APPENDIX 30
Memorandum submitted by Dr Oleg Levitin,
visiting research Fellow at the Centre for Defence Studies, King's
College, London
In the aftermath of the Kosovo war much criticism
has focused on the deficiencies of the use of force. I believe
that NATO's decision to intervene was the right one. Force was
used after the diplomacy had failed. The question is, why the
preventive diplomacy failed at all? In addressing this question,
we will be able to learn a number of important lessons. Another
questions that then arises is why many things are going wrong
in Kosovo today and what can be done to improve the situation?
Here again I would like to stress that current shortcomings should
not be seen as the consequence of the use of force. This reached
its direct objectives, and it gave strength to the search for
political solution. However, it alone, can not be a substitute
for diplomacy. While analysing the past and looking to the future,
we should bear in mind the following. The international community
failed in Kosovo because of the lack of willingness to tackle
the Kosovo problem in due time. It failed because it did not manage
to concentrate efforts, for most of the 1990s, on two core problems:
realistic redefinition of Kosovo's legal status, and the coherent
and consequent strategy towards Milosevic as the main troublemaker.
Until both of these problems are resolved the stability is not
likely to be restored in the region.
I admit that the point—that the problem
was not addressed in due time—made after the event, seems
to be rhetoric. I am claiming this, however, on the basis of my
experience. I was part of the Russia's Kosovo policy for some
years. I also participated in international discussions on Kosovo.
Moreover I have studied the Kosovo problem for 13 years now and
I spent seven years in the region—in Tirana, Belgrade and
Pristina. I am sure that it was possible to solve the problem
earlier—and at a cheaper price.
LESSONS FROM
THE PAST
The evolution of the approach to the legal status
of Kosovo in the international political and academic circles
was uneven. In Russia it was not until 1998 that the understanding
started to develop at the upper levels of the Foreign Ministry
that Kosovo could not just be kept under Serbian jurisdiction;
the West realised it earlier. Both the West and Russia, though,
were late to accept the realities and to act accordingly. By the
time Milosevic eliminated the former autonomy and for a time after
it, it was already clear that the Kosovo Albanians would never
submit to live under the Serbs. The centuries-long history of
the relationship between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo, and especially
in the 20th century, when Kosovo became part of Yugoslavia, was
the evidence enough. Repeating, for years, politically correct
phrases about wider Kosovo autonomy inside "Serbia and Yugoslavià
was non-productive, and meant sending wrong signals both to the
Kosovars and to the Serbs.
However, there was a possibility of an interim
solution: Kosovo within Yugoslavia, but out of Serbia. It might
be only provisional, it could not, by default, be long-lasting.
But it could have prevented the open conflict and bloodshed. A
number of different models, including existing in other states
or proposed by experts, could have been implemented. For example,
from 1995 I was trying to convince Russian Foreign Ministry officials
of the advantages of a compromise, based on the "Tatarstan
model". This particular model is based on contractual devolution
and demarcation of powers. Its implementation would have created
an asymmetric Yugoslav federation, with Kosovo as its subject,
not necessarily equal to Serbia and Montenegro, but at any rate
out of Serbian jurisdiction. To be sure, Moscow remained uncertain
and hesitant, up until Rambouillet, as to which would be a preferable
formula for Kosovo. But it had no strong reason to object to the
compromising Tatarstan-like formula. Indeed it might have been
persuaded to accept it by the West.
At this point another issues arises, whether
it was possible to attain Kosovo Albanians' consent on a special
status for Kosovo, when their then leader I. Rugova insisted in
all speeches on full independence? My interviews with leading
Kosovar politicians in 1996-1998 showed that as late as until
the beginning of 1998 such a model could have been imposed, as
a provisional solution. This could have been done in spite of
the growing strength of the Kosovo Liberation Army, and obviously
it could have been done before, when the KLA was weak.
What about Belgrade's consent? There was a myth
(the harm of myths is after all perhaps the main lesson of Kosovo)
that Milosevic could not give up Kosovo. Milosevic needed Kosovo
for practical reasons. The Albanians boycott of the elections
together with manipulative laws, were used to safeguard almost
half of the seats that Milosevic's Socialist party held in the
Serbian parliament. Milosevic, after Dayton, viewed Kosovo as
the most valuable card in his hands, which if sold, had to be
bargained at the last moment and at a maximum price. Emotional
motives were of little importance to him; all he needed was personal
power, material rather than spiritual. Nothing suggested that
he would not have given up Kosovo, had he come to the conclusion
that his personal power was not jeopardised by a deal. He could
have coped with a provisional solution of a special status for
Kosovo. The same Tatarstan model offered a number of mechanisms
of practical legal solution, which would avoid constitutional
obstacles or obstruction from nationalistically oriented political
forces.
