Jovanka Broz, the last Yugoslav Icon

The death this week in Belgrade of Jovanka Broz, the widow of Yugoslavia’s former communist ruler, Josip Broz Tito, stirred surprising emotions in me, as in many others. Jovanka, a teenaged partisan during the Second World War before becoming Yugoslavia’s First Lady, had been abominably treated after the death of her husband, expelled from her home without most of her belongings, and placed under house arrest in a shabby dwelling. She had been left in poverty on a miserable pension. She had often been the butt of jokes, denigrated by many as a simple peasant girl. Elizabeth Taylor had reportedly felt peeved when, visiting Tito on the island of Brioni with Richard Burton, who had played the dictator in a World War II partisan movie, she was left in the company of Jovanka, while Burton enjoyed the company of the famously charming Tito. But for others, Jovanka was glamorous. A Kosovo Albanian lady told me how women going to the hairdressers had asked for the Jovanka style.

Jovanka Broz in her prime, with Tito

For years, Jovanka had been largely forgotten. Journalists occasionally wrote of how poorly she had been treated. Some in Croatia argued that she should be brought home to her Croatian motherland (she was in origin a Croatian Serb), given a decent pension and treated with the respect she was due.

But in death she was granted a state funeral, and her passing was reported in international media. Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dačić spoke movingly of her: ‘She was an important part of history, a history we gave up on, a history we forgot… This is the departure of Yugoslavia’s last icon.’ Thousands attended her funeral, many travelling to Belgrade from other parts of former Yugoslavia.

For many who can remember what Yugoslavia was, a serious, if ultimately failed attempt to build a multi-national community with a common identity transcending its peoples’ diversity, Jovanka was perhaps the last link with a past for which some still feel nostalgia. For all its obvious faults and contradictions, Yugoslavia had something. In its cultural diversity there was a richness, a vibrancy that at times produced brilliance. While the successor states may feel unburdened in their independence, and while they are certainly freer, it is hard to argue that the sum of the parts adds up to what Yugoslavia once was. Above all, Yugoslavia represented a dream of a common life for peoples who had once been at each others’ throats. It was surely better than the squalid nationalism and reversion to mutual destruction that followed the state’s demise. For those that mourned her, the death of Jovanka perhaps rekindled a memory of that dream, of hopes for something better.

Re-established links: Gjakova and Tropoje

The recently built Kukes highway and tunnel have transformed links between Albania and Kosovo. Old ties among communities on the two sides of the border are being re-established after decades of communist and, in the case of Kosovo, Serbian rule. Travelling to Tropoje, in the northeast corner of Albania, is now quickest and easiest by the new road, passing through Kosovo, via Prizren and Gjakova (Djakovica in Serbian).

Tropoje is a sparsely populated region, neglected by Tirana since the end of communist rule, despite the fact that current Prime Minister Sali Berisha, the dominant figure in Albanian politics for two decades, comes from here. The main town, Bajram Curri, has not fared well. Lacking the frenzy of new construction that characterises more favoured Albanian towns, Bajram Curri is shrinking, its citizens moving away in search of better prospects. The ill-lit streets have an especially forlorn feel at night. Someone in Tirana told me all Albanian towns were similarly dark and unlit in communist times. Bajram Curri seems hardly to have moved on since then. The high number of UK-registered vehicles is evidence of how many people from the region have moved to Britain. Some of them have moved back with cars they bought there, but many are just visiting for the summer holidays. Strolling through Bajram Curri one evening, a boy from Twickenham, with a pronounced London accent, started talking to me, over to visit the town of his birth.

Bajram Curri

Historically, this region had not looked primarily to Tirana or the coast. Rather, its main link was with Gjakova. Indeed, it was formerly known as the Highlands of Gjakova. Tropoje was part of the hinterland of Gjakova, and it may be becoming so again. Gjakova is a fine old Ottoman town, with a large bazaar, much in the style of many others in the Balkans. Unlike some of them, such as those of Sarajevo and Mostar in Bosnia, or Kruje, near Tirana, the Gjakova bazaar is not at all touristy, at least not yet. Instead, the little shops sell ordinary things to local people, clothes, shoes, hardware. The bazaar has the hustle and bustle so typical of Kosovo, where everyone seems to be doing business in a constant hubbub of activity. The bazaar was damaged during the 1999 conflict, some of its wooden buildings burned. The fine old mosque was damaged. But the damage has largely been repaired, and it has been done sensitively, in keeping with the traditional style.

