The Polish/Swedish journalist Maciej Zaremba has written a critical series of articles about the situation in Kosovo (links to the English versions are at the top of the page). It is mostly a critical account of how the UN rule works and how it generates corruption. Zaremba sees the structure of the mission as the main problem.
Part 1: report from UNMIKistan, land of the future contains an interview with Albin Kurti and a story about corruption at the airport.
Part 2: The UN state and the seven robbers starts with the case of Jo Trutschler, a German swindler who managed to become senior manager at the electricity company KEK (his fraudulent CV was never checked), tells how many UN employees - specially "consultants" - become employed through "connections". It follows with another airport story and the mobile phone contract.
Part 3: Complain in Azerbaijan is about the "legal immunity" of the mission with several examples.
Part 4: Prowess, courage and plastic socks starts with the story how Swedish soldiers in march 2004 in a day long battle saved Gracanica from being burnt. It continues describing how some other militairy missions did much worse and it ends with the international police.
In two final articles present UN governor Joachim Rücker gives his reaction to the articles ("article is very unbalanced") and Zaremba's reaction.
It makes you wonder whether it wouldn't have been better when the UN had followed resolution 1244 to the letter. It stipulated that after a short UN reign there should come an interim government (that respected Yugoslavia's territorial integrity - so it would probably look something like before 1989 with the Albanians in charge and the peacekeepers as a kind of mediator). After that negotiations should be started for a definitive status. Obviously international government is not the success that we hoped.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
A house for everyone
The recent Martic verdict of the ICTY was for me a reason to look again into what happened in the Krajna.
I find it very worrying that Croatia could cleanse most of its Serb community and get away with it. Many internationals like to say that these Serbs somehow deserved it. But I don't buy that. Each ruler is responsible for his own territory and is obliged to make sure that it is not ethnically cleansed. Once you start accepting excuses you open the gate for everyone to find his own excuse. Besides, there are enough indications that Croatia under Tudjman had a policy of actively "encouraging" Serbs to emigrate both by robbing them of their jobs and by symbolism that was designed to bring the horrors of World War II in memory.
I think it is no coincidence that the ethnic cleansings in Kosovo of Serbs and Albanians after march 1999 had much similarity with that in the Krajna in 1995. The unconcern of the international community towards Kosovo's Serb refugees and towards the prospect of more refugees if the Ahtisaari proposal is accepted seem related too.
I think that the problem is rooted in the fact that the international community has only one set of concepts to deal with in this kind of situations: "ethnic cleansing" and "right of return". But in view of the situation in Bosnia those concepts have lost their power. Bosnia has hundreds of thousands of refugees who live now somewhere else where they have settled and from where they don't intend to return to their original place. This gives the concept of the right of return an air of arbitrariness. In practice it means often only that you can ask some money for the house that you left behind.
What I am missing in the international vocabulary is the concept of fairness. If area A sends 500,000 refugees to area B and area B sends 500,000 others to area A there is at least a balance. Such a balance can be found to a certain extent in Bosnia. But in Kosovo and Croatia the cleansing is nowadays completely onesided.
This is not just an academic discussion. Nobody will be enthousiastic about cleansing if he knows that there is to be a balance - because it implies that his own people will be involved too. However, when he cleansing is onesided it becomes profitable.
As a consequence I believe that it would be good international policy to promote fairness in international conflicts. In Bosnia such a policy was present and in the end we got a territorial division that somewhat reflects the size of the ethnic groups. But I believe that we could have improved on the proces by being clear on the principle from the beginning by hinting that the Serbs - being 33% of the population before the war - were supposed to control an area that contained 33% of the population before the war, Muslims 43%, etc.
Having such a rule might have a very healthy influence in Bosnia. Many Bosiaks seem to see Bosnia as "their" nation-state and wouldn't mind some "encouragement" for Croats and Serbs to emigrate. In fact Silajdzic already provides such encouragement. Many Serbs and Croats sense this threat and are for that reason afraid of a more centralized state.
This model is not perfect of course. Croats in Bosnia lived so spread that it would be difficult to let them control a part of Bosnia according to their number in a democratic way. And with the migration of many Bosnian Croats to Croatia one could argue that Bosnia and Croatia have to be considered together to determine the fairness.
Such fairness considerations would also have consequences for refugee returns. It would suggest that it is not fair if one side is returning en masse while at the same time they are blocking the returns for the other side. I think the UN should be clear about these fairness criteria. It might prevent useless discussions about situations in specific cities or villages.
When fairness is threatened in Bosnia the international community can be repair situations with relatively small policy changes. But the situation with Croatia and Kosovo is different. Even if you take the immigration of ethnic Croats from Bosnia and Serbia in account Croatia has exiled about 200,000 people more than it has absorbed. The international community should make it clear that this inacceptable. We will have to grudgingly accept the population exchanges that have taken place. But we can't accept one ethnic group throwing out another just for the pleasure of possessing their lands and houses. So we will need to make some ultimatum.
My preference would that the Security Council gives Croatia one year to repair the situation. If it doesn't manage to do so it should have to give up territory to house 200,000 people.
This wil be controversial. But it will make it clear that the international community is committed to a balanced outcome. If such a policy had been in place before:
- the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and the Croats in Bosnia would at some point have stopped to conquer more territory because they would know that even in the most favorable outcome for them they would have to give up the excess.
- the Croats would have behaved differently in Operation Storm
- the Serbs would not have tried to cleanse Kosovo during the 1999 war.
- destruction of houses would have been limited as the parties would have been aware that they would need the houses for their own people.
Such an outcome oriented policy will also force countries to adapt their policy. Nowadays it is profitable to keep the ethnic hatred alive. It prevents returns and that fits some people well, either for emotional reasons or because they wants the property of the displaced minorities. But with such policy in place countries will follow the opposite policy and stress the faults and crimes committed by the own side in order to decrease the resistance against returns. The alternative of giving up territory is less attractive.
One might argue that such a policy promotes "population exchanges". But in fact it is completely neutral in this respect. The formula says that in an ethnicaly mixed territory each groups should rule over a percentage of the population that is equal to its percentage in the total population. So both sides will have a similar quantity of minorities and know that cleansing will harm their own side too.
Context and restrictions
It should be stressed that I recommended this policy only for those cases where a high percentage of a minority has been expelled for the long term. It is not the solution to all problems. But I believe that it is an indispensable tool in the toolbox of diplomacy that deals with ethnic conflicts.
I find it very worrying that Croatia could cleanse most of its Serb community and get away with it. Many internationals like to say that these Serbs somehow deserved it. But I don't buy that. Each ruler is responsible for his own territory and is obliged to make sure that it is not ethnically cleansed. Once you start accepting excuses you open the gate for everyone to find his own excuse. Besides, there are enough indications that Croatia under Tudjman had a policy of actively "encouraging" Serbs to emigrate both by robbing them of their jobs and by symbolism that was designed to bring the horrors of World War II in memory.
I think it is no coincidence that the ethnic cleansings in Kosovo of Serbs and Albanians after march 1999 had much similarity with that in the Krajna in 1995. The unconcern of the international community towards Kosovo's Serb refugees and towards the prospect of more refugees if the Ahtisaari proposal is accepted seem related too.
I think that the problem is rooted in the fact that the international community has only one set of concepts to deal with in this kind of situations: "ethnic cleansing" and "right of return". But in view of the situation in Bosnia those concepts have lost their power. Bosnia has hundreds of thousands of refugees who live now somewhere else where they have settled and from where they don't intend to return to their original place. This gives the concept of the right of return an air of arbitrariness. In practice it means often only that you can ask some money for the house that you left behind.
What I am missing in the international vocabulary is the concept of fairness. If area A sends 500,000 refugees to area B and area B sends 500,000 others to area A there is at least a balance. Such a balance can be found to a certain extent in Bosnia. But in Kosovo and Croatia the cleansing is nowadays completely onesided.
This is not just an academic discussion. Nobody will be enthousiastic about cleansing if he knows that there is to be a balance - because it implies that his own people will be involved too. However, when he cleansing is onesided it becomes profitable.
As a consequence I believe that it would be good international policy to promote fairness in international conflicts. In Bosnia such a policy was present and in the end we got a territorial division that somewhat reflects the size of the ethnic groups. But I believe that we could have improved on the proces by being clear on the principle from the beginning by hinting that the Serbs - being 33% of the population before the war - were supposed to control an area that contained 33% of the population before the war, Muslims 43%, etc.
