Tensions between Serbs and Albanians flare up in Kosovo

Standoff between police and locals threaten the uneasy peace in north of the volatile Balkan state

Maryrose Fison

Sunday, 30 October 2011

Acrowd stands on tiptoes trying to peer over a 6ft wall of rubble. On the other side, a green tent balances on uneven tarmac. The Serbian tricolour of red, blue and white flutters in the air.

Inside the tent, middle-aged men watch news images of a violent confrontation between soldiers and civilians. The rest of the tent is empty but for a handful of pencil sketches drawn in the wobbly hand of a young child.

To the locals, the wall is a political statement and a physical barrier against a government it does not recognise. Tensions are rising here, for this region is now experiencing the worst level of civil disruption since Kosovo declared independence in 2008.

Ethnically divided Mitrovica in northern Kosovo is home to a population of 60,000 ethnic Serbs. The mountainous region has become one of the last remaining Serb enclaves in Kosovo since the mainly Albanian government in Pristina declared the former Serbian province independent.

International opinion is still divided over the legal basis for Kosovo's status. The US, the UK and Germany are among the 70-plus countries that have recognised it. But five EU countries as well as China and Russia steadfastly refuse. While Pristina considers northern Kosovo a part of Kosovo, the area has remained under the de facto control of Serbia since the war in 1999.

The currency of exchange for food and taxis is the Serbian dinar, as opposed to the euro used in the rest of Kosovo. Serbian, rather than Albanian, is the lingua franca, and public institutions such as hospitals are funded by Serbia's public sector.

Though unpalatable to the Kosovo government, this situation came to be understood as the unofficial compromise necessary to ensure widespread stability in a volatile region. Yet a single political decision made three months ago now threatens to unravel this fragile peace arrangement.

The trouble began when Kosovo's Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci – himself the subject of allegations ofinvolvement in organ trafficking, which he has always denied – deployed the country's mainly Albanian riot police and customs officers to checkpoints in northern Kosovo. Mr Thaci justified the move as necessary to enforce a trade ban on goods from Serbia, responding to an equivalent ban on goods from Kosovo in Serbia. But it was interpreted differently by the local populace, which saw the move as an affront to civil liberties and a precedent with the potential to result in submission to Albanian rule.

A 100-strong mob of angry Serbs stormed the two customs checkpoints where the Albanian officers had been deployed, setting fire to one and vandalising another. One Albanian police officer was killed.

Swift diplomatic action brought the area under control again, but over the past three months the locals have erected a different form of civil protest. More than a dozen roadblocks have gone up, the most prominent of which stands on Mitrovica's main bridge dividing the Serbian north of the city from the Albanian south. "I am willing to die for this cause," Brajan Vukicevic, a Serbian father of three, says outside the barricade. "I do not give a damn if it's winter or summer. We have fire to keep us warm and we have a heart for Serbia and all we are doing here is defending the state of Serbia."

"Everyone in this world has a right to live in freedom and a right to peace," says Ljubisa Petrovic, 51. "I would die for my children. I want them to live in freedom. Given what has happened in Kosovo over the past 13 years, we [have] decided to live in our motherland. We don't want to live in a country which is built on the misfortune of others. We want to stay included in Serbia as we have been until now."

Yet the Nato peacekeeping troops in Kosovo say the position is not sustainable. The presence of roadblocks along the region's main access routes, they say, impedes access for emergency vehicles and the transport of goods. Last week 40 civilians were reported injured in a violent standoff between Serb protesters and Nato troops as the soldiers attempted to dismantle one barricade in the village of Jagnjenica, outside Mitrovica.

The heightened state of patriotism is visible on almost every street in Mitrovica. On the façade of a shop near the bridge barricade, the Serbian eagle emblem is emblazoned across a plaster wall. Superimposed over it is the silhouette of a crowd looming with outstretched arms.

Yet it is not just Serbs who are agitated. Local Albanians living as a minority in the north speak of their own fears and point to past atrocities. An Albanian who spoke to The Independent on Sunday on condition of anonymity explained that he removes the Kosovo numberplate from his car when travelling in the north to avoid attack.

Isak Beka, a 40-year-old Kosovo Albanian who works on the south side of Mitrovica but lives in the north, says his freedom is also limited. "Albanians are not well received in the north. We can't drive our cars freely. We can't go to the local cafés," he says.

Yet it is perhaps the young generation who could heal age-old grievances. Inside the protesters' tent, the children's drawings flap against the canvas wall. Three faces of different nationalities smile out from the paper. Beneath them, a paper chain of stick figures holding hands encircles a wonkily drawn image of the globe.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/tensions-between-serbs-and-albanians-flare-up-in-kosovo-2377796.html