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.

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PRAYING FOR BULLS IN LEPINA
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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

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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.

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A BOSNIAN INTERLUDE
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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.

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THE FIRST SERB FAMILY TO RETURN TO PEJA/PEC
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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

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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