Having such a rule might have a very healthy influence in Bosnia. Many Bosiaks seem to see Bosnia as "their" nation-state and wouldn't mind some "encouragement" for Croats and Serbs to emigrate. In fact Silajdzic already provides such encouragement. Many Serbs and Croats sense this threat and are for that reason afraid of a more centralized state.
This model is not perfect of course. Croats in Bosnia lived so spread that it would be difficult to let them control a part of Bosnia according to their number in a democratic way. And with the migration of many Bosnian Croats to Croatia one could argue that Bosnia and Croatia have to be considered together to determine the fairness.
Such fairness considerations would also have consequences for refugee returns. It would suggest that it is not fair if one side is returning en masse while at the same time they are blocking the returns for the other side. I think the UN should be clear about these fairness criteria. It might prevent useless discussions about situations in specific cities or villages.
When fairness is threatened in Bosnia the international community can be repair situations with relatively small policy changes. But the situation with Croatia and Kosovo is different. Even if you take the immigration of ethnic Croats from Bosnia and Serbia in account Croatia has exiled about 200,000 people more than it has absorbed. The international community should make it clear that this inacceptable. We will have to grudgingly accept the population exchanges that have taken place. But we can't accept one ethnic group throwing out another just for the pleasure of possessing their lands and houses. So we will need to make some ultimatum.
My preference would that the Security Council gives Croatia one year to repair the situation. If it doesn't manage to do so it should have to give up territory to house 200,000 people.
This wil be controversial. But it will make it clear that the international community is committed to a balanced outcome. If such a policy had been in place before:
- the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and the Croats in Bosnia would at some point have stopped to conquer more territory because they would know that even in the most favorable outcome for them they would have to give up the excess.
- the Croats would have behaved differently in Operation Storm
- the Serbs would not have tried to cleanse Kosovo during the 1999 war.
- destruction of houses would have been limited as the parties would have been aware that they would need the houses for their own people.
Such an outcome oriented policy will also force countries to adapt their policy. Nowadays it is profitable to keep the ethnic hatred alive. It prevents returns and that fits some people well, either for emotional reasons or because they wants the property of the displaced minorities. But with such policy in place countries will follow the opposite policy and stress the faults and crimes committed by the own side in order to decrease the resistance against returns. The alternative of giving up territory is less attractive.
One might argue that such a policy promotes "population exchanges". But in fact it is completely neutral in this respect. The formula says that in an ethnicaly mixed territory each groups should rule over a percentage of the population that is equal to its percentage in the total population. So both sides will have a similar quantity of minorities and know that cleansing will harm their own side too.
Context and restrictions
It should be stressed that I recommended this policy only for those cases where a high percentage of a minority has been expelled for the long term. It is not the solution to all problems. But I believe that it is an indispensable tool in the toolbox of diplomacy that deals with ethnic conflicts.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Speech control
Ideas often come before actions. And so it is good to look what ethnic leaders say and to make them accountable for it. As I see it there are three kinds of "dangerous" remarks:
- remarks that describe the others as inferior or having less civil rights
- complaints and accusations about behavior by the others
- demands for more ethnic rights
1. Remarks that describe the others as inferior or having less civil rights
I find these by far the most problematic as they are explicit. The other kinds of remarks may be quite legitimate, but here there is no doubt about the intent. Yet the international community pays these kinds of remarks the least attention.
The war in Yugoslavia began for me when I heard that Tudjman had said that if the Serbs didn't like it in Croatia they should leave for Serbia. This made it clear that they had less civil rights than the Croats. I still find it unbelievable that the international community did not react.
The recent remarks of Silajdzic about Serbs having been "raised as fascists and criminals" falls in the same category. Everyone understands that criminals should be kept under close control and not be allowed much freedom. And so he implicitly condemns the Serbs as a life as second rate citizens. In nearly every Western country such utterings are punishable under anti-racism laws.
Peacekeepers tend to ignore these kind of remarks. As they see it, these people are not fighting and not making demands and so it is rather innocent. But these ideas lay the framework from which fighting and nationalistic demands follow.
2. Complaints and accusations about behavior by the others
This category can be divided between personal attacks and attacks on an ethnic group.
In the case of attacks on a person or a small group (for example accusing them of being a war criminal, a thug or corrupt) one should keep to the principle that everyone is innocent until proven otherwise. This is the only way to keep the political discussion clean. Peacekeepers should be careful to maintain decorum in this area. When there is some proof - of course - charges should be investigated.
Attacks on ethnic groups come in a wide variety. They vary between the 1987 report of the Serb Academy of Sciences about discrimination of Serbs in Croatia and Kosovo to charges that the RS is the "product of ethnic cleansing".
One should try to look to these charges first in the wider context. What is the accuser trying to achieve? Accusations without suggestions how to improve are not very credible. See further under point 3 (demands).
Next one should analyze the complaint. Both "Serbs are discriminated" and "the RS is the product of genocide" are generalisations that are difficult to prove. The discrimination should be made exact with examples and statistics. The "product of genocide" seems to be a combination of a demand for abolishment of the RS and a generalisation about genocide. One might claim that the RS is for a part the product of genocide, but one cannot deny that many other other factors contributed to the arising of the RS.
I think that peace keepers should demounce generalisations and push for concrete complaints. These complaints should be thoroughly investigated and when found grounded there should be a search for concrete solutions.
Memorandum
I good example of how not to handle complaints is the memorandum of the Serb Academy of Sciences in 1986. Sure, the Memorandum contained some bombastic statements, but the study on the positions of the Serbs in Kosovo was a detailed and serious study and deserved a serious answer, not some propagandistic statement about Serb nationalism. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the reason why Milosevic chose to revoke the Kosovo autonomy and to grab for control over the presidium. ialogue obviously didn't work.
It is often thought that the core of democracy is voting or a free market. But I belief that the core is the realisation that you are all together in the same country and working together to bring that country forward. Of course everyone tries to promote his own interests, but it is part of the democratic ideology that you do not cross the borders of fairness.
Yugoslavia in 1986 was on the border of democracy. People started to speak up about their complaints. Institutions like an independent judiciary - that normally guarantees fairness in a democracy were not yet there. And so it was up to the politicians to do it. They failed.
Democracies everywhere have to deal with nationalisms. The trick is to solve the real complaints and to mostly ignore the nationalistic rethoric. Yugoslavia failed to do this and ended by falling apart in war. But nowadays the successor republics face the same challenges.
3. Demands for more ethnic rights
It is a fundamental aspect of democracy that everyone is free to try to improve his position. So there is nothing wrong with ethnic demands - even when they include changes of borders.
However, two principles should be maintained:
- the democratic rules of law as used in that country should be respected.
- no discrimination.
The main task of internationals should be to guide those discussions about those demands. What will the demands mean for the other group(s)? How will the details be filled in? What do they hope to achieve? They should also try to place the discussion in a broader context.
If one takes the "abolishment of the RS" demand one has immediately to conclude that the "product of genocide" claim is about the past. It says nothing about the reason why it should be desirable to abolish the RS now and what should be in its place. As such it clouds the discussion and should be avoided.
I believe peacekeepers should create an open atmosphere for discussions. Discussions should be about real arguments and not be decided by "that is unacceptable for us". And it should be accepted that even when the arguments are good that is no guarantee that it becomes democratically accepted.
Genocide
For me the word "genocide" is completely meaningless in the context of former Yugoslavia. Is killing 7000 people in Srebrenica genocide? But what if you kill everybody in a village of 300 people? What if you eliminate one complete family of 10?
I strongly prefer to stop talking about genocide in the context of Yugoslavia and instead to start talking about concrete events and facts. The word "genocide" is reducing dialogue and reconciliation to calling names. Let's call a murder a murder and stop pretending that some murders are infinitely worse than others because someone has decided to label them as genocide.
Reconciliation
Peacekeepers should also take an active part in shaping the public discussion about what happened in the war. Unfortunately many of them know only fragments of what happened and they tend to listen mainly to one side.
At the moment the international community focusses its attention on war crimes. I think this should be widened. The conflicts began with words and politics. This side should get much more attention.
Conclusion
Peacekeepers should function most of the time as discussion leaders. Doing this they should use the same rules that are used in Western countries.
- remarks that describe the others as inferior or having less civil rights
- complaints and accusations about behavior by the others
- demands for more ethnic rights
1. Remarks that describe the others as inferior or having less civil rights
I find these by far the most problematic as they are explicit. The other kinds of remarks may be quite legitimate, but here there is no doubt about the intent. Yet the international community pays these kinds of remarks the least attention.
