Kosovo’s March riots. The audit of war

An inquiry criticises international peacekeepers and the UN

THE rampaging of thousands of ethnic Albanians through Kosovo last March was the worst violence since NATO took charge of the province in 1999. One might have expected 18,000 NATO peacekeepers, plus 3,500 UN policemen, to be able to stop it. Yet three days of ethnic cleansing ensued, mostly around Mitrovica and Caglavica, leaving 19 Serbs and ethnic Albanians dead, 900 wounded, 4,000 non-Albanians displaced and hundreds of Serb churches and homes torched.

The peacekeepers and policemen had five years' experience of ethnic-Albanian and Serb violence in Kosovo, and were equipped with everything from helicopter gunships to riot-sticks. They faced mobs armed with stones, grenades, petrol bombs and Kalashnikovs. Even so, many peacekeepers, notably the French, Germans and Italians, proved woefully incompetent. (The American, Norwegian and Irish troops all excelled.) Human Rights Watch, an international pressure-group, concluded in July that NATO's mission, known as K-FOR, had failed to protect ethnic minorities, too often turning a blind eye to Serb homes being attacked and to UN police officers calling for help.

An internal report by the UN in New York on the performance of its Kosovo mission (UNMIK), seen by The Economist, details its failings in similar terms. It was based on interviews with senior UN and NATO staff in Kosovo, and written in May. The report says many feared that UNMIK and K-FOR would collapse if the riots had gone on for another day or two; the mission was already on the point of overstaying its welcome. UNMIK people were seen as aloof strangers in the society they governed. Since then, improvements have been made, but the problem remains.

In March UNMIK was led by Harri Holkeri, a tired Finn, who has now been replaced by a Dane, Soren Jessen-Petersen. K-FOR's top man is an experienced French general, Yves de Kermabon, who replaced the lacklustre German who lost control in March. The two new men have little time to lose. Kosovo is entering a period of maximum risk, said France's defence minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, last week. Elections are due in October. Next year should see the start of “final-status” talks, which could lead to Kosovo's emergence from the limbo it has been in since the UN decreed in 1999 that it should remain part of Yugoslavia (now Serbia and Montenegro). Albanian extremists hint at more violence if they are denied independence.

NATO and the UN are on the defensive. A more recent report for the UN, prepared by the Norwegian ambassador to NATO, concludes that, if the final-status talks do begin, the UN should aim to end its mission and hand over to others (perhaps the European Union) by the end of next year. The story of international peacekeepers' successes and failures in Kosovo has often been the story of confronting or being manipulated by ethnic-Albanian extremists. Right now the ethnic-Albanian hot-heads seem to have the upper hand.

Inquiries since the March 2004 riots in Kosovo criticise the international peacekeepers and the UN.

• Primary Source

UN: United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) http://www.unmikonline.org/

NATO: Issues: Nato's role in Kosovo http://www.nato.int/kosovo/kosovo.htm

---