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Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 23:56:15 +0200
To: TFF PressInfo recipients <tff@transnational.org>
From: Transnational Foundation TFF <tff@transnational.org>
Subject: PressInfo 41, Kosovo War No Prevention
Failure
P r e s s I n f o 4 2
T H E K O S O V O W
A R N O P R E V E N T I O N F
A I L U R E,
A L L H A D A N
I N T E R E S T I N I T
"Look at what happens in Kosovo and you would like to believe that all good powers worked for PREVENTION of this tragedy but that, unfortunately, tragedies happen. Governments, inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations are already overloaded with ongoing conflicts and catastrophes; budgets are tight etc. Admittedly these are very complex problems; and like all diseases cannot be prevented, we can't expect all wars to be prevented.
According to this theory, if things go wrong it is the parties' fault and if they go well it is thanks to the international community and a few shuttling envoys or diplomats. World media naively corroborate this theory: We watch how diplomats, envoys, and delegations fly around, hold press conferences, meet their kin in palaces or make solemn declarations if they don't issue threats. In short, do all they can to stop wars and force people to negotiation tables, don't they?
Well, no outbreak of violence on earth was more predictable than the one in Kosovo. There has been more early warnings about this conflict than about any other, but there was no early listening and no early action. There was neither the required conflict-management competence nor political will to prevent it.
We live in an increasingly interdependent world; we are told that hardly anything belongs to the internal affairs of states. The other side of that coin is that Kosovo was and is our problem. If we believe in this theory we must ask: when will honest people, including politicians, begin to openly
and self-critically discuss why they fail again and again to avert even the most predictable wars? Is it human folly, institutional immaturity, are diplomats just not appropriately trained in violence prevention and conflict-resolution, or what?
I am afraid there is another more accurate but less pleasant explanation," says TFF director Jan Oberg after his recent mission to Belgrade, Prishtina and Skopje where he had more than 50 conversations with heads of states, party leaders, intellectuals, media people and NGOs.
"This other explanation it is less apologetic, more cynical. It simply assumes that things like Kosovo happens because it is in the INTEREST of powerful actors that it happens. Preventive measures is merely a cover-up for such less noble interests. I can't avoid the feeling that in the case of Kosovo many central actors had an interests in this war.
The Yugoslav government has insisted for years that Kosovo-Albanians are not only separatists but also terrorists, that Dr. Rugova's leadership based on pragmatic non-violence was just a facade. It reminds us of periods in the 1970s, 1980s and now 1990s to prove it's point. And now there is an Albanian Army and its spokesman repeatedly talk about total independence and unification towards a Greater Albania. "There you see," Yugoslav president Milosevic can argue, "we were right and you people in the international community were fooled by the Albanians. We now just preserve the integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia like you would if you had a similar movement on your territory."
The Yugoslav/Serbian opposition which - like the government - has absolutely no idea about what to do with Kosovo can blame Milosevic: "There you see, Milosevic took no initiatives to start negotiations, he just won time. Now he has proved that he could not solve it as an internal affair, so now we have more foreign diplomats running around here than ever! He will be even more powerful by winning the war in Kosovo and no one dare start reforms or demonstrate in the streets of Belgrade while this happens. Our economy will be even worse but that's what everybody expect anyhow; the people are in apathy of all these years of economic deprivation and isolation from the international community. In the shadow of Kosovo, the regime now also tramples on the freedom and independence of the judiciary, the universities and media. Milosevic knows the international community won't support secession through violence, and he needs crisis to keep himself in power. And the international community needs him for Dayton and to keep separatism elsewhere at bay."
President Rugova of the self-proclaimed independent state of Kosova who favours nonviolence, might tell you this: "There you see, since 1989 we have warned the international community that we could not keep the population behind the nonviolent line if we did not get some help to achieve some results, either by NATO presence or bombings or by forcing Belgrade to negotiate with us. But no one really did anything to help us to achieve our human rights not to get out of this police state."
