FURTHER CONVERSATIONS WITH RETURNEES TO KOSOVO

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 PRISTINA 000425 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR PRM/ECA, VIENNA FOR HOVENIER, BELGRADE FOR REFCOORD E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREF SR SUBJECT: FURTHER CONVERSATIONS WITH RETURNEES TO KOSOVO REF: PRISTINA 275 Sensitive, but unclassified; please protect accordingly ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Serbs and others who have returned to Kosovo are more concerned about immediate economic prospects, security, and freedom of movement than the final status of Kosovo, though the future of the region is also a source of apprehension for some. Many Kosovo Serb returnees are middle-aged, and although they now find themselves somewhat isolated in a land they once thought of as home, they generally consider that living on their own property in Kosovo is better than being a marginal exile in an unreceptive Serbia. Subsidies will be necessary for sometime to maintain many of the IDPs who return to Kosovo. END SUMMARY ¶2. (U) During a visit to Kosovo, Belgrade-based regional Refcoord and PRM/ECA Desk Officer spoke with three returnee families, one in Vushtrri/Vuchitrn and two in villages near Pristina, who had been assisted by the International Catholic Migration Council (ICMU) with funds from PRM. Refcoord also visited separately two returnee families in Klina and one in Kos, a village near Klina in western Kosovo, whose returns had been expedited by the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) with funds from PRM. -------------- A Roma family in Vushtrri/Vuchitrn -------------- ¶3. (U) In Vushtrri/Vuchitrn, a large town situated on the main road between Pristina and Mitrovica, RefCoord and PRM/ECA desk officer visited an Ashkali family whose house had been destroyed during the March 2004 riots. The house had been rebuilt and shared a narrow lot with another house rebuilt for the beneficiary's brother. Both families had four or five children. In the brother's family, a teen-age son was confined to a wheelchair. In the beneficiary's family an eight-year old boy was mute because of a developmental disorder. ¶4. (U) Both houses had several rooms and were reasonably spacious, though sparsely furnished. (Note. RAE (Roma- Ashkali Egyptian) families generally eschew furniture, preferring to sit against the wall on low banquettes, or when eating, squatting or sitting on the floor around a low wooden table. End Note.) A cheap TV flickered in the background. The beneficiary expressed gratitude to ICMC for its help and for his reconstructed house. ¶5. (U) The beneficiary said he had no work and depended on handouts from his brother and neighbors in order to feed his family. ICMC had given him a small chain saw to help sustain him. He said that he had lent it to a friend, as it was not the wood-cutting season. (NOTE: It was not clear whether the saw had been loaned or sold in order to buy urgent necessities. END NOTE). ¶6. (U) He said that he stuck fairly close to the mahalla (the traditional RAE quarter in towns throughout the Balkans),as he was still apprehensive about walking around town to look for work. None of his children were in school because there was no money for proper clothes (especially shoes) and school supplies. Nor was there any medical supervision available for the disabled child. ¶7. (U) According to ICMU personnel, the Vushtrri/Vuchitrn mahalla was the only one significantly damaged during the March 2004 riots. Numerous members of this family are now in Germany, where they have received or are applying for asylum. -------------- A rural Serbian village -------------- ¶8. (U) Priluzje is a small, quiet village located about ten kilometers northwest of Pristina and about two kilometers off the main road to Mitrovica. Houses are one story and located on large lots. They are relatively old and their pastel stucco exteriors contrast with the raw red brick of PRISTINA 00000425 002 OF 005 the largely unfinished multi-story, multi-family houses that Kosovo Albanians are erecting everywhere in Kosovo, financed in many cases by foreign remittances. ¶9. (U) ICMC assisted a woman and her daughter who had lived in a neighboring village to return to her mother's house in the spring of 2005. She said she and her husband left in 1999 and went to Nis with their twin children. She said she left her husband shortly after arriving in Nis because of spousal abuse and returned to Kosovo in 2005. Her husband kept the son, who she had not seen in nearly six years, though she is able to talk to him once a week on the telephone. ¶10. (U) Her mother receives a small pension. She receives a small salary from working part-time in a kiosk in the village and receives a small monthly stipend from a state enterprise for which she had worked. ICMC bought her a sewing machine, which she uses to generate additional income as a seamstress. Total family income is probably slightly under two hundred dollars a month. Her twelve-year old daughter attends a local Serbian school. The house seemed to be in good shape, with shoes neatly lined up on the front stoop. ¶11. (U) Priluzje has a peaceful air about it, though a feeling of being slightly run down and not fully populated. It is one of a string of