminal activity.16 Ward argued presciently that the failure of the KLA's "political masters" in the western capitals to hold the KLA account able, "will have far-reaching consequences, and not only for the province's minority populations."17 The end result today is that Kosovo is quickly moving toward a failed peace, despite being located in a so-called "good neighborhood" where the prevalence of Western security interests should result in a fairly high level of sustained commitment to a liberal multiethnic democratic outcome.18 Instead, warlords now sustain themselves on a burgeoning criminal trade in drugs and women, which is worse than before the war,19 thus further weak ening any hope of a centralized state authority being able to guarantee minor ity rights in Kosovo, let alone a rule of law.20 If the Western commitment to PCPB is so weak in a case where scholars have predicated a relatively high level of commitment, serious questions need to be raised about further support for such so-called humanitarian interventions. Kosovo is a critical test case of Western commitments to postconflict societies. The end result of this failure to establish a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence in Kosovo by the international protectorate, led by the UN, par tially funded by the European Union (EU) and guarded to a limited extent by

13 Benjamin Ward, "The Failure to Protect Minorities in Post-War Kosovo," accessed at http:// www.nhc.nl/hm/2000/voll/ward.2000.1.pdf, 22 July 2008. 14 Ibid., 45. 15 "Clark Sees No Evidence KLA Behind Attacks on Serbs," Reuters, 13 August 1999. 16 International Policy Institute, Kosovo Report, paragraph 65. 17 Ward, "Failure to Protect," 46. 18 Robert O. Keohane, "Political Authority after Intervention: Gradations in Sovereignty" in J.L. Holzgrefe and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilemmas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 278. 19 Amnesty International, "'So does that mean I have rights?' Protecting the Human Rights of Women and Girls Trafficked for Forced Prostitution in Kosovo" (AI Index: EUR 70/010/2004, 6 May 2004), accessed on the website of Amnesty International at http://web.amnesty.org/library/ index/engeur700102004, 15 March 2007. Angelika Kartusch and Gabriele Reiter, "Frauenhandel in Nachkriegsgebieten: Bosnien-Hercegovina und der Kosovo," Osteuropa 56:6 (2006): 213-226. 20 Achim Wennmann, "Resourcing the Recurrence of Intrastate Conflict: Parallel Economies and Their Implications for Peacebuilding," Security Dialogue 36 (December 2005): 479-494.

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NATO forces, has been a significant lack of security for the non-Albanian minorities living in Kosovo and the inability of those expelled from Kosovo by the Albanian nationalist forces after June 1999 to return. Of the approxi mately 180,000 Serbs forced from the province by KLA forces and others by August 1999, only approximately 6,800 have been able to return, or about 3.8 percent (see Table 1). Since June 1999, the UN has governed Kosovo as an international protec torate under UNSCR 1244, which maintains Serbia's legal sovereignty over the territory but moved administration of the province to the UN. It is unclear what the UN and NATO's initial plans for an exit strategy were, but these later became enshrined in the "standards before status" procedure. The first three years of UN administration in Kosovo were extremely shaky, and the human rights conditions for Kosovo's non-Albanian minorities became deplorable. Albanian nationalist attacks against non-Albanian minorities continued through 2000 and 2001, as did intra-Albanian violence.21 It was perhaps in re sponse to these continued attacks and the inability of the KPS and the Kosovo judicial system to investigate and prosecute these crimes that in April 2002 Special Representative of the Secretary-General (UN) Michael Steiner out lined the standards before status approach to the UN and the international press.22 The apparent hope was to offer a carrot and a stick to Kosovo's Alba nian leadership, that sovereignty could only be obtained by first meeting tar gets for eight policy areas, including democratic governance, rule of law, freedom of movement, sustainable returns of expellees, economic stability, property rights, dialogue between Albanian and Serbian leaders, and good be havior by the KPC. That review was held on schedule during the summer of 2005, and Kai Eide, the Norwegian diplomat that headed the review, deposited his review with the UN Secretary-General in September 2005.23 Whether or not the Pro visional Institutions of Self-Government (PISG) had met these standards was a political decision, and the UN, under strong pressure from the United States, decided it was now time to move to the next stage despite "uneven" implemen tation of the standards. However, a reading of Eide's report and numerous reports from Amnesty International, the Organization for Security and Coop eration in Europe (OSCE), and the Ombudsperson for Kosovo leaves one with the impression that none of the standards have been met in any significant fashion. Eide's report is filled with so many negative images that one was left with the impression that the status negotiations were predestined to continue no matter what he put in the report. According to Eide, "the current economic

21 O'Neill, Kosovo, chap. 4. 22 Michael Steiner, "Speech to the UN Security Council," 24 April 2002, accessed on the website of UNMIK at http://unmikonline.org/, 5 May 2006. Michael Steiner, "Step by Step in Kosovo: First Things First," International Herald Tribune 24 July 2006, 6. 23UNSCS/2005/635.

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TABLE 1

Sustainable Refugee Returns to Kosovo, 20QQ-200T Year Total Sustainable Returns Total Serb Returns 2000 No data Est. 1,600 2001 No data Est. > 1,000 2002 2,668 Est. 930 2003 3,629 Est. 1,490 2004 2,302 No data 2005 1,925 Est. 640 2006 1,608 593 2007_1,756_558_ Source: Compiled from reports to the UN Secretary-General: UNSC S/2002/62, 15 January 2002, paragraph 19; UNSC S/2003/113, 29 January 2003, paragraph 38; UNSC S/2004/71, 26 January 2004, paragraph 31; UNSC S/2005/88, 14 February 2005, paragraph 45; UNSC S/2006/45, 25 January 2006, paragraph 61; UNSC S/2007/134, 9 March 2007, paragraph 51; UNSC S/2008/211, 28 March 2008, paragraph 26, accessed on the website of the UN at http:// www.un.org/Docs/sc/index.html, 23 June 2008. 'Total Number of Serb Refugees August 1999: Est. 180,000.

situation remains bleak ... the rule of law is hampered by a lack of ability and readiness to enforce legislation on all levels ...The Kosovo justice system is regarded as the weakest of Kosovo's institutions ...With regard to the founda tion for a multi-ethnic society, the situation is grim ...At present, property rights are neither respected nor ensured ...The overall return process has vir tually come to a halt."24 His blunt stating of the facts in a report that recom mends moving forward with the status negotiations process points to just how bad the situation is. Eide's observations are corroborated by other sources, which were not bur dened with the responsibility for reaching a political decision to move forward with status negotiations. To quote one brief passage from the Ombudsperson's July 2005 report, published at the time Eide was beginning his investigation,

In addition to random killings, there have been assaults, bombings, thefts and in cidents of arson and stoning. Seldom have perpetrators been identified or brought to justice, contributing to a perception that these acts can be committed with im punity ...Although the human rights situation in Kosovo has, to a degree, im proved in certain sectors, I must reiterate from the previous annual report that the general level of human rights protection is still below minimum international standards [emphasis in the original].25

The perpetrators of these crimes are seldom brought to justice in part be cause the minority populations lack "sufficient confidence" in Kosovo's various

24UNSC S/2005/635, 2. 25 Ombudsperson Institution in Kosovo, "Fifth Annual Report 2004-2005," 11 July 2005, accessed on the website of the Ombudsperson Institution in Kosovo at http://www.ombudspersonkosovo.org, 27 April 2006.

