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State of Kosovo: a matter of war or a matter of negotiations
Section 1. Deplomacy
Nurboja Reshat, PhD (c), Independent Researcher, Peja, Kosovo E-mail: reshatnurboja@hotmail.com
State of Kosovo: a matter of war or a matter of negotiations
Abstract: Kosovo is the newest state in the world arena of states. It was one of eight federal units of the former federation of Yugoslavia. As other units it was created during the process of the nonconsensual dissolution of former Yugoslavia. But the process of creation of the Kosovo state differs a lot from the processes of creation of the other states as: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Macedonia and Monte Negro. Only Vojvodina remained to be a part of Serbia and it still holds the name of autonomous province. The process of Kosovo independence differs in both ways: internally and internationally. Whereas for all states something is common: war and negotiations, even though even here a difference could be drawn because in some parts war and negotiations were short whereas in some others war and negotiations were long. Kosovo is the last unit to become independent and it became independent after a heavy war and after a series of political engagement in forms of negotiations and conferences.
In the paper a discussion is developed between war and negotiations, between war and conferences, between inner problems and external engagements. At the end paper gives pro-s and con-s along with conclusions and recommendations for the future of Kosovo.
Keywords: war, negotiations, federation, conferences, state.
Introduction
There are 7 years Kosovo since Kosovo declared independence which is recognized from more than 100 independent states of the world. It also managed to become a member ofWorld Bank, International Monetary Fund, EBRD, etc. It as a state is developing and trying to fully engage in especially European integration activities. It is also at the same time facing a lots of difficulties that are common for new states. But there are other characteristics that only belong to the post war societies or states. Kosovo is as it was mentioned a special case of creation of state. It is a state that derived from a process of war and on the other side also from a process of international negotiations or efforts. Both contributed to the process that makes Kosovo, as we see below a sui generis case of state creature.
There are various discussions which argue why Kosovo became independent state and they give
different explanations on how it was created as state. Some argue that Kosovo was created as a result of war let by a national movement for liberty. Others argue that Kosovo is created as a result or based in an international project designed by West. There are also others that see a combination of both ways. The paper will deal with the issues ofwar and with the issues of negotiations.
Is that only war that made Kosovo become a state?
In order to deal a little bit with the war, firstly a definition of war is helpful. War is “a state or period of fighting between countries or groups; a situation in which people or groups compete with or fight against each other; and organized effort by a government or other large organization to stop or defeat something that is viewed as dangerous or bad” [6]. On the other side, negotiation is “mutual discussion and arrangement of the terms of a transaction or
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Section 1. Deplomacy
agreement; the act or process of negotiating; an instance or the result of negotiating” [5]. From both given definitions without any need to go deeply on theories of war and peace, we see these elements in the overall process of creation of the state of Kosova. The issue is what had bigger impact on the process, war or negotiations? Or when the war started and when it ended? Or what were the negotiations and who organized them? There may be raised many other question and sub questions.
The process of dissolution of former Yugoslavia unfortunately was accompanied with a war which in some periods of time was a war with a lots of ethnic cleansings, killings, atrocities, crime against humanity and genocide. The war in former Yugoslavia started in Slovenia and it ended with the war in Kosova and with an armed conflict in the southern Serbia in the Presheva valley.
Now based on the above given definitions and following the process of creation of the state of Kosovo it is not thankful to say that one option is the only one that helped the process of creating the state of Kosova. It was a war and there were negotiations. The question is when the war started and what were it’s sizes.
