Global Policy Forum

By Helena Smith

The first chant came from the back of the crowd. 'Go home!' yelled a youngster, as he stood in Pristina's dusty Mother Teresa Square, the site last week of Kosovo's first post-war demonstration. 'Out with the UN!' screamed an elderly woman, producing a placard that conveyed the same message. 'We don't need you here!'

Four years ago, Kosovar Albanians were liberated from their Serbian tormentors by the West. The international bureaucrats who arrived to administer the benighted territory after Nato forces made their triumphant entry were hailed as heroes by a populous as grateful as it was grief-stricken. But now Kosovo has become angry again. As the eyes of the world have been elsewhere, another battle has erupted in the heart of the world's 'most successful' UN peacekeeping mission. After around 1,500 days of receiving more money, aid and support than any other war-ravaged country, Kosovars are angry. But this time their venom is reserved for the very people who came to protect and reform them.

As locals grapple with price increases and worsening poverty, it is the 'internationals' who have become symbols of the contradictions threatening to tear the UN protectorate apart. Across the province, men and women appear disgusted by their foreign guardians' 'corrupt' beneficence and depraved 'colonial' ways. 'They came to keep the peace and now they're causing tensions,' said Qamile Blakcori. 'We are very grateful that Western forces saved us from the Serbs, but now it's time they go.' Sophisticated and determined, Blakcori is the embodiment of Kosovo's return to normality. Without the iron hand of Belgrade to silence them, she and her artist husband soon set about realising their 'life dream' of opening a gallery in Pristina. Because of this, she has only 'good words' for Unmik (UN Mission in Kosovo) and K-for, the 20,000-strong multinational peace force that has restored law and order. But as a mother of four, she says, she is also 'sick to the bone'.

Over half of Kosovo's two million people are living on or below the poverty line. Unemployment is rampant, and after four years of governance by 'white men' the province - a net exporter of electricity under the Yugoslav regime - is still suffering daily from debilitating power cuts. All this as the perception also grows that many internationals are only in Kosovo for 'their fat-cat salaries and CVs'. If they cared so much about locals, why were there so many abandoned babies who had reportedly been sired by Westerners? 'I'm really fearful for my children,' sighed Blakcori. 'What are they going to do? The internationals have done good things, but they have also brought bad habits. Now there is a lot of drugs and prostitution. In the Balkans when people have lots of time and nothing to do they tend to become radicalised.'

'Last week's protest, timed to coincide with the start of historic but widely unpopular reconciliation talks in Vienna with the Serbs, is just the beginning,' says Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi. 'Being ruled 5,000 miles away from New York is simply not working,' he snapped. 'With no road maps, or political deadlines, or sense of resolving their unclear international status as a non-state entity, Kosovars are fast losing hope.'

'We don't like to see those protests or those placards,' said the leader, who will hold talks in London on Tuesday. 'But if Unmik continues to ignore our needs, if it refuses to transfer more power to us, then internationals here will face big demonstrations and everyone will be crying "Unmik go home".' 'What was especially galling to Kosovars was the brazen "corruption" within the mission,' said Rexhepi, who was elected in March 2002. He added that not only was the UN refusing to grant his people more self-rule, it was also abusing power 'at the highest levels'. The malpractice - reluctantly confirmed by Western diplomats - had made him 'feel very ashamed'. A lot of the misplaced funds, he suspected, were local taxes. 'Unmik claimed it has zero tolerance for corruption and organised crime, but there is serious corruption involving huge amounts of money right at its core,' he lamented.

As a surgeon who risked his life serving as a field doctor with the Kosovo Liberation Army (the guerrilla group whose uprising against Serb rule set in motion the events that led to Nato's air bombardment in 1999), he had 'other visions for Kosovo'. 'There are many internationals who also use these services of trafficked women. People will think I am revealing these things because I am politically frustrated. But it's not that. I've had enough! Over a year ago I asked that a team of investigators be sent from New York, and I still haven't got an answer.'

Since then, Kosovars have seen the imprisonment of a German bureaucrat, Joe Trutschler, for embezzling 4.5 million euros as chairman of the supervising board of the Kosovo Electric Company. He believes there are similar cases at Kosovo's telecoms company, customs service and airport - utilities that Unmik had control of. 'I don't want to mention names but I suspect it is happening at the highest level [in collusion] with locals,' said Rexhepi. 'I am not saying we are angels, but these people think they are untouchable because they have corrupted others, so they're all in it together.'

If his government had control over the police and security services, it would be able to investigate these things itself. 'This is our greatest problem, the West won't let us be ourselves,' the Prime Minister complained. 'People voted me into office and instead I find myself with my hands tied behind my back. It's a total contradiction.' What the West fails to appreciate, he said, was that it was impeding Kosovo's development. Without independence, the territory, which still comes under Serbian jurisdiction, could not even receive credit and loans. Lack of financial incentives have been widely blamed for the tiny number of refugee returning to the province. 'Ours was the first village to return to Kosovo after the Nato campaign,' said Sonya Vukovic, a 26-year-old Serbian paediatrician in Osojane, a Serbian enclave. 'There were 60 young people at first, but they have all gone as there is no work in Kosovo and life is so hard. We can't even go to the next village without being escorted by K-for.'

Privately, UN officials concede that it would have been better if Kosovo's status had been settled when the organisation drew up a mandate to run the province. Without it being defined their mission is like 'walking on eggshells'. After all, how can Kosovo be decolonised when no one is sure what its real identity is? Instead, Unmik has set out eight benchmarks - under the title 'Standards before status' - that it says must be met before the question is settled.

Officials readily admit that any of the alternatives - independence, partition, continued international stewardship - are unlikely to satisfy everyone. It's just like Iraq, whatever we do is going to affect the entire region,' said one senior EU diplomat. 'Kosovo is a perfect example of the confusion the West is likely to get into if it doesn't think through the political implications of its military strategy. If we go on like this we're going to have to set up a colonial service.'

If Kosovo has taught the world anything, it is that nation-building is neither cheap nor easy. Prominent women's rights activists in Kosovo sent a two-page missive to Baghdad about the perils of foreign occupation days after US administrators arrived in the Iraqi capital. Does Harri Holkeri, the former Finnish Prime Minister who recently took over as UN executive, agree? 'Absolutely not. This is not Iraq. It's a civilised place, the people are well educated,' he said. 'Kosovars should have the opportunity to decide their future when they prove they can govern themselves. I would like to make myself disappear. That is the mission of the entire international community in Kosovo.' Kosovars clearly can't wait.

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.