KFOR entered Kosovo on June 12 and on the 21st signed an agreement with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to demilitarize and reintegrate “into civil society.” Informally this was taken to mean that former KLA fighters would be absorbed into a new security force.

Map B.31: Kosovo Protection Force (click to enlarge)

KFOR began collecting automatic small arms at weapons storage sites the next day, and in late September announced they had demilitarized the KLA. A local Kosovo Protection Corps was created at the same time, to be “an unarmed civil relief agency” under KFOR and UN authority.

UNSCR 1244 gave the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) a wider mandate than any other UN mission, to develop the institutions of Kosovar self-rule while upholding the territorial integrity of rump Yugoslavia.

UNMIK Tasks Under UNSCR 1244 Run a civilian administration. Establish institutions of substantial autonomy and self-government in Kosovo. Facilitate a political process to determine Kosovo’s future status. Coordinate humanitarian and disaster relief of all international agencies. Support the reconstruction of key infrastructure. Maintain civil law and order. Promote human rights. Assure the safe and unimpeded return of all refugees and displaced persons to their homes in Kosovo.

UNMIK initially distributed these tasks around four “pillars” in order to implement them more efficiently.

UNMIK’s Four Pillars Humanitarian Assistance, led by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Phased out in June 2000 and replaced by Police and Justice in May 2001. Civil Administration, under the direct leadership of the United Nations. Democratization and Institution Building, led by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Reconstruction and Economic Development, led by the European Union (EU).

Some of these tasks were achieved remarkably quickly. The bulk of the 860,000 Albanian Kosovars who fled or were deported during the war returned within months of its end.

But their return was accompanied by the flight of 230,000 Serbs and Roma. Albanians evicted many of the Serbs who remained in Kosovo’s capital Pristina, and a de facto partition divided Serbs and Albanians in the Mitrovica region, a north-eastern strip bordering Serbia.

Two years after the war ended, in August 2001, when KFOR and the UNHCR organized the first Serbian returns, to the town of Orasanje, they met with hostile demonstrations from the Albanian residents.

The spread of conflict to neighboring Macedonia in summer 2000 further complicated the stabilization process. Kosovo became a conduit for arms and ammunition smuggled in from Albania, and radical Albanian paramilitaries regrouped. Three years after KFOR entered the province to secure its borders, UN police routinely arrested arms smugglers on the Kosovo-Albania border.

Kosovo was a test case for international policing. UNMIK established the first UN civilian police mission with law enforcement powers — while the OSCE was tasked with training a local police force. Beginning with 600 international policemen in August 1999, the UN was able to build its international police strength to 4,389 by April 2003.

Together with the OSCE, which established the Kosovo Police Service School in 1999, 5,247 local police officers were added, bringing the total police strength to just under 10,000, a ratio of 1:450 of the total population.

UNMIK and KPS Tasks Patroling and maintaining public order. Investigation of crimes. Preventative measures. Field training for KPS. Collection of criminal intelligence. Border and immigration control. Traffic control.

Despite the favorable ratio of police to population, inter-ethnic violence continued. Serbs had little freedom of movement and there were regular grenade attacks on UNMIK police in Pristina, Mitrovica and Pec.

Building institutions for self-rule was even more difficult. UNMIK set up a transitional administrative council of Kosovo leaders in August 1999, but it took the UN Special Representative, Bernard Kouchner, several months to get moderate Albanian nationalists, led by Ibrahim Rugova, and radical Albanian nationalists, led by former KLA leader Hashim Thaci, to attend a joint meeting. Serbian leaders did not participate.

A studied ambiguity about Kosovo’s future was the key problem. Though UNSCR 1244 affirmed the territorial integrity of rump Yugoslavia, few believed Kosovo could be reintegrated into Serbia.

The draft Rambouillet Accords (see Peace Process, A Kosovo Protectorate) of early 1999 had promised talks on Kosovo’s future status after three years of international rule. But Kosovo was small and landlocked, and neighboring Albanian irredentists, especially in Macedonia, made independence an undesirable option.

The conflict in Macedonia was one factor in the decision to hold municipal elections before assembly elections in Kosovo. Assembly elections could have boosted Albanian secessionists in Macedonia and aided radical Kosovar nationalists.

Most of Kosovo’s 75,000 or so Serbs boycotted the municipal elections of October 2000 in which Ibrahim Rugova’s moderate Albanian nationalists swept the board.

In May 2001, the new Constitutional Framework of Kosovo was adopted, under which assembly elections were held in November. The Constitutional Framework was an important step towards the transfer of powers, and pledged to set up “Provisional Institutions of Self-Governance.”

But it also envisaged Kosovo as a province rather than state, with a government that was really a loose federation of municipalities; and ultimate authority continued to rest with the UN Special Representative.

The November 2001 assembly elections brought a mix of radical and moderate nationalists to power, that failed to agree on the appointment of a president and prime minister. A power sharing compromise was finally agreed at end February 2002, with Ibrahim Rugova as President of Kosovo, and Bajram Rexhepi as Prime Minister.

The formation of a government brought the issue of independence once more to the fore, but it did not hasten the transfer of powers. In 2003, the UN Special Representative, Michael Steiner, reported that elected municipalities were biased and Serb areas received fewer services, such as electricity, than Albanian areas.

The Kosovo Protection Force, numbering 3,052 regulars and 502 reservists, continued to regard itself as an army in waiting for independent Kosovo. The Force “celebrated the KLA’s war values,” said Mr. Steiner, and it raised non-state funding through a local NGO that tapped both local and Diaspora sources, amounting to 750,000 euros per year.

In December 2002, the Kosovo Assembly passed a resolution calling for “recognition of KLA values,” the release of a KLA fighter handed over to the War Crimes Tribunal, and denouncing the newly created “union of Serbian municipalities and settlements.” Serbian assembly members boycotted ensuing sessions and there was a rise in inter-ethnic violence, with 63 incidents reported between January and April 20033.

An UNDP “early warning report” in May 2003 found that while over 80% of Kosovar Serbs believed the time was ripe for inter-ethnic dialogue, over 70% of Kosovar Albanians believed it was too early.

It was not enough to set up provisional institutions of self-governance, UNMIK concluded; the civil service training institute that UNMIK had suggested in 2001 was now a first priority.

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Chapter Contents
			The Balkans Stabilization & Reconstruction
		·	The Dayton Implementation Process
		·	The UN Mission in Kosovo
		·	The War Crimes Tribunal
		·	NATO's Role in Macedonia
		·	The Balkans Stability Pact

Agreements
·	Undertaking of demilitarisation and transformation by the UCK

Related Texts
·	UNSCR 1244
·	Constitutional framework for provisional self-government
·	UNMIK/Dir/2003/3 - 31 January 2003
·	UNMIK/Reg/1999/1, Authority
·	UNMIK/Dir/2003/2 - 25 January 2003
·	UNMIK/Reg/2001/36, Civil Service
·	UNMIK/Dir/2003/1 - 17 January 2003
·	UNMIK/Reg/2001/7, Weapons Possession