[New York Press, Nov. 24-30, last item in column]
Making Kosovo Safe for Gangsters
As President Clinton was preparing for his trip to Kosovo last week, I
came across an e-mail from an acquaintance who works in the Pentagon
and who was recently in Kosovo. His note was a scathing counter to the
official happy-talk appraisals of life in Kosovo. For example, when
Gen. Michael Jackson, NATO's top commander in Kosovo, recently vacated
that post, he declared, "We have seen a return to normality" in
Kosovo. He also hailed the "successful demilitarization" of the Kosovo
Liberation Army and "the establishment of law and order." My Pentagon
pal's dispatch neatly sums up the troubles there-and illustrates the
hollowness of the Clinton promises that accompanied the bombing of
that province. With his permission-and in accordance with his wish to
remain unidentified and employed-here are his observations:
"Things seem much gloomier today than when I was there in the summer.
I can only speak for myself (and the dozens or so various people who
told me similar things), rather than on behalf of the U.S. government,
but it is clear the UCK (KLA to non-Albanophones) is totally out of
control, and unlikely to live up to its commitments on
demilitarization. Ethnic Serbs and Roma continue to be attacked and
leave the province. Right after I left the city of Pec (Peja in
Albanian) in the western part of Kosovo, where violence was at its
heaviest in the spring, a group of Serbs leaving the province, only
ten miles from crossing into Montenegro, was attacked by a mob and
barely got out alive (though their cars were all burned). Some of our
(US) guys told me that in several villages where the ethnic Albanian
citizens had elected their own mayors and councils, the UCK came in
and told them who their new mayors would be. It's clear that
disenchantment with the UCK is not limited to Serbs. It also appears
that the judicial system is a sham, since all judges not associated
with the UCK have been shot at or have quit their jobs or have been
intimidated into releasing suspects. It's possible the UN Mission will
turn that around, but I'm not optimistic. In essence, the
international community went into Los Angeles, drove out a corrupt and
brutal LAPD, and left the Bloods and Crips as the de facto government.
This is hardly an original revelation on my part, but the vision of a
multi-ethnic Kosovo is giving way to reverse ethnic cleansing. I agree
that we needed to dp something about the mayhem which Milosevic and
Company authored. Unfortunately, it seems that we drove the Yugoslav
military and police out with the promise that we (the entire
international community) could provide a safe and stable environment
for all Kosovo's citizens. And we just could not deliver."