APPENDIX 5
Memorandum submitted by Dr Mary Kaldor,
London School of Economics
The war in Kosovo was typical of the new types
of conflict that are taking place in Africa, East Timor, the Caucasus
as well as the Balkans. These conflicts are very different from
our traditional conception of war, as a military struggle between
the armies of opposing states. Most of the violence is directed
against civilians; indeed the conflicts can be described as a
mixture of war, organised crime and massive violations of human
rights.
Although these conflicts are often localised,
they have to be understood in the context of globalisation. They
involve an array of global actors—international agencies,
NGOs, global media, mercenaries, arms traders, and so on. They
spill over borders via refugees, transnational criminal links,
or diaspora networks. They are brought to global public attention
by international electronic networks such as CNN or the BBC World
Service. And above all, they arise as a result of the erosion
or even disintegration of nation-states under the impact of globalisation.
At the time of NATO's 50th anniversary summit,
which took place during the air campaign, the Prime Minister enunciated
his new "Doctrine of International Community" which
explicitly recognised the global character of the security environment.
"We are all internationalists now" he said ". .
.We cannot turn our backs on conflicts and the violation of human
rights if we want to be securè.
This new internationalist approach to foreign
policy, the notion that upholding international norms and principles
has to be the cornerstone of foreign policy, and that national
interest nowadays can no longer be pursued unilaterally, is probably
the most important lesson of the Kosovo crisis. However, the other
lesson of the Kosovo crisis is that strategy and capabilities
were not well adapted to the new doctrine. The Prime Minister,
in his Chicago speech, stated that, up to now, the international
community's response to global crises has tended to be ad hoc.
This was also true of the Kosovo crisis. In the end, the air campaign
did succeed in bringing about the withdrawal of Serbian security
forces from Kosovo and enabling the Kosovar Albanians to return
to their homes. But this was only after a double ethnic cleansing
had taken place—first the Kosovar Albanians and then the
Serbs, Roma and other non-Albanians.
In this memorandum, I will start by summarising
the characteristics of the conflict and the type of response that
is needed in this type of conflict. I will then put forward some
proposals for contributing to longer-term peace and stability
in the region.
THE WAR
IN KOSOVO
There are three respects in which the Kosovo
crisis resembles similar types of conflict in other parts of the
world. First of all, the goals of the "new wars" are
generally about identity politics—that is to say, the claim
to state power on the basis of exclusive identity be it ethnicity,
religion, or language. The rise of exclusive ideologies is a new
phenomenon related to globalisation even though the ideology makes
use of history and tradition. The war in Kosovo was no exception.
It was a war waged in the name of the "new nationalism".
Although it is true that there has been a long history of antagonism
between the Serbian and Albanian populations, especially in the
20th century (and also, a history of co-existence, mutual tolerance,
and even co-operation and syncretism) the current crisis has to
be primarily traced back to the mobilisation of nationalist sentiment
by Milosevic in the late 1980's. The position of the Serb minority
in Kosovo and the insistence on the mystical importance of Kosovo
to the Serbian nation were central elements of the nationalist
propaganda developed by Serbian intellectuals and exploited by
Milosevic, using the all the contemporary techniques, especially
television available. It was the removal of autonomy from Kosovo
in 1989, which marked the beginning of the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
Subsequently, Albanians were dismissed from their jobs in public
service and state-owned firms; Albanian students were banned from
entering university buildings and a new Serbian curriculum was
introduced; arbitrary arrest and police violence against Albanians
became routine practices—Human Rights Watch reported that
the record of human rights violations in Kosovo was the worst
in Europe.
On the Albanian side, an important "new"
element was the role of the Diaspora in Germany and Switzerland
who provided funding for the Albanian resistance and organised
Albanian language television, which could be received through
satellite dishes.
Secondly, military strategy in this type of
conflict typically aims at political control of territory through
ethnic engineering, in particular population displacement. Violence
is deliberately directed against civilians and refugees and internally
displaced persons are not a side effect of war but the object
of the fighting. Conspicuous atrocities, systematic rape, or destruction
of historic monuments are all part of calculated effort to sow
"fear and hatred" for the purpose of political control.
Fighting between opposing military sides is rare. In Kosovo, the
methods of the war represented a perfection of the techniques
developed in Croatia and Bosnia, which, in turn, had many similarities
with techniques used in the Caucasus and in Africa. In the period
up to 24 March when the NATO air strikes began, increased KLA
activities were used as an excuse to initiate ethnic cleansing—some
400,000 people were forced to leave Kosovo. Once the bombing began,
what appears to have been a meticulous plan for accelerated ethnic
cleansing known as Operation Horseshoe was implemented. Just as
in Bosnia and Croatia, the role of regular forces was to shell
an area, then, when local people were sufficiently weakened and
terrorised, the para-military groups would enter the areas separating
men from women, looting all valuables, including documents, burning
homes and destroying historic and cultural symbols. There were
10 rape camps in Kosovo, three in Prishtina, and, reportedly,
some men were also raped. The para-military groups were augmented
by criminals released from prison for the purpose and also some
local Serbs and Roma were mobilised. Refugees reported that "cleansers"
had informed them that they were under instructions to "clean"
Kosovo within a week. One of the most notorious para-military
groups in Kosovo was known as "Franki's Boys" after
their leader Frank Simatovic who was said to be the link between
Milosevic and the freelance para-military groups. The evidence
now available suggests that during the period of the air strikes,
some 10,000 Kosovar Albanians were killed and over 1 million were
forced to leave the country.
