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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1121-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
Tuesday 12 October 2004 MR GABRIEL PARTOS and DR JONATHAN EYAL PROFESSOR JAMES PETTIFER and DR DAVID CHANDLER Evidence heard in Public Questions 1-59
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday 12 October 2004 Members present Donald Anderson, in the Chair Mr David Chidgey Mr Eric Illsley Mr Andrew Mackay Andrew Mackinlay Mr John Maples Mr Bill Olner Mr Greg Pope Sir John Stanley Ms Gisela Stuart ________________ Memoranda submitted by Mr Partos and Dr Eyal
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Gabriel Partos, Balkans Analyst, BBC World Service and Dr Jonathan Eyal, Balkans Analyst, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), examined. Chairman: I welcome to the Committee today first Mr Gabriel Partos, who is the Balkans analyst at the BBC World Service. Mr Partos is senior Balkans analyst, with extensive experience of the region. Secondly, Dr Jonathan Eyal, who is a Balkans analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, the RUSI, manages RUSI's European programme and has written extensively in the area; clearly both of you have extensive experience and I welcome you to the first meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee in respect of our inquiry into the Western Balkans. I have a very clear memory that when the Committee met the then Greek foreign minister George Papandreou during the Greek presidency in his office he had a large map of Europe on the wall and he pointed out the Western Balkans and said "That gentlemen, is the missing piece of the jigsaw which will impact for good or ill on us in the remaining part of Europe". So we rely on you gentlemen to allow us to connect positively to the problems of that region. We value your help and we should like to begin, and clearly we need to touch on all the relevant countries, the subject of the inquiry, with Serbia and I call on Mr Illsley please to begin the questioning. Q1 Mr Illsley: Gentlemen, given the recent problems in Serbia, starting perhaps with the assassination of the Prime Minister Djindic, the parliamentary elections which led to a resurgence of the radical party, the slowdown on the Serbian economy and with that the slowdown of the process of reform is the election of Boris Tadic the leader of the democratic party as president likely to speed up Serbia's integration into the West? Is that likely to be a catalyst for a little bit of a step change in Serbia? Dr Eyal: As always, it is very difficult to predict, although personalities are of course a crucial element of any movement in that region, more perhaps than in many other European countries. It is clear that Mr Tadic's triumph in the elections was very good news all round, for at least three reasons. First, because it was a crucial blockage: the filling of that post proved to be a constant blockage to a constitutional log-jam in Serbia and Montenegro which has lasted, more or less, uninterrupted for two years. Secondly, because quite frankly, and I shall be undiplomatic here, the alternative was simply too awful, certainly the alternative that emerged in the second round of the voting. Thirdly, because Mr Tadic proved himself, in his previous position as defence minister, as one of the more efficient members of the government in Belgrade and a person who was determined to reform what probably was one of the least reformed institutions of the Yugoslav former state, namely the military. So, for every one of these reasons, it is an enormous advantage. However, and this is the usual caveat, the constitutional problem still remains, although there is a level of politeness between Prime Minister Kostunica and the president - they have both pledged together - the possibility that the power sharing may not succeed remains relatively high. Secondly, the point of both Mr Tadic and of Prime Minister Kostunica still is that somehow they can pick and choose what level of cooperation they want with the West; the question of the handover of war criminals for instance, has been left is abeyance, although the government proclaims that it wants to co-operate with us, and, on a personal note, I must say I was rather disappointed that President Tadic kept rather quiet in the first few months after his elections on this issue where he probably could have shown some leadership. Q2 Chairman: Mr Partos, do you agree with that? Mr Partos: I agree entirely with what Jonathan Eyal just said and there are one of two things that I would add to that. One thing we need to bear in mind is the fact that the position of president in Serbia is not an influential position in the sense that the government is a parliamentary government. In practical terms, the exacting power is in the hands of Prime Minister Kostunica and his government. Of course, the president has a great deal of influence. He can of course draw on the fact that he was elected by universal suffrage, by the public, directly elected president; he also has now the backing in some other ways of the fact that his own election victory back in June, the success of his democratic party in the local municipal elections held recently in which it captured, among other places, the very important position of the mayor of Belgrade - that position has gone to the candidate for the democratic party - shows that his party is also doing well in general, has recovered from the disastrous defeat it suffered in last December's parliamentary elections. So in that sense, President Tadic can draw on his own personal authority, he can draw on his influence, on the success of his own party, but we do need to bear in mind that he is not there to make policy. Just briefly, if I may illustrate that, only the other day when he called on Serbs, Kosovar Serbs, to take part in the forthcoming elections due on 23 October in Kosovo, in other words, he went against the advice of Prime Minister Kostunica who was calling for a boycott on the grounds that Serbs do not enjoy sufficient security and also that his particular plan for decentralisation in Kosovo had not been accepted, whilst President Tadic had gone against that advice and he was saying that the only way Serbs can have a voice after the elections is if they take part, for that, he was rapped on the knuckles because he was going against the declaration by parliament, by the prime minister. H was told that he should not have made that statement. So just to illustrate the fact that it is a difficult position in which he needs to manoeuvre in order to be able to bring forward those policies which you mentioned in your question. Q3 Mr Illsley: Have the recent local election result given any prospect for reform? I think you alluded to it there when you said his party's fortunes are reviving. Mr Partos: His party did well and that in a sense reinforces the argument that, at the very least, the Democratic Party, which is the mainstream party which is devoted to pragmatic pro-European integrationist policies, is recovering its position. But of course, at a national level, it is still the rather weak precariously positioned minority government under Mr Kostunica which is still in power and that is in a sense dictating the rhythm as it were, and the rhythm or the tempo is rather slow. It is rather slow for a number of reasons which we could go into but perhaps the three or four most important aspects are the fact that it is a minority government, it is a government which depends ultimately on the support of a handful of socialist MPs, who of course represent a party of Mr Milosevic, who is on trial in The Hague on war crime charges. He is dependent on that rather backward-looking group of politicians in parliament for his survival and also Mr Kostunica's own personality is generally described as being rather hesitant when it comes to decision making, he perhaps prefers to spend a great deal of time consulting rather than taking decisions and of course he has a very strong, firm commitment to a Serbian nationalist ideal. To that extent I think we do need to wait and see to what extent the local election result may have a bearing of Serbia's integration or change. Q4 Mr Illsley: I referred in my introduction to the economy slowing down. The Americans have cut their aid to Serbia by $25 million because of non-cooperation of the Hague Tribunal. We have seen a recent BBC report where Kostunica has said that he would prefer war criminals to be tried by the Serbian court, rather than The Hague. Is there absolutely no chance of Kostunica going along with the Hague Tribunal? Is there no accommodation there at all? Dr Eyal: Theoretically, all the political leadership in Belgrade accepts cooperation with the Hague Tribunal. What we have seen, however, over the last year and a half is essentially a dialogue of the deaf, very often suggestions, partly that they do not know where some of the chief indictees are, partly that it is very tricky to arrest them at this particular moment, partly that it is unjust to treat the Serbs as the pariahs and not to indict other alleged war criminals and, finally, why can they not be tried before Belgrade tribunals. Now the reality is that we shall very shortly see the first attempt actually to hand over a few of the indictees to be tried before tribunals in Belgrade itself. However, clearly we are nowhere near the stage where this could be done in a routine manner. Let us not forget that the international tribunal is well behind time in its own activity, there is a limit to how far it could continue operating, there is pressure from the United States about putting a cut on the actual period that it operates, so there is actually a lot that can be done. However, it is also fair to say that at the end of the day, sadly the decision of most of the Serb politicians has been that cooperating with the tribunal carries a greater political cost to them than not cooperating with this and it is this that has created the frustration of the Americans. There is a similar frustration among Europeans including Britain; it is perhaps not expressed in the same way as that of the Americans. Q5 Mr Illsley: How big an influence does organised crime still have in Serbia? Is it still a major threat to Serbian stability? Mr Partos: Not in the way that it was perhaps up to 18 months ago. What happened at the time of the assassination of Prime Minister Djindic in March of last year was that it was followed, as you may recall, by a state of emergency during which thousands were detained. A number of those regarded as perhaps being the criminal gang bosses were actually killed in gun battles with the police and perhaps in some way the worst of that kind of criminalised elements of the state, the intersection with the state which had developed in the days of the Milosevic era, when the security apparatus often went hand in hand with organised criminals, partly because criminals themselves had been encouraged to go and fight back in the days of the early 1990s in Croatia and in Bosnia on behalf of the Serbian cause. In the following years, the process of UN sanctions also encouraged cross-border crime, smuggling, and all this encouraged the development of this state-within-a-state or perhaps it might be even better to describe it as a kind of symbiotic relationship with elements of the state, the security apparatus and criminal gangs. That survived the fall of President Milosevic and it produced what appears to have been the Djindic assassination among many other activities. I think that the worst of it is now perhaps behind us because of the very firm action the government took back in the spring/early summer of last year and to the extent that organised crime in many ways dominated Serbia, that situation no longer is the case, but clearly it is not something you can switch on and switch off from one day to the next. Q6 Mr Illsley: The status of Kosovo is likely to come under discussion within the next few months. What is likely to be the attitude of Serbia towards the Kosovo issue? Are they likely still to maintain a totally nationalistic attitude that Kosovo remains within Serbia and there is absolutely no question of independence? Or could there be some compromises there, bearing in mind what has happened in Vojvodina as well? Dr Eyal: Of course of the Serb government, the new government, has