The furgon (minibus) that drove us from Gjakova to Bajram Curri stopped at several places along the way, picking up supplies from various small shops which were piled along the floor. All manner of things: food; soft drinks; electrical goods. The driver had apparently taken orders from people in Bajram Curri. Travelling to remote areas in Albania it is often like that. The furgons are the conduits for trade. And it Tropoje, it now seems that the source for goods and supplies is coming once again to be Gjakova, as it once was. Old links among Albanian-inhabited lands are being re-established. Will these revived social and commercial ties have political consequences as well? Maybe. Certainly the logic of geography says that Tropoje should never have been separated from Gjakova.

Bajram Curri takes its name from an Albanian hero of the same name. His statue stands in the town, rifle in hand, the picture of the rebel outlaw. Bajram Curri hailed from Gjakova. He fought the Turks and, one of the leading members of the Committee for the National Defence of Kosovo, organised resistance to Serbian rule after 1918, as part of the Kachak insurgency. He served as Minister for War in the Albanian government, but fell out with Ahmed Zogu (later King Zog). Pursued by Zog’s troops, Bajram Curri was trapped and killed (some say he killed himself to avoid capture) in the mountains of the Valbona valley, close to the town whose name now commemorates him.

Was international intervention in Kosovo a mistake?

The recent allegations in Dick Marty’s Council of Europe report linking Prime Minister Hashim Thaci with organised crime, including the murder of people for their organs, were shocking. The levels of corruption and organised crime, and the involvement of leading political figures cast doubt on Kosovo’s fitness for inclusion in European integration. They have also added new grist to the mill of those who see the disputed international recognition of Kosovo’s independence, as well as the NATO bombardment and expulsion of Serbian forces that made it possible, as huge mistakes, and one more shameful episode in the record of ill-conceived international interventions.

First to the history. Let us be clear, the KLA was a terrorist organisation. Frustrated with the failure of the peaceful resistance policy of Ibrahim Rugova to bring about the goal of independence, the KLA sought to advance that goal by violent means. Its attacks were not only against Serbian security forces, but against Serb and other non-Albanian civilians and against Albanians who did not agree with their tactics. The KLA was responsible for serious war crimes, in which several of its leading figures were directly implicated. Its terror tactics continued after the departure of Serbian forces, as it carried out indiscriminate revenge against Serb, Roma and other perceived enemies.

And beyond that, facing elections to newly created representative bodies in the couple of years after the establishment of a UN mandate in Kosovo in 1999, the political parties the KLA spawned carried on their terror against Rugova’s Democratic League of Kosovo, with numerous cases of political violence. These were not heroes and liberators as still portrayed by many Albanians and their foreign cheerleaders. Many of them were vicious criminals. That they have continued their criminal activities to the present day, and, having gained political power, have used it to subvert political structures to their criminal ends and to undermine the development of democratic institutions, should surprise no one.

So was NATO wrong to take the KLA’s side in 1999 and bomb Serbian forces out of Kosovo? Given the nature of the KLA, the readiness of NATO forces to treat them as allies was to say the least distasteful. Yet the decision to use force to stop Milosevic in Kosovo was understandable. Whether there was any viable alternative will long be debated. If there had been another government in Belgrade, an international policy of urging restraint in responding to the KLA’s attacks and negotiations with legitimate Kosovo representatives, above all Rugova, would have been reasonable.

But Milosevic did not respond to the KLA with restraint. His forces embarked on a terror policy of their own, with massacres designed to panic Albanians into fleeing. Add to that evidence of a pre-conceived plan to drive out a large part of the Albanian population, and an international policy of standing by looked indefensible. And Milosevic had form, having sparked the earlier wars of ethnic cleansing in Croatia and Bosnia. The international community had indulged him during the Bosnian peace process, treating him as the indispensable factor for peace in the Balkans, despite his earlier warmongering record. But here he was at it again in Kosovo. Any notion of Milosevic as a peacemaker had surely lost whatever little credibility it had ever enjoyed.

Restraint in Kosovo was not on Milosevic’s agenda. Neither were serious negotiations or a fair deal for the Albanian population. Again, Milosevic had form. He was the instigator of the apartheid-like exclusion of Albanians from all public positions during the 1990s. If he had, thanks to Rugova’s pacific policy, largely kept the lid on violence for most of that period, as much of the rest of former Yugoslavia burned, the whole basis of his approach in Kosovo for a decade before the NATO bombardment was to humiliate Albanians and make their life there impossible. The greatest burden of responsibility for the surge in violence at the end of the 1990s lies at the door of Slobodan Milosevic.

The argument made in some quarters that it was NATO’s bombardment itself that sparked the greater conflagration and the flight of Albanians in early 1999 should be dismissed. Given the violence that the Milosevic regime was already employing in Kosovo, and his past record in Croatia and Bosnia, the decision to employ NATO force, rather than standing by and let Milosevic have his way with the Kosovo Albanians, was justifiable (although the liberal definition of legitimate targets for aerial bombardment throughout Serbia and Montenegro was far more questionable).