In the early process of dissolution of former Yugoslavia the communist party in Kosovo collapsed within a day whereas it was replaced with the Democratic League of Kosovo — the first democratic political party in Kosovo. This party was led by Ibrahim Rugova that led the DLK and Kosovo in a process that was known as peaceful resistance of Kosovo. While the war broke out in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Kosovo there was being developed as it was mentioned the peaceful resistance movement. But this had an end. In 1995 when Kosovo was not included in the works of the peaceful conference in Dayton (The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement, Dayton Accords, Paris Protocol or Dayton-Paris Agreement, is the peace agreement reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, United States, in November 1995, and formally signed in Paris on 14 December 1995 [20]) the peaceful movement in Kosovo begin to lose its support. There appear other efforts asking for something else, since
the opinion changed in favor of something different. The Kosovo Liberation Army was created some time ago and it started to undertake some attacks against serb police very big in number on that time in Kosovo. These attacks were not very frequent at the beginning whereas KLA appeared openly in November 28, 1997 in Drenica. All guerilla attacks undertaken early were treated as guerrillas but early 1998 US envoy R. Gelbart called KLA as terrorist organization. Gelbart stated: “we condemn very strongly terrorist actions in Kosovo. The UCK is, without any question, a terrorist group” [18, 92]. But this attitude was changed very quickly and KLA became very quickly un-avoided partner for negotiations in Kosovo and regarding Kosovo. Thus Richard Holbrooke met with KLA and ever since in all talks related to Kosovo KLA representatives were to take part. It was year 1998 during what the situation aggravated and when military actions spread in most part of Kosovo. Serb military forces undertook strong military offensives against UCK (The acronym is Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosovёs that stand for Kosovo Liberation Army — KLA in English) but indeed targets were in most cases Albanian villages whereas the most attacked were civilians. Thus for example in an attack on February 28 there were killed 9 men from the most rich families. Most of 29 Albanians killed in village Qirez were women, children and elder [18, 93]. The conflict spread more and rapidly. Only few days later, on March 05, special police attacked villages Prekaz i Utet and Llaushё. During these attacks there were killed 58 Albanians, most of them women, children and elder. Attacks aimed to extinguish from the earth families that were linked to UCK [18, 93].
Military offensives and attacks mobilized the international community to act. This made Contact Group (This was a group of states created in 1994 during the war in Bosnia and it was re-activated in 1997 regarding Kosovo. The group was consisted of: USA, Russia, France, Great Britain and Italy) to activate which came up with a declaration calling parties in the conflict for peace and they “required Serb Government respectively Yugoslav government to withdraw special military forces within 10 days from Kosovo, to allow the presence of international organizations in province and to
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State of Kosovo: a matter of war or a matter of negotiations
start with dialogue with the political representatives of Albanians” [18, 94].
Parties in conflict had different attitudes on the mentioned dialogue. The Serbian/Yugoslav (RFJ Serbia and Monte Negro insisted to be successors of RSFJ and in a way they managed to achieve this, since in 1996 this creature achieved international recognition with Kosovo within the federation without asking Kosovo) came up with some proposals that were very far from Albanian requests. They treated Kosovo only as internal problem and refused all the time any internationalization of Kosovo problem. The OSCE representative Felipe Gonzales was not to be accepted in RFJ/Serbia as OSCE mediator. But international efforts continued with various initiatives in order to give peace a chance. Chris Hill, US Ambassador in Skopje once stated, “we want a solution, we are not looking for justice”. An analysis of this statement says a lot and indeed shows clearly that an action was needed. An action for negotiations. An action against the war that was going on. A war that was taking the lives of mostly innocent civilians. Thus perhaps, that’s why Hill stated. A solution wanted with the hope that the justice would come later. And while mentioning Chris Hill he was very frequently and deeply engaged in especially 1998 year using all types of diplomatic steps. He was directly engaged in the field. He was directly engaged in talks with the political Albanian representatives. He was directly engaged with the UCK representatives in the battle field. He was using so called shuttle diplomacy (In diplomacy and international relations, shuttle diplomacy is the action of an outside party in serving as an intermediary between (or among) principals in a dispute, without direct principal-to-principal contact. Originally and usually, the process entails successive travel (“shuttling”) by the intermediary, from the working location of one principal, to that of another. The term was first applied to describe the efforts of United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, beginning November 5, 1973, which facilitated the cessation of hostilities following the Yom Kippur War. Negotiators often use shuttle diplomacy when the one or both of two principals refuses recognition of the other prior to mutually desired negotiation. Mediators have adopted the term “shuttle diplomacy” as well [21] and
all other potential forms of diplomatic engagements to get the solution. In this way within this period of time, Hill proposed 4 plans know as Hill plans. Serbia went to far with refusing whatever engagement form outside especially when it was talked potential deployment of peace troops in the territories of Kosovo. Thus for this they organized a referendum where 73 % out of 94.7 of voters declared against involvement of foreigners in this issue [18, 102].
