Containing Kosovo

Mediterranean Quarterly

Volumn 16, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 17-43

  Bardos, Gordon N ^a  

^a Columbia University ^*  (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ETHNIC CLEANSING; GEOPOLITICS; PEACEKEEPING; REGIONAL ECONOMY;

EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; EUROPE; KOSOVO; SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO; SOUTHERN EUROPE; WORLD;

EID: 27144456449     PISSN: 10474552     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/10474552-16-3-17     Document Type: Review

References (111)

1. Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2004), 2-3, emphasis added.
2. UNHCR and OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Assessment of the Situation of Ethnic Minorities in Kosovo (Period Covering October 2000 through February 2001) (hereafter, Assessment of the Situation of Ethnic Minorities in Kosovo) (New York: UN, 2001), executive summary.
3. "A Shattered Showcase," Transitions Online, 22 March 2004, at www.tol.cz.
4. Amnesty International, "Serbia and Montenegro (Kosovo/Kosova) 'Prisoners in Our Own Homes': Amnesty International's Concerns for the Human Rights of Minorities in Kosovo/Kosova" (London: Amnesty International, 2003), introduction.
5. Bogdan Denitch, Ethnonationalism: The Tragic Death of Yugoslavia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 116.
6. See James P. Rubin, "Honoring Nation-Building," Washington Post, 19 October 2004, A23. * Editors' note: MQ uses the UN-designated and agreed-upon name for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. However, we do not interfere with author's preferences, which may be based on common usage.
7. As reported by Helena Smith, "Angry Kosovars Call on 'Colonial' UN Occupying Force to Leave," Observer (London), 19 October 2003. Estimates for expenditures on Kosovo in comparison to other countries are in per capita terms.
8. As cited by Jehona Gjurgjela, "Kosovo: Murders Expose Divided Community," in Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Balkan Crisis Report (hereafter, IWPR Balkan Crisis Report), 24 January 2003.
9. As cited in ICG, Collapse in Kosovo (hereafter, Collapse in Kosovo) (Pristina/Belgrade/Brussels: ICG, 2004), 38.
10. Maggie O'Kane, "Kosovo Drug Mafia Supply Heroin to Europe," Guardian Unlimited, 13 March 2000.
11. See also Stewart Tendler, "Albanian Gangs Are Underworld Threat," TimesOnline, 4 November 2002, at www.timesonline.co.uk.
12. See "Trading in Misery," IWPR Balkan Crisis Report, 5 September 2003.
13. See Arie Farnam, "Gun Culure Stymies the UN in Kosovo," Christian Science Monitor, 26 September 2003.
14. See the comments of Nicholas Whyte as cited in Robert McMahon, "Kosovo: Under Mounting Criticism, UN Considers Changes to Policy," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Feature Article, 13 August 2004.
15. Collapse in Kosovo, 30, 34.
16. See the interview with Enver Hasani, "An Uncertain Future," Transitions Online, 26 February 2004, at www.tol.cz.
17. See the remarks of Ralf Mutschke, assistant director of Interpol's Criminal Intelligence Directorate, before the House of Representatives, as cited in Brian Whitmore, "A New Drug Route Is Traced to the Old Balkan Anarchy," Boston Globe, 3 June 2001.
18. Lutz Kleveman, "Brothers in Arms Fall Out over Spoils of Kosovo," Daily Telegraph, 12 June 2000.
19. On 31 January 2005, another witness against Daut Haradinaj, Sadik Musa, was seriously wounded and soon thereafter died of his wounds in a shootout in Pec.
20. See RFE/RL, 1 February 2005.
21. See Roberto Suro, "In Kosovo, an Uncertain Mission," Washington Post, 20 September 2000, A01. General Fabio Mini, who commanded KFOR between October 2002 and October 2003, similarly believed that organized crime networks, Kosovo Albanian traditional social structures, the KLA, and its successor structure, the Kosovo Protection Corps, were largely interchangeable.
22. See Collapse in Kosovo, 8.
23. See Tim Judah, "Will There Be a War in Kosovo?" New York Review of Books, 14 May 1998.
24. Ibid.
25. "Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo," s/2000/538, New York, UN, 6 June 2000.
26. The comments by the US official James O'Brien can be found in George Jahn, "Anti-Serb Violence Condemned," Associated Press, 8 June 2000.
27. Assessment of the Situation of Ethnic Minorities in Kosovo, executive summary. Emphasis added.
28. UNSC S/2004/348, 30 April 2004, as cited in Amnesty International, The March Violence: KFOR and UNMIK's Failure to Protect the Rights of the Minority Communities (hereafter, The March Violence), AI Index EUR 70/ 016/2004) (London: Amnesty International, 2004), 2. Emphasis added.
29. Failure to Protect, 28, emphasis added.
30. Collapse in Kosovo, 49.
31. After noting that there were some all-too-rare efforts by local Albanian leaders to restrain the mobs, Human Rights Watch noted that "these sporadic actions beg the question of how much more destruction could have been prevented if the entire Kosovo Albanian leadership had taken a more proactive approach to seeking to end the violence, rather than initially justifying it as some politicians did." Failure to Protect, 61.
