POLS 2100 - The Kosovo Peacekeeping Mission 1

The Kosovo Peacekeeping Mission

Nathaniel Brown

International Relations
POLS 2100 - The Kosovo Peacekeeping Mission 2

Breakup in Yugoslavia.

During the 1980’s Yugoslavia was a country made up of different backgrounds, made up

of a majority of Muslims and Albanian descent and minority of Christians of Serbian

ethnicity. [ CITATION Kos181 \l 1033 ] After the fall of Yugoslavia, the new president of

Serbia Slobodan Milosevic stripped Kosovo of its autonomy in 1989. A War started

between Kosovo and Serbia between 1998-1999 where Serbia attempted to participate in

the ethnic cleansing of many Albanians but was stopped because of the NATO bombing

Campaign. [ CITATION Kos181 \l 1033 ]

In 1999 the U.N created the U.N Peacekeeping Mission in Kosovo to start a temporary

government to help Kosovo establish a democratic government with real authority and

capacity. It also mandated thousands of peacekeeping police and military officers to

disarm groups and maintain Kosovo’s Peace. The numbers for the Peacekeeping mission

has since decreased in size with the recent Declaration of Independence in 2008 with

Kosovo having 355 total active personnel as of April 2018 [ CITATION Kos181 \l 1033 ]

and relations between Kosovo and Serbia has since strengthened slightly after both

countries signed the Brussels Agreement in 2013. [ CITATION Kos181 \l 1033 ]

Life in Kosovo after the War.

Life in Kosovo after the war has been a continued struggle between the 1.8 million

citizens that live in Kosovo and the different perspectives that the majority Albanians and

the minority Serbians that live in the country.[ CITATION Kos18 \l 1033 ] The Serbian

government continues to threaten Kosovo’s security and while Kosovo has plans to create

an army to defend itself, the government is having trouble winning over support of the

Serbian minority in the parliament whose representatives oppose Kosovo forming an

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army.[ CITATION Kos18 \l 1033 ] The Kosovo government sees the Serbian politicians

as a threat because of their continued nationalist rhetoric threaten to destabilize the entire

region. Kosovo today has an unemployment rate around 33% and the average GDP per

person is around $3,660 which makes it the lowest in the entire region because Serbia

prevents any major investments in Kosovo.[ CITATION Kos18 \l 1033 ] because of the

threats and the fact Serbia and Russia doesn’t recognize Kosovo as an Independent state

and the companies that want to invest in Kosovo don’t want to risk their money and

investments in other countries that don’t support Kosovo[ CITATION Kos18 \l 1033 ]

and while wealthy tech CEO’s are encouraging the young citizens of Kosovo to learn new

technology and showing them that they are capable of making more money than $360 a

month the young people are either leaving the country to other places for better

opportunities or thinking about leaving which is a concern for the future of the country

and its economy. [ CITATION Kos18 \l 1033 ]

Solving the Kosovo Crisis

Finding a solution to this conflict in particular is hard because of the different

players that have a role such as Russia who backs Serbia in its constant harassment of

Kosovo, although the problem can be solved if the 5 members of the EU were to

recognize and support Kosovo instead of thinking that not supporting the country would

make Kosovo dissolve and Serbia would takeover.[ CITATION Kos18 \l 1033 ] The

people of Kosovo have only so much that they can do with the support that they do have

but that only goes so far. The Kosovo Crisis can be solved if Russia would allow foreign

investment in the country and stop supporting Serbia’s hostilities. An alternative to

relying on Russia would be asking the United States for more of involved role in
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rebuilding the old infrastructure and helping them make better investments that will help

the people of Kosovo. The war has ended years ago and Kosovo has yet to make any

improvement in its relations or economy and if Kosovo wants a better future for itself it

needs to match the rhetoric of Serbia and not allow the 5 EU countries to bully them and

start thinking out of the box and start rethinking their relationship with the U.N and start

making actual change because the young people are the ones who will save the country

but the country cant be saved if they are leaving in large amounts to other countries and

contributing to their economy and not the economy of Kosovo and that is how the

conflict could stabilize or make a much better attempt at solving the decade long crisis.
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References

Kosovo UNMIK Peacekeeping. (2018). Better World Campaign, 1.

Kosovo’s long, slow recovery. (2018). The Economist, 1.