circulated to Western governments a proposed solution of the Kosovo problem in February this year. It has not been discussed in public, indeed it was not discussed formally between the Western governments and Belgrade, mainly because the suspicion among many Western governments is that actually the plan was effectively hinting at a separation, a division of the problems. Officially the plan only calls for particular measures to protect ethnic Serbs in the country and technically the Serbs have been proven to be correct by the rather tragic riots that took place just a few weeks after the plan was circulated. So, in many respects the official Serb position is that they consider the problems as part of Serbia and Montenegro, which is the official position of the UN Security Council resolution as well, but essentially all they want is protection for Serbs. Now, my personal feeling is that there is no-one of any authority in Belgrade who believes that the province could return to Serb sovereignty. What they cannot figure out is how to accept this de jure without getting what they see as a compensation which they could portray to their own population as being an equitable settlement. Q7 Sir John Stanley: Very briefly, could you both tell us what you consider should be the top British Government foreign policy priorities towards Serbia? Dr Eyal: In a word - engagement. We have two things which relate to engagement. The first one is to dispel the very deep-seated attitude of all Serbs, in all walks of life, that they are the victims of the West and that regardless of what they do, we will never take them seriously. Now that view is widespread even among intellectuals, even, if I may say so, among people who should know better. Sadly, we did miss some tricks: for instance, the riots in Kosovo were clearly perpetrated largely by ethnic Albanians, yet our view was to suggest that it was a plague on both houses. This to a certain extent was true, but it was perceived in Serbia yet again as our inability to look at other countries which may be breaking the law as well and our determination to be sticklers for protocol when it comes to Serbia and not elsewhere. Mr Partos: I would add to that, perhaps that it is very important to keep Serbia and the Serbian authorities to their pledges and promises, to their undertakings in terms of their obligations to the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Hague Tribunal, and at the same time to encourage them and show that by cooperating with the tribunal, accepting other undertakings, not having special rules for Serbia to have trials of indicted war criminals in Serbia rather than transferring them to The Hague, by accepting these undertakings and acting on them, that of course there are various ways in which there are benefits which they can take advantage of in terms of easier access to the European Union, accelerating the talks towards a stability and association agreement which of course, is something that Serbia will need to conclude with the EU in order to qualify later on for full membership. Q8 Mr Mackay: Can I move on to Montenegro? Clearly here, one of the key issues is the potential independence of this country. It does seem to be controversial within Montenegro and I would appreciate your comments on that. Equally, we see secessionist difficulties and issues in Bosnia and Kosovo. If in the relatively near future Montenegro became independent, what knock-on effect across the Western Balkans would that have? I guess the final question on this particular point is that we have seen minorities discriminated against elsewhere, to my knowledge we have not in Montenegro yet, but if it were an independent state, would some difficulties be raised there? Dr Eyal: My personal opinion is that we are nowhere near a consensus or even a majority view inside Montenegro for secession. That is one reason why the country's leadership has not put it to a referendum and I suspect that what they are trying to do is to show that the current constitutional arrangement simply does not work and to persuade public opinion in Montenegro that independence is the only alternative. The leadership of the republic remains committed to independence, but it dares not put it to a vote. Now, if the question does come to a vote, it will not result in violence, that we can be almost sure; there is absolutely no-one is Serbia who will carry out an order to shoot on Montenegrins because of the close ethnic and historic proximity of the two nations and there is absolutely no-one in Serbia who will even dream of giving such an order. So that is not the problem. Now, the problem of mixed-marriages could arise, but I suspect it is probably less of a difficulty than it was in other successor states of Yugoslavia. The issue does not, I repeat, arise and it is unlikely in my mind to arise for a year or so, despite the fact that you will be told by various Montenegrin politicians that they are just poised in a day or so, to declare a referendum on the issue. This is part of their technique to increase their value with both us in the West, in terms of their negotiations and quite frankly is part of the blackmail which goes on daily in Belgrade in the tussle for resources. We have seen it in other separatist movements. I suspect, to your final point, that if Montenegrin independence comes, it will have very little impact on Bosnia where the logic of the behaviour of the various ethnic communities is completely different. It will, however, on Kosovo, because it will be very difficult to say we are not settling the legal status of Kosovo, but we are rushing to settle the legal status of Montenegro. Q9 Chairman: The area which is left is the minorities, the Albanian minority for example, and effect there and other comments, please? Mr Partos: Montenegro has perhaps the most harmonious inter-ethnic relations among Serbs, Montenegrins, Albanians, Muslims of course are a large community, so I do not see any prospect of that being harmed by Montenegro's independence because of the way the country has been able to hold together under enormous pressure the various ethnic communities, both under the Milosevic regime, when there was pressure from Belgrade, and in the more liberal atmosphere which has taken root since the fall of the Milosevic regime over the last four years. So that will stay as it is and any problems which might arise between Serbs, or those who see themselves as Serbs and want to keep the relationship with Serbia going, and the Montenegrins or the pro-independence Montenegrins, is unlikely in my view to lead to any major upheaval because Belgrade itself will agree to an amicable divorce. I do not know, Chairman, whether you will permit me to comment on the other two aspects of the questions. Q10 Chairman: The question of minorities is a further question not yet tackled. Mr Partos: If I may comment on independence in general, I do not think it is on the agenda yet. What is going to happen is that the current three-year kind of trial arrangement, or trial marriage as it where, or re-marriage between Serbia and Montenegro will come to an end early in 2006. At that stage, perhaps the government, which has previously mooted a referendum on many occasions - a referendum has always been "just around the corner" - may suggest that the time has come. We will have to wait and see until then. The latest opinion polls which I have just seen suggest that there is now considerable degree of, not exactly unqualified support for independence, but a gap between the pro-independence and the pro-union opinion poll views is now about 12 per cent in favour of those who want independence. These things can change from time to time. Finally, what precedent might be set for Bosnia or Kosovo? I think the impact on Bosnia will be marginal, minimal; conditions in Bosnia have been moving towards integration within the state rather than the other way around. I think that process is unlikely to be disturbed. Kosovo? Again there will not be a major impact because Kosovar Albanians, the majority, have been determined since 1990, when they first declared that they want to be independent. To that extent, whether Montenegro is part of a union with Serbia or not is irrelevant from their perspective; of course they could use Montenegro's independence as a justification perhaps in some ways in terms of rational arguments around the world to back their call for independence, but I think that ultimately their determination to go for independence will not be affected by Montenegro's choice. Q11 Mr Chidgey: May I come back now to more detail on the situation in Kosovo, particularly UNMIK's role there? You referred in passing to the ethnic riots in the spring, in March, and the effect that that has had. Of course the Secretary General of the UN commissioned a report on that process and its effect and some of the conclusions were particularly striking which are worth dwelling on, particularly the comment that after the riot, the report said, if there is insufficient progress, it will be very hard, if not impossible, to repair the damage caused by the March violence. Then, in regard to the international community, the point was made that the international community is today seen by Kosovo Albanians as having gone from opening the way to now standing in the way and it is seen by the Kosovo Serbs as having gone from securing the return of so many, to being unable to ensure the return of so few. That is a rather chilling situation to be in. The particular question I really want to ask you on that basis is that given that the UN mission has been severely criticised following the March riots which left 19 dead and many more injured, where was it that UNMIK fell short of its obligations? Dr Eyal: I think the failure was on almost every count and there are some severe lessons to be learned. First, there was a political failure: most of us turned our eyes away to places like Iraq and elsewhere and Kosovo was assumed to have been one of the world's inherently insoluble problems, so why deal with it today. It was a chilling reminder that it is a very immediate problem and it is now. Secondly, there was the assumption that somehow we were the victims of our own slogans and the famous slogan being "standards before status" - get standards of government operating before we discuss the status - without realising that one is completely intertwined with the other. Thirdly, the rules of engagement of NATO were rather poor, both in terms of the explicit rules of engagement and in terms of the way that they were executed. Finally, there was almost no early alert system when Albanian controlled media started spewing out racist news about alleged murders of young Albanian children by Serbs. There was almost no reaction of the kind that you would have had in the case of Bosnia where the media is tightly circumscribed when it comes to any ethnic-related propaganda of this kind. The only good thing that could be said is that the response of both London and Paris, as the main contributing countries in military terms, was very good and very satisfactory. Forces were air-lifted and reinforcements were in place within 36 hours after it became clear that we were facing a difficult situation. What was not satisfactory was the fact that, at least for the first 24 hours, it appeared that it was touch and go whether NATO was going to lose control of the province altogether. So our intelligence, our preparation, our early warning systems were all faulty. Q12 Mr Chidgey: Mr Partos, do you have anything to add to that? Mr Partos: Very little, because I agree entirely with what Dr Eyal has just said, but I would also add that in terms of presentation, public image, there was a degree of complacency in the way in which UNMIK had been running Kosovo; of course that was back in March and it was already in effect entering the sixth year of UN administration, or was soon to enter it at that time. That was a problem; an impression was created among the population at a time when frustrations were building up, precisely because the issue has been shelved, at least for the time being, the issue of Kosovo status and this is why those frustrations built up among the Albanians. It is ironic of course in a sense that the March events, the tragic events actually occurred only three months after the UN had started a process, a rather tentative