R E A D U N R E
S O L U T I O N 1 2 4 4
A N D W A T C H
N A T O I N K O S O V O
June 18, 1999
"Did you read UN Security Council Resolution
1244 about peace in
Kosovo? Well, it is not exactly coherent.
If your computer manual was this
much of a mishmash and contradictions
and if dozens of pages were missing,
you would probably have operative system
failures and bombs - and I think
this is what will happen with NATO in
Kosovo. But the resolution IS clear
enough on essentials for us to ask after
one week of NATO 'peace'-keeping
in Kosovo what on earth is going on,"
says TFF director Jan Oberg. Here and
in PressInfo 72 follow some of the already
manifest problems.
1. RESOLUTION 1244 IS CONTRADICTORY AND INSUFFICIENT
It condemns all acts of violence by the
local parties, but has not even a
mild statement about the uniquely brutal
NATO-caused killings and
devastation of a country of 12 million
people. It expresses a determination
to resolve the humanitarian crisis - well
and good - but does not address
any underlying conflict and makes no mention
of the civil war that raged in
Kosovo between February 1998 and March
24 this year.
It does reaffirm the sovereignty and territorial
integrity of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia but fails to present
the procedures and modalities
as to how the endorsed civilian and security
presences shall operate to
respect that sovereignty and integrity.
Further to this point, it simultaneously
decides (Para 11a) that the
civilian presence is tasked with 'promoting
the establishment, pending a
final settlement, of substantial autonomy
and self-government in Kosovo,
taking full account of annex 2 and of
the Rambouillet accords.' So, the
US-manipulated Rambouillet dictate - perhaps
the most shameful event in
modern diplomatic history - was sneaked
into the text in contravention of
what had been agreed with Belgrade. To
make things worse, the same Para 11f
mentions 'facilitating a political process
designed to determine Kosovo's
future status, taking into account the
Rambouillet accords.' This
formulation can - and will - be used to
justify a process towards
establishing an independent Kosova; indeed,
it is difficult to envision
NATO leave the province by just handing
Kosovo back to Belgrade, given the
tremendous investment and given the almost
limitless distrust and hate
between Serbs and Albanians after what
has happened.
There is a minimum of operationalization,
of stipulating who is doing what
when. NATO is the only organization mentioned,
not the OSCE, the UN, or
NGOs. During the G8 process, the United
States and NATO suddenly decided to
increase the military presence from 28.000
(at the time of Rambouillet) to
48.000, no explanation offered, and the
figure is not mentioned in the
resolution. Neither is the civilian presence,
its size, level or lead
agencies specified. All this opens up
for eternal disputes among various
organizations about roles, authority,
'command' and division of labour -
while the resolution emphasises the importance
of a 'rapid early deployment
of effective presences.' As a matter of
fact, the whole civilian aspect of
this mission is put at a disadvantage
by the very text.
2. THE RESOLUTION HAS NO PEACE STRATEGY
Only one short sentence mentions human
rights. There is not one word
pointing in the direction of civil society,
peace, tolerance, forgiveness,
co-existence, empowerment, psychological
help, no mention of e.g. a truth
commission, of how media must be helped
to disseminate tolerance rather
than hate speech. One therefore gets the
impression that those who drafted
this text haven't got a clue about human
psychology, traumas, peace and
human rights education and the like -
that it is, indeed, outside their
worldview that conflict, violence and
PEACE, to put it in simple terms, is
about PEOPLE.
So, again - decision-makers in power can
do almost anything militarily.
Technology gives them a sense of omnipotence.
When it comes to addressing
conflicts as problems to be solved among
human beings and peace as a vision
about a better future together, conflict
and peace 'illiteracy' abounds.
With all this omitted, ask yourself: Isn't
this resolution implicitly
revealing that nobody believes anymore
in a future of peaceful co-existence
between Albanians and Serbs? And isn't
that what genuine peacekeeping
should facilitate?
3. SEQUENCING, SYNCHRONISATION
According to the US/NATO/G8 dictate, first
Yugoslav forces should withdraw,
then bombing should stop and then international
forces should enter. Unless
NATO moved in at the heels of Yugoslav
troops moving out, this was bound -
predicatably - to create a vacuum that
a) permitted KLA to move in and b)
persuaded non-Albanians to begin to leave
immediately. This is exactly what
has happened. Are we to believe that this
was not foreseen by NATO? Why was
it done this way? Presumably to reduce
the risk that NATO troops should be
shot at while entering. Or put crudely:
better let tens of thousands of
Kosovo-Serbs leave their homes for good
than risk a single NATO life.
