Category: Kosovo

Justice versus reckoning.

Ed Vulliamy makes the crucial distinction between justice and “reckoning,” a term he uses to describe a part of the post-conflict reconciliation process. Reconciliation is a long and drawn-out process, spanning over decades, generations. It is also perhaps not particularly rewarding as breakthroughs are not always evident. It is complicated, requiring utmost cooperation and honesty from all parties: citizens, the government, donors, the international community. As Vulliamy highlights, it is in reconciliation – a process that is too often forgotten, though perhaps less now – that long-term peace is gained and re-development begins:

[...] ”Reckoning” is one of the harshest words in the English language. It means coming to terms with what was done in the wake of calamity, staring at oneself in the mirror, and making amends, historical, political and material. The delivery of Mladic for trial is an important moment, but for justice rather than reckoning. The substance of reckoning is on the ground and among the people who gladly carried out Mladic’s heinous orders. There, it is not happening. And without reckoning, there can be no reconciliation, and thereby no real peace (continued).

This article reminds me of a piece I wrote from Kosovo in 2008, shortly after its independence. Women living within the borders of Kosovo – Albanian, Serbian and Roma – meeting in the primarily Serbian side of Mitrovica. There was nothing particularly glamorous about these meetings: the women would make thick Turkish coffee and the children would stuff their faces with ripe cherries. Yet, without these types of forums, it would be hard for Albanian or Serbian Kosovars to walk to the other side of town and meet with other families and discover that they all shared the same basic needs and that the threat of violence was more in the manipulation of their fears than in reality itself.

your european vacation

Is best spent in the backwaters – former Yugoslavia. A newly opened train line now connects Sarajevo to Belgrade. While I have not been to Belgrade (although I have heard very positive things), Sarajevo is a beautiful little city boasting all the diversity and scars one could hope for when visiting anywhere in Europe. While exploiting the “charm” of post-conflict, this region could really use tourism to boost the economy. Consider flying to Croatia (Ryan Air used to offer a cheap flight), bussing to Sarajevo and taking the train to Belgrade. If feeling adventurous, bus from Belgrade into Kosovo and fly out of Kosovo. NOTE: Exiting Kosovo back into Serbia with a Kosovo stamp is not fun. Sometimes they just hand out a “paper visa” that is not stamped into your passport.

three digits.

I could never get the Kosovar international dialing codes right. Here‘s an excerpt:

More than a year after Kosovo’s declaration of independence, its officials still have Serbian telephone numbers on business cards.

Serbia’s international dialling code, +381, remains for landline calls. Mobile networks have taken another route, bringing two more dialling codes to the territory.

The array of prefixes is a hurdle the new state must overcome to make a successful sale of its prized Post and Telecom of Kosovo (PTK) in the months ahead.

Yet without membership of the United Nations, Kosovo cannot obtain a unique dialling code number from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN body based in Geneva. Only around 60 countries have recognised the Balkan breakaway state, while many others – including key UN Security Council members – back Serbia’s claim to Kosovo.

albin kurti.

One of the most inspirational men I know, Albin Kurti, was arrested at the Macedonian border. He is the leader of VETĖVENDOSJE!, a self-determination movement in Kosovo. See a previous post on his work here.

in bars and cafes.

I pulled this paragraph from David Rieff’s book Slaughterhouse.

Young Croatians might shop in the same boutiques as their opposite numbers in New York, have the same taste in popular music, or have adapted similar sexual mores, but this did not make them cosmopolitans in the “postnational” sense that characterized so many middle class West Europeans and North Americans. They spoke about themselves as Croats in much the way their grandparents had done when Rebecca West had visited Zagreb … It turned out that having the same haircuts as people in Hamburg, or the same jogging shoes as people in Camden Town, had not altered these young Croatians’ essentially nationalist and tribal understandings of themselves by one iota (p. 62).

When traveling in Croatia/Bosnia/Kosovo, I was struck by the esthetic ressemblance of these countries to Western Europe, despite recent conflict. Yet, while we were doing the same things in cafes and bars back in Denmark and Canada, we were rarely talking politics, particularly as fervently as in Kosovo. And, we also had a means of self-determination in our future – financial and social independence – while these groups were slave to migrant family members sending cash back home. So, while economic globalization and the free market have made some distinct surface changes, the fact that the educational and ideological system had not shifted yet marks the potential for future destabilization. When these remittances stop arriving with the economic slow-down in Kosovo, deep-seated unrest will be enabled.

mitrovica continues.

As Kosovo’s independence comes and goes, it looks like the ‘ethnic divide’ in Mitrovica is here to stay:


MITROVICA — From the Serbian side of the Ibar River that divides this city, a visitor can stand and gaze on freshly painted buildings in the Albanian half of Mitrovica. It is a sharp contrast to the grayness that seems to hang over the Serbian part of the city.

Oliver Ivanovic, who currently serves as a key Belgrade official on Kosovo issues, was born in Mitrovica. But he says even he finds the city to be neglected and dreary.

"In this gloomy, gray atmosphere, it’s hard to be an optimist," Ivanovic says. "People who were born here and have lived here for a long time have become attached to this town. But talking to them, I learned that, despite their roots in Mitrovica, some of them have reached the conclusion that this is no longer the place they used to care about. They’re thinking about leaving."

Mitrovica, in northern Kosovo, has been a divided city for nearly a decade. Its northern half, and its environs, are home to the bulk of Kosovo’s 250,000 ethnic Serbs. Contact is rare — and often hostile — with the majority Albanians who populate the city’s southern half.

 

Changing the Kosovo economy is key to reconciliation: engaging Albanians and Serbs in the same – legal – working atmosphere and ensuring they benefit equally is essential. Bridge the economic cleavage and there’s a chance for some serious talks. Talks where the locals govern the outcome, not the nationalists in Belgrade or the ex-KLA in Pristina’s government.