La plus ca change . . . Now, a year after the fact, objective US observers
are getting the facts straight about the narcoterrorists calling themselves
the KLA.  Too late to prevent the wanton destruction of Serbia, but not too
late to prevent making the same mistake twice.
Peace,
Ken


      Kosovo: One Year Later
      0303 GMT, 000317
      Summary

      Nearly one year after NATO first intervened in Kosovo, it appears the
alliance has failed to fulfill its chief objectives, both in waging the war
and keeping the peace. Increasingly, Kosovo seems beyond the alliance’s
control as crime, weapons and drug trafficking resurface. Alliance forces
are now on the defensive against former allies within the ethnic Albanian
community; the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) now appear to
hold positions of considerable power. Nine months after the war, the West
faces a choice. It can increase its grip on Kosovo, committing more troops
and confronting the KLA, or the alliance can resign itself to losing control
of Kosovo.

      Analysis

      NATO’s war against Yugoslavia set a precedent at considerable cost. It
was the first instance of unilateral NATO intervention in a sovereign nation
during the alliance’s 50-year history. NATO sent more than 1,000 aircraft to
fly more than 38,000 sorties, at an eventual estimated cost of tens of
billions of dollars. The alliance deployed 38,000 peacekeepers, drawn from
28 countries, with no foreseeable end to their mission. Reconstruction has
barely begun and is expected to cost another $32 billion.

      But one year later, the alliance’s peacekeeping mission, known as
KFOR, is failing. Not only does ethnic violence persist, but the alliance
appears to be further losing control. The murder rate in the rural breakaway
province now equals that of the world’s largest cities. Sources on the
ground report that weapons are increasingly in the hands of former
guerrillas. NATO troops have come under attack by the ethnic Albanian
majority as well as the Serb minority. The alliance is steadily headed
toward a daunting choice. It must increase its grip on Kosovo or resign
itself to providing a garrison force that safeguards a tumultuous province,
which is effectively in the hands of the KLA.

      Kosovo’s State of Violence
      KFOR entered the province to fulfill three missions: to ensure safety,
enforce compliance with the June 1999 cease-fire agreements and temporarily
assist the United Nations with civilian functions, such as policing and
reconstruction. But Kosovo has steadily become an upside-down world of
reversed roles. The guerrillas were supposed to disarm and disband but have
in fact maintained a strong hold on power. Increasingly, KFOR troops are
defending themselves not just against remaining pockets of Serbs, but
apparently against their wartime allies in the KLA.

      It appears that elements of the guerrillas are orchestrating violence
that threatens international forces. Even Western military officials have
come grudgingly, though privately, to the conclusion that extremist elements
of the KLA are making a bid for outright independence. NATO troops were
stoned last October in the western city of Pec. The recent violence in the
northern city of Mitrovica included a grenade attack that wounded 17 KFOR
troops. In February, KFOR Cmdr. Gen. Klaus Reinhardt said, “When NATO came
into Kosovo we were only supposed to fight the Yugoslav army if they came
back uninvited. Now we’re finding we have to fight the Albanians.”

      Violent crime is falling but the largely rural province is far from
safe. In the southeast corner of Kosovo, the American sector, there were 615
incidents of hostile fire, 15 mortar attacks, 20 altercations with unruly
crowds, 129 grenade attacks and 58 landmine explosions – in the first six
months of peacekeeping, according to NATO figures. The murder rate for the
entire province has dropped from 127 murders per 100,000 people at the end
of the war to 23 murders per 100,000. Still, the murder rate of rural Kosovo
now equals the murder rate of Los Angeles, California – one of the world’s
largest and most densely populated cities.

      Under the June cease-fire agreement, the KLA was supposed to disband
and disarm, but there is evidence that former guerrillas now enjoy easy –
even sanctioned – access to weapons. Some 5,000 former KLA guerrillas have
joined the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), a sort of national guard for
emergency and disaster response. They are allowed to carry sidearms with the
proper permit cards. But the permit cards are being copied and distributed
to other former guerrillas, according to an international police source.

      The Power of the KLA and Drug Trafficking

      In many ways, the state of affairs in Kosovo is the result of a lack
of government. The United Nations has never had a complete plan to set up a
government; nine months after peacekeeping began there is none. In this
vacuum, the KLA has flourished.

      While the KLA was to have disbanded, two important wartime figures
remain at the core of the still existent KLA power structure. Hashim Thaci,
who led the KLA’s political wing and became the chief contact for the West,
is now Kosovo’s most important ethnic Albanian politician. The commander of
the KLA’s military wing, Agim Cequ, commands 5,000 former guerrillas who are
now in the Kosovo Protection Corps.

      The KLA is indebted to Balkan drug organizations that helped funnel
both cash and arms to the guerrillas before and after the conflict. Kosovo
is the heart of a heroin trafficking route that runs from Afghanistan
through Turkey and the Balkans and into Western Europe. It now appears that
the KLA must pay back the organized crime elements. This would in turn
create a surge in heroin trafficking in the coming months, just as it did
following the NATO occupation of Bosnia in the mid-1990s.

