Missed Opportunities, Lessons For The Future
by Lesley Abdela
Lesley Abdela's whole Kosovo report
Terms Of Reference
This report is based on observations and experiences of Lesley Abdela acting as 'Deputy-Director,
Democratisation' and 'Head - NGOs, Civil-Society Building' for the OSCE Mission-Kosovo through the Autumn of
1999.The UN and OSCE in Kosovo were allocated joint responsibility for setting up and running the Civil
Administration and building Democracy and human rights.
The report is intended to prompt the setting up of a group to examine: What worked and what did not work in the post-conflict
situation in Kosovo and what would help things work better in future post-conflict missions. The group would need funding and a secretariat.
It could save billions of pounds if the Kosovo experience is properly analysed and lessons learned.
There will be many a further Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone in the years ahead. I would be keen to be
involved on a team to help find these solutions (if it was felt my services could be of use).
Key questions that need further examination and are touched on in this report are:
What would be the best structures and vehicles in future post-conflict situations to fulfil tasks of building democracy,
human rights, free media, good governance, and society with law and order? Are organisations such as OSCE
and UN, which were originally conceived for international conferences, capable of changing their spots
sufficiently to be effective for Democracy-building in post-conflict situations?
The fundamental difference between the traditional abilities of the OSCE and the task that it has been
asked to take on in Kosovo may have been at the root of generating appalling problems.
Background
I arrived in Pristina at the end of August 1999. At that time the Kosovars mostly saw the international
community as a liberating force. The international community was busily trying to assemble staff and mobilise.
Among the indigenous Kosovar Albanian population there was widespread optimism for the future. People had reopened shops and cafes and were fast rebuilding their homes (when they could get the building materials). To my surprise there did not even appear to be problems of law and order. I felt safer walking around Pristina in the evening than walking around London. There were plenty of local women walking about to shops and cafes in the evenings.
By mid-December it was clear the international community was fast losing credibility and had squandered its honeymoon
period, producing few results and acting in a cumbersome, clumsy and bureaucratic manner.
The OSCE and the UN seemed poorly equipped in terms of planning, capacity, infrastructure, and more
importantly in capability and culture to deal with such a dynamic situation.
The large international organisations failed to produce virtually anything tangible for the local population
in democratisation, justice, law and order, local government administration or even sufficient winterisation
supplies. Hardly any progress had been made in the democratisation process. The crime rate increased
dramatically and women were regularly being kidnapped (estimated 5 a week from Pristina). I no longer saw
women out after dark because they were now too afraid. I heard reports came from usually reliable sources
that lack of sufficient and properly trained international police meant that by the Albanian border girls
of 16 were being kidnapped from their beds.
The tension and revenge killings between ethnic groups was escalating. Law and order broke down.
Tales of intimidation and shoot-outs between rival criminal gangs had become part of everyday life.
The first Kosovar police cadets were on a pay-scale that was too low. Police pay was around DM298 a month.
By contrast, an OSCE driver's pay was DM1000 a month.
In reality the international community did not manage to pay the police cadets for weeks (possibly months).
This naturally created unrest. The International police trainers privately expressed grave concern that
producing a police force that was paid too little and paid late would lead to a police service that would
survive on bribery and extortion, so evident elsewhere in the world.
The OSCE were supposed to be building a free Media. The local population felt it was such a propaganda
station for UNMIK they nicknamed it 'UNMIK' TV. Kosovar Albanians said if they wanted some semblance of
truth about events in Kosovo they tuned to (Albania's) Tirana TV rather than UNMIK TV.
Introduction
The situation among the Kosovan population is fast moving but the design of the UNMIK system and of OSCE
itself has encumbered and delayed the activities of the international community, preventing rather than
enabling people from producing good results in the tasks they are asked to undertake. The current system
has produced a sclerosis. It is a lumbering elephant of a system which leads to the international community
continually being wrong-footed by the local population.
The initiative was lost during the initial months after the bombing. Much of this was due to a fundamental
failing by the key UNMIK agencies to have the capacity to react suitably to the unique situation of a
post-conflict scenario. It requires urgent responses from experienced professionals producing tangible
results that the local population want and feel involved in producing. Unless locals feel 'ownership'
of any outcomes and see results (however minor) they will not trust in the UN for outcomes. They will
not 'wait for UNMIK', they will find their own means of achieving results through alternative power-brokers.
This is not a situation like that faced by established civil-services where directors can gradually learn
new remits and 'sit-out' short-term problems safe in the knowledge that support will return with long-term
results.
If there is no short-term success, it will be very hard to get long-term success.
The local population has felt impeded rather than liberated by UNMIK despite UNMIK's remit. Part of the
problem was/is the Kosovar population and community leaders felt/feel completely excluded from the process of
trying to find new solutions. They were neither employed - other than as drivers and interpreters - nor
consulted.
A Kosovar delegate at a meeting I attended of sixty NGO leaders said: "You 'internationals' are polluting our
air and clogging up our roads with all your white vehicles. You refuse to employ us as professionals in
your organisations. There are thousands of you. You all make promises but we neither see action from you
'internationals' nor do you provide us with funds to get on with things ourselves."
A frustrated or unhappy populace inevitably turns to alternative power brokers and fixers to achieve what
the international organisations have failed to do. It was not hard for militant and criminal elements to
increase support for the view that 'this is our country now, it's time you foreigners left'. In December
the international police noticed a pattern of increased activity by the UCK to get the Internationals to leave.