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authorities to bring charges.26 This is linked to the lack of accountability shown by UNMIK, KFOR, and the KPS for the March 2004 riots. The failure of the criminal justice system to bring perpetrators to justice is clearly outlined in a recent OSCE report, which concludes, "The justice system failed to send out a clear message to the population condemning this type [March 2004 riots] of violence."27 Nonetheless, the failure to meet these standards has not prevented the process from moving forward. This paper seeks to help us understand why this is the case. The rest of this paper proceeds as follows. I begin with a very brief history of the conflict in Kosovo over the course of the twentieth century. The rest of the paper looks at the conditions in Kosovo since June 1999. Why has the UN mission by and large failed Kosovo's minority populations? This paper argues that the wartime alliance forged between NATO, which lacked the political will to commit ground troops to the 1998-1999 conflict, and the KLA, which was fighting a secessionist war against Serbia and Montenegro, has had long-term consequences for postintervention peace-building in Kosovo. The end result is that today Albanian nationalist extremists are setting the agenda in Kosovo rather than the Western powers. This has been most clearly demonstrated by the Western powers' abandonment of the standards before status approach.

Historical Background

Perhaps the best starting point is the nineteenth century, with the emergence of various national movements within the Ottoman Empire.28 As a result of the Ottoman Empire's weakening and the expansion of Russia's influence in the region, the great European powers called the Congress of Berlin in 1878 to try and sort out the region's map, and most importantly from the British perspec tive, limit Russian gains. As noted regional historians Charles and Barbara Jelavich note, "Before the opening of the congress the Balkan states found themselves in a helpless position. The great decisions were being made in Berlin, London, Vienna, and St. Petersburg. The fate of the small nations would depend on the bargains made in their behalf by their patron great powers."29

26 Amnesty International, "Kosovo/Kosova (Serbia and Montenegro): The March Violence?One Year On" (AI Index: EUR 70/006/2005) 17 March 2005, accessed on the website of Amnesty Inter national at http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR700062005?open&of=ENG-2U5, 13 March 2007. 27 OSCE, Department of Human Rights and Rule of Law Legal System Monitoring Section, "Kosovo: The Response of the Justice System to the March 2004 Riots" December 2005, accessed on the website of the OSCE at http://www.osce.org./documents/mik/2005/12/17177_en.pdf, 10 January 2005,4. 28 John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History: Twice There Was a Country (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni versity Press, 1996). Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000). Miranda Vickers, Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). 29 Charles Jelavich and Barbara Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan States, 1804-1920 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977), 155.

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One result of the Congress was the recognition of a sovereign indepen dent Serbian state for the first time in centuries. In 1912 and 1913, Serbia fought successful wars with and against its neighbors and captured what today is Kosovo. This brought a significant ethnic Albanian population within the borders of the relatively new Serbian state. Kosovo's Albanians have resisted their incor poration into the Serbian state from the beginning and have found themselves in the stronger position when outside forces have intervened and fought against the Serbian state. The Albanians found themselves in the superior position during World War I when they sided with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and during World War II they profited from the German and Italian occupation. In this manner, the dynamics of 1998-1999 replicated previous shifts in the local balance of power. Kosovo's ethnic Albanians continued to resist their incorporation into Tito's postwar Yugoslavia but eventually suc cumbed to the more powerful state. The Yugoslav leadership, which included Albanians, at various times tried to suppress, ameliorate, and accommodate the ethnic tensions in the new federal state. What is important to understand is that for Albanian nationalists, autonomy was never enough. Even with the granting of additional autonomy under Tito's 1974 constitution, nationalists continued to agitate for outright independence. After Tito's death in 1980, Al banian separatists rioted in Kosovo in 1981. This political activity led to the formation of the Popular Movement for the Republic of Kosovo (LPRK) in 1982 by a small immigrant group in Switzerland. The importance of this history is to understand that the roots of Albanian nationalism exist in a longer strug gle with Serbs for control of Kosovo that stretches back well before the arrival of Slobodan Milosevic in the mid-1980s. There is no question that the situation deteriorated significantly during the mid-1980s and especially after the rise to power of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia in 1986. But it is important to recognize that Milosevic is not the sole creator or cause of Albanian nationalism in Kosovo. Some Western leaders appear to have been surprised that conflicts in the region did not disappear with his fall from power in October 2000. With the weakening of the Yugoslav state throughout the 1980s, due in large part to an economic crisis, Albanian separatists again organized within Kosovo, this time around the leadership of Ibrahim Rugova, who died in January 2006 from lung cancer. In December 1989, Rugova along with other nationalists established the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and began again the struggle for an independent Kosovo via nonviolent means. As Tim Judah notes, "Before 1989 most Kosovars sympathized with calls for a republic but the idea of an armed uprising ... seemed patently ridiculous, especially since the Serbs were not even running Kosovo."30 During the 1980s, the Albanian leadership within the Yugoslav League of Communists was in control of Kosovo, not Serbia or Serbs.

30Judah, Kosovo, 108.

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With the arrival of the Yugoslav civil wars at the beginning of the 1990s, some within the Albanian nationalist camp began to make the move toward armed resistance to Belgrade's rule. Belgrade reacted by expelling many Al banians from the public service and created a de facto segregation of Kosovo's society. Those Albanians unhappy with the passive resistance favored by Ru gova began to prepare for a military conflict. In 1993, they established the KLA and made their first appearance on the battlefield in 1996 when they attacked Serb refugees in Kosovo.31 These refugees were from the Krajina region in Croatia, and had been expelled during the Croatian Operation Storm August 2005, in which Agim ?eku, who became Kosovo's president af ter Rugova's death, was a commander. Miranda Vickers notes the existence of two violent separatist groups existing in 1996 with the KLA launching attacks on individual Serbs in preparation for a guerrilla campaign.32 The most dramatic change in the balance of power between Belgrade and Kosovo's Albanians took place with the collapse of the government in Albania in 1997, which allowed the KLA to gain access to more weapons. In early 1998, there was a significant upswing in Albanian attacks against Serb targets in Kosovo. The fighting was particularly fierce in the Drenica Valley, west of Pristina, in February and March 1998. This upswing in violence began to gain more at tention from Western observers, and although the West originally identified the KLA as a terrorist organization, most pressure was put on Milosevic to back down. The most blatant example of this one-sided strategy was U.S. represen tative Richard Holbrooke's agreement with Milosevic to withdraw Serbian forces in October 1998, in an attempt to separate the two sides. While Milosevic largely complied with the agreement, no attempt was made to restrain the KLA, which quickly filled the vacuum created by the retreating Serbian forces.33 When did the United States and perhaps other NATO members decide to work more closely with the KLA, and what was the goal of this relationship? These are difficult questions, for which there is only circumstantial evidence. As to the timing, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly report on Kosovo reached the following conclusion,

