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Misleading UN Report on Kosovo (A)
TFF PressInfo 77
October 3, 1999
"Those who wrote the Report of the UN Secretary-General on the UN Mission in
Kosovo (UNMIK) must have had other aims than accurate reporting. The report is
biased, embellished, slanted. It omits important aspects which point toward the
fact that this mission ignores Security Council Resolution 1244 on which it is
based and is a failure in-the-making on its own criteria," says TFF director
Jan Oberg upon his return from TFF's 37th mission to the region and his visit
to Pristina, Skopje and Belgrade.
"The report (S/1999/987 of September 16) covers the period in which at least
150.000 legitimate non-Albanian (Serbs, Roma,etc) citizens were driven out of
the province. Normally this would be called ethnic cleansing. It has happened
under the very eyes of 45.000 NATO soldiers, 1.100 UN civilian police and
thousands of other internationals, including the OSCE and EU. The report does
NOT state that this is a fatal blow to both NATO and the UN. Res. 1244 states
that the mission is to 'ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for
all inhabitants of Kosovo' as well as, among many other things, maintain law
and order, protect and promote human rights and ensure public safety. The
report states that 'KFOR deserves great credit for its efforts...'
I do not think it does," says Oberg. "The international community condemned
Yugoslavia for having, at the height of the war and bombing, about 40.000
soldiers and police in the province to maintain law and order and - as they saw
it - to protect the Serb and other minorities. Now the total international
presence is almost twice as big and IT has not been able to fulfil the centre-
piece of the UN mandate: to preserve a multiethnic Kosovo in safety for
everybody.
For all practical purposes, Kosovo has been ethnically cleansed by the KLA and
other Albanians AFTER the international community arrived. This is neither
regretted nor condemned in the report. Rather, the report states that 'senior
Kosovo Albanian personalities, including the leadership of the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA), have voiced increasingly forthright public positions on
tolerance and security for minorities. Senior KLA figures have denied KLA
involvement in attacks and called for non-Albanians to remain in Kosovo and
repeatedly affirmed their commitment to human rights, tolerance and diversity.'
The report, issued in the name of the UN Secretary-General, does NOT mention
that KLA set up a self-appointed government, installed local leaders in
virtually all municipalities and, thus, see themselves as the legitimate
authority of Kosovo. In short, the report omits any mention of who is or must
be made responsible for the recent ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. Could the reason
be that the KLA and the political Kosovo Albanian leadership was NATO's ally
during the war and the international community's partner now? That its prime
minister, Hacim Thaci, is the favoured leader - for the time being at least -
by the United States and other leading actors? In short, that the West's
partner is doing what we accused Milosevic of doing?
The Yugoslav government was always pointed out as the culprit of ethnic
cleansing of Albanians. Fantastic stories circulated without evidence about
Serb plans to drive out all Albanians from the region during NATO's bombing
campaign. With perhaps 90% of all non-Albanians now driven out, the Kosovo-
Albanian leadership is responsible for the proportionately largest ethnic
cleansing in the Balkans since the wars started in 1991.
But those who wrote the text of this report - presumably UNMIK staff and the
office of UNMIK head, Dr. Bernhard Kouchner in Pristina - see no reason to
condemn this! The formulation of the report is: 'In the period since mid-June
1999, non-Albanians, primarily Serbs and Roma, have been the target for
harassment, intimidation and attacks. As a result, many have left Kosovo.' And
then it mentions that the Yugoslav Red Cross estimates that 150,000 have gone
to Serbia and Montenegro.
They have been the target - by whom? If Belgrade or Serb paramilitaries had
ethnically cleansed 150,000 Albanians or more from their province, you may
wonder how the international community - the UN, U.S. State Department, the
media - would have formulated it. At no point does the report state who should
be made responsible for this latest ethnic cleansing campaign, there is not a
word about Albanian atrocities, war criminals or any hesitation on the part of
the West to co-operate with individuals, groups and institutions who is likely
to have caused this exodus. Neither does it regret that Albanians are
intimidated by KLA and forced out of their temporary houses upon return, or
punished for not wanting to join KLA.
