After having spent a beautiful and relaxing evening at a lake in northern Kosovo on the Serbian border on Monday, we were picked up the next day by our UN bus for a long and stimulating day. That morning, we first met with UNMIK, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, which had officially administered Kosovo between 1999 and 2008 and is still present to this day in their regional office in Mitrovica. Since we had spoken with some organizations and people who were critical of the current UN presence in Kosovo, I went in quite wary about what we would hear. We were received by several women, of which two were interns who held a presentation on the trust-building and the projects they were carrying out in the region. Mostly they are community-based and focused on bringing together Serbs and Albanians through, for example, outdoor education camps, supporting language learning, and art therapy. Other projects target unemployment, gender-based violence, and inequality regarding Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian communities.
During the Q&A section of our talk, questions centered mostly on the necessity of a UN presence and the international influence on the mission. Technically, it is not up to UNMIK itself to decide whether they are dissolved; only the UN Security Council can end the mandate (initiated by resolution 1244) through a vote that China and Russia currently block. However, the people of the office defended the UN's presence. One outspoken woman who represented the office politically, stated that “Kosovo needs UNMIK” to face the international community and gain legitimacy and strength as a state. She also countered the idea that the UN’s mission was imperialist, saying that “we are not here to bring values that are not already here.”
This made me reflect on the relationship between the international community and the statehood of Kosovo. Many have argued that the success of the KLA/Kosovar independence movement rested on their aim and ability to draw in international backing from the U.S. and NATO. Similarly, while maybe imposing western liberal democracy and being problematically top-down, the UNMIK administration undeniably facilitated Kosovo’s declaration of independence by bringing international legitimacy and limiting renewed violence during the direct aftermath of the war.
Perhaps our discomfort was not necessarily caused by inherent problems of UN involvement in Kosovo, but by the fact that Kosovo is faring so well without a UN administration. After 2008 and 2013, UNMIK has had to adjust its mandate as Kosovo gained agency over its institutions, leaving UNMIK in charge of community projects very similar to some NGOs we had met in the previous days. In a way, they remind me of those parents we often complain about as students who have not yet recognized you can fend for yourself and awkwardly ask if you are sure you don’t want to bring your laundry over to their house. Of course, their investments are invaluable to those left behind in Kosovar society, like the Roma, unemployed youth, and victims of gender-based violence. In that sense, it might be too easy to write off any actions by the regional office today. But the UN missions’ presence is different from local NGOs in that it also has a symbolic presence, not only outwards to the international community but also to the Kosovar people. To them, UNMIK's presence signals that they are not yet recognized as a country that has full agency over its domestic affairs. No wonder then, that in the words of current president Vjosa Osmani “UNMIK has overstayed its welcome.”
After the meeting, we got a tour around the compound by one of the interns. We were led around the office where we had our meeting, and suddenly we stood eye to eye with a glistening brand-new building. Behind a large glass wall there was a gym and some offices. Then we walked up two sets of stairs and stepped onto a big rooftop terrace with a view over the desolate Trepca mining complex on one side and the lush green hills of the north on the other. Standing on the terrace, the intern told me that the building had opened just a few weeks ago and replaced containers that had been put there in a rush when the UN administration had to be set up right after the war. It was hard not to think of it as ironic that now that it is no longer all hands on deck, with its mandate and personnel shrinking every year, they decided to reaffirm their future presence by investing in a new office. They are really not ready to go yet.
*Please note that the blogposts are not appearing in chronological order of the days of the trip.
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