Kosovo's long-lasting legacy of war

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7097022.stm

Version 0 of 1.

The people of Kosovo are voting to elect a new parliament, but next month the territory faces an even more fateful decision - whether to declare sovereignty or not. On a visit to Kosovo, the BBC's Humphrey Hawksley gauges the strength of pro-independence feeling.

It is evening in the Drenica Valley, the heartland of Kosovo Albanian nationalism.

The Kosovo border has been operated by the UN since 1999

We are in a cafe in the small town of Skenderaj waiting for a phone call.

The customers are men of all generations, eyes flitting occasionally towards a TV screen where a chat show is focusing on Kosovo's upcoming independence, as if it is a given.

Above the bar are pictures of leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the guerrilla group that in 1999 fought with Nato to expel Serb forces from the province. At that time, many of the men here would have been signed-up members.

There is an edge of anticipation in the bar. This is a society used to looking after its own.

The phone rings and our interpreter has a short conversation.

"We wait here," he says. "Another 20 minutes."

Social policies

Earlier in the day, I had been in the Kosovan capital, Pristina, whose landmarks pay tribute to the 1999 intervention.

Bill Clinton visited Kosovo in 1999A replica of the Statue of Liberty stands on the roof of a hotel, and a huge hoarding of Bill Clinton covers the outer wall of a city centre building.

I was going round the main political parties trying to work out why the mindset of this society is so locked into getting full sovereign independence. It is not as if they did not already have huge backing from the international community.

"You can't have economic development unless you have sovereignty," explains Veton Surroi, the leader of a new centre-left party called Ora.

"If we accept a lesser position than independence we would have continuous conflict caused by those who choose violence."

"Why violence?" I ask. "What about Taiwan? It's one of the richest places in the world, but it has no official status at all."

"Taiwan has a totally different historical perspective," he counters.

"Really?" I challenge. "All right. What's your policy towards health care?"

"We advocate free health care," he replies.

I notice, strewn right along the edge of the road, piles and piles of rubbish, just left, rotting "How much will it cost?" I ask.

"We have a budget."

"Which is?"

Silence.

"You can't give me a figure?"

He admits he has not yet worked it out, and sends me to see his party's workers, young educated men with degrees from US and European universities.

"Why are you guys banging on about independence when you don't even have a health care policy?" I ask.

"All Kosovo Albanians will die for independence," one says.

Poor services

Outside it is raining, and getting into the car, I step into a huge pot-hole filled with water.

Then I notice piles and piles of rubbish, strewn right along the edge of the road, just left to rot.

A stray cat picks its way through.

"I suppose you need independence to clear up the garbage and fix the roads," I say irritably to our interpreter.

"You don't understand, do you?" he says.

Recruiting fighters

Which is how we find ourselves in the Drenica Valley cafe that evening, and when the phone rings for the second time, we leave.

On a street corner, heading out of town, we pick up the intermediary who had been telephoning us.

Albanian armed groups say they are ready to fight again

He directs us along a narrow road to a junction with a dirt track, where we meet a middle-aged man, head shaved and dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans.

We drive up the track and stop at a derelict building.

The man puts on a balaclava helmet so we cannot identify his face. He claims to be a member of the Albanian National Army, a group banned by the UN administration.

"If we see that we are not going towards the goal of independence we will start implementing our military plans," he says. "Which means we'll protect our land from Serb forces."

"But the Serb forces aren't here," I exclaim, "Nato's here."

"They'll be back," he replies. "We are recruiting in large numbers to protect our people."

"After nearly 10 years of peace, is it really worth bringing back this spectre of violence?" I ask.

Through the slits in his balaclava, his eyes are sharp and uncompromising.

"Not only 10 years but after even 20, it is worth starting a struggle against those who don't want Albanians to live on their own land," he tells me.

Violent resolutions

Had it been anywhere else, with his pot belly and his slogans, he might have cut a laughable figure. But on his wrist is a shrapnel wound from the guerrilla war of the 1990s.

As with so many conflicts, including the long-running one with the Palestinians in the Middle East, his comfort zone is within land and historical legends, not clearing rubbish and good governance.

He believes the UN will respond to his threat of violence by rewriting its resolutions and that his own mainstream politicians, and the US and Europe, will support his campaign for independence.

I find the encounter deeply depressing.

On the drive back, I fall into silence, until my interpreter suddenly says: "We have a choice, don't we?"

"What's that?" I ask.

"Whether we want to end up looking like the Taiwanese or like the Palestinians."

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 17 November, 2007 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the <a HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3187926.stm">programme schedules </a> for World Service transmission times.