Kosovo's limbo suits both sides

Kosovo's limbo suits both sides 

Mirjana Tomic International Herald Tribune

Published: July 6, 2006


MADRID Negotiations under way in Vienna, Brussels and New York on the future political status of Kosovo are expected to end this year. While Kosovo Albanians want independence, Serbia's prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, declared during his recent controversial trip there that Kosovo "will always be part of Serbia."

Kostunica visited Kosovo on June 28, the day Serbs mark the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, when the defeat of the Serbs enabled the Ottoman Turks to invade the Balkans and stay there for almost five centuries.

When Western news media refer to Kosovo, they often remind their audience that for Serbs, it represents the cradle of Serbian civilization. They repeat what Serbian politicians tell them. But as the liberal Belgrade monthly Republika writes, Kosovo was "the heart of Serbia during Middle Ages." Today, "80 percent of the population has never been to Kosovo and has no links to the region, except for the mythology that has been consciously produced."

I am the only one among my friends and acquaintances who has actually been to Kosovo on vacation. Like most people of my generation, who attended Belgrade schools during the 1960s and early '70s, I had to memorize epic songs about the Kosovo battle and Serbian heroes. In our free time we listened to the Beatles and dreamed about visiting Western Europe. I never heard anyone say: "Let's spend our vacation visiting Kosovo."

In the absence of massive tourist demand to visit Kosovo, Yugoslavia's Communist authorities organized trips for employees and schoolchildren to visit the region. It was the only contact that most Serbs had with the "cradle of civilization."

The first time I visited Kosovo was in the late '60s. My parents took me on a tour of Serbian medieval monasteries, sources of culture and literacy before the Ottoman invasion and defenders of Christianity and tradition during the Muslim domination. Most monasteries were left to rot, but thanks to the efforts of monks and nuns, they functioned. In my early teens, Kosovo was a cultural shock: I remember veiled Albanian women in traditional costume selling food and crafts on filthy sidewalks.

Thirty years later, when I traveled to Kosovo as a journalist for a major Spanish daily and witnessed omnipresent underdevelopment, I wondered what had happened to the aid that had gone to Kosovo. According to a friend who had a leading position in the League of Serbian Communists, before Slobodan Milosevic came to power, all development aid was channeled to Kosovo Albanian Communist officials. Belgrade had no say on how it was spent.

As a reporter of Serbian origin, I did not feel welcome in Kosovo. In Albania, however, where I also went on a professional assignment, this was not the case. Our common Balkan cultural heritage created an immediate bond. My conclusion was simple: It was politics that created animosity, rather than a difference in cultural heritage.

Nowadays, after the 1999 war, deaths, expulsions, massacres and innumerable violations of human rights, the chance is small that young Kosovo Albanians and young Serbs would ever meet. If they did meet, it would be abroad. And if they became friends, they would not boast about it. A Vienna-based Albanian from Kosovo told me: "My mother's best friend is Serbian. When we go to Kosovo she has to hide it."

The Serbs who remained in Kosovo live in enclaves protected by international troops, while hundreds of thousands of Serbs, poor and rich, have emigrated from Kosovo during the past decades.

The poor live in Serbia's shantytowns; local Serbs consider them primitive. Some would like to go back, but fear prevents them. The rich, on the other hand, do not plan to return to Kosovo, where crime prospers and the electricity supply is unreliable.

Serbia's foreign minister, Vuk Draskovic, claims that the future status of Kosovo is of utmost importance for Serbia's future, but like other Serbian politicians, he does not specify why it is so important. Does Serbia's economic or political future depend on the status of Kosovo? Or would the loss of Kosovo mean that Belgrade politicians had to face the real issues affecting Serbia's population: crime, corruption, quality of education, unemployment, health care, democracy and human rights, low living standards, isolation from the European Union?

At the same time, the ambivalence about the status of Kosovo suits politicians: Serbian politicians evoke the Kosovo myth in order to postpone addressing their real problems; their Kosovo Albanian counterparts can always blame the lack of independence as the source of all evils, including unemployment, crime, corruption, crumbling infrastructure and the failing economy.

