Deployed in an inhospitable environment (in the aftermath of ethnic cleansing, bombing and economic sanctions), UNMIK was attributed the ambiguous task of establishing a de facto international protectorate respectful of the territorial integrity of the FRY. Up to now, UNMIK's performance has been, to say the least, minimal.
Conclusion
The record of international institutions at the level of conflict management is all but brilliant.
1. Preventive diplomacy efforts did take place, but were undertaken too late and during too short a period of time. Their sterility is to be accounted for Belgrade's assertion that the Kosovo issue was a purely internal matter excluding by definition any interference from the international community.
2. Although conducted more consistently, mediation and conciliation efforts came into play also much too late and failure was their common fate. The failure was predictable. One can argue that the Kosovo conflict belongs to a particular category of conflicts whose resolution could be achieved either through the total military victory of one of the parties or by means of a peace enforcement operation led by the UN, a regional organization mandated by the UN or an ad hoc coalition of willing States.
3. Peace enforcement by military means is a most controversial issue which has been criticized as a matter of principle as well as from the point of view of actual results. In all fairness, one has to recognize that NATO's military intervention did not solve the Kosovo issue. However, in breaking the political deadlock which has been prevailing for some 10 years, it has at least introduced some fresh political parameters.
4. As to post-conflict rehabilitation, one has to admit that UNMIK needs a significant amount of time to fulfill its multiple tasks including the core issue of self-administration for Kosovo that the UN Security Council has so far failed to address in a frontal way. However, self-administration even within a democratized Yugoslavia will not solve the problem of Kosovo: since the 1990s, the option of self-administration in Kosovo has become obsolete. On the other hand, independence or partition do not represent really appropriate solutions. The future for Kosovo can only be envisaged in the framework of the long-term fundamental objective assigned to the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe: the debalkanization of the Balkans.
Notes
Professor Victor-Yves Ghebali
Graduate Institute of International Studies
Geneva