process, whereby they outlined a timetable which will take us in the middle of 2005 to a review of the achievements of the UN administration and of the local elected authorities in terms of democracy building, the rule of law, interest in tolerance, security for the minorities and so on a review which will then lead on perhaps, if it is a positive assessment, perhaps in early 2006 to the start of discussions about final status. The problem was of course that to most people on the ground back in March this year, because of this air of complacency that I have already mentioned, because of the lack of visible progress on the ground, there was a sense in which they could see no advance, no progress and the situation then in a sense meant that there was this trigger, this violent incident, or supposedly violent incident against Albanian boys. Then of course it suddenly all erupted and this was a lesson which has since been learned. I think there is now a sense in which the UN authorities are trying now to impress on people that things are moving ahead and of course it is up to the local authorities and the local communities to try to work out ways in which they can ensure that those standards are actually met. Q13 Mr Chidgey: I think we now take it as read that the March riot demonstrated the failure of the concept of standards before status, but how important and how pressing is the status issue in Kosovo? Mr Partos: I would not say that they demonstrated failure of standards before status: if you do away with the standards what are you left with? Are you saying that you can just get on and have talks, irrespective of the situation, for example the security situation, regarding the Serb minority? I think it is more a question of focusing on those standards, streamlining them and I think this is something that UNMIK is now trying to do, make it more comprehensible to people who have not necessarily got the political sophistication to go through the 140 pages of standards on this or that area and so on, but just need to have some headline notions of what exactly needs to be on the ground. I think that my understanding is that the standards issue is still there and it is still very strong, not only because it is a kind of cliché or a slogan, but also because it needs to be part of any equitable settlement. Q14 Mr Chidgey: Dr Eyal, would you agree with that? Dr Eyal: Up to a point. I was one of the school of thought that believed that the question of status really should be ignored, that we should concentrate on stabilising the province and that we should do more or less what we have done in Bosnia. Very few people believed in the Dayton Accord; everyone implemented it in the hope that one day we would cease to have to implement it. So I have assumed a similar approach. I am beginning to believe now that the issue cannot be held much longer. The difficulty we have is, as my colleague was suggesting, how to tie in the two; the question of timing is of less importance to me. I do believe that by 2005 we have to face the question of the status, mainly because for local politicians it has become a justification for not doing anything. So the question of the disposition has to be faced, we are in much calmer water with other permanent members of the UN Security Council, because let us not forget the question of status implies a change in the UN Security Council resolution of the summer of 1999 at the end of that war. It is not a simple matter, it needs to be decided by Beijing and Moscow as well as by Paris, London and Washington. I suspect that we can reach ... There is an understanding in Belgrade as well that the status question cannot by postponed ad infinitum. The difficultly is twofold: first the difficulty of execution. How do you tell people that you are not going to move too fast on status, because if you do, you are basically going to prevent all the advances that you can do on standards? You can also give the Albanians the assumption that it was precisely because of the riots that we are now moving to discussing the status. At the same time, the second one is one of form. How do you manage to make it very clear that status has to come at a price of further advancement in the institutions? We have failed to pass the test. Q15 Mr Chidgey: Finally on Kosovo. An area of great concern, not only in this country, but I think throughout the EU, has been the growth of organised crime emanating from Kosovo particularly in the trafficking of drugs and young women for prostitution. There is a view that this is flourishing because of the fact that Kosovo is in some sort of legal limbo, but whatever it is, it is a cause of great concern amongst many people in the European Union, to the extent that there are many who believe that the very stability of the European Union is threatened by this flourishing of organised crime from Kosovo. What shall we do? Mr Partos: I think that the issue should not be seen in isolation. Kosovo may be one of the centres of organised crime, but I think that wherever you look in the region, and I think Serbia already cropped up in that context earlier in this discussion, we have problems and Albania is another one and Macedonia too and Bosnia and so on and so forth. It is a regional issue; organised crime knows no boundaries and in fact there has been very good evidence and documentation of cooperation even during the Bosnian war between the warring sides, as they were described, at the level of smuggling, organised crime and so on. I think the answer, if there is a simple answer to your question - What do you do? - is first of all, to tackle this issue not on a regional or national level, by region I meant an entity level, but on a broad regional level across the Western Balkans as part of a much wider network. Many of those who are being traded, I mean the white slave trade, in fact the victims, come from Moldova, for example, or Ukraine, further to the east and north and end up quite often in Western Europe, in this country or in Italy or elsewhere, so it all has to be part of a much broader international corporation. On that issue, the British Foreign Office has taken a lead role, along with other EU countries, in terms of organising cooperation meetings, conferences, technical know-how, intelligence sharing, all these are important, but ultimately it will be slightly naïve to expect any dramatic improvement in the situation, short of two developments. One is what we saw in Serbia last year, a state of emergency, which was of course applicable after the assassination of the prime minister, but you cannot apply that left, right and centre. Secondly, and this is a much slower process, a marked improvement in living standards across the region. While people often have high levels of unemployment, little choice in terms of employment --- Q16 Chairman: Do you agree with that? A brief response, if you would. Dr Eyal: The presence of international forces is probably the right approach at the moment. I do not accept the argument that they may be part of the problem: they are part of the solution. Increasing the level of employment, which is increasing very, very slowly, is clearly another element, so is the build-up of the local police force. The moves have been rather hesitant; they have been taken but they have been rather hesitant. If you wish, it is a classic answer to why the question of standards has to come up at the same time as the question of status. Status without standards would plunge the region into a sort of wild East of Europe. Q17 Andrew Mackinlay: It strikes me that if Montenegro were to take independence, and I can understand both the likelihood of it, and I can understand from their point of view the prudence of it, but if they were to do that, surely that would increase the feeling in Serbia, their whole traditional feeling of owning Kosovo? At the present time this fragile federation dilutes that feeling does it not? But surely once Montenegro goes, then nationalism, pride, call it what you like, will just increase in relation to the historic feeling that Serbia has for the real estate of Kosovo. Dr Eyal: I am not sure. I think that there will be a much deeper disappointment among Serbs about the fact that the state which used to be respected in Europe, which they regarded as being large and influential, has now been reduced to borders last seen some time during the nineteenth century. There is clearly a sense of defeat there, which is shared even by educated people in Belgrade and certainly by the masses, but I am not sure that the two are connected. There is also very strong feeling in Belgrade that the question of Serbia's own identity in Europe will never be properly answered as long as they are encumbered by all these loose federations and associations. There are people in Belgrade who say "You want to go your own way? Goodbye"; there are people like that as well. I do not think that is anyone connected so much to the question of Kosovo, which is seen in quite a different light. Where I do think there is a connection is between Kosovo and the status of the Serb population in Bosnia where a lot of people would argue privately, or not officially, that they could say goodbye to Kosovo tomorrow from their perspective, if they were allowed in return a closer relationship with Republika Srbska, namely the Serbs of Bosnia. Q18 Andrew Mackinlay: We presumably agree ground that none of us believe that ethnic cleansing should pay or really endure, though certainly in 1945 there was an irreversible shift in European map. It seems to me that the European Union and others would have a dilemma: when we come to look at final status, there would be the question of the Serbs returning to their farms and properties in Kosovo and the dilemma is that all you do is re-invent the same problem as before. Are we not really going to have, as a Western community a dilemma, particularly as probably our long-term objective is to bring those countries into the European Union? How do we deal with restitution? The Committee is looking at another part of the world, Cyprus, and we know how that whole plan has slightly imploded because that could not be satisfied. Is that not really going to be a tremendous hurdle for us? Mr Partos: Yes of course is it, and you see that also in the possible impact which both of us were suggesting would not be a major impact on Bosnia and Bosnian Serbs. If Montenegro or Kosovo were to go independent, would that not encourage the Bosnian Serbs to try once again? Yes, I think it is an issue and I think more directly it would affect the status of Kosovo. You could argue that the Serbs have not been able to go back there in any large numbers and I think that is why it is so essential to re-double the efforts which have been made and try to encourage Serbs, those who wish to go back, at the very least to reclaim their property and to be able, if they want, to stay on and to provide the kind of security which, at the moment, clearly is lacking. What I think might be an interesting or potentially unintended result, if there were indeed a successful attempt to return Serbs in large numbers to Kosovo, might be to settle the issue and tie it in with Kosovo status. Indeed the Kosovo Albanians, who are so determined, adamant, that they want independence, might, if they saw the opportunity for independence, then become, let us put it like this, more generous to their Serb neighbours on the grounds that this would be their land, as they would see it, or their state and the Serbs would now be a minority, so they might as well allow them back and provide a degree of security, especially if that is a condition of Kosovo becoming independent, whereas in the situation now, with Kosovo in limbo, it is more difficult to encourage the Albanians to behave in that sort of way towards the minority. Q19 Andrew Mackinlay: The thing we have not talked about is the aspiration for European Union membership. It seemed to me, just picking up from the example we were talking about, and it is true of the other countries, that whatever our views on the European Union, conflict resolution, or minimisation of potential conflict, is by sheer mobility, free mobility of labour so people can work in various places but still have their weekend home back in their communities. This is the thing which is probably one of the potential blocks to rebuilding this area and yet it seems to me that