The article appeared in the Finnish Suomen Kuvalehti
magazine on June 18, 1999.
Translation
Operation
Balkans
President Martti
Ahtisaari and his Finnish negotiating team wrote the
blueprint for the grand-scale diplomatic operation,
which opened the way to peace in Kosovo. Suomen
Kuvalehti tells how it all happened.
Text by Jarkko
Vesikansa
When President Martti
Ahtisaari was drawn into the Kosovo peace struggle,
very few could imagine the extent of his role in it.
When the diplomatic struggle for peace ended a week
ago, and peacekeeping operations began, it was common
knowledge that Ahtisaari had more or less passed the
ordeal with flying colours. But only a select few
knew exactly how the goals were achieved.
As we try to unravel
the significance of the part played by Ahtisaari and
his team in the Kosovo peace process, we must return
to the beginning of May. Ahtisaari's name first
popped up on May 4th, when the Americans and the
Russians realised that the negotiations were not
going anywhere. Vice President Al Gore was hosting a
breakfast meeting that morning in Washington. The
meeting was attended by the US Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright and her Vice Secretary Strobe
Talbott, Security Advisor Samuel R. Berger, Gore's
Special Assistant on International Politics Leon
Fuerth, and Russia's Special Ambassador to Kosovo
Victor Chernomyrdin with his assistants.
It was Chernomyrdin's
suggestion that a third party should be brought in to
speed up the negotiations – someone both the
President of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic and Nato
could trust. Someone suggested Kofi Annan, the
Secretary General of the United Nations, but Albright
torpedoed the idea. She came up with Ahtisaari's
name, saying that Ahtisaari had clearly shown his
abilities in the Namibian peace process. She also
emphasised the fact that Ahtisaari had consistently
supported the idea of maintaining good relations with
Russia. Albright whispered one more thing into the
ears of her American colleagues: Ahtisaari would not
undermine Nato's demands, even though he represented
a militarily unallied country.
Albright loses her
cool with Annan
Ahtisaari's name
didn't reach the negotiating table totally out of the
blue. The Americans had already courted him during
Nato's 50th anniversary summit at the end of April in
Washington, trying to find out about his views. At
that time the air strikes, planned to last a few
days, had been going on for more than a month,
threatening catastrophic results.
The Americans had been
arm-wrestling with the Russians for weeks before
Ahtisaari was contacted. There just didn't seem to be
a compromise. Plans for a peace process had been
sketched out by the truckload – but to no avail.
By the beginning of May, the time was ripe for a
fresh beginning. Otherwise, Yugoslavia would have
been literally bombed into the Stone Age.
Not all the foremost
movers and shakers of international diplomacy were
happy about Ahtisaari's appearance in the ring. The
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in
particular took it as a slap in the face. For quite
some time there had been a power struggle going on
between Annan and Albright. When Annan appointed the
Swedish ex-Premier Karl Bildt and the Slovakian
Minister for Foreign Affairs Eduard Kukan as UN
Special Ambassadors to Kosovo, Albright lost her cool
altogether. She felt that Annan was trying to steal a
bigger part for the UN in the peace process than the
US was ready to give them. She was also afraid that
the UN would become entangled in Milosevic's
machinations, and the whole peace process would be
jeopardised.
Apart from the
achievements listed by Albright, there were other
indications that Ahtisaari would be suited to the
position of peacemaker general. "There were
several self-evident factors that resulted in the
arrow pointing at Ahtisaari", says an
influential Finnish international politics expert. He
lists Ahtisaari's personal connections with world
leaders, his part in the Bosnia peace negotiation
process, the fact that he knows Milosevic, Finland's
future presidency of the European Union, the fact
that Finland is unallied, and her good relations with
Russia.
The lines start
buzzing
After the breakfast
meeting of Gore, Albright, and Chernomyrdin, things
started moving fast. Talbott, Chernomyrdin and the
German Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder all
called Ahtisaari the next day, one after the other,
all conveying the same message: let the action begin.
Ahtisaari met Schröder first, since Germany was
chairing the European Union at the time. In a meeting
held in Hanover on May 7th, Schröder and Ahtisaari
spent two and a half hours discussing how to begin a
mediation attempt. To the 61-year old president, this
meeting seemed like a good start for the peace
operation as Schröder convincingly promised
Ahtisaari his full support.