Once Serbian forces had been expelled from Kosovo, the whole picture was irrevocably altered. If until 1998 talk of negotiations for Kosovo’s autonomy within Serbia might have seemed plausible, after 1999 such ideas were wholly unworkable. Independence was the only possible outcome, as was privately acknowledged even by some wiser heads in Belgrade. Those who continue to dispute Kosovo’s independence should answer the question of how Kosovo’s Albanians would ever be forced back under Serbian rule, and who would force them? The nastiness of the KLA and of several of today’s leading politicians in Kosovo is not the issue here. It is just about what is possible and what is not. Kosovo cannot be made part of Serbia again.

Marty’s report is of great importance. Many things that were already known about the nature of the government in Kosovo, the prevalence of corruption and organised crime, and the involvement of leading figures, have now appeared with great and refreshing clarity in a document bearing the stamp of a credible international organisation. It cannot be ignored, and its findings must be addressed. There is something rotten at the heart of Kosovo that has its origins in the inclusion of unreformed terrorists and criminals in the new state’s public life.

That this came about is not just a result of the NATO bombing campaign. The real blame is with the failure over many years since 1999 of the international community to face up to and confront the real nature of the KLA’s successors, due to its fear of their capacity for violence and terror and its misguided belief that it could tame and control them, and coax them into normal democratic politics. What is needed is a much tougher and less indulgent policy towards Kosovo’s government, but not any wrong-headed notions that international intervention in Kosovo and Kosovo’s independence were mistakes.

What to do about northern Kosovo?

From Balkan Insight, 2 January 2011

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/europe-must-stay-the-course-in-north-kosovo

Europe Must Stay the Course in North Kosovo

The recent past shows EU pressure on Belgrade can deliver results in northern Kosovo. The question is whether Europe has the will to keep it up.

By Peter Palmer

Among the recent WikiLeaks disclosures, cables from Belgrade and Prishtina confirmed the unease US diplomats felt about the support of officials in Belgrade for the partition of Kosovo.

Frustration with the lack of progress in integrating the mainly Serb-inhabited north has led some international commentators to advocate Kosovo’s partition, perhaps as part of a mutually agreed territorial swap with Serbia’s Albanian-inhabited Presevo valley going to Kosovo in exchange.

But what are the prospects for such a solution, and is it necessary, or desirable?

Partition or territorial exchanges are not publicly stated policy in either Belgrade or Prishtina. When Serbia’s President, Boris Tadic, raised partition as a possible solution in September 2008, he faced condemnation in both capitals, leading him to reaffirm the official Serbian line that the whole of Kosovo remains part of Serbia.

Nevertheless, as the WikiLeaks documents show, some Serbian officials are interested in partition. While acknowledging that most of Kosovo is lost, they assert that the government in Prishtina will never rule the north.

Could Prishtina be persuaded to accept such a loss of territory? The answer would seem to be “no”, unless Kosovo were offered something in return. It is here that the idea of a territorial exchange comes into play. While it is certainly not official Kosovo policy, some officials in Prishtina are prepared to entertain the idea.

However, when considering a territorial exchange, problems of principle and practicality present themselves. International acceptance of the break-up of Yugoslavia has since 1991 been based on two principles, affirmed throughout the wars of the Yugoslav succession and the peace implementation process that followed. One is no change to the former internal boundaries between Yugoslavia’s federal units. The other is no acceptance of the logic of ethnic cleansing, or of the idea that multinational states are unworkable.

These principles remain valid and important, not least for Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose unity continues to be questioned. After the International Court of Justice’s opinion in July on the legality of Kosovo’s independence declaration, the Republika Srpska Prime Minister (now President), Milorad Dodik, drew a parallel with the Serbian position in Bosnia.

And in Macedonia, although relations between the majority and the Albanian minority have improved since the 2001 conflict, the relationship of the latter to the Macedonian state is far from settled. And, if we accept an ethnic redrawing of borders between Kosovo and Serbia, why not elsewhere, in the Caucasus, or in Moldova? Some would welcome the precedent.

Since the break-up of Yugoslavia, the international community has insisted that minority rights should be respected within existing borders. Serbia and Kosovo are both multinational states. If Serbs in the north cannot live in Kosovo, what place does that leave for the Serbs in the south? And what about the Albanians who live in the north of Kosovo and ethnically cleansed Albanians who would like to return there?

