1 00:00:01,230 --> 00:00:08,040 So I'm very pleased to introduce today's speaker coming to us all the way from Sam Cross College, 2 00:00:08,040 --> 00:00:17,909 Oxford, but has actually wandered a lot further than from one side, 3 00:00:17,910 --> 00:00:25,979 from one part of Oxford to another, but extremely well travelled in the Balkan region and has written not only academic 4 00:00:25,980 --> 00:00:31,530 articles and books but also travel guides for most countries of the region. 5 00:00:32,490 --> 00:00:46,180 But his last book is on the Kosovo Liberation Army, looking at his underground war to Balkan insurgency, 1948 to 2001, 6 00:00:46,210 --> 00:00:52,110 looking at the prehistory of the organisation that some of the people in this room only learned 7 00:00:52,110 --> 00:01:00,810 about themselves when they were asked to take take to use armed force on their behalf back in 1999. 8 00:01:01,260 --> 00:01:07,170 So this should be a really interesting introduction to who these people really were, 9 00:01:07,590 --> 00:01:14,700 what their goals are, and, yeah, what effect the 1999 intervention actually had. 10 00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:19,979 So thank you. Thank you very much and thank you very much for the program. 11 00:01:19,980 --> 00:01:24,660 Also giving me the opportunity to talk about some aspects of this. 12 00:01:26,460 --> 00:01:35,160 What I plan to do is, in the time honoured phrase, divide everything into three parts like Caesar's School. 13 00:01:35,790 --> 00:01:42,899 The first part I like to summarise what I see as a value in trying to understand the immediate past 14 00:01:42,900 --> 00:01:50,280 history of this organisation and what the history means in terms of wider Balkan modern history. 15 00:01:51,300 --> 00:01:56,580 Then secondly, as we are also here in this building, 16 00:01:57,300 --> 00:02:07,980 I was going to say something briefly about what seems to me to be the inheritance of the organisation in terms of current Kosovo security concerns. 17 00:02:08,880 --> 00:02:19,170 And thirdly, to indicate one or two points which I think will lead to future avenues for academic research. 18 00:02:23,790 --> 00:02:30,870 The question, of course, is in a way, with all these movements, as Patrick Lee fellow, 19 00:02:30,910 --> 00:02:38,310 the Helena put it in something he wrote many years ago of what happens when you turn warriors into waiters. 20 00:02:39,310 --> 00:02:44,520 He was thinking of the people he'd known who fought against the Italian invasion of Greece, 21 00:02:44,940 --> 00:02:49,260 and then also many of them fought subsequently in the civil war in Greece afterwards. 22 00:02:52,230 --> 00:02:59,070 Let's just look, therefore focus our minds perhaps at this picture, because on the one hand, 23 00:02:59,070 --> 00:03:07,530 this is a genuine, authentic photograph that was taken by by somebody in Prishtina in the war in May 1999. 24 00:03:08,410 --> 00:03:18,600 And you have this sort of half day retreat of time, immense landscape, and you have this little resistance for their guns against the great landscape. 25 00:03:19,350 --> 00:03:24,990 In that way, it could be a picture taken anywhere in the French Resistance or in the Italian mentions of 26 00:03:25,170 --> 00:03:30,510 fighting partisan warfare against Mussolini or many other recent modern history contexts. 27 00:03:31,830 --> 00:03:43,170 But these people, in fact, are nearly all doctors. And today doctors in Prishtina and this lady here is one of the chief gynaecologists in Prishtina. 28 00:03:43,770 --> 00:03:48,030 And what we're actually looking at is a KLA medical unit. 29 00:03:49,500 --> 00:03:59,010 So these people in a way you could say, offer an exemplary justification for international intervention because they've taken up arms, 30 00:03:59,250 --> 00:04:05,100 because you see some of them are armed even by their doctors in what was seen as a good cause. 31 00:04:05,580 --> 00:04:13,110 And they've now returned to civilian life in an important profession and are rebuilding a new Kosovo. 32 00:04:14,070 --> 00:04:27,270 So this is paradigm one. Now let's look at my second illustration, Patrick, and as I say, it's very much to focus our thoughts on the issues. 33 00:04:29,220 --> 00:04:37,140 This is a picture of a KLA unit in action at almost exactly the same time as the other photograph was taken. 