As the situation worsened [after February 1998] there was increasing partisanship on the part of the West in favour of the Kosovo Albanian victims and, as such, a shift in the direction of the U?K, which in the case of the United States and Great Britain led to clear partisanship for the U?K in 1999. This shift rapidly took place after the first formal meeting with US Ambassador Chris Hill on 15 June 1998 despite the fundamental conflict of interests.34

31 Markus Meckel, "General Report: Kosovo Aftermath and Its Implications for Conflict Preven tion and Crisis Management," NATO Parliamentary Assembly, November 2000, paragraph 82, ac cessed online at http://www.nato-pa.int/archivedpub/comrep/2000/at-261-e.asp, 13 March 2007. 32 Vickers, Between Serb and Albanian, 290-294. 33 Timothy W. Crawford, "Pivotal Deterrence and the Kosovo War: Why the Holbrooke Agree ment Failed," Political Science Quarterly 116 (Winter 2001): 499-523. 34 Meckel, "General Report: Kosovo Aftermath," paragraph 83.

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As to the goal, regional expert Susan Woodward concluded the main objective of U.S. policy in Kosovo was regime change and the removal of Milosevic from power.35 What the October 1998 Holbrooke agreement allowed was room for the KLA to reorganize and rearm after Belgrade's forces had clearly pushed them back during the summer of 1998. Whether or not this was the intention of the United States, this was clearly the outcome. As the NATO Parliamentary Assembly report continues,

The U?K used the Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement as a pause to regroup and to gather strength after the setbacks suffered during the summer. Under the influ ence of the Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) the level of Serbian repression eased off in the period from October to December 1998. On the other hand, there was a lack of effective measures to curb the U?K, who continued to raise money from donations in the United States and Western Europe ... to advertise for re cruits, and to smuggle weapons across the Albanian border. As of December 1998 there was a strong increase in the number of U?K attacks on Serbian security forces and civilians.36

The U.S. government made concerted efforts to make Belgrade and Milosevic appear to be the sole cause of the violence, which suggests a coor dinated government effort to prepare the country for a confrontation with Belgrade and possible war. These efforts were clearly underway in January 1999, when the New York Times and other U.S. media reported the Serbian "massacres" of Albanian civilians at Racak and Rugovo,

After a Serbian attack that killed 45 Albanian civilians in the village of Racak this month, the United States began mobilizing international support for stronger ac tion to stop the violence ... The threat of imminent NATO action did not prevent a Serbian police raid in which 24 ethnic Albanians were killed in the village of Rugovo on Friday.37

I cannot give an exhaustive review of the prewar media here, but this pattern of removing or minimizing references to the KLA was common in U.S. govern ment reports and by extension the U.S. media.38 For example, President Clinton cited Racak on the eve of the war stating, "We should remember what happened in the village of Racak back in January?innocent men, women and children taken from their homes to a gully, forced to kneel in the dirt, sprayed with gunfire?not because of anything they had done, but because of who they were."39

35 Susan L. Woodward, "Humanitarian War: A New Consensus?" Disasters 25 (December 2001): 331-344. 36 Meckel, "General Report: Kosovo Aftermath," paragraph 84. 37 Craig R. Witney, "NATO authorizes Kosovo air raids if Serbs bar talks," The New York Times, 31 January 1999. 38 Mark A. Wolfgram, "Democracy and Propaganda: NATO's War in Kosovo," European Journal of Communication 23 (June 2008): 153-171. 39 The New York Times, "Clinton Voices Anger and Compassion over Serbian Intransigence on Kosovo," 20 March 1999.

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However, it was known at the time that the KLA used Ra?ak as a base from which to attack Serbian targets and that the village defense forces fought alongside the KLA in defending the village. The "ethnic Albanians" killed at Rugovo were also KLA fighters.40 Prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) now admit that half of those killed at Racak were probably KLA fighters or sympathizers.41 Heinz Loquai, a former German military officer and OSCE member, also points to the use that NATO made of the fighting at Racak to justify further escalation against Belgrade and the lack of interest among NATO members to address the KLA arms smuggling.42 With regard to Racak, KLA leader Hashim Tha?i has stated, "A stone fell from our hearts when Walker [US leader of the KVM mission William Walker] came and without hesitation stated, This is a massacre of civilians.'"43 As for the civilian deaths, Tha?i admitted that the KLA followed tactics designed to increase civilian deaths, "Any armed action we undertook would bring retaliation against civilians. We knew we were endangering a great number of civilian lives."44 Crawford and Kuperman have noted that this tactic of trying to create a greater humanitarian disaster on the part of rebel groups has resulted, at least in part, from the moral hazard generated by the new international norms around humanitarian interventions.45 Rebel groups now have a new incentive to create chaos to draw in outside players. Given these facts, one needs to think carefully about labeling NATO's war against Serbia in 1999 a humanitarian intervention. One definition of such an intervention offered by scholars reads as follows:

The threat or use of force across state borders by a state (or group of states) aimed at preventing or ending widespread and grave violations of fundamental human rights of individuals other than its own citizens, without the permission of the state within whose territory force is applied.46 If those same intervening states have, however, helped contribute to the crisis in the first place, the claim to have arrived as defenders of human rights

40 Jo Angerer and Mathias Werth, die story: Es Begann mit einer L?ge, ARD, 8 February 2001,6-9 accessed online at http://www.wdr.de/online/news/kosovoluege/sendung_text.pdf, 16 February 2007. 41 Renate Flottau, Claus Christian Malzahn, and Roland Schleicher, "Taeuschen und Vertuschen," Der Spiegel, 19 March 2001. 42 Heinz Loquai, Der Kosovo-Konflikt?Wege in einen vermeidbaren Krieg: Die Zeit von Ende November 1997 bis M?rz 1999 (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2000), 45-51, 101. 43 Flottau, Malzahn, and Schleicher, "Taeuschen und Vertuschen." 44 Allan Little, "Moral Combat: NATO at War." BBC2 TV, 12 March 2000, accessed on the web site of the BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/panorama/transcripts/transcript_ 12_03_00.txt, 10 July 2007. 45 Timothy W. Crawford, "Moral Hazard, Intervention and Internal War: A Conceptual Analysis," Ethnopolitics 4 (June 2005): 175-193; Alan J. Kuperman, "Suicidal Rebellions and the Moral Hazard of Humanitarian Intervention," Ethnopolitics 4 (June 2005): 149-173. 46 J.L. Holzgrefe, "The Humanitarian Intervention Debate" in Holzgrefe and Keohane, eds., Humanitarian Intervention, 18.

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at the end is indeed dubious at best. After at least the appearance of trying to reach a negotiated settlement at Rambouillet, France, in February and March 1999, NATO launched its air campaign against Serbia on the 24 March. As the Western powers lacked the political will to commit ground troops to the conflict, they came to rely upon the KLA to fight the ground war against Belgrade's forces in Kosovo. This pre- and postwar alliance has been the cause of many of the postintervention problems Kosovo continues to face today.

