Committee for Conflict Transformation Support |
CCTS
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Impressions of Kosovoby Andrew Rigby, Professor of Peace Studies and Director of the Centre for Forgiveness and Reconciliation at Coventry University As most of the people in the CCTS network will know far better than me, as many as 200,000 Serbs - over half the pre-war population - left Kosovo either during or immediately after the NATO military intervention of March-June 1999. Those remaining tend to live either in enclaves, sometimes with their own vigilantes, or under international military protection. Something like 5,000 have 'returned' since the war, mainly to enclaves. In the year 2002, for the first time since the war, the number of returning Serbs (around 2,500) exceeded that of those leaving. Decisions by members of ethnic minorities about returning are determined primarily by security concerns and economic prospects. In addition, confidence-building between ethnic communities can be a critical factor. Whatever the context, return will always involve some degree of risk, and in such circumstances support from civil society groups and other actors can play a significant role in facilitating the process. Howard Clark has initiated a project (for which we are still seeking funding) that is designed to encourage more Kosovars to work on the question of peaceful return, to strengthen them in this work and to stimulate more civil society activity on the issue of return in Kosovo by raising awareness of the range of activities undertaken elsewhere in the region - particularly in certain regions of Croatia. The preliminary stages of the project have been funded by Coventry University and in April 2003 I accompanied Howard on one of his field trips to Kosovo. Howard, of course, is a Kosovo expert - he has published widely on the civilian resistance to Serbian oppression and the dilemmas of peace-building in the country since it came under UN administration. I, on the other hand, am inexperienced when it comes to the Balkans in general and Kosovo in particular. This was my first visit. I accompanied Howard as an outsider as he met up with old contacts and new acquaintances in his search for those who might be willing to participate in the project. And it is as an 'interested outsider' that the following observations are made, in the belief that sometimes outsiders can see things in sharper relief than the experts. Politicisation of the return processThe question of return is a significant one for the international community. The NATO forces did not go to war in order to create a mono-ethnic mini-state in the south-east of Europe. One of the agreed benchmarks for commencement of discussions about final status has been progress on the return of displaced Serbs and other minorities. As many Serbs in Kosovo participate in elections in Serbia, Kosovo Albanians tend to see them as having allegiance to Belgrade, and dismiss Belgrade's prioritisation of the issue of Serbian return as reflecting its pretensions to Kosovo and even as serving its goal of engineering some form of partition. Prospective returnees are thus under suspicion as representatives and symbols of Serbia itself. Kosovars also try to link the return of displaced Serbs to the fate of the 3,400 missing Albanians, arguing that if they are expected to accept the return of Serbs, then the least they can expect in return is more effort to discover the final destiny of those that must now be presumed to have been killed and buried in secret mass graves somewhere in Serbia. They also insist that returnees acknowledge the crimes of the Serbian government of Milosovic and recognise the changed reality on the ground - they are not returning to the old Serb-dominated Kosovo. So, the return of the displaced is far from being a simple humanitarian question - they are political pawns in a wider game. Lessons learned about the return processMost Serbs who have returned 'spontaneously' have not managed to return to their own homes but instead have gone to live in 'enclaves' with other Serbs. In organising the fist collective return of Serbs, UNMIK did little to consult people in adjacent communities. Instead the returnees were more or less dumped in an isolated village in a hostile environment, being offered material support to rebuild houses, and international military protection. One particularly noteworthy incident last autumn was the stoning of a busload of returnees in Pec/Peja when KFOR escorted them to open bank accounts for them to receive their Serbian state pensions. Again and again we were told the key factor in facilitating the return process should be dialogue and consultation with local communities - and indeed it would now appear that UNMIK is trying to learn the lessons from earlier mistakes and has published an impressive handbook for those engaged in the process. Over-trained, under-employedAs I accompanied Howard on his rounds of interviews with civil society activists and NGO workers I was struck by how many different trainings (in capacity building, conflict resolution, democracy É) so many of these people had been on. What I could not understand is why they needed more training - they should have been delivering the training themselves! From what I could gather very few trainings were linked with any kind of follow-up project - which seemed a significant failing. The contrast between the experience of 'foreign experts' being paid significant fees for consultancy and training, and the levels of unemployment in Kosovo was particularly apparent. I was told unemployment was between 60% and 85%. Even those in employment were paid minimal wages. We were told that university professors received around 300 Euros a month. Meantime a middle-level manager within the international community could expect a tax-free salary of around $50,000 plus the usual overseas living allowances. I could not get over the feeling that probably the most important initiatives for reconciliation in Kosovo would not be in the form of capacity-building trainings but in employment and income-generating projects. Presumably the economic situation will get worse before it gets better, especially with the winding down of the international presence and funding. Whilst we were there we heard 'internationals' arranging to rendezvous at their next posting - in Iraq. The future would appear to be bleak for all those people who established their own NGO in order to benefit from the international funds that were made available to Kosovo as the UN took over responsibility for administration. Those days are in the past. Reconciliation - don't push too hardAgain and again informants would comment on the manner in which all the different communities in the region were trapped in the past, 'pickled in their own history' as one contact phrased it. So painful are some of the memories that there can be considerable resentment against those potential donors who make funding conditional on there being some inter-communal dimension - there was a widespread feeling amongst those that were committed to reconciliation that they should not be pushed too hard or too early, they needed time to work at their own pace in their own way. One important method pursued by the chair of the Kosovo Women's Network, Igballe Rogova, was by commencing every encounter with Serbian women by sharing their stories. According to Igballe, by listening to the other's story you are acknowledging them and preparing for a relationship - "We should not forget the past, but we should talk about the past as a way towards the future." One positive indication of progress along the pathway of reconciliation was the affirmation from all the civil society actors interviewed that any study trips that Howard might organise to enable Kosovars to witness the work of human rights activists in Croatia should be composed of members of all the different communities - no need to keep them separate. For what seems like years I have been listening to Howard talk about the importance of Kosovo Albanians beginning to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' Serbs. Here was evidence that such a process was underway. One of my pet themes is the significant role that can be played by opinion leaders and prophetic individuals and groups that possess the courage and the vision not only to advocate reconciliation but also to practise it in their lives, thereby acting as exemplars to others and helping to legitimise the reconciliation project, opening up the symbolic space within which people can begin to engage in sustained dialogue and commit themselves to creating a new future rather than perpetuating past cycles of vengeance and violence. What was apparent in Kosovo was the abject failure of the 'president' of the provisional government, Ibrahim Rugova, to make any public gesture towards encouraging the return of Serbs or members of other minorities. The marginalisation of non-violent resistanceRugova had been the leading symbol of the Albanian civilian resistance movement that had been superseded in 1997 by the armed resistance of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Kosovars are convinced that it was the bloodshed occasioned by the armed resistance and the response it provoked that caused the international community to intervene. We did not find one person amongst the Albanians interviewed who did not applaud the military attack on the Serb forces by NATO. One consequence of this has been the marginalisation of the non-violent civilian resistance in the 'official' and the collective memory. The memorials one encounters are of the 'martyrs' of the KLA. I discussed this phenomenon with Howard and he came up with a few explanations: a culture which celebrated the gun -and from which non-violence had been a deviation; the political reality that reflected the success of the leading figures of the KLA who claimed the role of liberators of their fellow citizens; and finally - war is an eventful drama, so much of non-violent resistance is 'unremarkable' and 'un-dramatic' - and hence 'un-memorable'. Those of us who still believe in the efficacy of non-violent resistance as a means of change and liberation from oppression should ponder on this.
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