the EU are not uttering this to any great extent. There does not seem to be much talk about this carrot of European Union membership for all these countries or territories. Dr Eyal: The carrot is, if you wish, implicit rather than explicit. It is obvious to a lot of countries that the progress, very rapid progress, made by Croatia for instance in the last year on the road to membership is actually an example which needs to be followed. It is very painfully felt by the other communities of the region and you are right in saying that the European Union has not been explicit with this carrot. The reason is very simple: some of the initial obstacles to a normal discourse have not been removed and therefore there is no point, even in discussing these theoretical things. However, the advances made only in the last few weeks by Croatia to a status as a candidate country are clearly enormously powerful. I have not met anyone in the region who believes that they can somehow find an existence outside this European Union: I have met a lot of people who believe that they will be admitted on their own terms, rather than Brussels's terms. On the subject of the return of people, free movement of people, I am not sure that even Croats, who are so far advanced from that region, are actually aware that the ultimate outcome of their membership may be that all the ethnic Serbs they have kept out of the country would be perfectly entitled to return: there have been some comments on it; but they do not understand it. I find it inconceivable, however, that there will be any status agreement on Kosovo which does not include a provision about the right of return for the Serbian minority and I will remind members of this Committee that there is also the open sore in the tragedy of the roma people who were hounded out of the region and on whose behalf nobody speaks. I find it inconceivable that there would not be a right of return. It would probably be mitigated in the case of the Albanians, by a right of compensation instead of return. Q20 Chairman: Before I call on Sir John and Bosnia Herzegovina, some questions on Macedonia. We know of the enormous tensions which culminated in the Ohrid framework agreement in August 2001. We know of the considerable progress made there, in part due to the example of President Trajkovski. Now we are at the point of the referendum, which had to be on 7 November, relating to the decentralisation portion of the framework agreement. Is it your view that the people of Macedonia recognise the fundamental dangers of a yes vote in that referendum, which could put in question the whole of the framework agreement and indeed put a big question mark over both their NATO and their EU aspirations? Dr Eyal: My personal impression is that people do recognise it. What people, if one can refer to the majority of the population of the republic, do not seem to agree on is what the Ohrid Agreement actually meant. Did it mean a protection of a minority, an exalted status for a minority within the state, or did it ultimately mean a state for two ethnic groups? Indirectly this is the question which is seeking an answer supposedly --- Q21 Chairman: But the direct effect of the referendum would be to put the reform of a local government structure right back to 1995, which everyone agrees is wholly anachronistic, with local communes of 500 or so. Dr Eyal: Absolutely. Q22 Chairman: It would therefore surely wholly undermine the framework agreement. Dr Eyal: Absolutely, there is no doubt about it and that message was put by every government. What I am not entirely sure about is whether the message seeped to the population. Let us not forget, that for the majority Macedonian population, there was a whiff of opposition to the Ohrid Agreement; there was a feeling that this agreement was somehow pulled out of them by the threat of violence and there has been resentment over tiny issues like, for instance, languages used on the cover of a passport. Effectively what they boil down to is whether Macedonia is a state for the Macedonian majority with an Albanian protected minority, or a state of two ethnic groups? We are coming back to that one. My guess is that I hope that the referendum will be rejected. Q23 Chairman: Or not meet the 50 per cent. Dr Eyal: Or fail on a technicality. I agree with you however that they would tear up the entire delicate balance which has been maintained more than we expected since the Ohrid deal. Q24 Chairman: Mr Partos, do you agree? Mr Partos: I agree on the whole and it is in a sense ironic that when you are almost facing the last step, the last piece in the jigsaw as far as Ohrid is concerned, the major piece in the jigsaw, let us put it like that, everything else having been taken care of such as proportional representation for Albanians, building up the police, the security forces, public services, language use and so on, all these having been settled, it would in some ways be tragic for Macedonia if this last piece of jigsaw were not to be put in place. I think that on the whole, even if the majority of those who turn up and take part in the referendum vote against the decentralisation plans, there will be ways in which Macedonia and the Macedonian Government - and successive governments have been able to negotiate through inter-ethnic coalitions and so on - might go back to the drawing board and come up with some other similar arrangement and try to push that through. I think that what is very likely to happen, in one way or another, is that things are going to be slowed down, "things" being of course the agreement being put completely in place, finalised, implemented and of course, Macedonia's integration with the EU, which ultimately is essential for the country's prosperity. Q25 Sir John Stanley: As far as Bosnia Herzegovina is concerned, as you know, the absolute top priorities for their government, with all three ethnic groups absolutely agreed on this, is NATO membership plus EU membership. There is nothing implicit about this: this is totally explicit. Indeed in Sarajevo recently, I was very impressed about the strength of the EU organisation there with EU ambassador and staff and so on really trying to help the new government through the early stages of the EU membership process and the same was true on the NATO side. However, in both cases, the key stumbling block is getting agreement of the EU on the one hand, NATO on the other, to the fact that Bosnia Herzegovina is compliant with its international obligations and of course that centres most particularly on the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY. The question I want to put to you is that it appears that the EU and NATO are setting the bar of this particular high jump at slightly different levels, possibly significantly different levels. The NATO bar appears, under strong American influence, to be set at the point where NATO is saying "You have to get Mladic and Karadzic in the bag, behind bars and then we will think about you getting into the partnership for peace" which of course is the gateway through to NATO. The EU, on the other hand, is setting the bar arguably lower by saying "We will take you into a stabilisation and assistance programme, SAP, on the same basis as we allowed Croatia in". In other words, "You get Carla del Ponte to sign up on the paper saying you are compliant and if it's good enough for Carla del Ponte, it's good enough for us". I want to ask whether you think the British Government should be setting the position for entry for both NATO and the EU on the basis of getting Mladic and Karadzic behind bars, or do you think the British Government's position should be the EU one, which is that if Carla del Ponte is willing to sign up that they are complaint, they should be allowed to go forward? Dr Eyal: I would say neither, if I may say so. First of all Mrs del Ponte's remit ends at the end of this year. There is a limit to how many more indictments she can issue which expire at the end of this year. Now, that is a good side actually, because it could reassure all those countries. One of the reasons that a lot of those countries were reticent about cooperating was that it seemed to them to be a never-ending process. They delivered, as they saw it, a number of suspects, only to be confronted by yet another list. Now, I don't think that Mrs del Ponte, as such, is the critical element. I think that the British position should be, that there should be considerable progress in handing over the alleged war criminals, which must include at least of the two names that you have mentioned, but that the subsequent cooperation could be left, and indeed strengthened, in increasing involvement by us. What I mean is that you should not stop and say "We are doing nothing until all the people on the list are delivered". There has to be a delivery of one of the top people on that list as an example of the willingness to cooperate. It is not Bosnia itself that should be a victim. What I wanted to say about Bosnia is that it is a very tight, very difficult job to try on the one hand to encourage the country and, at the same time, not to hold them up to blackmail by Republika Srbska, the Serb controlled area, which may refuse to cooperate on one of these issues. I know that the Bosnians were very disappointed by the fact that they had failed in what they were seeking to achieve at the Istanbul summit of NATO. I would suggest that the discussion should go much more on technicalities now rather than principles. For instance, the Bosnian defence ministry was established about six to eight months ago; it has yet to function. The border police are functioning now and seem to be rather efficient, but that is in its infancy. We are at a very early stage. I would suggest that talking about technicalities is more important than the principles and I would not give Mrs del Ponte the ultimate veto of our involvement. Mr Partos: What I would add to this is that General Mladic and Mr Karadzic are symbols of the utmost importance and for any kind of progress towards NATO or EU membership, or indeed the reforms which are part of bringing the different entities of Bosnia together to make it into a genuinely functioning state to succeed and to succeed within the next few years rather than being dragged out for another long period and implementation being under way for nine years, it is essential that those symbols of the war in Bosnia of the divisions and the ethnic cleansing are dealt with through the mechanisms of international justice. How you can apply that in terms of political conditioning is another matter for the governments to decide. I would say that in my view at least an attempt to try to arrest them, which is seen as a genuine attempt, would be essential to speed up the reform process. Without it, I think things will take much longer. Q26 Sir John Stanley: Do you think it is fair or reasonable to make Bosnia Herzegovina's entry into either NATO or the EU dependent on capturing war criminals, however intensely desirable, who themselves may be spending much of the time, or possibly most of the time out of the country and therefore not within the grasp of the government concerned? Dr Eyal: No, I do not think that. Clearly the pressure of all Western governments was towards Belgrade. There is absolutely no question that the arrest of either Mr Karadzic or Mladic is going to happen with the assistance of the military intelligence of Serbia and with the direct order of politicians in Belgrade. I think that Bosnia, quite frankly, is a bystander to this process. So in a way, the Bosnians are right to feel victimised, but one has to be more careful about the implications. It is rather easy to suggest that Bosnia and the treatment of Bosnia should be completely separated from that of Serbia. It is logical and just to make that suggestion, but in practice what we are engaged in is a very careful balancing act of reassuring the Serbs of Bosnia that they are not completely detached from Serbia and that there is some linkage, even if it is not official, between the future disposition of Bosnia and the future disposition of Serbia. Any other policy will make the management of Bosnia's internal politics ten times worse. I am not pretending that it is a very clever policy: I am merely suggesting that it is a doable one. Q27 Ms Stuart: Following on from Sir John's point, I was rather puzzled by Dr Eyal's