Kosovo seeing silent land swap
MITROVICA, Serbia – There is a silent land swap under way in Kosovo, sifting Serb from Albanian under the noses of Western powers who swore the breakaway province would never be split along ethnic lines. «I feel like I’ve given away a part of Kosovo,» says an ethnic Albanian who sold his home on the north side of Mitrovica. «But we’ve no future up there. Slowly they are cleaning the area of Albanians.» Through a discreet middleman, the former miner, who refused to be named, sold his home in the Serb stronghold of north Mitrovica to the Serbian government 12 months ago, along with seven neighboring ethnic Albanian families. They were paid handsomely, and moved to the south side of the river that splits Mitrovica in two – Serbs to the north, ethnic Albanians to the south – joining thousands of ethnic Albanians who fled south with the end of the war in 1999. They bought six new houses from Serbs in Svinjare, a village torched to the ground by an Albanian mob in 2004. Its residents had fled, joining up to 200,000 Serbs and other minorities who went north in 1999 while NATO deployed into Kosovo and Serb forces withdrew under Western coercion. The quiet sellout is a crude measure of where the province might be heading. But in the absence of a breakthrough by the end of the year, observers fear events on the ground could overtake diplomacy, and ethnic partition could emerge by force. Serbia, backed by Russia, opposes the Kosovo ethnic Albanian majority’s demand for independence, supported by the West. While deadlock persists, Serbia is cementing its control over the Serb-dominated northern triangle of Kosovo, buying up Albanian homes and building tower blocks for Serbs. «This is about partition,» said a senior European official based in Kosovo. «They are preparing for it by changing the demographics and stepping up the Serb presence.» «Albanians are better off moving now, before it’s too late.» The miner’s house became the National Theater of Pristina, «temporarily relocated» to Mitrovica. It has no stage, nor dressing room, and sits among abandoned Albanian homes. It is a stake in the ground, Western officials say, a claim to the land. The north is home to almost half of Kosovo’s 100,000-120,000 Serbs, and a dwindling number of ethnic Albanians. With Serbia at its back, it resists integration with Kosovo. Belgrade has effective control, making the north a financial and administrative hub for a parallel Serb state in Kosovo. Serbia lost control over Kosovo to the United Nations in 1999, after NATO bombed for 11 weeks to halt the ethnic cleansing and killing of ethnic Albanians in Serbia’s two-year war against ethnic Albanian separatist guerrillas. Leaders of Kosovo’s 2 million ethnic Albanians say they will declare independence after negotiations end in December with or without a UN Security Council resolution. The United States and major EU states are expected to back the secession in the face of Russian opposition, but diplomats warn the north could break away, testing the resolve of 16,000 NATO-led peacekeeping troops on the ground. The slow-motion swap is unmistakable; as Albanians go south, Serbs are trickling north. «For Sale» signs pepper isolated Serb enclaves in central Kosovo, south of the ever-expanding capital, Pristina. Jobless Serbs sell to ethnic Albanian businessmen or returning diaspora with money to spend on shiny shopping malls and petrol stations. Serbs in scattered enclaves to the south do not enjoy the relative financial and physical security that comes with proximity to Serbia proper. They could be driven out if ethnic Albanians lose patience with the West-Russia impasse. Likewise, the several thousand ethnic Albanians left in the north fear a violent Serb backlash should Kosovo strike out alone. They are selling too, to ordinary Serbs and a Serbian government «paying above the market price,» said the European official. Adem Mripa, an ethnic Albanian living in a street now dominated by Serbs, pulls back vines to show where the shrapnel hit his house from a hand grenade lobbed over the garden wall. Reluctant to leave, Mripa has already turned down three Serb offers to sell. «We’re constantly under pressure,» he says.