The war in Yugoslavia began for me when I heard that Tudjman had said that if the Serbs didn't like it in Croatia they should leave for Serbia. This made it clear that they had less civil rights than the Croats. I still find it unbelievable that the international community did not react.
The recent remarks of Silajdzic about Serbs having been "raised as fascists and criminals" falls in the same category. Everyone understands that criminals should be kept under close control and not be allowed much freedom. And so he implicitly condemns the Serbs as a life as second rate citizens. In nearly every Western country such utterings are punishable under anti-racism laws.
Peacekeepers tend to ignore these kind of remarks. As they see it, these people are not fighting and not making demands and so it is rather innocent. But these ideas lay the framework from which fighting and nationalistic demands follow.
2. Complaints and accusations about behavior by the others
This category can be divided between personal attacks and attacks on an ethnic group.
In the case of attacks on a person or a small group (for example accusing them of being a war criminal, a thug or corrupt) one should keep to the principle that everyone is innocent until proven otherwise. This is the only way to keep the political discussion clean. Peacekeepers should be careful to maintain decorum in this area. When there is some proof - of course - charges should be investigated.
Attacks on ethnic groups come in a wide variety. They vary between the 1987 report of the Serb Academy of Sciences about discrimination of Serbs in Croatia and Kosovo to charges that the RS is the "product of ethnic cleansing".
One should try to look to these charges first in the wider context. What is the accuser trying to achieve? Accusations without suggestions how to improve are not very credible. See further under point 3 (demands).
Next one should analyze the complaint. Both "Serbs are discriminated" and "the RS is the product of genocide" are generalisations that are difficult to prove. The discrimination should be made exact with examples and statistics. The "product of genocide" seems to be a combination of a demand for abolishment of the RS and a generalisation about genocide. One might claim that the RS is for a part the product of genocide, but one cannot deny that many other other factors contributed to the arising of the RS.
I think that peace keepers should demounce generalisations and push for concrete complaints. These complaints should be thoroughly investigated and when found grounded there should be a search for concrete solutions.
Memorandum
I good example of how not to handle complaints is the memorandum of the Serb Academy of Sciences in 1986. Sure, the Memorandum contained some bombastic statements, but the study on the positions of the Serbs in Kosovo was a detailed and serious study and deserved a serious answer, not some propagandistic statement about Serb nationalism. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the reason why Milosevic chose to revoke the Kosovo autonomy and to grab for control over the presidium. ialogue obviously didn't work.
It is often thought that the core of democracy is voting or a free market. But I belief that the core is the realisation that you are all together in the same country and working together to bring that country forward. Of course everyone tries to promote his own interests, but it is part of the democratic ideology that you do not cross the borders of fairness.
Yugoslavia in 1986 was on the border of democracy. People started to speak up about their complaints. Institutions like an independent judiciary - that normally guarantees fairness in a democracy were not yet there. And so it was up to the politicians to do it. They failed.
Democracies everywhere have to deal with nationalisms. The trick is to solve the real complaints and to mostly ignore the nationalistic rethoric. Yugoslavia failed to do this and ended by falling apart in war. But nowadays the successor republics face the same challenges.
3. Demands for more ethnic rights
It is a fundamental aspect of democracy that everyone is free to try to improve his position. So there is nothing wrong with ethnic demands - even when they include changes of borders.
However, two principles should be maintained:
- the democratic rules of law as used in that country should be respected.
- no discrimination.
The main task of internationals should be to guide those discussions about those demands. What will the demands mean for the other group(s)? How will the details be filled in? What do they hope to achieve? They should also try to place the discussion in a broader context.
If one takes the "abolishment of the RS" demand one has immediately to conclude that the "product of genocide" claim is about the past. It says nothing about the reason why it should be desirable to abolish the RS now and what should be in its place. As such it clouds the discussion and should be avoided.
I believe peacekeepers should create an open atmosphere for discussions. Discussions should be about real arguments and not be decided by "that is unacceptable for us". And it should be accepted that even when the arguments are good that is no guarantee that it becomes democratically accepted.
Genocide
For me the word "genocide" is completely meaningless in the context of former Yugoslavia. Is killing 7000 people in Srebrenica genocide? But what if you kill everybody in a village of 300 people? What if you eliminate one complete family of 10?
I strongly prefer to stop talking about genocide in the context of Yugoslavia and instead to start talking about concrete events and facts. The word "genocide" is reducing dialogue and reconciliation to calling names. Let's call a murder a murder and stop pretending that some murders are infinitely worse than others because someone has decided to label them as genocide.
Reconciliation
Peacekeepers should also take an active part in shaping the public discussion about what happened in the war. Unfortunately many of them know only fragments of what happened and they tend to listen mainly to one side.
At the moment the international community focusses its attention on war crimes. I think this should be widened. The conflicts began with words and politics. This side should get much more attention.
Conclusion
Peacekeepers should function most of the time as discussion leaders. Doing this they should use the same rules that are used in Western countries.
Friday, June 15, 2007
How peacekeeping missions loose their focus
Peacekeepers have a lot in common with the police. Both maintain some written text: the peace agreement or the law. And both have the authority to use force, but are supposed also to use persuasion to achieve conformity to the peace agreement or law.
If one analyses the peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo it is easy to see that something has gone wrong. They are not real peacekeeping operations but something somewhere between peacekeeping and a colonial occupation.
Bosnia
Take Bosnia. The Dayton Agreement was rather clear. But instead of just maintaining it the internationals let themselves be convinced that Dayton was not good enough and needed improvement. No wise cop will not allow himself to be drawn in a discussion about the validity of the laws. He may be flexible on details, but they will not allow you to undermine the core of their mission. Unfortunately what happened in Bosnia.
In my opinion the internationals (both EUFOR and the high representative) should restrict themself to maintaining Dayton. Any discussion about independence for the RS or abolition of the RS should be discarded with a simple "that is not in Dayton".
Kosovo
In Kosovo the situation was even more extreme. Resolution 1244 was clear about Serbia's territorial integrity. It foresaw negotiations to establish an interim government that respected the territorial integrity. After that final negotiations could be started. Serb diplomats were ready and started soon after the war to hint at several solutions including partition. But the internationals rejected this and instead kept Kosovo in limbo for 7 years - after which they started negotiations about a final solution chaperoned by a partial negotiator and handicapped by Contact Group principles that excluded the option of partition.
Resolution 1244 foresaw a short period of UN rule and as a consequence didn't give extensive instructions on how to rule the province. UNMIK was supposed just to keep things running. When the mission continued for years it got inevitably involved in legislation. This was something for which they had no clear mandate and as a consequence it handicapped them in their peace keeping mission.
The problem with changing your basis is that the mission gets off-balance. The discussion is no longer about how the mission can achieve its goals. Instead it becomes torn by conflicting demands from all sides. This undermines also the agreement that forms the basis of the peacekeeping mission. So instead of promoting peace the mission is undermining it. The effect can be clearly seen in Bosnia where the conflict about status of the RS has poisoned the relations between the ethnic groups and instead of returns has led to continuing departures of minorities.
If one analyses the peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo it is easy to see that something has gone wrong. They are not real peacekeeping operations but something somewhere between peacekeeping and a colonial occupation.
Bosnia
Take Bosnia. The Dayton Agreement was rather clear. But instead of just maintaining it the internationals let themselves be convinced that Dayton was not good enough and needed improvement. No wise cop will not allow himself to be drawn in a discussion about the validity of the laws. He may be flexible on details, but they will not allow you to undermine the core of their mission. Unfortunately what happened in Bosnia.
In my opinion the internationals (both EUFOR and the high representative) should restrict themself to maintaining Dayton. Any discussion about independence for the RS or abolition of the RS should be discarded with a simple "that is not in Dayton".
Kosovo
In Kosovo the situation was even more extreme. Resolution 1244 was clear about Serbia's territorial integrity. It foresaw negotiations to establish an interim government that respected the territorial integrity. After that final negotiations could be started. Serb diplomats were ready and started soon after the war to hint at several solutions including partition. But the internationals rejected this and instead kept Kosovo in limbo for 7 years - after which they started negotiations about a final solution chaperoned by a partial negotiator and handicapped by Contact Group principles that excluded the option of partition.
Resolution 1244 foresaw a short period of UN rule and as a consequence didn't give extensive instructions on how to rule the province. UNMIK was supposed just to keep things running. When the mission continued for years it got inevitably involved in legislation. This was something for which they had no clear mandate and as a consequence it handicapped them in their peace keeping mission.
