U.N. Discovers Colonialism
Isn't Easy in Kosovo
By Max Boot, the Journal's editorial features editor.
PRISTINA, Kosovo--Rumors of colonialism's demise have been much
exaggerated. In recent years the United Nations has taken over the
administration of Cambodia (1992-93), Bosnia (1995-present), Kosovo
and now East Timor. Nowhere is this process further advanced than in
Kosovo. Here, unlike in Bosnia, there has been no indigenous government
at all (at least none that is officially recognized) since the Serbs left in June.
So how is colonialism, U.N.-style, going?
That question was on my mind as I tried to concentrate above the
thacka-thacka-thacka of a big Chinook helicopter ferrying a group of
journalists and policy makers from Macedonia into Kosovo. Although the
Italian crew members--part of KFOR (Kosovo Force)--diligently manned
their heavy machine guns as we swept in over the countryside, our journey
last week was a peaceful one.
Pristina, Kosovo's
capital and main city,
turns out to be in better
shape than I expected.
The leaders of our
delegation, organized
by the German
Marshall Fund and the
New Atlantic Initiative,
had warned us not to
expect electricity or hot
water. Pristina's Grand
Hotel, though it doesn't
deserve the five stars it
displays on the roof,
turned out to have
both--well, most of the
time anyway.
There is also little war damage--though much ugly architecture--to be seen
in the city. The streets are bustling with shops selling everything from eggs
to laundry detergent. Every apartment seems to sport a satellite dish. If you
ignore the occasional KFOR armored vehicles rumbling by, life appears to
be back almost to normal.
But this surface success masks deeper problems. The United Nations
administration, run by Frenchman Bernard Kouchner, has fallen behind
schedule in many of its tasks. There still has been no census, for instance,
and without knowing who lives where it's impossible to bill customers for
utility services, hold elections or perform myriad other government
functions.
Much of the blame goes to U.N. members that have failed to deliver on
their pledges of support. Although the U.S. often gets castigated for not
paying U.N. dues, here it is the Europeans who are deadbeats. Without
their promised donations, the U.N. is unable to pay the day-to-day
expenses of government. Public employees, from school teachers to
former Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas enrolled in the Kosovo
Protection Corps, are not getting paychecks, and they are getting restless,
as demonstrations in front of the U.N. headquarters attest. "You can't feed
a guy with pledges," grumbles Klaus Reinhardt, the white-haired German
general who commands KFOR.
Another major problem is tangled lines of authority. Running Kosovo are
the U.N., the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the
European Union and of course KFOR with its 30 national contingents.
Coordinating all these soldiers and bureaucrats is a nightmare, especially
since their mission is self-contradictory.
Under U.N. Resolution 1244, the U.N. is supposed to run Kosovo but
preserve the fiction that it's still part of Serbia. Mr. Kouchner has gotten
into hot water with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for making the
German mark Kosovo's currency. No action has been taken yet on a
establishing a new international dialing code, postal service, tax system,
license plates or the other attributes of sovereignty that Kosovars need.
One illustration of Mr. Kouchner's difficulties: the legal system. Albanian
Kosovar judges (the Serbian ones having resigned) refuse to administer
Yugoslav law. But there is no other way of trying some 300 prisoners
captured by KFOR for crimes ranging from looting to murder. The U.N. is
hurriedly writing an interim law for Kosovo but in the meantime the judicial
process has ground to a halt.
The good news is that Albanian violence against Serbs has declined. Gen.
Reinhardt brags that Pristina is now safer than Washington, D.C. Part of
the credit for the drop in violence goes to the 50,000 KFOR soldiers and
the 1,700 U.N. police officers. But the major reason is that the ethnic
cleansing of Kosovo has been completed. Less than half of the prewar
population of 170,000 Serbs remains--and most of them are concentrated
in ethnic enclaves in the north, where they are being radicalized by
Slobodan Milosevic's agents. Given the undying enmity between Albanians
and Serbs it is had to imagine how the enclaves could ever be integrated
into a Kosovar state.
The tensions between the two groups can erupt in savagery at any
moment. Not long before my arrival a Bulgarian U.N. worker was killed
because he was overheard speaking Serbian on Pristina's streets. (This
was one time my lack of linguistic ability was a definite plus.) Just after we
left, a convoy of Serbian Kosovars under KFOR protection was attacked
by Albanians. No wonder the few Serbs remaining in Pristina cower
behind closed doors, afraid to venture out even to buy groceries.
Kosovo is divided not just ethnically but politically as well. Vying to lead
this--province? country? colony?--are Hashim Thaci, the former KLA
leader who now heads an unofficial "provisional" government, and Ibrahim
Rugova, a pacifist elected as Kosovo's president in 1991.
Mr. Thaci has State Department's support ("I consider him a friend," one
U.S. official told us), but in a meeting he comes across as an unregenerate
thug. Asked about freedom of the press, he gives the strong impression
that he prefers freedom from the press. He especially rails against New
York Times correspondent Chris Hedges, who has written scathing
exposes about Mr. Thaci's use of violence to cement his leadership. One
independent Albanian editor here, Veton Serroi, tells us that he has been
the subject of a fatwa for publishing condemnations of Albanian violence
against Serbs.
Mr. Rugova, who receives us in a darkened room of his house (electricity
is out that afternoon) without his trademark scarf, is clearly more tolerant
than Mr. Thaci, but he displays little of his rival's charisma or energy. Many
of Mr. Rugova's supporters are troubled by his reclusiveness and lethargy.
And neither Mr. Rugova nor any other Albanian leader shows much
appreciation for the radical economic reforms needed to jumpstart
Kosovo's moribund, state-controlled economy. Unlike in Eastern Europe,
no one here quotes Hayek and Friedman to visiting Westerners.
At the end of our trip, the idea of Kosovo as anything but a ward of the
international community seems remote. "As far as I'm concerned," Mr.
Rugova told us, "KFOR can stay here forever."
|