In practical terms, what then should the leading
countries have done regarding Kosovo status? Firstly, after Dayton
they should have set a working group to define jointly the concrete
parameters. An informal working group on Kosovo held two sessions
in London at the end of 1997—beginning of 1998. American
special envoy, Chris Hill, started his shuttle diplomacy working
with Belgrade and Pristina on the draft status agreement in 1998.
In the period before Rambouillet he produced, in sequence, 8 versions.
His successful experience (the collapse of the Rambuillet has
nothing to do with the quality of Hill's political drafts: they
offered a realistic compromise and an applicable provisional solution)
proves that it might not be so difficult to work out a compromise
text within a relatively short period of time. What prevented
this job being done earlier? I would agree that the Dayton agenda
was too complex to include an address on Kosovo (although an attempt
to exchange opinions was made at the final stage of the talks).
However, working out the Kosovo status in the Contact group format
was definitely possible after Dayton, in 1996-1997. To be sure,
having a draft agreement prepared by Contact Group experts and
agreed to in principle would not have substituted for the lack
of will to pressure the parties to accept it. But the very existence
of such a draft would have accelerated and facilitated generating
such a will.
Secondly, the political will had to be displayed
in 1996-1997, as it was displayed in 1999, to address realistically
the Kosovo problem.
Thirdly, establishing better co-ordination among
Western members of the Contact Group in order to reach the joint
position with respect to the legal status of Kosovo. Western attempts,
in the period prior to Rambouillet, to fix in the Contact Group
concrete parameters of the peace plan were invariably met with
a kind of slack resistance on the part of Russia. Russians believed
at that time that the westerners would be unable to reach a consensus
on Hill's proposals (although this was not the main reason for
Russia's obstructive behaviour). There was not anything in the
draft political agreement that could have really prevented consensus.
In the past, though, occasional statements by Western officials
did give ground to suggest that individual states had different
nuances in their approaches to the Kosovo status. Such comments
hardly reflected real differing interests.
Fourthly, the problem of reaching Russia's consent
. One of the misunderstandings for many years was overestimating
Russia's principled opposition to Western approaches to Kosovo.
This opposition was believed to be driven by Moscow's sympathy
to Milosevic, traditional pro-Belgrade alignment or fear of precedents
in view of the centrifugal trends in Russia. Yet Moscow always
had significant disillusions with Milosevic. Further Russia had
no need to fear precedent because it successfully implemented
in Russia the Tatarstan model. Having accepted it in 1994 at home
why should it have opposed a similar model for Yugoslavia, say,
in 1996? From Moscow's perspective the threat to its interest
would not be settling the Kosovo status. With NATO's spread to
the East treated, though wrong, as the main threat to Russia's
security (an axiom in Moscow since mid-1990s) Russia should have
been interested in doing everything possible to prevent a large-scale
conflict in Kosovo and subsequently NATO troops coming to Kosovo.
To be sure, Russia missed a lot of opportunities
to prevent the Kosovo conflict, contrary to its own interests.
Moscow's striving to block "internationalisation" of
the Kosovo problem contributed a lot to the crisis. In the early
1990s Russia ignored the problem following the policies inherited
from the past: a mixture of Soviet and Tsarist ideas and aspirations.
To a large extent, Moscow's Kosovo policy then, and later, was
a result of sheer inertia and lack of thinking. It was by no means
a principled opposition. It was surely not driven by real Russian
interests. Former foreign minister Kozyrev did not talk seriously
to Milosevic on Kosovo, he avoided discussing it with the West.
But there was then obviously insufficient pressure from the West
on the matter, which did not try to engage Moscow the way it did
with the Bosnian crisis.
In the second half of the decade when Russia
finally started to participate in the Contact Group discussions
on Kosovo and when Kozyrev's successor, Primakov, started, though
inconsequentially, to talk with Milosevic about Kosovo, again
a greater persistence was perhaps needed from the West. Moscow
did procrastinate the discussions on the legal status. Before
Rambouillet and in the pause between Rambouillet and Paris talks
it also avoided discussions of the military implementation and
in so doing contributed a lot to the collapse of Rambouillet.