The problem with changing your basis is that the mission gets off-balance. The discussion is no longer about how the mission can achieve its goals. Instead it becomes torn by conflicting demands from all sides. This undermines also the agreement that forms the basis of the peacekeeping mission. So instead of promoting peace the mission is undermining it. The effect can be clearly seen in Bosnia where the conflict about status of the RS has poisoned the relations between the ethnic groups and instead of returns has led to continuing departures of minorities.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
The Badinter mistake
In august 1991 the EU created an "Arbitration Commission" for legal advice on how to handle the situation in Yugoslavia. This commission is usually known as the Badinter Commission after its president. On 20 november the commission published its first conclusion. The remainder followed on 11 januari 1992.
The composition of the commission was rather unusual: all 5 members were famous constitutional lawyers - but not specialists in a relevant field: no international lawyers, no Balkan experts and no specialists in ethnic conflicts.
When judges don't know about a subject they are supposed to investigate the subject with an open mind and without prejudice. It is dubious whether these lawyers conformed to that image. Yugoslavia was hotly debated in the newspapers at that time and Badinter himself was known as an activist lawyer who had become famous for fighting against the death penalty in his homeland France. Also 3 to 4 months seems rather short to develop a balanced view on a completely new subject. This raises the question whether the commission was selected for rubberstamping and justifying the existing EU policy instead.
The EU policy at that time was a mix of contradicting interests. You had - specially in the US - people who saw Yugoslavia as the last communist bastion and who considered encouraging separatism as a nice way to topple it. You had also the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians who had historical ties to Slovenia and Croatia and would love to see them independent. And lastly there was the desire to keep the policy consistent with that towards the Soviet Union (most Soviet republics were recognised in december 1991).
As a result the policy was from the beginning contradictory. Slovenia declared itself independent on june 25 1991. The first reaction of the EU was not to recognize it. But the next thing it did was to send a troika to Zagreb to broke a cease-fire that meant a de-facto recognition.
To understand this blunder one should imagine the EU sending a mediator to Spain to mediate between the government and the ETA and to conclude a binding truce. The Spanish government would never accept this. They would insist to have the negotiations with the ETA alone. That way it would be their decision and it would also only their decision to end the truce. They might accept mediation to lay the contact but they would never third party involvement in the negotiations. In a normal situation third party involvement in negotiations would only be acceptable when the parties were in a military stalemate.
The core of the advice of the commission was that Yugoslavia was "in dissolution" and that the republics could be recognized when they declared themselves independent. Their borders were considered to have the same inviolability as those of independent states. This was not the first time the West tried to "dissolve" Yugoslavia: previously Lord Carrington already had made an effort.
International law knowns two types of ways a new country can come into existence. One way is that of former colonies. When colonialism ended in Latin America and Africa the existing colonial borders were maintained as the borders of the new states. The other way is separatism. Here the law is much stricter: the mother country has nearly absolute power to deny independence. A status as republic like in Yugoslavia does not automatically help: the International Court of Justice has decided that Quebec is not allowed to secede without consent of Canada.
From my viewpoint as a social scientist this distinction makes sense:
- Both in Latin America and in Africa the borders were meaningless from the ethnic point of view and there was no structured popular demand to change that. Demands for border changes tended to come from overambitious local leaders. Giving in to these commands would only cause unrest and lay the basis for future conflicts.
- In the case of separatism the situation is very different: it is usually the outcome of a long process of ethnic polarisation. Minorities on both sides of the existing borders will desperately try to have the borders changed. And everyone is aware that you will pay a price when you finish on the wrong side of the border. Even if you are not blatantly discriminated there are the small problems that come for example from speaking a minority language.
Giving the power to the motherland makes sense in this situation. It makes separatism impossible when there is not an open democratic climate. It forces the separatist firebrands to think up an acceptable solution for both sides. If they don't do so the present situation - that is usually not that bad - will stay and there is no risk for war. A revolutionary transfer of power to another ethnic group is less desirable: it can easily get out of hand - both because of protests from groups who lose priviliges and because revolutionaries tend to exaggerate in their "reforms".
The border between those two models is unclear. But situations in between had never happened and so there was no jurisprudence.
The falling apart of the Soviet Union was somewhere in between the two models. In the case of the Baltics nationalism was strong and it looked like separatism. But in many other republics independence was caused by a combination of dislike of communism and power politics by Yeltsin. So separatism and nationalism were no immediate problems and it looked a bit like the postcolonial model. Yet on the other hand the republics had been designed as belonging to one nationality and as such they implicitly became nation states pretending to further the interests of one nationality. As a consequence nationalism did rise later and many of the republics did develop ethnic and/or border problems. So both models fitted partially. The international community gave Russia the freedom to choose - in effect applying the separatism model. The situation was decided by the speedy and unconditional recognition of the other republics by Yeltsin's Russia. Although he was not formally the leader of the Soviet Union he had enough authority to decide the situation.
However, even in the former Soviet Union not everything worked. Quite a few conflicts arose and due to the excesses of newly invented nationalisms many millions found themselves forced to move to another republic. The border between Armenia and Azerbajdzjan gave immediately problems and obviously never worked. I find it amazing that Western "mediators" keep clinging here to the mantra of territorial integrity. Something similar applies to a lesser degree to Moldova.
In Yugoslavia the situation was different. Croat and Slovene nationalism had a long history and were clearly rising. This was a clear case of separatism. To arrive at the opposite conclusion the Badinter Commission used a lot of legalistic wizardry that centered on declaring Yugoslavia as "in dissolution". Others have done a good job analyzing this wizardry (see the book of Radan). I will restrict myself as a social scientist to analyzing the sorry consequences of this policy.
Normally separatism manifests itself in mass demonstrations and boycotts. If the mother country opposes it has no choice but keeping pushing. Occassionally some terrorism may develop, but this will not change the balance of power. Usually separatist leaders are careful not to break the law as this might give the national government an excuse to imprison them. As the Kosovo Albanians knew for decades: if the mothercountry opposes you don't have much of a chance.
Croatia and Slovenia however, behaved much more self-confident around 1990. It did help that they already had a considerable degree of autonomy. But even that could not explain their extreme boldness: Slovenia fired the first shots in the dissolution of Yugoslavia - aimed at conscripts with a "no shoot" order. And both Slovenia and Croatia locked Yugoslav army units in their baracks - an extreme provocation. They felt free to do so because of foreign support - both diplomatic and with massive arms supplies.
But let's consider for a moment what a commission of international lawyers might have decided. First they very probably would have concluded that this was an internal affair of Yugoslavia and that other countries had no business here. Yugoslavia was free to deny Croatia and Slovenia independence or to impose them any condition it wanted. The commission might well have gone one step further and investigated why the situation in Yugoslavia was so getting out of hand. Encouraging separatism in other countries is illegal under international law and so they might have recommended a profound investigation and prosecution of the countries involved in the arms supplies and diplomatic support to Croatia and Slovenia. Suspected countries were Germany, Austria, Hungary and the US and so this might have become very painful for the EU.
In the meantime in Yugoslavia happened what nearly always happens when you give separatists free reign: excesses. In all new republics you saw discrimination and administrative ethnic cleansing. Slovenia "erased" its minorities, Croatia refused its Serbs minority rights and used loyalty declarations as an excuse to rob them of their jobs, Macedonia treated its Albanians as second class citizens and Bosnia didn't even bother to include its Serbs in the independence process. Yet Europe preferred not to notice this and restricted itself to token reprimands.
These twin failty Western "principles" - accepting an independence based on violence and ignoring administrative ethnic cleansing - were the basis on which Milosevic based his policies in Croatia and Bosnia. After the West had shown even to ignore massive ethnic cleansing (operation Storm) Milosevic applied that principle too in Kosovo. It is popular to paint Milosevic as a kind of Hitler, but to a large extent he just showed us in an enlarged form our own lack of principles.
What troubled the discussions about Yugoslavia most in the 1991-1995 period was that Milosevic made no explicit demands. It was clear that he wanted to secede Serb areas from Croatia and Bosnia. Yet he never made claim to specific areas. If he had done so he would have had to come with (demographic) arguments and he would have had to indicate the limits of the Serb claims (no Adriatic harbour for example). Milosevic also stayed vague about whether the areas should be independent, joined wit Serbia or autonomous. This vagueness created a kind of unholy alliance between Milosevic, Bosnia and Croatia and the West. The West could keep to its Badinter principles, Bosnia and Croatia could continue to deny consessions and Milosevic could have his Serbs conquer much more territory than their numbers justified. When territorial claims were made by Serbs in negotiations it was always on an ad-hoc basis based on what they controlled at that moment. Arguments on demographic or other objective data were scarce.
