Profile Report
Kosovo
10 February 2006

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Background • UN Presence • Four-Pillar Structure • Minorities • 'Standards before Status' Policy • Final Status • Security Council Involvement • Underlying Problems • UN Documents • Historical Chronology • UN Involvement as of 2005 • Previous Reports on Kosovo

Background
Tensions between the Slavic and Albanian communities in Kosovo came to a head in the 1980s, the period following the death of Yugoslavia's post-war leader, President Josef Broz Tito. But social, economic and political cleavages had already begun to surface in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1970s, constitutional changes had expanded Kosovo's already existing autonomy and allowed greater independence for the Albanian majority. However, these had the effect of increasing the anxiety within the minority Kosovo Serbian community. Province-wide demonstrations by Albanians in 1981 for the status of a republic further exacerbated the tensions with the Serbian community. Increasingly repressive measures by Belgrade began to follow.

A significant watershed in Kosovo's current problems can be traced to June 1989 when Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic made Serbian nationalism a key plank of his administration.  This shift stimulated ethnic tension by resurrecting long-held grievances and sharply reduced the autonomy that Kosovo had enjoyed within the Yugoslav Federation.  Kosovo's population, 90 percent Albanian, refused to accept direct rule from Belgrade and a movement initially based on non-violent resistance began.

In July 1990, ethnic Albanians issued a declaration of independence, and formed their own parallel governance structures as well as separate civic and professional institutions. Ibrahim Rugova was voted in as president in elections that were not recognised by outside parties. While trying to prevent violent revolt, he sought to internationalise the problems in Kosovo, while at the same time undermining the legitimacy of Serbian rule.

Belgrade responded with numerous repressive measures. Meetings of the parallel structures were banned, Albanians were arbitrarily detained and torture became frequent. Albanians were also dismissed from their jobs because of their ethnicity, and there were cases of ethnicity-based evictions of Albanians from government-owned housing. By late-1995, according to Human Rights Watch, about three quarters of Albanians formerly employed by the state had lost their jobs. The teaching of Albanian was banned, and travel by ethnic Albanians was sharply limited.

Against this backdrop of worsening relations, an underground armed group calling itself the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) emerged in mid-1995. In February 1996, it began to claim credit for a number of violent acts such as the killing of several Serbian officials and policemen. Ethnic Albanians who were considered to be collaborators with the Belgrade government were also targeted. The Milosevic government responded with a counterinsurgency campaign that involved indiscriminate attacks in regions of Kosovo considered KLA strongholds, with women and children among the civilians killed. Thousands fled to Albania and Montenegro. Villages were systematically destroyed and crops were burned, thus ensuring the ethnic cleansing of the areas.

The Security Council, although preoccupied with events elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia such as the brutal conflict in Croatia and Bosnia, began to follow events in Kosovo in a low-key manner from 1994 onwards. Subsequently, after violence in Kosovo escalated rapidly in 1998, the issue attracted much closer attention in the Council. Between summer 1998 and the early months of 1999, the international community undertook several efforts to abate the growing crisis in Kosovo. In September 1998 the Council, in resolution 1199, affirmed that the deterioration of the situation in Kosovo constituted a threat to peace and security in the region, and called for a ceasefire by both the KLA and Serbian troops.

An agreement between US special envoy Richard Holbrooke and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in October 1998 averted threatened NATO air strikes. Serb forces temporarily withdrew, and allowed access for 2,000 unarmed monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Kosovo Verification Mission, which monitored the ceasefire and verified troop movements from Kosovo to Serbia as part of the withdrawal. Although the Council endorsed the Kosovo Verification Mission in resolution 1203, there was some discrepancy among Council members over the interpretation of the resolution. In the Council discussion of 24 October 1998, Russia and China made it clear that they thought this resolution did not authorise military intervention, while the US representative indicated that he thought it did authorise the use of force.