The following week,
events started accelerating. First, the French
President Jacques Chirac visited Ahtisaari. The
message that he put across gave the President even
stronger tools for action. Now, alongside the German
Federal Chancellor, the head of another great EU
country was appealing to Ahtisaari to begin solving
the Russia, Nato, and Yugoslavia trilemma.
"Chirac gave his staunch support to Ahtisaari's
entering the peace process. It was a significant
milestone", says one commentator.
At this stage
Ahtisaari was still avoiding the public image of
peacemaker general. In real life, the negotiating
attempt was already running under full steam: the
United States and Russia had committed themselves to
trilateral cooperation with Ahtisaari.
Nevertheless, being a
seasoned negotiator, Ahtisaari wanted a thorough idea
of what his chances of success would be in the
attempt. This required personal meetings with the
American and Russian representatives. Even though he
knew the parties' viewpoints in theory, Ahtisaari
thought that meeting them face to face would give him
important clues as to how to solve the worst sticking
points one by one.
Ahtisaari demands
concrete action
On Wednesday May 12th,
the United States Vice-Secretary of State Strobe
Talbott flew to Helsinki, followed the next day by
the Russian Special Ambassador for Kosovo Viktor
Chernomyrdin. Ahtisaari knew both men from previous
meetings.
Ahtisaari deliberately
wanted to find out about the parties' views
separately, so that their mutual squabbling wouldn't
grind the operation to a halt at the very beginning.
The negotiations at
the Mäntyniemi presidential residence were also
attended by the Finnish Premier Paavo Lipponen
(Social Democratic Party, SDP), who had only the
previous week expressed his wish that Ahtisaari
should stand as the SDP:s presidential candidate. At
Mäntyniemi, the party's confusion over naming their
candidate was no longer discussed.
At Mäntyniemi,
Ahtisaari received hope-inspiring news from Talbott,
who was constantly shuttling between Moscow,
Helsinki, and Washington. Talbott informed him of his
agreement with the Russians on naming two expert
commissions. One of them was to start concentrating
on the problems of a Serb retreat and the arrival of
international peacekeeping troops, while the other
was to concentrate on the return of refugees. This
meant that the negotiations were moving into the area
of concrete action, the importance of which Ahtisaari
had had to keep on and on about.
Still, no clear
advances were made at the Helsinki negotiations.
"The negotiations defined the framework within
which a compromise might be sought", clarified a
spokesperson.
The race irritates
Bildt
At this stage,
Ahtisaari had gathered around him a small but
versatile support group, its nucleus formed by
experts recruited from four areas. Counsellor Alpo
Rusi, Office Manager Jaakko Kalela and Special
Assistant Matti Kalliokoski joined the group from the
Presidential Office. The Premier's office was
represented by Lipponen's Special Aide on
International Affairs Timo Pesonen, and the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs by the Head of Political
Department Pertti Tostila. The Finnish Defence Force
sent Rear Admiral Juhani Kaskeala and Brigadier
General Kari Rimpi to join the team. In military
technical negotiations, Kaskeala was assisted part of
the time by Lieutenant-Colonel Lauri Ovaska.
The Finns divided the
workload according to their various areas of
expertise. The military members of the team
concentrated on the retreat of the Serb troops and
the arrival of international peacekeeping troops.
Torstila, representing the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, dealt with relations with the European
Union, and the other tasks – including figuring
out the negotiating strategies – were left to
the President's men. Timo Pesonen's job was to report
on progress to the Premier and the Government. Thus,
the operation had political backing at all times.
Before his team could
continue the negotiations with the Americans and
Russians, Ahtisaari had to deal with a disagreement
between the United Nations and Nato over the Kosovo
operation. In Noordwijk, in the Netherlands, on May
14th, Ahtisaari had to calm down Annan, who had
worked in the UN in the 1980s under Ahtisaari, who
had been an under-secretary at the time.
The meeting was
supposed to be a private dinner, but it was anything
but private. The media had grown increasingly curious
about the meeting ever since Carl Bildt's sour
comments that "he would not enter the race to
Belgrade". Bildt had been appointed a UN
Mediator by Annan. Ahtisaari consciously tried to
avoid being branded the peacemaker of the Balkans.