Then there are the practicalities. If Prishtina won’t give up the north without compensation in southern Serbia, would Belgrade accept such a swap? If it would, where would the new boundary be drawn? As when discussing border changes anywhere in former Yugoslavia, there is no clean ethnic boundary.

Of the three southern Serbian municipalities in question, Presevo is almost entirely Albanian-inhabited, but Bujanovac and Medvedja are ethnically mixed. Wherever the line would be drawn, some would be left on the wrong side.

Such playing with maps does not provide solutions. It just creates more disputes. By sanctioning partition, the problem of the north would not be solved. More likely, it would ignite the tinderbox of frustration felt by many Albanians, that nearly three years after independence their country has yet to establish control over all its territory.

The premise that partition is the only possible solution for the north of Kosovo is flawed. The main point is that the north’s non-integration in Kosovo is only sustained by institutional and financial support from Belgrade. That Serbia provides funding for Kosovo’s Serbs would be fine, if its purpose was legitimate support for Serbian cultural, educational, social and healthcare needs. But not when it is used as a political tool to undermine Kosovo’s integration.

Belgrade’s obstructionist tactics include enfeebling the EU’s rule of law mission in Kosovo, EULEX. Belgrade’s consent in December 2008 to EULEX’s deployment in the north followed EU pressure and its insistence that if Serbia wanted to proceed with EU integration, it should not undermine EULEX’s mission.

EULEX is now present in the north but is barely able to carry out its mandate. The courts are scarcely functional. EULEX police can do little more than sit in the police stations. Serbian interior ministry police, in plain clothes, continue to operate. On the border, EULEX customs officials are not able to collect duties.

Given Serbia’s EU aspirations, the European Union holds leverage over Belgrade to insist that it stop its obstructionism in the north. Following the ICJ’s opinion in July, that Kosovo’s independence declaration did not violate international law, the EU put huge pressure on Serbia, including high-level visits from key member states, to get it to agree to technical talks with Kosovo.

Whether such contacts go ahead has been complicated by the Council of Europe report naming Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, as an organised crime boss. But questions about high-level crime and corruption in Kosovo are separate from the issue of the country’s future relations with Serbia.

EU pressure will need to be stepped up anew, both to ensure the talks proceed, and to make sure they have meaningful content. Enabling the courts, police and the customs service to function properly in the north are key technical matters that should be addressed. Brussels should not allow its mission to continue to be humiliated.

If Belgrade were pressurised into taking a more accommodating approach, there is no reason why things should not change in the north. In more than a decade since the UN mandate in Kosovo began, the pattern has been one of gradual progress, with occasional setbacks, as things that had once appeared impossible became possible.

Who would have thought three years ago that one would see the level of Serb participation in Kosovo’s institutions in the south seen today? That was possible because Belgrade did not have the means to control Serbs in the south, whose daily reality is that they live among Albanians and unavoidably come into contact with Kosovo’s authorities.

And in the north, while Kosovo institutions are present only to a very limited extent, pragmatic accommodation by some Serbs there is already greater than many in Belgrade realise. From the contacts between Kosovo Serb police and their counterparts in the south, to the acceptance by many northern municipal officials of Kosovo salaries, some northern Serbs already balance between Serbia and Kosovo.

Such pragmatism should be encouraged. But the prerequisite is that Belgrade cease shoring up the hard-line, obstructionist holdovers from Slobodan Milosevic’s era who continue to hold sway there.

It is no time to despair about the integration of the north into Kosovo, nor to look for the type of solution that has rightly been rejected elsewhere in the Balkans. The EU has the means to secure a change of policy from Belgrade. It is true that the EU is divided over Kosovo’s independence but the five non-recognisers have all lined up behind the call for technical talks. None opposes EULEX’s mission in the north. Spain and Greece have taken a pragmatic line of late, making a more robust EU approach realistic, if the same will that was evident following the ICJ opinion is sustained.

Peter Palmer is a former Kosovo Project Director and Balkans Project Director of the International Crisis Group.

Something nice to say about Prishtina

I have often been a bit harsh about Prishtina. It is too easy to do. Prishtina is such an obvious target for criticism, that it almost becomes cheap. So let's look on the bright side. Today I am feeling in good spirits. Possibly this is because I will be getting away from Prishtina in a few days time. Very definitely it is because I will be getting away from a job I have not enjoyed and a boss I have not got on with. But I also find myself feeling more positive about Prishtina.

It's a nice spring day. Arriving at my office (not to work, it's Sunday, and I was just there to fetch the car), there was a man across the street sweeping up the dust and muck in the gutter. Now that is a step forward. One of the worst things about Prishtina in summer, when it is hot and dry, is the dust swirling around, getting in your eyes, making them sting, and in your throat, making you cough. But now they're cleaning the street. That is a novelty, and very welcome. I think this town is getting better. Another surprise this spring is the sprouting, here and there, of little patches of garden, tended lawns and flower beds. Someone is trying to make the town look prettier. Someone is trying to encourage a new spirit of civic pride among the citizens of Pishtina. Perhaps they might even stop chucking rubbish about.