The price of this situation was that the negotiations never got to the core of the problem. Normally it is the job of the negotiators to get the demands of both parties on the table together with their motives and arguments.
The vagueness had even more consequences. It allowed Western countries to support who they liked - usually Croatia or Bosnia. This had the usual harmful effects that all foreign interventions have: it created an unpredictable situation where the power distribution was not clear and shifting. Because the parties cannot estimate their strength versus the others this creates unrealistic expectations on all sides and prolongs the conflict.
It is interesting to compare this situation with two others. The partition of Czecheslovakia in 1993 happened peacefully with some minor border changes but without international mingling. I am can convinced that this was possible in Yugoslavia too. The second situation is that of Kosovo. Learning from Milosevic's mistake Serbia takes nowadays a highly formalistic approach that highlights its sovereignty. Many people in the EU interpret this as nationalism, but it is in fact just demanding the rights that every country has towards separatist provinces. It is my impression that Serbia is prepared to let Kosovo go, but on its conditions - as it is allowed to do under international law. As these conditions include an acceptable position for Kosovo's Serb citizens and monuments this may take some time. The international tendency to reward violence that is still visible in Kosovo today only prolongs this process as it leads to a worsening treatment of Kosovo's Serbs.
Officially Europe rejects border changes unless both sides agree - that is what is in the Helsinki Treaty. But in practice it does not tolerate border changes under any condition. Although an exchange of Presevo against Northern Mitrovica is a quite acceptable solution for both many Serbs and Albanians the Contact Group for Kosovo explicitly forbade it in its "principles".
The EU is afraid that border changes in Kosovo will work as a precedent for other republics like Bosnia and Macedonia. This highlights that the Badinter process has started a domino effect. In fact Kosovo is already the second stone in the domino. The Badinter Commission denied it independence, but after some time and a few fights the Western countries now feel themselves compelled to grant it independence too. And although they are still denying it it is clear to any observer that more dominos will follow. Once you start using opportunistic arguments instead of applying the law you create a free for all.
In maintaining this policy the EU is not above using tricks. One trick is pretending that when Kosovo's borders are changed all Serbia's borders will come into play. This deligitimizes the internationally accepted process for handling separatism. Even more troubling is that the West has become a bit of a defender of ethnic cleansing to adapt the population to the borders. The first time we saw that happening was in Croatia where the EU and the US hardly critisised the cleansing of the Krajna. Next in line to be cleansed are Kosovo's Serbs - half of them are gone already.
After Kosovo the situation is most serious in Bosnia. The EU still hasn't accepted that the Serbs have (and should have) some real influence. As a consequence they keep reacting like Pavlov dogs when the racist Silajdzic sends them on a guilt trip. The consequence has been a continuing polarisation that - if not stopped - will end in either separation or ethnic cleansing. The latter option is certainly possible: on forums one sees regularly Bosniaks state that Serbs will be allowed to stay only if they accept Muslim dominance (a similar type of "tolerance" is quite common in Kosovo too) and on his blog ICG's James Lyon threatened separatist Bosnian Serbs with a scenario that would end with "more Serbs on red tractors".
The composition of the commission was rather unusual: all 5 members were famous constitutional lawyers - but not specialists in a relevant field: no international lawyers, no Balkan experts and no specialists in ethnic conflicts.
When judges don't know about a subject they are supposed to investigate the subject with an open mind and without prejudice. It is dubious whether these lawyers conformed to that image. Yugoslavia was hotly debated in the newspapers at that time and Badinter himself was known as an activist lawyer who had become famous for fighting against the death penalty in his homeland France. Also 3 to 4 months seems rather short to develop a balanced view on a completely new subject. This raises the question whether the commission was selected for rubberstamping and justifying the existing EU policy instead.
The EU policy at that time was a mix of contradicting interests. You had - specially in the US - people who saw Yugoslavia as the last communist bastion and who considered encouraging separatism as a nice way to topple it. You had also the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians who had historical ties to Slovenia and Croatia and would love to see them independent. And lastly there was the desire to keep the policy consistent with that towards the Soviet Union (most Soviet republics were recognised in december 1991).
As a result the policy was from the beginning contradictory. Slovenia declared itself independent on june 25 1991. The first reaction of the EU was not to recognize it. But the next thing it did was to send a troika to Zagreb to broke a cease-fire that meant a de-facto recognition.
To understand this blunder one should imagine the EU sending a mediator to Spain to mediate between the government and the ETA and to conclude a binding truce. The Spanish government would never accept this. They would insist to have the negotiations with the ETA alone. That way it would be their decision and it would also only their decision to end the truce. They might accept mediation to lay the contact but they would never third party involvement in the negotiations. In a normal situation third party involvement in negotiations would only be acceptable when the parties were in a military stalemate.
The core of the advice of the commission was that Yugoslavia was "in dissolution" and that the republics could be recognized when they declared themselves independent. Their borders were considered to have the same inviolability as those of independent states. This was not the first time the West tried to "dissolve" Yugoslavia: previously Lord Carrington already had made an effort.
International law knowns two types of ways a new country can come into existence. One way is that of former colonies. When colonialism ended in Latin America and Africa the existing colonial borders were maintained as the borders of the new states. The other way is separatism. Here the law is much stricter: the mother country has nearly absolute power to deny independence. A status as republic like in Yugoslavia does not automatically help: the International Court of Justice has decided that Quebec is not allowed to secede without consent of Canada.
From my viewpoint as a social scientist this distinction makes sense:
- Both in Latin America and in Africa the borders were meaningless from the ethnic point of view and there was no structured popular demand to change that. Demands for border changes tended to come from overambitious local leaders. Giving in to these commands would only cause unrest and lay the basis for future conflicts.
- In the case of separatism the situation is very different: it is usually the outcome of a long process of ethnic polarisation. Minorities on both sides of the existing borders will desperately try to have the borders changed. And everyone is aware that you will pay a price when you finish on the wrong side of the border. Even if you are not blatantly discriminated there are the small problems that come for example from speaking a minority language.
Giving the power to the motherland makes sense in this situation. It makes separatism impossible when there is not an open democratic climate. It forces the separatist firebrands to think up an acceptable solution for both sides. If they don't do so the present situation - that is usually not that bad - will stay and there is no risk for war. A revolutionary transfer of power to another ethnic group is less desirable: it can easily get out of hand - both because of protests from groups who lose priviliges and because revolutionaries tend to exaggerate in their "reforms".
The border between those two models is unclear. But situations in between had never happened and so there was no jurisprudence.
The falling apart of the Soviet Union was somewhere in between the two models. In the case of the Baltics nationalism was strong and it looked like separatism. But in many other republics independence was caused by a combination of dislike of communism and power politics by Yeltsin. So separatism and nationalism were no immediate problems and it looked a bit like the postcolonial model. Yet on the other hand the republics had been designed as belonging to one nationality and as such they implicitly became nation states pretending to further the interests of one nationality. As a consequence nationalism did rise later and many of the republics did develop ethnic and/or border problems. So both models fitted partially. The international community gave Russia the freedom to choose - in effect applying the separatism model. The situation was decided by the speedy and unconditional recognition of the other republics by Yeltsin's Russia. Although he was not formally the leader of the Soviet Union he had enough authority to decide the situation.
However, even in the former Soviet Union not everything worked. Quite a few conflicts arose and due to the excesses of newly invented nationalisms many millions found themselves forced to move to another republic. The border between Armenia and Azerbajdzjan gave immediately problems and obviously never worked. I find it amazing that Western "mediators" keep clinging here to the mantra of territorial integrity. Something similar applies to a lesser degree to Moldova.
In Yugoslavia the situation was different. Croat and Slovene nationalism had a long history and were clearly rising. This was a clear case of separatism. To arrive at the opposite conclusion the Badinter Commission used a lot of legalistic wizardry that centered on declaring Yugoslavia as "in dissolution". Others have done a good job analyzing this wizardry (see the book of Radan). I will restrict myself as a social scientist to analyzing the sorry consequences of this policy.
Normally separatism manifests itself in mass demonstrations and boycotts. If the mother country opposes it has no choice but keeping pushing. Occassionally some terrorism may develop, but this will not change the balance of power. Usually separatist leaders are careful not to break the law as this might give the national government an excuse to imprison them. As the Kosovo Albanians knew for decades: if the mothercountry opposes you don't have much of a chance.