"I have given free consultation", is how he
described his role after the meeting with Annan.
The ghost of Milosevic
enters the negotiations
In the Presidential
Palace on May 18th and 19th, Ahtisaari's team
received their true baptism by fire at the first
trilateral negotiations. Beforehand, Ahtisaari had
expressed his wish that the negotiations should be
over by dinner, "so everyone could go on with
their other work". Because of the differences of
opinion between the Russians and the Americans,
however, the negotiations stretched on till 10 p.m.
on Tuesday night, and had to be continued the next
morning.
Negotiations were made
more difficult by, among other things, the fact that
the Russian delegation had no military experts.
During the negotiations, however, the Russians and
the Americans slowly began to believe that the main
issues – the Serb retreat and the composition of
the international peace keeping troops – could
be solved in concord.
The Let us not
fight among ourselves -ethos became more popular
as Milosevic's ghost crept into the negotiations. An
empty chair at the table reminded the negotiators
that the true cause of the problems, Slobodan
Milosevic, was absent. The empty chair became a
surrogate Milosevic when Strobe Talbott asked
half-seriously, pointing at the chair, "what
might be the opinion of this gentleman here?"
The crack turned out
to be a masterstroke. "Later on, the empty chair
appeared at the table on purpose," a participant
reveals. After the trilateral negotiations in
Helsinki, Chernomyrdin flew to Belgrade to meet the
real Milosevic. Ahtisaari was reluctant to say
anything at all about meeting with Milosevic himself.
But his faith in the rationality of a Belgrade visit
was growing, and he no longer dismissed the idea as
pure speculation. Before the Helsinki negotiations,
Ahtisaari had claimed that the question of his
meeting with Milosevic in Belgrade "was a bit
like asking if I believed in Santa Claus".
Ahtisaari defends
Nato's leading role
After travelling to
Moscow on May 20th to continue the negotiations,
Ahtisaari received Chernomyrdin's news from Belgrade:
Milosevic's attitude was softening. But Ahtisaari
thought that a lot of mediation would be required
before it became wise to rush into the wolves' den
that was Belgrade. He compared the situation to
preliminary athletic games, when one starts mustering
one's strength for the final battle, in this case a
meeting with Milosevic.
Ahtisaari used the
same comparison to preliminary games the next day,
when he discussed the Kosovo crisis solution with
Kofi Annan in Stockholm. Officially, the purpose of
the meeting was "to inform Annan about the
negotiations held in Moscow". In truth, it was
also about something else: the job descriptions of
Ahtisaari and the United Nations Ambassador to Kosovo
Karl Bildt had finally been honed down to details.
The dynamics of
leadership in the peacekeeping operation required a
lot of work, too. Ahtisaari wanted to maintain Nato's
leading role, even though the United Nations and
Russia found it hard to swallow; it was "the
only model working in practice", he said. The
tense atmosphere of the negotiations could be seen in
Ahtisaari as he was surrounded by a small group of
journalists on his return from Stockholm to the
Helsinki-Vantaa airport. After five minutes of
generalisations on the subject of progress in the
Kosovo peace negotiations, he abruptly changed the
subject to the coming English League soccer game
between Manchester United and Newcastle. He said he
was going to attend the match.
Pivotal wrestling at
Stalin's villa
The next week, on May
the 26th and 27th, the negotiations continued in
Moscow. This time they turned into a marathon session
during which Ahtisaari and his team started feeling
that all the background work was finally paying off.
The participants laid the final basis for the
upcoming trip to Belgrade at a villa once used by
Stalin.
At the villa, Russian
military representatives joined the negotiations,
alongside the Minister for Foreign Affairs Ivan
Ivanov. The Russian team was now in high spirits, and
bolder and bolder steps were taken towards a common
vision. The discussions were based on three different
reports, one by the Americans, one by the Finns, and
one by the Russians. Ahtisaari's proposal was a
modified version of the American report, and it also
formed the basis of the final draft of the peace
conditions.
That evening and
night, the papers were perused in great detail. The
Russian, American and Finnish military
representatives formed their own group, going through
the details of the composition and leadership of the
peacekeeping troops. Every time an issue caused
serious disagreement, the matter was brought to the
politicians' table.
