Kosovo: A dangerous cosmetic salon

NEW EUROPE, August 21-27, 2005, Issue Number 639

Multiethnic character of Kosovo province has suffered dramatically

"If we do not get our independence, we will get so upset and frustrated that we will bring hell upon Serbs, other non-Albanians and the internationals in Kosovo" - this paraphrase could sum up bluntly the stance of the province's majority Albanians as the world evaluates whether the province has made enough progress to start talks on its future status.

By Aleksandar Mitic

Indeed, as the UN secretary general's special envoy, Kai Eide enters the last stage of his evaluation of human rights and governance standards in the southern Serbian province, the international community should ensure that the province's majority Albanian community starts implementing those standards instead of threatening with violence, an anti-European and anti-civilised "argument" for independence.

Eide's report is expected in September and could determine whether or not enough progress has been made in the province to begin status talks. Given the poor progress or simply a lack of it from 1999 to date, it was no surprise to hear from Eide hints of profound dissatisfaction.

"Quite honestly, I would have liked to have seen much more progress and political maturity in Kosovo among its leaders," Eide said in an interview recently. His comments were echoed by the EU's High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, as well as by the Contact Group on Kosovo.

These criticisms had a cool water effect on both the Kosovo Albanian leadership and the UN administration in the province, which has for years argued that progress was overwhelming, sending to New York's Security Council pink-coloured reports and citing Potemkin-like examples. The Kosovo Albanian leadership believed that the laissez-faire policy of the international community towards their unique objective - secession from Serbia - would last forever and at any cost.

They could hardly be criticised for that perception after so little has been done to punish those responsible among them for the spread of hatred in the province, the violent expulsion of some 220,000 Serbs, the hundreds of cases of ethnic-motivated murders of Serbs and other non-Albanians, the lack of freedom of movement for the minorities, the export of violence in neighbouring western FYROM and southern Serbia. Or for the three-day anti-Serb ethnic cleansing campaign of March 2004, in which some 4,000 Serbs were displaced, 30 monasteries destroyed, dozens were killed and hundreds wounded.

The multiethnic character of the province has suffered dramatically. Out of 220,000 Serbs who have fled the violence of Albanian extremists since 1999, only 6,027 have come back to their homes. For years, the Albanian leadership and the UN administration cited "lack of security," they now cite "lack of money." There is no freedom of movement for non-Albanians.

There is however "legal chaos," as written and testified by the international ombudsman for Kosovo, Marek Anthony Nowicki in his mid-July report. According to Nowicki's report, human rights are protected only on paper, while "there is no real mechanism to put that in practice."

Indeed, discrimination on ethnic grounds is visible in every aspect of life in Kosovo.

In local courts and hospitals - where access is largely unavailable for the Serbs and the Roma.

In the municipalities - where Serbs who bring documents in the Cyrillic letter face Albanians employed in the administration who often reject them as "illegible and unclear."

In the fields and the food markets - where proper work, the cultivating of fields and selling of agricultural products at local markets is extremely difficult for the Serbs and the Roma, although this is their main source of revenue.

In Serb graveyards - many of which have been destroyed and are impossible to visit, let alone to repair.

In Orthodox churches and monasteries - 150 of which have been destroyed since 1999, many are still endangered and need specific international protection.

In the maps - where the UN regulation 2000/43 under which geographic names in Kosovo cannot be changed into "Albanised" names has not been respected. Thus, the Serb-populated town of Leposavic has become Albanik and Obilic has become Kastriot.

Even in official tourist guides - where centuries of Serbian heritage in Kosovo have been simply wiped out and the term "Serb" is nowhere to be read.

Faced with all this discrimination, some 120,000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo and living in either northern Kosovo or in the so-called enclaves - ghettos heavily protected by NATO troops - have called for a decentralisation of the province.

Decentralisation, a key existential - not a political - question for the survival of the Kosovo Serbs and other non-Albanian communities would allow them to manage justice, police, health, culture, social affairs and education without fear of discrimination by the Albanian majority.

Yet, despite its importance and its designation as a key priority following the massive anti-Serb violence of March 2004, the decentralisation process has not even started as of August 2005.

Faced with the prospect of Kosovo's failures, international officials visiting Pristina during the evaluation process have begun to use the phrase "need for compromise" as a keyword in messages sent to the province's Albanian majority.

There are indeed numerous strong arguments against an independence of Kosovo: it is a maximalist solution in which one side - the Albanian community - gets it all, and the other side - the Kosovo Serbs and Serbia - loses it all. It would create a dangerous precedent for secessionist movements around the world, endanger international law and create a completely new state from the scratch, thus breaking up the most multiethnic country in the region - Serbia.

Furthermore, Kosovo is simply not viable as a state. Its economy is in ruins, it exports less than 3 percent of the value of its imports, lives on donations, has the largest unemployment rate of any European region.

Instead of implementing key standards, the Kosovo Albanian leadership and the UN mission chief in Kosovo are putting these days their last all-round efforts to artificially paint a "multiethnic success story" in the province. Kosovo's cosmetic changes and threats of violence if ethnically-exclusive political projects are not achieved should however be firmly and decisively rejected as recipes for both regional and European instability.

Aleksandar Mitic is co-author of the widely-read "Kosovo Solution Series," lecturer at the University of Belgrade and is an analyst at the Institute of Serbia and Montenegro in Brussels