Thundering into the southern Kosovan town of Prizren one year ago, German NATO tanks ran into a roadblock manned by defeated, humiliated and violent Serb Interior Ministry police, the much-feared MUP. The German tanks ground to a halt. A group of journalists approached the Serbs.
"Where," we asked them, "can we come and find you once you've left Kosovo, and returned to Serbia?"
There was laughter among the group of slab-faced policemen in their blue-and-black camouflage uniforms. Words in Serbian were exchanged as one of them drew a hunting knife and approached.
"You won't forget my address," one man said to me, smiling only with his mouth, "if I carve it right into your face."
A year later along the same road, the leaves on the lime trees are flagging in another scorchingly hot Kosovan summer, the Serbs have left, the Albanians are sporadically killing some that have remained, and NATO and the UN are 12 months into their most testing mission ever.
In a destroyed province beset by ethnic violence, organised crime, political uncertainty, poverty and an extreme lack of socio-economic development, the head of the UN Mission in Kosovo, Dr Bernard Kouchner, yesterday branded the first year of the mission a "success".
"For the UN people, the Kosovo mission is a success," said Dr Kouchner. "We are building a modern democratic society, but the international community needs time. We are here for some years."
UN Security Council resolution 1,244, which mandated the establishment of the UN Mission in Kosovo, or UNMIK, continues unchanged, but members of the Security Council in New York have made it plain to Dr Kouchner that their continued backing for the mission is dependent on his and NATO's ability to bring an end to the ethnic violence in the province.
Two Kosovan Albanians were shot dead and one wounded on Sunday near Cubrilj, in central Kosovo, while eight Serbs have been killed and more than 20 wounded in the last three weeks.
In his end-of-year report, the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, said that of some 330 serious ethnic crimes, including murder, rape and kidnapping, that had taken place since January, around 65 per cent had targeted the Serbs and other ethnic minorities.
UN Resolution 1,244 - which Dr Kouchner refers to as "our bible" - is complex to apply because it allows for Kosovo to have "substantial autonomy" while still respecting the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
"This is a sticking point for the Kosovan Albanians," said one international official in Pristina. "They want independence, we're saying, `Hold on, we need to develop democracy and institutions'."
But other Western analysts display a cynical, less-than-optimistic approach, jaded and rundown after a year of Kosovan Albanian violence against Serbs, as well as their displayed inability to adapt to the absolutes of Western European socio-economic standards.
"Democracy?" asks one UN international staffer. "We're 15 light years away from it - these people couldn't run a bath."
Overseen by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, voter-registration for municipal elections tabled for October is under way but seriously behind schedule, with over 500,000 people still due to register in less than a month.
Crucial in the voting process are the thousands of Kosovan Serbs who have fled the province in the last year. Dr Kouchner says simply that they "must vote if they want to be part of the future of Kosovo". Voter-registration points have therefore been opened along Kosovo's boundary with Serbia.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, says it may be "premature" to encourage Serbs to return, even protected by NATO troops. But even so, under an American-funded scheme, some 50 Serb families are to return to the deserted, destroyed village of Osijane, in the Zubin Potok municipality of northern Kosovo.
Under constant armed attack by hardline Albanians, Kosovo's remaining 70,000 to 90,000 Serbs are forced to live in NATO-protected enclaves, such as the monastery town of Gracanica, and the ethnically divided flashpoint town of Mitrovica.
The main triumph of the internationally sponsored political process was the decision made on April 2nd by the province's Serb National Council to join, as observers, the UN-sponsored, multi-ethnic Joint Interim Administration Structure. Recent anti-Serb violence, however, led to the SNC temporarily suspending participation.
An absence of a functioning legal structure has made policing Kosovo a frustrating, seemingly insoluble task, say officers from the UN multi-national Civilian Police. Biased local Albanian judges, slowness to install international judges, and a lack of adequate detention facilities have all contributed to a climate of lawlessness in the province.
Some 3,620 international police officers from 30 countries are now deployed in Kosovo, 77 per cent of the UN-authorised strength of 4,700.
One of their tasks is combating institutionalised organised crime operated by Albanian syndicates which specialises in the trafficking of drugs, guns and prostitutes. Unravelling and clamping down on the links between organised crime and the political parties in Kosovo is one of the unsung achievements of the UN and NATO.
"In our operations on crime we are getting close to certain key political figures, and it's a sign of how close we are to hitting them that they are getting very nervous," said one UN civilian police official with extensive experience in combating organised crime and terrorism.
NATO officials think it likely that the next few days will see the deaths of more Serbs, but the flamboyant rhetoric of Dr Kouchner is more upbeat on the first anniversary.
"This is the anniversary of the international community deciding to help a minority, and it's the first time it's been done in the history of the world."