"A lot of
political clout was required, in many questions the
political differences were so big", Kaskeala
recollects. Thus, they slowly worked towards their
goal, creating a joint proposal.
Ahtisaari went as far
as describing those negotiations as "the most
productive times". "Our views are getting
closer, and those facts that bind us all have been
recognised", he told the media.
Cooling water on the
Russians' heads
The Moscow
negotiations had proceeded so fast that the Finns had
to double-check their negotiating strategies. During
the first phase, they had mainly tried to strengthen
the mutual understanding between the parties. In the
second phase, they tried to de-politicise the
problems concerning the Serb retreat and the arrival
of the international troops. Ahtisaari continued
constantly emphasising why this particular
composition of the troops was best, why it was
sensible to disarm the Kosovo liberation army UÇK,
and so on.
Now Ahtisaari had to
calm down the Russians, who were trying to pressure
him into travelling to Belgrade. Ahtisaari kept
repeating over and over again that they would go to
Belgrade only after they had reached a satisfactory
accord.
Soon Ahtisaari decided
once again to change his style. Before the decisive
trilateral negotiations in Petersberg, near Bonn, on
June 1st, Ahtisaari started to put a great deal of
pressure on the negotiating parties to come to an
agreement by saying that he would go to visit
Milosevic alone, if necessary. For example, in an
interview for the Financial Times, he made it
understood that the visit to Belgrade was more or
less an accomplished fact.
This putting of
pressure on the parties through the media was induced
by the fact that the Russians and the Americans had
reached deadlock over the composition of the
peacekeeping troops, among other things. In
Petersberg, the wrestling over the terms of the
peacekeeping operation continued until 4 a.m., until
finally an agreement – although only a weak one
– was reached.
The most significant
fact was Russia's acceptance of Nato as the
coordinator of the peacekeeping operation. Thus,
Ahtisaari could meet Milosevic to present him with
just one proposal for peace terms. Both the Russians
and the Americans signed this proposal.
"Ahtisaari wouldn't have liked to go with two
separate propositions", said a participant.
A secret channel of
mediation was used to secure Milosevic's
propitiousness towards the peace terms in advance.
Russia and the West had already agreed in May that a
Swedish-born businessman Peter Castenfelt would be
used to deliver word of the coming peace terms to
Milosevic. Castenfelt passed on the preliminary
information to the Serbian ruler only a few days
before Ahtisaari and Chernomyrdin's trip to Belgrade.
Milosevic interrupted
in mid-speech
In Belgrade, the
negotiations with Milosevic commenced on June 3rd,
immediately after Ahtisaari and Chernomyrdin with
their entourages had landed at the airport and
travelled to the negotiating venue in a convoy of
cars.
Milosevic received the
Fenno-Russian group calmly and politely. Ahtisaari
and Chernomyrdin sat opposite Milosevic. Joining the
others at the dark table sat the latest addition to
Ahtisaari's team – Professor of Slavic
Philosophy Juhani Nuorluoto from the University of
Helsinki. He had previously briefed the team on the
Serbian negotiating culture.
Ahtisaari told
Milosevic that he was carrying with him a clear
proposal of the terms that the international
community were ready to accept. Milosevic, however,
started lecturing the group broadly on the subject of
Kosovo's significance to the Serbs, using several
historical anecdotes as examples.
After half an hour,
Ahtisaari interrupted Milosevic in mid-speech, asking
if he would agree to the terms. Ahtisaari emphasised
that the terms were non-negotiable, and that no
concessions would be made. He reminded Milosevic that
all Serbian troops would have to retreat from Kosovo.
Milosevic replied that
he was taking the terms seriously. He also revealed
that he had summoned the Serbian Government to a
meeting the same night. "Tomorrow the
Yugoslavian Parliament will also meet for an extra
session", he added.
Ahtisaari was
satisfied, even though he still mistrusted the word
of Milosevic and his henchmen, after having listened
to them in 1992–93 when he was the leader of the
mediator team on the Bosnian war. He turned down
Milosevic's invitation to a joint dinner and urged
him to "go talk to his own people".