34 00:04:38,340 --> 00:04:43,140 This unit was in the Koshyari Valley, on the borders of Kosovo and Albania, 35 00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:50,640 and it was being formed and looks like a fairly reasonable little infantry unit, 36 00:04:52,650 --> 00:05:00,230 largely thanks to British help, because the people who trained this unit were British Special Forces soldiers. 37 00:05:00,320 --> 00:05:07,340 Those who are posted undercover to crew in Albania to help improve the military efficiency of the KLA. 38 00:05:08,450 --> 00:05:21,740 So I show this picture for two reasons. Because this conveys to us the image of a proper innocence rather than a rural improvised defence force. 39 00:05:22,610 --> 00:05:35,410 But it also conveys, I think, the sense that a certain sense of fabrication, I think in the previous image, there's nothing fabricated. 40 00:05:35,420 --> 00:05:39,170 This is an image. They march towards the photographer to look good. 41 00:05:41,060 --> 00:05:44,690 And for all we know, they may perform well in Kesari Kesari. 42 00:05:44,690 --> 00:05:51,590 That's one of the better aspects of the Colonel's history in the NATO bombing period. 43 00:05:55,460 --> 00:05:59,510 Now the third picture here is a very different group of people. 44 00:06:00,740 --> 00:06:05,400 This is taken in Macedonia and near Tetovo at a village called Shape of It. 45 00:06:05,420 --> 00:06:09,050 So in 2001. 46 00:06:10,370 --> 00:06:22,340 And the main figure to focus on is this man here in uniform, Ali Maté, who was in the war. 47 00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:30,780 Head of the Class Munitions and Logistics Procurement Unit in Albania, but of course, 48 00:06:31,130 --> 00:06:36,890 is deputy prime minister of Macedonia and has been regularly in power ever since. 49 00:06:37,790 --> 00:06:47,630 And he is the per diem, if you wish, of the KLA or another leader who turned themselves successfully into a respectable politician. 50 00:06:48,140 --> 00:06:55,730 He travels where he wishes and is involved in all sorts of conventional political practice. 51 00:06:58,910 --> 00:07:04,730 So the idea of the question, what is the inheritance of the Kosovo Liberation Army? 52 00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:10,790 We have to ask these three preferred images, if you wish. 53 00:07:10,970 --> 00:07:21,620 The doctors in uniform who became doctors and nurses, and now these men, one of whom is actually dead, was killed later in the war. 54 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:27,830 Bearded men on the right that were where the political leadership has evolved. 55 00:07:28,810 --> 00:07:33,560 And of course, the most prominent of these people is Hashim Tzachi, 56 00:07:33,560 --> 00:07:44,220 who is currently prime minister of Kosovo and also takes part in normal political practice in the leadership of his country. 57 00:07:46,190 --> 00:08:01,220 The origin of my book lay really in a conversation with Mr. Thatcher at a period when Kosovo was still under U.N. administration, but 2001, 2002. 58 00:08:03,920 --> 00:08:13,250 And we had become quite close friends, and we were involved in all sorts of political dialogue about the future of Kosovo. 59 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:26,300 And he wanted me to write a history of the War, which was basically a biography of Adam Jan, the founding father of the KLA, who was killed. 60 00:08:26,330 --> 00:08:31,730 It is with most of his family and Prakash in March 1998. 61 00:08:33,560 --> 00:08:43,820 I thought about this a lot. Mr. Thatcher is an educated and intelligent man and also a history graduate and pupil of my friend. 62 00:08:44,330 --> 00:08:49,910 Pupil, I should say my friend. None of us golfs who runs the East European History Seminar in Zurich, 63 00:08:51,080 --> 00:08:58,670 and I did do some work on the subject and it didn't come to fruition for various reasons. 64 00:08:58,790 --> 00:09:07,550 I think mainly because I felt a biographical study of a leader of this kind wasn't the right way to try to write the history of the war. 65 00:09:08,570 --> 00:09:20,090 And I think that that was a correct decision in retrospect when I started to undertake the book, like many other books, 66 00:09:20,090 --> 00:09:25,520 I think that you you this comes up if you are writing contemporary history, 67 00:09:26,090 --> 00:09:30,980 you find that the sources of events go back much further than you originally thought. 