almost implication that there was choice as to whether you could hand over one or two of these serious criminals and whether that was really the right test. I have a sense a lot of activity is going on without achievement. Am I right in assuming that the only people who probably have real political clout are not actually the EU, but the United States? Dr Eyal: Not necessarily. Actually the European Union has an enormous amount of influence in some particular countries like the United Kingdom. It is not a secret that the United Kingdom is viewed by many Serbs as being the most recalcitrant in their eyes, or the most insistent on the handover of all the people whose names are printed on any of Carla del Ponte's lists. I am not sure that Washington actually, despite the fact that it of course can block almost any path in terms of NATO, or indeed in terms of international organisations' access to cash, is the main player as far as Belgrade is concerned. They do look upon London as one of the main players and it is true to say that they assume in Belgrade that Paris and Berlin are perhaps a bit more, shall we say, flexible on how many war criminals can be handed over. I am only giving my impressions about the way things are seen from Belgrade's perspective. All I am saying is that I do not believe for a moment that we can wait until the entire list of indictees is handed over. That is never going to happen. Let me remind you that has not happened in the case of Croatia either. Very often, the difference between Croatia and Serbia is that the Croats have made the right noises, while the Serbs have not even done that. Q28 Chairman: The fact is that those noises have been sufficient to persuade Carla del Ponte that they have used their best endeavours in the case of Katovna, hence Britain withdrew its objections in respect of the agreement. Dr Eyal: Absolutely. At the end of the day, what I am saying is that it would be a package deal which would have to have a large element of handing over those who have now become absolute symbols of the horrors of the 1990s. At the same time, I think everyone accepts, although not publicly, that once this is done, we are in a different world and we can move much faster, even if, sadly, not every name on the list would be ticked off at the end of the day. Chairman: Gentlemen, we have kept you in the field for some good time and you have been extremely helpful. May I thank you both on behalf of the Committee? Memorandum submitted by Professor Pettifer
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Dr David Chandler, Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster and Professor James Pettifer, Conflict Studies Research Centre, UK Defence Academy, examined. Q29 Chairman: Gentlemen, may I welcome you to the Committee. We have before us Dr David Chandler of the Centre for the Study of Democracy in the University of Westminster, expert on the international administration in Bosnia and Professor James Pettifer of the Conflict Studies Research Centre at the UK Defence Academy, expert in the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and on the formal and informal Albanian military. I should like to begin with the status of Kosovo. You know the report which Ambassador Kai Eide produced at the behest of the UN Secretary General and the formula which Ambassador Eide put forward for the future of Kosovo, which is broadly: no partition of Kosovo, no ethnic divisions, no institutional links with Belgrade, greater EU involvement and government seen to be from Pristina - not necessarily by Pristina. First, your general comments, if you would, on the report itself. Do you believe that it marks the appropriate way forward? Professor Pettifer: It is a very welcome initiative. I would endorse the comments made by the speakers in the previous session. Q30 Chairman: You were present. Professor Pettifer: Yes, for part of it: in particular I endorse Dr Eyal's comments that Kosovo has not had the attention it probably should have had in the previous two years, otherwise we might not have had the difficulties we had in March this year. Any initiative of this kind is very welcome, but at the same time the content of it is substantially the same as we have had before, particularly the emphasis on the standards and the rejection of partition. From the point of view of analysts, the important thing was the emphasis on the partition issue, which has not normally been raised by international figures in the same way before. This is a sign that partition is in the air as a subject of discussion in the way that it probably was not 12 months ago. Q31 Chairman: But it marks an acceleration of the process, a refocusing in terms of the standards, not on this voluminous document, but on certain key areas. It does mark a fresh and you say welcome initiative. Professor Pettifer: Yes. As I said in my memorandum, which I hope you have seen, it seems to me that the standards issue is in some ways difficult because very few ex colonies or new countries which have come into existence since 1945 could have met them, or maybe even half of them. As someone said in the recent debate in the House of Representatives, we would not have the United States if the standards document had had to be observed. That is not in any way suggesting that they are not very important, but, being realistic, it is not very likely that some of them will be attained in any foreseeable future. Dr Chandler: There is a problem of looking at it on far too formal a level. How realistic is the focus on standards before status? There is a danger of creating a regime on paper which never actually has any substance and reality to it. We see that more broadly when we look at the whole issue of state building. There seems to be a certain drive to magic things up in committee rooms outside of the region. While it may look good on paper "Yes, let us have returns, break with Belgrade, no partition", that is not necessarily a political compromise solution. Without a settlement which has some consensus in the region, you are never going to get away from people saying "It is a very good settlement but the EU is going to have to police it". It would probably be a bit like Bosnia where there is the same status and standards situation, where once they are regulating it, you have such high so-called standards and there is always a focus on the problems that it seems to me it is rather suspending the situation of stasis than resolving it. I am not saying there is an easy alternative solution, but it is often the case, when you intervene in a situation without an idea of the consequences, that you are in a bit of a pickle. Q32 Chairman: Given the history, the international community has a very special responsibility for the future of Kosovo. If there were to be a state which did not respect its ethnic minorities, it would be a standing affront to what the war was about. Professor Pettifer: That is certainly the case; everybody would endorse that. The problem is that these liberal agendas - if I may use the term without being pejorative - are not shared by large numbers of the population on the ground of all ethnic groups whose mindset is still pervaded by ideological nationalism. Q33 Chairman: If they reject a liberal and democratic agenda, do they deserve the degree of help from outside? Professor Pettifer: Obviously liberal with a small "l". Q34 Chairman: Surely they would not deserve the financial and other help from the international community, nor would they deserve to move further along the road to join the international institutions, the EU and NATO. Professor Pettifer: I entirely agree with the second of those points, but the question of sovereignty may be different. One can point to many countries in the world which have achieved independence and in the region Croatia and Bosnia are two paramount examples where no more than 30 to 40 per cent of the Kosovo standards were in existence and they are still not in existence in many instances. Q35 Chairman: Croatia has enjoyed a democratic election with a democratic change of government. That is surely light years away from the situation in Kosovo. Professor Pettifer: On the contrary, Chairman. I think all Kosovo elections have been widely praised for their conduct by the IC, particularly by people like Lord George Robertson. Dr Chandler: Definitely. I beg to disagree. I think there is a fundamental difference between a liberal agenda and a democratic agenda. A liberal agenda is the focus on outcomes and the standards, the end product: a democratic agenda at least implicitly implies some autonomy, some responsibility and some consensus from the people living in the region. Kosovo is a classic case in point. Every election, from the first election onwards, has been seen as a democratic election, but there is no democracy there. That is the fundamental problem, that there is a process there, but an artificial pseudo state is being created. You may argue that there is an international responsibility to bring a liberal agenda and with it democracy, but it is very difficult, if you start out from some paper aspirations rather than from the society which exists. It is the contrast between the two which creates an unsolvable problem because there is no way of getting from one to the other. That is what is problematic about the status and standards discussion: it is a discussion around sequencing and the technicalities of what to do first without really understanding that you cannot construct a state without a process of engagement and autonomy. If you are saying that you should have a perfect political system, a perfect civil service, a perfect legislation before there is democracy and accountability, that is a limited approach and you can see the way that recommendations of policy have changed. First of all it was "Let's have elections" and now the sequencing discussion has moved on to "Let's have the rule of law first". I think it is the same discussion: you cannot have the rule of law if it is just sent from Brussels and Washington. The rule of law has to have a relationship with society. Both of these things have to be seen as intimately connected. Q36 Chairman: Of course, but if you accelerate the status without adequate protection for minorities and so on, are you not abandoning the carrot you have to ensure that the state is, yes, within the perspective of the Balkans, but a reasonably tolerable state? Dr Chandler: I would not idealise the current situation. There is no protection for minorities now under the regulation of UNMIK. There is not even a valid promise of return as an aspiration. If we actually looked at the problems which exist in Kosovo now, rather than seeing the situation as good and asking how we create more autonomy, as an academic I could argue that I would not start from here and that the whole focus is problematic, but as a policymaker I would say that it is an impossible situation. The assumption starts from our responsibilities and us trying to give things to people and to solve things, which, with the best will in the world, is not necessarily the starting point. Quite often, the agenda becomes one driven by forces outside the region. Bosnia shows that even more clearly and Iraq and Afghanistan are very similar. There is no real connection between the policy-making side and any rational understanding of what the problems are in these countries. That is why there is such a focus on corruption and crime, to which I am sure we will come later. Q37 Mr Chidgey: I actually found what you said very illuminating if not alarming, but probably very accurate. It would appear from what you have just said in the last five minutes firstly that the involvement of the West in the civil war which broke out in the Balkans ten years ago now has made no difference in terms of resolving the ethnic tensions which existed in that region for many hundreds of years and had only previously been contained by a larger more powerful external force, which of course was Russia through most of the twentieth century. That is the first point I draw from your conclusions. Maybe I have got it wrong, but you can explain. The second thing is that you have made the point very strongly and very clearly that democracy does not necessarily mean that the standards which we in the West aspire to for our nation states are shared, let alone met. That must beg the question that the