Ahtisaari's difficult mission

By Tanja Vasama
     
      The tension broke on Friday. The United Nations Security Council had finally confirmed the appointment of former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari as a special envoy to Kosovo.
      The process was a surprisingly long one.
     
Two and a half weeks earlier the same Security Council had decided that negotiations would begin on the final status of Kosovo, which is still a province of Serbia and Montenegro. At the same time, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had said in public for the first time that he was backing Ahtisaari in the negotiations.
      Eight days later Annan officially announced his choice. All that was needed then was the final approval of the Security Council.
      The confirmation was supposed to be a mere formality.
      On the day that followed Annan's announcement, Ahtisaari was having a working dinner in Washington with the six powers preparing for the Kosovo negotiations - the so-called Contact Group. In Finland, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs was preparing a press conference for Ahtisaari for November 5th. Assurances came from UN Headquarters in New York that the approval of the Security Council would come at any moment.
      The appointment was expected to have been confirmed a week ago Friday at the latest. However, a Muslim holiday happened to be on the same day. It seems to have caught those waiting by surprise. The session of the Security Council was delayed, and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs had to cancel the next day's press conference.
      This week many working days passed with no progress.
      "The matter is not in our hands. Now everything depends on the 15 member states of the Security Council", said UN spokesman Brendan Varma on Wednesday. It is as if some uncertainty had crept into his voice. In the previous week Varma had insisted that the matter would be cleared up "within 48 hours".
      So why the delay?
     
The appointment had been prepared with great care. The Finn had been first mentioned in public already in late March.
      The so-called Contact Group, comprising the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia, had been following the situation in Kosovo for years. In the spring, an understanding had been reached within the group, that a solution had to be found to the vague legal situation of Kosovo.
      There was already intense talk behind the scenes on who would lead these negotiations. The matter was raised by Kosovo's main newspaper Koha Ditore. It quoted sources in Brussels as saying that at least Ahtisaari and former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt would be candidates for the post.
      It was clear that the head of the Kosovo talks would come from a member state of the European Union. In addition, the person in question would have to have held the status of a Prime Minister at the very least.
      Ahtisaari and Bildt met the criteria. Both also had experience in peacekeeping tasks in the Balkans: Bildt had served as the special representative of the UN Secretary-General in the Balkans, while Ahtisaari had pressured Slobodan Milosevic into pulling Serb forces out of Kosovo in 1999.
     
Other names were also popping into the public eye.
      "There were some who actually sold and marketed themselves, like this Amato", says Markku Laamanen, the head of the Finnish contact office in Pristina. "And it seems that Bildt also had his own Swedish supporters."
      Giuliano Amato is Italy's former Prime Minister, who led a group of experts which published a report on the future of the Balkans in the spring.
      "It was something of a thesis, explaining that he would be very competent [for the post]. I think that the notion in the international community at the time was that it was a somehow biased paper, at least in the view of those in Belgrade. It was seen as to have been made to order, in a negative manner from the point of view of Belgrade", Laamanen recalls.
      Bildt's stumbling block was seen to be his excessively critical view of the United States.
     
Another name taken seriously would have been former NATO Secretary-General, Lord George Robertson. In May the newspaper The Scotsman wrote that he would head the negotiations. However, Robertson, the head of a private telecommunications company, was not interested.
      "It was kind of a wish list to Santa Claus, of people wanted for the job. It mentioned everyone with any possibility to be chosen", said Ahtisaari himself.
      During the summer, all of the others fell from the list.
      Secretary-General Annan first asked Ahtisaari if he would be interested in the job on August 14th. Ahtisaari said that he would "consider the matter seriously".
      Several governments of the countries of the Contact Group had been in touch much earlier. Therefore, the support of Russia, which has been seen as Serbia's big brother, was seen to be assured.
     
So why was the appointment delayed?
      "I do not believe that there was anything in the content. I think that it was these procedures", Ahtisaari said.
      By procedures, he was referring to an appendix that came with the letter of confirmation from the Security Council. It had been drafted by the Contact Group, and in it, the special representative is given instructions for the negotiations.
      "It is not very common for the chairman of the Security Council to add an appendix from an outside body to a letter", admits Kai Sauer, head of the West Balkans unit of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. However, Sauer does not see the letter as politically alarming. There was no dispute over the person to be appointed.
      However, the letter was carefully fine-tuned behind closed doors over a period of several days. Ahtisaari does not want to comment directly on how much Russia wanted to influence the language of the letter. A separate mention of the need to protect Serb Orthodox churches in Kosovo nevertheless appears to be largely the result of Russia's input.
     
When the appointment was finally confirmed late on Thursday, the matter was shrugged off with silence in New York.
      Giving out information was left to the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. On Friday, Ahtisaari was met by a thick group of Finnish and foreign journalists.
      The cheerful President, who basked in the light of flash cameras, expressed his satisfaction with his mandate.
      "Nobody has congratulated me for getting a cushy job", Ahtisaari pointed out, commenting on the challenges of the coming months.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 13.11.2005  

More on this subject:
 COMMENTARY: Serbs looking for way to save face

Previously in HS International Edition:
  UN envoy Ahtisaari opposes time limit for Kosovo talks (14.11.2005)
  UN Security Council confirms Ahtisaari appointment to Kosovo post (11.11.2005)
  Kofi Annan appoints President Ahtisaari to lead Kosovo talks (2.11.2005)
  Kofi Annan says President Ahtisaari likely to be UN Kosovo envoy (25.10.2005)
  President Ahtisaari seen as possible head of Kosovo talks (11.10.2005)