The slowness with which the International Community moved with regard to the 29 Municipalities had
serious effects which - if not somehow salvaged quickly - could kill any hope of building a democratic
system. The UN were supposed to be running the Municipalities - the OSCE were supposed to be training
the staff local staff in the Municipalities.
The self-proclaimed interim Government of Hashim Thaci and the UCK operated a swift take-over of
political and administrative power in most of the 29 Municipalities. The OSCE Democratisation department
and UN creaked so slowly into action that in the void the UCK and LDK have taken over the Municipalities
as self appointed mayors. In a number of instances extreme elements in the UCK are using nasty methods
of intimidation in the way they run things.
In January 2000 the UN administration appointed a new Transitional Governing Council. A police officer
with the international police force in Kosovo commented: "The creation of the new joint administration
initiatives between the U.N. and the various political factions here have a number of people very
concerned. The TMK is a certified, bona fide gang of thieves, with links to organized crime elements
throughout Europe, Asia and North America. They are extremely dangerous people. The TMK is the KLA/UCK in
a two-piece Italian suit, sitting down to dinner with the CIA and Dr. Kouchner. They will be the
ultimate winners in this charade that's going on over here. It would be laughable to turn an entire
country over to such a gang of thugs if it wasn't so sad for the common people who have to live here."
The respect for NATO still mostly remains but Kosovars increasingly now see the OSCE and UN as an
incompetent occupying force messing up their future. The Kosovars are transferring their support to the
UCK to get things done.
Brain Hopkinson of The International Crisis Group (ICG) published a report in October 1999 titled
'Waiting for UNMIK': 'UNMIK's administrators have arrived late in their assigned Municipality, with
little clear guidance about the job facing them and the circumstances they would be working in. Lack
of funding and personnel leaves them in a position where they continually have to improvise, while
still waiting for guidelines from HQ in Pristina. They are in many cases forced to tell the
self-proclaimed Albanian communal authorities, which they cannot formally recognise but must work
with in a day to day basis, to wait a little longer. The waiting is then handed down to the population,
which remains unserved and unserviced into the fifth month. Impatience can be observed at every level.'
Strengths Of The Current Situation In Kosovo
Size
Kosovo is a province about the size of a British county with a population of
less than 2 million people situated within three and a half hours flying time of
most of Western Europe. This is not in any way a vast country like Nigeria with
over 100 different languages. Given proper organisation, proper commitment, and
proper resources it ought logistically to be 'a winnable constituency'.
There Are Pockets Of Professional And Expert Staff Capable Of A Great Deal
A number of OSCE participating States seconded experienced professionals and experts in
their fields: Media, police training, human rights, law and judiciary, democratisation.
On arrival in Kosovo a number of these senior and experienced professionals have found
themselves stymied by the system. Nonetheless, experts are still in place. Their
talents could be liberated to achieve a great deal.
The Local Population Work Hard And Are Ingenious At Making Things Work Again -
They Are Capable Of Being The Most Powerful Motors For Change In Kosovo
One big difference between the Kosovar and Bosnian situation is that in Bosnia
many of the educated professionals had left for other countries and did not return.
However in Kosovo most of the professionals and educated people have returned and are
keen to be part of the rebuilding process.
Many Kosovans are self-starters accustomed to organising. For ten years they ran their
own alternative schools and alternative society. They even paid a voluntary tax to
fund these community activities.
The challenge is how to turn the international organisations into facilitators for
these motors for change. The local population increasingly view UNMIK not as
'compadres' but impediments (with justification.)
'Needs Assessment For Democratisation'
The impressive and practical 'Needs Assessment' produced by the Norwegian Foreign Office
at the start of the OSCE Mission identified key goals and means for achieving them.
It should provide a basis for trying to examine how the actions have differed from the
reality, and why.
Kosovo - Problems And Potential Solutions
- Inadequate resources allocated for the key aims of the international intervention
- Words not being matched with actions by donor contributing states
- The difference between 'growing' democracy from the grassroots and organising show-piece elections
- Ignoring the needs of women
- Erratic standards of international police
Many Kosovars have been 'dissidents' for the past decade or more. People from the
international community dealing with democracy-building failed to understand this culture
and therefore failed to empathise with the 'dissident' mentality, something they needed to
do if they were to harness all the energy and get results. Consequently the international
community failed to produce tangible results that affect everyday lives fast enough.
Inadequate Resources Allocated For The Key Aims Of the International Intervention
Democracy and human rights were placed at the centre of justification for the war. For
this to be maintained with any honesty, the process of democratisation must be given the utmost
importance. At the moment I do not believe that this is the case.
Overall, it cost an estimated Sterling £15 billion to bomb the region. Sterling £2 million was
allocated initially as the budget for the OSCE Democratisation programme. A sum
amounting to approximately £1 per head of the Kosovar population is frankly unrealistic for
such a massive task. While certainly accepting that Democratisation is wider than just the
department I worked for, the OSCE Democratisation Department was meant to be the key to
increasing grass-roots participation and the establishment of democracy in its widest sense,
including the development of Civil Society NGOs and democratic political Parties. A budget
equal to £1 per person per annum does not send the right signals that democratisation was
being taken seriously. 21st Century democracy-building is an accelerating, people-centred
process that requires high money in-puts. It cannot be achieved on the cheap. It should
not remain the underfunded step-sister of the physical world of building or rebuilding
the infrastructure and economy. To be truly effective, Democracy programmes need to
be 'front-loaded' so that the process of establishing democracy can literally leap
from the starting-block.
