04 Jul 14
Isolated Albanian villagers say they are neglected by the Pristina authorities, cut off from their ethnic kin and vulnerable to political unrest in the Serb-dominated surrounding areas.

Edona Peci
BIRN
Leposavic, Zvecan

The land in Kosovo’s far north, close to the Serbian border, has sustained the Musa family for six generations.

Here in the village of Kostova they have 16 cows – to make milk and cheese – plus 20 chickens and a swarm of honey bees. The farm also has a modern touch: a mobile phone tower on their property supplements the income of Eset Musa, his wife and three children.

“The living conditions are very hard here,” says Musa, 44, after returning from the fields where he had been gathering hay.

There are families like the Musas across Kosovo, where 61 per cent of the population live in rural areas, many eking out a living with subsistence farming.

But the Musas live in northern Kosovo, where they are among an Albanian minority in the mostly-Serb municipality of Leposavic.

Around 300 Albanians live in Leposavic, in three villages, among 18,000 Serbs, according to OSCE figures. Across the four Serb-majority towns in Kosovo’s north, Albanians number around 7,000, far outnumbered by an estimated 70,000 Serbs.

Since the end of conflict in the late 1990s, the northern Serb-dominated areas – North Mitrovica, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposavic, have largely remained outside of Kosovo’s institutions, and Serbia maintained de-facto control.

Relations between Serbs and Albanians – tense even at the best of times – have at times descended into violence, with inter-ethnic riots in 2004 and unrest following Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008, among other incidents over the years.

While Albanians living in North Mitrovica are within walking distance of the Albanian-majority South Mitrovica, Albanians who live in more northerly villages like Kostova are more isolated from their ethnic kin, and feel that the authorities in Pristina have forgotten them.

“I would love [Kostova] to be part of our state. But actually it is not,” Musa says.

He is dismissive of the April 2013 EU-brokered agreement that saw legal authority in the north shift from Belgrade to Pristina.

Following the agreement, Serb towns will become part of an association of municipalities that offer limited self-governance under Kosovo’s laws and constitution.

As a result of the negotiations, northern Serbs elected mayors in the first local elections organized by the Kosovo government, in November.

But Musa says the establishment of legal municipalities under the auspices of Pristina has changed nothing for Albanians in the north.

“We belong to the Leposavic municipality, but actually we don’t belong to any municipality at all, because there is no security to go the municipal building and get the documents you need,” he explains.

“They [the Serbs] say they have elected their legitimate mayors, but I don’t know which mayor unites with hooligans and puts barricades on the streets,” Musa says, referring to roadblocks that Serbs have erected in parts of the north over the past three years as a protest against Pristina’s authority.

Musa is especially distrustful of a new Serb-run regional police command, also stipulated by the Brussels agreement, which operates as part of the national Kosovo Police. Though the deputy police chief is an ethnic Albanian, the force also includes former members of Serbia’s police.

“Some of the police officers have beaten up Kosovo Albanians in Mitrovica before the war and now they are dressed in the uniforms of the Kosovo police,” he says.

While police patrols do go through the village, Musa says he does not count on the force for protection. “I am responsible for security on my own. I watch out and check the situation every night,” he explains.

Tensions have heightened in recent weeks in the divided city of Mitrovica, some 30 kilometres south of Kostova. Albanians clashed with police near the bridge that connects the north and south on June 22. The demonstrators were angry that Serbs in the north had removed barricades from the main bridge, replaced them with a so-called ‘Peace Park,’ and then brought in new barricades.

“When something happens in the north, we cannot be as calm as usual and we have to watch out even overnight,” Musa says.

He says he feels he must be constantly prepared to defend his home.

“If they come with apples, we will respond with apples; if they come with bread, I will respond with bread, but if they come with [arms] we will respond with [arms],” he says.

Despite the fear and isolation — residents of Kohtova use a single tiny road to go in and out of the village — Musa insists he will never leave his home.

“My family has been living in the village for more than six generations now…. I have no other place to go but my home,” he says.

But the future in Kostova and similar villages is far from certain, as some families pack up and leave – many for south Mitrovica.

Apart from concerns about security, residents complain that no authorities - be it the new municipalities or the central government - are providing them with adequate services.

Children also face limited opportunities for education. With the exception of a single primary school in nearby Bistrica and another one in Boletin, schools in the north do not offer classes in Albanian. Because few children learn Serbian, as their parents once did, attending Serbian schools is not an option.

Health services, too, are limited. A single ambulance serves Kostova and the surrounding villages, while a doctor comes to visit only once a week.

In Bistrica, 40-year-old Bashkim Hetemi agrees that Albanians must fend for themselves in the north.

Hetemi fought for the Kosovo Liberation Army in Bistrica during the war in the late 1990s, and now lives off an invalid’s pension of around 300 euros a month.

His family is among the 12 struggling to maintain their existence in their village.

“So far, the authorities have done nothing,” he says. “We have made it so far, but it has been a really difficult life.”

Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia has made the situation tougher in Bistrica, he explains. Roadblocks erected by Serbs have sometimes completely cut the village off, but he insists he will never move away.

“We will not leave our homes to the Serbs,” he says.

“This is our home; we were born and raised here. The graves of our fathers and grandfathers are here and we have no other place to go. Where should we go?”

Some 20 kilometres away in Boletin, a village in the Zvecan municipality, 66-year-old Xhevat Peci spends his days tending to his garden and his cows.

Peci says that 30 families once lived in Boletin, but now it’s just him, his wife and his brother’s family.
They grow potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers and spinach, and produce milk and cheese.
“In economic terms, life in the village is actually good, because you have everything you need for a living,” he says.

But it has also been marred by violence and harassment.

Peci’s sons were once attacked while cutting wood during the 1990s, before the conflict, and the family fled to Mitrovica during the war, when Serbian police forces were stationed at a nearby monastery.

He complains that police from Zvecan have continued to harass him since the war, searching his home for weapons eight times.

Although Albanians in the north say they feel insecure and abandoned by institutions, Faik Kelmendi, the sole Albanian member of Zvecan’s municipal assembly, says, “There are no reasons to complain.”

"There is security, freedom of movement and the infrastructure is much better now," he insists.

But he agrees that “the government in Pristina and other state institutions should offer more support to the Albanians living in the northern areas”.

Whatever happens, Musa, Hetemi and Peci insist that they will not abandon their villages and leave the land to the Serbs.

“If we leave our house, no one will be left,” Peci says. “Running away is not a solution.”