Kosovo Post-June 1999

Robert Keohane has argued that the preintervention decision should in part be based upon the potential for success afterward in terms of institution building and seeking a solution by unbundling the concept of sovereignty. Keohane argues that the measurement of success should vary from case to case, as one cannot expect the same level of Western commitment near and far. Keohane writes, "In good neighborhoods, the bar might be relatively high: significant movement towards an internally sustainable liberal democracy. We can hope for such a development in Bosnia and Kosovo, even though we may have to be satisfied with very slow progress."47 One cannot argue against hope, but is it realistic given the current circumstances? (As to what qualifies as a "good neighborhood," scholars disagree. In the same volume, Michael Ignatieff identifies Kosovo as existing in a "bad neighborhood.")48 Kosovo therefore represents a critical test case for those who advocate in favor of humanitarian interventions. There is no question that U.S. and Euro pean powers are concerned about stability in the region. Therefore, we should expect a relatively high level of international commitment to Kosovo. On a per capita basis, Kosovo (US$526) has received more money than Iraq (US$225) or Afghanistan (US$30).49 In terms of troops, NATO dedicated 50 times as many troops to Kosovo as Afghanistan, on a per capita basis. If, on the other hand, Kosovo can be labeled a failure, then one has to question seriously the potential for such interventions to bear the fruit of peace and stability. One can rightfully ask, if the Western powers cannot make a serious and successful long-term commitment to peace-building in Kosovo, then where? One critical lesson that flows from Kosovo is the absolute necessity of es tablishing security first. However, this may require significant use of force and the loss of life on the part of outside interveners. Kosovo demonstrates what happens when the political will to establish security is insufficient in large part because the larger national interests, those that trump the humanitarian inter

47 Keohane, "Political Authority," 278. 48 Michael Ignatieff, "State Failure and Nation-Building" in Holzgrefe and Keohane, eds., Human itarian Intervention, 303. 49 Jeremy M. Wilson, "Law and Order in an Emerging Democracy: Lessons from the Reconstruc tion of Kosovo's Police and Justice Systems," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (May 2006): 152-178.

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ventionist's concerns with human rights, can perhaps be more easily satisfied without substantial sacrifice. NATO's general overriding interest was to make sure that its troops were not harmed and that a basic crude stability could be achieved, that is, open warfare with Serbian forces could be avoided. As later events demonstrated, NATO did not view the protection of minorities as a pri ority worthy of great sacrifices. The failure of NATO and the UN to provide basic security in Kosovo, es pecially during the first three years and even until today, requires some expla nation. The failure to provide this security is at direct odds with the stated purposes of the international organizations responsible for Kosovo. O'Neill suggests that there was a fear on the part of NATO that the KLA could pose a danger to their troops and that the KLA should be given a fairly free reign over the postwar situation.50 Is this simply bad policymaking or was some other purpose being served? Whatever the motives or misguided policymaking, a pattern became clear early on. O'Neill provides ample evidence that the Americans in particular were interested in working with the KLA, rather than challenging their authority or disarming them, and thus allowing more moder ate forces to step in. O'Neill writes, "A prevailing and widespread perception in Kosovo was that [Hacim] Tha?i, Agim ?eku (former military commander of the U?K), U?K zone commander Ramush Haradinaj and other major U?K leaders had the full backing and support of the United States."51 Richard Caplan notes that UNMIK had little choice but to deal with Tha?i and other KLA leaders, due to "the KLA's power."52 But why was the KLA able to maintain that "power"? Today, Ramush Haradinaj has now become the polit ical darling of UNMIK and the United States despite his indictment by the ICTY in March 2005 on 37 counts of murder, torture, and rape in the 1998 1999 war. His trial along with two other former KLA commanders began at the ICTY in March 2007 and ended with his acquittal. Reflecting on the past, O'Neill continues, "A UN official notes, 'The Americans told us that we must deal with Tha?i and ?eku, that these are 'our boys' and to forget about Rugova because he is a drunk.'" Another Kosovo Albanian analyst also noted the open intimidation of political moder ates stating to O'Neill, "Instead of cracking down on the warlords, KFOR and UNMIK allowed them to divide Kosovo into different zones where these war lords generate enormous wealth."53 The profits from these criminal enterprises continue to feed these regional power bases and work against securing basic standards of good governance in Kosovo. The Albanian nationalist extremists had a clear goal of expelling as much of the non-Albanian population from Kosovo as possible. According to

50 O'Neill, Kosovo, Al. 51 Ibid., 46-47. 52 Caplan, International Governance, 247. 53 O'Neill, Kosovo, 47.

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Amnesty International, by August 1999 an estimated 235,000 people had fled Kosovo, of which 180,000 were Serbs, due to fear of attacks by the KLA and others.54 The best statistical testimony to the continuing security threats, lack of property rights, and economic collapse is the lack of sustainable refugee re turns since 2000, when the UN first collected such data. While considering the data in Table 1, it is worth noting that none of the 1,371 Serbs displaced by the March 2004 riots were able to return as of the end of 2005, despite con certed efforts to rebuild their homes.55 A 2006 report indicates that although the UN has successfully administered property restitution claims, this process has been divorced from any serious effort to aid refugee returns.56 Refugees have sometimes received the legal right to their property only to return and find it destroyed, underlining again the absence of property rights and security. This also creates a strong psychological barrier to returning and rebuilding. As Joanna Harvey has shown in her comparison of refugee returns in Croatia and Bosnia, security is one obstacle, but so is the lack of political will by outside actors to overcome obstructionist local officials. Harvey con cludes that the case of weak refugee returns to Kosovo is similar to the Croa tian case because of, "the absence of refugees in third countries, the apparent absence of a peace-building imperative behind the return of minorities, and the relative lack of concern in international public opinion about the plight of the [internally displaced persons] IDPs."57 Rather than increasing with the "progress" toward the standards before status, one of which is sustainable refugee returns, the number of returning Serb refugees has decreased over time, especially since the March 2004 riots. What burden of responsibility for this should be placed at the door of the in ternational community? I argue a great deal as NATO and the UN did little or nothing during the first years of the international administration to stop or re verse the process. Was this only incompetence and fear on the part of UNMIK and NATO, or did this serve some larger overriding interest in "regional sta bility"? Although it is unpleasant to even suggest a rationale behind NATO's policy of inaction and accommodation of Albanian nationalist extremists, one must at least contemplate that some in the NATO leadership had determined that a clearer ethnic division of Kosovo between Albanian and non-Albanian regions might make the province more governable. If Kosovo could only be governed by one group or the other, some may have argued that it was perhaps better to simply side with the Albanians as they formed the clear 90 percent majority of the province's population. These same arguments in favor of violent partitions have been made by some aca

54 Amnesty International, Serbia and Montenegro, 7. 55UNSC S/2006/45, 25 January 2006, paragraph 61. 56 Anneke Rachel Smit, "Housing and Property Restitution and IDP Return in Kosovo," Interna tional Migration 44 (August 2006): 63-88. 57 Joanna Harvey, "Return Dynamics in Bosnia and Croatia: A Comparative Analysis," Interna tional Migration 44 (August 2006): 89-114.