The Albanian opposition may see it this way: "There you see, Rugova never listened to us. He didn't allow the assembly of our elected parliament, he increasingly marginalised all other leaders and controlled the press. Presumably he has always been in collusion with Milosevic. He is not a dictator but his strategy yielded nothing; he promised an independent Kosova but where is it? We in the opposition knew that it had to end in violence, the only thing Belgrade understands."
The leaders of the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA/UCK), we may imagine, will reason somewhat along the same lines but add: "Many of us were political prisoners and when we came out nobody listened to us. We are now risking our lives for the liberation of our Kosovan Motherland and we simply don't listen to politicians anymore, least of all Rugova. Power grows out of our guns so you better see UCK as the real present and future political power here in Kosova."
Well, but did the international community not do a lot to prevent war in Kosovo? I don't think so," continues Jan Oberg.
"The Kosovo issue was never high on the agendas in Hague, in London or in Geneva; it was not included in Dayton and no other initiatives were taken. Yugoslavia was recognised as a sovereign state with the Kosovo province inside but with no modalities. No systematic negotiation effort was ever tried and is not being tried even now. The best time to have found a tolerable solution was in 1992-93 when Milan Panic was prime minister; he had honest, energetic ministers for justice, human rights and education who did more than any other government before or after to solve this problem - but they got no support from the West. The Kosovars said 'no thanks' to dialogue with Panic because their strategy of mobilisation of international support and intervention stood a better chance with a "bad guy" like Milosevic in Belgrade than with a "nice guy" there like Panic.
Didn't the international community know that war was brewing in Kosovo? Of course it did! Look - in and around Kosovo, in Albania, Belgrade and Macedonia the international community has, for years, had NATO, US troops, the UN and OSCE missions in Macedonia, a US government office in the centre of Prishtina, EU monitors, embassies, shuttle diplomats, it has had intelligence officers from numerous countries and satellites in space which can monitor movements and see number plates on cars. Are we really to believe that the build-up of the Kosova Liberation Army, the training of soldiers and civilians, the acquisition of hundreds of thousands of arms and tons of ammunition that has gone on - according to Albanian sources - since 1992-93 was unknown and that the outbreak of war in the region came as a surprise? None of the diplomats I met who have served in the region for quite some time denied that all this was well-known. But their governments back home turned the blind eye to and prevented none of it.
The international community has decided that its interventions and missions in Macedonia and Albania are successful, albeit not perfect. Period! That one-time friend of the West, Sali Berisha now runs the uncontrollable Northern Albania which is the de facto base for KLA/UCK proves it may not have been such a success. Macedonia is stable and democratic, we've been told for years irrespective of the fact that all the old problems remain basically unresolved. UNPREDEP is a marvellous mission but it was stationed in Macedonia for the wrong reasons - to prevent a completely unlikely aggression by Serbia into Macedonia.
The international community did not get a mission into Kosovo where it would have been relevant. Instead, in 1991 it foolishly suspended Rest-Yugslavia's perfectly legitimate membership of the OSCE after which Rest-Yugoslavia discontinued OSCE's three missions in Kosovo, Voivodina and Sandzak. Had they been around until today, the war had hardly happened. So, whatever the international community would have done recently to "prevent" the Kosovo war, it would implicitly have recognised that earlier actions were not such big successes. Or outright failures.
At least some powerful actors saw it to be in
their interest NOT to prevent the present war in Kosovo.
I see quite a few such interests," says TFF's
director who has worked with the Kosovo conflict on both sides since 1992.
First, you make contradictory commitments that satisfies conflicting governments in the EU/ Contact group and the US. Thus, for years you support the idea of sovereignty and integrity and reminds everyone that borders cannot be changed by force. But while you do that you also want to punish Serbia for its behaviour in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, so you receive Dr. Rugova in all possible capitals and parliaments and listen to his maximalist policy of independence for Kosova and support his minimalist strategy of nonviolence. Since 1991 you do three things that encourage all Albanians: a) you never dissociate your government from the Kosovo-Albanian press claims that they have the international community's support for an independent state (while what you told them was that you supported their struggle for human rights); b) you never invite a Yugoslav diplomat or minister to your office to listen to that side of the story, and c) you let American presidents make various hints that the West will come to rescue Kosova should Serbia misbehave."
