“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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