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demies, most notably Chaim Kaufmann.58 In contrast, a recent statistical study by Jaroslav Tir shows that while peaceful partitions may lead to future peace, violent partitions, such as Kosovo, bring extremists to the forefront and greatly increase the potential for future violence.59 One need only consider the evi dence presented here to reflect on the costs of using nationalist extremists to achieve "regional stability." Whatever the motivations, incompetence or uncertainty, the outcome is clear. The OSCE carefully documented the nature of these attacks between June and October 1999, which included murder, kidnapping, torture, beatings, arbitrary arrests, and numerous acts of arson.60 And the attacks continued. Two years later, in August 2001, a UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) report noted, "Just looking through the police reports of the past month, arson, shooting incidents, and assaults directed at members of the Serbian, RAE [Roma, Ashkalia, and Egyptian], Bosniak and Gorani commu nities continue to happen on a daily basis."61 It was against this background of three years of almost unchecked violence against minorities that the UN launched its standards before status campaign.

Standards before Status

In April 2002, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (UN) (SRSG) Michael Steiner outlined the standards before status procedure that was to be used as a guide toward the future status of Kosovo, which was left unresolved by UNSCR 1244. The hope, clearly expressed at the time, was that the Albanian leadership would begin to discipline its members and work to ward the standards demanded by the international community. Steiner wrote at the time, "Those Kosovo leaders who demand status [i.e., sovereignty] now must understand that substantial autonomy entails substantial self-reliance. Kosovo's final status cannot be considered in a meaningful way until its insti tutions, economy and political culture have evolved so that it can administer itself without extensive outside support or interference. Our philosophy, stan dards before status, expresses a logical necessity."62 The great powers clearly stated their commitment to the standards before status approach. In the spring of 2003, the members of the Contact Group

58 For a recent discussion and evaluation of Kaufmann's argument see the special edition of Secu rity Studies 13 (Summer 2004). 59 Jaroslav Tir, "Dividing Countries to Promote Peace: Prospects for Long-Term Success of Parti tions," Journal of Peace Research 42 (September 2005): 545-562. 60 OSCE, "Kosovo/Kosova: As Seen, As Told," part 2, Report on Human Rights Findings of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, June to October 1999 (Warsaw: OSCE, 1999), accessed on the website of the OSCE at http://www.osce.org/item/17756.html, 2 April 2007. 61 UNMIK, Press Briefing 9 August 2001, accessed on the website of the United Nations at http:// www.un.org/peace/kosovo/briefing/pressbrief9aug01.htm, 4 May 2006. 62 Steiner, "Step by Step."

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(United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, and Russia), which was composed in 1994 to deal with the crisis in Bosnia, endorsed the approach and set the review to take place in mid-2005.63 The public commitment to the process was expressed time and again by representatives of the Western powers in the UN Security Council and the media.64 Then, finally, at the end of March 2004, UNMIK published the Kosovo Standards Implementation Plan.65 But before the plan could even be made public, extreme Albanian nationalists had again seized the initiative from the international community with the riots of 17 and 18 March 2004. An estimated 51,000 Albanians took part in the riots, which swept through Kosovo over those two days and dam aged or destroyed 730 minority houses as well as 36 cultural or religious sites.66 The attacks were directed at non-Albanian minorities, primarily Serbs. While the spark that allegedly started the riots may or may not have been staged, there is clear evidence that some of the violence was again orchestrated and organized, as has been the case since 1999. For some in the international com munity, in particular the United States, the standards before status approach was quickly declared impractical.

March 2004 Riots

The spark for the riots was the reported drowning of three Albanian children in the Ibar River on the 16 March. The Kosovo Albanian media reported the incident as an example of continued Serb aggression against Albanians and intentionally sought to fan the flames of ethnic hatred.67 A forth "survivor" claimed that Serbs with dogs had chased the children into the river, although an official investigation failed to find evidence to corroborate the story. The extent of the physical, symbolic, and psychological damage from the riots should not be underestimated. The rioters drove an additional 4,000 non-Albanians from their homes, many of which they then burned. UNMIK officials have since made much of the rebuilding of these homes, although

63 ICG, European Report 161, 24 January 2005, 2, accessed on the website of the ICG at http:// www.crisisgroup.org, 4 May 2006. 64 UN Press Release SC/7958 (17 December 2003), accessed on the website of the UN at http:// www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/sc7958.doc.htm, 4 December 2005; UN Press Release SC/7999 (6 February 2004), accessed on the website of the UN at http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/ sc7999.doc.htm, 4 December 2005. 65 UNMIK, "Kosovo Standards Implementation Plan," accessed on the website of the UNMIK at http://www.un.org/peace/kosovo/briefing/pressbrief9aug01.htm, 12 December 2005. 66UNSC S/2004/348, 30 April 2004, paragraph 3. 67 OSCE, "An Inquiry into the Performance of Kosovo TVs," 23 March 2004, accessed on the website of the OSCE at http://www.osce.org/documents/mik/2004/04/2765_en.pdf, 28 August 2006; Shira Loewenberg, "United Nations Media Strategy Recommendations for Improvement in Peace keeping Operations?Case Study: UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo," accessed on the website of the UN Peace Keeping Best Practices at http://pbpu.unlb.org/pbpu/library/UN%20Media% 20Final% [email protected], 28 August 2006.

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because the security conditions are so poor the former inhabitants are unable to return. The rioters also attacked and either destroyed or heavily damaged 36 Orthodox churches, monasteries, and other religious sites. The attacks on symbols of Serbian heritage in Kosovo is significant, for it demonstrates the depth of the desire on the part of some Albanians to remove all historical and modern Serbian traces from the province, so as to be able to deny that they ever had any claim to the land.68 For the most part, the initial response from NATO forces was a failure, although some forces did help Serbs escape and managed to defend property. The German government eventually had to admit that the failure of their troops to act and protect the lives and property of non Albanians was a disaster, although it took them six months to do so.69 As in 1999 until the present, there was clear evidence that Albanian na tionalist extremists had organized some aspects of the riots. For some reason, UNMIK and NATO continue to wish to maintain a public fa?ade that suggests otherwise. When Derek Chappell, a now former UNMIK police spokesperson, openly questioned the initial UN and NATO claims that the violence was spontaneous and a result of Kosovo's unresolved international status (similar to claims that had been made between 1999 and 2002), he was fired.70 Chappell said in a later interview, "Shortly after it happened my many Albanian contacts started calling and giving me information that there was a degree of organiza tion and not entirely spontaneous, as many were saying, and I think my com ments ran counter to the political wishes of Albanian political leaders and maybe some in the international community."71 There were good reasons for Chappell to believe this to be the case as at least one previous riot plot had been uncovered in 2003. Whit Mason, now a former UNMIK employee, re cently reported, "An intelligence agency had discovered a plan for a Kosovo wide uprising in November 2003; the plotters had shelved the plan when the original pretext evaporated but were looking for a new catalyst to put it into effect."72 If this is true, NATO's culpability for the March 2004 riots is even greater. The ICG saw Chappell as a credible enough witness that they quoted him in their major report on the March riots noting that Chappell had stated there must have been "a degree of organization behind them."73 The critical factor is to draw a distinction between the extremes of "central organization" and