Second, wars like this are in the interest of those who profiteer from the trade in arms, drugs, prostitutes, looted war property, cigarettes, oil etc., the smugglers, the mafia, the security services, mercenary companies, private consultancy firms and paramilitary formations - which do the dirty job for democratic government. They are promoted and protected by politicians who have come to power through a) Western-endorsed free and fair, democratic elections, b) privatisation of the social(ist) property created up till 1989 by employees everywhere, and c) simple war-profiteering. Thus the Eastern European as well as the Caucasian environment now breeds one politico-economic-military-bureaucratic-criminal - PEMBC - complex after the other. They have the real power while many with formal titles are either powerless or incompetent as politicians.
Third, you deliberately wait to intervene until violence and chaos reign. Then you can present Mr. Holbrooke, Christopher Hill - or some other presumed miracle-maker - the EU, the Contact Group or NATO as saviours and peacemakers and argue: "There you see, you proved you could not manage your own problems, we have to manage them for you." When that role is established, you can much more easily dictate the terms of a negotiation as well as an outcome that fits your longterm strategic, political and economic interests in the region. All, of course, is done in the name of peace, democratisation, privatisation, marketisation and human rights. So, the more the international community "fails" to prevent violence in non-vital countries, the more it can control and gain in them later.
Four, you use the opportunity to present NATO as the eminent new 'peacekeeper' - and keep the UN in the shadow. There are threats of NATO bombings or intervention, there are exercises and statements about who could be taught a lesson, if...So, it looks like "we do something, we won't accept a new Bosnia" - and similar nonsense. This serves to hide earlier conflict-management fiascoes to citizens in Europe and the US. These threats, in clear support for the Albanians and UCK/KLA comes three years after the same countries helped Croatia to ethnically cleanse its territory of 250 000 perfectly legitimate Serbs citizens of that republic. Not very credible or moral, but who remembers?
True, it costs a little more with all these troops, missions, military aid, exercises, training programs, humanitarian aid and economic aid for reconstruction, but it establishes the international community - the US in particular - as masters for long enough to bring these "failed states" under the control that is essential to transforming them into submissive allies in the larger process of globalisation and world order transformation. And they are expected to be grateful to the West.
Concretely in Kosovo: this way of handling the
conflict serves to strengthen Milosevic in the short run and weaken him
in the long run. Iraq seems increasingly to be State Department's model
in Serbia, and the EU has no ideas and no common policy for the region.
Some kind of partition of Kosovo will create even more internal conflicts
among Albanians in Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia - thus easier to control
by the West in decades to come. Germany will advance diplomatically, economically
and little by little also militarily; the whole region is already a DM
zone and Germany has replaced Serbia as Macedonia's largest trading partner.
The US will provide the overall framework a la Dayton and then the strategic,
NATO-oriented impetus, the training of police, security and military of
these "failed" but resurrected states as it has done from Croatia down
through half of Bosnia to Albania and Macedonia. No wonder that US diplomats
head almost all international missions in the region now.
In short, Kosovo or rather Serbia/Yugoslavia
is now the centre of the globalisation and world order restructuring. The
modes of operation differ but it is part of the same transformation that
we have seen in Mexico, South Korea, Indonesia, Somalia, the Great Lakes,
Croatia, Bosnia and Iraq. It is implies a power struggle between the US/NATO
and a Balkanized, loud-shouting but paralysed EU.
Who pays the price? Innocent citizens-turned-refugees and 90% of the other ordinary citizens in these lands, many of whom lack the education or political consciousness to see through the games played over an above their heads. Next, civil society, co-existence and human community. And, third, moral values and the ideas of democracy, trust and - peace.
You may find my view cynical but I am convinced that only by being cynical in the analysis can we be truly humane and work to help those who suffer from all these double standards and power games," concludes Jan Oberg.