68 00:09:32,270 --> 00:09:37,450 Again, I think this is why it would have been a mistake to base the book around January, 69 00:09:37,850 --> 00:09:46,640 because the causes of the careless growth and ultimately the relative success lie much further back in history. 70 00:09:47,810 --> 00:09:57,080 And my book traces what happened from the break between Tito and Stalin in 1948. 71 00:09:58,150 --> 00:10:02,960 With new documents that have emerged I was able to get hold of in Moscow. 72 00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:11,060 It was clear that there had been Russian interest in creating an insurgency against Tito, 73 00:10:12,650 --> 00:10:18,230 based primarily on the Albanian minority in the south as early as 1950. 74 00:10:20,450 --> 00:10:32,990 And there was this genesis of a possible insurgency for us along the lines of what would eventually become the KLA as early as the autumn of 1951. 75 00:10:34,940 --> 00:10:42,260 Bennett, Shea, Hugh and Burgess, number two, was very closely involved in a lot of these discussions. 76 00:10:43,460 --> 00:10:52,670 Shehu was in some ways Hodge's alter ego, who had been a senior partisan commander in the Spanish Civil War. 77 00:10:53,180 --> 00:11:01,150 And then he became head of. The Albanian armed forces. After the establishment of communism in Albania in 1945. 78 00:11:02,620 --> 00:11:07,300 Stalin's ambassador in Albania, Chou Alkan, 79 00:11:08,230 --> 00:11:14,799 was also very interested in this possibility and some of the dialogues which I've 80 00:11:14,800 --> 00:11:21,280 used based on documents and discussions he had this year in Moscow in that period. 81 00:11:23,260 --> 00:11:29,710 But of course, the Russians had many different fish to fry and they wanted a good relationship. 82 00:11:29,740 --> 00:11:34,809 After a while with Tito, they felt Russian influence could be maintained, at least to a degree, 83 00:11:34,810 --> 00:11:39,490 in Belgrade, and they didn't want to put all their eggs in the Albanian basket. 84 00:11:40,420 --> 00:11:44,830 And like many other people from very, very different political traditions, 85 00:11:45,250 --> 00:11:51,550 they found Enver Hoxha a very difficult and tricky person to deal with and a very unsatisfactory ally. 86 00:11:53,770 --> 00:11:57,220 But nevertheless, some underground work started. 87 00:11:58,990 --> 00:12:05,920 I was able to conduct oral interviews with survivors from this period who were living in exile in the United States, 88 00:12:06,940 --> 00:12:15,160 one of whom in particular became a key figure in the genesis of the KLA support mechanisms in the Albanian American diaspora. 89 00:12:16,450 --> 00:12:22,540 And these people were veterans of long periods of incarceration in Tito's jails, 90 00:12:23,080 --> 00:12:32,110 and they were a wonderful guide to the world of the political underground, which was essentially in that period, a prison based world. 91 00:12:34,270 --> 00:12:43,299 I won't trouble you with recapitulation of recent Kosovo history, but I would just mention that during the Cold War, 92 00:12:43,300 --> 00:12:47,770 of course, Kosovo was a forgotten and neglected by the international community. 93 00:12:48,700 --> 00:12:58,690 The United States is the only potential serious new friend and protector of Albania, as it ever had always been since Woodrow Wilson's time, 94 00:12:59,470 --> 00:13:05,440 was preoccupied with relations with Tito in Belgrade and also with the Adriatic coast as a focus for Seapower. 95 00:13:07,630 --> 00:13:12,370 But this began to change a little as time went on, 96 00:13:13,090 --> 00:13:22,330 but in particular after the violent demonstrations in 1968 and 1981 in Kosovo against Belgrade rule. 97 00:13:23,710 --> 00:13:34,300 After 1981, about 1500 people were imprisoned, in some cases for long periods as a result of taking part in the demonstrations. 98 00:13:35,320 --> 00:13:46,090 And in 1982, partly in prison and partly outside it Lavezzi, a popular concern was formed that the Kosovo People's Movement, 99 00:13:46,600 --> 00:13:55,890 which was a Marxist-Leninist underground organisation, which sought to open up the issue of armed resistance again against Belgrade rule. 100 00:13:58,730 --> 00:14:13,840 But the heart of my book is really tracing Lempicka and its influence over subsequent events as early as 1980th November 1980. 