68 Sarah Jane Meharg, "Identicide and the Geographies of Post-Conflict Reconstruction," Pro ceedings of the 6th International Conference on Military Geology and Geography (2005). 69 '"Kosovo-Einsatz eine Katastrophe,' Neue Befehle f?r die deutsche Kfor-Truppe," Frankfurter Allgemeine, 26 August 2004, 1. 70 Whit Mason, "Kosovo: Unraveling the Knot," World Policy Journal 23 (Fall 2006): 87-98. 71 Paul Workman, "Kosovo: A Protectorate in Trouble," 2004, accessed on the website of the CBC at http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/balkans/workman.html, 26 April 2006. 72 Whit Mason, "Kosovo: Unraveling the Knot," 90. 73 ICG, "Collapse in Kosovo," Europe Report 155, 22 April 2004, accessed on the ICG website at http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/europe/balkans/155_collapse_in_kosovo_revised.pdf, 15.

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"local organization." The ICG report notes, "The reality appears to have been a series of local outbursts and actions without central planning but with a high degree of local coordination."74 Later, the ICG report states, "The nearly syn chronized appearance of many of the attacks launched from mid-afternoon to evening of the first day in locations such as Kosovo Polje, Lipjan [sic Lipljan] and Obilic?just as KFOR and the police committed forces to Caglavica? speaks to a degree of command and control... The behaviour of mobs around Kosovo on 17-18 March was a whirlwind mix on the one hand of incoherent anger searching for direction and outlets, and on the other of determined groups displaying cohesion and calculation."75 The evidence of organized vio lence was strong enough for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to report on 30 April 2004, "The onslaught led by Kosovo Albanian extremists against the Serb, Roma and Ashkali communities of Kosovo was an organized, wide spread, and targeted campaign."76 Amnesty International reported, noting that the "centrally organized, Kosovo-wide" thesis remains controversial, "How ever, KFOR spokesperson Lt. Col. James Moran told Amnesty International on 5 May 2004 that KFOR did see the riots as being organized and he spoke of bus loads of organizers travelling [sic] from town to town which KFOR had stopped."77 O'Neill's report about the conditions in Kosovo from 1999 to 2001 re mained largely unchanged in 2003 and 2004. It would be wrong to characterize UNMIK's responses as wholly passive, but they have been clearly ineffective. When UNMIK moved against ex-KLA fighters for some of this violence, they were faced down by mass street protests by tens of thousands of Kosovo Albanians during which attacks against UNMIK property escalated.78 Alba nian politicians, with a few exceptions, have encouraged these actions when they fail to condemn the violence or blame UNMIK and Serbia for all the province's problems.79 The legal system in Kosovo has failed to respond to the March riots. Ac cording to the OSCE's Legal System Monitoring Section, which issues periodic reports on the status of the legal system, very few improvements have been made in dealing with the past impunity with which Albanians have been able to commit crimes against non-Albanian minorities since 1999. Of the estimated 51,000 participants in the March 2004 riots, Kosovo's legal authorities have

74 Ibid., 15. 75 Ibid., 16-17. 76 UNSC S/2004/348, 30 April 2004, paragraph 2, accessed on the UN website at http://daccessdds. un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/331/80/IMG/N0433180.pdf?OpenElement, 14 March 2007. 77 Amnesty International, "Serbia and Montenegro," 3 ft., 9. 78 Amnesty International, "Concerns in Europe and Central Asia, June-December 2003" (AI Index: EUR 01/01/2004) April 2004, accessed on the website of Amnesty International at http://web.amnesty. org/library/index/engeur010012004, 1 December 2005. 79 Amnesty International, "Serbia and Montenegro."

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charged 426 with criminal offenses. Of this number, 209 have been convicted, 12 acquitted, 110 cases are still pending, and in 95 cases, the charges were dropped. The rate of conviction against the total number of participants is cur rently at 0.4 percent. The December 2005 OSCE report concludes, "The jus tice system failed to send out a clear message to the population condemning this type of violence. Such a response does not serve as a sufficient deterrent from engaging in public disorder on a similar massive scale and therefore does not fulfil [sic] the full potential of the preventive function of the justice sys tem."80 In their December 2006 publication, the OSCE Legal Section decided to revisit yet again the issue of witness protection, "Incidents of witness intim idation are reported regularly. Although the OSCE has previously reported about problems protecting witnesses in the criminal justice system in Kosovo, the failure to solve this problem requires its re-examination. Moreover, the OSCE has recently monitored cases where judicial and other relevant author ities (e.g. the police) did not respond adequately to witness intimidation. Also, the police have not properly provided testimony in criminal proceedings against individuals suspected of having threatened witnesses."81 The OSCE has revisited the problem of witness protection each year since 2002.82 One reasonable solution to the problem of establishing the rule of law in Kosovo post-June 1999 would have been to extend the jurisdiction of the ICTY to Kosovo. Indeed, Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the ICTY, asked for just such an extension. She was well aware that the failure of the tribunal to address abuses against minorities after June 1999 would seriously weaken the credibility of the court. O'Neill writes, Del Ponte recognized that what has happened in Kosovo since NATO and UN MIK assumed responsibility is not a "different kind of killing." She said the tribu nal's "forced inaction over what has happened in Kosovo since June 1999 ... undermines the Tribunal's historical credibility. We must ensure that the Tribu nal's unique chance to bring justice to the populations of the former Yugoslavia does not pass into history as having been flawed and biased in favor of one ethnic group against another."83

80 OSCE, Department of Human Rights and Rule of Law Legal System Monitoring Section, "The Response of the Justice System to the March 2004 Riots," December 2005, accessed on the website of the OSCE at http://www.osce.org./documents/mik/2005/12/17177_en.pdf, 22 July 2008. 81 OSCE, Mission in Kosovo, "Review of the Criminal Justice System in Kosovo 2006," 14 Decem ber 2006, 8, accessed at http://www.osce.org/documents/mik/2006/12/22703_en.pdf, 22 July 2008. 82 OSCE, Mission in Kosovo, "The Response of the Justice System to the March 2004 Riots," 2 December 2005, 8-21, accessed at http://www.osce.org/documents/mik/2005/12/17177_en.pdf, 22 July 2008; "Review of the Criminal Justice System (April 2003-October 2004) Crime, Detention and Punishment," 14 December 2004, 74-77, accessed at http://www.osce.org/documents/mik/2004/ 12/3984_en.pdf, 22 July 2008; "Review of the Criminal Justice System (March 2002-April 2003), Pro tection of witnesses in the criminal justice system," 20 May 2003, accessed at http://www.osce.org/ documents/mik/2003/05/859_en.pdf, 22 July 2008. 83 O'Neill, Kosovo, 53.

