PRESENTATION BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF
FINLAND, MR. MARTTI AHTISAARI TO THE ISRAELI COUNCIL
ON FOREIGN RELATIONS IN JERUSALEM ON 4.10.1999
MAKING PEACE IN KOSOVO
I am pleased to have
been given the opportunity to address just this
audience, and in just this city. This is an
especially appropriate place to assess the Kosovo
crisis and evaluate its lessons. I do not need to
explain to you how grave a crime against humanity is
involved when one section of the population is
persecuted because of its religion or ethnic
background. Nor, in a country of whose language the
best-known word is shalom, need I emphasise
the difficulty of searching for peace or tell you how
important it is to do so.
The Kosovo crisis was
not just a European crisis. It aroused strong
emotions and triggered a heated debate all over the
world. From the outset, the main issues in the debate
were whether the international community would have
to resort to the use of force to defend the people of
Kosovo and, if it had to, how it should go about it.
Nearly four months have passed since the end of the
NATO bombing campaign, but events in Kosovo are still
the focus of an intense international debate on
points of principle.
The scale of the
debate is easier to understand when we examine the
background to the crisis. A series of very dangerous
signals had emanated from the Balkans during the
decade now drawing to a close. The international
community had repeatedly had to intervene in the face
of arbitrary violence against other nationalities and
minorities. Kosovo was the last straw. If the
Yugoslav leadership had been given free hands to
implement its plans, the region would have become a
behavioural model with consequences from which all
would have suffered. The example would have sent a
very dubious message to other states in the region
which, as prospective members of the European Union,
should be treating their minorities with tolerance
and understanding rather than high-handedness and
violence.
Especially with a view
to crisis management in the future, it is important
that we examine – as carefully as possible
– the lessons to be learned from the Kosovo
crisis and its resolution.
The Balkan region has
been in the spotlight of international attention
throughout this decade. The disintegration of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia resulted in four armed
conflicts and immeasurable human suffering. Once
again before the turn of the millennium, we had to
witness what inciting hatred and intolerance can lead
to.
The Kosovo crisis
showed — unfortunately — that the use of
force by the international community in a
humanitarian intervention is not merely an academic
question. It involves a serious and complex matter,
to which we shall probably have to give a lot of
thought also in conjunction with many future crises.
How can we find common principles that the
international community can follow, and which will
enable us to avoid the mistakes of the past and
prevent flagrant and systematic violations of human
rights?
The issue of the
legitimacy of using force against the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia revolves around two central
principles of international law. On the one hand,
states are sovereign in their own territories, which
prevents other states from intervening in their
internal affairs. On the other, human rights are
universal and indivisible, and they do not depend on
which state’s territory a person lives in. When
an individual state flagrantly violates its own
citizens’ rights, the international community
has to ponder how these two principles relate to each
other.
UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan took up this theme in a recent speech to
the General Assembly. He said:
"If states bent
on criminal behaviour know that frontiers are not the
absolute defence, if they know that the Security
Council will take action to halt crimes against
humanity, then they will not embark on such a course
of action in expectation of sovereign impunity."
The most important
goal of humanitarian intervention is to prevent major
crimes against civilians. In the case of Kosovo, the
alternatives that NATO and the rest of the
international community had to choose between were
all bad. It was obvious that the use of force would
lead to victims among the Serbs. It was equally
obvious that there would be at least a temporary
intensification of direct violence against the
Kosovars and a stepping up of expulsions. Yet, the
scale of the refugee flows caused by the frenzy of
ethnic cleansing that followed the commencement of
air strikes took most observers by surprise.
My own perception was
and remains that the international community no
longer had any other options when the air strikes
began in late March. Military action had become
unavoidable. The situation in Kosovo had grown
intolerable. The leadership of the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia was not willing to accept any kind of
solution that would have prevented a deepening of the
crisis. Furthermore, the crisis looked set to cause
instability in the whole region if it were allowed to
continue. The failure of diplomatic efforts in
Rambouillet and the escalating violence against the
Kosovars ultimately led to force being used.
The decision to use
force was taken by the NATO countries. Finland is not
a member of the alliance, so we did not participate
in making the decision nor in the military action
that followed it. We did, however, make our views
known both through our own separate statements and in
those issued jointly by all members of the European
Union. Our position was clear: the responsibility for
the situation lay with the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, which had precipitated the crisis through
its own actions. When I addressed the Parliament of
Finland in late March, I said that ruthless violence
against the civilian population of one’s own
country could no longer be permitted in today’s
Europe. Now I would like to add that, naturally, the
same principle applies everywhere.