concept, say of Croatia being an applicant country to the EU is somewhat premature. Professor Pettifer: The point is that people look for progress. This is frequently said and I think it was said by Ambassador Eide too that he was looking for progress, not always for final achievement. It is always possible, given the application of enough money and enough outside commitment, to produce a political elite in a small country which will, to a large extent, do what you want. What I was referring to about residual nationalism and bigotry and so on is in the bottom 50 per cent of the population and, after all, even in Britain we cannot say there are no people like that here. Q38 Mr Chidgey: It is one thing to pass the laws to meet the Copenhagen criteria: it is quite another to implement those laws. Professor Pettifer: The problem we have at the moment is that the Kosovo Albanian leadership are encouraged by the present setup in UNMIK towards instinctive irresponsibility because there are very few rewards for doing what UNMIK wants. UNMIK are continually berating people for not achieving numerous things. Again I would echo what Dr Eyal said: after you have filled in one list another list is handed to you. In my view the political leadership in Pristina, particularly the ex KLA political leadership, is under considerable radical pressure. I would have said in public, although he is a person I have some discourse with, that it might not be easy now for Mr Hasim Thaqi to be elected leader of his party automatically. Three years ago that would have been an idiotic statement. Very radical forces are emerging, some of which we saw on the street in March and this is another reason why I personally agree that the political status issue should be looked at pretty quickly. One of the very negative factors in the state absence which David describes is that the leaders whom we regard as the leaders actually have very few levers to pull to influence public behaviour. Q39 Chairman: And the carrots would presumably involve a greater movement of power to the local institutions along the lines of the idea of what ...? Professor Pettifer: I have said in my memorandum that is happening anyway and one of the ironies of this summer has been, despite the very bad publicity the Albanians had, very understandably and justifiably after March, that the process of handing over competencies has actually speeded up. That can be demonstrated by a list. Dr Chandler: On the assumptions of the question, the idea that the West's involvement did not resolve anything, as though there is an innate dynamic towards conflicts within the Western Balkans which is in their blood, it is difficult to understand the Balkan conflicts, not just recently but even historically without understanding the important role of international intervention and as James alludes to, with the radicalisation of the KLA, what side line took over was the idea that there was going to be external support, American support. You cannot really understand the Bosnian war without equally understanding the promise or threat of external intervention. That then casts a light on how we understand the post-conflict political situation as well. It is very nice for western analysts to blame this ethnic insanity or say they do not understand modernity. I would argue that there is democracy, the people are quite capable of voting for whom they want in Croatia or in Bosnia or Kosovo, but the problem is not really with them. Kosovo is a classic example. Why is the international community there? Because they have no political solution. The only thing to do is to say that Kosovo people are not civilised enough to keep on wanting autonomy, which is what the war was about. In Bosnia equally every election is like a condemnation of the people and whom they vote for rather than understood as a reflection of a divided society without any legitimacy of a central authority basically because there is not one. Democracy is not the problem. The way that the Committee has used the idea of democracy is problematic, so examples which have been focused on are ones like the ICTY and then issues of crime and corruption. To condemn people in Serbia or Croatia or Bosnia for not supporting the ICTY, which even international academics and lawyers would argue is slightly problematic and has more to do with politics than law, is a slightly unfair way of judging people. We saw the political nature of it in the previous session, where it was raised: doing a deal and if you speak the right speech we will probably be able to avoid it. It is like a millstone around people's necks in the same way that the Milosevic tribunal is: it was useful when it was declared, but now America wants to close it down as soon as possible So the focus on the ICTY is fairly irrational, although historically you are stuck with it. Then the focus on crime and corruption is all mythical, every document, and there are reams of them, and the idea that it is supported by the British Ambassador and funded by DFID, is pretty spurious. The idea that these political parties are nationalist and criminal gangs and are actually running Bosnia rather than Paddy Ashdown and the EU and all the other international agencies, puts the world the opposite way round. It is very much a strategy of avoiding political responsibility by continuing to invent new hoops and by "problematising" micro issue which are in fact in the real world probably are not the major issues to focus on. However, they are easier because you are targeting Bosnian politicians or Kosovo voters or something. Chairman: Dr Chandler, you have drawn the parallel between Kosovo and Bosnia Herzegovina. Sir John, you have been recently in the area. Would you start on Bosnia? Q40 Sir John Stanley: In the last session we focused on Bosnia and Herzegovina externally and I should now like to come to look at it internally. Apart from the state of the economy, which certainly gives the High Representative a lot of concern, the biggest single political issue internally is the future evolution of the constitution, coupled with the future role of the High Representative who of course doubles up as the EU Special Representative. Those two are linked. I should like to ask you both what you feel is going to be the longevity of the High Representative/EU Special Representative position? Do you think that position is going to be needed for five or ten years? Secondly, though Dayton, against almost all the odds, has been a remarkable achievement in securing the degree of stability it has, everybody I talk to acknowledges the cumbersome nature of it. There are 15 to 20 separate prime ministers, three huge great layers of government, everything triple-hatted. That was necessary and without that civil government would not have returned to Bosnia Herzegovina, but clearly that needs to evolve. So could you give us your views on how Bosnia Herzegovina should be evolving and what are the particular constitutional evolutions which you think the British Government should be particularly pressing for? Professor Pettifer: David knows a lot more about Bosnia than I do, but my general philosophy, particularly having spent an awful lot of time in Kosovo over the last four years, is that things take a lot longer than we think and that Lord Ashdown's position should be maintained with the full powers for a long time. Whether those powers need exercising or whether some of them can be quietly left to wither away with the growth of better Bosnian institutions, would be what we should hope for. David should really comment on this and not me. Dr Chandler: As usual the whole thing is the reverse of the way it looks. A lot of people have argued that Dayton is so cumbersome that it is really difficult to transform things, but in fact Dayton was a hugely flexible agreement. The only people who signed up to it were the neighbouring countries and the Bosnian Government. Everyone else involved, the international institutions and international agencies, all wrote their own mandate and they are not bound by Dayton. As you will be aware, in most of the Dayton Agreement the Office of the High Representative's role, when it was initially thought of, was just for one year and was a co-ordinating role. No-one imagined that the role of the Office of the High Representative would be transformed. No-one imagined that ten years after Dayton was signed there would be a continual extension of mandates of international institutions. Dayton has been extremely flexible and even though there are 15 to 20 prime ministers and all this government, that is in the fictional world. Somewhere I have a twelve-page document which lists of the edicts which Lord Ashdown has put into place just this year. In the real world of policy making, it is something which is totally owned by the international community. It is difficult when we talk about transformation, because it is the peace implementation council, an ad hoc body, whose legal standing was only confirmed after the event, which basically decides the remit of the High Representative, although sometimes the High Representative argues that he decides his own remit. It is the most flexible framework around. The interesting thing is that the transformation has not been so much with the constitution but within the peace implementation council. The shift from this ad hoc international body without any clear target after the Kosovo war is a shift towards a much more centralised EU regulation within Bosnia. You see that formalised with the double-hatted nature of Paddy Ashdown when he assumes the post in 2002. That is when the post of the European Union Special Representative is created. I know from speaking to Lord Ashdown, and I am sure he will tell you next week when he is here, that when he took on that post he imagined that he would be the last High Representative of the peace implementation council, although I am not sure that he imagined the real powers would necessarily disappear at the same time, but that their format would change and be much more linked to forms of EU regulation. Constitutionally it is interesting. Towards the huge steps of negotiation before the accession process, the stabilisation and association process and before then negotiations and before then other concentric circles, in that process the Dayton constitution has changed. So the chair of the Council of Ministers has a permanent position rather than a rotating position like the presidency and his job is to liaise with the European Union. There is some European institute which goes through all the laws and works out how to bring them through the EU even though there is no formal re-signed stabilisation and association process agreement. That very much centralises law making and fairly much undermines the fictional thing of all these ten different realms of authority; all that is fairly much centralised in reality. In real terms Dayton has been transformed, but the transformation has largely been informal through the PIC and the transformation towards much more direct EU regulation; the EU second civil servants to help write the laws and to implement them. It is very much direct; all the information comes from Brussels to Sarajevo rather than through some convoluted process like a democracy or where there is a real government system. Q41 Sir John Stanley: Could you just focus on the specific question I put to you at the end? What do you think the British Government should be pressing for, both in terms of the continuation or not of the High Representative/Special Representative and the degree of push you think the British Government should be giving for constitutional change? Dr Chandler: Getting rid of the post of the High Representative or the EU Special Representative would be a good idea, just in terms of practicalities as well as human decency. Even within the EU it is problematic, because Bosnia is about to sign up in terms of the stabilisation and association process. For every other country the EU is very keen to have democracy, human rights and the rule of law, but in Bosnia there is a Special Representative with the power to sack elected officials, to take away people's bank accounts, to dismiss them without any court of appeal and to impose legislation. You can see there is a slight element of double standards there. Within the EU there is a bit of a division: the parliament argues that the Special