101 00:14:15,190 --> 00:14:25,900 Other groups of people were beginning to form armed underground cells in in Western Europe, principally in Brussels and in Stuttgart. 102 00:14:27,190 --> 00:14:37,270 The Guerrilla Brothers were assassinated in Stuttgart in 1982, who were the most coherent possible future leaders of an insurgency. 103 00:14:38,320 --> 00:14:45,980 And the decision was taken by a lempicka exterior to establish a new centre of organisation. 104 00:14:46,900 --> 00:14:51,490 But not in Germany because of the security problems. But in Switzerland. 105 00:14:51,820 --> 00:15:04,300 In Zurich. And. In my view, the exterior in Zurich was the midwife for the KLA. 106 00:15:06,010 --> 00:15:08,830 That will be very much more research to be done on this. 107 00:15:09,460 --> 00:15:15,340 And we know that some leading participants have written memoirs which at the moment they are not willing to publish. 108 00:15:15,970 --> 00:15:19,780 But this was where things things happened. 109 00:15:20,860 --> 00:15:28,270 They were also able in Zurich to get some assistance from Albanian sources because Albania has foreign trade. 110 00:15:28,660 --> 00:15:38,800 Even in the period of most or targeted isolation was conducted and financed, was done through Switzerland as a neutral country. 111 00:15:39,790 --> 00:15:52,120 And so the Marxist-Leninist in Lempicka were able to open dialogue with the jurists in Tirana about the nature of what an insurgency might involve. 112 00:15:54,030 --> 00:15:58,000 We don't know a great deal about how just reactions to these things. 113 00:15:58,020 --> 00:16:06,270 The reason for this is I hope people do not think much of her indolence as a researcher and a historian, 114 00:16:06,270 --> 00:16:14,849 but certainly because in Toronto most of the relevant archives are still shut and there may be archives elsewhere that would cast light on things. 115 00:16:14,850 --> 00:16:16,950 But we still don't have access to the moment. 116 00:16:18,390 --> 00:16:31,710 But by the end of the 1980s, there was already a build up of small arms and other munitions developing in some places in Kosovo. 117 00:16:32,760 --> 00:16:43,080 And this is what the core of my story has been, is about really how this was done and how certain things were successful, 118 00:16:43,590 --> 00:16:50,760 how other things were failures, and how what became was a tiny group of people. 119 00:16:51,450 --> 00:16:59,489 I mean, the core group of people in Syria in 1987, 88 was a maximum of 25 people. 120 00:16:59,490 --> 00:17:08,819 And some people would argue not as many as that grew to be able to put a military force in the field ten years 121 00:17:08,820 --> 00:17:20,550 later and ultimately a force of 18,000 strong that was involved as an ally of NATO's in NATO's air campaign. 122 00:17:23,370 --> 00:17:27,930 The ramifications of any of these things are very complex and I haven't got time to go into them now. 123 00:17:27,990 --> 00:17:39,780 But what I think I would argue is that much of the work that built the KLA was done independently of the political leadership. 124 00:17:40,890 --> 00:17:45,240 People realised in Kosovo, the political leadership in Switzerland was necessary, 125 00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:53,400 but it wasn't something which operated in a very coherently authoritarian way. 126 00:17:54,510 --> 00:18:01,380 To take one example and most of the armies in the Balkans, which depend on the partisan warfare tradition. 127 00:18:01,920 --> 00:18:07,260 You had political commissars who were certainly in the Second World period, 128 00:18:07,620 --> 00:18:16,050 communists who were primarily political functionaries rather than military military, and whose duty was to say nobody stepped out of line. 129 00:18:18,210 --> 00:18:22,920 The value of these people was not doubted by people of his generation. 130 00:18:23,700 --> 00:18:26,849 Shaye, who in some of his surviving writings, 131 00:18:26,850 --> 00:18:37,320 has written about the political chaos as he saw it in the Spanish Civil War and the splits on the Republican side that affected military operations. 132 00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:43,140 And he and others like him, or for that matter, Tito, had had the same experience in Spain. 