And there are nice things to do. It's good to be able to say that there are even some things which are really good. For example, Prishtina boasts a really cool cafe, Strip Depo. The quirky decor, with the hotch-potch of furniture, the absence of any sense of theme in the eclectic choice of pictures adorning the walls, it all seems great fun. The music's good too. At one time this was a favoured haunt for younger Prishtina intellectual types, but its popularity has spread much wider now. No point in going in the middle of the day, when it's heaving with people, but in early evening, it's a pleasant place to relax in a deep armchair, with a coffee and a fresh orange juice.

Today I had a walk and lunch (trout with grilled courgettes and carrots and a Greek salad, washed down with Peja beer) at Germia. Loads of people out enjoying the sun and the fresh air away from the town, children running about, screaming with pleasure in the spring warmth. It could be a park anywhere in Europe. Prishtina is coming on. Yes, there is plenty to complain about. Hardly surprising in a place that was recently one of the poorest, least developed backwaters of Europe, suffering under the heal of an Apartheid-like regime. It's all too easy to look on the bad side. But things are getting better. Someone once divided Eastern Europe into the "Europe of Hope", and the "Europe of No-Hope". Kosovo is now part of the "Europe of Hope".

Fresh milk in Belgrade

Recently I spent a few days in Belgrade. How different it is from Prishtina. The streets are (more or less) clean. The air is not clogged with smoke. There's water in the tap all of the time.

And, what bliss, there is fresh milk in all the shops, for my tea and for cereal. I take back a litre with me to Prishtina, which lasts me for almost a week. What a difference it makes to my life. Such a simple thing, so easily taken for granted, and so missed when I don't have it. Oh there is fresh milk in Prishtina. It mainly comes in plastic bags that have to be snipped open with scissors. That's how milk came all over Yugoslavia at one time. What a stupid container for a liquid! It's not all that nice, and usually only lasts a day from the time of purchase, if you're lucky - sometimes it is bad when you buy it. Recently cartons of locally produced fresh milk have appeared in a few places, but to me it tastes the same as the long-life milk most people use here. I loathe long-life milk. Tea is still refreshing with it, but the taste is unpleasant. I just gulp it down quickly, no pleasure at all. Most people don't seem to have a concept of fresh milk. They seem to think it means unpasturised milk (you can buy unpasturised milk in the villages). Once a bemused shopkeeper who didn't understand what I meant by fresh milk suddenly understood: "Oh, you mean milk in a bag".

Belgrade was refreshing. So many nice places to go, nice cafes, restaurants, pleasant streets and parks to stroll in. And then it's back to Prishtina. But I mustn't be too down on the place. At least one thing is generally better here - coffee. And that is also important.

Churches and flags

Today I visited Gračanica, a Serb enclave close to Prishtina. Not much goes on on a Sunday. The market traders that line the main Prishtina-Gjilan road on other days are nowhere to be seen. That’s a shame, as the home-grown produce sold by the local Serb peasants is worth visiting for.

I strolled in a graveyard. Most of the tombstones are in a similar big, showy black marble style, with photographs of the dearly departed. It would appear that many older graves have recently been given newer stones. Most are Christian, but one stands out for me, with a five-pointed star in place of a cross. The occupant was a man who had come of age just as the communists came to power, and had presumably risen on the revolutionary tide. In placing the star on his new-looking stone, his relatives had stayed true to his communist faith. One thing that strikes me is that on many of the stones there are two names, and two pictures, but only one giving the year of death, the other left open. I think I would find it depressing to see my name and picture on my tombstone while I am still alive.

Gračanica monastery

At the centre of Gračanica is the 14th Century Orthodox monastery. It has survived fires and the removal of its lead roofing in the Ottoman period, yet still stands, its icons worn and damaged, the eyes poked out in many cases, a typical Muslim desecration. Nowadays its entrance is guarded by a couple of Swedish soldiers, razor wire topping its walls. Standing among the saints and medieval Serbian kings, the biblical scenes, one has a sense of timelessness. Some of the participants in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, which took place not far from here, are said to have prayed in this church before the fray. It is small and intimate, enclosed, until one looks up to the small dome high above, the face of Christ looking down, as if ones attention is deliberately being drawn upwards to the heavenly.

