Impatient Kosovo Albanians Press For a Declaration of Independence

By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 21, 2007

MEDEVCE, Serbia -- Past cornfields and gentle hills in hard-luck corners of Kosovo that politicians rarely see, Veton Surroi was mobilizing support for independence. On foot. The time to negotiate is nearly through, he repeated in ethnic Albanian homes that still bore battle scars. Independence is never freely given. It must be claimed.

In the farming village of Medevce, mile nine on a recent dawn-to-dusk hike, he made his pitch to a few local men on the cushioned floor of a small stone house. With the electricity out, they sipped mud-black coffee by the soft light of a curtained window. Sweat soaked their shirts in the 90-degree heat.

"We are giving politics a chance, but nothing seems to be changing," said Surroi, who hopes to spur his government to break a long deadlock and make Kosovo Europe's newest sovereign state. "There is a lot we have to do. If we got independence tomorrow, what is most important to you?"

"We need independence to develop the country," said Bajram Kastrati, 70, a gourd farmer. "I'm not talking about politics, I'm talking about everyday life. We can't get a good price for our vegetables. Our factory closed. We don't have electricity. I ask you this, on all your journey, did you meet anyone happy with how we are being governed?"

Surroi silently shook his head. No.

Kosovo, the last territory of the former Yugoslavia to seek statehood, has been a U.N. protectorate since 1999, when 78 days of NATO bombing drove out Slobodan Milosevic's Serb-dominated Yugoslav army. The territory is still technically a province of Serbia.

This summer, after years of negotiations, Kosovo's roughly 2 million residents -- mostly ethnic Albanians with a 10 percent Serb minority -- are again in limbo. The ethnic Albanian political leadership, anxious for independence, has reluctantly agreed to 120 more days of bargaining with Serbia, creating a new deadline in December.

Surroi, an Albanian who is part of the team of local officials negotiating the province's future, wants Kosovo to declare independence when the deadline expires, with or without an agreement. Such a move, which is gaining advocates among Albanians as the standoff continues, could inflame Kosovo's Serbs and the government in Belgrade, capital of Serbia, which sees Kosovo as part of its historical and religious heritage.

At stake, Surroi says, is escape from foreign rule and from the economic stagnation that has prevailed since Serb troops departed. "No one wants to invest in a country with an uncertain future," he said. "And no country was ever given independence without taking it."

But the territory's Serbs bitterly oppose any separation from Serbia. "I'd rather leave in a coffin than live in an Albanian state, and everyone I know feels this way," said Boris Drobac, 33, a bank employee in a cowboy hat, who sipped beer one recent afternoon at a cafe in Mitrovica, where the Ibar River forms a natural Berlin Wall between the two communities. "They say World War I started because of the Serbs. Well, World War III might start the same way, if the Albanians are not careful."

Officials here dismiss such statements as posturing. But none express optimism that the impasse will soon be overcome.

"The people of Kosovo have been mature throughout this process, and they will conclude the process with maturity," Fatmir Sejdiu, an Albanian and president of Kosovo's provisional government, said in a recent interview in the capital, Pristina. "That said, the Serbs have tried their best to drag out the process. We will not accept anything short of independence with the full territory of Kosovo intact."

But in one scenario, Kosovo's Serbs would respond to a declaration of independence by carving off enclaves to remain part of Serbia. This in turn might cause Kosovo's Albanians to take up arms to keep the territory intact. Minority communities in neighboring countries could find inspiration for breakaway actions of their own.

If the Serbs secede, "there is certainly potential for violence, even beyond Kosovo," said one Western diplomat in Pristina, who declined to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of ongoing talks. The United States and European Union have urged patience to let the talks run their course.

But patience is wearing thin in the smoke-filled Pristina office of the Kosovo Liberation Army's veterans association. The ethnic Albanian militia officially disbanded after the war, but claims to maintain a network of 25,000 former fighters. If independence does not come soon, some members say, they'll be forced to fight again.