During this period of time UCK managed to strengthen and spread its activities in the central part of Kosovo. US mediators Richard Holbrooke and Robert Gelbard based on this pushed Ibrahim Rugo-va to enter into direct talks with Belgrade [18, 103]. And actually this happened. In Belgrade for the first time a meeting between Albanian political leaders and Slobodan Miloshevich happened. But without any results. Meeting brought nothing important. The situation in the field aggravates. Damages increase and along with the number of refugees and the internally displaced. NATO threatens that it would use the force. On July base on agreement Miloshevich —Jeltzin a monitoring diplomatic mission start to build. This mission acted under the political leadership of Contact Group ambassadors, the Austrian Ambassador in Belgrade in the capacity of EU and the Polish Ambassador because Poland was heading the OSCE [18, 111]. But against nothing serious was achieved. Serbian offensives continue in the field. Thus during the summer 1998 almost all territories where there were UCK forces, they were under the hard serb military attacks. During the attacks almost nothing was saved. So called burn lad strategy was used, so civilians move. Richard Holbrooke on October 1998 convinced Milloshevich to agree on an agreement for allowing OSCE monitoring mission. NATO after a Resolution (1199) was adopted by the UN Security Council made known the so called Activation Order (ACTWARN) that included possibility of a limited action of aviation against Yugoslavia [18, 121].
The OSCE monitoring mission came to Kosovo as a specific mission and a short time peace was put in place. This as it was noted as a short time peace start to be diminished by the end of the year. Parties in the conflict UCK and Serbian/Yugoslav military forces re-group. Not only to provoke. They enter again in the
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Section 1. Deplomacy
battles that have to be solved somehow. Serb forces again start to undertake heavy military actions against UCK but without paying attention to civilians that were the biggest victims. Thus in January 15, 1999 a huge crime was conducted against villagers of Regak. The Head of OSCE monitoring Mission, William Walker after the visit to the village declared: “After I arrived in Regak, villagers led me to the place where I saw with a big horror 20 corpses which as it seems remained there as executed. No matter that I saw 20 bodies mainly elder killed closely by shoots in head, occiput — other monitors found other bodies. Even though I am not a lawyer — that what I have seen makes me to determine without hesitation this case as a massacre, as a crime against humanity” [18, 155]. Serbian official policy instead of showing at least some regret, they blamed monitoring mission whereas W. Walker was declared non gratae person.
After this it was clear that again Milloshevich cannot be convinced for peace unless forced to do so. Thus the Contact Group gathered on the level of Foreign Affair Ministers and decided to organize a peace conference on Kosovo. This is the Rambouil-let Conference that start on February 06, 1999. The conference was head by Cook and Vedrine with other three mediators: Petritsch, Hill and Mayorski-each representing EU, USA and Russia. Serbia was forced to take part in the conference even though the serb delegation came to Rambouillet without an intention to play properly. The whole world was mobilized to stop war atrocities that were being tremendously high. It was said to Serbia that it will not be allowed to repeat Bosnia again. It was said to him directly that this time he will be hit. Directly. NATO was being ready fro action. Finally.