In Belgrade, the Finns
experienced what it was like to stay in a town in
wartime. The party was accommodated in the old royal
castle, now converted into a state guesthouse, and
the sounds of battle penetrated even the castle
walls. "The electricity kept cutting off, alarms
were sounding, and the anti-aircraft cannons were
booming," Juhani Kaskeala reminisces.
Meeting Talbott at the
airport
Next morning, it
seemed that a political agreement on the Serbian
retreat was at hand. Ahtisaari met Milosevic twice.
On the second occasion, shortly after 1 p.m.,
Milosevic told him that Yugoslavia would agree to the
peace terms.
Ahtisaari left for the
airport immediately with his entourage. In Cologne,
they were met by the leaders of the European Union
member states, gathered there for an EU summit.
According to protocol, Ahtisaari should have told the
Belgrade news first to the head of the EU Presidency,
Gerhard Schröder of Germany. But Strobe Talbott was
waiting for him at the airport. Ahtisaari got into
the limousine in which Talbott was already seated,
and told him that Milosevic had accepted the peace
proposal, which was based on the principle
"Serbs out, refugees back".
A hero's welcome
awaited Ahtisaari at the summit venue. The day
culminated in a press conference, with Ahtisaari as
the main attraction. Nor did he shy away from the
press, as he told them about his meeting with
Milosevic. He gave a very detailed account, and also
passed on the glory to Gerhard Schröder sitting next
to him, calling the coming Balkan aid programme (the
stabilisation package) "the Schröder
package". After the press conference, a BBC
journalist summed up the atmosphere of the event by
sighing, "what a fascinating news
conference!"
The last mediation
On Sunday June 6th,
Ahtisaari was due to travel to China, but he had to
postpone it until the following day, because the
Serbian generals and Nato could not reach an
agreement over the execution of the peacekeeping
operation. On the Monday, Ahtisaari went to Bonn to
gather momentum. That night, he finally managed to
fly to Beijing, where his party stayed for only five
hours, trying to talk the Chinese leaders into
accepting the United Nations' resolution. But the
final climax of the Kosovo operation took place at
the military negotiations, being held in Macedonia at
the same time.
According to one of
the participants, Rear Admiral Juhani Kaskeala, the
negotiations were held "in good spirit".
All the same, there was friction. As late as Tuesday
night – before the United Nations' resolution
– the negotiations nearly ran aground, as the
Serbs held on to their demands with bovine
stubbornness.
One last time,
Ahtisaari was brought in as mediator. He passed on
the Western points of view directly to Milosevic, who
had learned to trust him. The phone conversations
were made easier by the fact that Milosevic speaks
excellent English.
Without Ahtisaari's
constant contact with Milosevic and the Western
leaders – the Nato Secretary General Javier
Solana, the British Premier Tony Blair, the German
Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and the
representatives of the United States – the
pitfalls of the negotiations could hardly have been
avoided. "I contacted the President immediately
every time the negotiations hit a rough patch. He in
his turn contacted Milosevic and the US State
Department", Kaskeala recalls.
Sleeping it off with a
vengeance
The military technical
negotiations faced the danger of getting stuck in a
vicious circle. Because of the opposition by Russia
and China, the United Nations Security Council could
not process the resolution on Kosovo before the Nato
air strikes had ceased. Nato on the other hand did
not want to stop the air strikes before the Serbian
troops proved that they were retreating from Kosovo.
The Serbs were afraid
of a security vacuum, causing the Kosovo Serbs to
face the revenge of the Albanians, if the troops
withdrew. The United Nations resolution, the
cessation of the Nato air strikes, the commencement
of the Serbian troop withdrawal, and the arrival of
the peacekeeping troops led by Nato all had to click
into place simultaneously.
After all the pieces
finally had fallen into place, Ahtisaari's team could
at last exhale. Several of the team members travelled
to their summer cottages for some rest and sleep.
They had been suffering from sleep deprivation,
because a diplomatic operation of this scale was not
run on a nine-to-five basis. The mental pressure had
also been great, since the attempt to mediate could
have been derailed at any time and thus failed.
Ahtisaari travelled to his summer residence in
Naantali. The hottest weekend of the early summer had
begun.
Journalist Silja Lanas
Cavada assisted in the writing of this article.
Several people who participated in the operation were
interviewed.
