NATION BUILDING AS A PRETEXT TO CREATION OF MONO-ETHNIC
KOSOVO
Fr. Sava's letter to Washington
Post
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Dear editor,
I
would strongly disagree with Mr. Rubin on his position on Kosovo. The work of
the UN Mission in Kosovo after the war in 1999 has been more a failure than
success, especially in the eyes of Kosovo Serbs. Three years after the war
Kosovo society is still based on ethnic discrimination and the lack of basic
rights and freedoms for Serbs and non-Albanians. More than 200,000 Serb refugees
still cannot return to their homes while thousands of Serb homes, destroyed
after the war, lie in ruins. I live in a monastery which is only 10 minutes away
from the town of Decani. There I cannot buy anything, I am not free to visit a
doctor, when I travel I need a military escort. I am not a free citizen in my
own country. Serbs who still live in their isolated enclaves do not have normal
education for their children and cannot have employment in Albanian inhabited
areas. Probably the worst disappointment for Kosovo Serbs is continuation of
desecration of Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries. More than 100 churches
have been desecrated or destroyed after the war, despite the UN and NATO
presence. Even old Christian cemeteries are not spared by Moslem
Albanians.
In short, things are not essentially improving for all
citizens of Kosovo, despite some progress in general reconstruction of
infrastructure and institutions. In fact, only Kosovo Albanians feel true
benefits from the international mission. Two weeks ago a group of elderly Serbs
was attacked in the city of Pec by a crowd of Kosovo Albanians. The hooligans
hurled stones and petrol-bombs not only on Serbs who were waiting to get their
pensions, but also on Italian and Spanish peacekeepers who were protecting them.
This incident is not an aberration, but rather a general symptom of anti-Serb
feelings among Kosovo Albanians. Society which is still based on ethnic
discrimination, harassment of elderly people and disrespect towards Christian
holy shrines is not a success, but rather a source of political destabilization
in the Balkans.
We expect the U.S. Administration to support equally all
communities and not to allow building of a society which would be tailored for
one ethnic group only. This is completely opposite to all values on which
American society is established.
Fr. Sava (Janjic)
Serbian
Orthodox Monastery of Decani
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www.washingtonpost.com
No Victory in Kosovo
Tuesday, October 22, 2002; Page
A26
James P. Rubin [op-ed, Oct. 19] is very proud of the job the Clinton administration did in Kosovo. In particular, he mentioned that there has been only one ethnically motivated murder in the past year.
That statistic more than
anything else proves the failure of U.S. policy in Kosovo. If Kosovo was truly a
multiethnic and democratic society, there would be a lot more inter-ethnic
turmoil: There was only one inter-ethnic murder because the Albanians have
chased everyone else -- Serbs, Turks, Romani -- away. That failure is aggravated
by the number of murders and other crimes that the Albanians are committing
against each other. Why doesn't Mr. Rubin cite that statistic? Although the
Albanians cleansed
Kosovo of Serbs, they have not cleansed themselves of
criminal behavior.
VLADIMIR GAGICScottsdale,
Ariz.
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Honoring Nation-Building
By James P.
Rubin
(Saturday, October 19, 2002; Page A23) Despite a controversial history in Somalia and Vietnam, the idea of the United States as nation-builder is back in vogue. What a change from a few years ago, when the Clinton administration refused to use the term in public, and critics, including candidate George W. Bush, attacked it as international social work.
Now President Bush says the United States will work with the United Nations to rebuild Afghanistan and establish democratic institutions in Iraq after Saddam Hussein has been vanquished. Leading Democrats have gone further, calling for a substantial expansion of the U.S. peacekeeping role in Afghanistan and more concrete plans for U.S. involvement in post-Hussein Iraq.
This new enthusiasm of our political leaders is welcome. Indeed, preventing failing states from spawning terrorism and chaos is more important than ever. But if nation-building is to be effective in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is crucial that we fully incorporate this mission into our foreign policy machinery.
First, we must find a way to honor the nation-builders. In Kosovo today, we still have thousands of peacekeeping troops and civilians who are maintaining order, training police, helping to establish democratic institutions, and building the civil and penal codes that will make it possible for Kosovo to one day stand on its own.
Kosovo has been a success. Although tensions remain, violent crime is way down. According to the United Nations, there was only one victim of ethnic violence this year.
Thousands of local police have been trained. Kosovo's government now collects nearly enough revenue to be self-sufficient. The economy, while still primitive, has registered substantial growth in each of the past two years. True, there are still major uncertainties, including the potential collapse of the economy when the United Nations pulls out in coming years and the fact that Kosovo's political status has not been resolved.
Despite the progress, our soldiers and civilians feel little sense of support from home. To some degree, Kosovo is the victim of its own success and of the world's understandable focus on al Qaeda and the war on terrorism. But there is a more fundamental issue. As one of Europe's most respected active-duty generals told me, "You Americans are good at this; why are you so embarrassed about it?"
Until we find a mechanism to make nation-building a credit to one's career and a politician's legacy, we will never have the necessary staying power to make these missions work.
A second step needed is a bureaucratic one. Afghanistan offers a good example. After the initial achievements (creating a new representative government and obtaining promises of economic assistance), crucial momentum is slipping away.
Like it or not, the Afghans and rest of the world are looking to the United States for solutions to the inevitable problems in the areas of security and underfunded reconstruction projects. One solution would be the appointment of a high-level official, empowered by the president, to lead an international effort to improve security outside Kabul and cut through the red tape that is blocking critical development aid (i.e., the competing priorities and procedures of the World Bank, the United Nations and other donors). To his credit, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz seems to understand the importance of this work, but he cannot do it alone. A high-level official must be empowered by the president to negotiate with foreign governments and with our own bureaucracy until sufficient progress is made to hand over the task to the United Nations.
The same phenomenon is likely to unfold in Iraq. Assuming there is a war to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and assuming it goes reasonably well, the initial tasks of setting up a provisional government and establishing a secure environment can be accomplished quickly. We would then become the victims of high expectations. That's why a practical plan and a high-level envoy must be ready so that the longer-term and enormously complex security, economic and political tasks can be addressed while there is still substantial momentum and goodwill in the Iraqi population.
Last, we should be honest about what can be accomplished and how much it would cost. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is likely to be a thriving democracy anytime soon, so we have to set realistic objectives. A pluralistic Iraq with some decent form of representative government committed to locating and destroying all the weapons of mass destruction left over from Hussein would be dramatic progress. But even accomplishing this modest goal would be expensive and time-consuming. And as in Afghanistan and the Balkans, we are likely to underestimate the costs and to hope the Europeans and others could be pressured to pick up most of the tab.
Nation-building has now become a key foreign policy mission for the United States. But it won't work without high-level attention and a budget to match.
The writer was an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration. He traveled to Kosovo last month on behalf of the International Rescue Committee.
© 2002 The Washington
Post Company
Information Service
of the Diocese of Raska and Prizren
Kosovo and
Metohija
http://www.kosovo.com/rep241002.html#letter
