August 1998 
  Vol. IV, No. 5

Members of the Kosovo Liberation Army en route to a confrontation with Serbian police in the town of Junik, Kosovo, in June.

n informal dialogue between ethnic Albanians of Kosovo and Serbs might facilitate official negotiations seeking a basis for compromise in the current conflict, say representatives of the U.S. Institute of Peace.

The Institute’s Education and Training Program conducted a conflict management and negotiation training for 22 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, June 20–24 in Sofia, Bulgaria. The training team was led by Institute executive vice president Harriet Hentges, head of the Bosnia in the Balkans Initiative, and included senior fellow Daniel Serwer, minister-counselor at the U.S. Department of State, and Harold Saunders and Jaco Cilliers, consultants and experts in international negotiation. Saunders, former assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, is currently facilitating dialogue among the parties to the conflict in Tajikistan.

The Institute organized the negotiation training at the request of Veton Surroi, editor of Koha Ditore, the independent Albanian-language daily in Kosovo. Surroi had attended two of the Institute’s earlier International Conflict Resolution Skills Training (ICREST) seminars for diplomats, government officials, and civic leaders of southeastern Europe.

The Kosovars attending the June training included civic and political leaders, among them the executive secretary of the team designated to negotiate with the government of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, two parliamentarians, two law professors, the head of the alternative medical system, and the head of Koha Ditore’s newly formed think tank devoted to the crisis.

Training Goals

	Above and left: Harold Saunders and Harriet Hentges speaking at the ICREST seminar for Kosovars.

“It is not the Institute’s role to intervene on one side of the Kosovo conflict, but to improve the process whereby the parties to the conflict can find a solution,” Hentges says. “We have offered a similar negotiation skills training to Belgrade officials. Leaders on all sides need to seek a variety of approaches and engage a variety of players in finding a solution to the disputed status of Kosovo.”

Hentges, Cilliers, and Serwer were joined by senior fellow John Menzies, former U.S. ambassador to Bosnia, and Lauren Van Metre, program officer in the Research and Studies Program, at a current issues briefing on Capitol Hill July 16 to discuss the situation in Kosovo and insights gained at the Institute’s recent training. The event—attended by more than 100 policymakers, academics, and journalists—was moderated by Bob Hand of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The training aimed to help Albanians involved in the current crisis work on teambuilding, identify new options, develop their negotiation skills, gain perspective, and break the sense of isolation many of them feel, Hentges said.

Serwer added, “We wanted to demonstrate that there is a broader peace process that takes place away from the negotiating table. We wanted to show them that their influence in the broader process is critical in determining the outcome of the conflict. We wanted them to see that no matter how monolithic the Serb position might seem, they can always find Serbs to explore alternative options with.”

The training stressed the importance of preparations before negotiation, especially the need to clearly identify not just the positions of the parties to the conflict, but also the specific long- and short-term interests that lie behind those positions. “If they can analyze their own and the Serbs’ interests, they can see where they have common interests and develop a strategy for staged negotiations,” Serwer said.

Participants said in their workshop evaluations that the training had taught them the importance of preparation and given them a solid foundation for understanding the negotiation process. One participant wrote, “I learned to see things more objectively, as a third party looks at them. This objectivity makes me more realistic [about the peace process] and makes me think more deeply [about the available options].”

Hentges said that the training in Sofia exceeded expectations. “Ideally, the Institute would like to provide a follow-up training for additional Kosovars, a similar training for Serbs, and eventually a training that would include both ethnic Albanians and Serbs, with the intention of promoting a continuing unofficial dialogue between them,” she said. “The June training was an important first step.”

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Harriet Hentges
Daniel Serwer
John Menzies
Lauren Van Metre

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