KOSOVO MINORITIES: RURAL POVERTY AND A

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000549 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR PRM/ECA, BELGRADE FOR REFCOORD E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREF SR YI SUBJECT: KOSOVO MINORITIES: RURAL POVERTY AND A SUCCESSFUL URBAN RETURN TO PEJA/PEC REF: A) PRISTINA 275 B) PRISTINA 425 Sensitive, But Unclassified; Please Protect Accordingly ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Many Serbs and other minority members who either returned to or stayed put in rural areas of Kosovo after the end of the conflict in June 1999 or the ethnic riots in March 2004 live marginally. Their immediate preoccupation is their livelihoods. Determination of Kosovo's final status is something they hope they can weather, though they realize they may have to seek shelter elsewhere, depending on the severity of any disturbances that may (or may not) accompany it. A few of the Serbs who have recently returned to Kline/Klina and Peja/Pec have regained rental properties that provide them an income as well. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (U) In early June, Regional Refcoord (Belgrade) spent several days in Kosovo, visiting beneficiaries of a Danish Refugee Council (DRC) returns program and a Mercy Corps economic sustainability program. The visits recounted below have been selected from the ten or so visits made during this period and are representative of the attitudes encountered throughout the region. -------------- PRAYING FOR BULLS IN LEPINA -------------- ¶3. (U) Lepina is a small Serb village southwest of Pristina. Half of its population has left Kosovo since ¶1999. Many of its inhabitants worked on a large state farm located nearby and maintained their own small farms in their spare time. The state farm, for all practical purposes defunct, was privatized for 2.2 million euros. Twenty percent of the sale price is supposed to be distributed to its employees, but this has yet to happen. The enterprise had not yet been revived on any scale and only a few people work there now. Because of the reduced level of population and economic activity, Lepina has a faded, semi-deserted air about it. ¶4. (U) In 1999, there were 700 head of cattle in the village. Now there are slightly more than 50. Many local people reportedly abandoned farm work in favor of better- paying jobs with KFOR and UNMIK. These jobs are now drying up as UNMIK begins to down-size. Residents largely support themselves by small-scale farming and various social payments. ¶5. (U) Nonetheless, PRM implementing partner Mercy Corps decided to refurbish and supply a small veterinary clinic in Lepina in late 2005. The clinic serves seven surrounding villages with a mixed population of ethnic Serbs, RAEs, and Albanians, some of whom are returned internally displaced persons (IDPs) and others of whom never left. ¶6. (U) Next to the veterinary station stands a milk collection point installed by another NGO. The wholesaler finally stopped buying milk from the collection point because the collection point manager was allowing his providers to water their milk in order to increase their revenues. ¶7. (U) Goran Simic, a young Kosovo Serb veterinarian runs the station. Simic did his studies in Pristina and Belgrade and has never left Kosovo. He says there are no jobs for veterinarians in Serbia. He earns between 300 and 400 euros a month, occasionally not charging a friend and rarely charging those who cannot afford his services. So far he has not had to re-supply his station, but when he does, it will have to be out of his salary or out of increased charges to his clients. Simic is married, with two small children, one of whom is in the local Serbian language school. ¶8. (U) While we were visiting the station, two local farmers came in. They made their living by breeding cattle and pigs. The younger farmer, in his thirties and accompanied by his four year-old son, was described as the most successful farmer in the village. He owns five PRISTINA 00000549 002 OF 003 hectares and rents an additional five. He had three milk cows, three pregnant cows and a bull, and a number of pigs. Steers bought 1.7 euros a kilo from a local Albanian cattle dealer. Cows did not sell so well, "So we pray for bulls." ¶9. (U) The older farmer only had two and a half hectares and consequently fewer cattle and pigs. He clearly led a more marginal existence (a small residual salary had ceased when the state farm where he had worked was privatized) and spoke little, except to say he saw no future for himself in either Kosovo or Serbia. No one was returning to Lepina anymore, especially the young. ¶10. (U) Simic