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Dr. Jan Oberg
Director, head of the TFF Conflict-Mitigation
team to the Balkans and Georgia
T F F
Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future
Research
Vegagatan 25, S - 224 57 Lund, Sweden
Phone +46-46-145909 (0900-1100)
Fax +46-46-144512
Email tff@transnational.org
http://www.transnational.org
_______________________________________________________________________
Taken from http://www.transnational.org
on August 18, 1998 on 23:10 hrs
Kosovo - Why It Is Serious,
What Not To Do
TFF PressInfo 34
"The statements and threats by European Union commissioner VAN DEN BROEK and foreign secretary ROBIN COOK are imprudent: they focus on the actors, not on the problems. When BENJAMIN GILMAN, chairman of the US House International Relations Committee talks about sanctions, sending "NATO and UN troops" to the region and supports "independent Kosova," there is even more reason for concern.
They speak the language of power and violence, not of understanding and dialogue. And it is likely to harm the Kosovo-Albanians.
"The tragic truth is that since 1990, neither
the United States, the OSCE nor the EU and its members have developed any
policies to help the Serbs and Albanians avoid the predictable showdown
we now witness in Kosovo.
There is much talk about conflict prevention,
early warning, preventive diplomacy and non-military security. The second
tragic truth is that there has been very little intellectual innovation
since the so-called end of the Cold War. No new organisations have been
created, geared to handle the new conflicts. Governments still seem unaware
that their diplomats must be trained in conflict understanding and management
- as anyone dealing with legal issues must be trained in law. And global
media still focus on violence, not on underlying conflicts or possible
solutions," says DR. OBERG who, during the last six years, has been personally
engaged with a TFF team of experts in conflict-mitigation between Serbs
and Albanians at government as well as NGO level.
Regrettably recent events in the Kosovo province of Yugoslavia confirm the early warnings by many independent voices, including the TFF since 1992 and, latest, our PressInfo from August 1997:
"The Serbs and Albanians have proved that they themselves are unable to start and sustain a dialogue process towards conflict-resolution and reconciliation. International attempts, lacking analysis as well as strategy, have failed, too. The overall situation has deteriorated and violence is escalating, slowly but surely. It simply cannot go on like that in the future, and go well. New thinking should be applied sooner rather than later."
Following is Dr. Oberg's assessment of why the Kosovo situation is dangerous:
"The Kosovo-Albanian leadership which supports
pragmatic rather than principled non-violence and wants international involvement
is rapidly being undermined by a "Kosova Liberation Army" whose violence
suits the Belgrade authorities' repression well, and vice versa. The Albanians
proclaimed their independent state "Kosova" in 1990.
They hoped that the Dayton process would include
them and that the international community would not recognise Yugoslavia
with Kosovo inside it. Since both assumptions turned out to be wrong, the
Kosovo-Albanian leadership has not been able to devise a new policy and
strategy for stepwise achievement of their longterm goal.
The Serbian leaders refuse any international governmental involvement in what they consider an internal affair of Yugoslavia. But that is no longer a viable argument. The increasingly violent situation in the Kosovo region threatens inter-national stability. Yugoslavia is eager to become an integral part of the international community and seeks much needed investments and loans; it can hardly have it both ways.
Thus, the Serbian and Albanian leaders share three things:
1) a policy with mutually exclusive positions
2) an inability to get an sustained, orderly
dialogue going
3) an increasing, perceived need to use violence.
Thus, over time the Albanian side has gotten stuck with symbol policies of their independent state. The Serb side is equally stuck with nothing to offer but repressive policies within Yugoslavia. In short, a vicious circle.
In this situation it is counterproductive to issue warnings, threats or judgments - as has been done the last few days by Western diplomats in general and Hans van den Broek, Robin Cook and Benjamin Gilman in particular. Since the Yugoslav tragedy began in 1991, the US and the EU have proven remarkably incapable at analysing the conflicts and the complexities of the Balkans. Their policies are better characterised by nationalism and double standards than by "common" policies or statesmanship.
Do these diplomats seriously want us to believe that new economic sanctions against the 10 million people in Yugoslavia (of which 2 million Kosovo-Albanians) will make ordinary Serbs reconciliate with the Kosovo-Albanians or that they will make the Yugoslav leadership including President Milosevic initiate negotiations? Will Milosevic believe the West is really angry with him when it has made itself quite dependent upon his co-operation in the - fragile - implementation of the Dayton Agreement?