133 00:18:44,490 --> 00:18:53,430 They they didn't want the same things repeated in their own insurgency and to access movements in the Second World War, 134 00:18:55,020 --> 00:18:57,120 the KLA, I think, was more intelligent. 135 00:18:58,380 --> 00:19:06,750 They were certainly Marxist-Leninist in the leadership, but there were also many people who are not and who were independent nationalists, 136 00:19:07,470 --> 00:19:16,530 and they were able to work together in a way which I think surprised a lot of us who are studying the movement at the time. 137 00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:27,060 I first, just as an anecdote, I first came into contact with armed people in Kosovo in 1992 who I was astonished to meet, 138 00:19:27,600 --> 00:19:30,120 as often does with these things, met by accident. 139 00:19:32,790 --> 00:19:41,790 I was immediately struck by the very low level of their munitions, and particularly the fact they had weapons, but virtually no ammunition. 140 00:19:42,450 --> 00:19:46,290 And this was going to be the story of the KLA for many years afterwards. 141 00:19:49,710 --> 00:19:56,340 This inheritance, of course, grew and as I've indicated in the middle of my book, 142 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:08,430 the KLA ended up fighting side by side with the British Special Forces and Koshyari in May and June 1999. 143 00:20:09,360 --> 00:20:14,400 And at one level this could be seen as the fulfilment of a dream, really, that this extraordinary, 144 00:20:15,420 --> 00:20:24,540 some people would say backward rural defence force was fighting side by side with the finest individual soldiers in the world, 145 00:20:24,930 --> 00:20:30,080 but yet within six months they didn't exist. 146 00:20:30,090 --> 00:20:36,600 It was demobilised under the military technical agreements that General Jackson and others signed with the Serbs. 147 00:20:37,500 --> 00:20:44,040 And in Kosovo to this day, even though formally independent, still doesn't have an army. 148 00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:52,410 No, I won't. I haven't got time to dwell too much on the intricacies of what's been going on in. 149 00:20:52,520 --> 00:20:57,919 I spent the last few years, but I think all of you should be aware of the many difficulties in northern 150 00:20:57,920 --> 00:21:03,380 Kosovo to still exist for the Serbian majority areas north of the Ivo River. 151 00:21:04,430 --> 00:21:10,520 The very high levels of personal arms possession in both communities and the 152 00:21:10,880 --> 00:21:16,160 recreation of what traditionally has been known by was always called by Tito. 153 00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:26,390 The Albanian arsenal. In other words, heavy personal arms possession, the munitions possession in the house and in the farm. 154 00:21:30,680 --> 00:21:36,320 Security in Kosovo is provided power by NATO, as it has been since July 1999, 155 00:21:37,310 --> 00:21:43,850 but with a quite dramatically diminished number of soldiers and and special police. 156 00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:51,530 And I think I'm right in saying that in about August, September 99, there's about three 33,000, 157 00:21:51,530 --> 00:21:57,770 35,000 NATO soldiers, you know, with boots on the ground in Kosovo. 158 00:21:58,850 --> 00:22:01,010 That's just not shrunk to much less than ten. 159 00:22:02,090 --> 00:22:11,090 But if you subtract the people whose essential duties are in keeping bases open, the technical work, the logistics, 160 00:22:11,540 --> 00:22:18,080 the number of people who could be mobilised in the event of difficulties in Kosovo is quite limited. 161 00:22:20,990 --> 00:22:31,100 Since independence, it's been argued that Kosovo will at some point have an army and this would inherit the KLA tradition. 162 00:22:32,210 --> 00:22:41,740 So one way of interpreting the title of what I had to say this morning is you could say that could be a subtitle will be Kosovo Army. 163 00:22:42,770 --> 00:22:44,870 Well, the answer to that, I think, is very complex. 164 00:22:46,100 --> 00:22:55,250 It's an open secret that the United States and the U.K. wanted there to be a Kosovo army as part of the HSR agreement on independence. 