Serb Withdrawal
Following Belgrade's acceptance of the Military Technical Agreement with NATO, the Serbs look set to mount an orderly retreat, while NATO has undertaken to rein in the Kosovo Liberation Army to prevent any provocations. There is a danger that Serb irregulars or even armed Kosovar Serb civilians will try to exact revenge on the ethnic Albanian civilian population, but NATO's detailed agreement with the Yugoslav military -- of which NATO commander Lieut. Gen. Sir Michael Jackson is the final arbiter -- gives grounds for optimism that the Serb military withdrawal will be completed within 11 days, or soon after.
A more dangerous situation may arise when a limited number of Yugoslav personnel are allowed to return to guard Serbia's sacred sites in Kosovo. These forces could become a prime target for KLA elements looking for revenge or ways to symbolically pursue their war of independence from Yugoslavia.
Peacekeepers are deployed
NATO has maintained a force in Macedonia ready to assume this mission since before the bombing campaign began, and it will be relatively easy to expand that deployment to meet the 48,000-troop force level prescribed by the agreement. In the U.S. and possibly other NATO countries, however, the long-term, open-ended nature of the deployment may also raise domestic political concerns. But the most difficult issue in deploying peacekeepers is the role of the Russian forces. Moscow insists that its troops must not be under NATO command, and wants to be in control of a sector of Kosovo in the same way as the leading NATO powers are. The alliance will probably accept the Russians' maintaining a separate command with an acceptable level of coordination with NATO, and Russian forces will likely be deployed wherever the peacekeepers need to interface with Serb military or civilians.
Refugees Return
Creating the conditions for a stable return of refugees remains the most daunting political and humanitarian challenge of the Kosovo conflict. The war has destroyed most of the territory's infrastructure, including its ability to provide shelter, food, water, electricity and economic sustenance to returning refugees.
NATO will have to undertake a mammoth reconstruction program before the refugees are able to return. While it may be symbolically important to ensure the quick return of at least a small number of refugees -- probably from Macedonia, which has balked at the influx -- a number of factors militate against the majority of them returning home this year. The priority of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, whose office will oversee the return, will be the hundreds of thousands of displaced ethnic Albanians who were driven from their homes but remained inside Kosovo. Unlike the refugees who left, they have received no humanitarian relief during the 78-day bombing campaign, and are believed to be in dire straits. Refugees currently outside Kosovo are being sheltered and fed by an efficient humanitarian apparatus in Albania and Macedonia, and may be encouraged to remain there through the winter so that Kosovo's infrastructure can be rebuilt to absorb them.
In any case, many refugees outside Kosovo are understandably suspicious about the safety of returning. Their suspicions will be exacerbated by the Yugoslav authorities' claim that the peace agreement still gives them the right to control entry into Kosovo from foreign countries, and therefore to screen returning refugees. That would certainly discourage many from going home, and might demand a firm response from NATO countries.
The biggest political danger for NATO, however, is possible reverse ethnic cleansing against Kosovo's estimated 150,000 Serb civilians. Kosovar Albanians are unlikely to accept Serb civilians living in their midst, given the role many of them played in supporting the ethnic-cleansing campaign by Serb paramilitaries. As was the case at the end of the Bosnia war, when Croatia drove 200,000 Serb civilians out of the Krajina region and NATO stood by and watched, it is very likely that Kosovar Albanians will try to force out the remaining Serbs. That will pose a major political challenge for the peacekeepers, because although their task will be infinitely easier if Serbs and Kosovars are separated, allowing ethnic cleansing against the Serbs would be perceived as undermining the moral foundation of NATO's war.
The KLA is demilitarized
Although the agreement requires that the KLA be "demilitarized," NATO is unlikely to attempt to fully disarm it. Although its military formations will be disbanded and its heavier weapons turned in, it's likely that many of the insurgents will be sent home with their Kalashnikovs. Having been forced to accept that the international community won't underwrite its war for independence, the KLA will want political control over Kosovo as the consolation. The organization was fiercely opposed to the moderate politics of such leaders as Dr. Ibrahim Rugova before the war, and had been known to engage in assassinations and other forms of violence and intimidation in the internecine battle to lead the Kosovar Albanians. Given the KLA's record, avoiding internal violence in the coming struggle for political control over Kosovo may become one of NATO's biggest challenges.
Kosovo is rebuilt as an autonomous part of Yugoslavia, under international protection
It may be important for NATO to avoid ethnic cleansing against the remaining Serbs, not only for moral but also for political reasons. Already, the political shape of the deal, which keeps Kosovo as part of Yugoslavia, is a tough sell to the returning refugees. If the territory's Serb minority is entirely driven out, that will create an ethnically homogeneous Kosovo in line with the KLA's nationalist vision, and make the case for independence even harder to resist. But European powers fear that the redrawing of borders in the Balkans will inspire separatists elsewhere and fuel instability across the region.
The estimated cost of the military and humanitarian mission in Kosovo could be as high as $50 billion in the first year alone, and nobody expects it to be a one-year affair. Despite the allies' best intentions, domestic political concerns could eventually weaken the resolve of the NATO countries to sustain their Balkan policing role.
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