Despite the Holbrooke/Milosevic agreement, forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) failed to withdraw from Kosovo, the security situation continued to deteriorate and fighting resumed. Against the backdrop of its threats that military enforcement would follow if a peace agreement could not be reached, the Contact Group convened a further round of peace negotiations on 6 February 1999 in the French town of Rambouillet.  A break in the talks allowed the Yugoslav government to deploy troops to the border region and step up assaults on villages and other civilian installations. The talks ended in failure on 18 March 1999.

After long discussions, Kosovars were finally persuaded to approve the proposal made by the Contact Group for a peaceful resolution, while Belgrade rejected the agreement, claiming that it involved unacceptable foreign interference with domestic affairs. The draft agreement had included a clause in which both parties "invited" NATO to constitute and lead a force authorised under a Chapter VII Security Council resolution.

A last-ditch effort to keep the peace process on track, a trip to Belgrade by the negotiators and Holbrooke on 22 March, was also unsuccessful. On 23 March, NATO authorised the launch of military operations against the FRY. No attempt was made to secure an authorising Security Council resolution since Russia and China, publicly as well as in Council consultations, had previously indicated that they would likely use their veto to block any action that condoned the use of force in Kosovo.

At Russia's request, the Council held a meeting on 24 March (S/PV.3988) in which the heated discussion revealed deep splits within the Council and UN membership at large. Two non-Council members, Belarus and India, joined Russia and China in condemning the strikes as the unilateral use of force and arguing that it violated the UN Charter. Meanwhile, many other UN member states supported the action as a humanitarian intervention, necessary and appropriate, in order to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. Three Council members-the United States, Canada and France-stressed that the FRY was in violation of its obligations under Council resolutions 1199 and 1203, passed in 1998. Two other Council members, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, argued that the action was legally an appropriate response to a humanitarian catastrophe.

In a subsequent Council meeting on 26 March (S/PV.3989), representatives from Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cuba, Germany, India, Ukraine and the FRY participated in the debate. Supported by representatives from Belarus and India, Russia proposed a draft resolution that called for the immediate cessation of the use of force, but the resolution was rejected by twelve votes to three, the votes in favour being China, Namibia and Russia.

Once NATO began air strikes, the FRY troops in Kosovo began a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing, expelling as many as 800,000 Kosovar Albanians across the southern borders into Albania and Macedonia. Continuing over the period of the next two months, this campaign created a massive refugee influx for the two neighbouring countries. Meanwhile, NATO's campaign of air strikes continued for 78 days.

A proposal for peace was developed in Bonn after lengthy discussions between US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot, EU envoy (and Finnish president) Martti Ahtisaari, and Russian envoy Viktor Chernomydin. Under pressure from a growing NATO deployment of troops on the FRY's border, Milosevic on 7 June accepted terms offered by Ahtisaari and Chernomydin, and agreed to withdraw FRY troops from Kosovo in a phased retreat beginning 10 June.  As well as language from the previous failed peace process in Rambouillet, the agreement included references to the deployment of civil and security presences under UN auspices, the continued presence of NATO forces and the establishment of an interim administration in Kosovo (S/1999/649, Annex).

Within days, G7 leaders and Russia met in Cologne to reach an agreement on a draft Security Council resolution concerning the deployment of peacekeeping forces in Kosovo and the funding of the operation. At the same time, military authorities from NATO and the FRY met in Macedonia to discuss the timetable and withdrawal of FRY forces from Kosovo. NATO suspended the air campaign against the FRY, and NATO ground troops entered Kosovo on 11 June in one of the largest military operations in Europe since World War II.

On 10 June the Council, acting under Chapter VII, adopted resolution 1244, which welcomed the FRY's acceptance of the peace agreement, accepted the presence of NATO and established an international civil presence-the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)-to administer the region. The resolution reaffirmed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but specifically left the political future of Kosovo to be decided at a later date. UNMIK was tasked with facilitating the political process designed to determine the final status, and also with overseeing the transfer of authority from the provisional institutions established under its authority to those established under a political settlement.