Solution:
- Given sufficient resources and a long term commitment, it may be possible to nurture and grow
democracy despite a history of autocracy.
- Increased resources for departments or NGOs key to helping to grow participatory democracy.
This can be allocated for NGOs, International organisations, or whatever vehicles are deemed most
appropriate.
- Democracy-building should be viewed as a long-term commitment. It is crucial the impetus
for democracy building is not allowed to grind to a halt after the first election.
To build solid foundations, democracy-building activities will need to continue over a 3-4
election period. The financial resources (probably equivalent to the cost of rebuilding one
bridge across the Danube) need to be made available to the conflict-prone Eastern Adriatic
or the process will fail to achieve its goals, to bring SE Europe into the European family of
nations as democracies and trading partners. Democracy and civil society are fragile flowers
which need a great deal of nurturing.
Words Not Being Matched With Actions By Donor Contributing States
Funding was spasmodic and unpredictable. Many countries and international organisations had
offered funds and resources. A number of the financial contributors were slow to follow up on
their financial commitments. This hampered efforts by the main agencies to get up to speed
(due literally to not having the cash for wages, infrastructure investment etc).
The longer the time spent trying to juggle funds, the more of the initial window
of opportunity, when much of the local population was filled with hope and determination,
was lost.
There was a keen awareness in OSCE that governments often allocate funds to emergencies
from a finite pool of resources. Senior personnel were concerned that resources earmarked
for Kosovo could just as easily be re-allocated elsewhere instead. When East Timor started
to make bigger headlines, agencies became noticeably jumpy, feeling they needed to try to
capture the international imagination again or their resources may be diverted to the next
Media-sexy emergency. Perhaps in an effort to counter this, people at the top of the
international organisations put a priority on finding large buildings such as the police
training school, Political Party service centre, local government training academy etc.,
ahead of grass-roots, practical but less glamorous development work.
Solution
Initial commitments by nations should be matched with a firm promise of what funds will be
made available and at what stage. It is crucial for agencies to know what funds they will
have in the initial, capital intensive set-up phases, and to know that they can rely
on it arriving on time.
The Difference Between 'Growing' Democracy From The Grassroots And Organising Show-Piece
Elections Kosovo is a small community and local people know who have connections to
criminal elements. Decent honest people in the Kosovar community have watched in amazement
and horror at some of the Kosovans who have been given power and legitimacy in posts
in politics and public life by people at the top of UN and OSCE.
You cannot just drop 'democracy' on top of a society not designed to sustain it.
Immediately trying to transfer power to existing networks and power brokers does not engender
real democracy. The incumbency advantage can mean that new, fresh players may never again
get the same opportunities to enter the political system and challenge the status quo. We
have witnessed the results in a number of countries such as in Central and Eastern Europe
where the population felt alienated from the system early on when they found power being
wielded from a distance without knowing what to do about it or what role they could play
in reforming/challenging it.
During the changes in the late 1980s and early '90s in Central and Eastern Europe too
little was done to make citizens aware of their rights and responsibilities under democratic
systems and to inform them of what role they can (and should) play to help their systems
develop. This contrasts with post-war Germany where education in democracy and grooming
new leaders went on for at least 4 years before even local elections were held.
Democracy can only flourish within an infrastructure trusted by the people to the point it
is imbued into the whole of society. This includes an independent judiciary, a
democratically accountable police service, independent Media, accountable and
transparent political Parties, demonstrable standards of probity in politics and public
life, flourishing civil society, and a public who understand and are committed to
civil rights and civic responsibilities.
The most serious error made by the international community in the wake of the collapse
of Communism was to start by investing large resources in building free-market economies
in the former Soviet Union, particularly Russia, without sufficient attention to
democracy-building. It has proved a well-intended effort that led along the path to
terrifying corruption.
In an article in the Financial Times in May 1999, Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw
Geremek wrote that while the post-Kosovo stability pact needs to revive economies of
South East Europe, Poland's experience suggests the human dimension must not be ignored.
He wrote, 'The plan's success will stem from its human dimension, in other words from the
construction of rule of law and civil society and from respect for minority rights
and freedom of the Media and tolerance and pluralism.'
Solutions
- Leaders of the International Community should move away from the prevalent (and failed) mantra of almost exclusively engaging with the 'tough-guy' power-brokers. At present talks tend to be with the toughest leaders to the exclusion of the wider community.
- Give people a chance to join the process of debate about what type of society they want. Engage a wide sector of the population from the start in an understanding of participatory democracy and in all peace and conflict negotiations, mediation and discussions on governance, what type of society and systems they want. (eg. Community leaders, NGOs, teachers, doctors, etc at least one third women, at least one third men…)
- Education of the population about what democracy is and means, and what role they can play in developing it. It is crucial to enable people to contribute their ideas to the system and political complexion and to feel ownership of the system.
- Make the population aware of their rights and responsibilities in a democratic system
- Change the dynamics of the political arena by ensuring a critical mass of women are in all decision-making bodies. This could be done by introducing systems so that so that at least one third of elected and appointed posts in political and public life have to be men and at least one third of posts women. The remaining posts would be men or women. There are plenty of very capable women in Kosovo. Many are active on social issues - teachers, engineers and doctors etc. For example there was once a 60,000 strong women's wing of the LDK. Women were fighting in the KLA.
- Ensure all senior personnel in the Democratisation Department have previous experience of democratisation including hands-on experience of political parties, Local Government, Civil Society, pressure groups/NGOs, and Media in a working democracy.
- Start to develop genuine political Parties - help to groom and develop new leaders.
