Global Policy Forum

By Aleksandar Mitic

The international community should begin preparing for talks on the final status of the UN-administered Serbian province of Kosovo as early as this fall, UN special envoy Kai Eide has said in a report to the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The report by the Norwegian diplomat harshly criticizes and outlines the failures of the UN policies in Kosovo that have led to the frustration of the Kosovo Albanian majority and its mass-scale violence against the Serb minority in mid-March.

In particular, the report urges the international community to address the immediate security concerns of the province's Serb minority, as well as the reconstruction of Serb homes, the return of Serb refugees, and the decentralization process. It also urges the UN to revise the "standards before status" policy on Kosovo and to speed up the process of transferring power from the UN to local authorities.

"Today's Kosovo is characterized by growing dissatisfaction and frustration. Our current policies are seen as static and unable to respond to the real problems facing Kosovo. Marginal adjustments will only add to frustration, increase the danger of more violence, damage the reputation of Kosovo further, and weaken the international community," Eide said.

He also slammed the international community efforts, saying they had become "static, inward-looking, fragmented, and routine [.] with a serious lack of a rational, unifying plan". Kosovo Albanians view the international community has "having gone from opening the way to now standing in the way", Eide said, adding that Kosovo Serbs view the international community as "having gone from securing the return of so many (Albanian refugees) to being unable to ensure the return of so few Serbian refugees.

According to Eide, the current approach of "standards before status" - meeting a series of standards before starting talks on final status - is "untenable in its present form". It must be replaced by "a more dynamic standards policy with achievable priorities reflecting the most urgent needs, including those for the future status process", he said in the report.

The review of the standards in Kosovo and the approximate date on the beginning of final status talks has been informally set for mid-2005. However, Eide has urged the UN to "begin this fall with discreet discussions at a high level on political issues related to the new and comprehensive strategy". Belgrade in particular must be "engaged in a dialogue and a confidence-building process as soon as possible" and this "dialogue must be intensified to ensure support in moving forward on number of issues", he said.

"In the current situation in Kosovo, we can no longer avoid the bigger picture and defer the most difficult issues to an indefinite future," Eide said. The question of the future status of Kosovo is seen as key a hindrance to stability in the Western Balkans. The majority Kosovo Albanians seek independence, while minority Kosovo Serbs and authorities in Belgrade insist that the province remain part of Serbia, though with a large degree of autonomy.

Under UN resolution 1244, which ended the NATO bombings against Yugoslavia in 1999, Kosovo is part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, whose successor state is Serbia and Montenegro.

The report was commissioned by Annan in order to seek ways to improve the UN mission following the mid-March violence that left 19 dead, 900 wounded, over 800 Serb houses burned, some 30 Orthodox monasteries destroyed, and over 4'000 Serbs displaced.

Eide's report is the harshest ever insider critique of UNMIK since its arrival in Kosovo in June 1999. It coincides with a series of strong criticism from other organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, which has slammed the UN and NATO for failing "catastrophically" to protect the Serb community in Kosovo.

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