The resolution, which was drafted in broad terms because of the need to accommodate the wide divergence within the Council, included an unusual formula regarding the expiration of the UNMIK mandate. In contrast to virtually all other Council-mandated operations, which have mandates that are renewed or modified periodically, UNMIK continues in place unless the Council decides otherwise.

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UN Presence
UNMIK was the first operation of this type in UN history: it was given an unprecedented mandate both in terms of its scope and structural complexity. UNMIK was tasked with re-establishing and running a complete transitional civil administration, responsible for everything from security, justice, law enforcement, health and education to matters as mundane as garbage collection. UNMIK's tasks amounted to reestablishing all the state institutions, and also establishing and overseeing the development of provisional democratic self-governing institutions. Expectations for the performance of the UN were high. From the beginning, however, UNMIK was plagued with shortfalls in funding and was hard-pressed to fulfill all of the demands required of such an extensive operation.

In his preliminary report on 12 June 1999, just two days after resolution 1244 was passed, the Secretary-General delineated the basic structure that the UN mission would take. The report outlined the division of labour between the UN mission, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and two international organisations, the OSCE and the EU, which would work together to fulfill the responsibilities of the international presence in Kosovo as determined by resolution 1244.

The Secretary-General's first substantive report followed a month later in July (S/1999/779), with an update and a detailed plan for UNMIK's operations and provided phases for the implementation of its tasks. This report established four areas of activities, called "pillars," to be shared between the UN, the OSCE and the EU:

• Pillar 1: humanitarian assistance (headed by the UNHCR, which was phased out in at the end of June 2000);
• Pillar 2: civil administration (headed by UNMIK);
• Pillar 3: institution building (headed by OSCE)
• Pillar 4: economic reconstruction (headed by the EU).

This four-pillar structure remains in place to date, although it is in the process of being consolidated as more responsibility is transferred to the local administrative structures. In May 2001, however, Pillar 1 was replaced with a new pillar, responsible for police and justice under the direct supervision of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG).

The pillar system appeared to be chosen to respond to earlier difficulties encountered in coordinating international agencies in comparable situations, for example, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In theory, the coordination of the work by the different pillars came through the daily meetings with the SRSG. However, in practice, day-to-day operations of each pillar were carried out independently, with little or no coordination between them, which has been a source of some of the difficulties in coordinating this large UN mission.

Although resolution 1244 gives the UN control of the administration, almost from the beginning, UNMIK sought to involve local counterparts. In January 2000, UNMIK established, together with local actors, a Joint Interim Administrative Structure (JIAS). The JIAS consists of twenty administrative departments, across all four pillars of administration. This structure was designed as a way to share responsibility between international and local participants in the reconstruction and governing of Kosovo.

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Pillar 1: Justice and Police (formerly Humanitarian assistance)
During the first year of the operation of UNMIK, UNHCR was responsible for the well-being of all returning refugees and internally displaced persons, estimated at almost 800,000 individuals. This pillar was phased out once the emergency humanitarian phase was considered completed in June 2000. In May 2001, Justice and Police, formerly housed under Civil Administration, became a new, separate Pillar 1.

When UNMIK was established in June 1999, there was no court system in Kosovo, and the legal system was in limbo as resolution 1244 did not provide guidance as to what law should be applied in Kosovo. It was unclear whether UNMIK should apply recent Serbian and Yugoslav law, or revert to pre-1989 law, which had been passed by the largely Albanian legislature of that era. Initially UNMIK applied Serbian law, respecting the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia, but under pressure from the Albanian community, soon reversed its policies and began to apply Kosovo law as it existed in 1989.