- Vibrant civil society (including hundreds of NGOs and campaign groups)
- Develop a free Media
- Independent judiciary
- Proper policing
Ignoring The Needs Of Women
The Interim Kosovo Transition Governing Council appointed by Bernard Kouchner had not a single woman
among its appointees. Kosovar women's NGO leaders were extremely angry that the international
community had ignored them.
After women in the NGOs raised this matter with me I wrote to Kofi Annan on their behalf to raise
this issue. As a consequence 3 Kosovar women NGO leaders were invited to meet with Kofi Annan
and Dr Kouchner. One woman was subsequently invited to join the Interim Transitional Council.
(Ironically, my fax to Kofi Annan was considered a major breach of protocol by the more senior men
in the OSCE which was the main reason for my being asked to leave the OSCE Mission.)
We must not let this happen again. How can we be claiming to help a province develop democracy if
our main representatives (UN, OSCE) can calmly say that women are not interested in having a
political voice (without asking them) and can appoint no women to the Interim Kosovo Transition
Governing Council?
Solution
Set targets and guidelines in line with the United Nations Global Platform for Action for involving
women in post-conflict efforts. This would ensure at least one-third representation of both
sexes in key positions and councils. The FRY was among the states that signed the UN Global
Platform of Action in Beijing at the 1995 Fourth United Nations Global Conference on Women.
Erratic Standards Of International Police
The UK and other states have sent some excellent Police trainers to Kosovo, but however good a job
they do under difficult circumstances, it is let down by the erratic standards of UN policing and
by the fact that there are insufficient numbers of UN police.
Solution:
Deploy large enough numbers of UN police quickly in post-conflict situations, or use trained
military police. The multi-national UN police force needs to be pre-trained to certain shared
standards and values.
The OSCE In Kosovo - Problems and Potential Solutions
- Personnel deployment system needs reforming
- Poor prioritisation causing delays
- Current system results in inappropriate deployment of experts
- Paperwork mountains and 'catch 22' bureaucratic nightmares
- Poor communication between member states, OSCE HQ Vienna and the in-country mission office
- Slow staff recruitment & deployment
- Unacceptable codes of employment practice
- Locally employed Kosovar staff hired only in low grade jobs and asked to take a pay cut
- Inadequate logistical planning
- Previous warnings about OSCE's poor track record on gender in previous missions were ignored…
- Workplace culture of OSCE
This question and the problems that need to be addressed may be specific to the OSCE or endemic of
other international organisations.
In the on-line Telegraph of 17th November 1999 a UN employee in Kosovo who has served in a number
of different UN missions described the situation as follows: "The whole thing is a joke. Even by the
standards of other missions this one is going nowhere. Some people are gifted but they are just
smothered by the incompetence of the system." Another said, "This system has brought in a whole class
of people who just cycle into one mission after another. They only care about keeping their jobs going."
These comments ring true of the OSCE Mission too.
Can an organisation that was originally conceived as a useful talk-shop - an organisation
designed for international conferences - change its spots sufficiently to be effective for
Democracy-building in post-conflict situations, requiring mobility, flexibility, and results
focussed action?
It may be that a complete rethink is needed. Should democratisation be sub-contracted to agencies or
NGOs and consultancies that are leaner and more flexible than the OSCE and UN?
If so, what other entities?
- NGOs?
- Bilateral or multilateral teams?
- Allocate different tasks to different nationalities? Nations could take on different tasks or oversee
different zones of a post-conflict region?
How should it work?
Personnel Deployment System Needs Reforming
A number of problems arise from the need to allocate posts by country.
The OSCE system for deploying and handling the international staff needs an overhaul. It
defied belief to find that key appointments such as the Director of Democratisation had been given
to someone with virtually no experience of democracy building work. This involves deep discussion on
how senior personnel should be selected on merit and relevant experience.
Solution:
For the immediate post-conflict situation make sure Departmental Directors have extensive existing
experience of the core subjects of their department. The situation is so fluid that well-informed,
dynamic responses are essential without delays. This can only be achieved if the Directors come to
the post with in-depth knowledge of their subject matter, rather than learning on the job. Look at
whether other international organisations such as NATO have overcome problems inherent in secondment
of international staff and rug-trading senior posts.
Poor Prioritisation Causing Delays
The OSCE Democratisation Department was told that Local Administration training was one of its
most important tasks.
For 3 months the only member of staff allocated to Local Administration training was a Norwegian
former Member of Parliament and a Mayor. She was instructed by the Director of Democratisation
to spend most of her time hunting for a building to serve as a 'Local Administration Training
Academy'. This would have been a more suitable task for the procurement Department. Her
abilities were being misused.
By December a building still had not been chosen and OSCE realised they had better scrape together
some rudimentary training for people in local Municipalities.
Eventually in December, the OSCE were obliged to start training in other premises,
something they should have done in the first place.
Solution
- Recruit Departmental Directors capable of understanding the right priorities in a
post-conflict situation Democratisation process.
- Personnel in organisations in charge of post-conflict activity need to be encouraged to
think 'out-of-the-box' to find original solutions based on what is readily and quickly
available (rather than what is traditionally looked for by established institutions).
- Assume that experts will be the best people to find solutions in their field of expertise
(as opposed to managers). Experts drafted in should be given the main priorities for dictating
the best solutions to problems from their field of expertise and then helped and enabled to
proceed.
Current System Results in Inappropriate Deployment Of Experts
Instead of enabling professionals in their field to deliver results, the way the system is
currently designed actually stymies them. It blocks and prevents them from achieving progress.
