Kosovo winter

These ethnic Albanians leaving refugee camps in Macedonia in June on their way back to Kosovo were among more than 612,000 Kosovars who returned shortly after NATO's bombing campaign ended, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees

By Steve Nettleton
CNN Interactive Correspondent

(CNN) -- Almost as soon as NATO's 11-week bombing campaign ended in June 1999, hundreds of thousands of Kosovar refugees were pouring over the reopened borders to their homeland. For most, even as they began to measure the horror that had befallen them, it was a moment of relief and triumph: For the first time in 10 years, they were no longer in the grip of Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia.

But as Kosovo struggles through its first winter under international protection, relief is giving way to lawlessness, as Serb civilians, Roma (Gypsies), Bosnian Muslims and even fellow ethnic Albanians are shot dead on the streets.

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More than 400 murders have been reported since June -- including 22 during one week in late fall. There was a lull over the Christmas and New Year's holidays, but the killings had resumed pace by mid-January, when five people were murdered within one 24-hour period.

An understaffed, outgunned civilian police force can do little. The few suspects who are arrested are often released within days or hours, thanks to a court system that lacks the manpower or resources to process their cases.

To make matters worse, Kosovo's aging infrastructure is collapsing at the time it is needed most. A severe power shortage has left most of Kosovo dark, cold, and with little running water.

Such a bleak portrait scarcely resembles the vision of a democratic, multi-ethnic Kosovo that NATO and the United Nations pledged to create.

The bodies of 14 Serb farmers were found shot to death in a field in Kosovo on June 23, a short time after NATO peacekeeping forces arrived in the area

"There is hardly any multi-ethnicity -- in fact the reverse," said Ivo Daalder, senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. "Ethnic segregation is greater now than almost at any other time in Kosovo's history ... and economic activity is rudimentary at best."

Terrified by the rampage of murders, kidnappings and arson attacks by revenge-minded ethnic Albanians, an estimated 200,000 non-Albanians fled Kosovo in the months following NATO's entry into the province, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

As of mid-January, however, the exodus had stopped and a small number of Serbs have even returned. Many who stayed live in virtual fortresses under round-the-clock protection of the NATO-led peacekeeping contingent, Kosovo Force, or KFOR.

"The vicious cycle of ethnically related violence must be broken," warned U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan during a visit to Kosovo in October. "The human and civil rights of all people in Kosovo must be respected."

But pleas for reconciliation by Annan and other world leaders have failed to stop the bloodshed. The daunting task of restoring order to the province remains in the hands of KFOR's 45,000 troops and a small, U.N.-run international police force.

NATO says it is doing all it can. "Every day, two out of three KFOR soldiers are out conducting security operations. Not only have the troops cracked down hard on crime and violence, making Kosovo a much safer place than it was just a few months ago, but they are instructed to monitor people where they are still in need, especially now during the cold winter months," said KFOR's spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Philip Anido of the Canadian navy, in a mid-January press report.

FBI investigators were sent to Kosovo in September to uncover a burial site believed to contain the bodies of 200 ethnic Albanians. Many of the murders of Serbs over the past six months have been attributed to vengeance for such atrocities.

While KFOR is responsible for maintaining security in Kosovo, it is up to the police to investigate crimes. Armed only with handguns, the police are asked to take on gangs equipped with automatic rifles and grenades.

"The international police personnel have been late in coming, are often poorly prepared and, not knowing much about the situation or even their way around, are not really up to the job," the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based multinational organization whose goal is to help the international community to understand and respond to impending crises, reported in December 1999.

The United Nations has asked the international community to contribute 4,700 officers to the police force, but so far it has managed to recruit only 1,900.

The courts have fared even worse. "They are simply not equipped well enough," said Roland Bless, spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) mission in Kosovo. "There is a lack of paper, computers and even pencils, and there are not enough judges and prosecutors in place."

Until December, only 48 judges and prosecutors were on the job -- all ethnic Albanians (seven Serbs resigned soon after being named to their posts). Although the head of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo, former French health minister Bernard Kouchner, recently filled an additional 400 positions on the judiciary, the court system has yet to operate smoothly.

"There is still no functioning legal system in Kosovo, which means that ... nobody fears accountability," said Fred Abrahams of Human Rights Watch. "Individuals who are arrested by KFOR or the U.N. police very often are released after a day or two in custody because the legal system can't process them. So criminals who have committed lootings or even killings are simply walking in and out of the detention facilities."

The justice system is but one of many basic services in short supply. Failing power stations and downed power lines have forced the province to survive on only a fraction of the electricity it needs. With no power to pump water, the central heating system in the capital, Pristina, has frequently been shut down. All but emergency surgeries have been canceled.

As early as July 1999, U.S./KFOR troops were protecting Serbs from Kosovar Albanians seeking revenge. An estimated 200,000 Serbs, Roma (Gypsies) and other non-Albanians have fled Kosovo since June 1999, according to the UNHCR, although some have since returned.

The "infrastructure is very, very outdated. A lot of expertise was in the hands of the Yugoslavs, the Serbs who left," said Peter Kessler, spokesman for the UNHCR, in Pristina. "They knew how to run things, and now they aren't talking. They aren't here, more importantly."

Kouchner, a physician and a co-founder of Doctors Without Borders, argues that the world community should not expect such an immediate transformation in Kosovo.

"Many people say we've been slow, but slow to do what?" he asked while assessing the mission's progress in December. "Does anyone remember what we found here six months ago? Empty streets. Shuttered shops. No water. No work. Smoking ruins. No one in charge."

Conditions have improved in all areas, Kouchner said, but the process will require a long-term commitment from the international community, both in manpower and in financial aid. Though U.S.$1 billion has been pledged to help rebuild Kosovo this year, with another $2.5 billion on the way, many more billions will be needed to finish the job, U.N. officials say.

The most difficult question has yet to be discussed: How can Kosovo ever be returned to Belgrade's sovereignty? The policy of the United Nations and the NATO-led peacekeepers is to develop an autonomous Kosovo within Yugoslavia. Some observers doubt such a goal can be achieved.

"These are people who want an independent state, who wanted an independent state before the war, who were certainly strengthened in that belief because of what the Serbs did to them. And to think that they want to have anything to do with Serbia, with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or with Serbs is a pipe dream," said Daalder.

The OSCE says plans are in the works to hold municipal and national elections in Kosovo late this year, perhaps in September or October. Only once those seats are filled can Kosovo's new government begin to tackle the cornerstone issues of future authority.

"It won't be solved overnight," said Kessler. "Fifty years of [Marshal Josip Broz] Tito's Communism didn't solve it. I'm not suggesting it will take 50 years to end the tension and challenges here, but it will take a lot of time."