interconnected, mostly Serbian villages around Pristina and does not seem to have suffered any major damage during the war or thereafter. The beneficiary said she felt secure, though her life seemed to be somewhat circumscribed. She said she knew a few words of Albanian, but could not really speak it. -------------- A visit to a mixed village near Pristina -------------- ¶12. (U) Novo Selo is a mixed Albanian-Serb village near the aging power plant in Obiliq/Obilic, about eight kilometers from Pristina. Kosovo's north-south rail line from the northern municipalities through Mitrovica and Fushe Kosovo/Kosovo Polje to the Macedonian border runs through it. A railway signalman in his early fifties and his wife, both ethnic Serbs, have recently returned to their home here. The railroad is far less active than before (although UNMIK currently runs daily passenger trains to Mitrovica and back to provide IDPs with a secure mode of transportation) but most of the previously Serb workforce has been replaced. He says there is little prospect for his reemployment, though he remains hopeful. ¶13. (U) Nonetheless, he still receives a partial wage from the national railway administration in Serbia. His wife also receives a partial salary from a state enterprise that no longer operates. They have about an acre of land, which they plan to cultivate. Their son is studying railway signalization in Serbia. They claim that he would come back if there was the possibility of employment, but realize that his future probably lies outside of Kosovo. ¶14. (U) The couple left in 1999. An Albanian neighbor looked after the house, so it wasn't badly damaged. Nonetheless, a number of articles (stove, refrigerator) had been removed by unknown parties. These had been replaced by ICMC. Relations with Albanian neighbors were cordial (cups of coffee) but not intimate. They understood "some" Albanian, but could not really speak it. They were not apprehensive about their security, but did not venture into Pristina. -------------- Kline/Klina -------------- ¶15. (U) Kline/Klina is a large town about 60 kilometers from Pristina, about two-thirds of the way toward Peja/Pec. It is a center of Kosovo's Albanian Catholic community, and the town is dominated by the high, modernistic spire of a Catholic church, an anomaly in a land dominated by minarets (many of them new) and Serbian Orthodox basilicas (most of them old). To the West, behind Peja/Pec, lie the high mountains, still snow covered until the summer, that PRISTINA 00000425 003 OF 005 separate Kosovo from Montenegro and Albania. ¶16. (U) Because of various atrocities committed in western Kosovo, by Serb forces, the area had been unreceptive to Serb returnees. Rame Manaj, the former mayor of Klina who is now an advisor to President Fatmir Sejdiu, however, had encouraged IDPs to return, even though he lost six family members during the conflict, most of whom remain missing. Returns to Klina town started in March 2005 and until now 32 Serb families have returned. Only one returned family left Kosovo again. Some 181 individuals have returned to Klina municipality, making it one of the most successful in Kosovo for returns. The municipality has also implemented its own project for return to Klinavac village. Most of the families who returned to Klina town have been individualized returns supported by DRC with USG funding. ¶17. (U) One Serb couple DRC has helped to return came back to a modest, older one-story house behind a larger, newer, damaged structure near the center of Klina. The man, in his mid-fifties, had built up a successful business repairing automotive electrical systems in Klina for nearly thirty five years. Indeed, the three-story structure in front of the house had served as his home and workshop. Now he does repairs in the small yard beside his original house. ¶18. (U) The beneficiary and his wife had fled to Nis in ¶1999. In 2001, they moved to Fushe Kosovo/Kosovo Polje, a large town now virtually a suburb of Pristina. His intention had always been to move back to his property in Klina, and he did so in the fall of 2005. His wife had worked as a school aide in a mixed community outside of Klina, but no Serbs had lived or worked there since 1999. ¶19. (U) Business was not booming, despite two income- generation grants from DRC. According to the beneficiary, many local Albanians were reluctant to patronize him for fear of what the neighbors would say. He said that his few customers were KFOR personnel and Kosovo officials who did not have to care what their neighbors thought. Any money he earned went to rehabilitating the larger building, but full rehabilitation will require reestablishing his customer base. ¶20. (U) Nonetheless, he had several sources of income. He received 100 euros a month from the Serbian government for a disability; his wife received 40 euros in social assistance a month, also from the Serbian government. With the aid of the municipality, he had regained ownership of two small commercial properties (kiosks, really). In addition, he owned a sizeable woodlot outside of town. He said security considerations prevented him from going there on his own, and that someone had already cut down all the trees. ¶21. (U) The beneficiary's son lived nearby in Niksic, Montenegro. The son wanted to