This was indeed my own experience in the OSCE Democratisation Department.
Some senior OSCE personnel had a total lack of comprehension of the fundamental differences
between an immediate fast-moving post-conflict situation and other, more familiar slow moving
situations. Kosovo was an emergency situation needing emergency action. The situation could
not wait for a slow and gradual response while Mission staff responsible for running a Department -
but new to a topic - spent months and months cogitating and learning new remits.
Experts were not empowered to do what they were expert at. They frequently had their hands
tied by the bureaucratic hierarchy rather then being supported and enabled to get on with
the tasks in hand.
On a number of occasions international staff with great professional expertise in
their field (Media development, human rights, police training) spoke of their extreme
frustration at working in a system (OSCE) not designed for the task - finding dynamic,
workable solutions in an emergency situation.
Example:
Senior Swedish human rights lawyer Marie Von Baltenau had years of experience and her
own consultancy back home. She found herself posted out to a junior field post under
a 24-year-old Italian line manager 'boss'. He had little or no human rights experience
but had the power to tell her what to do and what not to do! When she left the Mission
she said she intended to tell her Foreign Office that she had never experienced such
treatment and she described the Mission as being 'management by a crowd of cowboys'.
She said if OSCE were asked to design a pyramid it would end up the wrong way up.
Police Detective Inspectors with 25 years investigating experience were allocated to
training traffic police.
All this helped to lower morale even amongst the most committed personnel.
Solution
- Have a clear job remit of what staff will be doing, who they are answerable to.
- Enable the experts to use their expertise - they are called experts for a reason!
- Develop 'flat' hierarchies where possible with the minimum of administrators impeding experts.
Paperwork Mountains And 'Catch 22' Bureaucratic Nightmares
The paperwork and bureaucratic tangles within OSCE make even the EU look simple and efficient.
Examples:
- In the Media Development Department a well-known British journalist, accustomed to working in a major newspaper group could be contributing a great deal of valuable experience to developing the Kosovar Media. The amount of paperwork and bureaucracy getting in his way makes him feel that it will be a major triumph if in his 6 months assignment he manages to achieve one simple task such as managing to get a car to collect two Serb journalists safely to and from work at the radio station in Pristina.
- A respected senior member of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, spoke to me in despair at the amount of paperwork he is expected to get though to achieve one task
- In order to organise one simple 2-day training workshop for 50 people, we had to deal with 7 OSCE departments - each with a separate set of paperwork and rules. To increase the tangle - a number of people in those departments said they have not handled a training workshop yet, and were not certain of the procedures. It was also necessary to liaise with the appropriate personnel from the other 3 Pillars of the Kosovo system (UN, UNHCR, EU) - made more time-consuming by the lack of functioning telephone communication.
- a Senior Human Rights Lawyer of many years experience deployed to a junior field post with her boss telling her what colour ink to use in writing her reports.
Solution
- Streamline bureaucratic procedures - Make this a priority. A lot of expensive staff hours were lost to bureaucracy when the time should have been spent rebuilding systems for Kosovo.
- Plan core paperwork procedures in advance for whatever is likely to be most essential, and most used. Explore how these might be applied in a range of unusual situations.
- Standardise some procedures so staff can be quickly and simply briefed on the essence of how things operate.
Poor Communication Between Member States, OSCE HQ Vienna and the In-Country Mission Office.
I was hired to be Deputy-Director of Democratisation. After I arrived they told me this post did not
exist. The Head of Mission thought I was an official that had been sent to establish a civil
administration college. It was quite clear that there were fundamental failings somewhere in
the lines of communication between London, Vienna and Pristina. I now know from other OSCE
colleagues that the confusion over my own deployment was repeated in a number of other cases.
I suspect that it was in fact communication failures between Vienna and Kosovo because this
situation was repeated with other nations.
Senior personnel from OSCE participating States found on arrival in Kosovo that they have been
at worst duped, at best misled by OSCE HQ in Vienna as to the posts they would fill and the
roles they would play.
Failures of this kind can only serve to make the Head of Mission's job even harder. On arrival
this often led to staff being deployed in different roles from the ones they were hired for.
These roles were sometimes quite different from their key expertise. Often they were more junior
roles subservient to less knowledgeable 'line managers'.
Solution
Improve communication between Member States, their delegations in Vienna, the OSCE HQ in
Vienna and Missions. Investigate examples of when and how communication failures
happened. See if any patterns emerge so that reform can be targeted at the right points and
new systems implemented.
Slow Staff Recruitment & Deployment
In the Democratisation Department we were desperately understaffed for the task. Five months
after the NATO bombing ceased, just one third of our proposed province-wide staffing for
Democratisation had arrived - 35 out of 95. In addition the system of staff arriving in no particular
pattern each week in dribs and drabs added to our workload. Staff time was taken up each week in
the department in welcoming and looking after new recruits, plus it meant we had to keep rearranging
the pattern of activities to suit the new staffing pattern and begin the readjustment of personalities
on the team all over again every week.
Solution
- Increased coordination between departments and Vienna about what type of skills and seniority are needed and when new staff will arrive.
- Planning and preparation should be done far earlier to recruit staff in time to be up and running fast enough to take advantage of the immediate post-conflict 'honeymoon' period.
- What is needed initially in this situation is an appropriately recruited, non-bureaucratic, rapid reaction group of civilians. They should be expert in their specialist fields, have trained together, worked together and planned together ahead of time. They should arrive more or less at the same time. This corps might have a logistics team attached who have the resources and capability to rapidly set up a communications network.