I’ve never managed to understand the Orthodox Church. With its intense conservatism, it is an alien world. On the one hand is its rich artistic heritage, its icons and churches, its mesmerising chants that seem to connect it to a spirituality largely lost in the modern world, and consciously given up in western Christianity. On the other is the poisonous nationalism that pollutes and discredits it in the eyes of so many outsiders. In a corner of the church at Gračanica is a huge Serbian flag, wound around its wooden pole. How does the pretension to be a universal church, embodying timeless values taught by a God who is said to have created all mankind in his image sit with this narrow, chauvinistic nationalism?

I am tempted to see it as a kind of paganism, worshiping at the altar of the nation. But as I am not a part of it, I really have no idea how its adherents see their Church, their worship, their God. I have no idea what this mystical entwining of a universal faith with the body of a nation means to them. This is one of the features of religious faith. Outsiders see alien faiths largely in political terms, never properly understanding the spiritual element which is generally central for the adherents themselves. It is the same with Islam. Outsiders are scared by the massed ranks of the bowing faithful, seeing them as dangerous, threatening fanatics. Brought up as a Catholic, I am often aware that outside critics generally just don’t get what it is that Catholics are about. Without having ever experienced the simple spirituality, the heart-swelling faith in God, the hope for a better hereafter, seeing only the strange ceremonies and priestly robes, the overtly political, and sometimes discreditable role that the Church has played in history, they cannot understand that, as with other faiths, at its centre is the strange but simple belief in God. Whether or not one continues to share those beliefs, it is only those who have been on the inside who really understand them.

Serbs and bilberry juice

Today I was back in Mitrovica. It is a sad place. At each end of the famous bridge that divides the city between its Albanian south and mainly Serb north there is coiled-up barbed wire, ready to be pulled across at a moment’s notice, should there be trouble. Two NATO armoured personnel carriers sit at the northern end, with their big machine guns on top. Walking along the main road in the north, I pass a patrol of ten or so French soldiers, rifles in hand, who drop into a café on their route.

The bridge, Mitrovica

I’ve come to meet Oliver Ivanovic. He became famous in 1999 when he organised the Serb bridge watchers responsible for dividing the town. After that his image was transformed. Urbane, charming, fluent in English and Albanian, he came to be seen as a leading Kosovo Serb moderate, the favourite interlocutor for the internationals. Now a state secretary in Belgrade’s Ministry for Kosovo, he spends much of his time in the Serbian capital. He’s a busy man nowadays – I had been trying to get a meeting for weeks. Now his main battle is with the hard-line criminal elements that ran the north for years before the present government took over in mid-2008. He promises to root out corruption among the Kosovo Serbs.

Oliver is friendly, gregarious, an open smile ready on his lips. He knows who I am, and who I represent. He knows I argued for Kosovo independence years before it was declared. But he doesn’t seem to hold it against me. This is something I find strange about the Kosovo Serbs. I would expect them to hate us westerners, especially Brits and Americans. Did we not bomb them and support their Albanian enemies? Do they not see us as responsible for their misfortunes, for the loss of the territory at the centre of Serbian history and mythology? I would expect them to. Probably they do. And yet they are almost invariably friendly and hospitable towards us, welcoming us as their guests. How would I feel in their place?

I ate Prebranac (a spicy bean stew) in the restaurant I usually go to in Mitrovica. Quite tasty. I also enjoyed the homemade bilberry juice.

In a way the Kosovo Serbs’ situation is a bit like that of the whites in South Africa. Outnumbered, losing ground, a sense of siege, defensive, aware that they are widely vilified, and probably fighting a losing battle. Yet I’ve almost never found them aggressive. No doubt it would be different if I were an Albanian trying to return to north Mitrovica to reclaim my house.

Hills and rubbish

I had a Sunday afternoon walk in the hills outside Prishtina today, at Germia. It was a fine, sunny day, almost spring-like. Ahhh, for fresh air, away from the smoke of the Obilic power stations that so often chokes Prishtina, away from the dust and cheap petrol fumes of the city, away from the crow shit-spattered streets.

But one thing you cannot escape from, even in the hills, is the rubbish, the refuse with which the people of Prishtina clog up their town and even their supposed weekend beauty spots. It's everywhere in the city. Plastic bottles strewn about, trees hanging with wispy plastic bags, like some strange kind of fruit. Every scrap of green, every tree, the verges of every pavement. Dust, rubbish, crow shit, bad air, these are the things that stick in the memory about Prishtina. Crumbling stairways, general decay. Even new buildings look dilapidated almost at once.

Walking in the hills, breathing in the air, enjoying the nature, I try to avoid seeing the rubbish. The places where people sit to admire the views are invariably spoiled by cascades of plastic and paper spilling down the slopes. There is a point with a particularly fine view over planes and hills beyond. On a bright day one could see for miles and miles. It's obviously a popular spot for walkers, as one can tell by the quantities of litter thrown about.

