Committee for Conflict Transformation Support |
CCTS
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Return in Kosovoby Howard Clark, author of 'Civil Resistance in Kosovo' and other studies, who is currently working with civil society groups in Kosovo to facilitate the return of Serbs who fled the country. Here he makes some additional comments following on from Andrew Rigby's article above I have a few additional remarks on the current situation, including taking up some of the points that have been discussed in CCTS meetings. First, I should comment that the project that Andrew and I were developing resonates very much with the early phase of CCTS and our 'accompaniment' of groups in Croatia, and specifically Osijek. In the decade since, these groups have been through several phases - both in terms of their own development and in terms of the political situation in which they operate - and now have a rich and varied experience, one of the advantages of having had 'their' war early. Organising a study trip of Croatian peace and human rights groups will, I hope, be one form of making this experience accessible to Kosovars who want to work on the issue of return. I would go further than Andrew in his criticisms of Ibrahim Rugova. He was never the 'Albanian Gandhi', and now he is just another shabby politician. He is not the person to confront either the ethnic hostility that exists in Kosovo nor the organised crime and corruption that have taken hold in the post-war period, and still less after the murder two years ago of his closest advisor. However there has been progress at the level of political leadership in recent months. As the ground is prepared for the opening of high-level talks between Belgrade and Prishtina, the leaders of the three main Kosovo Albanian political parties issued a joint appeal to Kosovo Serbs to return. UNMIK has greeted this statement as a significant breakthrough, and let's hope that they are right. On the other hand, there should be no illusions: Kosovo Albanian leaders know that any hope of attaining independence depends upon them being 'on message' in support of UNMIK's rhetoric of multi-ethnic democracy. Andrew refers to the Serb 'enclaves', a term to which some Serbs have objected in workshops facilitated by CCTS members, preferring Serb 'communities' instead. Personally I think the term 'enclave' seems more precise, indicating the exceptional nature of these areas. 'Communities' on the other hand tends to be normalising, ratifying the process through which they have been created and legitimising them as permanent features of Kosovo in advance of any negotiations. There has been some discussion in CCTS about the potential for bridge-building of ethnic minorities such as Bosniaks and Turks who are trapped between the Albanians and Serbs. I have been cautious about placing much hope here. These minorities are in a precarious position, many of their members see no future in Kosovo and are looking for opportunities. This visit, however, gave me more grounds for optimism as a growing number of Bosnians and Turks seem to be sceptical about what future they have outside Kosovo and would now argue that working for a multi-ethnic democracy in Kosovo is their best communal survival strategy. The international operation has paid much lip-service to civil society but hitherto has generally failed to engage local Albanian bodies in supporting return with more than words. The call by political leaders for Serbs to return might accelerate attitude change in the majority population, but the obstacles are substantial. It is more than the emotions generated by Serbian war crimes. The indeterminate status of Kosovo gives rise to suspicion about Serbian motives for return, and there are complaints that international bodies make money available to support returnees when the real need is to invest in the revival of the economy as a whole. Also, it should be recognised that international bureaucrats are often pretty clueless about how to involve local groups. Foreign money has spawned a huge number of 'new' NGOs - the numbers are now into four figures in a population of 2 million - most looking to be paid to carry out projects (and I would say some just go through the motions of carrying out a project without actually trying to surmount the obstacles that exist). Such NGOs are much more malleable than authentic self-motivated bodies that are often led by activists with experience in the pre-war nonviolent struggle. However, when an international body does turn to an authentic civil society body, there are other problems. The tendency is to bring them in late into the process without inviting any input into the overall strategy being pursued. The Prishtina-based youth group KIDS (Kosova Initiative for a Democratic Society, formerly the Nansen group) was asked to help in facilitating the return of some Roma living elsewhere in Kosovo to their original homes - but this request came less than a month before the date set for the return and after there had already been threats of violence against the returnees. KIDS did what they could, the return went ahead, and the returnees promptly had to abandon their homes once more. Finally, I can't resist one anecdote about a breakthrough in trust-building. Igballe Rogova is one of the great characters of Kosovo civil society, a risk-taker who has flouted innumerable taboos. Immediately after the war, even she could not bring herself to reach out again to Kosovo Serbs, but after a year or so she became curious about the emergence of Serbian women's groups in Kosovo, and by now working with them is one of her passions. Visiting one village, she felt hostility from the husband of one of the women activists. "I decided to do something about this. So I went to visit him when his wife was out, and I thought that as he liked to drink and so do I, I'd take a bottle". And by the time his wife returned home, let me put it like this: the husband had become an enthusiastic supporter of her new inter-ethnic feminist activity.
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