28 February 2000
Balkans Unstable Despite International Help, UN Envoy Reports
(Security Council talks with Bildt) By Judy Aita Washington File United Nations Correspondent United Nations -- Calling the situation in the Balkans "the most complex and the most challenging operation" the United Nations has ever undertaken, the UN special envoy to the region said February 27 that the international community has not managed to bring stability to the region but the UN must continue to search for peace in the region, especially Kosovo. "Our combined political, humanitarian, economic and military involvement in the different parts of the region is larger and more demanding than ever before," UN Special Envoy Carl Bildt told the Security Council. "Were it to be withdrawn today, we would be facing new wars tomorrow." Bildt said that "as we look at the region today, we have to conclude that the forces of disintegration are still stronger than the forces of integration." The special envoy also warned that as long as there is no change of regime in Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro "are set on a somewhat slow but very steady collision course." "President Milosevic has grossly misused the federal institutions and grossly violated the rights of Montenegro within the federation," he said. Praising Montenegro's leaders, Bildt said that instead of seceding outright, but by proposing a reformed relationship, Montenegro has shown "responsibility and statesmanship that should not go unrewarded." He pointed out that Montenegro suffers from "double sanctions" -- those against all of Yugoslavia which block access to international financial institutions and de facto sanctions from Serbia which force them to rely on expensive food imports. "I believe that in the interest of stability we must all accelerate our efforts to give them help," he said. Appearing during an open council meeting on the Balkans, Bildt characterized the situation as a conflict between those who favor, or at least accept, integration and those who, often in the name of extreme nationalism, favor disintegration within their societies and between nations. The special envoy said that while the Dayton peace agreement, which ended the war in Bosnia, is one of the most ambitious agreements of its kind in modern history, "there was and there is no proper peace agreement" for Kosovo. With the core issues of Kosovo still unsettled, he said, it is much more difficult to move towards stability for the region as a whole. Dr. Bernard Kouchner, the UN representative in Kosovo, will address the council on March 6. Bildt suggested "four starting points" for the search for peace, beginning with the need for "solid support" from the Security Council. Saying his emphasis on council support is "based on concrete experience in the region for the past 10 years," Bildt said that "only when there has been a solid consensus among the key international actors -- often the United States, the countries of the European Union and the Russian Federation -- has it been possible to achieve political agreements between the different warring parties. Any lesser combination has, as a rule, been doomed to failure." He also suggested that: states in the region must be active participants; a "true deal" must be one that meets the minimum demands of everyone, but the maximum demands of no one; and the agreement must fit into the context of the region and Europe as well. A regional settlement is "hardly possible until key questions of the future shape of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have been settled," he said. That settlement will have to balance the wider interests of the Serbs, other Slavs, and Albanians in the region. If the extremist groups -- whether in northern Kosovo, southern Serbia, or even Macedonia -- are allowed to have the upper hand long enough, tensions will build up even more, bringing further conflicts and perhaps a conflict "every bit as brutal as those we have already witnessed," Bildt predicted. Saying that he agreed with Bildt on all points, US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke added that the way to move forward depends on the "leadership, resources, and will" of the international community -- and the "underlying problem that plagues all the Balkans -- the goals and designs of the leadership in Belgrade." Holbrooke, who along with Bildt co-chaired the Dayton negotiations, touched on the criticism and rivalries that surface from time to time between international groups trying to help the region. "All too often we have institutional rivalries and public criticism between NATO and the UN or between the United States and the European Union or between individuals when the fact is we all have the same objective and we're all pulling for the same goals," the ambassador said. "Some of this criticism is not surprising and it does not trouble me very much, but I do think we're all on the same team trying for the same objective: Which in Bosnia is to make the Dayton peace agreement work," he said. Holbrooke added that while the international community remains "handicapped by the regime in Belgrade," it is also handicapped by the large number of indicted war criminals still at large" in the region. The ambassador also called on the international community "to help fix Mostar." Holbrooke said that "Mostar is the number one test in determining the future of Bosnia." While Mitrovica is "the most dangerous city" in the region, the US ambassador said, "Mostar is the most broken."
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