Global Policy Forum

By Gordon N. Bardos *

As the war in Afghanistan continues and military preparations for a possible conflict against Iraq proceed, the overdeployment of the U.S. military becomes more and more evident. This makes the importance of finding a viable, responsible exit strategy for America's forces from the Balkans, and specifically from Kosovo, all the more urgent.

Based on a recent fact-finding mission to the region, the broad outlines of an exit strategy from Kosovo are clear, but the most important issue facing the United Nations, and particularly the United States, lies in providing the Kosovo Albanian leadership with a clear road map of what it must do to ensure that an independent Kosovo can become a responsible state and not a perpetual source of instability in southeastern Europe. Despite Kosovo's superficial appearance of normality, scratching beneath the surface reveals a U.N.-administered protectorate teeming with unresolved problems. The Kosovo parliament is frequently at odds with the U.N. administration of the province. What is euphemistically called a judicial system is plagued by corruption (so much so that international judges must be imported to handle a large number of cases), basic communal and utility infrastructures barely function, and even the various factions of the Kosovo Albanian leadership are hardly able to come to any meaningful agreements among themselves. Attacks on local non-Albanian ethnic minorities continue at alarming levels, which explains why fewer than 200 of the 230,000 non-Albanian residents of Kosovo driven from the province after 1999 have returned to their homes (compared with the 140,000 refugees and displaced persons returned to their homes in Bosnia-Herzegovina at a similar point in Bosnia's postwar era).

From Kosovo Albanian leaders, one hears that independence will be the solution to all of Kosovo's woes. Yet this mode of reasoning is undoubtedly putting the cart before the horse. Kosovo's Albanian leadership should be spending more time laying the foundations for a democratic Kosovo and less time trying to gain an independent Kosovo.

Building a democratic Kosovo, however, will require a significant international effort, especially on the part of the United States, to impress upon the Kosovo Albanian leadership the need to reform Kosovo's government and society. There are three areas in which progress has to be made:

* Tackling crime and corruption.
Since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, international officials have claimed that the greatest threat facing the Balkans now comes from organized crime gangs that have made common cause with former communist security services and paramilitary groups. This threat is especially acute in Kosovo. During the past three years, Kosovo has become the European capital for trafficking in human beings and the most important transit point for drug smuggling on the continent. The dirty money being laundered through the province is corrupting Kosovo's political, economic and social life. If Kosovo's Albanian leadership is to have its desire for independence taken seriously, then it must begin a serious struggle against organized crime, and it must begin implementing the rule of law.

* Ensuring the human rights and civil liberties of non-Albanian ethnic minorities.
International officials must convince the Kosovo Albanian leadership that the continuing persecution of non-Albanians in Kosovo, which most international officials believe is tacitly condoned by Albanian political leaders, must stop. Apart from making it impossible for Kosovo to live up to the entry requirements for organizations such as the Council of Europe, the continuing attacks on ethnic minorities, particularly Serbs, strengthen the hand of hard-liners in Belgrade who refuse any compromise regarding Kosovo, which legally remains a part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244.

* Cracking down on extremists intent on provoking conflict in Macedonia or southern Serbia.
The near outbreak of full-scale civil war in Macedonia last year was the first case in history in which a member-state of the United Nations was the victim of aggression launched from a U.N. protectorate. The Kosovo leadership must understand that if the province is to be granted independence, it must prove that it will not be the source of constant attacks upon already-fragile neighboring states.

Discussion of final status for Kosovo is meaningless without significant and permanent progress in these three areas. None of Kosovo's neighbors, with the possible exception of Albania, would accept Kosovo's independence given its current state. But if Kosovo's leaders are able to show that they can seriously tackle these problems, resistance to its independence from other states in the region will be greatly reduced. A stable, democratic entity would be one from which the United States could responsibly withdraw, and devote its military resources to other, more pressing crises around the world.

*The writer is assistant director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

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 § 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.