Global Policy Forum

By Morton Abramowitz

The contrast is striking. In Iraq, the Americans have hand-picked an interim governing council, there have been no elections, the judiciary is barely functioning, and American troops and even more Iraqis are being killed almost every day. Yet the U.N. and many of its member states, including the U.S., France and Germany, are in a hurry to hand power over to the Iraqi people, some even more quickly than others.

In Kosovo, elections have been held to create representative governments at municipal and national levels, allied forces are not being attacked but urged to stay, and the U.N. has been peacefully running the show for already four years. However, the U.N. and key member states insist that the critical powers for running a government cannot be handed over to the representatives of Kosovo's people.

To be sure, Kosovo and Iraq are different species. Kosovo has never been an independent state, it is of little geopolitical importance, it has none of the wealth and little of the trained personnel of Iraq, and there is no sense of international urgency, as there is on Iraq, to quickly change the current situation. Violence is always a prod.

NATO's intervention in 1999 freed Kosovo from the bondage, ethnic cleansing, and the violence of Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 mandated a U.N. interim administration to run Kosovo and carry out a process to establish self-government but left undecided when and how the future international status of Kosovo would be settled. The U.N. mission in Kosovo has been indispensable in helping the people of Kosovo get on their feet. It has presided over three successful elections and established a provisional government and representative assembly.

But the international community has been exceedingly slow in encouraging and better providing the wherewithal for the people of Kosovo to run their own show. It has done nothing to advance the process of determining Kosovo's final status.

The U.N. mission still maintains the critical powers for running Kosovo, overseeing the rule of law, property issues, foreign affairs and security. It has the final say over the budget, the power to dissolve the assembly and call new elections, and the right to change the constitutional framework. The Kosovo government is mostly given power over health, education and customs. Its staff is starved for resources. Kosovo officials are discouraged from traveling abroad and unable to present their views unencumbered.

In a Catch-22, the U.N. mission, supported by the U.S. and the EU, also insists on using the slogan "standards before status," that the final status of Kosovo vis-a-vis Serbia can only be considered after the Kosovo government, with its limited powers, has somehow achieved a level of excellence that most other Balkan states lack. This formula was devised to put off Kosovo demands for settling the political status of Kosovo in the hopes that the desire for independence in Kosovo would somehow diminish and pressures on a vulnerable new Serbian government over a highly neuralgic political issue would be reduced.

The international community now insists that the Kosovo and Serbia begin negotiations on important matters to both parties but not final status. There are indeed issues of real importance that need resolution. But Serbia, despite its difficult political and economic situation, has a government with real powers and Kosovo does not. What kind of negotiations does this constitute for Kosovo when the final power is with the U.N. mission and its director is described as a facilitator to negotiations?

The Kosovars bear some responsibility for the current situation. They have been slow in stopping violence against Serbs and showing serious interest in getting Serbs who fled Kosovo to consider returning. Organized crime is a problem and the rule of law needs to be more firmly established.

Kosovo, however, is not the dysfunctional state of neighboring Bosnia with its deep structural divisions. Certainly it will need financial help, the ability to procure foreign technical assistance, and some international monitoring for the next few years. If Kosovo is to prosper, if it is to negotiate seriously with Serbia as one day it must, it should have its own strong governmental institutions. The U.N. should not be encouraging dependence. There is no reason why in the next year Kosovars should not be able to assume most or all the powers held by the U.N. mission, which could then monitor and advise.

The international community retains many ways of influencing Kosovo to ensure that its government does not go off the rails. Kosovo will remain dependent on the international community for a long time to come, for its security, its economy, ultimately its final status and its need to be incorporated into Europe.

The internal situations in Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia are all declining in part because of the uncertainty of Kosovo's final status. U.S. Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman's recent statement that talks on final status might open in mid-2005 appears to mark a departure from the West's ostrich posture on Kosovo. That date would more likely be met if the U.N. turned over its remaining powers to the people of Kosovo.

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