Since 1999, there has been gradual but significant progress in the reconstruction of a functioning judiciary system. In July of 1999, the Department of Judicial Affairs consisting of Prosecution Services, the Court Administration section (PSCA) and Penal Management (PM), was established. Initially, 55 judges and prosecutors were appointed on short-term contracts of three months to what was known as the Emergency Judicial System. These were gradually replaced with approximately 374 local judges and prosecutors, who are deployed throughout Kosovo and whose terms will run until the end of UNMIK's mandate. International judges and prosecutors were also recruited to address inter-ethnic and organised crime, until the judiciary system was fully functional, and to address the problem of perceived ethnic bias. Other responsibilities of the Department of Justice (so renamed in May 2001) include the establishment and administration of the correctional system in Kosovo, under the Penal Management Division (PMD), the International Judicial Support Division (IJSD) and Office on Missing Persons and Forensics.

The police force in Kosovo had to be completely rebuilt and retrained to take over security operations and maintain law and order in Kosovo. Initially, KFOR troops fulfilled that role as the police force was gradually rebuilt and re-staffed. The UNMIK police was created as an integrated structure of both international civilian police and local officers of the Kosovo Police Service working side-by-side. It was increased from an initial 3,000 international police officers to 4,718 officers in October 1999, by recommendation of the Secretary-General, making it the largest police force ever mounted by the UN. The local component of 3,500 police officers was added gradually, at a rate of 250 per month.

Pillar 2: Civil Administration
In June 1999, UNMIK began work to establish a civil administration from the ground up to handle all aspects of administration from revenue collection to the provision of public services. While UNMIK was initially staffed with internationals, it has continued to work towards the establishment of Kosovo's provisional institutions of self-government (PISG) in a context of substantial autonomy. In February 2000, the Joint Interim Administrative Structure was established to share administration with local officials. Since March 2002, when a local government was formed by coalition, UNMIK has gradually transferred responsibility for executive decisions.

Within the civil administration, the following departments were established: Agriculture, Central Fiscal Authority, Civil Security and Emergency Preparedness, Culture Democratic Government and Civil Society Support, Education and Science, Public Services, Health and Social Welfare, Labour and Employment, Local Administration, Non-Resident Affairs, Post and Telecommunications, Reconstruction, Sports, Trade and Industry, Transport and Infrastructure, Public Utilities, and Youth.

Pillar 3: Institution Building
This pillar of UNMIK, managed by the OSCE, is responsible for the following functions:

• democratisation and governance, including the development of a civil society, nongovernmental organisations and political parties;
• organising and supervising elections;
• media affairs, including independent media support;
• regulations, laws and standards;
• human rights monitoring;
• the rule of law; and
• police education and development.

Pillar 4: Economic Reconstruction
Pillar 4, under the European Union, was tasked with reconstruction and the rebuilding of Kosovo's economic and fiscal framework. This pillar created and implemented a tax system, administered the privatisation of government-owned enterprises, established a customs department, administered international trade and other external economic agreements, established a working banking system, and worked to integrate Kosovo into various regional and European economic structures.

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The five phases of implementation outlined by the Secretary-General in July 1999 were as follows:

1. establishing and consolidating UNMIK's authority, with a focus on humanitarian relief and reconstruction;
2. administering social services and public utilities and encouraging broadly representative political activity;
3. preparing for elections, and the election of the Kosovo Transitional Authority;
4. providing oversight and assistance for elected officials in an effort to organise and establish provisional institutions for democratic and autonomous self-government; and
5. overseeing the transfer of authority from Kosovo's provisional institutions to the institutions provided for under a political settlement.

The Secretary-General has provided regular reports of the implementation of the goals outlined in resolution 1244, and the achievements and challenges which faced UNMIK as it grappled with the administration of the province. Phase 4 is considered virtually completed, and depending on the final status discussions, UNMIK would be ready to move into phase 5.

