Snatching failure from the jaws of a military victory

Russian peacekeepers head toward Kosovo on June 11, 1999. Their eagerness to join the Kosovo Force (KFOR) surprised NATO officials at the time.

By Jonathan Eyal
Special to CNN Interactive

The author is director of studies at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies in London.

(CNN) -- When the Kosovo war ended on June 11, 1999, it appeared the West's triumph was complete. The United Nations Security Council resolution didn't just oblige Yugoslavia to withdraw from the province. It also gave the North Atlantic Treaty Organization the right to resume hostilities if the Yugoslav authorities violated the agreement.

More importantly, NATO was not shackled by any legal restrictions within Kosovo itself. Unlike the peace deal concluded in 1995 over neighboring Bosnia, there was neither a timetable for elections nor international recipes about the administration of the province.

This time, NATO vowed, it would be the supreme arbiter of events, the only body that would allocate responsibilities -- on the basis of need rather than on political calculations, and according to its own leisurely timetable.

THE FUTURE • Snatching Defeat from Victory? • Rebuilding the Region

The initial military deployment was a huge operational success: No less than 22,000 soldiers poured in with heavy equipment without mishap or casualties, and with relatively little political friction -- the biggest war-time deployment in Europe since the end of World War II.

In many respects, the military operation continues to be a success. By the end of 1999, just over 785,000 Kosovar refugees have returned home, over two-thirds of those evicted by the Milosevic regime -- the best resettlement record by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in its history.

Returning to Kosovo was not easy for ethnic Albanian refugees. A 6-year-old is inconsolable upon finding his toys had been taken while Serb soldiers were billeted at his home.

Those scattered outside the Balkans are beginning to return by air after the airport in Pristina opened for civilian traffic in early January. The danger has been avoided that the refugees would either refuse to return or would not be accommodated in Kosovo before the outset of winter. Both scenario were among the nightmares NATO feared at the start of the war.

Kosovo is the only case in modern history where a systematic removal of ethnic groups has been reversed.

Furthermore, the material damage on the ground is less than Western governments feared. Most of the Kosovo housing stock is still usable (unlike Bosnia, where 60 percent was destroyed by end of the war in 1995). The basic infrastructure works: Electricity, safe drinking water and passable roads all exist in Kosovo.

Yet a closer look at these undeniably important achievements reveal a long-term political failure, wrapped in a military victory.

• Despite all its efforts, the alliance has failed to protect ethnic Serbs. The number of Serbs who have left the province is hotly contested, but it is clear the Serb population has now evaporated, and is unlikely to return. Even this condition probably masks a more profound transformation: Most of the Serbs who fled are from the rural areas, which will now consist almost entirely of ethnic Albanians.

A photograph is all that remains of a Roma family who once lived in a now abandoned neighborhood in Mitrovica, Kosovo

• The situation is even more dramatic with the Roma population (or Gypsies), who sided with the Serbs during the war and who are now openly victimized by the Albanians. Up to 120,000 Roma people were evicted.

• These ethnic evictions, smaller in quantity than those perpetrated by the Serbs but just as horrible, are this time irreversible. Lip service is still being paid to the promise of resettlement. In reality, however, those Serbs who have left controlled many of the administrative positions in the province and are unlikely to come back. The idea that Kosovo could be a multi-ethnic paradise in the Balkans is dead.

• The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the guerrilla organization of the ethnic Albanians, has agreed to lay down its arms. A new Kosovo Protection Force, containing some elements from the KLA, has been created under international supervision. But nobody has a clue how extensive the KLA's arsenal may be, since many of the weapons are small arms that are virtually impossible to detect. A large cache of illicit weapons was found by NATO troops in early January. It may be just one of many.

Given the magnitude of the task on the ground, some of these problems were perhaps inevitable. The difficulties in Kosovo are multiplying, however, and the biggest problems are only now beginning to loom.

An Italian member of KFOR, the NATO Kosovo Force, checks a passing car at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Gorazdevac, Kosovo, where Serbs were beginning to return after leaving at the end of the bombing campaign

• The size of NATO's military presence. Under the original planning, roughly 50,000 troops were supposed to have been stationed in the province. The target was never reached. It is already clear that, far from rushing troops into the province, potential contributing governments are now holding back their commitments. They evidently are anticipating they may be asked to replace existing forces on the ground, rather than just make up the numbers they originally pledged. Larger numbers of troops may no longer be required, but their absence in the months following the Yugoslav withdrawal has allowed a variety of armed bands to prosper.

• Law and order is deteriorating. The withdrawal of the Yugoslav civil administration was bound to create a void. Yugoslav civil and criminal law continues to be applied in Kosovo, partly because there is no basis to apply an alternative set of laws (under the U.N. Security Council the territory still officially belongs to Yugoslavia), and partly because Yugoslav law is perfectly acceptable, at least on paper.

The snag is there are no structures that can administer the law. Returning ethnic Albanian refugees have helped themselves to most of the property left by the Yugoslav officials and ethnic Serbs, and self-appointed committees now run the villages.

The key to the restoration of law and order was the creation of a local police force. This took months. Something resembling a police force will only become operational in February.

The U.N. was tasked with the creation of an international police force until a local force could be raised and trained, but the process was painfully slow. The international force did not materialize for months.

And an attempt to appoint judges for the province was postponed in early January, in the face of opposition from both the remaining minority ethnic Serbs and the majority Albanian population.

Irrelevant disputes between governments have delayed the setup of Kosovo's civil administration even further. In their historically disgraceful way, and despite promises made during the war, European governments -- the principal financial backers of Kosovo's reconstruction effort -- wasted the first three weeks after the end of the hostilities in meaningless disputes about the nationality of the province's civil administrator.

The war in Kosovo caused extensive damage to many cities. Reconstruction has only just begun because of finance problems within the European Union.

Their choice, Bernard Kouchner of France, has set up shop in Pristina, on a tight budget and without a clear list of priorities.

The absence of a clear timetable for the political process in Kosovo was originally touted as a great achievement: NATO would not be bound by any unrealistic promises. This decision, however, carried its own dangers.

The moderate elements inside Kosovo are not getting stronger, the opposite of what West hoped when it decided to postpone elections. Furthermore, no negotiations about the final status of the province can be undertaken with the Yugoslav authorities until the province's representatives carry a democratic mandate from their own people.

A marked reluctance to commit financial resources completes the picture. The European Union has accepted the need to shoulder most of the reconstruction costs. But the union suffers from a budgetary deficit (the result of financial reforms separate from the Balkans situation), and E.U. governments have decided no further funding will be granted by Brussels.

Consequently, reconstruction efforts are being financed from existing allocations or from specific contributions by other donor states. Funds also have been diverted from the E.U.'s budget that aids Third World countries.

At the very most, Western governments will spend approximately U.S.$1 billion between now and the middle of 2000. It is not an insignificant sum, but it will hardly transform the Balkans, as NATO member states promised.

Slowly but surely the operation in Kosovo resembles a similar operation NATO undertook in neighboring Bosnia during the mid-1990s. As in Bosnia, NATO claimed an initial success in Kosovo. And, as in Bosnia, the initial enthusiasm of victory was quickly dampened by the reality. Bosnia's fundamental problems are still to be addressed.

The chances are that Kosovo's problems will equally remain in suspended animation.