Mirjana Tomic, a freelance media consultant, lives in Madrid.
 MADRID Negotiations under way in Vienna, Brussels and New York on the future political status of Kosovo are expected to end this year. While Kosovo Albanians want independence, Serbia's prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, declared during his recent controversial trip there that Kosovo "will always be part of Serbia."

Kostunica visited Kosovo on June 28, the day Serbs mark the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, when the defeat of the Serbs enabled the Ottoman Turks to invade the Balkans and stay there for almost five centuries.

When Western news media refer to Kosovo, they often remind their audience that for Serbs, it represents the cradle of Serbian civilization. They repeat what Serbian politicians tell them. But as the liberal Belgrade monthly Republika writes, Kosovo was "the heart of Serbia during Middle Ages." Today, "80 percent of the population has never been to Kosovo and has no links to the region, except for the mythology that has been consciously produced."

I am the only one among my friends and acquaintances who has actually been to Kosovo on vacation. Like most people of my generation, who attended Belgrade schools during the 1960s and early '70s, I had to memorize epic songs about the Kosovo battle and Serbian heroes. In our free time we listened to the Beatles and dreamed about visiting Western Europe. I never heard anyone say: "Let's spend our vacation visiting Kosovo."

In the absence of massive tourist demand to visit Kosovo, Yugoslavia's Communist authorities organized trips for employees and schoolchildren to visit the region. It was the only contact that most Serbs had with the "cradle of civilization."

The first time I visited Kosovo was in the late '60s. My parents took me on a tour of Serbian medieval monasteries, sources of culture and literacy before the Ottoman invasion and defenders of Christianity and tradition during the Muslim domination. Most monasteries were left to rot, but thanks to the efforts of monks and nuns, they functioned. In my early teens, Kosovo was a cultural shock: I remember veiled Albanian women in traditional costume selling food and crafts on filthy sidewalks.

Thirty years later, when I traveled to Kosovo as a journalist for a major Spanish daily and witnessed omnipresent underdevelopment, I wondered what had happened to the aid that had gone to Kosovo. According to a friend who had a leading position in the League of Serbian Communists, before Slobodan Milosevic came to power, all development aid was channeled to Kosovo Albanian Communist officials. Belgrade had no say on how it was spent.

As a reporter of Serbian origin, I did not feel welcome in Kosovo. In Albania, however, where I also went on a professional assignment, this was not the case. Our common Balkan cultural heritage created an immediate bond. My conclusion was simple: It was politics that created animosity, rather than a difference in cultural heritage.

Nowadays, after the 1999 war, deaths, expulsions, massacres and innumerable violations of human rights, the chance is small that young Kosovo Albanians and young Serbs would ever meet. If they did meet, it would be abroad. And if they became friends, they would not boast about it. A Vienna-based Albanian from Kosovo told me: "My mother's best friend is Serbian. When we go to Kosovo she has to hide it."

The Serbs who remained in Kosovo live in enclaves protected by international troops, while hundreds of thousands of Serbs, poor and rich, have emigrated from Kosovo during the past decades.

The poor live in Serbia's shantytowns; local Serbs consider them primitive. Some would like to go back, but fear prevents them. The rich, on the other hand, do not plan to return to Kosovo, where crime prospers and the electricity supply is unreliable.

Serbia's foreign minister, Vuk Draskovic, claims that the future status of Kosovo is of utmost importance for Serbia's future, but like other Serbian politicians, he does not specify why it is so important. Does Serbia's economic or political future depend on the status of Kosovo? Or would the loss of Kosovo mean that Belgrade politicians had to face the real issues affecting Serbia's population: crime, corruption, quality of education, unemployment, health care, democracy and human rights, low living standards, isolation from the European Union?

At the same time, the ambivalence about the status of Kosovo suits politicians: Serbian politicians evoke the Kosovo myth in order to postpone addressing their real problems; their Kosovo Albanian counterparts can always blame the lack of independence as the source of all evils, including unemployment, crime, corruption, crumbling infrastructure and the failing economy.

Mirjana Tomic, a freelance media consultant, lives in Madrid.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/06/opinion/edtomic.php