NATO, KLA Have a Deal; Don't Bank on Peace

NATO may have reached another eleventh-hour compromise with the Kosovo Liberation Army, but the underlying tension between them over Kosovo’s future is far from resolved. KLA leaders signed an agreement Monday authorizing the disbanding of the guerrilla movement –- or more correctly, its transformation into a 5,000-member civil defense-style Kosovo Protection Corps. NATO had envisaged the corps as a National Guard equivalent to respond to civilian emergencies, but the KLA viewed it as the nucleus of a national army for the independent Kosovo to which they remain committed. Although NATO has restricted the Kosovo Corps to only 200 weapons, and the Western peacekeeping force has certified that the KLA handed over all weapons required by previous agreements, observers believe the transition is unlikely to stop violence in the province. Many of the weapons handed over were old and not particularly useful, and it has been anticipated that KLA hard-liners — some of whom have been involved in systematic mortar attacks on Serb villages — may choose to simply hide their arms and continue their independence war from the underground.

The real test of the agreement will come the next time NATO troops confront armed Albanian irregulars. KFOR commander General Sir Michael Jackson has warned that anyone contravening the ban on weapons in the territory will be dealt with harshly. Reining in militant ethnic-Albanian nationalists is only half of NATO’s problem. Yugoslavia and Russia complain that NATO has failed to honor its agreement to allow a small number of Serb forces back into Kosovo to police borders and guard sensitive sites, and alliance commanders fear that Belgrade may have decided to take matters into its own hands: NATO reported a number of incidents last week that point to activity by Serb paramilitary forces inside Kosovo, particularly around the disputed town of Mitrovica. With little sign that the underlying causes of the Kosovo war have abated, don’t expect those peacekeepers home any time soon.