The fact is though that this behaviour stemmed mainly from a habit
of delay and the lack of clear vision. Nobody in Moscow reasonably
opposed Hill's drafts. Moreover Moscow was aware that the Kosovo
operation would not work without an outside military force to
implement it.
There are two main lessons as far as Russia
is concerned, and they seem to be contradictory only at the first
sight. The first flows from the fact that Russia turned to co-operation
with the West and started to exercise positive influence on Milosevic
only after it became clear that there were no other options and
that otherwise it would be involved in the conflict with the West.
Moscow had exerted serious pressures on Milosevic in June and
in October 1998 after it realised that NATO's bombing threats
were serious. Likewise, only the assumption that a NATO ground
operation was imminent convinced Moscow to play a constructive
role in June 1999, negotiating an international NATO-lead military
presence in Kosovo. Although it is in the West's interest to coax
Russia from its path to self-isolation, engaging Moscow is not
an end in itself.
On the other hand, and this is the second lesson,
the Kosovo crisis showed that it is worth trying to have Russia
on board for as long as possible. What is usually assumed to be
Russia's principled opposition is sometimes more the result of
inertia and incompetence. Sometimes it might not be so difficult
to persuade Moscow—still basically opportunistic and lacking
a clear vision of its own long-term interests—to behave
more constructively.[68]
LESSONS FOR
THE FUTURE
Kosovo's legal status
The international community has to face the reality.
The Rambouillet Accords were a very good compromise solution,
and the Tatarstan model would have been an earlier compromise—but
both as provisional solutions. After the war they are no longer
viable. Another provisional solution is being implemented these
days by UNMIK and KFOR. The actual protectorate will inevitably
continue for a long time to come; one can not reasonably doubt
that an outside military force can not be soon withdrawn from
Kosovo. But the status issue, currently frozen, remains unresolved.
After the war, apart from the radical scenario—full
independence of Kosovo—there are only two other competitive
options: a confederation/very loose federation, consisting of
Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo or the partition of Kosovo. The
first of these two "compromisè options depends on
a number of largely unpredictable things: such as the prospects
for democratisation in Serbia, the developments in Montenegro
(where today 36.1 per cent of the population already is for the
full independence, compared to 21 per cent only a year ago)[69],
and actual Belgrade's regime plans with respect to Montenegro
(still uncertain and not very promising). The latter option—partition
of Kosovo—despite some shortcomings, has one serious advantage:
it is long-term character solution.
To be sure, apart from Kosovo Serbs, who could
otherwise loose everything, and who from the very beginning insisted
on "canonisation" of Kosovo, none of the three main
factors involved seem to be interested today in partition. The
West is afraid of displaying contradiction to the slogan of ensuring
multiethnic Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians, who were always much more
negative towards ideas of partition than Serbs (there was no Albanian
Despic up until now)[70],
dream of full independence, and now more than ever want "the
wholè of Kosovo.
Milosevic, in his turn, does not need "part
of Kosovo". A partition would not be a substitute for him
for the lost region. He does not actually need Mitrovica and the
northern part (economic interests, often mentioned regarding to
the local mining complex, are definitely overestimated). Milosevic
does not want partition de-jure, which would mean the ultimate
end to the conflict. What he needs, though, is the existing de-facto
division, because under it Mitrovica can be used as an outpost
for the destabilisation of the situation in Kosovo. Milosevic
wants the tensions there to remain for as long as possible. He
can survive only by constantly causing and manipulating crises.
Now, as before, he is in position to have two crises at the same
time—Kosovo and Montenegro—to choose and to manoeuvre.
As the three main factors are not interested
in partition, it is, thus, not likely to happen in the nearest
time. But the international community will have sooner or later
to define a long-term status for Kosovo and it is worth preparing
for it now. It is worth thinking now of the post-UNMIK Kosovo.
The international community should not repeat the mistakes of
having for years a long list of options without ever daring to
make a choice. The most applicable and long-term should be chosen.
Partition, as any other option, might not be
ideal. The most often mentioned argument against it—an undesirable
precedent for other areas in the Balkans and world-wide—however,
does not stand. Partition of Kosovo could be followed, at maximum,
by further exchanges affecting Serbian territories of Bujanovo,
Presevo and Medvedja, inhabited by Albanians, and hypothetically,
by an enhancement of centrifugal trends in Bosnia. Tim Judah calls
partition and exchanges a simplification of the problem[71]
It is not also a simplification to predict, on the basis of precedent,
a trigger effect of partition to other ethnically mixed territories?