Croatia and Slovenia however, behaved much more self-confident around 1990. It did help that they already had a considerable degree of autonomy. But even that could not explain their extreme boldness: Slovenia fired the first shots in the dissolution of Yugoslavia - aimed at conscripts with a "no shoot" order. And both Slovenia and Croatia locked Yugoslav army units in their baracks - an extreme provocation. They felt free to do so because of foreign support - both diplomatic and with massive arms supplies.
But let's consider for a moment what a commission of international lawyers might have decided. First they very probably would have concluded that this was an internal affair of Yugoslavia and that other countries had no business here. Yugoslavia was free to deny Croatia and Slovenia independence or to impose them any condition it wanted. The commission might well have gone one step further and investigated why the situation in Yugoslavia was so getting out of hand. Encouraging separatism in other countries is illegal under international law and so they might have recommended a profound investigation and prosecution of the countries involved in the arms supplies and diplomatic support to Croatia and Slovenia. Suspected countries were Germany, Austria, Hungary and the US and so this might have become very painful for the EU.
In the meantime in Yugoslavia happened what nearly always happens when you give separatists free reign: excesses. In all new republics you saw discrimination and administrative ethnic cleansing. Slovenia "erased" its minorities, Croatia refused its Serbs minority rights and used loyalty declarations as an excuse to rob them of their jobs, Macedonia treated its Albanians as second class citizens and Bosnia didn't even bother to include its Serbs in the independence process. Yet Europe preferred not to notice this and restricted itself to token reprimands.
These twin failty Western "principles" - accepting an independence based on violence and ignoring administrative ethnic cleansing - were the basis on which Milosevic based his policies in Croatia and Bosnia. After the West had shown even to ignore massive ethnic cleansing (operation Storm) Milosevic applied that principle too in Kosovo. It is popular to paint Milosevic as a kind of Hitler, but to a large extent he just showed us in an enlarged form our own lack of principles.
What troubled the discussions about Yugoslavia most in the 1991-1995 period was that Milosevic made no explicit demands. It was clear that he wanted to secede Serb areas from Croatia and Bosnia. Yet he never made claim to specific areas. If he had done so he would have had to come with (demographic) arguments and he would have had to indicate the limits of the Serb claims (no Adriatic harbour for example). Milosevic also stayed vague about whether the areas should be independent, joined wit Serbia or autonomous. This vagueness created a kind of unholy alliance between Milosevic, Bosnia and Croatia and the West. The West could keep to its Badinter principles, Bosnia and Croatia could continue to deny consessions and Milosevic could have his Serbs conquer much more territory than their numbers justified. When territorial claims were made by Serbs in negotiations it was always on an ad-hoc basis based on what they controlled at that moment. Arguments on demographic or other objective data were scarce.
The price of this situation was that the negotiations never got to the core of the problem. Normally it is the job of the negotiators to get the demands of both parties on the table together with their motives and arguments.
The vagueness had even more consequences. It allowed Western countries to support who they liked - usually Croatia or Bosnia. This had the usual harmful effects that all foreign interventions have: it created an unpredictable situation where the power distribution was not clear and shifting. Because the parties cannot estimate their strength versus the others this creates unrealistic expectations on all sides and prolongs the conflict.
It is interesting to compare this situation with two others. The partition of Czecheslovakia in 1993 happened peacefully with some minor border changes but without international mingling. I am can convinced that this was possible in Yugoslavia too. The second situation is that of Kosovo. Learning from Milosevic's mistake Serbia takes nowadays a highly formalistic approach that highlights its sovereignty. Many people in the EU interpret this as nationalism, but it is in fact just demanding the rights that every country has towards separatist provinces. It is my impression that Serbia is prepared to let Kosovo go, but on its conditions - as it is allowed to do under international law. As these conditions include an acceptable position for Kosovo's Serb citizens and monuments this may take some time. The international tendency to reward violence that is still visible in Kosovo today only prolongs this process as it leads to a worsening treatment of Kosovo's Serbs.
Officially Europe rejects border changes unless both sides agree - that is what is in the Helsinki Treaty. But in practice it does not tolerate border changes under any condition. Although an exchange of Presevo against Northern Mitrovica is a quite acceptable solution for both many Serbs and Albanians the Contact Group for Kosovo explicitly forbade it in its "principles".
The EU is afraid that border changes in Kosovo will work as a precedent for other republics like Bosnia and Macedonia. This highlights that the Badinter process has started a domino effect. In fact Kosovo is already the second stone in the domino. The Badinter Commission denied it independence, but after some time and a few fights the Western countries now feel themselves compelled to grant it independence too. And although they are still denying it it is clear to any observer that more dominos will follow. Once you start using opportunistic arguments instead of applying the law you create a free for all.
In maintaining this policy the EU is not above using tricks. One trick is pretending that when Kosovo's borders are changed all Serbia's borders will come into play. This deligitimizes the internationally accepted process for handling separatism. Even more troubling is that the West has become a bit of a defender of ethnic cleansing to adapt the population to the borders. The first time we saw that happening was in Croatia where the EU and the US hardly critisised the cleansing of the Krajna. Next in line to be cleansed are Kosovo's Serbs - half of them are gone already.
After Kosovo the situation is most serious in Bosnia. The EU still hasn't accepted that the Serbs have (and should have) some real influence. As a consequence they keep reacting like Pavlov dogs when the racist Silajdzic sends them on a guilt trip. The consequence has been a continuing polarisation that - if not stopped - will end in either separation or ethnic cleansing. The latter option is certainly possible: on forums one sees regularly Bosniaks state that Serbs will be allowed to stay only if they accept Muslim dominance (a similar type of "tolerance" is quite common in Kosovo too) and on his blog ICG's James Lyon threatened separatist Bosnian Serbs with a scenario that would end with "more Serbs on red tractors".
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Sunnites and Serbs
The New York Times is bringing the news that the Sunnites in Iraq are threatening to leave the cabinet because they feel unable to achieve anything for their ethnic group.
This development looks surprisingly similar to what happened in Kosovo after the 1999 war. Initially the Serbs participated in the government but after some time they gave up because they felt that they were only being used for propaganda purposes.
It looks like the West is making in both areas the same kind of mistakes. They are following the traditional colonial script that has been used since ages by any conqueror: support one side and give it the free hand. In areas where just the control has shifted from one ethnic group to another this is bound to give rise to repression and intolerance.
In a normal country - even an undemocratic one - government are under some pressure to treat all ethnic groups with a certain decency. If they don't they risk uprisings and violence and the government may be toppled. But in an occupation like Iraq of Kosovo there is no risk because they can be sure that any uprising will be quelled by foreigners. And so the only effect of harrassing minorities is an electoral award amongst the rascist segment of the majority population.
The alternative is to strive for a balance where both sides get some influence and are forced to arrive at a compromise.
In Kosovo UNMIK should have granted the Serb majority areas autonomy years ago. And in Iraq the US military should simply refuse to intervene in Sunnite majority areas when they are not assisted by Sunnite Iraqi soldiers and working with an elected Sunnite provincial government.
If this sounds like surrendering to Al Qaeda consider that Al Qaeda is just a small part of the resistance. When the sunnite population turns against it Al Qaeda will soon loose its strength. Consider ths situation in Anbar province. In this province that is nearly totally Sunnite the population had enough of the Al Qaeda violence and they turned against it by siding with the Americans and government troups. Many enlisted with the police. This led to a strong reduction of Al Qaeda violence. This can only happen in tbis province because in the absense of a Shiite population there is no fear to become victim of Shiite violence that is supported by government troups.
Both Iraq and Kosovo have been advertised as "humanitarian" interventions. This supposes a kind of neutrality where we are fighting principaly on the side of justice and fairness. In reality however the Western and specially the American troops have never really been able to cut the ties that tie them to side side for whom they interfered.
It is time to realize that a humanitarian can only restore a balance of power between ethnic groups that has become too onesided. But after have restored a rough balance the interventionists should retreat and leave it to the local population to work out a practical solution.
This development looks surprisingly similar to what happened in Kosovo after the 1999 war. Initially the Serbs participated in the government but after some time they gave up because they felt that they were only being used for propaganda purposes.
It looks like the West is making in both areas the same kind of mistakes. They are following the traditional colonial script that has been used since ages by any conqueror: support one side and give it the free hand. In areas where just the control has shifted from one ethnic group to another this is bound to give rise to repression and intolerance.
In a normal country - even an undemocratic one - government are under some pressure to treat all ethnic groups with a certain decency. If they don't they risk uprisings and violence and the government may be toppled. But in an occupation like Iraq of Kosovo there is no risk because they can be sure that any uprising will be quelled by foreigners. And so the only effect of harrassing minorities is an electoral award amongst the rascist segment of the majority population.