I regret for many
reasons that the decision to undertake military
measures could not be arrived at within the UN.
However, it was clear that the necessary Security
Council resolution could not be achieved.
Nevertheless, the international community must not
stand idly by and leave victims of oppressive actions
without protection.
By the beginning of
May the crisis had become more and more problematic
for the international community. The air strikes had
been in progress for several weeks, but it was
increasingly obvious that they alone would not lead
to a military solution. Although diplomatic efforts
had already failed once and individual contacts from
various quarters did not appear to be yielding
results, it became necessary to step up the search
for a diplomatic solution. It was at this stage that
I – as a representative of the European Union
– became involved in efforts to restore peace.
The suggestion that I
become involved came from others. My impression is
that the initiative emerged from the talks between
the Americans and the Russians in Washington in early
May. They considered it necessary to bring in a third
party. Soon after they contacted me, I discussed the
matter also with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
Germany held the EU Presidency at the time and the
Chancellor proposed that I represent the Union as a
whole in efforts to resolve the crisis. I saw this as
the only sensible solution.
Neither crises in the
Balkans nor international crisis management were
matters in relation to which I was a complete novice.
In the service of the United Nations and especially
while directing the operation that led to Namibian
independence, I had gained experience of many aspects
of crisis management. My personal experience of
Balkan issues dated from the early half of the 1990s,
when I performed a variety of tasks in efforts to
solve the war in Bosnia. Naturally, I considered it
my duty to agree to the request made to me in early
May. However, I did not consider my prospects to be
very promising.
Already during the
first round of contacts, it became evident that there
were substantial differences of view on the terms
that might form the basis for a solution. That was
what made it so important to get American, Russian
and EU representatives around the same table to
discuss their differences. Agreement between these
three parties and through it the unity of the
international community were indispensable
preconditions for a peace offer that could be
presented to the Yugoslav leadership and also gain
acceptance.
My approach in these
trilateral talks between the teams of American Deputy
Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, President
Yeltsin’s special envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin and
myself was simple: rather than becoming ensnarled in
questions of prestige, we would concentrate on issues
that were both practical and central. How to create
the conditions in which the refugees could return
safely? What kind of presence would the international
community have? How would the withdrawal of the
Serbian forces be effected? What would be the nature
of the interim international administration installed
in the region?
I had been convinced
from the outset that an international presence would
be credible only if it were based on contributions
from the core NATO countries and also NATO-led.
Otherwise the refugees would not dare to return to
their homes. It was equally obvious that it would not
be a traditional peacekeeping operation, but rather a
much more demanding exercise like the one in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Eventually, also the Russians
accepted these principles, or at least their core
elements.
The achievement of
agreement made it possible for me to go to Belgrade
with Viktor Chernomyrdin in the beginning of June.
Four weeks of constant hard work yielded fruit: there
was not the slightest disagreement between us in
Belgrade. We carefully outlined the content of the
peace offer to the Yugoslav political and military
leaders and, after we had replied to their questions,
they withdrew to consider their response. The
following day, the offer that we had brought was
presented to the Serbian Parliament and the Yugoslav
Federal Government, both of which accepted it. I do
not know for certain just why the Yugoslav leaders
accepted our offer, but I believe that a positive
answer would have been considerably more difficult to
obtain if the trilateral talks had failed to produce
a result.
Finding a peaceful
solution was, of course, only the first step in a
process with the ultimate aim of stabilising Kosovo
and the surrounding region. The real challenges
relate to rebuilding the economy there, creating
democratic administrative structures and
institutions, and bringing a functioning civil
society into being.
The creation of a
civilian administration has been entrusted to United
Nations. The task of the United Nations Interim
Administration in Kosovo is certainly not an enviable
one. I am only too familiar with the problems that
operations like it involve.
The arrangement of a
civilian administration in Kosovo has highlighted
many of the weaknesses in the present international
system. Of the 4,500 police that it is estimated will
be needed to restore law and order, only about 1,500
have been put in place more than two months after the
commencement of the operation. Trained police, judges
and officials should be at the disposal of the
international community and ready for deployment at
shorter notice than is now possible. That is because
regrettably many crises involve so-called
failed-state situations, in which the entire
apparatus of civilian administration has to be
rebuilt from scratch.
The biggest setback in
dealing with the aftermath of the Kosovo crisis to
date has been the failure of the international
community to convince the Serb minority that the
province is a safe place for them; indeed, most of
the Serbs have fled.