The bias is put in perspective when the report immediately after states that:
'Hardening Serb attitudes towards Kosovo Albanians, driven in part by outside
extremists, are helping to radicalise Albanians in Mitrovica.' The authors of
the report has evidently never noticed any outside extremists on the Albanian
side, now or earlier. Neither have they observed hardening Albanian attitudes.
The formulation also makes the few remaining Serbs the causal factor and the
Albanians innocent, non-guilty of their own radicalisation.
If the basic character of Western policy and its UNMIK/KFOR mission had been
genuinely humanitarian, this would have been dealt with in different terms.
Human rights violations play a conspicuously modest role in this report!
Secondly, the report argues that demobilised KLA soldiers can be a source of
instability in the future which may be true," says Jan Oberg. "However, the
report enigmatically argues that there is not enough civil employment
opportunities for these 10.000 fighters. One would otherwise believe there was
enough to do in a war-torn society such as Kosovo! So KFOR and the UN Special
Representative, Dr. Bernhard Kouchner, are thus 'developing a concept for
demobilisation of the KLA, offering individual members an opportunity to
participate in a disciplined, professional, multi-ethnic civilian emergency
corps' of which KFOR will provide day-to-day direction. This is what a few days
later was established formally as the Kosovo Protection Force, KPF.
The report conveniently omits reference to the fact that such a force is not
even mentioned in SC Resolution 1244 which talks only about demilitarisation.
We see here why the Rambouillet document stipulated neither a time table nor
the modalities of demilitarisation of the Albanian side as it did for the
Yugoslav side: 1244 says that KLA and other armed Kosovo Albanian groups shall
'comply with the requirements for demilitarisation as laid down' by the heads
of KFOR and UNMIK. The fact that KPF is hardly distinguishable from, but indeed
looks like the embryo of, a new Kosovo Army shall be dealt with in a
forthcoming TFF PressInfo.
� TFF 1999
Misleading UN Report on Kosovo (B)
TFF PressInfo 78
October 3, 1999
"The UN and NATO missions in Kosovo violate Security Council Resolution 1244
which clearly guarantees the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The Security Council has just reaffirmed
that Kosovo is a part of FRY. 1244 also demands the full cooperation of FRY in
implementing the missions tasks. All this is pure pretence, as any visitor to
Kosovo will learn - and mission members will tell you privately.
The Report of the Secretary-General (S/1999/987 of September 16) does not even
bother to mention whether KFOR/UNMIK cooperates with Belgrade! It seems pretty
clear, rather, that the international community has fooled Belgrade and
considers it so weak that it doesn't even have to be polite or give the world
the impression that it respects the country's sovereignty. This coincides with
credible press analyses that the U.S. decision makers think Kosovo must become
independent.
The international presence of UNMIK and NATO in Kosovo base itself on the
bombing campaign the legality of which remains highly disputable. In its day-to-
day operations, this presence amounts to a de facto occupation force that co-
operates with Albania military and civilian leaders who have perpetrated gross
human rights violations," says Jan Oberg upon his return from Pristina, Skopje
and Belgrade, TFF's 37 mission to the region.
Here follow some facts:
"The missions have set up border points to Serbia but until recently not to
Macedonia and Albania. Public and state property is 'taken over' by the UN and
KFOR, no legal regulations done or rent or compensation paid to the Yugoslav
state. Visa is not needed to enter Kosovo. The German Mark is introduced and
the Yugoslav dinar disappearing. Tax and customs are now collected to the
benefit of Kosovo, with no proportion going to Serbia or Yugoslavia. A new army-
like "Kosovo Protection/Defence Force" is established and has the old KLA
commander at its head. Should we be surprised if the mineral resources and the
Trpca mining industry complex in Mitrovica is soon 'taken over' by foreign
capital? Dr. Kouchner serves at the moment as a one-man legislature: he can
overrule any federal law and he promulgates legally binding "regulations" by
the day.
Resolution 1244 stipulates that 'after the withdrawal an agreed number of
Yugoslav and Serb military and police personnel will be permitted to return to
Kosovo to perform functions' such as liaising with the international civil and
military missions, marking and clearing mine fields, maintaining a presence at
Serb patrimonial sites and maintain a presence at key border crossings
(specified in Annex 2). Reference to all this is conveniently omitted in the UN
Report - that serves to evaluate the UN mission and is written, we must assume,
by the UN staff in Pristina itself.
