The Balkans: The UN
Reflections on Kosovo: Part II
By D.W.

My seven month tour in Kosovo taught me a lot about the world and it shattered some of my collegiate naivety. It was the first time I had contact with pure violence, genocidal racism and real hatred. Luckily, it is pretty difficult to find these evils in the United States unless you hang out in extreme groups. But even then, the Klu Klux Klan and similar groups are more talk than action, which is generally isolated and petty. I also learned a lot international about organizations that contradicted the perceptions I picked up in school, especially about the United Nations.

During my tour I had plenty of contact with United Nations officials in both in an unofficial and in official capacity. The U.N. is a sacred cow to many internationalists and they write and speak of it with such idealism and admiration. However, interacting with actual U.N. employees in the field is much different than watching debates on television or reading about them in the paper. Incidentally, I have only had contact with samples of the organization but they do provide an interesting insight into the U.N.

You can’t really understand the character of an organization until you see how a broad variety of its rank and file people operate on a daily basis out of the spotlight. Their behaviors and attitudes reflect the true nature of that organization’s culture and its leadership. Private sector companies are the same way; employee concern for customer service when the boss is not around reflects how that company values it.

I have largely come to the conclusion that many U.N. employees are not the altruistic do-gooders that they are often portrayed to be. My experiences in Iraq berate this premise too but that is a different environment. Most importantly, other soldiers who served in Kosovo at different times often drew the same conclusion. Of course, the various scandals at the U.N. Headquarters may give some insight into the organization’s leadership climate.
 

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In Kosovo, many U.N. employees were often petty bureaucrats living high on the hog in a third world country and loving every minute of it. They would often brag about what big apartments they were living in and how they were looking forward to their next paid vacation in Macedonia. Some employees, especially the Europeans, didn’t want to leave and forfeit their advantage with Kosovar women. Soldiers also tried to pick up local women, but since it was forbidden they didn’t have much success.

The UN bureaucrats drove around in expensive Land Rovers with leather seats and all kinds of plush features. These vehicles also had a habit of getting stolen, which made me question the value of buying them over less expensive transportation with fewer amenities. They certainly didn’t need them to get around as lesser four wheel drive vehicles were adequate. They could have spent this money on more important things like local economic development.

They also spent a lot of their time hanging out in cafes accosting local women and flaunting their wealth.

Whenever we tried to visit with U.N. officials, provided that they were around which wasn’t very often, they were mostly uncooperative. We would request their help on some program or try to get some information for a civic project and we usually left empty handed. They didn’t seem interested in cooperating with us to achieve the goals for the area. They would make bogus excuses about why something couldn’t be done as opposed to how they could actually help. Success of the NATO mission was theoretically linked to the U.N.’s success so why shouldn’t they be interested in cooperation.

I am not saying that U.N. employees should live in poverty with meager pay. They too are sacrificing first world comforts to serve in a third world country. And I am also not saying that there are not some U.N. employees who are dedicated hardworking people. However, the many that I worked with just didn’t act as if they really cared about the province. More importantly, they didn’t project the attitude that they wanted to develop the place to a point where the U.N. could actually someday leave. Like typical many bureaucratic agencies, Kosovo’s dependence on the U.N. justified their employment and they really liked their jobs.

On the other hand, American soldiers told the locals that they would only be there as long as they were needed. It was actually a motivational tool to deter violence as we would tell them that if they stopped attacking each other then we could leave. We also acted like we did care about making improvements for the people by responding to their collective needs as best as we could. We had money for civil affairs projects and we spent all of it on tangible and practical improvements. We also interacted with the Kosovars and let them know we were concerned. When they complained about the U.N., we let them know.

The only real bright spot in the U.N.’s presence was their police mission, which I thought was top notch. I am a little upset that we didn’t try to copy it when we first went into Iraq. The program was filled with cops from all over the world who were recruited and paid by their respective countries; so they weren’t really U.N. employees per se. However, American and European cops seemed to be running it and held leadership positions. The UNMIK-P’s, as they were known, took an aggressive approach to recruiting and training Kosovars to be police officers and tangible improvements were being made in the quality of the police force.

When I left Kosovo, some KPS officers were making arrests and standing up to crime without supervision of a U.N. police officer or NATO troops. The police service also promoted officers on merit, which is a foreign concept in most third world countries. In Gnjilane where I was stationed, there was quite a stir when an Albanian woman was promoted to sergeant. I asked the police chief, who was a no-nonsense cop from Detroit, if it was a political move and he told me that she was his best cop hands down. Interestingly, the U.N. police officers from third world countries were very often no better than their trainees and were known to commit crimes themselves.

I understand that the U.N. did have a bigger interest in projects at the macro level as nation building was their priority. They did sponsor de-mining missions and funded critical infrastructure repair. I was not privy to the dealings of higher level officials and I cannot speak for their effectiveness. I am sure that they did play some positive roles in the province. However, I didn’t see much of their results and neither did the average Kosovar who thought they were more of an impediment to their progress.

I will say that from the limited contact I had with the European Union and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe officials, that they were more concerned about nation building. Kosovo and the rest of the Balkans is European and the EU eventually wants to integrate this region into the European mainstream. These organizations had more to gain from the success of their mission as they had a clear endstate.

In some ways I can’t blame the U.N. bureaucrats as the U.N. didn’t clearly state what their mission was or they just didn’t tell anyone about it. The unspoken or underlying assumption was that Kosovo would eventually be either independent or autonomous. The U.N. conveniently avoided this topic despite the fact that it was the paramount issue for Kosovars. When you would ask the U.N. employees there what the mission and endstate was they would spew out some politically correct talking points that skirted around the issue, which was not what the Kosovars had in mind.

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