165 00:22:56,300 --> 00:22:57,920 But it's also, I think, 166 00:22:57,920 --> 00:23:07,790 an open secret and established that the Europeans involved in that process vetoed this because they felt the Serbs shouldn't have to accept this, 167 00:23:07,790 --> 00:23:11,950 and also that it would mean that the Serbs wouldn't sign the Tsar deal. 168 00:23:14,420 --> 00:23:18,320 Well, whatever the rights and wrongs with that, the question has not gone away. 169 00:23:22,410 --> 00:23:27,540 Pessimists would say that the paramilitary tradition in Kosovo is still alive. 170 00:23:28,830 --> 00:23:34,140 This is exemplified by the very high level of weapons possession and families themselves, 171 00:23:34,710 --> 00:23:39,660 which I've mentioned, and that the grounds for conflict are still there. 172 00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:46,110 If you have as often happens in bulk in conflicts, some random incident, 173 00:23:46,190 --> 00:23:54,840 that's nothing to do with politics at one level suddenly starts something and then you have rioting and the rioting can't be controlled. 174 00:23:55,240 --> 00:24:06,250 But all of that agenda is certainly still present. We saw serious riot rioting in Kosovo in spring 2003 and also less so in 2005. 175 00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:13,230 The Ibar River in Metro North is still a flashpoint for tensions. 176 00:24:15,780 --> 00:24:19,350 Would there be if there was inter-communal trouble again? 177 00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:24,990 Or pessimists might say now we have inter-communal trouble again? 178 00:24:25,070 --> 00:24:30,930 Or could be on the brink of it. What role would paramilitarism play? 179 00:24:33,660 --> 00:24:40,950 I think that's very hard to judge. The old look Barca doesn't exist anymore. 180 00:24:42,030 --> 00:24:48,330 After 1999, it became an open political party for a short time and doesn't have any. 181 00:24:48,870 --> 00:24:50,100 It didn't have any future. 182 00:24:50,880 --> 00:25:01,050 And many members have left the club eventually joined Mr. Ramos-Horta Dinos Party, a majority, I think, who are resident in Kosovo. 183 00:25:02,190 --> 00:25:10,500 You have a very different Kosovo diaspora now because most people have gone back home who are in political exile. 184 00:25:11,790 --> 00:25:17,280 You no longer have what I think was the key catalyst for the insurgency, 185 00:25:17,940 --> 00:25:28,620 the imprisonment of so many militants in the 1980s where prison formed, as it often does, a good university for revolutionaries. 186 00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:32,910 So the old KLA is undoubtedly finished. 187 00:25:34,180 --> 00:25:38,720 But I think there are people who are looking to the future. 188 00:25:39,740 --> 00:25:43,030 They're looking to the unsatisfactory status as they see it. 189 00:25:43,210 --> 00:25:48,430 Of course, under the Qatari deal, they're looking at the security vacuum, 190 00:25:49,210 --> 00:25:55,870 which I think many people agree exists with NATO's drawing down and the absence of 191 00:25:55,870 --> 00:26:05,830 anything to replace NATO and also growing regional tensions in the last few years. 192 00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:11,830 Membership of the European Union has been held up as the answer to many of the problems of the Balkans. 193 00:26:12,610 --> 00:26:18,550 Some new countries have joined like Croatia recently or is in the process of joining. 194 00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:23,800 But what a difference this is going to make to underlying ethnic issues is far from clear. 195 00:26:24,910 --> 00:26:29,260 It's also far from clear what the real purchase of the European Union will be, 196 00:26:31,900 --> 00:26:35,620 particularly, I think, in Washington and the Obama administration's orbit. 197 00:26:36,310 --> 00:26:40,660 The European Union is seen virtually as a panacea to all problems of Eastern Europe. 198 00:26:41,350 --> 00:26:49,060 Well, I think we only have to open the newspapers certainly this morning to see that is perhaps not a responsible viewpoint. 199 00:26:51,850 --> 00:26:57,040 The Bush administration was highly activist in the Balkans, obviously, 200 00:26:57,040 --> 00:27:02,049 particularly on the Albanian side and in the manner of a lot of U.S. administrations. 201 00:27:02,050 --> 00:27:06,880 The incoming administration was to do that diametric opposite of what the previous one did. 202 00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:14,680 And we saw this happen when the Bush people arrived, and I think you're seeing some of that now in Kosovo. 