NATO Postpones Demilitarization of Kosovo Rebels

Last-minute disputes Sunday over the peacetime role of former rebel fighters led NATO to agree today to a delay of two days in the planned demilitarization of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

The KLA, which was to have formally disbanded at midnight Sunday, won the reprieve as its leaders negotiated with NATO-led international peacekeepers over the nature of the KLA’s proposed successor, the civilian defense Kosovo Corps.

The announcement came at dawn today after all-night negotiations among KLA leaders and top NATO and United Nations officials in Kosovo at the NATO forces’ headquarters on a hill overlooking Pristina, the Kosovo provincial capital.

KLA Gen. Agim Ceku was to have presented written certification that the rebels had demilitarized at a 10 a.m. meeting Sunday with British Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson, commander of the NATO-led peacekeeping forces in the province. But that meeting was canceled.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials see the Kosovo Corps as a key tool for converting up to 5,000 rebel soldiers into civilians charged with helping rebuild Kosovo and responding to natural disasters.

Under U.N. plans, only 200 corps members would be authorized to carry weapons to provide security for corps operations.

KLA leaders, though, want the Kosovo Corps to be larger and better armed, since they see it as a transitional step from a rebel force in the mountains to a full military for an independent Kosovo. Kosovo is still a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s dominant republic.

“It is the right of every nation to have an army,” said Latif Gashi, 38, deputy commander of the KLA Llap Zone, which includes Pristina. “There is no power on the Earth that can deny Kosovo an army, because every citizen of Kosovo has the right to be trained, physically and mentally, to defend his country.”

Some of the sticking points are relatively inconsequential, such as what the corps should be called and the design of its insignia. And some former soldiers are upset that they will not simply be trading one uniform for another and might have to spend up to 10 days in civilian clothes, Gashi said.

Other issues are more significant.

“Weapons is one of the issues being discussed,” British Lt. Col. Robin Clifford, spokesman for the NATO forces, said Sunday afternoon as negotiations continued.

KLA leaders also want to shift their existing command structure to the new corps. But U.N. officials, who will have responsibility for the force, have said they expect interested KLA fighters to register for consideration, much as they would apply for a job, within a structure that the U.N. will establish.

From a practical standpoint, Western peacekeepers have the final say on the nature of the Kosovo Corps, but NATO leaders believe that, without KLA support, the corps probably would not achieve its main goal--finding a role in civilian society for the rebel soldiers.

Clifford said peacekeepers are satisfied with the KLA’s compliance in turning in more than 10,000 weapons, and described the demilitarization and launch of the Kosovo Corps as separate issues.

While there have been some concerns that KLA commanders dissatisfied with civilian roles might try to maintain their own brigades in violation of the peace agreement, Western diplomats have said they aren’t concerned about renegade forces challenging NATO peacekeepers.

“Two or three commanders are known to be very much opposed to this kind of [civilian] force,” one U.S. official said in the days leading up to the demilitarization. “But going off and forming your own army [to attack peacekeepers] is just a good way to get yourself killed.”