KOSOVO: SERB RELUCTANCE TO RETURN TO SVINJARE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PRISTINA 000653

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR DRL, INL, AND EUR/SCE, NSC FOR BRAUN, USUN FOR
DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREF PGOV PREL UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: SERB RELUCTANCE TO RETURN TO SVINJARE
LINKED TO SECURITY, NOT PACE OF REBUILDING


PRISTINA 00000653 001.2 OF 002


Sensitive But Unclassified; Please Protect Accordingly.


1. (SBU) SUMMARY: The return of Serbs to the village of
Svinjare is more complex than the rebuilding of houses
destroyed and damaged by ethnic Albanians in the riots of
March 2004. The rebuilding/repair effort is underway, though
according to the UNMIK office that advises the Kosovo
Protection Corps (KPC),even in the best-case scenario it
will only be 80 percent complete by the onset of winter.
Rather, issues of mutual mistrust continue to hamper the
resettlement effort. On the one hand, whether Serbs want to
resume living side-by-side with Albanians remains an open
question. On the other hand, local Albanians make it clear
they would prefer that their former Serb neighbors simply
stayed away. END SUMMARY.


2. (SBU) The U.K. Liaison Office in Pristina organized a
Contact Group (CG) visit to the village of Svinjare, which is
on the south side of the Ibar River a few kilometers from
Mitrovica. Over 100 Serb-owned houses were damaged and
destroyed in the March 2004 violence, and the return of Serb
residents has become an important test case for
inter-communal relations. On August 3 local CG
representatives plus media, Kosovo Police Service (KPS),
Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) and UNMIK's Office of the KPC
Coordinator arranged a joint visit to the village. The
Provisional Institutions of Self Government (PISG) has
designated the KPC as being responsible for the repairs, and
their activity is being supervised by UNMIK's Office of the
KPC Coordinator. DPO represented USOP.

The Facts on the Ground
--------------


3. (SBU) The UNMIK briefer told the assembled CG
representatives that, prior to 1999, there were 113 Serb
houses in Svinjare Currently, only three Serb houses are
occupied full time. There are now 66 Albanian families in
the village, and there have been seven known cases of Serbs
selling their homes to Albanians.


4. (SBU) According to UNMIK, a total of 84 Serb properties
currently need some form of work, ranging from minor repairs
to complete renovations. The KPC is currently working on
five of them, with 79 awaiting the tendering process. To
finish 80 percent of the work prior to the onset of winter,
UNMIK will have to agree to an expedited tendering process.


5. (SBU) An elderly Serb woman and a well-know and colorful
Serb villager -- surrounded by a gaggle of 50 diplomats,
reporters, security personnel and onlookers -- reported that
they had moved back into their homes and were experiencing no
difficulties with their Albanian neighbors. Unlike the rest
of the Serbs with whom we subsequently met, they both live
full-time in their homes. (NOTE: Others come in on the
morning train from the nearby municipality of Zvecan, and
return in the afternoon. END NOTE.). The mayor of Zvecan
has reportedly encouraged Serb returns to Svinjare but the
same cannot be said of other, more hard-line Serb leaders,
including those from Belgrade's Coordination Center for
Kosovo and Metohija.

Serb and Albanian Presentations
--------------


6. (SBU) The Russian Head of Mission asked that the Serbs be
allowed to speak to the Contact Group separately from the
Albanians. After the Albanians -- with the notable exception
of KPC General Rama Rraman and his Chief of Staff -- were
ushered out, Serbian community spokesman Milorad Radivojevic
said that only four out of 580 Serbs originally from Svinjare
are satisfied with security conditions. Referring to
previous work on damaged houses, he said that 97 percent of
his neighbors are dissatisfied with the quality of the work
performed; he cited poor windows and doors, as well as roof
beams lacking adequate reinforcement. (NOTE: Although we have
no basis to make a judgment on the quality of the

PRISTINA 00000653 002.2 OF 002


reconstructed housing, it looks quite solid as is;
comparatively speaking, it is better that some we have seen
in other locations. END NOTE). Radivojevic added that
deserted houses awaiting completion have been repeatedly
looted and vandalized.


7. (SBU) Another Serb provided a long list of foreign
dignitaries who had visited Svinjare since the destruction of
Serb houses; he also went over the KFOR and UNMIK deployments
in the area. He summed up by saying "none of you can protect
us, not the world's most powerful military alliance, not the
United Nations.


8. (SBU) Albanian community spokesman Rrahman Hasani said he
would welcome the return of his former Serb neighbors, but
added that the village infrastructure was in dire need of
repair, particularly its sewage system. (NOTE: In a brief
conversation with us, Hasani said that the Serbs did not want
to come back, strongly implying that this was fine with him.
The KFOR liaison to the KPC in Svinjare told COM during a
previous visit there that KPC Commander Rrama had take it
upon himself to visit the Albanian households in the vicinity
in order to ward off potential trouble. END NOTE.)


9. (SBU) The meeting degenerated into an argument when UK
Liaison Office head David Blunt invited the two communities
to speak to each other in our presence. A Serb said that all
had been well in the village before the UN arrived to plant
the seeds of discord between the communities. An Albanian
villager launched into an angry recitation of genocidal
crimes against his brethren, and the mutual recriminations
continued until brought to a close by the CG representatives.


10. (SBU) COMMENT: Svinjare's issues cannot yet be solved via
a construction project. While the rebuilding of homes and
outbuildings continues, mutual mistrust remains a significant
stumbling block to completing this one of the Contact Group
15 priority items for standards implementation. One set of
neighbors burned another set out of their homes. The
institutions of Kosovo neither prevented nor halted the
assault, nor have they brought all the perpetrators to
justice. At the same time, it is by no means clear that the
Serbs of Svinjare would want or even be allowed to accept
"yes" for an answer by their political masters. We will
continue to follow events in the community and report on
progress there.


11. (U) U.S. Office Pristina clears this cable for release in
its entirety to U.N. Special Envoy for Kosovo Martti
Ahtisaari.
KAIDANOW