How many billions of dollars are the sanction-advocates willing to set off to compensate the trade partners who will be barred from trading with Yugoslavia - has, for instance, not Macedonia suffered enough under the former sanctions? How do sanction advocates think secession-prone Montenegro will react to being victimised once again?
Statesmen wanting to prevent violence would address the problem and ask: how can we help solve it? They would need facts, analyses, and some basic knowledge about conflicts as well as history and psychology - in short understanding - before making proposals.
Not so Gilman, Cook and van den Broek. Conscious about past conflict management blunders, they skip listening, knowledge and analysis, play it tough, apportion guilt, talk down, point fingers, and offer lectures on civilised behaviour. They pretend to know the ideal solution and threaten punishment in a tone you would use only to people you fundamentally don't respect. By attacking the actors, they help solidify their locked positions and harden the attitudes.
And so they continue the history of European and American arrogance in the Balkans. If violence increases, they may turn the blind eye to the tragedy. Alternatively, they may exert a - self-appointed - moral obligation to intervene militarily arguing that this is the only way to make these people understand noble Western motives as well as intellectually and morally superior conflict-management...
But this is not the only way; it's the worst way. In the PressInfo 35 we suggest other options. But a scenario along these lines can no longer be excluded," ends Dr. Oberg.
You will find the relevant links to Yugoslavia
and the Kosovo province at our website -
http://www.transnational.org
March 5, 1998
The Transnational
Foundation for Peace and Future Research
Vegagatan 25, S - 224 57 Lund, Sweden
Phone + 46 - 46 - 145909 Fax + 46 - 46 - 144512
http://www.transnational.org E-mail: tff@transnational.org
_______________________________________________________________________
Taken from http://www.transnational.org
on August 18, 1998 on 23:10 hrs
Kosovo - What Can Still Be Done?
TFF PressInfo 35
"Violence closes doors and minds. Good conflict-resolution opens them. A principled, impartial and innovative approach is now the only way to prevent a new tragedy in the Balkans. A limited United Nations presence could be one element in violence prevention, says TFF director Jan Oberg. Below you find some examples, developed by us during our work with the Kosovo conflict since 1991. We'd be happy to have your comments and your suggestions."
"Many things can still be done - but only as long as there is no, or limited, violence. When violence is stepped up, opportunities for genuine solutions diminish. Governments and citizen around the world can take impartial goodwill initiatives, for instance:
• A hearing in the United Nations General Assembly. We need to get the facts on the table, presented by impartial experts as well as by the parties themselves; listen actively to them for they have interesting arguments and question their positions, activities and policies.
• Meetings all over Europe with various groups of Serbs and Albanians to discuss their problems. Governments and NGOs can provide the funds, the venues and the facilitators.
• Send a high-level international delegation of "citizens diplomats" to Belgrade and Kosovo and have it listen and make proposals on the establishment of a permanent dialogue or negotiation process but not on what the solution should be.
• A Non-Violence Pact. Pressure must be brought to bear on all parties to sign a document in which they solemnly declare that they will unconditionally refrain from the use of every kind of violence against human beings and property as part of their policies.
• Simultaneous withdrawal of Serb police and military from the region (with the exception of what is needed for self-defence along the borders) and disarmament of the Kosovo Liberation Army. This should be combined with a "Weapons-Buy-Back" program: citizens and paramilitary units are remunerated for handing in their weapons to collection points controlled by the UN.
• Monitoring of this process by UN Civil Affairs and Civil Police (200 or so are enough).
• Positive incentives. Make it known to the parties that international organisations will help them with things they need if they refrain from violence now and engage in talks. As a vital element in the conflict is underdevelopment, poverty and deepening economic crisis, there is considerable space for economic "carrots."
• Show respect. Tell the parties that any solution they reach voluntarily will be accepted by the international community. This means not treating them as helpless, clients or inferiors.
• Get Yugoslavia back into the OSCE. Lift the suspension of Yugoslavia in the OSCE, it was unwise from the beginning to exclude Yugoslavia which then, naturally, did not want to continue hosting the OSCE missions on its territory.
