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Conclusion

The aftermath of March 2004 was an opportunity to demonstrate the existence of the rule of law in Kosovo. Instead, it seems to have confirmed the erratic nature of justice in the province. It has highlighted the inability of the police to successfully investigate difficult cases, and raised concern about the ability of the police to investigate allegations of abuse within their own ranks. It has demonstrated an unwillingness or inability of prosecutors to embrace fully their new role as investigative prosecutors, and confirmed accounts of case mismanagement and a lack of oversight within the courts. It has underscored a lack of clarity about responsibilities within UNMIK’s many departments. And it has shown a fundamental lack of respect for individual victims. In short, the aftermath of March 2004 was an opportunity lost.

The failure to bring to justice many of those responsible for the violence and destruction of March 2004 compounds an earlier lack of accountability for the war crimes and serious anti-minority violence of 1998-2000. Human Rights Watch research indicates that the lack of progress in delivering justice for these serious crimes has hampered Kosovo’s progress toward a functional state. There is a real danger that if the status quo on impunity continues, Kosovo risks becoming a “failed state” in which lawlessness and arbitrariness, not transparent, democratic rule will reign, regardless of the identity of the future leadership of the province.

The gap in justice has further contributed to the diminishing respect majority and minority populations alike have for the international presence in Kosovo. It is vital that the international community seize its last opportunity and address its failings in this important aspect of its administration of the province.

It is not too late to make real progress down the path toward genuine accountability and the hope of future peaceful co-existence. For that to occur, however, the international community and all stakeholders in the status talks on Kosovo must place accountability and the rule of law at the heart of the agenda. The United Nations administration in Kosovo has a legal and moral obligation to deliver justice before any further handover of power and transfer of leadership takes place.