POLITICS: U.N. Ready to Adopt Kosovo Resolution

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 10 1999 (IPS) - After months of sitting on the sidelines in the Kosovo conflict, the United Nations is a step away from one of the most ambitious missions it has undertaken in years.

The UN Security Council is poised to adopt a resolution that would implement a peace plan for Kosovo and allow troops of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to enter the province. The would be taken Thursday after NATO verified Serbian troops were withdrawing from Kosovo, as agreed in a treaty worked out between NATO and Yugoslav military commanders Wednesday, diplomats said.

This would then allow a halt in the NATO bombing that began March 24 to punish Yugoslavia for expelling ethnic Albanians from Kosovo.

The Council will then approve a UN civilian presence, headed by a special envoy of Secretary-General Kofi Annan that will, in essence, act as a transitional authority for Kosovo as it moves toward autonomy within Yugoslavia.

Russia and China have refused to vote until the bombing of Yugoslavia ended but diplomats believed both the military and civilian votes would be passed Thursday.

That in turn will place the United Nations in charge of all basic administrative functions for Kosovo, the establishment of self-government for the province, the rebuilding of the area and the return of Kosovo’s roughly 800,000 refugees.

There remains the possibility that the UN officials could even organise a referendum to determine Kosovo’s status and pave the way for eventual independence, according to UN sources.

Officials here were enthusiastic about the world body’s role, after 11 weeks in which NATO bombers pounded Yugoslavia while Yugoslav troops expelled hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo.

“I am relieved that there is a political process, and I think it is also important that the United Nations has been asked to play its traditional role,” Annan said Wednesday. “I think that there is a message there for all of us.”

In some respects, however, the UN role in Kosovo is much wider than its traditional peacekeeping work.

As with the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) – which organised that country’s 1993 elections – or the recent UN Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia (UNTAES) in Croatia, the Kosovo presence would in many ways govern the territory, one official told IPS.

The head of the civilian mission would receive the close cooperation of the military presence in Kosovo, which the Security Council is supposed to operate under its own command. The military presence – or Kosovo Force (KFOR) – is to include soldiers from NATO and Russia.

The United Nations has had to step in to fill so many roles because NATO – which initially tried to resolve the dispute between Belgrade and Kosovar rebels – itself became a party to the conflict, UN officials said.

For Annan, the UN’s involvement in the Kosovo agreement and the setting up of another wide-ranging UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), contradicted the idea that the United Nations had been marginalised in recent conflicts.

“You may have heard it said that the United Nations is being sidelined,” Annan told a meeting of UN civil servants here. “The number of UN peacekeepers in the field may have declined but the reality is that the international community continues to turn to the United Nations.”

Yet that reliance is complex, and often dominated by the United States.

Despite Russian and Yugoslav efforts to ensure UN command of any peacekeepers in Kosovo, for example, the White House has won a great degree of independence for NATO under the terms for the Kosovo Force.

Similarly, some UN officials suggested this week that the leading candidate to head the UN mission in Kosovo would be Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, a favourite of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and others in the White House.

There was a strong chance that Ahtisaari – who once worked as a UN official in hot spots like Namibia and has one year left to serve as Finnish president – could cut short his term in office to lead the Kosovo mission, one official told IPS.

This would be a marked shift from just one month ago, when Annan appointed Slovak Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan and former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt as his envoys for the Balkans. US officials reportedly were unhappy with Bildt, previously a mediator in the Bosnia-Hercegovina war.

Although Washington was determined to secure its own best interests in any UN operation, other countries – notably Russia and China – have been pushing for a strong UN role in Kosovo since the crisis began.

As a result, China, despite its efforts in recent days to restrict KFOR’s ability to use force under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, impressed UN diplomats by working for the quick passage of the Kosovo resolution, even as it criticised some of its language.

Beijing’s helpful posture was one of the reasons diplomats expected quick passage of the resolution when it was put to the Vote in the Security Council.