Global Policy Forum

By Laura Secor

Kosovo's capital has a boulevard named for Bill Clinton. A crude replica of the Statue of Liberty crowns a hotel on the city's outskirts. ''Liberation Day,'' the anniversary of NATO's entry into the province, is a national holiday. Maybe this is how Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz dreamed Baghdad would be -- except for one thing: Four years after Kosovo's liberation from Serbian repression, its foreign guardians still doubt its capacity for democratic self-rule.

Nation-building is a tough business, especially where it involves implanting democracy from above. Where does the line fall between guiding local forces and interfering with them? When does the need for self-determination trump even the best intentions of outsiders? Such questions bedevil American administrators in Iraq. The United Nations faces similar ones in Kosovo, where it runs a mission it considers the most successful in its history.

The dividends of peace are not always extravagant. In Pristina, authorities have recently taken the time to place railings around median strips to prevent drivers from stirring up dust in the middle of the road. Such beautification projects would have been unthinkable three years ago, when the daily news bristled with tales of abductions, ethnic crimes, and exploding grenades. The UN deserves much credit for the creeping return of normalcy in Kosovo. But the durability of such successes may ultimately depend on its willingness to let go.

Bajram Rexhepi is the prime minister of Kosovo. A surgeon by training, he was a field doctor for the Kosovo Liberation Army, the guerrilla group whose uprising against Serb rule triggered NATO's 1999 intervention. Before that he led the shadow Albanian government in his home city of Mitrovica. An elegant man of 49, impeccably attired, with chiseled features and thick gray hair, he occupies a spacious office whose leather-padded door opens onto a chamber of assistants.

Rexhepi represents the government Kosovars elected in March 2002. But power hasn't exactly gone to his head. In fact, it hasn't really gotten into his hands. ''Mainly, Kosovo's ministers deal with social problems,'' he explains. ''We are more like firefighters than like real politicians, who have access to issues.''

If you're here to see the guy with access to the issues, you'd best exit Rexhepi's chambers and take a right down a narrow, linoleum-floored hallway. There you will find the cramped office, overflowing with ring binders and paperwork in progress, of a man named Lars Tummers. Tummers is not a war hero or an elected official. He is, as they say around here, UNMIK's PIO representing the SRSG to the PISG. Got that?

What it means is that Tummers is the UN's special delegate to Rexhepi's office. He serves as a deputy to the UN-appointed official in charge of Kosovo, German diplomat Michael Steiner. It is Steiner, not Rexhepi, who has ultimate, unilateral control over Kosovo's foreign policy, monetary policy, judicial appointments, and budget, among other things. These are called the ''reserved powers,'' meaning that there are currently no plans to hand them over to local officials.

Why, you might wonder, does Kosovo have both an elected government and a UN-appointed one? Under the agreement that ended the 1999 war, Kosovo remains a province of Serbia, but it is governed under a UN mandate. The question of Kosovo's final status -- will it be independent? part of a regional federation? part of Serbia? -- was deferred. Until a final agreement is brokered with the Serbian government, major steps toward Kosovar self-rule could be seen as a provocation.

So it is with great caution that the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) slowly passes limited powers to Kosovar institutions: the implementation, but not the devising, of tax policy; fostering private sector development, but not privatizing publicly held enterprises. In local-speak, this is known as ''the transfer of competencies.'' The reserved powers, of course, are not scheduled for transfer. Even many of the nonreserved powers remain in UN hands.

UNMIK is in no hurry to entrust elected politicians with sensitive duties. Says Monique de Groot, spokesperson for UNMIK's economic division, ''If they want competencies, they need to be competent.'' In fact, de Groot feels that the Kosovars have made too little of the competencies they already have.

''We need to get the local politicians to focus on their work and not on symbols and national ideas,'' says Tummers with frustration. Talk of independence goes over well with the public; drafting legislation isn't quite so sexy. Kosovo's three political parties lack vision, say UNMIK officials. And they rule in coalition, by consensus-meaning that there is neither opposition nor public debate.