32. Helena Smith.
33. R. Jeffrey Smith, "UN Halts Publication of Kosovo Newspaper," Washington Post, 4 June 2000, A22.
34. See also Danica Krka, "Kosovo Media Practice Targeted," Associated Press, 30 May 2000.
35. As reported in "Media 'Inflamed' Riots," IWPR Balkan Crisis Report, 30 April 2004.
36. See the essay by Stephan Müller, former OSCE Mission in Kosovo advisor on minority issues from 2000 to 2002, "New Stance towards Kosovo Minorities Vital," IWPR Balkan Crisis Report, 8 April 2004.
37. Oliver Burkeman, "UN 'Ignored' Abuse at Kosovo Mental Homes," Guardian (London), 8 August 2002.
38. Quirin Schiermeier, "Kosovo's Ethnic Divide Blights UN Science Rebuilding Plans," Nature, 19 September 2002.
39. Blerim Latifi and Naser Mekolli, "Trial and Error: Kosovo's Fledgling Justice System," IWPR Balkan Crisis Report (undated), at www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr2/bcr2_20011116_1_ir_eng.txt
40. See Mevlyde Salihu, "Kosovo: Overloaded Courts Grind to a Halt," IWPR Balkan Crisis Report, 12 August 2004.
41. "UNHCR Update on the Situation of Roma, Ashkali, Egyptian, Bosniak and Gorani in Kosovo," New York, UNHCR, January 2003, 8.
42. This is according to Marek Antoni Novicki of the international Ombudsman for Kosovo. See his article in Danas (Belgrade), 29 November 2004.
43. The March Violence, 8-10. See also Failure to Protect for various descriptions of either KPS passivity during the violence, participation in it, or the rare instances of KPS officers trying to protect members of Kosovo's non-Albanian ethnic communities.
44. "Trading in Misery."
45. Hugh Griffiths, "(UN)Protected Witnesses," Transitions Online, 19 June 2003, at www.tol.cz.
46. See also Jeta Xharra and Tanja Matic, "Kosovo: Police Face Wall of Silence," IWPR Balkan Crisis Report, 21 August 2003.
47. According to Reno Harnish, head of the US office in Pristina, as cited in Arben Qirezi, "Kosovo: Witness Protection Fears Grow," IWPR Balkan Crisis Report, 29 April 2003.
48. Zana Limani and Driton Maliqi, "Girls Face Pressure to Stop 'Wasting Time' in School," IWPR Balkan Crisis Report, 29 April 2004.
49. As reported by Christian Jennings, "Medieval Murder Marks Tragedy in Kosovo," Scotsman, 26 August 2002.
50. See Loretta Napoleoni, Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks (London: Pluto, 2003), 94.
51. See Timothy Garton Ash, "Kosovo: Was It Worth It?" New York Review of Books, 21 September 2001, 53.
52. "KLA Rebels Train in Terrorist Camps," Washington Times, 4 May 1999.
53. See also Chris Hedges, "Kosovo's Next Masters?" Foreign Affairs 78 (May/June 1999): 39.
54. See Napoleoni, 110. The author claims that up to six thousand Albanian recruits from Kosovo, Macedonia, and Albania joined the mujahedin, although this number seems implausibly high. My own estimate puts the total number of Albanian recruits to Islamic extremist organizations at anywhere from several dozen to somewhere in the low hundreds.
55. Hedges, "Kosovo's Next Masters?" 36. Other American officials, on the other hand, showed a woeful (or willful?) ignorance about the KLA, its allies, and its tactics. Senator Joseph Lieberman, for instance, would claim that "the United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same human values and principles .... Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values."
56. See Lieberman's comments as quoted in Linda Wheeler, "Marchers Strut Support for Independent Kosovo," Washington Post, 28 April 1999, B03.
57. Uzi Mahnaimi, "Iranians Move In," Sunday Times (London), 22 March 1998. This attempt to join forces with Iran in the Balkans appears to have been part of bin Laden's broader effort to increase cooperation between al Qaeda and Iran during this period, but Iranian opposition to the Taliban government apparently made such an alliance impossible.
58. Napoleoni, 94.
59. Jack Kelley, "Bin Laden's Training Camps Teach Curriculum of Carnage," USA Today, 26 November 2001, 1A.
60. See Graham Johnson, "We Buy Bag of Semtex from Terrorists," Daily Mirror (London), 8 December 2003.
61. See Isa Blumi, "Competing for the Albanian Soul: Are Islamic Missionaries Creating a Lebanon in the Balkans?" Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Meeting Report no. 260, at www.wilsoncenter.org.
62. Protestants in Kosovo have claimed Islamic extremists have been attending their services so that they can be identified and later harassed. See Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, State Department, International Religious Freedom Report, Washington, DC, 18 December 2003.
63. Roger Boyes and Eske Wright, "Drug Money Linked to Kosovo Rebels," Times (London), 24 March 1999.
64. Christian Jennings, "Taliban Heroin Profits Arming Balkan Rebels," Daily Telegraph (London), 19 February 2002;