According to this logic NATO should have been willing to bomb
Moscow for brutalities in Chechnya because of the precedent set
earlier in Kosovo. Besides which, there were already precedents
of divisions and exchanges of population: in India, for example.
In Bosnia, twice as strong international forces would not have
been able to maintain peace, had a strict border between Serbian
and Bosniac-Croat entities not been secured in Dayton (under the
cover of multiethnic rhetoric and central institutions that still
remain far from being effective).
Milosevic
The international community failed to work out co-ordinated
and consequent strategy to Milosevic in the past. Milosevic skilfully
used this lack of co-ordination and general readiness to bargain
with him. He used to receive foreign officials in Belgrade granting
them concession (symbolic) after concession, accepting in return
"a blind eyè to his regime and to other problems he
was creating, thus allowing him to strengthen his own power. Today
he seems to be finally isolated and even indicated by ITFY. Nevertheless
discussions continue between European countries and the US and
within EU—on a sanctions regime.
Admittedly, lifting the air embargo was a logical
step once the Serbian leaders could not travel abroad anyway.
A more selective and efficient approach to the instrument of sanctions
is to be welcomed. One should not be trapped though by the assumption
that easing sanctions will weaken the Belgrade regime. This is
by no means so. The fact that sanctions have not managed to ruin
Milosevic so far is not reason enough to say that lifting sanctions
will reach the objective. The appeals of Serbian opposition in
favour of lifting the sanctions are understandable—both
from the moral and political perspectives (raising their ratings
among the public). But let us be realistic. With all possible
respect for opposition's efforts to achieve greater unity and
overcome previous tactical mistakes it is worth stressing: if
a peaceful transition of power from Milosevic to opposition is
at all possible (many common people in Serbia don't believe it)
it is more likely to happen as a result of people voting in future
elections against Milosevic than of voting for the opposition.
The people of Serbia have to realise at last that with Milosevic
they can not have a future. They voted for him and for his party,
they don't have to do it again. This is as far as the message
to the public is concerned.
As for Milosevic himself, he understands only
one signal—that of force. A lack of such a signal, indicating
an absence of determination to act, would be fatal. The international
community should not allow "Kosovo" to repeat in Montenegro.
The only way to prevent conflict there—and this is, to my
mind, a very important lesson of Kosovo—is to send a signal
to Milosevic that intervention is imminent should he try to touch
Montengero. It is not enough to warn Djukanovic against provocation
and to tell him to show due restraint. The initiative is with
Milosevic. The West should be ready to act and Milosevic (and
Moscow) should know that.
Some analysts claim Montenegro is different
from Kosovo, and a conflict there could result in civil war. The
message is presumably that we shouldn't interfere with Montenegro,
which is too delicate issue. However, analysts were telling, before,
that Kosovo was different from Bosnia, too sensitive and thus
we should show restraint and not interfere. They were wrong. There
will not be a civil war in Montenegro if Milosevic makes a swift
military advancement and overthrows Djukanovic. If we don't want
this to happen the only option is to send Milosevic the message
clear enough—no less clear than it was in June 1999 in Kosovo[72]—that
he will not be allowed to make such advancement. Then indeed there
will not be a civil war.
There can not be, of course, a single formula
for all conflicts in the Balkans. But if there are universal lessons
to be drawn from Kosovo these are acting in time with preventative
measures and maintaining (and demonstrating) willingness to act
in view of brewing conflicts.
68 For a detailed analysis of Russia's Kosovo policy
see: Oleg Levitin, "Inside Moscow's Kosovo Muddlè,
Survival, no.1, Spring 2000, pp.130-40. Back
69
The results of the most recent poll, conducted by CEDEM/Damar,
published in Montenegrene weekly "Monitor", 14.02.00 Back
70
Aleksandr Despic, President of Serbian Academy of Sciences, made
in 1996 a public appeal for the partition of Kosovo. Back
71
"US troops may well spend decades in Kosovo", IHT,
16.02.00. Back
72
There is little doubt that among a number of factors that pressed
Milosevic to accept UNMIK and KFOR the most important was the
threat of ground operation. Back
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