Verificator — What’s That?

American Envoy, Richard Holbrooke, convinced Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, among other things, to accept the coming of at most 2,000 unarmed verificators from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who will control the cease-fire, the return of refugees and the political process in Kosovo.  Verificators are up to now a completely unknown category in international participation in solving crises.  Who, then, are they and what will they do in Kosovo?

UNDERCOVER SOLDIERS: Following his agreement with Milosevic, Richard Holbrooke gave the following answer precisely to this question to Jim Lehrer on the American PBS television chain: “Anyone who wants to join should send an application to OSCE in Vienna.”

However, they are not quite volunteer groups which will be put together on the basis of a public competition.  Verificators — who should come together in about a month’s time according to the chief of the mission, Willian Walker — will mostly be undercover soldiers, whether on active duty, or retired.  As it was described in the western press, their job will be to uncover military, and not election frauds, and will be chosen on the basis of military knowledge and familiarity with local conditions, and it is interesting that among the required qualifications is cited the ability to “distinguish real refugees from those who merely pose.”  That is why many of them will be transferred from Bosnia to Kosovo, along with those with experience in Croatia.  There is mention that they will also include among their numbers diplomats, lawyers, policemen, informers, administrators, specialists for logistics and organization, members of NGO’s, mostly from European countries.  Members of the Contact Group (USA, Russia, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy) have agreed to send approximately the same number of verificators — between 150-200, and from among them only USA will send fewer of its people, around one hundred.  That is why the American have reserved for themselves top positions, as well as observation from the air and continuing the threat of air-strikes in the event that Milosevic brakes the agreement.  William Wlaker, “the Sheriff of Kosovo”, officially called the Chief of the OSCE Civilian Mission for Verification in Kosovo and Metohija, is an American career diplomat.  During his 37 year career at the State Department he was ambassador to San Salvador, Honduras, Bolivia, Brazil and Peru — important countries in the American sphere of influence, and he was also ambassador to Japan.  As Special Representative of the UN General Secretary, he headed the UN transitional administration in the Sermsko-Baranjska Region, and it is believed that the logistical experience which he gained there will prove invaluable in this mission.  Now, at the end of his career, he has been handed a territory in which the new life of NATO is being tested, along with the USA role of leader in the Blakans.

UNCLE, GOT SOME CASH? The chief of the preliminary thirty-member Mission, which arrived last week in Kosovo, is also an American — retired Air force General John Sendork.  A fellow reporter who was in Pristina at the time tells that on Sunday, around 1:00 p.m., a convoy of bright white jeeps, carrying that technical team, arrived in front of “Grand” Hotel.  The first several vehicles were immediately surrounded by journalists, while the first free jeep was assailed by a Gypsy beggar boy, who always sits in front of the Hotel.  He addressed the stunned foreigner with the traditional phrase “Uncle, got some cash,” to which the latter accordingly began to search his pockets, by security meanwhile removed the Gypsy boy.

What is this technical team supposed to do, being made up of Americans, Germans, Frenchmen and Norwegians?  “We are scouts who need to see what are all the things that are necessary for the coming of the verification mission,” stated Sendrok, explaining that all locations where verificators are scheduled to be places will be visited (Prizren and Pec have already been visited), that existing infrastructure will be examined, and that on the basis of all that it will be determined what needs to be brought and what the extent of the mission will be.

In order for some balance to be struck with the Americans, the Russian Minister of Defense, Igor Sergejev, announced on October 20 that a high-ranking Russian diplomat will be Deputy to the Chief of the the Mission, while another will be a representative of the European Union.  Sergejev also increased the number of Russian verificators to 250, instead of the 200 which were initially announced.

It is already known that among the British verificators will be Duncan Bullivant (33), who worked at the High Commissars Office in Sarajevo, and that the islanders contingent will be headed by General Drevjenkijevic (52), better known as “General DZ”, a former engineer in the British Army who spent 17 of the last 24 months in Bosnia constructing the SFOR General Staff: “We will not make the same mistakes as two years ago.  This time we will take the shorter path,” stated the General, according to the London Times.
HOLBROOKE’S CHOICE: And now, why are these people called verificators, and not, let us say, observers or monitors — as is more common?

It seems that this term was thought up and heralded by Richard Holbrooke.  As can be deciphered from western sources (our politicians have not said anything on that issue), verificators will not be only observers, bur rigorous international inspectors who will patrol the whole of Kosovo in armored vehicles and, with the help of NATO spy planes, will carefully follow what is happening there and how the Security Council Resolution 1199 is being followed.  They are unarmed and are designated a no-contact peace keeping mission, which means that in no way would they intervene in the event of renewed conflicts, but would simply — leave.