So much for the United Nations manifest, gross violation of FRY's sovereignty
and territorial integrity. One understands why all this goes unmentioned in the
Report. I am not a lawyer, but it looks to me as a new sort of international
lawlessness and might-makes-right," says Jan Oberg.
"There are many other quite strange aspects of this Report. For instance, it
conveniently avoids telling its readers that there are four government
structures in Kosovo. KLA rapidly set up a government and local administration
as well as other institutions before NATO got in. Naturally, it runs the place
and it is not willing to hand over to the UN, as it believes it has legitimacy
because of the military struggle to liberate Kosova. All personalities are
appointed, nobody elected and there is, thus, no element of democracy. The
earlier, elected, government and parallel society of the self-proclaimed
Republic of Kosovo under the leadership of its elected president Dr. Ibrahim
Rugova, constitutes another government structure but it has been systematically
undermined and marginalized by leading actors of the international community as
well as by KLA.
The third government structure - had it not been driven out by the UN, KFOR and
KLA - was that of Yugoslavia. Had the KFOR and the UN not been so keen on
getting rid of them all, there would have been more competent administrators,
doctors, nurses, public utility technicians, teachers etc available today. And
finally, according to resolution 1244, the UN administration of Kosovo is to
become the FOURTH government with all executive powers in this tiny territory -
but with little chance of implementing its authority, because:
The present situation is a farce. The total international presence encompass
NATO/KFOR, the UN (UNMIK and all UN family organisation), OSCE, the European
Union, over 300 NGOs, some media - perhaps as many as 70.000 foreigners! They
all need interpreters, assistants, drivers, technicians and practical fixers.
So, any local with some command of foreign languages and an administrative
talent now seeks employment with international (better paying) organisations
rather than with the local administration. The UN desperately needs experienced
internationals and thousands of local staff to take over the executive power
and complete administration of Kosovo as is its mandate - but a) they are not
available and b) if they were available, they are likely to have to fight their
way into the town halls or be polite assistants to those sitting there already
appointed by KLA! UN officials catapulted into the towns as local government
officials have no experience from Kosovo - one, I heard, did not know who Dr.
Rugova is!
Again, such minor problems is not mentioned in the UN Report. Absent is also
any assessment of the wider stability of the region post KFOR/UNMIK. There is
not a word about helping Serb refugees (about 1 million) in Serbia or the
increasing destabilisation of Serbia that NATO bombings and KFOR's mode of
operation have contributed greatly to." Oberg summarises:
"This extremely coloured report can do nothing but disservice to the
international community's decision makers. It tells us that UNMIK and KFOR make
significant progress. This may be true on small issues but in vital areas for
the future, the mission is already beyond repair. If the international
community gets no better evaluations of the strong and the weak sides of its
missions, one wonders whether it would not be wiser to have some impartial -
non-NATO and non-UN - expert group to evaluate its missions. The real situation
is obviously filtered and censored up to the point when the honest and
visionary Secretary-General - who has to rely in the information he gets from
missions - puts his signature on what is basically a falsifying picture of
reality.
This is also the moment when the media ought to keep an eye on the situation.
But most left when there were no more dead bodies to film and we were told that
'peace' would be come!
Without more honest reporting and evaluation of progress, UNMIK and KFOR will
rapidly disintegrate beyond repair.
And mind you, I am not saying that I think everything could or should have been
done differently from some more or less idealistic peace perspective. I am
saying that the mission threatens to be a disaster as judged on ITS OWN
criteria, mandate and mode of operation. KFOR and UNMIK spell further disaster
in the region. Members of the missions who are skeptical and deeply concerned -
should be encouraged to voice that concern publicly and be rewarded, not
punished, for doing so. The UNMIK and OSCE, not KFOR - Europe, not the United
States - will be blamed when this goes as wrong as I fear. That must be avoided
now. The missions must be fundamentally reshaped and become both lawful,
morally principled and accountable which they are not today," ends Jan Oberg.
� TFF 1999
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