That Kosovar political culture has been stunted is beyond dispute. First came 10 years of exclusion from civic life under Serbian rule. Now there's UNMIK, which offers salaries ten times higher than the local administration can, luring the most talented young Kosovars away from the elected government.

But Kosovo's political scene is not demonstrably worse than that of any number of unhappy but functional independent states. Does the UN have the right, even the obligation, to set a more ambitious standard for Kosovars before letting them control their own fate? And does continued UN rule render Kosovo more likely to meet such standards, or less so?

''UNMIK's mission is to transfer power,'' says the Kosovar political analyst Ylber Hysa. ''If they don't want to fulfill their mission because of their political judgment, something is wrong here.''

But what if their judgment is sound? ''What UNMIK says about Kosovar political institutions is true,'' says Veton Surroi, the editor of the daily newspaper Koha Ditore. ''It's the most pathetic group of political organizations one can find. The local leaders are highly untalented, with a clear lack of context and vision. But you play with what you have.''

In the first two years after the war, Kosovo didn't look like it would make it even this far. The Kosovo Liberation Army had the run of the place, and even under the noses of 50,000 international troops, more than 200,000 Serbs and Gypsies were driven across borders or into enclaves. Meanwhile, everything from the judicial system to the education system to the most basic physical infrastructure had to be rebuilt from scratch. There was no industry to speak of and few resources of value.

Four years later, Kosovo still lacks an independent local judiciary. Electricity functions only sporadically in the winter, when it is needed most. Virtually nothing is produced here; the economy runs on UN salaries and remittances.

Nonetheless, the quality of life in Kosovo is incomparably better. Last year only one Serb was killed in an ethnically motivated crime. New houses, some of them incongruously modern, have sprung up where before there were ruined villages. Under EU auspices, privatization has begun, with 18 businesses offered for sale on July 2, including hotels, brick factories, a limestone quarry, and a fish farm. A peaceable, though probably not prosperous, Kosovar future is imaginable.

UNMIK is the institution that has guided this transition. And yet, while KFOR (the NATO-led military presence) and the United States remain popular among Kosovars, UNMIK's stock is falling fast.

''The criticism is not very sophisticated,'' Surroi contends. ''People just don't see much resulting from UNMIK's presence. Then they go out at night and see fat UNMIK police men in the cafes. They think the mission has become a purpose in itself, serving the needs of the people employed there.''

To Surroi, however, the real problem with UNMIK is one of accountability. No local body can demand to see how UNMIK spends local tax money or foreign donations. Meanwhile, local authorities escape accountability by pointing the finger at UNMIK.

''Try running any society, even the United States, with two governments, and it will fail,'' says Ramush Haradinaj, a former KLA commander and the president of the smallest of Kosovo's three political parties. ''We need to understand that we are the only address for facing our needs. When we do that, people will be more responsible and work harder.''

All politics aside, the bottom line is that UNMIK cannot go anywhere until Kosovo's status is resolved. Tummers says the question will be opened in 2004, presumably through multilateral discussions with Belgrade. But UNMIK has also confronted Kosovars with a set of eight benchmarks that the organization says must be met first, and a slogan to go with them: ''Standards before status.'' The standards include functioning democratic institutions, refugee return, economic progress, and dialogue with Belgrade. Exactly what needs to be accomplished in these areas, and by when, remains unclear.

''It's a political instrument,'' Tummers says bluntly. ''They need to at least make the effort.''

For Prime Minister Rexhepi, this approach fails to appreciate that nearly all of Kosovo's challenges are linked to its status. As a non-state entity, for example, Kosovo can accept grants and donations but not the credits or loans crucial to a functional economy. And without a functioning economy, Kosovo can't offer refugees much incentive to return.

Rexhepi says that UNMIK's impatience reflects ''a collision of expectations and the real situation. We started building the structure of the state a little more than a year ago. We probably need a minimum of 10 years.''

It's not obvious whether that's a reason for UNMIK to stay in charge or a reason for it to begin letting go. But the prospect of a 10-year democracy-building process is a humbling one -- and not just for Kosovo.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.