There is also a need
to coordinate the actions of international
organisations. The operations in both Bosnia and
Kosovo have shown that the effectiveness of
international efforts suffers when responsibility is
divided between several organisations. This has
caused both duplication in efforts and gaps in
coverage.
Thus the Kosovo crisis
has raised more than just questions of principle.
From the perspective of the international community,
there are also very practical problems to be
addressed.
A doctrine of
humanitarian intervention can not, naturally, be
formulated solely on the basis of the Kosovo crisis,
but it is obvious that the events in the province
will feature centrally in the debate on humanitarian
intervention and crisis management for a long time to
come.
I am aware that the
issue of NATO’s action relative to international
law is a complex one. The international community
invoked humanitarian reason to legitimise its use of
force. Respect for the principles of humanitarian
justice is an essential part of international law. It
is obvious that in the future humanitarian
considerations will weigh more heavily in the balance
when the international community is deliberating its
actions. States have signed up to international human
rights conventions, democracy has taken root in more
and more countries. That is why public opinion and
governments are increasingly resolute in defending
these fundamental values.
It is obvious that
governments which have been guilty of widespread and
grave violations of human rights must not enjoy
sovereign impunity to intervention by the
international community. In particularly blatant
cases, not even military intervention can be ruled
out. Sovereignty brings not only rights, but also
obligations.
Humanitarian
considerations were the main reason for launching the
operation in East Timor. As in Kosovo, widespread
violence was in progress there and large numbers of
people were being made refugees. In contrast with
Kosovo, however, the UN Security Council was able to
reach a consensus on the East Timor question and an
agreement providing for an international presence was
negotiated with the Indonesian Government.
Despite all the debate
that has gone on, the international community may
still face future situations involving a conflict
between formal legality and political and moral
legitimacy. Combining force and diplomacy will
continue to be a demanding and complex task.
Neither the Kosovo
crisis nor any other recent events have shaken the
fundamental structures of the international political
and legal order. But these structures will
nevertheless have to be developed to meet the demands
of the times.
The United Nations
Charter permits the use of force only in self-defence
or under a mandate from the Security Council. There
is no reason to change that arrangement, but its
effectiveness needs to be improved. It lies in the
interests of the entire international community
– and by no means least from the perspective of
small nations – that the Security Council regain
and preserve its capability as a guarantor of
international peace and security.
The Security Council
should strive to be consistent in its attitude to
crises and conflicts. This applies both to conflicts
between states and to humanitarian crises within
them.
Given the limited
nature of the UN’s own resources, it is also
possible to authorise regional organisations or
coalitions of individual states to act on behalf of
the international community. That has indeed happened
in recent years.
In all probability, a
regional dimension of this kind will become
increasingly important in the future. For that
reason, liaison and cooperation between the UN and
regional security systems must be improved and made
to function more effectively. One of the bodies in
which this work is being done is the OSCE. The
organisation plans to adopt a new security charter at
its next summit in Istanbul. This will set out the
basic ground rules and practical modalities to be
observed when institutions cooperate with each other
in preventing conflicts and sorting out their
aftermaths.
Our experience of
Kosovo and other recent crises shows that the
international system must be developed where both its
legal aspect and the implementation of operations are
concerned. We must strive for a system that is
sustainable, balanced and consistent in its
principles and which also implements operations
efficiently and fruitfully.
Something that I have
earlier proposed for consideration is that the
International Court of Justice be asked for an
advisory opinion when a crisis defies resolution. The
legal view presented by the Court with all its
prestige behind it could help the Security Council to
find the necessary political consensus in situations
where states faced the possibility of international
intervention because they were no longer capable of
protecting their citizens from armed violence or
willing to do so.
New ideas on how to
increase the efficiency of operations are likewise
needed on the implementation side. I have been
following with great interest the discussion on the
subject of increasing the UN’s opportunities to
take action to resolve both military and other types
of crises. It is obvious that the organisation’s
ability to act swiftly must be improved.
The Kosovo crisis and
other similar humanitarian catastrophes – as now
in East Timor – are difficult experiences from
the point of view of the international community.
However, they are most painful of all for the people
whose everyday lives they touch. The loss of
one’s home, violence, the deaths of relatives
and other cruelties cast a long shadow over the life
of an individual.
The most important
lesson of the Kosovo crisis is ultimately that those
political leaders who are planning ethnic cleansing
and to deprive their own citizens of their
fundamental rights can no longer be certain that the
international community will fail to react. However,
we have still a long way to go before the
international community acts consistently in all
comparable cases.
