Financial Times May 21, 2007
Asia Ed1
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Page 8
We have lessons to learn over so-called Kosovo success story.
>From Dr Mark A. Wolfgram.
Sir, Your commentaries on Tony Blair's legacy and your
editorial "Blair: mixed legacy soiled by Iraq" (May 11) drew
some comparison between the success of Kosovo, and other
humanitarian interventions, and that of Iraq. Kosovo is seen
as a success and Iraq as a failure, with Afghanistan capable
of going either way. Unfortunately, the "Kosovo success
story", universally hailed by your authors, although
criticised by Hurst Hannum (Letters, May 11), is in need
of a serious re-evaluation.
In a recent monograph entitled "Peace At Any Price: How the
World Failed Kosovo", Whit Mason and Iain King, who worked
closely with the UN Kosovo Mission (Unmik), continue a
discussion about how Kosovo is far from being a success. Some
international organisations are desperate to paint Kosovo in a
positive light to smooth the transition to its independence,
but the fact remains that Unmik, Nato and the Albanian
leadership have failed to achieve any of the standards they
set for themselves in the "standards before status" approach.
Recent rhetoric includes the European Union rededicating
itself to the return of Serb refugees. To date, fewer than
5 per cent of the 200,000 refugees created after Nato's
humanitarian intervention have been able to return. Whatever
problems Slobodan Milosevic posed for the region, and these
were real, we are now left with the legacy of massive refugee
displacements that resulted from Nato policy in the region,
including 800,000 refugees in Serbia. This has not helped the
process of democracy-building in Serbia. With destroyed
buildings from 1999 still littering Belgrade, including a
building where journalists were killed, it is still difficult
to make a pro-western argument today.
Our humanitarian interventions have been seriously lacking in
"post-conflict" planning and have resulted in further massive
refugee flows and instability. There are more parallels
between Iraq and the Balkan wars that need to be appreciated.
We should not abandon action in the defence of innocent lives,
but we need to have a serious and critical evaluation of our
"successes" and failures to this point. We probably have more
lessons to learn.
Mark A. Wolfgram,
Assistant Professor of Political Science,
Oklahoma State University,
Stillwater, OK 74078, US
(c) 2007 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved
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