65. Christian Jennings, "Rebels Spend Millions on Guns," Daily Telegraph, 16 February 2002.
66. As cited by Frank Cilluffo and George Salmoiraghi, "And the Winner Is ... the Albanian Mafia," Washington Quarterly 22 (autumn 1999): 23.
67. See also Michael Steiner, "Fight Crime at Its Source," Libre Belgique (Brussels), 1 June 2002;
68. Jason Bennetto, "Albanians 'Taking over London Vice,"' Independent (London), 25 November 2002;
69. Robert McMahon, "Balkan Instability Feeds Rise in Crime," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Features, 23 June 2000.
70. Terry Frieden, "FBI: Albanian Mobsters 'New Mafia,'" at www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/18/albanians.mob/index.html.
71. Farnam.
72. "Pan-Albanianism: How Big a Threat to Balkan Stability?" (Tirana/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2004), 16-7.
73. See Aydin Babuna, "The Bosnian Muslims and Albanians: Islam and Nationalism," Nationalities Papers 32 (June 2004): 306.
74. Susan Woodward, Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1995), 184.
75. See Hugh Poulton and Miranda Vickers, "The Kosovo Albanians: Ethnic Confrontation with the Slav State," in Hugh Poulton and Suha Taji-Farouki, Muslim Identity and the Balkan State (London: Hurst, 1997), 158.
76. "Pan-Albanianism," 5, emphasis added.
77. See Chris Hedges, "Another Victory for Death in Serbia," New York Times, 8 March 1998, V5.
78. "Executive Order Blocking Property of Persons Who Threaten International Stabilization Efforts in the Western Balkans." Washington, DC, the White House, 27 June 2001. Five of the individuals on President Bush's list, including the Kosovo Protection Corps chief-of-staff, were on the UN payroll.
79. For one recent work along these lines, see Pauline Kola, The Myth of Greater Albania (New York: New York University Press, 2003).
80. "Pan-Albanianism," 16.
81. Aydin Babuna, "The Bosnian Muslims and Albanians: Islam and Nationalism," Nationalities Papers 32 (June 2004): 293.
82. See also Miranda Vickers, Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 42-5.
83. See "Pan-Albanianism," 3.
84. Ibid., 11-2.
85. Platform for the Solution of the National Albanian Question (Tirana: Academy of Sciences of Albania, October 1998), 33,
86. as cited in Dimitris Triantaphyllou, The Albanian Factor (Athens: Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, 2000), 5.
87. "Pan-Albanianism," 5.
88. Ibid., 15. Pan-Albanian unification remains the explicit public goal of some successor groups to the KLA, such as the People's Movement of Kosovo and the National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo. At the moment, however, they attract only marginal political support in Kosovo.
89. Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), 103-4.
90. "Pan-Albanianism," 6.
91. Ibid., 13, 18. The ICG report claims that in Kosovo itself, a minority "remains strongly committed to this ideal" and "several small radical groups in Kosovo continue to openly promote national unification."
92. Ibid., 6-29.
93. See James Pettifer, "Nation in Waiting," World Today 61, no. 2 (2005): 20.
94. "Pan-Albanianism," 20-1.
95. RFE/RL, Newsline, 8 October 2003.
96. Woodward, 337.
97. Sumantra Bose, Bosnia after Dayton: Nationalist Partition and International Intervention (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 162.
98. See Veton Surroi, "Kosovo Fascism, Albanians' Shame," IWPR Balkan Crisis Report, 25 August 1999.
99. "Collapse in Kosovo," 30-2.
100. "A Shattered Showcase," Transitions Online, 22 March 2004, at www.tol.cz.
101. See, for instance, The Lausanne Principle: Multiethnicity, Territory and the Future of Kosovo's Serbs (Berlin/Pristina: European Stability Initiative, 2004).
102. See the comments by Nicholas Whyte, director of the International Crisis Group's Balkan program, as cited in Ines Sabalic, "Kosovo Independence Ruled Out," IWPR Balkan Crisis Report, 4 August 2002.
103. See Tanja Matic, "Kosovo: Crimes against Serbs Investigated," IWPR Balkan Crisis Report, 13 November 2003, 468.
104. Anes Alic, "Bosnia: For Love of Karadzic," Transitions Online, 6 July 2004, at www.tol.cz.
105. In October 2004, the ICTY's chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, complained that with regards to the ICTY's efforts in Kosovo, "We have no help from anyone, neither from the international community in Kosovo nor the local authorities." See Nicholas Wood, "A Bosnian Serb Leader Faces War-Crimes Court," New York Times, 13 October 2004.
106. As quoted in Failure to Protect, 27 n. 64.
107. UNMIK Press Release, 8 October 2004.
108. Renate Flottau, Olaf Ihlau, Alexander Szandar, and Andreas Ulrich, "Die Hasen vom Amselfeld," Der Spiegel, 3 May 2004, 26.
109. See Daniel Dombey, "Kosovo Riots Prompt Shift on Rules for Troops," Financial Times (London), 10 September 2004.
110. Paul Ames, "NATO Pledges to Crack Down on Organized Crime in Kosovo," Associated Press, 12 March 2002.
111. See Tim Judah, "Impasse in Kosovo," New York Review of Books, 10 June 2004.