said he hoped the milk collection point could be opened again. "Next time, we'll see that it is managed better," he said. Marketing might be a problem, however, since the wholesaler had found other sources. The two farmers complained about the lack of quality of animal feeds available, saying that most brands were smuggled in from Albania and Serbia after being adulterated. These products often made their animals sick. Stronger state controls were needed, they said. ¶11. (SBU) Asked what they thought resolution of Kosovo's final status would bring them, the younger farmer said, "Those with money and other possibilities left a long time ago. Those who still have something left are hedging their bets and are waiting to see what will happen. The rest of us who have nothing but our land and houses are stuck here, no matter what happens." Pressed by RefCoord on what they might do if events took an adverse turn, the younger farmer said, "Let's put politics aside and concentrate on how you can help us." He said that people were tired of conflict and attributed violence on either side to economic frustration. -------------- A BOSNIAN INTERLUDE -------------- ¶12. (U) On June 5, Refcoord met with Rustem Nurkovic, vice president of the Peja/Pec municipal council. Nurkovic, an ethnic Bosniak, said welcomed IDP returns to Peja/Pec and praised DRC's work highly. Refcoord had first met him on a DRC-sponsored go-and-inform visit in the Konik One IDP camp near Podgorica in early April. That day, Nurkovic was answering the questions of RAEs from Peja/Pec who were considering returning. ¶13. (U) During the meeting, Nurkovic expressed a great interest in promoting the return of Bosniaks to Kosovo, saying that otherwise, the Bosniak minority in Kosovo would be fatally diminished. Bosniak IDPs in Bosnia, Montenegro, or Serbia were less likely to return the longer they stayed away, he added. Some thirty Bosnians, he said, had been killed for speaking Serbian after the Albanians had returned to Kosovo in 1999, he said. The killings stopped after the Bosniak community had persuaded the authorities to declare "Bosnian" (i.e., Serbian) as an official minority language. -------------- THE FIRST SERB FAMILY TO RETURN TO PEJA/PEC -------------- ¶14. (U) Later that day, Refcoord visited Bozidar Fatic, the first Serb returnee to Peja/Pec. DRC mediated the return of Fatic and his wife, an elderly Serb couple, and their unmarried 40 year-old son to their property in a prime location in the center of the city. Peja/Pec, a large town in Western Kosovo was severely damaged in the fighting in ¶1999. The local Serb population in Peja/Pec was driven out when the ethnic Albanian refugees returned. ¶15. (U) The couple had ten surviving children, all of whom were married, except the son who had accompanied them back. The other children have families in Serbia. Some have jobs, some do not. The couple's return had been initially problematic because two sons had been associated with the Serbian side in the conflict. One, in fact, had been a local policeman who was well known for his mistreatment of local Albanians and who had died in the conflict. In the PRISTINA 00000549 003 OF 003 end, thanks to mediation by DRC, the sins of the sons were not visited upon the father. ¶16. (U) Greeting the DRC staffer who accompanied us, the old man said in fluent Albanian, "I knew your grandfather. He worked in the post office." His wife, who was from a nearby village from which all Serbs have now been driven out, spoke only Serbian, but said she had no problem walking around the town or speaking Serbian with local people. ¶17. (U) The family occupied a surprisingly extensive compound on one of the principal streets in the center of Peja/Pec. The ground floor of the building facing the street housed a cafe, which provided an income of 300 euros a month, a decent income for this part of Kosovo. (Several families in the nearby town of Klina are able to support themselves in this fashion as well.) The Albanian family who had been occupying the premises illegally had obtained housing elsewhere in the town, enabling the Serb returnees to collect rent from the cafe. ¶18. (U) "I came back because I wanted to die in my own house," the old man said. Whether any of his children would come back to live in Peja/Pec or simply sell the house is another question. ¶19. (SBU) COMMENT: Since RefCoord's visit to western Kosovo, a 68-year old ethnic Serb urban returnee was found shot to death in his home in Klina town. It remains to be seen what effect, if any, this incident will have on future urban returns by Serbs and other ethnic minorities to majority ethnic Albanian towns. END COMMENT. GOLDBERG