return to Klina with his family, but there was no Serbian school in the town for his children. The beneficiary spoke good Albanian, as did most Serbs who lived in towns in western Kosovo. (NOTE: Serbs in villages in Kosovo with compact Serbian populations tend to be unilingual, while Serbs who lived as minorities in Kosovar towns often know Albanian. END NOTE.). -------------- Kaffeeklatsch in Kline/Klina -------------- ¶22. (U) The next beneficiary family, a woman and her unmarried son, lived next door, so our first interlocutors joined us there. The beneficiary's husband could not return from Serbia with them because of various medical problems. A neighbor joined as well. Coffee was served and a bottle of rakija soon appeared. No one was under fifty except for the widow's son, who was in his thirties. Like the first beneficiaries, they had returned in October 2005. ¶23. (U) The house had not been greatly damaged and was sparsely furnished. The family said that part of the deal in getting it back was to allow the Kosovo Albanian family that had occupied it illegally for a number of years to take the furniture. DRC had helped replace some of the furniture, but the house continued to feel strange as a result. Still, she said, living in your own house on your PRISTINA 00000425 004 OF 005 own property was better than trying to pay a high rent in Serbia. Serbia, she said, had done nothing to help her. ¶24. (U) The family's sources of income were hard to determine, though they derived a rent of 50 euros monthly from a small store they owned. The wife had taught in a primary school located fifty yards away from her house where her husband also had worked as a custodian. The school was now completely Albanian; there was no place for her there. She said her husband had been shocked by the state of the school when he visited Kline/Klina. ¶25. (U) Normally the municipality did not provide firewood to residents, but did because of this family's poverty. The municipality had also replaced some windows in the house that had been broken in a stoning incident March 1. The beneficiary reported occasional mild harassment when walking the streets of Kline/Klina. After her neighbor, reportedly well off, had left following a long plaint about her difficulties in reclaiming additional illegally occupied property, she remarked bitterly, "The fortunate always demand more." -------------- Primitive Idyll in Kosh/Kos -------------- ¶26. (U) Kosh/Kos is a mixed village of scattered homesteads in Istok/Istog municipality that straggle along a ridge and in the valley below. Ethnic Albanians live in the valley and on the first part of the ridge. In 2004 DRC assisted the return of some 38 Serb families (130 individuals); another 25 heads of families returned on May 9, 2006. Most of the houses were extensively destroyed in 1999. Thirty eight houses have been reconstructed and another 25 are underway. Here DRC has helped a family with four school-age children return. ¶27. (U) The family had been living since 1999 in a collective center in Kragujevo and had returned with DRC's help in August 2005. The husband had a low-paying job as a boiler tender while they lived in the collective center, but did not make enough to move his family away from the center. The wife described conditions in the collective center as "not at all nice." ¶28. (U) The other families in the village gardened, kept a few cattle, and survived on pensions, partial salaries from state enterprises, and other subsidies. The father (absent during the visit) had the only paying job among the returnees, which was driving a school bus from Kosh/Kos and other nearby villages to Osaj/Osojane, where there was a Serbian school. (There were only five other children in Kosh/Kos, though a sixth was on the way.) The job netted the family slightly less than 100 euros a month. Twice a week a KFOR bus assured Serbs in the area of safe transport to Mitrovica, about 50 kilometers away. (COMMENT: On May 9 and 12 youth in the town of Runik/Rudnik in neighboring Skenderaj/Srbica municipality threw stones at two buses carrying Serbs from Osaj/Osojane to Mitrovica. END COMMENT.). ¶29. (U) The family owned an eleven-hectare woodlot, but most of the trees had been cut down while they were living in Kragujevo. Consequently, the municipality had provided them with firewood as well as a small food allowance, which was being reduced. The wife regretted that no one in the family spoke Albanian. ¶30. (SBU) COMMENT: Many of the Serb returnees are middle- aged and without children. Most are glad to be back in Kosovo, but note they are lonely. They hope for better times, and although they do not know what final status will bring, feel secure for the moment. Because of their property, life for them in Kosovo is preferable than a marginal exile in Serbia. What is striking is the intricate system of small support payments (pensions, social assistance, partial salaries),mostly from Belgrade, that help them survive, although RAE families have less access to them. Should these payments be stopped for any reason, a lot of these returnees who already live on the margins could be in real trouble. PRISTINA 00000425 005 OF 005 ¶31. (U) U.S. Office Pristina clears this cable for release in its entirety to U.N. Special Envoy Ahtisaari. GOLDBERG