Representative needs to be abolished, whereas the European Council, where the power is, has argued that he has anomalous powers and as long as he only uses them in a soft way and in a through-all-of-Europe way it is okay. What has happened is that his authority has been softened through a load of other ad hoc institutional mechanisms, such as having commissions. There is a hand-picked commission, say to look at the reorganisation of Mostar, there is some agreement on smaller issues, but there is a large division on the larger issues between the Croatian representatives and Bosniak representatives. Then the High Representative brings in an edict to resolve and centralise the administration, but by arguing that there was some agreement anyway and he was just putting the icing on the cake this is just the use of soft power. There has been experimentation within that and I guess - though anyone can guess - that the High Representative hat will be abolished; the EU Special Representative hat may sustain itself, unless it comes up as an issue. Not many other candidate countries raised the issue of democracy in Bosnia, because obviously they are trying to be nice to the EU rather than critical; they do not really have freedom of discussion. I think it will sustain itself for the middle-term future, but it is only a guess. Professor Pettifer: As far as the EU is concerned, I personally am a strong Euro-sceptic anyway so shall be accused of being jaundiced, but I think the EU changes the rules every day on this. I have followed with great care what has been happening with the Turkish application and we all know what goes on in Turkey still. Less of it goes on and hopefully there will be much less of it, but the EU has given the Turks a wide open door with these things still going on which we would all disapprove of. I do not think that there is one EU position: there are EU positions for different countries. Chairman: Sir John, may I invite you to put a question which I think you raised with me yesterday as to whether the provincial reconstruction team concept, which I believe was in Bosnia, can be developed in Kosovo? Q42 Sir John Stanley: I think that is more appropriate for the military when we get there, but I am very happy to put it on behalf of the Committee. Do you consider the very successful structure of liaison observation teams, and there are lots in Bosnia Herzegovina, is capable of being transferred into Kosovo? Professor Pettifer: There are many, many things which need changing with KFOR. One of the things the March events showed was that the structure of what is colloquially known as "capital command" in KFOR, where the French commander or the British commander speaks to London before deciding what to do on some issue which the KFOR command wants him to deal with, does have to be changed. In all the analysis of the March trouble we saw that KFOR was not really capable of acting in a coherent way with a coherent command structure and of mobilising people on the ground quickly to trouble spots. I am not familiar with the details of the Bosnian example, but I think any better system would be well worth looking at. Q43 Mr Chidgey: May I come back to Kosovo, really to try to summarise some of the points which have been discussed in various degrees so far so that the Committee can be clear about your views? We have mentioned, for example, the March riots and put a question mark against the failure of UNMIK in that regard. Do you feel that there were failings in the administration in Kosovo resulting in UNMIK's problems? If so, what could be done to rectify them, so we can be clear on that? Professor Pettifer: The central danger in the situation which continues, which I tried to point out in my memorandum to you, although obviously in a very limited space, is that the area of Kosovo north of the Ibar river, which broadly corresponds to Leposavic/Opstina and northern Mitrovice/Opstina, which is French KFOR, although not all of French KFOR, has never really been properly under UN control. This goes back to March 1999. The parallel structure problem continued for a very, very long time and it still continues to this day. A prominent UN official, who is certainly not known for his pro-Albanian leanings, said to me recently "You know, our problem is that we have people who have killed 65 or 70 people sitting drinking coffee in Mitrovice". That encapsulates the problem very well. The danger in the future which I see and which I tried to draw to the Committee's attention, is that these forces are still there and our capacity to deal with them may be improving and some lessons have certainly been learned from March, but whether they have been learned in a way which gives us the real capacity is a very difficult issue to assess. My personal view at the moment is that we do not have it, which is why I wrote what I did to you. Dr Chandler: It is slightly problematic; I think it avoids the problem. The problem, as was considered in the earlier session this afternoon, is that of a political solution and without that everything is up in the air, there is a lot of insecurity, etcetera. However, the problem seems to be deflected. So the idea of the Serbian criminal, tough people toughing it out in Mitrovice and the bridge watchers who are intimidating everyone is a myth. I was actually there during the second election, in Mitrovice near the bridge. It was a fiction. There was no army of toughs. If you ever went to the bridge over the Ibar you would see loads of NATO tanks and you could not get across without people checking you and stuff. It is an easy thing to believe that the problems caused are internal to the situation rather than something to do with international policy. If you do not have a solution, everything becomes more of a problem. The March events are rather typical. There was rioting, there was a spark in a situation where a spark could lead to problems, but that does not mean there was a problem with UNMIK and the army of enforcement. Unless you have the army everywhere, it is going to be very difficult. Unless you attach a soldier to every Serb pensioner who is there, there are always going to be those sorts of problems. Rather than focus on the bigger picture, as in Bosnia as well, minor problems become exaggerated and that is like a crisis for UNMIK, whereas the crisis is in fact located probably in Western capitals at a more fundamental level. Q44 Mr Chidgey: Just to be clear, we are aware of the arguments that the provisional institutions of self-government should take more competencies from UNMIK. We have touched on this. Do you accept that yourselves, or are you terribly opposed to that? If you do accept it, what competencies could we actually specify? What might those be that could be taken from UNMIK? Professor Pettifer: This is happening; this has been happening actively for at least 18 months. After all, part of the UN central headquarters moved out of Pristina well over a year ago and these things are being handed over. You are also getting a much more self-confident society. People do not, as they did in the summer of 1999, spend time thinking too much about what UNMIK tells them. UNMIK is rather like the weather: it is there, sometimes it is good, sometimes it is bad, but it is going on in the sky somewhere above us. Q45 Mr Chidgey: Is there an initiative starting at grassroots level to take on board these responsibilities? Professor Pettifer: Yes. I take the view, which I must say is not a view all of my colleagues share, that at the moment the sovereignty issue is primarily about two things. It is about the economy, because no-one will invest unless they know whether they own something or not. It is also about security and borders. At the moment, nobody really knows what is going to happen to the main industries of Kosovo. The privatisation process was stalled and Count Lambsdorff was trying to start it again and then it stopped and no big companies are going to invest in Kosovo until they know that there is a clear legal framework for them to do so. It seems to me that this is the overriding argument for a political decision. Dr Chandler: I think the experimentation with local democracy first is probably the worst type of solution. It is not that people in Kosovo do not know how to organise local self-help initiatives; even under the Serbian authority they did it. The problem is a fundamental lack of resources. You cannot really resolve problems by this focus on local sustainability. There is a big focus and a lot of international NGOs are trying to do that. Even UNMIK has finally thought about economic policy as well, though without a more fundamental transformation - with unemployment over 50 per cent, and obviously the statistics are questionable and most of the grey economy is just sustainable agriculture - it is going to be difficult to give people any sense of hope in the future with the carrot of more local control and more local authority participation. People are expecting a bit more and those expectations were raised when there was the war and when UNMIK took over. They will not be satisfied by simply being told "It is up to you to organise community self-help groups" because the resources are not really there. Q46 Mr Chidgey: Back to the March riots again and the concept that they contributed to a sense of disillusionment amongst the Kosovo Serb population. Is that the case? If so, is there a risk that the Serbs might boycott the forthcoming elections or that Albanian extremists might gain more influence in the provisional institutions? My last point is this whole issue of the high rate of endemic unemployment. How can UNMIK or the provisional institutions make some attempt, some progress in alleviating the problem? Is privatisation of state sector industries a route which can be explored? Professor Pettifer: I can give you a pretty quick answer to the first question: as in previous Kosovo elections, Serb participation will be low, irrespective of what their leaders say. Different leaders will say different things: whether to participate is part of the tennis-ball, ping-pong aspect of politics in Belgrade and for Belgrade politicians to score points as well as for Kosovo politicians. The second problem is simply one of legality. There is a lot of money outside Kosovo waiting to be invested. There is a lot of interest in the base metal mines, because these kinds of metals are sexy again and have an economic future. There is some interest in agriculture and there is a great deal of money in the Kosovo Albanian Diaspora, particularly in the United States. I have met leading businessmen from big companies, who are Albanian Americans and who say "Yes, we'd love to do something, but my board won't accept it until we know what we own". Dr Chandler: I agree with what James said on pretty much all those issues. The final point is that everything is temporary, short term, low level as though there is a vacuum with UNMIK, not just on the political status but even on the economy. With Kosovo it just concentrates the problem of state building which we see in other areas as well. There is a power imbalance in that international powers are taking responsibility, but then the next stage of taking that responsibility just is not there; there is no vision politically, economically or socially, which is fairly unique. This is why we are creating these phantom states which are not puppet regimes doing the will of ... It is not like imperialism and it is not like the old UN idea of states and sovereignty. This particular situation is the worst of both worlds: no responsibility is taken internationally, but it is impossible for local actors to assume responsibility as well. Kosovo just sums that up and it is sad. Q47 Andrew Mackinlay: Picking up that last point, presumably we would be correct in assuming that basically no taxes are being collected in Kosovo either for the central government or for local government. Professor Pettifer: Oh, no, that is not the case. About £300 million a year comes in, mostly through customs. The customs tax has been quite effective and quite successful: income tax and VAT are much less effective. Q48 Andrew Mackinlay: One of the things I am very interested in is the policing side, both in terms of combating organised crime and the international nature of crime. The UNMIK police were formed by the UN begging various police agencies to