What do these people think about when fouling their city, and even their beauty spots? It's depressing. The only mild comfort I can find is in the thought that it's not that beautiful anyway, and if they want to destroy their little patch of earth, at least they largely leave the best bits to the rest of us.

Wines and labels

Kosovo wine is returning to the UK market. According to the website of the producer, StoneCastle, its wines measure up to the best of France or Italy. Well, no they don’t. I tried the StoneCastle Merlot recently, and it was actually OK – you can drink it (with the caveat that during extended periods in this neighbourhood my palate is highly unreliable). It tasted like Merlot anyway, which is a good sign.

I tried another Merlot the same evening, from a winery owned by one of Kosovo's most prominent luminaries. According to the label, it was a 1993. My host told me he didn’t believe it. He had never seen any vintage other than 1993. Well, it certainly didn’t taste like a fifteen-year old wine. Isn’t that a great idea? What if Burgundian producers were to label all their wines for the next fifteen years as Grand Cru from 2005?

But the proliferation of private producers in the Balkans is a good thing. Slovenia is well ahead of the pack. I prefer the wines of the Goriška brda region (Collio in Italian, in this border-straddling territory). I am a long-standing fan of the Sivi pinot (Pinot Griggio) from Ščurek, and the wines of Movia are worth drinking. The wines of Croatia are as diverse as that country’s geography and climate. So far, I’ve not been convinced by the heavy reds of Dalmatia which are so admired in some quarters. They just seem very big, usually flabby, often oxidised, and uninteresting. The wines of Istria are often more restrained and refined, like those of Matošević.

But I think Montenegro is especially interesting. I’m biased – I like Montenegro. The hills between Bar and Virpazar seem particularly promising. That Montenegro has an indigenous grape variety, the Vranac, adds to the interest (it’s grown elsewhere in the Balkans, in Macedonia, Bosnia and Kosovo, but Montenegro is its real home). Several small private producers have been springing up, and some of them are really pretty good. The prices some of them go for in Podgorica shops – up to 50 Euros for a bottle last time I was there – are also an indication of how highly they are prized. It’s really quite exciting.

Mud, dust and shit

It's been raining in Prishtina, and as always, the streets are slopping with mud. When it's dry, the dust and grit blows around, getting into your hair, your eyes, your throat, making you cough. When it rains, walking the streets is a constant test, trying and failing to avoid being splattered by passing cars, mud covering your footwear, splashed up to your knees. There's always some challenge.

Worst is the gauntlet that has to be walked every evening under the trees full of cacophonous crows, avoiding the torrents of shit they send down on to hapless humans below. I've worked out a route from my office down the road to my favourite café, dodging from one bit of open, treeless space to another. There's only one point where passing beneath a tree is unavoidable. Oh how I hate them, how they torment me. Before I go to bed I have to deal with the multitude of crows that spend the night in the branches next to my fourth-floor bedroom window. If I leave them be, I get a dawn call of cawing. Flashing them with a torch works quite well, but there are usually a few hold-outs, blasé in the face of human efforts to trick them. I keep a supply of plastic bottles to throw at them. But fifteen minutes later I have to repeat the exercise with the hard cases who have returned in the meantime.

Well, this is Kosovo after all, the "Field of Blackbirds". A Serb told me recently that the crows are the souls of dead Serbs, come back to haunt the Albanians and foreigners who have taken over their sacred land. Well, apparently they are not very discriminating, as he has been their victim too. Of course, the reason for their proliferation is the filthy state of the city. But where are all the cats? Don't they have any pride, allowing their town to be taken over by birds? I can't help thinking that a few men with shot guns one morning could wreak havoc among them. I'd volunteer.

Serb enclaves

Yesterday I went to Mitrovica. It was grim. After the recent troubles (a Serb youth stabbed, a café bombed, firemen attacked, a journalist beaten, and Albanian shops torched), armoured personnel carriers squat at key points, by the bridge and next to the court building. French and Belgian troops patrol the ethnically mixed Bosniac Mahala district where the trouble was concentrated. Some of the Belgians grin at passers by, trying to impart cheerfulness and good will. The burned out shops down one street are blackened, with broken windows and charred, damp little heaps of destroyed goods outside that once enticed shoppers to stop and buy. The grubby streets, with the filthy slush of the melting snow, spattering legs as cars drive by, are quite enough to depress spirits even without the latest damage the inhabitants have inflicted on their town.