The alternative is to strive for a balance where both sides get some influence and are forced to arrive at a compromise.
In Kosovo UNMIK should have granted the Serb majority areas autonomy years ago. And in Iraq the US military should simply refuse to intervene in Sunnite majority areas when they are not assisted by Sunnite Iraqi soldiers and working with an elected Sunnite provincial government.
If this sounds like surrendering to Al Qaeda consider that Al Qaeda is just a small part of the resistance. When the sunnite population turns against it Al Qaeda will soon loose its strength. Consider ths situation in Anbar province. In this province that is nearly totally Sunnite the population had enough of the Al Qaeda violence and they turned against it by siding with the Americans and government troups. Many enlisted with the police. This led to a strong reduction of Al Qaeda violence. This can only happen in tbis province because in the absense of a Shiite population there is no fear to become victim of Shiite violence that is supported by government troups.
Both Iraq and Kosovo have been advertised as "humanitarian" interventions. This supposes a kind of neutrality where we are fighting principaly on the side of justice and fairness. In reality however the Western and specially the American troops have never really been able to cut the ties that tie them to side side for whom they interfered.
It is time to realize that a humanitarian can only restore a balance of power between ethnic groups that has become too onesided. But after have restored a rough balance the interventionists should retreat and leave it to the local population to work out a practical solution.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
KFOR is not prepared for violence
KFOR and international leaders keep repeating that they are ready to quell potential violence in Kosovo.
On februari 10 they could show what they were worth when 3000 demonstrators tried to storm government buildings. Two demonstrators were killed. This resulted in a lot of discussion - mostly in Kosovo - about what went wrong and that way we get some inside view in how security in Kosovo really operates.
Some conclusions:
- Kosovo's police (KPS) was not involved in the preparations and did a poor job. They don't have rubber bullets.
- There is not one water cannon in Kosovo.
- Only the Polish, Rumanian and Ukrainian units possessed riot gear. So none of the members of the Kosovo Contact Group have it.
Although in this case on the police was involved one gets the impression that the internationals in Kosovo are just as badly prepared as in 2004. There is no reason to believe that the soldiers are better prepared.
This somehow confirms my fears. NATO or KFOR spokesmen nearly always stay stuck in generalities when they tell how prepared they are. They only time they get more specific is when they say that KFOR has moved more troops to the north of Kosovo. It makes me wonder what NATO secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer really means when he says "Let nobody in Kosovo have any illusions that they should test KFOR ... That goes for the majority and the minority". Does he mean that KFOR is only prepared for violence from the minority?
My recommendations would be:
- introduce an exam for international policemen. It should contain both basic police skills and UN specific rules. The candidates should also have at least two years of experience as police man. The tests should be in English as the candidates should be fluent in that language.
- Both KFOR soldiers and international policemen should in their first month in Kosovo get an exercise that gives them an experience with violent demonstrations and their control. This should be done in a realistic test-village that the exercise protesters may try to burn down. This should also test the chain of command.
- Put more trust in Kosovo's police. They should be the first line of defense and should be equipped as such.
On februari 10 they could show what they were worth when 3000 demonstrators tried to storm government buildings. Two demonstrators were killed. This resulted in a lot of discussion - mostly in Kosovo - about what went wrong and that way we get some inside view in how security in Kosovo really operates.
Some conclusions:
- Kosovo's police (KPS) was not involved in the preparations and did a poor job. They don't have rubber bullets.
- There is not one water cannon in Kosovo.
- Only the Polish, Rumanian and Ukrainian units possessed riot gear. So none of the members of the Kosovo Contact Group have it.
Although in this case on the police was involved one gets the impression that the internationals in Kosovo are just as badly prepared as in 2004. There is no reason to believe that the soldiers are better prepared.
This somehow confirms my fears. NATO or KFOR spokesmen nearly always stay stuck in generalities when they tell how prepared they are. They only time they get more specific is when they say that KFOR has moved more troops to the north of Kosovo. It makes me wonder what NATO secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer really means when he says "Let nobody in Kosovo have any illusions that they should test KFOR ... That goes for the majority and the minority". Does he mean that KFOR is only prepared for violence from the minority?
My recommendations would be:
- introduce an exam for international policemen. It should contain both basic police skills and UN specific rules. The candidates should also have at least two years of experience as police man. The tests should be in English as the candidates should be fluent in that language.
- Both KFOR soldiers and international policemen should in their first month in Kosovo get an exercise that gives them an experience with violent demonstrations and their control. This should be done in a realistic test-village that the exercise protesters may try to burn down. This should also test the chain of command.
- Put more trust in Kosovo's police. They should be the first line of defense and should be equipped as such.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
The mafia culture of dependency
When I studied antropology I wrote my bachelor paper about the "mafia" - a phenomena that has fascinated me ever since. The difference between mafia and normal crime is that maffia has a stronger connection with government.
Mafia's usually appear when the government is weak. Sometimes they are only temporary. Many formerly communist countries for example went through a phase where organised crime and government were closely connected. The possibility to make much money with fraudulent privatisations was an important factor in this.
Mafia's come often into existence as "protectors" of some minority. The US, with its many streams of immigrants has seen them all: Irish, Jewish, Italian, Russian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, etc.. In the US they tend to disappear when the minority intergrates.
But sometimes the mafia is more permanent. A good example is Sicily. The mafia mentality is believed to have originated when the island was a province of Spain.
The Spanish tended to depend on local leaders to govern the province. And so you got the typical middle men: towards the population they could offer connections with the government and towards the government they could offer control of the population. This pattern was so strong that it continued after Sicily became part of Italy: Rome just substituted the position of the Spanish.
A second factor in the development of the Sicilian mafia were the large estates owned by absentee landlords. Their administrators used to employ troops of armed men to keep the tenants in check. These would develop into the "soldiers" of the mafia.
Important in keeping control was also the omerta: the with violence enforced rule not to betray the strongmen to outsiders.
I have the impression that Kosovo is quite similar:
- A century ago its elite prided itself in its good connections with the Turks.
- Later they positioned themselves as the mediator between the Yugoslav state and the local population. The pressure for independence from the 1960s falls in this pattern. It served to keep the Albanians from integrating into Yugoslavia - what would have lessened the grip of the local elite. It was an ideology of dependency: Yugoslavia was blamed for not donating enough money, but the local elite spent the donated money on not-productive investments and did nothing to stimulate the economy.
- Nowadays it is the same with the UN having taken the place of Yugoslavia. The Kosovo press is full of every misstep of UN officials and likes to highlight how much money they are making. Yet the frustration of the UN to get anything done is hardly discussed. The only way to get things done seems to be by accepting corruption (see the privatisation).
Kosovo has its own version of the omerta, usually called the "wall of silence". It is still very active as is shown by the fate of the people involved in the recent process against the "Dukagjini group" that was accused of war crimes. Since the process three witnesses and two of the investigating policemen have been killed.
A recent Spiegel International article gave a good description of how it works in Kosovo. When the Decani monastry was shelled at the commanding NATO general simply called Haradinaj. But the price is that Haradinaj is treated like a statesman despite being suspected of war crimes (32 bodies were found near the family farm) and heroin trade.
And allthough the article doesn't discuss it, this kind of dependency is easy to manipulate. It may be very well have been Haradinaj himself who initiated the shelling. It is in his interest to be indispensable. The disappearing witnesses in his ICTY trial show that we may never know.
This has consequences for how one should consider the future of Kosovo:
- As long as the UN stays they will be part of the game. So provisional independence is not a good idea. Instead Kosovo should become fully independent. Some UN soldiers should stay but only interfere when the minorities are threatened. In the economic sphere the internationals should withdraw. There will be corruption and we will sometimes not like how they handle privatisation, but we should leave it to the Kosovars themselves to solve that.
- A union with Albania is at the moment not a good idea. It might put Kosovo in another "foreign rule" situation (like Sicily). First Kosovo should become independent and get itself in order. Only much (15 to 20 years) later one should consider a union.
- When Kosovo is independent there is a good chance that the minorities will be set up as the next external "enemy". The present climate in Kosovo, where any consession to minorities is criticised doesn't promise much good. This is yet another argument for ethnic borders.
Mafia's usually appear when the government is weak. Sometimes they are only temporary. Many formerly communist countries for example went through a phase where organised crime and government were closely connected. The possibility to make much money with fraudulent privatisations was an important factor in this.