Unacceptable Codes of Employment Practice
In a number of instances locally employed staff and international staff are not treated properly
in terms of accepted EU good conduct. A number of people left because of staff mismanagement and/or
frustration with the situation within the OSCE.
The Deputy Head of Mission in Kosovo, illustrated the general attitude when he said: 'You cannot expect
EU codes of employment conduct within OSCE. OSCE is not a normal employer, OSCE is the OSCE.'
The OSCE Contracts we were asked to sign in Vienna allow for termination without even a day's
notice if the Mission was evacuated. The impact of these contract terms could well result in a
dearth of experienced people even applying in future. It is only because of the greater
protection my FCO contract gave me that I was willing to sign this contract in Vienna.
Had I seen it before arriving in Vienna I would have had to think long and hard before signing
it or going on mission.
Solution
- Simple, clear employment guidelines must be written and adhered to. They should offer basic,
inalienable rights as an employee, yet be simple and streamlined enough to be implementable by the
mission with a minimum of time and fuss.
- Staff should be issued with guidelines as early as possible (preferably before going on mission).
- Where possible, contracts and paperwork to be dealt with in Vienna should be sent/faxed to staff
before they even leave their own countries. These forms could then be filled out at a more
leisurely paced, in a more accurate manner. Staff could keep copies at home and more time
would be available in Vienna for briefings/induction. In the case of additional contracts such
as those that staff were handed to sign in Vienna, these must be sent to staff at the time
they sign any contracts with member states. It is unacceptable to offer a post to someone,
then after they have committed themselves to it, ask them to fill out some 'routine paperwork'
that might be signing away significant rights that they would disapprove of.
Locally Employed Kosovar Staff Hired Only in Low Grade Jobs and Asked to Take a Pay Cut.
A particular feature of Kosovo, in contrast with post-conflict Bosnia, is that many of the educated
professional population have returned.
OSCE policy was only to employ Kosovars in lower grades such as drivers, security guards and
language assistants. This was a waste of a valuable resource pool which could have enabled the
OSCE to perform its work more efficiently. This two-tier approach also began to cause considerable
resentment among the educated Kosovar section of the population.
Early on in the Mission, OSCE announced it was cutting the salary of locally employed staff
by 30%. This caused bitter resentment. A number of these men and women were the same people
who had risked their lives working with the OSCE Verification Mission ahead of the NATO bombing.
They and their families were left behind when the international staff were evacuated and they
and their families were the first to be targeted by the Serbs.
Solution
- Include the indigenous population on teams of Internationals at all levels of staffing.
This will increase a feeling of local 'ownership' of the work carried out by international organisations. It will increase understanding of what the organisations are trying to do as local staff will be part of the local community, not outsiders. It will build local capacity.
- If indigenous population have taken risks to support international organisations - recognise
this fact publicly in some way.
- Don't suddenly cut salaries of staff already employed if it can possibly be avoided.
There are few better ways of increasing resentment.
Inadequate Logistical Planning
Basic infrastructure logistics had not been adequately considered.
Work in the early months was slowed disastrously by a lack of adequate communications such as
telephone and e-mail. Communications are still difficult. Yet this is a province in Europe.
Telecommunication experts have told me there are a choice of emergency or permanent communication
systems that could have been swiftly set up. Until mid-October the OSCE had one e-mail connected
computer (which kept crashing) for the use of 700 staff and no telephones in the Democratisation
and Media Departments. 25 minutes walk from OSCE HQ in Pristina a Kosovar private enterprise had set up an Internet café with 10 e-mail connected computers permanently on line and cheap SAT phone calls anywhere in the world.
The excuse given by OSCE was that tendering for contracts was taking longer than expected.
If this is true this method of deciding who provides telephone networks swiftly should be
organised differently in future.
It is not efficient use of resources to go to the trouble of bringing in international
experts if they must spend days on everyday tasks such as contacting people to arrange a meeting.
Solution
Consider organising advance emergency contracts with sat phone suppliers and portable e-mail,
internet solutions or a core logistics team. Review and give recommended guidelines for swift
setting up of telephone and e-mail communication systems. The military could have an emergency
infrastructure team capable of providing support of this kind to a range of agencies.
Previous Warnings About OSCE's Poor Track Record On Gender In Previous Missions Were Ignored...
Despite clear warnings from reports on previous Missions, once again the needs and potential
contribution of women have been largely overlooked. Men in the senior ranks of the OSCE in
Kosovo held plenty of discussion about how to achieve representation of ethnic minorities in
political and public bodies in the Province did not mention the inclusion of women.
I was severely chastised for working to include women in the democratisation process.
A Human Rights Watch Report on previous OSCE missions summed up the situation for women as follows:
'Discrimination against women during the reconstruction period is legion...The OSCE region is one
of conflict. These conflicts and the complex reconstruction issues they leave behind - have a
profound impact on women's lives. Many women in these conflicts have lost male family members
and find themselves heads of households for the first time.
"One Bosnian woman told Human Rights Watch, "Women came last - after everything else came women"'.
With one exception, all senior posts in the OSCE Mission in Kosovo were held by men.
It is hardly surprising then that Kosovar women were being entirely ignored in the democratisation process.
Amazingly, the senior men in OSCE justified ignoring women by saying:
No women in Kosovo were interested in political participation and it would be 'alien to local
culture and tradition' to advance women's interests
This was clearly and utterly unfounded. When I asked local NGOs, there was an overwhelming
response from women wanting to be involved in politics.
