Kosovo: Time for the Hard Decisions

Abstract

The average reader of a major U.S. newspaper in the last month or so, whose attention would be drawn to plans for military action against Iraq, violence in the West Bank, and the continuing hunt for al Qaeda, could be forgiven for missing an item buried somewhere on page 10 or 20. This brief article would have provided an account of recent demonstrations in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, against the U.N. Mission administering that province. The demonstrators' ire was raised by the arrest of over a dozen former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) fighters, on charges of having murdered fellow ethnic Albanians since the end the war in 1999. While these men will be tried by local U.N. courts, the protesters were well aware that the International Tribunal in The Hague is close to issuing its first indictments against ethnic Albanians for war crimes committed during the fighting, principally against Serb civilians. This item alone might not be of particular interest to most Americans, but it is an indication of far greater problems looming on the horizon.