contribute people. The United Kingdom's contribution, a very highly regarded one, was by the police service in Northern Ireland and the chief constable is now withdrawing that. Can you throw in any observations on that? Can I just tell you what I mean? I am horrified that the Foreign Office has not been able to find, either with the chief constable of Northern Ireland and/or other chief constables, a way of providing what I believe is a highly regarded British standard of policing, but we are going to withdraw. I guess the policing is pretty fragile, is it not? Professor Pettifer: The facts are that the murder rate in Pristina now is actually lower than that of Stockholm and the crime rate as a whole is not bad on things like muggings, rapes, all the serious crimes. This is a real achievement for UNMIK police. The problem is that of political assassinations, which remain frequent. The nature of Kosovo society, both Serb and Albanian, is such that until it is changed out of all recognition it is going to stay that way and that is the stain on Kosovo. Q49 Andrew Mackinlay: Are interface areas dealt with by the military rather than UNMIK police? Professor Pettifer: As a generalisation, although it is difficult to say, the military have withdrawn from a lot of policing activities in the last two years as the crime rate has dropped. The mayhem days of 2000-2001 are long since over, but economic crime is all-pervasive, for three reasons. It is partly because of the very high unemployment. Secondly it is because of where Kosovo lies: as a central point on the transnational route, particularly of heroin, from the East into Europe and that would apply whoever runs Kosovo and whatever government structure it has. Thirdly, there is a very anti-authoritarian political culture in the Kosovo-Albanian world which was built of years of resistance to regimes like that of Milosevic; cooperation with the police does not come easily. Dr Chandler: About two years ago I was at the police training college and I thought the idea that if you change the police you can change the rest of society was quite interesting. It is easy to change the police because you are paying their wages and you can tell them exactly what to do, so everyone behaves extremely well and everyone is nice to minorities and everyone gets paid. However, in the real world of Kosovo there are many mixed communities and most people who work in the field know that it is like a make-believe trained police force, because it has been artificially created. It is a bit like Iraq: it happens and people take off their uniforms and run away. That is why, even with the best will in the world and the best training by police officers from Northern Ireland, it is difficult to transform the police and expect that to have a knock-on effect. In Bosnia this whole idea of democratic policing and a lot of the issues has been even more interesting and it has even undermined the police as a cohesive unit because the police need to have a certain amount of autonomy within the institution and trust and all the regulation and political correctness and being polite to everybody all the time has caused all sorts of problems internally. Also, whenever they make arrests people say their human rights are being abused. It fails in its own terms and then it fails in a much deeper way. Q50 Andrew Mackinlay: I suppose what I am asking you is: if you were advising the British Government, would you advise that it would be prudent to withdraw British policing? Professor Pettifer: No, Kosovo will need all forms of international help for a long time, of which policing is only one. Lots of other expertise would be needed and that is true of lots of other second world and third world countries. The role of the police at times becomes politicised and the problem stemming from that is really not the police, who have real achievements to their credit, but the rule of law through the courts and their judiciary and the very poor quality of trials and the very, very politicised nature of some of the international prosecutors. Q51 Ms Stuart: At the end of this we are going to publish a report which is supposed to go beyond extremely detailed analytical pessimism as to why nothing is working. At the moment I am getting the feeling that no taxes are being collected and there is no relationship between those who govern and are governed and the economy is not working. It is government by fax from Brussels in a sense and you are saying that the EU is imposing its conditions; power struggles rather than democracy because we have not worked out who is top of the pile and until we have worked out who is top of the pile we will not get political parties or any kind of elections which are meaningful to us. Within that picture what, in your view, would be the three key things you would say a British Government should do which would actually improve things? Professor Pettifer: There is one thing overwhelmingly which clearly needs to be done, because the public discourse in Britain about Kosovo is very disappointing: the geo-political significance of Kosovo to the United States is never discussed and never appears in any considerations. One talks of the EU and the EU doing all sorts of things, but what really matters in Kosovo is what Uncle Sam thinks and in particular, within Uncle Sam's orbit, what the Pentagon thinks. Q52 Ms Stuart: What do you think the Pentagon does think? Professor Pettifer: I think they take a very long-term view. I am not fit to speak for them, but reading analytical material they think that Serbia will always remain partly linked to Russia, culturally and through the Church and various other geo-strategic factors. The British view that Serbia could be changed as a result of getting rid of Milosevic is seen as wildly optimistic, so I suppose I reflected what I think of the dominant view in some parts of the Pentagon in the first paragraph of my memorandum to you. This is a view with which I know many people may not agree, but Kosovo would not be where it is now, where you could even discuss political status, without firm American backing and it is in relation to that one thing that the British Government needs to work out its position. Q53 Ms Stuart: If I had asked you the same question I asked the last witnesses, about whether people have real ties to the US, you would have said yes. Professor Pettifer: Long-term geo-political calculations are involved. Camp Bondsteel is one of the largest American bases in the world ever built since the Vietnam War. That is not built that way by coincidence. Dr Chandler: I realised that nothing was going to be changed without economic and social transformation, so investment in heavy industry rather than sustainable, quilt-making, projects would be one thing. The second thing would be that historically Kosovo has only maintained itself through aid and through remittances from abroad and I would let people from Kosovo into the EU to work ... you did ask. Professor Pettifer: On a licensed basis in the old way Italian workers came years ago and people from the old Yugoslavia came, on a licence. Dr Chandler: Thirdly, I would open negotiations with Belgrade in terms of a final political status settlement. Q54 Chairman: Two questions in respect of Kosovo. International institutions are frequently criticised elsewhere for paying salaries which distort the local salary structures, sucking in too many people of competence and thereby weakening the local administration. Is that a phenomenon you see in Kosovo? Professor Pettifer: Yes and no. You have to pay people the going rate and the going rate now is set by the big contexts of wars like Iraq, Afghanistan reconstruction, where people are paid astronomic sums. If we do not pay reasonable amounts in places like Bosnia and Kosovo, you will not get anybody good at all. Q55 Chairman: Not just the international experts, but those within the country, the locals. Professor Pettifer: Over time the problem sorts itself out. What we need are the very large numbers of trained people of Kosovar origin abroad who for various reasons have not yet decided to commit themselves to the new Kosovo. These are people, particularly in Switzerland and Germany, with real top level expertise, particularly in business and in some technologies and they should be given carrots to come back. Dr Chandler: Firstly, the fact that the international administration is the administration undermines the local administration and people's desire to work in it. Secondly, there is the lack of any idea that people have a future in Kosovo, that people would work in government out of a love of doing something for their country. I know it seems strange, though maybe not in this particular audience, but there is also a political aspect to it as well. At the moment, with uncertainty, you are not going to get quality people committing themselves to something which is pseudo. Who knows what it is? Q56 Chairman: Mr Chidgey did ask about the March riots and the effects on UNMIK. I should like to turn to similar effects on the NATO KFOR. What lessons, if any in your judgment, have been learned since March? Do you believe that NATO failed to read the situation in time? If so, what changes have been made to ensure that there would be no recurrence? Professor Pettifer: There has been a lot of riot training and much more coherent programmes to control public order and I think also that some fairly stiff reprimands have been handed out. The KFOR commanders believed that X or Y base could mobilise so many people to within five kilometres in half an hour and it turned out in many cases that the people were not even on base, let alone capable of being mobilised with some contingents. The general problem is one of a wider issue of decision making within NATO; big NATO countries in particular are not willing to modify their command structures much, or at all, in international forces. Q57 Chairman: Are they prepared to modify the caveats on the use of their own forces, particularly Germany? Professor Pettifer: They may be, but the problem is that they are well aware and right to be aware, of the capacity of Balkan conflicts to accelerate very rapidly in unpredictable ways, which could raise major force protection issues. That is certainly a big issue for the United States contingent. Chairman: In our visit we shall be meeting General de Kerambon the French commander. Q58 Andrew Mackinlay: I want to tease out something which was music to my ears to a certain extent. Both of you referred to allowing Kosovars, under some controlled conditions, to work in the European Union. I should really like you to amplify on that and how you could have it under controlled conditions. I certainly see, from a domestic MP's point of view, all this business of the individual, fit, able, probably very intelligent, sometimes highly qualified or having the capacity to get qualified, young men in particular, playing cat and mouse with the immigration authorities here and the question of justice and so on, with all the criminality which can flow from that. I should like you to say how we could do this and to what extent. I just think there is a degree of logic there, with the possibility of a cadre returning at some stage. Professor Pettifer: As is quite well known, I am in favour of a much tougher policy. I recently published a paper on the Migration Watch website. I do not agree with everything about Migration Watch, but I do think they promote a very valuable discussion. I think it is time for a new approach to Balkan asylum seekers, to reward the hard working, but be tougher on the people who are a problem. Dr Chandler: The more decriminalisation of the system, the fewer criminals there would be. Q59 Andrew Mackinlay: It is much better for people to be paying taxes in the United Kingdom than not, is it not? I am not asking you to agree with me, but I presume that is what you are alluding to. Professor Pettifer: Yes. At the moment I do not think there is much external migration from Kosovo. There is a pretty standard position with a very large number of migrants in places like Germany who have been there quite a long time. The real problem on that scale is in Germany and Switzerland; as far as I am aware they are not in Britain. Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed. You and your colleagues earlier have provided a very helpful platform for us. Many thanks. |