Solution:
All male and female personnel should have had proper gender awareness training before
going on missions. At least one third of senior posts on Missions should be male,
at least one third female.
Workplace Culture Of OSCE
The work-place culture within the OSCE Mission needs updating.
OSCE has an old-fashioned male ultra-hierarchical approach. There is a real underlying
pecking order with a heavy emphasis on 'collegiality'. Collegiality can be a virtue but it
can be an excuse for avoiding criticism and ultimately can result in covering-up problems.
There seemed to be a belief in the Head of Missions' office that it was more important not to
criticise senior staff (internally) than to air important fundamental departmental problems
that needed to be addressed.
There was an OSCE ethos that unless a person is ex OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission or ex some
other Balkan OSCE Mission their professional credibility is not respected even though some missions
have had disastrous results. Valuable expertise was brought to the Mission by some personnel
who had served as KVM and on previous Missions but others were 'Mission-junkies' with little
understanding of the issues they were dealing with. These people used their 'previous mission'
status to overlord the professional experts, directly dis-enabling them with the maximum of
interference and obstacles.
The OSCE is an organisation that appears to run on fear rather than encouragement.
Before they knew I was leaving, a female member of OSCE personnel in Vienna telephoned me
to arrange to meet with me to ask for advice and help for her and another female member of
staff. She said they were upset about certain things that were happening to them in Vienna.
They also mentioned they were concerned at the high number of staff who were leaving the
Kosovo Mission early and wanted to know if I had any clues as to the reasons. She said
they did not want to go into detail over the phone because they were afraid in case our
conversation got back to senior staff.
When other people knew I was leaving they came to me and asked me to speak up for
others on the Mission who dared not speak up or who did not have access to opinion leaders.
A number of women on the Mission complained about the outdated attitudes of male colleagues on
gender issues.
Solution
- Reform the Management style of OSCE. How are senior staff picked? Are they given any training/guidance on leadership and modern management?
- All men and women sent on Missions should have had proper gender awareness training.
- Challenge the view that negative management provides results. In a high-stress situation it is more important than ever to stress the need for encouraging the staff, praising them when things work and enabling them to find positive, radical solutions. Constant reprimanding without encouragement will inevitably lead to a 'batten down the hatches and keep your head low' mentality. This mentality is most likely to result in slow, incrementalist solutions that will not gain any support from locals as it won't produce obvious, positive results fast.
- Set up clear, simple, streamlined grievance procedures for staff.
- Make sure staff are aware of their rights.
Conclusion
Before deploying future post-conflict missions some serious questions need to be discussed about
the design and initial objectives of international missions.
Lessons of Kosovo must be learnt for the future. It does not appear the lessons of Bosnia
have been learnt by OSCE and UN. Some NGOs and actors such as DfID seemed to have a far
better reputation for achieving results for the local population than UNMIK did.
What are the right vehicles and structures for post-conflict efforts?
Are the UN and OSCE the right vehicles to be tasked with democracy-building in post-conflict
situations, requiring mobility, flexibility, and task focussed action? Or are they lumbering
dinosaurs, rising uniquely in the 20th Century, with 20th century sell-by dates?
Are organisations originally conceived as 'conference' organisations able to change their spots
and transform themselves from talking-shops into task-oriented motors for change in a fluid,
fast moving post-conflict situation?
The answer to this question should evolve AFTER there has been an in-depth analysis
of what worked and what did not work and what would help things work better in future.
Can OSCE change or should new structures be developed? While of value in Cold War years as
CSCE - a talking-shop bringing together Russia, Europe and Northern America, OSCE has
serious problems in meeting the tasks it was asked to undertake in Kosovo.
This may be because what it is being asked to do is against its culture and outlook.
A post-conflict situation requires an organisation designed:
- to deliver results with minimum bureaucracy and paperwork
- to enable experienced professional people to have the space, resources and flexibility to produce results. A modern style and design of organisation is needed, more 'Silicon Valley' or 'Charles Handy' in style, concept and organisation and less 'international civil service bureaucracy'.
- with the ability to rapidly deploy pre-prepared teams of personnel.
- Better forward planning must go into any civilian responses in the future.
- Sufficient resources must be allocated for this.
- A minimum of 50 civilian planners may be needed working full-time for months ahead.
- There must be a fundamental recognition that the early phases of a post-conflict scenario are not
the same as the latter stages and they need different plans, personnel and objectives.
- Maximum involvement of a wide sector of the local population must be sought to identify the key
needs of the locals for the short, medium and long-term. It is also a good idea to ask them for their
solutions first - they may have novel solutions that none of the experts have considered, but which
are very suitable for their scenario.
- Professional experts from any given field - judiciary, law and order, policing, democracy-building,
media human rights etc, must prevail in the early stages. 'Civil Servants' role should be to provide
support and back-up. It is essential to have such a level of practical understanding, to recognise
the limitations of the situation and pick the most appropriate solution for that scenario (not
necessarily the textbook answer).
- It is essential to be able to produce tangible, visible results early on to gain the trust and
respect of the local population.
- What is needed initially in this situation is an appropriately recruited, non-bureaucratic,
rapid reaction group of civilians. They should be expert in their specialist fields, have trained
together, worked together and planned together ahead of time. They should arrive more or less at
the same time. This corps might have a logistics team attached who have the resources and capability
to rapidly set up a communications network.
- All male and female personnel on missions should receive gender awareness training ahead of time.
