The New York Times

Thursday, July 1, 1999

THE UNITED NATIONS

Annan Urges Swift Action on Assistance to Kosovo

By JUDITH MILLER

UNITED NATIONS -- Warned on Wednesday that urgent action was needed to reintegrate refugees flooding back into Kosovo, U.N. members were cajoled or shamed into pledging additional money and personnel to help secure and assist a democratic, multi-ethnic Kosovo.

By the end of the conference, organized by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the 18 self-declared "Friends of Kosovo" had almost doubled their contributions to what will be an armed international police force in the Serbian province -- boosting the promised forces from 1,000 to 1,938. That total, however, is still about 1,000 short of the 3,110 police that the United Nations estimates are needed to stop revenge killings and looting and to restore order.

At the same time, members of the world body failed to agree Wednesday on the nature and scope of international assistance for Yugoslavia as long as Slobodan Milosevic remains president.

Pledges of additional support came from the foreign ministers and other senior officials who attended the conference, the first review of international relief and rehabilitation efforts since June 10 when the Security Council approved a resolution authorizing the United Nations to run a civilian administration in Kosovo along side KFOR, the NATO-led military force. While KFOR is supposed to have some 50,000 troops, less than half of them have been deployed.

Annan organized the conference largely to encourage donors to increase their contributions. "These are pledges, and we cannot deploy and distribute what we do not have," Annan told the conference.

Annan was unable on Wednesday to name the U.N. chief representative to Kosovo. According to senior U.N. officials, he had planned to announce that he had chosen Martti Ahtisaari, the Finnish president, but Ahtisaari was said to have withdrawn from consideration after France demanded that he resign as president in order to devote himself full-time to the post.

France has its own candidate: Bernard Kouchner, its health minister, whom Annan named on Wednesday as one of four candidates he is considering. The others are Paddy Ashdown, Britain's retiring Liberal Party leader, Emma Bonino, an Italian who heads the European Commission for Humanitarian Affairs, and Jan Pronk, the Dutch housing and environmental minister.

Several foreign ministers and senior diplomats at the four-hour, closed-door conference praised the U.N. effort on the ground, especially the performance of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N. undersecretary-general whom Annan assigned as temporary chief representative until the post is filled.

While some diplomats had urged Annan to give the diplomatically sensitive post to de Mello, a Brazilian, the Europeans, who are financing most of the Balkans reconstruction, insist that a European get the job.

At a news conference after the meeting, Annan said the ministers had disagreed over what constituted "humanitarian" assistance and whether Serbia should receive it.

A senior administration official said that Japan, Britain, the Netherlands and other Europeans wanted to insure that Belgrade got no reconstruction or other assistance as long as its leader is Milosevic, who has been indicted on war crimes charges. But Russia and China pushed for a broad definition, insisting that because Kosovo is part of Serbia, Serbia should receive aid.

"Some ministers sounded more like 'friends of Serbia' than 'friends of Kosovo,"' a senior American official complained.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reiterated Washington's view that Serbia should receive no help that would "bolster the position of the current regime in Belgrade."

But Annan disagreed, saying that unless Serbia received minimum assistance -- such as money to rebuild bridges over the Danube, and electrical and water plants that NATO jets destroyed, neither Kosovo nor the Balkans would recover.

"It is pointless to take in loads and loads of medicine if people are taking in dirty water and then get sick," Annan said.

Albright announced today that the United States would send 550 American police and trainers to Kosovo. Germany pledged 200, after U.N. officials noted that it was one of the few European states not to have volunteered any.

To guarantee the safety of the police and that of the Kosovars, Annan said he had decided that the international force should carry weapons, the first time that a U.N. police force will do so