However, they are not mere passive observers.  According to the American Council for National Defense announcement, carried by the American Embassy in Belgrade, “the Mission on ground will not only secure international monitoring over all the elements of the Serbian forces, but will inspire the conviction of Kosovo Albanians through its broad presence, that they can return to their homes and accept a political settlement.”  That announcement also includes statements that Milosevic accepted “an intrusive regime of verification, including OSCE observers on ground and unlimited reconnaissance flights above Kosovo.

Thus, verificators — which the USA President called “watchdogs”— should be something more than observers, but something less than armed troops which would protect peace.  However, there are beliefs that it would be better for Milosevic to accept a classic military mission — for it would also have the obligation of curbing actions by the illegal KLA, and as it stands this job is left to the Serbian forces which have to withdraw from Kosovo.  Milosevic himself, after the agreement with Holbrooke, announced on October 13 that in the talks “there was special mention on the desire by the international community for establishing appropriate engagement which would ensure permanent monitoring and verification of the development of the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, and it was assessed that mutual understanding, reached at the end of yesterday, will permit for problems to be solved.  It was observed that this task should be assumed by the OSCE Mission.  Yugoslavia believes that this will help eliminate incorrect, false and ill spirited presentations of events in Kosovo and Metohija.”  Sergey Baburin, Vice-President of the Russian Sate Duma, also agrees with this, having said for Tanjug agency that “now the most important thing is for the West to finally stop orienting itself exclusively toward statements by Albanian extremists and to allow moderate representatives of Kosovo’s Albanians to come to the fore.  In this, especially in establishing dialogue, the OSCE Mission could play a positive role.”

NEW FORCES: The fundamental task of the verificators in this phase is to supervise the cease-fire and the withdrawal of the security forces from Kosovo.  According to the definition given by the OSCE Director for Resolving the Conflict, Marton Krasnai, to the Hungarian publication “Madiar Hirlap”, their principal task will be “to control the withdrawal of Serbian forces.”
The level of the Serbian armed force in the Region must be reduced, it will be remembered, to the level prior to February 28, when the offensive against KLA began (although it has not been defined anywhere what this means in actual figures).  The Yugoslav authorities are claiming that this is precisely what they are doing, while verificators, according to Spokesman James Rubin, will “ensure confirmation of the Yugoslav Government’s claims about withdrawal.”  For this they will have ample opportunity.  According to the text of the agreement concerning the OSCE mission for verification in Kosovo, Bronjislav Geremek and the Yugoslav Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zivadin Jovanovic, the mission will, among other things, “travel throughout Kosmet in order to verify that everyone is observing the cease-fire” and will “investigate reports about breaching of the cease-fire.”  Then, “every week they will receive information from authorized headquarters of the FRY/Serbian Army and Police in Kosmet in connection with movements of armed forces during the previous week on Kosmet, from Kosmet and within the region itself;” “the Mission for verification will visit the border patrol units, at the request of FRY officials or at their own initiative, and will accompany them while they perform their usual duties of patrolling the border;” “the Mission will have opportunity to accompany police units, responding to the police reqest or at their own initiative, in Kosmet while they perform their usual duties.”

Beside that, the Mission will “to the  degree that this is possible” help out UNHCR, ICRC and other international organizations in facilitating the return of refugees, and will offer them humanitarian aid, and will at the same time verify the extent of cooperation and support which FRY will offer to the humanitarian organizations and accredited non-government agencies.  Once a political solution is reached, the Mission will supervise the election, the creation of institutions in Kosmet, and the creation and development of a regional police force.

WHO THEY REPORT TO: Who will the Mission report its verification results to?  According to the Geremek-Jovanovic agreement, verificators will report to the OSCE Permanent Council, the UN Security Council and “other organizations” on cases of progress in and/or violation (of Resolution 1199).
At the time that this issue of VREME is scheduled to go to press, the Security Council will adopt a new resolution which will confirm the Geremek-Jovanovic and Perisic-Clark agreements, and will confirm the mandate of and politically support the OSCE Mission — thus putting what Milosevic and Holbrooke negotiated within the contours of international legal procedures.

At this moment it is still under question whether the new resolution will include an article on the application of force in the event that violations of what was agreed occur, because the Russians are strongly against this.  However, it is completely clear that air strikes against Yugoslavia would be internationally illegal without appropriate Security Council resolutions — regardless of what the verificators might report on the situation in Kosovo.