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NATO leaders made sure that such an extension would not be forthcoming as the Americans in particular are loath to find their troops under the jurisdic tion of an international court. Western leadership reactions to the riots split into two camps. One camp argued that the riots demonstrated that the international community must re double its efforts to secure the position of minorities in Kosovo and make the Albanian leadership realize that the West would not abandon the standards before status procedure. Writing in the Financial Times, Carl Bildt, former Swedish Prime Minister and UN envoy to the Balkans, defended the standards approach writing, "There can be no question that this was a deliberate attempt to drive away as many Serbs as possible, to inflict maximum damage on the UN and to test how far Nato could be driven into accepting the new realities ... Reasserting a demand for standards means reasserting the authority of the international community."84 Bildt went on to warn that some policymakers, particularly in the United States, now saw no realistic future for Kosovo as a multiethnic state and that "political reality" dictated that status negotiations begin as scheduled in 2005. Other leaders began to take very different lessons from the riots and began to argue for a weakening of the standards before status approach to take into ac count the "new reality" in Kosovo (although the riots simply demonstrated the old reality of serious security problems in Kosovo for the non-Albanian minori ties). This line of argumentation quickly became apparent within the Bush ad ministration and was echoed by reports coming from the ICG, a think tank that is heavily funded by NATO countries. The ICG report released soon after the March 2004 riots blamed the uncertainty of Kosovo's final status for the lack of economic development and stated that "the present policy of 'standards be fore status' is only half a policy."85 Less than a year later in January 2005, the ICG released a new report favoring Kosovo's conditional independence and be gan a full-scale media campaign to back Kosovo's drive toward independence.86 This was a reversal from the earlier backing the ICG had lent the same standards based process in 2002, when that policy was favored by the same Western elites.87 It is not wrongheaded of the ICG to point to the failure of economic de velopment in Kosovo as a source of a great deal of frustration, but it is an il

84 Carl Bildt, "Why Kosovo must not submit to violence," Financial Times, 22 March 2004. 85 ICG, "Collapse in Kosovo." 86 ICG, European Report 161; Gareth Evans, "It's time to talk independence for Kosovo," Inter national Herald Tribune, 25 January 2005; Wesley Clark, "Set Kosovo Free," Wall Street Journal, 1 February 2005; Wesley Clark, "A Settlement for Kosovo," The New York Times, 14 March 2005; Pat Cox, "Only full independence can save Kosovo," The Irish Times, 14 February 2005; Lord Patten of Barnes, "Action is needed to keep Kosovo on track," Financial Times, 23 February 2005. 87 ICG, "A Kosovo Roadmap (1): Addressing Final Status," ICG Europe Report 125,1 March 2002, accessed on the website of the ICG at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=1640&l=l, 16 Feb ruary 2005. ICG, "A Kosovo Roadmap (2): International Benchmarks," ICG Europe Report 125, 1 March 2002, accessed at the website of the ICG at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm? id=1687&l=l, 16 February 2005.

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lusion to believe that addressing Kosovo's future status will unlock the eco nomic potential of a historically poor region. A 2008 World Bank report states that 60 percent of the population lives in poverty or extreme poverty, which is slightly above or slightly below 1 euro per day.88 The most up-to-date unem ployment data from a 2006 World Bank report states that unemployment was over 50 percent, although the same World Bank report is on-side with other key Western institutions in blaming the uncertainty surrounding Kosovo's future sta tus rather than general lawlessness, lack of property rights, and a lack of secu rity for the current situation.89 According to the UN, the United States, the World Bank, and the ICG, Kosovo's unresolved status is the source of all or at least most of its ills. This is a convenient conclusion, for it draws our atten tion away from the notable failures to address basic security, minority rights, rule of law, or property rights from the beginning of the UN and NATO post conflict peace-building mission in Kosovo. Conclusion

I have sought to highlight in this paper that the continuing problem of securing minority rights in Kosovo can be traced back to decisions made by UNMIK and NATO in June 1999, if not back in the fall of 1998. Whatever the point at which the decision was made, NATO's willingness to form an alliance with the KLA to remove Serbian forces from Kosovo has had serious long-term consequences. Through both design and mismanagement, UNMIK and NATO have failed to provide security for Kosovo's minorities and basic rule of law structures. This failure to provide security first as a core tenant of PCPB will have serious long-term consequences for Kosovo's future stability and that of the region. It also provides a dangerous example for other violent separatist groups. As Whit Mason concludes, echoing the concerns of Kuperman, Crawford, and others warning about the moral hazard of humanitarian interventions, "The outcome [in Kosovo] will also send a powerful signal to would-be separatists. If Kosovo gains its independence without having embraced ethnic diversity or the rule of law, it will be a thundering confirmation of the axiom that might makes right."90 This is exactly the warning that Benjamin Ward issued in his 2000 Helsinki Report article, "It is a failure [Western leaders to confront the KLA leadership]

88 World Bank, Kosovo, Country Brief 2007 (updated February 2008), accessed on the website of the World Bank at http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/ECAEXT/ KOSOVOEXTN/0?contentMDK:20629286~menuPK:297777~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~ theSitePK:297770,00.html#Economy, 23 June 2008. 89 World Bank, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Unit Europe and Central Asia Region, "Kosovo Poverty Assessment: Promoting Opportunity, Security, and Participation for All," 16 June 2005, Report No. 32378-XK, accessed on the website of the World Bank at http://siteresources. worldbank.org/INTKOSOVO/Country%20Home/20662049/Kosovo_PA_report_final-16June2005.pdf, 28 August 2006. 90 Mason, "Kosovo: Unraveling the Knot," 95.

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that will have far-reaching consequences, and not only for the province's minor ity populations."91 After the October 2004 assembly elections, President Rugova decided that his LDK party would govern with the much smaller AAK (Kosovo Alliance for the Future) headed by Ramush Haradinaj, who at the time was widely sus pected to be under investigation by the ICTY for war crimes committed prior to June 1999. The appointment came as a surprise to some, but U.S. leaders quickly began to try and work with the new prime minister. U.S. UNMIK dep uty chief Larry Rossin said that he was "pleasantly surprised" by Haradinaj's willingness to move forward with the Kosovo Standards Implementation Plan standards before status document. SRSG Jessen-Petersen also claimed that it was a pleasure to work with the new prime minister.92 As in the past, UNMIK, NATO, and the United States quickly began to make the necessary accommo dations with former KLA leaders. With Haradinaj expecting to be indicted in March 2005, he had two choices. He could threaten new violence in the province or he could order his men to remain calm?for which he could expect in return help from some Western leaders in handling his case before the ICTY. The United States has long recognized Haradinaj as a key player who con trolled some of the men with guns on the ground in Kosovo, and U.S. forces have helped him in the past. Haradinaj and his family have long been involved in criminal activities in the Decani municipality of Kosovo, and he and his brother, Daut, were injured in an attack on a rival family in July 2000, during the period of violence described by O'Neill. UNMIK police tried to investigate the case, but the United States removed Ramush Haradinaj from the scene and also covered up his involvement in the attack.93 Daut continued to be involved in criminal activity, and UNMIK forces finally captured him in December 2002, from which point forward the AAK party led by his brother took a more radical anti-UNMIK stance throughout 2003 including the organization of protests.94 Since his appointment as prime minister in October 2004 and the further deterioration of the security situation, as reflected in the March 2004 riots, Ramush Haradinaj became a highly sought-after Albanian leader. A March 2005 ICG report went so far as to call for his pretrial release from the ICTY so as to help maintain the "peace" in Kosovo. In September 2005, the American UNMIK deputy Larry Rossin testified before the ICTY for Haradinaj's early release, which the court granted. As one journalist commented, "Now UNMIK is repaying the favor."95 When the court went even further and permitted Haradinaj to return to political life, chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte objected, noting that this could lead to the intimidation of witnesses for his upcoming

