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************************************** The Economist January 26, 2002 SECTION: EUROPE HEADLINE: A ghastly job DATELINE: pristina MICHAEL STEINER may have worked in tough places before: he once served in Zaire. But overseeing the UN's protectorate of Kosovo from its capital, Pristina, will certainly be the hardest task the abrasive, clever German has ever faced. Indeed, the rude behaviour (including demands for caviare) during a stop-over last year in Moscow that cost him his last foreign-policy post, as adviser to Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, will soon be forgotten if he can do a half-decent job in the Balkan province. After two-and-a-half years of relative peace and intensive international care under the eyes of up to 40,000 armed peacekeepers, Kosovo ought by now to be on the way to economic and political health. But as Mr Steiner will find, there is still an uneasy stand-off between criminals-cum-extreme nationalists and NATO soldiers trying to enforce law and order, and there is no guarantee that the latter will prevail. Like his predecessors as UN proconsul in Kosovo (first, a Frenchman, Bernard Kouchner, and most recently Hans Haekkerup, a hastily departed Dane), Mr Steiner will have to make very hard choices between cracking down on the region's armed ethnic- Albanian groups and looking the other way for the sake of a quiet political life. Turning a blind eye, as Mr Kouchner often appeared to do, may be even harder if the toughest ethnic-Albanian factions in neighbouring Macedonia (where Albanians are a large minority) launch a fresh offensive this spring, using Kosovo as a base. These groups are understood to have spent about $4.5m over the last four months on new weapons, including ground-to-air missiles. But standing up to armed bullies, as Mr Haekkerup tried to do, also carries high personal risks. His young family apparently left the tense atmosphere of Pristina with much relief. Mr Steiner's most immediate task will be to break Kosovo's political impasse. Ibrahim Rugova, the moderate leader who did best in last November's election, has failed to persuade the province's 120 new assemblymen to elect him as president, because his main rivals, Hashim Thaci and Ramush Haradinaj, veterans of the war against Serb forces, want a bigger slice of power. Amid the ferment, a pro- Rugova assemblyman was killed last week. GRAPHIC: Run Kosovo? No thanks Copyright 2002 The Economist Newspaper Ltd. --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