203 00:27:18,430 --> 00:27:28,390 My own view is that the crossover protection call, which is made up of certainly many ex KLA people, needs further development. 204 00:27:28,930 --> 00:27:38,260 General Czech who came to this country and made a speech a little late last autumn and he said this, but I don't know how much support he got. 205 00:27:40,360 --> 00:27:43,450 I'm very interested to see we have one member of the audience who I think has 206 00:27:44,050 --> 00:27:47,890 much to say on this if she has the opportunity to share in the discussion. 207 00:27:50,110 --> 00:27:55,090 The fact remains Kosovo is not yet a normal functioning state. 208 00:27:55,810 --> 00:28:06,460 It has many of the appendages of statehood. It has grown quite successfully some of the state functions from 1999 in quite a short period. 209 00:28:06,850 --> 00:28:13,870 For instance, it has quite a coherent and well-trained diplomatic service, but it doesn't have an army. 210 00:28:14,860 --> 00:28:20,080 And the question of an army is central really to discussing inheritance. 211 00:28:20,740 --> 00:28:29,980 The KLA. If we try to see what the options are for this inheritance, there are really only two. 212 00:28:31,630 --> 00:28:35,380 One is, I think, to go back to this. 213 00:28:35,380 --> 00:28:53,060 Really? I mean, that is what many NATO nations would like have an orderly infantry force trained according to NATO's standards, 214 00:28:53,580 --> 00:29:02,210 and which, particularly in U.S. eyes, could provide badly needed manpower for US led international coalitions. 215 00:29:04,550 --> 00:29:12,379 That's also, I think, what many Kosovar Albanians would like, because they feel that in the army when it comes, 216 00:29:12,380 --> 00:29:19,910 would be funded largely by NATO and by the US and we would have good jobs and foreign travel and it would be very nice. 217 00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:29,240 But that tradition of that image of an army has not much to do with the careless inheritance. 218 00:29:30,110 --> 00:29:36,980 The careless inheritance is primarily based on defence of territory, property, family and so on. 219 00:29:37,820 --> 00:29:42,920 And it's informal, it's paramilitary and so on. 220 00:29:43,310 --> 00:29:51,640 And reconciling the two is going to be difficult. I found in one of my notebooks recently a discussion I had with how she felt. 221 00:29:51,650 --> 00:30:03,120 She back in October 2001, when we were talking, as we often did, about what should or shouldn't happen to the soldiers, the Allied, 222 00:30:04,250 --> 00:30:12,860 because this was becoming quite a live issue by then in the international community and there were widespread allegations of organised, 223 00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:22,010 organised crime, involvement and so on, racketeering, ex-soldiers and all the usual problems that passionate demobilised armies often have. 224 00:30:24,050 --> 00:30:27,620 And she said to me, Well, of course, you've got to understand, James, 225 00:30:27,620 --> 00:30:33,320 and I'm quoting verbatim here from the conversation, who said we were always really to armies. 226 00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:37,610 And at the time, I think we never understood that well enough. 227 00:30:39,050 --> 00:30:46,020 There was the local rural, informal tradition of that chapter in Balkan terms. 228 00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:55,190 In other words, the unit led by a prominent local individual based on purely, usually personal charisma, not military rank. 229 00:30:56,340 --> 00:30:58,520 And there was the formal tradition, 230 00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:12,679 which was in many ways inherited from those in the KLA who had served in Tito's China and then successors and general Czech, 231 00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:16,070 who, of course is very much from the second tradition. 232 00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:21,200 And I think that accounts and I think this is not just my opinion, 233 00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:27,770 but many observers feel this just accounts for his lack of political success in post-war Kosovo. 