91 Ward, "The failure to protect," 46. 92 ICG, "Kosovo after Haradinaj," ICG Europe Report 163,26 May 2005, accessed on the website of the ICG at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm71=l&id=3474, 26 November 2005. 93 Ibid., 10. 94 Ibid., 7. 95 Laurent Abadie, "UNMIK pleads for Haradinaj," International Justice Tribune, 24 October 2005.

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trial. Her objections were ignored. The intimidation of witnesses is common place in trials against Albanians in Kosovo. In Haradinaj's case, four of them have turned up dead, three of them shot, one of them run down by a car in the streets of Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital, just weeks before Haradinaj's trial was to begin in March 2007. Del Ponte said of Haradinaj's trial that this was, "a prosecution that some did not want to see brought, and that few sup ported by their cooperation at both the international and local level."96 The willingness of top UNMIK and U.S. officials to meet with Haradinaj throughout his indictment has done little to make witnesses feel secure. In 2006, with Kosovo's future status under discussion, Agim ?eku became a "natural choice" as Kosovo's next leader after Rugova's death. He became president in March 2006. He was a natural choice for those wishing to keep former KLA fighters in-line, but also in power in Kosovo. He is hardly a figure of reconciliation for the minority Serbian population. ?eku is the former ethnic Albanian Croatian army commander who was involved in fighting on two previous occasions where Serbian civilians were killed and expelled from their homes: the Medak Pocket (1993), where he was wounded,97 and Operation Storm (1995).98 As noted above, ?eku was also "one of our boys" in Kosovo, where he received strong U.S. backing.99 Al though ?eku's exact role at the Medak Pocket and Operation Storm remains unclear (Kusovac's report names him a "commander"), Croatian troops com mitted serious war crimes in both operations,100 and as we have seen above, the behavior of the KLA has been extremely problematic post-June 1999. In his first public address as president, ?eku gave few words of reconciliation and instead focused on "the liberation war," its "martyrs, [and] those who fell for Kosova's freedom." He said in closing, "We were chosen by history to bring freedom to Kosova, together with our friends."101 His friends, the Western powers, clearly want an ethnic Albanian strong man in control of a volatile situation they are anxious to leave. Either UNMIK, NATO, and the United States have failed to learn from their past experiences in Kosovo, or they are following a consistent policy of

96 Nicholas Wood, "Tale of two worlds for Kosovo politician; Albanian leader also former guerrilla," International Herald Tribune, 27 March 2007. 97 Kosovapress news agency, "Biography of Kosovo premier-designate ?eku," 2 March 2006. 98 Jeffrey Benner, "War Criminal, Ally, or Both?" Mother Jones, 21 May 1999, accessed on the website of Mother Jones at http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/total_coverage/kosovo/ ?eku.html, 26 February 2006; Zoran Kusovac, "Croat general to lead KLA as part of reorganization," Jane's Defense Weekly, 10 May 1999, accessed on the website of Jane's Defense Weekly at http://www. janes.com/defence/news/kosovo/jdw990510_02_n.shtml, 26 February 2006. "O'Neill, Kosovo, 47. 100 Amnesty International, "Croatia: Impunity for Killings after 'Storm,'" (AI Index: EUR 64/004/ 1998) 1 August 1998, accessed at the website of Amnesty International at http://web.amnesty.org/ library/index/engeur640041998, 1 December 2005; Carol Off, The Ghosts of the Medak Pocket: The Story of Canada's Secret War (Random House Canada, 2004). loi RTK jy ?New Premier podges t0 take Kosovo to 'Final Victory,'" 10 March 2006.

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collaborating with the men with guns to achieve their goals of stability, if not peace. Whether or not this continues to meet any sort of standards with regard to what one might term a humanitarian intervention remains an open political question, which can be debated. The clear perspective of this paper is that Western collaboration with the men with guns has seriously damaged the chances for peace, while crude stability may be achieved. Whether or not the PCPB mission in Kosovo can be termed a success or may be labeled a suc cess in the future remains open. What is not in doubt is that the current human rights crisis in Kosovo has resulted from clear policy decisions made in key Western capitals. The failure to establish security for Kosovo's minorities and a functioning rule of law state to protect those minorities rests squarely with the UN, NATO, and the United States.*

Postscript

Kosovo's Albanian leadership unilaterally declared the province's independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008. In response, the Serbian leadership in Belgrade has almost universally rejected the declaration as illegal and a violation of international law. The Serbian leadership argues that the independence declaration is illegal without a UN Security Council Resolution. Russia has made clear that it would veto any resolution that was not agreed to by both the Albanian and Serbian leadership. Many EU member countries have since recognized Kosovo's independence, although Spain, most notably, says it will not. Kosovo's sovereignty will be con tested and functionally limited for the foreseeable future, but many countries in its immediate neighborhood have or will most likely recognize Kosovo as sovereign. Although the Serbian political elite almost universally reject the Albanian leadership's uni lateral declaration of independence, they are split over whether or not to pursue integration with the EU while continuing to challenge Kosovo's independence. This split went straight through Serbia's then-coalition government, and the government collapsed soon after Kosovo's declaration of independence. Serbia's political parties contested the 2008 May parliamentary elections over whether to pursue European integration while challenging Kosovo's independence or to focus first on the territorial integrity of the state. The results show the country almost evenly split between these two options, with neither side having a majority. At the time of this writing (June 2008), it appears that the pro-European faction around the Democratic Party will form a governing coalition with the Socialist Party of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic's former party. Zoran Dindic, who led Serbia's first democratic post-Milosevic government until his assassination in 2003, recognized that what mattered most was democratic citizenship for all of Serbia's citizens regardless of where they lived. The challenge of bringing this liberal democratic ideal to Kosovo remains far from fulfilled today.

* The author would like to thank the following for their helpful comments on earlier drafts: Richard Gowan, Sarah Jane Meharg, Joel Jenswold, Jason Maloy, and the anonymous reviewers from PSQ. An earlier version was presented at a conference sponsored by the Centre for Security and Defence Studies, Carleton University, "After the Fall: Theory and Practice of Post-Intervention Security," March 2006. The views expressed are solely the author's.

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