The DDR in Kosovo: collision and collusion among international administrators and combatants

Abstract

International audience ; This paper addresses 'cooperation' between the former combatants of the Kosovo Liberation Army and international actors in Kosovo following the adoption in 1999 of the Undertaking of Demilitarisation and Transformation by the Kosovo Liberation Army. Though the UN Resolution 1244 called for the dismantling of Albanian armed groups, the Undertaking actually created a new organisation, the Kosovo Protection Corps, which can be seen as a quasi-army and extension of the KLA. Far from being a typical achievement of the liberal peace, the KPC was the result of KLA resistance and a co-production of DDR policy in Kosovo. To understand some (generally underestimated) outcomes of the peacebuilding mission in Kosovo, one must turn to the 'political sociology of intervention', in particular by examining the interdependent 'strategic interactions' that took place between intermediary actors and international administrators. Former KLA combatants sought to promote their own agenda. Since peacebuilders required their cooperation to implement peace, they acceded to some KLA demands. As a result of this negotiation process, the KPC may be seen as a hybrid entity that permitted an alliance between, on the one hand, pragmatic combatants who had renounced armed struggle and transformed their organisation into political parties and, on the other, international administrators who favoured the stability of the peace mission. Consequently, international interventions produce substantial effects on the societies in which they take place, by reinforcing some groups and weakening other ones.