The Road to Independence for Kosovo: A Chronicle of the Ahtisaari Plan.

• Author: Cohen, Alonit
• Position: Book review

HENRY H. PERRITT, JR., THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE FOR KOSOVO: A CHRONICLE OF THE AHTISAARI PLAN (2010).

In THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE FOR Kosovo: A CHRONICLE OF THE AHTISAARI PLAN, Professor Henry Perritt explains the Kosovar Albanians" desire for a state of their own and the process they, and the world, went through to get it. This book review will first introduce the history of Kosovo. This will be followed by a summary of Professor Perritt's description of the negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia and the legal issues considered; the plan that the negotiation team proposed to the Security Council and the Security Council's failure to implement it," and Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence in 2008. Finally, this review will discuss the weaknesses of the book, noting that Professor Perritt's tone and lack of sources leave the reader questioning whether the book presents an unbiased account of the dynamic and controversial events that occurred

1. THE RECENT HISTORY OF KOSOVO

   Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008, in accordance with the Ahtisaari Plan and with the support of the United States, most members of the European Union, and tens of other states. (1) The dynamic and violent history of this region in the last century, which led to Kosovo's declaration of independence, began when Kosovo became an "administrative region" of Serbia during the Kingdom of Yugoslavs between the world wars. After WWII, Kosovo had a similar status within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). (2) SFRY was made up of six republics: Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia; and two autonomous regions within Serbia: Kosovo and Vojvodina. Under the 1974 SFRY constitution, Yugoslavia gave Serbia's autonomous regions an increased limited sovereignty over their police forces, courts, and civil institutions. (3) However, in May of 1989, Slobodan Milosevic was elected president of Serbia, and immediately started reducing these freedoms. (4) As President, Milosevic controlled the Yugoslav People's Army during the violent break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990's, during which around 200,000 civilians were killed through ethnic cleansing and genocide. (5) In 1997, Milosevic stepped down as Serbia's president, in order to serve as the President of greater Yugoslavia. Just a year later, the conflict in Kosovo would begin.

   In the second half of the 20th century, Kosovo had a large ethnic majority of Kosovar Albanians, and a much smaller minority of ethnic Serbs. In 1989, President Milosevic introduced a system of martial law in Kosovo and stripped much of its political autonomy. (6) He instituted a policy of ethnic Serb dominance in industry, policymaking, teaching, the law and its enforcement. (7) Throughout the 1990s, young male Kosovar Albanians formed a guerrilla force, known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), to oppose the Serbs. (8)

   The KLA guerrilla forces initiated attacks against the Yugoslav National Forces in early 1998, to fight for the freedom of the Albanian Kosovars from Serbian oppression. (9) The Yugoslav National Forces responded by purposefully committing acts of ethnic cleansing against the Kosovar Albanians. (10) For the next year, NATO met with the Serbian government intermittently in an attempt to halt the atrocities in Kosovo. At the same time, NATO provided evacuation and relief aid to the Kosovar refugees. (11) In March of 1999, after the intensity of the attacks on civilians increased, United States Ambassador Richard Holbrooke independently met President Milosevic to persuade him to stop the attacks in Kosovo or face imminent NATO strikes. (12) When President Milosevic refused, NATO made the unanimous decision on March 23, 1999 to enter the region on behalf of the endangered civilians. (13) "The Alliance want[ed] to stop further serious, systematic human rights violations and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo." (14) NATO forces, entirely airborne, commenced a bombing campaign against the Yugolsav National Forces that lasted seventy-eight days. (15)

   On the final day of the bombing campaign, the United Nations (UN) Security Council adopted Resolution 1244 which demanded the end to all violence and repression by Yugoslavia in Kosovo and the withdrawal of all forces. (16) Russia, Serbia's close ally, sent its envoy Viktor S. Chemomyrdin to inform President Milosevic that "he had no choice but to accept the West's demands" and President Milosevic pulled his troops out of Kosovo. (17) In addition, Resolution 1244 authorized member states of the UN to establish two organizations within Kosovo: an international security presence, Kosovo Force (KFOR), (18) and an international civilian presence, known as the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). (19) UNMIK would act as a "transitional administration while establishing and overseeing the development of provisional democratic self-governing institutions to ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants in Kosovo." (20) Under UNMIK, this international civilian presence was authorized to facilitate "a political process designed to determine Kosovo's status." (21) At the time, the United Nations expected that Kosovo's "status" eventually...