Annex 2 point 4 of SC Res. 1244 states
that the 'security presence' shall
'establish a safe environment for
all people in Kosovo. But at least
30.000 civilian Serbs have already left
under NATO's peacekeeping and
protection and the mission HAS therefore
already failed in achieving its
main task.
In addition, when the G8 agreement and
the UN resolution stipulate that ALL
police and military must withdraw it is
obviously forgotten that
Serb/Yugoslav police in the region, to
a large extent, is made up of people
born and raised with their families there.
So, demanding that ALL leave
means forcing out at least 50.000 legitimate
citizens of that province.
IMAGINE instead that the sequence had been:
first agreement to a plan
according to which the bombing would stop
first, then a stepwise entering
of international forces seeing the Yugoslav
troops off, village by village
from the south to the north of the province.
NATO would then have filled
every vacuum and prevented KLA from taking
over. When the UN entered zones
in Croatia and the UNTAES mission in Eastern
Slavonia had been set up,
troops either moved out immediately or
were disarmed. Why not something
like that in Kosovo? It looks now like
light-armed UN peacekeepers have
traditionally been much more courageous
than heavy-armed NATO soldiers.
4. FORCE COMPOSITION - 3 PROBLEMS
The leading NATO countries just moved in
the troops which they had amassed
month before in the neighbouring countries.
Resolution 1244, however,
"authorises Member States and relevant
international organizations to
establish the international security presence."
This of course was another
humiliation the UN had to suffer: that
it does not gather - or is consulted
about - the so-called peacekeepers which
operate on the basis of a UN
resolution. But this does not mean that
the US/NATO group should monopolise
the process. In principle, all member
states can contribute.
Which brings us to the major diplomatic
crisis the US has created vis-a-vis
Russia. It is not the least due to Russian
mediation that an agreement
could at all be concluded with Belgrade.
However, the US consistently
refuses to accept a Russian zone while
NATO partitioned and occupied the
whole province without asking them or
anybody else. The official argument
is that if there is a Russian zone, Serbs
would run to that and Albanians
would not feel safe. (Indeed, KLA is stating
that it will not disarm unless
the Russians leave).
The is utterly cynic: the very same countries
that use this argument have,
systematically during 78 days, devastated
the Serbian/Yugoslav society, the
Serb home country and Kosovo which Serbs
consider their cradle. They take
for granted that Serbs ought to feel safe
under them in their role as
bombers-cum-peacekeepers. As in Croatia
and Bosnia we see how the US and
the international 'community' apply different
principles from case to case
and preferential treatment to non-Serb
civilians and citizens.
Zoning and command is the third problem:
Annex 2.4 states "the
international security presence with substantial
North Atlantic Treaty
Organization participation must be deployed
under unified command and
control." It does not say "NATO command."
Indeed, if all interested states
had been consulted democratically, a neutral
command could have been set up
consisting of generals from NATO as well
as non-NATO countries, in short a
cooperative effort paying respect to all
contributing countries. Again, the
US/NATO omnipotently decided to take it
all for themselves. Behind the
podium in the newly established Pristina
press briefing room, there is only
"NATO" and its emblem - not a word indicating
that other countries such as
Sweden may be involved or about this being
formally a mission 'under the
auspices of the UN.'
Unbiased media would ask questions about
such flawed arguments and
all-dominating policies at NATO and State
Department briefings, so would
anybody who does not take NATO propaganda
for truth or suffer from
self-censorship. Commentators, editors,
experts and politicians would
discuss this openly in a democratic democracy.
But not in an increasingly
authoritarian democracy.
IMAGINE instead that these three problems
had been solved through
consultation and not by fait accompli
and marginalization of major non-NATO
countries. Imagine that they had found
a solution before the Russians moved
in from the north and NATO from the south.
In short, imagine that NATO was
a democratic organization in its inner
and outer relations.
"Wouldn't it be in line with what those
self-proclaimed leaders say - that
they speak on behalf of the world, of
the whole international community? If
they did," says Jan Oberg, "they would
consult with others instead of
chopping up countries and occupy territories
in the name of that very world
community. Truth is, of course, that if
they they did speak on behalf of
the international community - and
if there was unity around the world as
to how to handle this crisis - we would
have a UN decision, a UN mission, a
UN presence and a UN approach to conflict-resolution.
That is exactly what
these leaders - of about 10 per cent of
the world's population - want so
intensely to avoid."
© TFF 1999
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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