Kosovo: A Critique of a Failed Mission

On 17 and 18 March 2004, and the days immediately following, much of Kosovo exploded in a spasm of violence that left death and wanton destruction in its wake. Also destroyed was much of what I and so many of my colleagues—Albanians, Serbs, Ashkalije, and many diverse members of the international community in Kosovo—had tried so hard to create.

The violence started in Mitrovica and spread rapidly to other communities. In Vushtrri, where I spent some thirty-nine months as the municipal administrator, virtually all of the Ashkalije homes that we had collectively labored so hard to rebuild were destroyed by Albanians. In the small Serbian village of Slatina (population twelve), old man Gorolyb was senselessly beaten by a group of young Kosovo-Albanians. Belo Polje, a village adjacent to the town of Peje/Pec and the scene of one of the most significant Serb returns to Kosovo in July 2003, was also subjected to mob violence and destruction. One of my former local nationals ruefully observed that his fellow Kosovo-Albanians "had made a scientific breakthrough; they had managed to invent a time machine that had in a matter of hours pushed Kosovo backward five years in time." Another local national with whom I had worked at the start of my mission courageously wrote an open letter to Kohe Ditore, the newspaper with the largest distribution in Kosovo. His letter stated in part the following:

When I see what we did to the Ashkalije in Vushtrri I feel ashamed and my conscience is sorely troubled. I have seen such demonstrations before but I never thought that "we" could do such things. Can you imagine a scene where a young Ashkalije is begging the demonstrators, "For God's sake don't burn my house, because my mother is paralyzed and I have no place to go."

A part of his house was burnt and his new-bought shoes were stolen. Now I ask myself how I would feel if this had happened to an Albanian. Everyone should ask himself what he or she did to stop the violence. The answer is that none of us did anything, and therefore we Albanians are collectively responsible and will now pay the consequences.

I ask myself, where was the Kosovo Protective Service (the police) when all of this happened? Where were the local authorities that we elected to lead us? Did they try to intervene? And where were the Trupa e Mbrojtjes te Kosove (TMK/UÇK) and the honest citizens?¹ What did we do to stop the destruction of the houses of our former citizens? People will say that this is none of my business, but I ask myself if it is not my business, whose business is it to protect one's country from destruction?

I, like other Albanians, have seen houses destroyed and have witnessed wanton destruction, and like many other Albanians I have experienced it myself. But if someone were to tell me that an Albanian would be capable of committing such deeds, I would never believe it. Now I find that my conscience is troubled, because it was my people who burnt houses and abducted people and I as a citizen did nothing to prevent it.²

For his part, during the course of summer 2004, the secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, dispatched the Norwegian representative to the UN in New York, Ambassador Kai Eide, to Kosovo. Ambassador Eide's eighteen-page report to the secretary-general is, for the UN, uncharacteristically direct. In part the report noted that "the international community in Kosovo is today seen by Kosovo Albanians as having gone from opening the way to now standing in the way. It is seen by Kosovo Serbs as having gone from securing the return of so many to being unable to ensure the return of so few."

The report further offers that the international community (IC) in Kosovo had been "caught...