Negotiations start in Rambouillet with an interruption for some time to continue in Paris. Albanian delegation took some time to talk directly in the field to the people in order to explain the proposed agreement. On the other side again Serbia/Yugoslavia again came back to the continuation of the conference without an intention to reach agreement. Efforts were made to convince delegations to agree. Albanians came to Paris with clear intention to agree. And indeed the conference ended in a short ceremony where only Kosovo delegation signed the agreement showing the commitment to fulfill all
obligations that derive from the agreement. Serb refusal to accept the agreement made the NATO threat become reality. Thus on March 24, after some additional diplomatic efforts were undertaken NATO Secretary Javier Solana made public the decision for NATO attacks against Serb/Yugoslav forces. Since March 24 until June 10 Serbia/Yugoslavia was under the NATO attacks whereas Serbia was forced on an agreement. Thus an agreement was reached and signed in Kumanova (FYROM) between Yugoslavia and NATO-technical military agreement. This opened the door for approval of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 based on which Kosovo was put under the international civil administration and the deployment of NATO troops. Serbian military, paramilitary and police forces left Kosovo whereas UN administration was put in Kosovo named UNMIK (UN Mission in Kosovo). UNMIK administered Kosovo for several years exercising its power using so called four pillars (These were UNMIK pillars: Pillar I: Humanitarian Assistance, led by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); Pillar II: Civil Administration, under the United Nations; Pillar III: Democratization and Institution Building, led by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and Pillar IV: Reconstruction and Economic Development, managed by the European Union (EU)) based on the 1244 Resolution and based on the legislation very unique: UNMIK regulations, Kosovo Laws and the laws that were adopted before March 23, 1989. This legislation was known as applicable law.
The UNMIK mission had to have an end. One of the duties of UNMIK was creation of sound structures and creating of an environment for final status.
UN Secretary General envoy Kai Eide twice evaluated the situation in Kosovo about the achieved process. After the second evaluation based on what was known standards before status, he came with the proposal that the time for entering into the process for determining the final status of Kosovo has came. Thus UN Secretary General nominated former President Marti Ahtisaari as the special envoy for determining the final status of Kosovo. Kosovo created the negotiations team known as Unity Team whereas President Ahtisaari assisted by Albert Rohan and Frenk Wis-ner developed various types of negotiations activities
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State of Kosovo: a matter of war or a matter of negotiations
from direct talks separately to parties, visits to respective countries, talks between delegations in Viena, etc. [22]. After a long process of negotiations President Ahtisaari presented to the parties the Comprehensive Proposal for Final Status of Kosovo that offered to Kosovo a supervised independence during a determined period of time. Kosovo accepted Ahtisaari proposal and showed commitments to respect and fulfill all of its obligations deriving from the proposal. Serbia on the other hand refused the proposal as it refused the Rambouillet agreement. Serbia refused Ahtisaaris proposal even though this was the only possible solution. There were no more arguments based on what Serbia could try to base its intentions. Among the others it was no more Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Monte Negro left the last federation. Nonetheless Kosovo went in its way towards independence and in coordination with the western democracies on February 17, 2008 Kosovo declared the Declaration of Independence. It was Kosovo Parliament to approve the Declaration of Independence along with the state symbols. Within a short time Kosovo gained international recognition from almost all powerful states and developed democracies. It became the member of World Bank, IMF, EBRD and it is going further with asking more recognitions and membership in international organizations.
The independence of Kosovo was confirmed to be in accordance with the international law. This was confirmed by the opinion of the International Court ofJustice on July 22, 2010. This Kosovo goes forward with the process of state building being accompanied with the difficulties that are characteristic of the post war societies and the characteristics of the early process of state building.
Conclusions
Kosovo is a unique case of state creation with the efforts from the internal and external factors. It is a unique case where the combination of war, coercive diplomacy and other diplomatic activities were producing expected results. It is very difficult to give the priority to any of these factors. Internal factors were active for a long period of time. For decades. But they did not manage to finalize the results. International community also was active for a long period of time but its engagement was of different types depending on the period. It started with the aims of supporting the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia federation. During that time Kosovo was monitored and attentions was paid to the violation of human rights and Kosovo was not treated as an entity seeking independence, as other republics of former Yugoslavia. The attitudes of the international community changed when the war expended in its size. When this happened the international community changed the attitudes and got engaged in other forms using coercive diplomacy and all types of activities to find a solution and to protect peoples lives. Talks, good services, negotiations, conferences, etc were used and applied in the case of Kosovo. Only the combination of all of these brought the expected results and brought peace in this part of the world. This was a sui generis case of creating a state and this because of reasons as mentioned above. To these we add that international community is changing together with the international law. Under this context Kosovo came up as a unique case to produce a state by combination of war, negotiations, coercive diplomacy and the national movement.
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