It is interesting to pause for a moment on the “other organizations” which will, according to the Geremek-Jovanovic agreement, be reported to by the verificators regarding their findings.  Certain western media, for instance the International Herald Tribune claim that the fundamental obligation of the verificators is to report to NATO, that they should represent “the eyes and ears of NATO.”  However, Melissa Flemming, OSCE Spokesperson, stated for VREME that no such agreement exists between those two organizations, but that the Mission will be “in close contact with NATO,” and that the western military alliance will be “very aware of what we are doing there.”  Still, in practice, all this can be solved easily, because all NATO nations are at the same time members of OSCE (which is made up of all the countries of Europe, except for Yugoslavia, which was suspended in 1992 because of the war in Bosnia, of USA and Canada — 53 states in total).

OVERLAPPING: In general, one of the problems of the Mission is that it will be the watershed for fairly undefined relations between the UN, OSCE, EU and NATO.  The majority of analysts believes that the task of verification has been granted to OSCE because this is more acceptable both to the Russians and to Yugoslava, than if NATO were to be in charge of the matter, which according to the UN General Principles could also have been possible.  However, questions were immediately raised as to OSCE capabilities in organizing such a large and complicated Mission.  “OSCE never did anything of this sort, but we will ensure that this really gets done,” stated Holbrooke in the mentioned PBS interview.

What, after all, are the OSCE capacities in this case?  First of all, it should be noted that this organization is no longer what it used to be when it was created seventy years ago with the principal objective of promoting detente.  In the period of blocks, it really was an independent organization where agreements were negotiated between the east and the west, but now with the disappearance of blocks its nature and role have changed.  It is a fact that now it could sooner be said that it is entrusted with different missions (to send observers every which way, to organize and supervise elections, as in Bosnia, to organize conferences on disarmament, as in Bosnia) than it is actually independent.  It is true that OSCE has acquired rich experience in managing political tensions and ethnic conflicts in countries which are in transition (they managed elections in the Caucasus, the Baltic States, the Balkans), which will be of great use in the verification task taken up in Kosovo.  However, this in Kosovo is a complex job, while OSCE has at its disposal limited capacities in Vienna.  Since, by contrast with the UN, it has no need for official and institutional infrastructure, it borrows personnel for bigger jobs.  Thus, it is evident that OSCE will depend on NATO and the European Union (all members of the Contact Group are part of OSCE), and that there will be conflation and overlapping with outspoken American diplomacy.

To the question whether they are worried that Kosovo, like Bosnia, can become yet another American protectorate in the Balkans, Thomas Pickering, American Deputy State Secretary for Political Issues, answered in an interview for “The Voice of America” in these terms: “I do not believe that.  First, I don’t think that we are sending ground troops there.  Neither is NATO doing this.  NATO can have forces in the Region which will aid in getting verificators out of heat, should that happen, which would swing the door wide open for engaging the air force with the objective of carrying through the agreement.  But this situation can hardly be compared to Bosnia,” stated Pickering, pointing out that neither is there an American protectorate in Bosnia.

Hague on Thin Ice

Slobodan Milosevic and Richard Holbrooke also spoke about the cooperation between Yugoslavia and the Hague Tribunal, but it seems that in this part of their discussion they saw least eye to eye.

Chief Prosecutor of the Tribunal, Louise Arbour, stated last week that she was informed that Ambassador Holbrooke did not manage to get any concession from Milosevic in regard to the Tribunal’s jurisdictions over occurrences in Kosovo.

The Tribunal, which had been formed for the entire territory of the former Yugoslavia (and is called the International Tribunal for War Crimes in the former Yugoslavia), believes that its jurisdiction unquestionably extends to include Kosovo.

Milosevic allowed that the Hague investigators be issued three more visas, so that according to information which VREME received form the Tribunal itself, a total of around ten people from the Prosecutor’s office hold visas.  They should investigate war crimes committed by both sides in Kosovo, but will most likely, as we were told, come to Yugoslavia only by the beginning of November.  Louise Arbour announced that she will personally head the team of investigators in Kosovo, but we were unable to find out from the Tribunal whether she managed to get a visa.  According to the UN Office announcement, the Tribunal’s President, Gabriel Kirk McDonald will also arrive to FRY on November 4.

Despite the fact that war crimes certainly did occur in Kosovo, the attitude of the authorities for now approximately boils to this: come all you like and investigate all you like, but we do not commit to accepting the results of your investigations or to act according to them.