Kosovo losing ?beauty test?

MICHAEL Steiner, the no-nonsense German bureaucrat who is the UN?s de facto proconsul in Kosovo, is fond of describing the jostling for international attention as being akin to a beauty contest.

Kosovo, he says, is fast discovering she is not the only beautiful woman on the catwalk: Afghanistan and Iraq are parading too and at the moment they seem more appealing.

As a consequence, international donors are slashing budgets for the tiny Yugoslav province, and key nations such as Britain are pulling out their troops as quickly as possible.

Britain has started to withdraw many of its 2,200 troops from Kosovo as security improves and the international community focuses on pressing commitments elsewhere.

Demonstrating the extent to which urgent humanitarian funding is needed elsewhere in the world, the European Union?s external commissioner, Chris Patten, announced last week on a visit to the provincial capital Pristina that the EU?s aid budget to Kosovo would be slashed dramatically.

This year the EU gave £90m (140m) to Kosovo: next year it will be only £30m (50m), the year after £25m.

"Kosovo has been a terrific success story, but the story isn?t over," insisted Patten. "It would be a real mistake for anybody to think we could now relax and simply turn our attention to some parts of the world where the story is not as good as it is here."

He did not explain how that renewed commitment could be squared with slashing EU financial support .

British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said when he visited Kosovo last week that increased security and stability meant Britain would begin reducing troop strengths as part of a "progressive reduction".

"We anticipate a significant drawdown by 2004," said Hoon. "There will be some changes this year, some next spring and early next year."

Hoon would not comment on numbers, but defence officials and international insiders both in Kosovo and in the UK said last night Britain?s presence in Kosovo could be reduced by up to 1,000 men as early as November.

By next spring command of Multi-National Brigade Centre, under British control since Nato entered Kosovo in 1999, would be passed to a Finnish general.

In a year?s time, say officials, there could be as few as 300-400 British troops in Kosovo, mainly working in areas such as intelligence gathering and administrative tasks at the headquarters of Nato?s Kosovo Force, or K-For.

Troops rotated out of Kosovo would not necessarily be earmarked for possible deployment to Iraq, said Hoon, stressing "these decisions were taken independently of anywhere else in the world".

Defence officials in Kosovo and the UK say, however, that troop reductions in Kosovo were linked to strategic thinking about a possible deployment of the British army in Iraq.

There are 2,200 British troops serving as the UK commitment to K-For, the 38,000-strong Nato force that entered Kosovo in June 1999 after a 78-day bombing campaign forced the departure of an oppressive and ethnocidal Serb regime.

The British provide the lead elements in the central area of the province, operating in a brigade led by Brigadier Simon Mayall from the Queen?s Dragoon Guards, which includes Swedes, Finns, Norwegians and Czechs.

International officials from the UN and Nato were quick to condemn the British withdrawals, saying they were premature, potentially damaging to security and operationally short-sighted.

"The British army in Kosovo essentially provides the operational and political example by which most of the other Nato nationalities act," said one senior international official in Pristina.

"If they start leaving, having only half-completed the jobs Mr Blair promised in 1999 that they would do, then the message given to Kosovar Albanians who trust the British is that they are being deserted just when Kosovo needs a firmer hand than ever to keep it stable. This is an appallingly short-sighted decision by the British government, both politically and militarily."

Another official said that if Britain started reducing its troop strengths to such a large extent, it risked losing vital influence in Kosovo with the other four lead nations: America, France, Italy and Germany.

With key negotiations about the long-awaited final status of independence-hungry Kosovo to start next year, Britain could play a key moderating presence.

Patten said he was "impressed by progress made" in Kosovo, yet critics are quick to point out that despite international investments of over quarter of a billion euros spent over three years on Kosovo?s neglected power plants, there is still no reliable and constant supply of water and electricity.

Observers fear that unless the international community continues its commitment to the province, its efforts to bring stability to the region may begin to unravel, leading to further tension and violence.