State-Building in Kosovo by Capussela Andrea Lorenzo

Author:Capussela, Andrea Lorenzo
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857738882
Publisher: I.B. Tauris

The means and the organization of violence

An important condition for sustainably improving governance in Kosovo within the necessarily limited timeframe of its international supervision was a significant reduction of the military power of the elite, which lay also in the ‘large availability of any kind of weapon’.7 This consideration does not emerge from either the official documents or the literature, both of which describe the threat posed by the diffusion of weapons without noting its impact on Kosovo’s political development.8 The gravity of the problem was not underestimated, though. In 2008 the European Commission qualified it as ‘a very serious’ one, and an ad hoc study commissioned by the EU in 2006 judged that the at least 317,000 unregistered firearms still existing in Kosovo posed ‘a fundamental challenge’ to its stability.9 This was a polymorphous challenge, however, because such arms were held by organized crime and groups of former guerrillas as well as by ordinary citizens, for distinct purposes and posing different threats.

Ruled by governments that were generally perceived as either hostile or unable to guarantee order and security, the population of Kosovo had for centuries viewed the possession of weapons as essential for its protection. Self-defence again became an acute necessity during the repression of the 1990s, in the course of which the stock of firearms was both increased and improved by the flow of weapons drawn from the arsenals of the Albanian army, pillaged during the civil unrest of 1997.10 The seizure and collection campaigns undertaken after the 1999 conflict yielded grossly insufficient results – as of 2006 a mere 3.5 per cent of the estimated stock had been collected11 – not only because KFOR and UNMIK acted weakly, as we have noted, but also because former guerrillas and citizens alike held on to their weapons in anticipation of the risk that the sovereignty of Serbia might be restored at the end of the UN protectorate. Consequently, the independence of Kosovo – contested but clearly irreversible – created favourable conditions for a renewed attempt to collect unregistered weapons through amnesties or similar measures. Independence did not change the incentives of organized crime and the former guerrilla networks, conversely, because they possessed firearms as instruments of crime or as means to buttress the power of the various factions of the elite. Removing their weapons would have required a determined campaign of inspections and seizures.

A comprehensive strategy to centralize the use of force under the political institutions therefore had to include disarmament, law enforcement and political measures. Given the scale of the challenge the primary responsibility fell on KFOR, which had the necessary powers under both resolution 1244 and the confiscation provisions of the KLA demilitarization pledge, and the necessary strength: a force of about 16,000 in 2008, and one or two ready-to-deploy regiments stationed in Western Europe.12 In parallel, Eulex and the ICO were to assist Kosovo’s authorities in formulating and implementing appropriate policies to collect unregistered weapons and repress their trade and possession. Over and above their specific

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