• UN Civil Police mission. Get perhaps 200 United Nations Civil Police on the ground to prevent incidents like those we have seen from exploding into something nobody can control.
• Independent government initiatives. Don't wait for the European Union to find a common policy on this issue. The Scandinavian countries and Switzerland could play a particularly active role in this conflict.
• Arrange seminars where a lot of imaginative longterm solutions can be suggested, analysed and debated in a non-binding manner, almost like a brainstorm - such as:
- various types of autonomy,
- international presence,
- protectorate or other types of transitional
administration,
- demilitarisation,
- normalisation of everyday life before an overall
solution is reached,
- conditions and modalities for remaining in
Serbia/Yugoslavia
- humanitarian presence and human rights monitoring,
- economic development, e.g. creation of a Kosovo
Co-Prosperity Region or Economic Free Zone,
- UN or OSCE peacekeeping,
- trusteeship,
- condominium (shared control of one government
by two or more states),
- "cantonisation" or a division of Kosovo,
- federalisation (i.e. Yugoslavia consisting
of not only Serbia and Montenegro but also of Kosovo)
- combinations of these ideas that the parties,
citizens' groups and others would accept.
- In summary, develop a multitude of options,
don't narrow it all down to "Our way, or war."
• Acknowledge that violence begins when people see no ideas or ways out or when they are afraid of losing face. Violence-prevention means helping parties overcoming that feeling.
• Focus on interests, not positions. There could be governmental and nongovernmental dialogues on specific, concrete needs and interests - education, health, finance, culture, etc. - with the common understanding that the longterm status of the region will be more easily solved if the parties have found solutions to pressing issues for the millions of citizens involved, particularly youth.
• Establish a truth commission. The situation is already infected with prejudice, racism, hate, propaganda and media blackouts. The majority of foreign media cover the violence, not the underlying conflict; they often side with the party they sympathise with but seldom analyse the problems that must be solved.
• Establish a reconciliation commission with impartial international organisations and highly respected international figures. Reconciliation is not needed only after wars: it is much easier to heal psychological wounds when 20 rather than 200 000 have been killed and no material damage has happened.
• An OSCE-like process for the Balkans. There are more than enough problems in this whole region - and in its relations with the rest of Europe, the EU, NATO etc. There is poverty, animosity, misery, human rights violations. Serbia has more than 600 000 refugees, the largest number in Europe. There are international "national interests" in all the Balkans. It is time to develop a compre-hensive approach through a series of conferences and dialogues. If the OSCE, the UN, small governments and NGOs cannot take such an initiative, who can? When is the time, if not now?
"It is not the task of outsiders to dictate anything. Only the parties themselves can find an acceptable and sustainable solution. What we foreigners can do now is to help the parties take the necessary steps back from the abyss and prevent a tragedy that could cost hundreds of thousands of innocent lives and spread to Macedonia," says Dr. Jan Oberg.
"This is why TFF facilitated a dialogue in writing between Belgrade and Prishtina authorities between 1992 and 1996.
Our proposal emphasises the process and does not say a word about the end result. To break the deadlock, the best option is a combination of a new kind of UN presence combined with non-governmental mediation. The UN is the least biased and most conflict-resolution competent organization we have. A UN presence should be new, limited and entirely non-military. We call it a United Nations Temporary Authority for a Negotiated Settlement, UNTANS.
It aims to facilitate, in a context of order, safety and respect for human rights, a peaceful and longterm negotiated settlement of all conflict issues between the parties. It's difficult, but not impossible. To summarise, there are so many ways to approach conflicts such as that in Kosovo. Violence is the result of fear and lack of good ideas. The best help governments and NGOs can bring just that - new ideas and therefore no threats or force," concludes TFF's director.
We can mail PressInfo 24 about UNTANS to you, just ask us. You may also read it or order the full mediation report at http://www.transnational.org. There you will find all the relevant links to Yugoslavia and the Kosovo province, too.
March 6, 1998
The Transnational
Foundation for Peace and Future Research
Vegagatan 25, S - 224 57 Lund, Sweden
Phone + 46 - 46 - 145909 Fax + 46 - 46 - 144512
http://www.transnational.org E-mail: tff@transnational.org
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