Key Questions For The Future
Should democratisation be sub-contracted to agencies or NGOs and consultancies that are
leaner and more flexible than the OSCE and UN?
If so, what other entities? NGOs? Bilateral or multilateral teams? Allocate different tasks to
different nationalities? Nations could take on different tasks or oversee different zones of
a post-conflict region? How should it work?
Is there a need for a rapid deployment team of civilians which later hands over to others? How would it work?
Who would fund it? What expertise would it need? Who would it answer to? What worked in Kosovo
that didn't in Bosnia? What worked in E.Timor that didn't in Bosnia and Kosovo? Why?
Did some agencies/organisations seem to have more success than others? Why? What was different about
their structures, staff, approaches, objectives?
Annex 1 - Examples of Practical Proposals Blocked From Above in Democratisation Department
Informal Needs Assessment Meetings With Political Parties
It should be kept firmly in mind that Kosovo was an emergency situation needing emergency action.
For 5 solid months the only action on political Party development was to open one set of offices
for political Parties. Other promising activities were blocked or bungled.
I was told the Swiss Government were sending two political scientists to conduct a formal round
table needs assessment at which all the Parties would be present together. I was firmly
instructed that no Party development activities should be considered until after that took place.
I expressed doubts based on my own wide experience throughout the former Soviet Union that Kosovar
political groups would want to admit weaknesses and needs in front of each other. I therefore
asked to hold informal 'needs assessment' chats with leading members of the political Parties
in order to work with them to draw up a shopping list of helpful information, training and other
development activities that would assist in building democratic political Parties. This is a
procedure I have conducted many times before all over the world. This was adamantly blocked
by the Director of the Democratisation Department, a person with no prior experience of
democracy-building.
When the Parties saw the proposed programme for the formal round-table they at once declined
to attend. After weeks of negotiations the round-table date kept being postponed.
It moved from September to mid November and then the event collapsed.
As a result we lost 3 months of potential Party development activities.
Agenda 21 For Local Municipalities
I suggested that the United Nations Agenda 21 approach - a sustainable environment and
community based approach to local government (currently being implemented in UK local
government) should be used in developing the training for Municipalities. The
OSCE Democratisation Director, had never heard of Agenda 21. I managed to get a hand-book
on Agenda 2l for him. He never read it, lost it, then said we hadn't time for such fancy ideas.
Outreach To Involve The Population In The Democratisation Process
On a number of occasions I raised my concerns that we needed to start to build an understanding
among the general population of what democracy and citizenship means. I suggested we should
involve the local population in discussions and debates around the Province which could be
televised too. This could have been developed into a more comprehensive example of democratic
debate and enabled Kosovars to play a mainstream role in deciding and developing their future,
while visibly showing the role we were playing as facilitators. The idea was dismissed.
Public Meetings Held Around The Province Hosted By Consultative Panels
To help build a culture of participatory democracy I suggested a series of consultative meetings.
These might include opinion leaders and specialists on chosen topics. The public audience could
put questions and give their views on subjects such as
- community issues - transport, rubbish collection, the style and service delivery
of a Municipality.
- the best way of organising the winterisation process.
- electoral systems.
- other topics chosen by Kosovars such as the problem of young people and drugs
(Kosovo is a mainline route for drugs, along with trafficking in women, a major inlet for
Neapolitan Mafia).
These consultative processes would include TV and radio discussions, and debates with members
of the public putting questions and opinions to a panel, similar to the BBC TV and Radio
programmes 'Question Time' and 'Any Questions'.
NGOs and nascent campaign groups could be mobilised and assisted to ensure information about
the above topics and other issues such as electoral registration reached the widest possible
population - women, ethnic groups and people of all ages.
As with so many suggestions this was vetoed. The Director's explanation at the time gave
the impression he saw grassroots mobilisation as an unnecessary distraction that might look
like we were supporting moves for elections. A do-nothing-lest atmosphere hung over the
entire Department.
User-Friendly Information On Democratisation For The Public
I suggested we should work with the Kosovars to prepare and distribute user-friendly
information starting with the 10 basic questions (in simple user-friendly language)
ordinary Kosovars might ask about what democracy would mean to them - their rights etc.
This could have started in the form of 4-sided tabloid (a well trodden path in politics).
Over 60% of the population are under 25 and I said we could set up a distribution
system through a network of young people as a way of starting to involve them in
grass-roots democratic politics. These ideas were also vetoed.
Citizens Advice Leaflets
The general Kosovar population frequently request information from members of the
International Community on practical matters such as: where do we go to obtain winterisation
materials? Where do we go to apply for passports?
One day I saw a distraught woman being turned away by UN Police from the front of
their offices. I asked what the fracas was about. The UN police said she was a crazy
woman who had come on three consecutive days because her family were nasty to her.
I pointed out that if she had returned on three occasions possibly she was desperate
for help. They said that even if that were true there was nothing they could do.
I suggested they could at least tell her the location for a centre or NGO where she
could receive medical assistance, advice or counselling. The UN police said they
hadn't a clue about any services that might be on offer.
I suggested the Democratisation Department could produce a simple leaflet with
answers to the 10 questions most asked of the International Community. This would be
a basic first step towards a sort of Citizens Advice Bureau system. I suggested
that this was part of building citizenship and at the same time would be good PR for
OSCE. We could distribute copies to anyone working in the International Community
including OSCE, aid workers, Police, K4 NATO troops etc.
This was vetoed.
lesley.abdela@shevolution.com
© Lesley Abdela 2000
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