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Minorities
One of UNMIK's most important tasks has been the protection and integration of the minority communities in Kosovo. UNMIK worked to include minorities in the civil administration structures by reserving seats for minorities and pressing hard for their inclusion in administrative structures. UNMIK also monitors human rights abuses, and promotes minority awareness education and minority inclusion in every aspect of its work. However, the issue of minority exclusion and ethnic bias in Kosovo is a serious and ongoing problem for UNMIK.

The Serb, Turk, Bosniak, Roma, Egyptian and Ashkali communities, which together account for roughly 12 percent of the population, have faced isolation, insecurity and occasional outbursts of deadly violence from the majority Albanian community, such as the ethnic violence in March 2004. The Serbian and Serb-speaking Roma communities have faced the most severe discrimination and violence. Initially, UNMIK was not able to provide minorities with adequate safety, and most minority communities remained isolated enclaves while many fled to Serbia. Returns of Serbian and Roma communities to the province and their integration into the Albanian administrative structures and social services have been very slow.

Minorities have also challenged the authority of UNMIK by maintaining parallel administrative structures tied to the FRY. These parallel structures challenged the operations for some of the ministries, as well as municipalities, principally in the areas of education, health and administrative services.

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 'Standards before Status' Policy
The UN adopted the policy of "Standards before Status" in an attempt to ensure that certain governance and human rights standards were achieved within Kosovo before the question of the future status of Kosovo could be addressed. This policy was supported by the Council in a presidential statement (S/PRST/2003/26) on 10 December 2003. According to this policy, the provisional institutions had to achieve certain standards, or benchmarks, before the final status of Kosovo could be addressed. The eight standards to be met were:

• functioning democratic institutions;
• the rule of law;
• freedom of movement;
• returns and reintegration;
• economy;
• property rights;
• dialogue with Belgrade; and
• the Kosovo Protection Corps.

A detailed implementation plan was released by UNMIK on 31 March 2004. The conditioning of final-status talks on the fulfillment of the "standards" provoked criticism from local political leaders in Kosovo as well as from international quarters. While local political leaders expressed some resistance to fully implementing the standards, particularly with respect to minority integration, a further problem has been that Kosovo's political institutions are required to meet standards that are not under their control, but under that of UNMIK and the FRY. For example, the dismantling of parallel structures that are financed by Belgrade is not under the control of local actors. In addition, the reform of the judicial system is under the control of UNMIK Pillar 1, not local Kosovar authorities.

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Final Status
The conditionality of final-status talks based on the attainment of the standards came under scrutiny soon after the approach was adopted. Kai Eide, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General, was appointed to conduct a comprehensive review of the policies and practices of all actors in Kosovo. In his first report transmitted to the Council in August 2004, he cast doubt on the wisdom of pursuing the "standards before status" policy indefinitely. He stated that the policy lacked credibility and was untenable over the long term and suggested that that it be replaced by a broader policy that would move Kosovo towards final status discussions.

The Secretary-General subsequently appointed Eide in May 2005 as his Special Envoy to assess whether the conditions were in place to open discussions on the final status. Eide's report transmitted in October 2005 (S/2005/635) stated that despite the uneven success of achieving the standards, the time was ripe to begin status discussions.

The Council, in a presidential statement (S/PRST/2005/51), on 24 October 2005 endorsed the opening of status talks between the parties. On 1 November, the Secretary-General appointed former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari as Special Envoy to lead the future negotiating process. While he keeps the Secretary-General appraised, Ahtisaari is not in any real sense dependent on or supported by the UN Secretariat. He has appointed his own team and works very much as an independent agent. Ahtisaari visited Pristina and Belgrade, as well as neighbouring Skopje and Tirana, in December 2005, and announced at the end of December that the first round of talks between Belgrade and Pristina would be held in Vienna in early 2006.