"For eight years we have stood back and given the political process time and space to unfold, but the door is open to a new escalation," said Faik Fazliu, 30, the group's president. "People died for independence and still we are waiting. This country is a room full of gas, and it only takes a spark."

Fazliu said the ex-soldiers' frustration is fueled by poverty and unemployment. Kosovo's languishing economy has emerged as a dominant theme in the independence debate and led to growing frustration with the international presence here.

Despite more than $2.5 billion in foreign aid to Kosovo, unemployment runs as high as 50 percent territory-wide, and many of the best jobs are tied to international organizations whose presence here will not be permanent.

Electricity, a focus of postwar reconstruction efforts, is available less than 12 hours a day in much of the province. In Europe, only Moldova has a higher infant mortality rate.

Judged by the numbers, Kosovo "is on par with some of Africa's poorest countries," a top U.N. development official wrote this summer.

International officials, however, warn that becoming a country is not a panacea.

"Independence is sold as manna from heaven. It isn't. They are setting people up to be disappointed and furious," said Ranjit Nayak, resident representative of the World Bank. "They're all fixated on the goal of independence. That's what they fought for. But you ask what are your plans for after that and they don't have a clue."

Serb leaders say that independence would bring instability, not prosperity. Deeply segregated from the Albanian majority, Serbs fly a different flag (the red-white-and-blue Serbian national banner), spend a different currency (Serbian dinars), speak a different language (Serbian) and take their cues from a different government (Serbia's).

"If independence comes, the Albanians will shoot in the air to celebrate for the next three weeks, but it won't make their lives better," said Milan Ivanovic, who heads Kosovo's Serbian National Council, a political organization allied with Belgrade. As for the prospect of Serbia responding militarily, or local Serbs seceding, he said: "Everything is on the table."

Kosovo's Serbs, many of whom subsist on stipends paid by Belgrade, also fear they will be targets of violence if Albanians get greater control over Kosovo's affairs. In March 2004, Albanian mobs attacked Serb villages, burning several hundred homes and churches. At least 19 people died.

Milan Duncic, 48, the white-haired chief of the tiny Serb village of Binci, said its 50 residents are already renting apartments elsewhere in Serbia in case they need to flee. "If we stay, the Albanians will make Kosovo a concentration camp for Serbs."

Others are staying put but taking precautions. For centuries, the Serbian Orthodox Church has crowned its patriarch at the Patrijarsija Monastery in Peja, at the base of the Kurst Mountains. Last month, work began to build an eight-foot wall around the grounds.

For now, the leading proposal for Kosovo's future is a controversial plan, backed by the United States and the European Union, that falls short of full independence. It would invoke U.N. authority to formally separate Kosovo from Serbia, accord substantial minority rights to Serbs and give an E.U. representative power to annul legislation and fire officials.

Kosovo's assembly approved the package in April, but it is strongly opposed by Serbia and Russia, Serbia's traditional ally, which has blocked the U.N. Security Council from adopting the proposal. The result was a new round of talks, most recently in Pristina, among representatives of Kosovo, Serbia, the United States, the E.U. and Russia. Little progress has been made.

"I asked the Russian representative, 'If you will always veto any independence proposal that Serbia doesn't want, then why are we even negotiating?' He didn't answer," said Surroi, who took a break from his cross-country trek to attend recent talks in Pristina. "We won't change, Belgrade won't change. Moscow won't change. It's time to move on."

To prepare the residents for that possibility, throughout August the affable Surroi, the foreign-educated son of a former Yugoslav diplomat, has swapped his suit for hiking clothes and walked 12 miles a day on a campaign trail a world apart from the coffeehouse politicking of the capital.

On a sweltering evening, he came to Little Krusha, known in whispers as the "widow's village." One April afternoon during the war, Serb forces rounded up local men and boys and shot them dead.

Surroi asked women wearing mourners' robes for their thoughts on independence.

"The Serbs killed us physically. But since then we've been killed by having no government that cares for us," said Ayshe Shehu, 58, who lost her husband and four sons that day. "So, I am begging you. I have one son left and I don't want him to die in a place like this."