On the Albanian side, the KLA could be described
as 1 mixture of para-military type forces and self defence forces.
For most of the 1990s, the Kosovar Albanians, under the leadership
of Ibrahim Rugova, pursued a strategy of non-violence. The KLA
started as a small Leninist party in the 1980s but it was only
after the Dayton Agreement when Kosovo was left out of the agreement
and violence appeared to have been rewarded that support for the
KLA grew both in Kosovo and more importantly, among the Diaspora.
The collapse of the Albanian State in 1997 was also an important
factor since arms caches were opened and arms became easily available.
It was the stepped up activities of the KLA that gave Serbian
security forces the excuse to begin a strategy of ethnic cleansing.
The third respect in which the Kosovo conflict
was typical of a "new war" was economic. Both Kosovo
and Serbia were characterised by very high levels of unemployment
and growing criminalisation of the economy. Para-military groups
were "paid" in loot. The various global and local linkages
established as a result of the political economy of these conflicts,
via illegal trading, the Diaspora, or shadowy security relationships,
generate vested interests in the escalation and spread of violence
across borders.
The methods chosen by the international community
to prevent the war in Kosovo, diplomacy backed by the threat of
air strikes, were not well adapted to these characteristics. Politically,
it is important to find ways to promote a political alternative
to extreme nationalism, by sidelining extreme nationalist leaders,
and by supporting those groups and individuals who can offer a
democratic alternative—opposition political parties, NGOs,
independent media, and intellectuals. However, right from the
beginning of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia, the international
community has chosen the option of negotiating a solution about
status with nationalist leaders. A series of partial agreements
were signed in an effort to contain violence within borders, which
was not possible. The partial agreement in Slovenia was followed
by the war in Croatia. The agreement in Croatia in early 1992
was followed by the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Dayton agreement
after a brief respite was followed by the eruption of the conflict
in Kosovo. Each agreement had the effect of legitimising nationalist
leaders who participated in the talks, of appearing to reward
the use of violence, and of marginalising Democrats and civic-minded
groups.
In the case of Kosovo, the idea was to reach
agreement before the violence had taken place. It was apparently
believed that the air strikes during the final stages of the Bosnian
war had been an important factor in determining the Dayton agreement.
But the Dayton agreement took place after four years of war when
ethnic cleansing was almost complete. In the case of Kosovo, the
threat of air strikes was ineffective in persuading Milosevic
to agree to stop the violence in Kosovo. Indeed, it could be argued
that Milosevic was ready to accept the consequences of a Western
air campaign because it provided a cover under which he could
accelerate the ethnic cleansing campaign. The Yugoslav Army, with
vast underground networks of stores, airports and barracks, was
well prepared to withstand an attack of this kind. A week before
the bombing began, Serb policemen were marking the homes of ethnic
Albanians with crosses so that the "cleaners" would
know where to go. Seselj, the leader of the Serbian Radical Party
and Deputy Prime minister of Serbia, warned on television one
week before the bombing began, that "not a single Albanian
would remain if NATO bombed".
Militarily, it is important to counter the strategy
of sowing "fear and hatred" by a strategy of "winning
hearts and minds". The goal of any military intervention
has to be the protection of peoples not the defeat of an enemy.
This is why a ground military presence is absolutely essential.
The kind of intervention that was undertaken in Bosnia—the
establishment of safe havens and humanitarian corridors—represents
a model, albeit a weak one, for this kind of operation. Such an
intervention would require close air support but not a wider destructive
air campaign. It would also require heavy equipment and firepower
to be used very selectively. Some European armed forces, notably
Britain and Denmark, have made use of the lessons of Bosnia to
retrain their forces for this type of operation. If possible such
an intervention should be based on consent. But instead of high
level negotiations aimed at finding a political compromise between
irreconcilable parties, negotiations should focus on the position
on the ground. In the case of Kosovo, the goal should have been
to establish an international ground presence in Kosovo not to
resolve the issue of status. Instead of backing negotiations with
the threat of air strikes, they should have been backed up by
the NATO position on the ground in neighbouring Macedonia.