Mafia's come often into existence as "protectors" of some minority. The US, with its many streams of immigrants has seen them all: Irish, Jewish, Italian, Russian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, etc.. In the US they tend to disappear when the minority intergrates.
But sometimes the mafia is more permanent. A good example is Sicily. The mafia mentality is believed to have originated when the island was a province of Spain.
The Spanish tended to depend on local leaders to govern the province. And so you got the typical middle men: towards the population they could offer connections with the government and towards the government they could offer control of the population. This pattern was so strong that it continued after Sicily became part of Italy: Rome just substituted the position of the Spanish.
A second factor in the development of the Sicilian mafia were the large estates owned by absentee landlords. Their administrators used to employ troops of armed men to keep the tenants in check. These would develop into the "soldiers" of the mafia.
Important in keeping control was also the omerta: the with violence enforced rule not to betray the strongmen to outsiders.
I have the impression that Kosovo is quite similar:
- A century ago its elite prided itself in its good connections with the Turks.
- Later they positioned themselves as the mediator between the Yugoslav state and the local population. The pressure for independence from the 1960s falls in this pattern. It served to keep the Albanians from integrating into Yugoslavia - what would have lessened the grip of the local elite. It was an ideology of dependency: Yugoslavia was blamed for not donating enough money, but the local elite spent the donated money on not-productive investments and did nothing to stimulate the economy.
- Nowadays it is the same with the UN having taken the place of Yugoslavia. The Kosovo press is full of every misstep of UN officials and likes to highlight how much money they are making. Yet the frustration of the UN to get anything done is hardly discussed. The only way to get things done seems to be by accepting corruption (see the privatisation).
Kosovo has its own version of the omerta, usually called the "wall of silence". It is still very active as is shown by the fate of the people involved in the recent process against the "Dukagjini group" that was accused of war crimes. Since the process three witnesses and two of the investigating policemen have been killed.
A recent Spiegel International article gave a good description of how it works in Kosovo. When the Decani monastry was shelled at the commanding NATO general simply called Haradinaj. But the price is that Haradinaj is treated like a statesman despite being suspected of war crimes (32 bodies were found near the family farm) and heroin trade.
And allthough the article doesn't discuss it, this kind of dependency is easy to manipulate. It may be very well have been Haradinaj himself who initiated the shelling. It is in his interest to be indispensable. The disappearing witnesses in his ICTY trial show that we may never know.
This has consequences for how one should consider the future of Kosovo:
- As long as the UN stays they will be part of the game. So provisional independence is not a good idea. Instead Kosovo should become fully independent. Some UN soldiers should stay but only interfere when the minorities are threatened. In the economic sphere the internationals should withdraw. There will be corruption and we will sometimes not like how they handle privatisation, but we should leave it to the Kosovars themselves to solve that.
- A union with Albania is at the moment not a good idea. It might put Kosovo in another "foreign rule" situation (like Sicily). First Kosovo should become independent and get itself in order. Only much (15 to 20 years) later one should consider a union.
- When Kosovo is independent there is a good chance that the minorities will be set up as the next external "enemy". The present climate in Kosovo, where any consession to minorities is criticised doesn't promise much good. This is yet another argument for ethnic borders.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
International intervention: strategies that work
The municipal elections in Albania last sunday (februari 18th) have criticised by "international community". Yet I want at this place to stress the positive aspects. From a fierce confrontation the parties have come to a compromise about how the elections should be organised. Some more pressure may be needed to solve some local problems. But this is how I believe the international community should operate: as a voice of reason that mediates a solution that is acceptable to both parties.
This is a kind of compromise that you cannot impose. It leaves the main initiative with the local community.
Bosnia
Compare this to Bosnia. Since Dayton the international community has constantly hang on the side of the Bosniacs pressuring for more centralisation. Yet in doing so they have produced an intolerant climate that has only lead to more separation between the ethnic groups.
One of the motives to demand centralisation is disfunctional government. Yet most problems are with the Federation. So rather one would expect that folding the RS into the federation will only increase the problems. So it seems that the solution is rather in more autonomy for the Croats in the Federation. If the international community would take this line the pressure will soon stop.
Peacekeeping should concentrate on maintaining a neutral climate and keeping polarising issues away. One such controversial issue is of course centralisation. Another is the genocide complaint against Serbia. I believe in fact finding: the truth helps reconciliation. And I would love this fact finding to be extended to the political domain. But this complaint isn't about fact finding: it is about putting a label on someone. And I cannot see how that can be helpful. The international community should never have allowed this complaint to be filed.
There is considerable international attention to the (lack of) returns to cities like Sreberenica. However, somehow attention to the continuing departure of Croats and Serbs from the Bosniac controlled area is missing. Yet these facts are related. How can you expect Serbs and Croats to be enthousiastic about the return of Bosniacs when they see how their own people are treated by Bosniacs.
Does this mean that Bosnia never would be more centralised. It might be, but as a compromise between local parties - maybe mediated by the international community - just as the compromise in Albania. The compromise a few months ago came close - until the international community allowed Silajdzic to spoil it.
Kosovo
The peace keeping mission in Kosovo has from the first day been overshadowed by the threat of Albanian violence. It worked: allthough the mission was well aware and also sympathic to the problems of the minorities it kept giving priority to Albanian interests. This became even more clear in march 2004: afterwards the general impression was that the Albanians had won. The only punishment was that the Kosovo government was supposed to pay the rebuilding. But there was no tax increase to drive this point home and it was clear that in the end the international would pay the bill.
It could have been otherwise. For example in 2004 the international community could have grabbed power back from the Kosovo government and used it to give the Serbs autonomous municipalities. It could even have asked Serb troops or police in - if only temporarily for Leposavic to release the peacekeepers there for elsewhere in Kosovo.
Similar strategies could have used before. For example by setting ultimatums to the Kosovo government to solving certain problems.
A peace mission needs to keep to stay neutral and to achieve that it needs strategies to use when either side grabs the power.
Peacekeeping is about building the basic blocks of living together - including elementary human rights. Only that basis can you have a real peace proces and reconciliation. In this regards the mission in Kosovo has failed.
This is a kind of compromise that you cannot impose. It leaves the main initiative with the local community.
Bosnia
Compare this to Bosnia. Since Dayton the international community has constantly hang on the side of the Bosniacs pressuring for more centralisation. Yet in doing so they have produced an intolerant climate that has only lead to more separation between the ethnic groups.
One of the motives to demand centralisation is disfunctional government. Yet most problems are with the Federation. So rather one would expect that folding the RS into the federation will only increase the problems. So it seems that the solution is rather in more autonomy for the Croats in the Federation. If the international community would take this line the pressure will soon stop.
Peacekeeping should concentrate on maintaining a neutral climate and keeping polarising issues away. One such controversial issue is of course centralisation. Another is the genocide complaint against Serbia. I believe in fact finding: the truth helps reconciliation. And I would love this fact finding to be extended to the political domain. But this complaint isn't about fact finding: it is about putting a label on someone. And I cannot see how that can be helpful. The international community should never have allowed this complaint to be filed.
There is considerable international attention to the (lack of) returns to cities like Sreberenica. However, somehow attention to the continuing departure of Croats and Serbs from the Bosniac controlled area is missing. Yet these facts are related. How can you expect Serbs and Croats to be enthousiastic about the return of Bosniacs when they see how their own people are treated by Bosniacs.
Does this mean that Bosnia never would be more centralised. It might be, but as a compromise between local parties - maybe mediated by the international community - just as the compromise in Albania. The compromise a few months ago came close - until the international community allowed Silajdzic to spoil it.
Kosovo
The peace keeping mission in Kosovo has from the first day been overshadowed by the threat of Albanian violence. It worked: allthough the mission was well aware and also sympathic to the problems of the minorities it kept giving priority to Albanian interests. This became even more clear in march 2004: afterwards the general impression was that the Albanians had won. The only punishment was that the Kosovo government was supposed to pay the rebuilding. But there was no tax increase to drive this point home and it was clear that in the end the international would pay the bill.
It could have been otherwise. For example in 2004 the international community could have grabbed power back from the Kosovo government and used it to give the Serbs autonomous municipalities. It could even have asked Serb troops or police in - if only temporarily for Leposavic to release the peacekeepers there for elsewhere in Kosovo.
Similar strategies could have used before. For example by setting ultimatums to the Kosovo government to solving certain problems.
A peace mission needs to keep to stay neutral and to achieve that it needs strategies to use when either side grabs the power.
Peacekeeping is about building the basic blocks of living together - including elementary human rights. Only that basis can you have a real peace proces and reconciliation. In this regards the mission in Kosovo has failed.
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