Mitrovica bridge, under guard

Lunch starts with a spicy, greasy fish soup, with hunks of fat that did not come from any fish I am familiar with. It is followed by two trout, grilled according to the menu, but in fact fried and greasy. In the corner of the restaurant, Marko Jakšić, one of Serb north Mitrovica's duo of strongmen, holds court in his track suit. Who would believe that this silver-haired man could inspire such fear? Appearing relaxed, smiling gently, there is no sign that he is nervous at rumours that the Belgrade government is out to get him, or that he is concerned by media stories of corruption. Rather, the speculation has it, it is he and his cronies who have stirred up the recent troubles as a lesson to Belgrade and the internationals that they are still in control, and no one should mess with them.

The day before it was Štrpce, a Serb-majority area in the south, at the foot of mountains, with a ski resort that locals hope will one day bring prosperity. The 1970s hotels, even were they not shabby and broken now, seem a memorial to the shoddiness of that decade. To think that places like this actually made Yugoslavs feel optimistic then. Lunch is roast veal in a mushroom sauce - quite tasty.

I got in trouble with the police, for parking on a little bridge. Well, I couldn't find anywhere else, and there was no sign saying not to. And I was in a hurry to see the top man in the parallel Serb municipal administration. I returned to find a note saying to report to the police station, and that the front registration plate had been taken. They were very strict at first, and I was very contrite. I was in a hurry to meet Mr. Staletović, I stressed several times. They seemed to appreciate the fact that I, a foreigner, could speak Serbian. They let me off.

Štrpce is very different from Mitrovica. Isolated from Serbia, the Serbs here are interested in jobs, and ready to reach an accommodation with the Albanians who live all around them. Bizarrely, the official municipal administration and the Serb parallel one exist side by side in the same building. They rub along uneasily. Surrounded by spectacular mountain scenery, this is perhaps the one place in Kosovo where one can see Serbs having a real perspective. Here it will be possible to live well, so long as politics does not interfere. The locals probably know it.

Prishtina in sunshine

It is a cold, clear day in Prishtina, the bright sunshine sparkling on the snow. Young men are out on Mother Theresa Boulevard with shovels, breaking up the hard-packed ice and piling it in heaps on the side of the road. Broken steps hidden by snow have become slopes for children to slide down, or for adults to fall down. The book sellers are at their usual place near the Hotel Grand, in the sunshine, which, though bright, does little to cut through the chill. The little tables with cigarettes and mobile phone scratch cards for sale line some streets, but many of the sellers are not to be seen, presumably escaping the chill and watching from nearby cafés.

Prishtina continues to change at a startling pace. Pedestrians only now on Mother Theresa, the city centre begins to show some potential to be almost attractive. Lots of new cafes are packed with Prishtina's smart young things, dressed to the nines, staying for hours, drinking just one coffee, and smoking lots of cigarettes. The dwindling numbers of internationals congregate in their favoured pubs and restaurants. Gleaming new buildings tower over the city, either mocking the shabbiness of the streets below, or holding out a bright perspective for the future, depending on one's level of optimism.

For all its enduring grubbiness, Prishtina has an optimistic feel. It is a city and a country on the move. Though still poor, the proliferation of new buildings, the breakneck expansion of the city's boundaries, the upgraded highways, all speak of a brighter future. No doubt there is plenty of dissatisfaction. The young men hanging around with nothing to do, the youngsters reduced to hawking cigarettes in the cafes, point to the poverty and lack of opportunity that afflict many. There are still frequent power cuts, and the water goes off every night. Frustration at the challenges of realising Kosovo's independence still threatens to boil over into anger and violence. Yet this is the capital city of a new country. A long-held dream for Kosovo's Albanians has been realised. For now, it still seems that the hardship is worth it.

Snow

I prefer Prishtina in the snow. For once, neither dusty nor muddy, even the stink of the nearby power stations seems somehow to have been smothered. Snow makes all cities look a little alike, from the most beautiful to the most ugly. Or perhaps I'm trying much too hard to be positive about Prishtina.

I just finished reading Orhan Pamuk's "Snow". Another apparently ugly city that took on a new aspect when all white. It was a huge struggle, dreadfully dull. I forced myself to read to the end, mainly so I could say with conviction that it was awful. So slow-moving, such uninteresting characters. It was all completely unconvincing. Maybe Pamuk is as introverted as almost all his characters, analysing every thought, every action in endless detail. But most people are not so utterly tiresome. How did Ka manage to talk to so many people, sit in so many tea shops, walk so many streets, have so many clandestine meetings, get arrested and tortured, make passionate love so many times in such a short period, and still manage to fill several notebooks with every detail of everything he did? And why would he want to record every little boring detail?

My expectations of Pamuk were high, and I was dreadfully disappointed. Are any of his other books any better?