The key issues in the status talks are whether Kosovo will remain part of Serbia and Montenegro, whether it will be independent, whether its status will fall somewhere in between or whether it will be partitioned. The six-nation Contact Group (the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia) takes a close interest in Ahtisaari's efforts. The group agrees on three broad negotiating principles: no return to Serbian control, no partition of Kosovo and no unification of Kosovo with its Albanian neighbours. Beyond that basic agreement, however, there are differences within the group as to how that should be accomplished. Russia has sympathy with Serbia and Montenegro, which has insisted that Kosovo should remain part of the state, albeit with much autonomy. The countries of European Union are divided as to the desirable extent of the independence; the US, while indicating in private that independence was preferable, has tried to remain as neutral as possible in public.

In early 2006, Russia seemed to signal that it was beginning to see Kosovo's independence as inevitable. At a press conference on 31 January, Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to the Kosovo parallel, suggested that in a similar way, the independence might be appropriate for two regions of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia: "If people believe that Kosovo can be granted full independence, why then should we deny it to Abkhazia and South Ossetia?"

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Security Council Involvement
The Council has followed closely the situation in Kosovo through the quarterly reports from the Secretary-General as well as by holding regular meetings, both open and closed, to discuss the matters at hand. Throughout the UN involvement in Kosovo, however, there have often been differences of opinion among Council members.

The first year of UNMIK's presence in Kosovo was accompanied by a great deal of disagreement within the Council. The reports by Dr. Bernard Kouchner, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of UNMIK, and the subsequent discussions were held in closed sessions. Kouchner's presentations at the Council caused a degree of controversy, particularly concerning matters that were viewed as infringing on the sovereignty of the FRY. Chinese and Russian representatives questioned UNMIK's work as impairing the sovereignty of the FRY and encouraging a dangerous trend to separate Kosovo from the FRY, which in their view could destabilise the region.

The municipal elections held in October 2000 were one such bone of contention, producing vigorous debates within the Council. For example, Russia, while not against elections in principle, questioned how elections could be free and fair given the lack of freedom of movement and intimidation of minorities within Kosovo. The United States asserted that elections would be the best route to end the violence. A month later, in September, Russia accused UNMIK and KFOR of contravening the Security Council and violating resolution 1244. The Russian ambassador took the SRSG to task for publicly supporting independence for Kosovo and pointing to the ambiguities of resolution 1244. He further strongly criticised the behavior of KFOR soldiers towards diplomats in Kosovo, which in his view undermined the sovereignty of the FRY. The Chinese delegation pressed the SRSG to strictly adhere to the provisions of resolution 1244.

The planning of elections in 2001 again brought up differences in opinion. In February 2001, the Russian delegation advised against the holding of elections in Kosovo without guaranteeing security for the minorities, clarifying their relationship with the authorities in Belgrade, or ensuring their participation the future elected bodies.

A consistently important issue for China has been the maintenance of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the FRY. Any actions by UNMIK or KFOR perceived to undermine the sovereignty of the state brought a response from China. While all states expressed concern over the security situation for minorities in Kosovo, China and Russia saw minority issues as a fundamental problem in the implementation of resolution 1244.

In October 2005, the Council agreed that it was time to move on to the final phase in this plan, and begin the discussions of the future status of the province.

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Underlying Problems
Economic prospects for Kosovo remain dim: the province has very high unemployment rates of 50 to 60 percent, and few functioning domestic industries.

The problems faced by some of the minority communities are severe. Because of resistance on both sides, ethnic integration seems unlikely or, at best, very difficult to achieve. Ethnic tensions in the region are likely to simmer until the negotiations and future status of Kosovo are resolved. Depending on the outcome and how they are received, the negotiations may have a significant impact on the stability of the region.

The death of Kosovo's President Ibrahim Rugova on 26 January 2006 may present new challenges for the final-status talks. It may be very difficult to find a new Kosovar leader who will be able to negotiate Kosovo's position effectively, and gain approval from the public for a compromise solution if it falls short of full independence.

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UN Documents

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Historical Chronology

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UN Involvement as of 2005

Previous Reports on Kosovo

• Kosovo (February 2006 Forecast)

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