The United Nations Mission in Kosovo or UNMIK is an interim civilian administration of the Serbian province (as part of Serbia and Montenegro) called Kosovo (officially Kosovo and Metohia), under the authority of the United Nations. The current head of UNMIK is the Danish diplomat Soren Jessen-Petersen . The mission was established on June 10, 1999 by Security Council Resolution 1244.
According to resolution 1244, UNMIK is to:
- perform basic civilian administrative functions;
- promote the establishment of substantial autonomy and self-government in Kosovo;
- facilitate a political process to determine Kosovo's future status;
- coordinate humanitarian and disaster relief of all international agencies;
- support the reconstruction of key infrastructure;
- maintain civil law and order;
- promote human rights; and
- assure the safe and unimpeded return of all refugees and displaced persons to their homes in Kosovo.
UNMIK is divided into four sections which it calls "pillars". These are:
A NATO-led force called KFOR provides an international security presence in support of UNMIK's work.
After five years of work (As of 2004), UNMIK has failed in most of these tasks:
- Establishment of substantial autonomy and self-government in Kosovo is not complete; rather, all key political factors maintain that full independence of Kosovo as their immediate goal;[1]
- Kosovo's final status is still indeterminate because of a competing pressures from Kosovo, Yugoslavia and Russia;
- Some key infrastructure is unreliable; specifically, electric distribution is still unreliable;
- The minority Serb populations in the North are constrained in their movement for security reasons. While nearly all of the 850 000 displaced Albanians have returned, only 5 800 of approximately 200 000 non-Albanians have done so. [2]
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