Ambitious experiment leads Kosovo to a crossroads

A girl faints at a mass burial in Djakova, Kosovo, last Tuesday. The bodies of Kosovo Albanians from mass graves in 1999 near Belgrade are being returned to the families. A UN mission, exercising near absolute authority and backed up by a NATO-led peacekeeping force, has been trying to forge a modern democratic system in this region, torn by decades of bitter ethnic tension between an ever more assertive Albanian majority and an isolated Serbian minority. PHOTO: NY TIMES

For more than six years, this small Balkan province has been the subject of one of the most ambitious nation-building projects in recent history.

A UN mission, exercising near absolute authority and backed up by a NATO-led peacekeeping force, has been trying to forge a modern democratic system in this region, torn by decades of bitter ethnic tension between an ever more assertive Albanian majority and an isolated Serbian minority.

At a cost of about US$1.3 billion a year, international civil servants and police officers -- some 11,000 at the peak -- helped to build ministries, a parliament, local councils, a bureaucracy, courts, customs and police services, as well as news media.

Now, as the UN appears to be ready to broker a deal between Serbs and ethnic Albanians and to end its mission in Kosovo, judging the result of that long, expensive effort is not easy.

At first glance, the province appears relatively thriving -- particularly when compared with the war devastation of 1999. New houses can be seen everywhere, a result of a postwar construction boom.

"We are in a situation where we are living off, almost entirely, customs revenues and donations from donors. The budget is extremely tight; school construction is nearly nil."

Larry Rossin, UN Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo

In the regional capital, Pristina, the streets are filled with cafes, restaurants and stores. Only the ubiquitous white four-wheel-drive vehicles of the UN mission and the infrequent military checkpoints hint at another reality.

In truth, the region remains in limbo -- the poorest part of the Balkans, and the most unstable. Enmity between the Serbs and Albanians still runs deep. The hostilities boiled over in March of last year, when up to 50,000 ethnic Albanians took part in a three-day wave of attacks on Serbs and other minorities, as well as on UN buildings and other property. Nineteen people were killed and 4,000 were forced from their homes.

Today, most Kosovo Serbs remain in enclaves and in small rural communities, often fearful of venturing out. Albanians steer clear of the Serb-dominated northern part of the province, for fear of attack.

Estimates unemployment range from 30 percent to 70 percent. The regional government is close to bankrupt, and the UN expects the economy to shrink by 2 percent this year.

For many, including UN experts and Kosovars, talks expected to begin soon on the province's political status -- and whether it will remain part of Serbia -- stand a chance of solving problems that the UN mission could not. Once the issue of Kosovo's sovereignty is resolved, they say, progress can be made on political and economic issues.

But others say there is a deeper lesson to be learned: The model of nation-building adopted here -- a government staffed and directed by foreign officials -- was too narrow and too authoritarian.

"The focus of the international mission from the start was on security and politics," said Gerald Knaus, director of the European Stability Initiative, a nongovernmental political research group with offices in Kosovo. International bureaucrats, he said, ignored economic needs -- the World Bank estimates that 37 percent of the population lives on less than US$1.75 a day. He said they built institutions "almost as an end in itself."

Larry Rossin, a retired US diplomat who is the deputy leader of the UN Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo, said, "I think the development of their institutions is somewhat retarded by our continuing role."

From June 1999, when the UN arrived in the wake of NATO bombs that helped drive Serbian forces from Kosovo, until 2001 or so, the mission's efforts were held up as an example for building democracy elsewhere.

But then the process stalled, at least in the eyes of international officials and observers, and of Kosovo's Albanians. Those critics said the international administration here became unproductive.

Kosovo's Albanian politicians came to accuse the mission of a deliberately slow transfer of power to local authorities.

Veton Surroi, an ethnic Albanian publisher in the regional parliament, said, "The focus has been on buying time, and that's the only focus there has been."

In the next few days -- possibly yesterday or today -- a Norwegian diplomat, Kai Eide, is expected to give the UN Security Council the results of a study commissioned by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on whether to move forward with the talks on Kosovo's future, even though the enmities remain.

Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, has said he believes Eide will come out in favor of the talks, and pave the way for the UN' withdrawal.

The ethnic Albanians, who make up an estimated 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people, hope the talks will be the final step toward seceding from Serbia. But Serbs, in Kosovo and in Serbia, see in such a secession the loss of their homeland and some of Serbia's most treasured Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries to an Albanian-controlled state.

The negotiations among the Albanians, the Kosovo Serbs and the Serbian government will require international oversight, and almost certainly will result in some kind of international presence remaining in the province.

A decision on Kosovo's status would help solve one part of its economic problem, Rossin said: With its current ambiguous status, the province cannot borrow money internationally.

"We are in a situation where we are living off, almost entirely, customs revenues and donations from donors," Rossin said. "The budget is extremely tight; school construction is nearly nil in the year 2005 because there is just no money in the capital budget to do it in a place that has crying needs in a whole range of social areas."

What has been invested in economic development appears to have had a marginal impact. The province's two power stations suffer daily interruptions, despite more than US$700 million in capital spending.

Kosovo's and payments authority report for last year states that the economy has been disinvesting since 2000, despite substantial international aid.