In the end, the air strikes did bring about
the capitulation of Milosevic. But they failed to prevent ethnic
cleansing of, first the Albanians, and then the Serbs and other
non-Albanians. As General Wesley Clark put it, "you cannot
stop para-military murder from the air". Moreover, the air
strikes had negative political consequences. Opposition to the
air strikes was virtually unanimous in Serbia. The air strikes
allowed Milosevic to crack down on NGOs and independent media
during the war and thus minimise domestic constraints on his activities
in Kosovo. Even though the opposition to Milosevic has grown stronger
since the end of the war, this is not necessarily opposition to
his nationalistic activities. There is a widespread sense in Serbia
that what happened to them as a consequence of bombing is, somehow
equal to what happened to Kosovo, that the air strikes effectively
exonerated Serbian responsibility for the war. There were probably
around 1,400 civilian casualties as a result of the bombing, not
to mention damage to infrastructure, industry, and the environment
as well as the psychological effect of being subjected to air
strikes over a prolonged period. Despite the insistence of NATO
spokesmen that there is a big difference between killing by mistake
and killing deliberately, this difference was not obvious to the
victims of the bombing. Who determines whether the killing of
civilians counts as a "massacrè or as "collateral
damagè? Likewise, the insistence of Western leaders that
the bombing was directed against the regime and not against Serbs
was not at all evident to those who experienced the effect of
bombing.
Finally, the war in Kosovo and the air strikes
have had destabilising consequences for neighbouring states, especially
Macedonia and Montenegro. The influx of refugees into Macedonia
further disturbed the fragile balance between Albanians and Slav
Macedonians. Montenegro is currently polarised between those who
favour the process of democratisation and those who support the
Milosevic regime. The air strikes provided an opportunity for
a comeback by pro-Milosevic forces. Albania and Bosnia Herzegovina
were also affected.
Two particular lessons for foreign policy can
be drawn from this experience. First of all, a genuinely internationalist
doctrine that offers a convincing alternative to the narrow particularism
of nationalism, cannot privilege the lives of Western troops over
the lives of civilians from whatever country. Humanitarian intervention
should aim at minimising all casualties even if this means risking
the lives of international troops. This does require a major cognitive
change in the way we think about international violence. Secondly,
military capabilities need to be adapted to the new wars. In particular,
Europeans need to restructure their armed forces to be able to
respond to the requirements of humanitarian intervention. The
choice of methods in Kosovo was evidently influenced by the European
dependence on American capabilities, particularly air power. In
future, the choice of methods should be determined by effectiveness
rather than expediency.
PROPOSALS FOR
FUTURE PEACE
AND STABILITY
IN THE
BALKAN REGION
It has been said that the intervention in Kosovo
was a defining moment for the Balkans. The decision to launch
a Stability Pact, to undertake an integrated approach towards
the region as a whole, and to give priority to stability in the
Balkans are all very positive steps. It is very important that
the relevant lessons are learned from previous experience in the
Balkans if the Stability Pact is to succeed and that the strategy
underlying the Stability Pact is adapted to the character of the
conflicts in South east Europe. Some of these can be briefly summarised.
First of all, the priority is support for democratic,
multi-national and multi-ethnic political forces in the region
as a whole and especially in Kosovo and Serbia. The removal of
Milosevic would not solve the problems of the region but it would
begin to unblock the process of democratisation and it would have
knock-on effects on neighbouring countries. In Serbia, the isolation
of the regime should be maintained but at the same time, assistance
should be provided to democratic opposition groups especially
independent media. Humanitarian assistance should be provided
to Serbia but through non-official channels. In Kosovo, the influx
of criminal gangs and the establishment of protected enclaves
of Serbs and/or divided cities poses real risks for the future.
A useful initiative could be the proposal to
establish a citizen's dimension to the Stability Pact put forward
by President Havel and others. It is very important to build links
among pro-democracy groups and individuals in the region as a
whole and with the rest of Europe and to find ways in which these
groups could have access to official governmental processes. Twinning
arrangements with towns, universities or citizens groups should
also be encouraged.
Secondly, the renewal of violence has to be
prevented. It is essential to provide a secure environment in
which alternatives to extreme nationalism can be stimulated. For
some time to come, the international community will have to fill
the security gap in the region and this both an internal and an
external security problem. Existing international forces in Kosovo
and Bosnia will have to remain as long as it takes to reach a
lasting political settlement. It is also important that international
forces remain and are even strengthened in Macedonia and Albania
and it may be necessary to establish an international security
presence in Montenegro. These forces do constitute an obstacle
to the outbreak of war and are relatively successful at such tasks
as separating forces or controlling heavy weapons. But they are
much less successful at internal security tasks and thus are unable
to tackle some of the underlying causes of the continuing conflicts.
The internal security gap will have to be filled either by international
police, or by rebuilding local police forces, or by adapting military
forces to undertake these tasks.
Thirdly, there needs to be a strategy for reconstruction
that gives priority to legitimate employment in order to provide
an alternative to the criminalised war economy. Many experts have
recommended trade liberalisation and euroization as a way of stabilising
the economies of the region. These measures will only work if
they are accompanied by a substantial injection of investment
funds as well as micro-economic measures aimed at stimulating
productive employment.
If the Doctrine of International Community is
to become the hallmark of British foreign policy, then the Stability
Pact has to succeed as a first step. It is a daunting task, which
should, first and foremost, take into account conditions in the
region and not short-term considerations about alliance politics
or domestic public opinion. Otherwise there is a real risk that,
instead of bringing peace to the Balkans, the tendencies for political
extremism and violence that are currently to be found in the Balkans
and elsewhere, will spread.
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