234 00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:34,540 Why is Hashim Starchy and her DNA and so on belonged to the other tradition in kind? 235 00:31:34,870 --> 00:31:42,260 And they they were rapidly able to form and lead political parties, which whatever the ups and downs of things, 236 00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:47,960 particularly her denies case still really dominate the political landscape in Kosovo today. 237 00:31:50,900 --> 00:31:55,790 There is also another ingredient to consider what the attitude towards security in 238 00:31:55,790 --> 00:32:02,120 the military and the KLA inheritance would be of of an curtiz's Vietnam vengeance. 239 00:32:03,500 --> 00:32:12,080 This is the there was originally a student movement which became quite a serious political player and has members on the cusp of Parliament. 240 00:32:12,740 --> 00:32:18,830 And it is completely rejectionist to the society plan and would mean if they came to power, 241 00:32:18,830 --> 00:32:26,809 I think the departure of most of the remaining Serbs from Kosovo and also the opening of in some 242 00:32:26,810 --> 00:32:33,140 dimensions the opening of the border with Albania and the movement towards a more united state. 243 00:32:33,890 --> 00:32:38,720 No Curtiz's own background is distinctly non-military. 244 00:32:39,500 --> 00:32:48,620 He was a prominent student leader in the war. He didn't join the KLA and like virtually everyone in the leadership of hard data such as parties. 245 00:32:49,250 --> 00:32:54,230 And he was then imprisoned in Serbia for a long time. 246 00:32:55,010 --> 00:33:01,640 And I've said in my book that I think that while his nationalistic credentials are impeccable, 247 00:33:02,090 --> 00:33:06,739 there will always be a question mark about his credibility and many popular eyes 248 00:33:06,740 --> 00:33:12,230 on the Kosovo Albanians side because of his lack of involvement in the war. 249 00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:16,370 Although, of course, he would be the first to say, Well, that wasn't my fault if I was locked up. 250 00:33:18,500 --> 00:33:22,560 So there is that point. I think that point of view is, I think, ambiguous. 251 00:33:22,610 --> 00:33:33,830 It's not clear what steps they would take. I think in their hearts, like probably in the majority of Kosovo Albanians, they would like a KLA back. 252 00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:42,020 There's an enormous inherited consciousness in all modern Balkan societies of the informal. 253 00:33:42,090 --> 00:33:47,370 Tradition in warfare. Grandpa, who heroically killed a German village. 254 00:33:47,790 --> 00:33:51,840 Great grandpa who heroically killed an Italian in his or something. 255 00:33:52,500 --> 00:33:56,250 Going back years and years. And of course, the greatest tradition of all. 256 00:33:56,640 --> 00:34:02,580 If you have produced someone in your family who killed a Turkish soldier at the time of the Ottoman 257 00:34:02,580 --> 00:34:08,880 Empire and the possession of personal weapons and so on is essential to all these traditions, 258 00:34:12,780 --> 00:34:17,940 what the Serbs think? Well, I think the answer is not much. 259 00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:26,219 But on the other hand, at the moment, I don't think they're in a very good position to resist the creation of an army, 260 00:34:26,220 --> 00:34:36,450 because their own military build up on the borders of Kosovo has been considerable since 1999 2000. 261 00:34:37,410 --> 00:34:42,660 The new, enormous, new military base being built north of Verona in south east Serbia. 262 00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:49,620 It is the largest single military civil engineering project in the whole of Europe and Europe and Russia. 263 00:34:51,000 --> 00:35:02,580 And they, I think, would not be standing on very strong ground in no time if they protested against a former army being formed. 264 00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:12,959 I think on that note, I would stop because I know there's a great deal of expertise in the room, some of which is wonderful to see. 265 00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:20,490 But I was very surprised to see here. And so I would welcome your questions. 266 00:35:20,610 --> 00:35:21,000 Thank you.