      Two to six tons of heroin, worth 12 times its weight in gold, moves
through Turkey toward Eastern Europe each month. The route connecting the
Taliban-run opium fields of Afghanistan to Western Europe’s heroin market is
worth an estimated $400 billion a year – and is dominated by the Kosovar
Albanians. This “Balkan Route” supplies 80 percent of Europe’s heroin.

      For the KLA, the Balkan Route is not only a way to ship heroin to
Europe for a massive profit, but it also acted as a conduit for weapons
filtering into the war-torn Balkans. The smugglers either trade drugs
directly for weapons or buy weapons with drug earnings in Albania, Bosnia,
Croatia, Cyprus, Italy, Montenegro, Switzerland or Turkey. The arsenal of
weapons smuggled into Kosovo has included: anti-aircraft missiles, assault
rifles, sniper rifles, mortars, shotguns, grenade launchers, anti-personnel
mines and infrared night vision gear, according to a NATO report cited in
the Washington Times in June 1999.

      There is already anecdotal evidence that the drug trade is flourishing
in Kosovo, in full view of international authorities. The bombed out,
unpaved streets of Kosovo are the new home to sleek European sports cars
with no license plates. There are 20 percent to 25 percent more cars in
Kosovo than there were before the war, according to an international police
official recently returned from several months in Kosovo. The refugees claim
Serbs took the plates, but the black Mercedes are signs of a prospering drug
trade.

      Beyond Kosovo
      Drug smuggling will make an impact beyond the Balkans and deep into
the rest of Europe. Ethnic Albanians are the predominant smugglers in the
Western European heroin market, according to Interpol data.

      Some 500,000 Kosovar Albanians live in Western Europe. Those living
off the heroin trade rely on clan loyalties to tightly control their
business partners. They gain access to Western European cities by exploiting
their reputation as refugees. This gives them a distinct advantage over the
Turks or Italians.

      Although Albanian speakers comprise about 1 percent of Europe’s 510
million residents, they made up 14 percent of all Europeans arrested for
heroin smuggling in 1997, according to Interpol. The average quantity of
heroin confiscated from arrested smugglers was two grams; ethnic Albanians
arrested for the same crime carried an average of 120 grams, the agency
said.

      The U.S. government has been – and likely continues to be – well aware
of the heroin trade coming through Kosovo, as well as the KLA connection.
Just two years before the war, the Clinton administration wanted national
security waivers for 14 countries – including Yugoslavia – in order to send
arms and stem drug trafficking. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency reported in
1998 that ethnic Albanian organizations in Kosovo are “second only to
Turkish gangs as the predominant heroin smugglers along the Balkan route.”

      Today, Kosovo poses for NATO an ironically similar problem to the one
it posed in 1999. Kosovo’s problems – smuggling, crime and violence –
threaten to spill out into the Balkan region. Tensions between the Serbs and
ethnic Albanians challenge stability in Montenegro and Serbia, the remaining
Yugoslav republics. The alliance must not only contain Kosovo’s problems,
but prevent renewed war between the KLA and Yugoslav forces in Serbia.

      Montenegro threatens to become the next hot spot as a result of the
Kosovo war. The province’s leadership has taken its cues from the
international community’s defense of Kosovo. Montenegrin President Milo
Djukanovic has announced that the West is ready to offer help in the event
of a Serb attack. Officials from the U.N. and human rights groups have made
increasingly loud requests for Western attention to Montenegro.

      NATO’s Next Move

      NATO now faces a dilemma. It must take control of the situation in
Kosovo by increasing its troop presence and confronting its former allies in
the KLA. Or the alliance can accept a role as vassal to the guerrillas,
essentially safeguarding Kosovo from a Serbian invasion. The guerrillas, in
turn, would run Kosovo as they see fit.

      Withdrawing altogether from Kosovo is out of the question; Yugoslav
forces would quickly pour into the province. The prospect of vastly
increasing forces is unpleasant. As it stands now NATO members are reluctant
to deploy even enough troops to meet the current mandate of 50,000
peacekeepers.

      To maintain control, though, the alliance must do more than increase
its presence; it must reconsider its allies in Kosovo. There are signs that
the West may play a longtime moderate, Ibrahim Rugova, against Thaci. During
his recent trip to Kosovo, State Department spokesman James Rubin met with
Rugova, the first high-level public contact between U.S. officials and
Rugova since he was abandoned last year. The prospect is stark. NATO would
have to crush the KLA, risking more violence and a public relations
nightmare.

      NATO’s other option is probably even more unappealing: handing the KLA
the keys to Kosovo. In such a scenario, the alliance would give ethnic
Albanian political and civil leaders – with a few Serbs thrown in to
demonstrate multi-ethnic governance – political control. But in fact the KLA
would retain the upper hand. Alliance troops would remain to safeguard
whatever state the former guerrillas choose to build.


"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
                          - M. Gandhi