KOSOVO

Hope and Hate in Novo Brdo

Sonja, a Serb girl with deep dark eyes, writes a letter in an office of the municipality of Novo Brdo, a small rural town in the east of Kosovo. Sonja's letter is not about municipal affairs. It is a love letter. "It's for my boyfriend, an American soldier of KFOR (the NATO-led force in Kosovo)," she says with great shyness as she plays with the wooden cross hanging from her necklace. "Life is not easy here. I would like to go with him to America."

Neither life nor love is easy in Novo Brdo, a group of 28 villages and countless mahallas (hamlets) tucked away in the mountains with poor communications and a dying economy. Its ancient gold and silver mines, which made Novo Brdo (literally "New Hill" in Serbo-Croat) one of the largest cities of Europe during the Middle Ages, are now abandoned. Unemployment has reached 80 per cent and the municipality has lost half its population since 1991. That year, the Serb authorities dismissed all the Albanian miners, according to UN sources.

Today Novo Brdo has fewer than 4,000 inhabitants. The population is roughly 60 per cent Albanian and 40 per cent Serb, with a community of about 40 Gypsies. Before the war, the Serbs slightly outnumbered the Albanians and there were twice as many Gypsies.

The 35 kilometres of road running from Pristina to Novo Brdo pass through six Serb towns. One could think that this is a mixed part of Kosovo, but it is not. The Serb villages are isolated enclaves more connected to Serbia proper (20 kilometres to the east) than to their Albanian neighbours. In many places Serb children require a KFOR escort to go to school. The nearby enclave of Gracanica, site of a beautiful Orthodox monastery, is under constant surveillance by UN police and Swedish troops.

The Serb repression of the Albanian community under Slobodan Milosevic and the war which followed poisoned intercommunal relations in Novo Brdo. But there were no massacres of civilians here, which makes it possible ­ but not easy ­ to start reconciliation.

Sonja leaves her love letter for a while to attend the municipal assembly, the first to be constituted in Kosovo after local elections at the end of October 2000. Curtis J. Raynold, a West Indian Economist from the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, presides over the session in a crowded room under a big UN flag and a smaller Albanian one. "We are so far the only municipality with a mixed assembly," says the UN Municipal Administrator. A note on the door reads: "No weapons". Outside, goats graze among the hills and children play football below PDK graffiti. The PDK or Kosovo Democratic Party is the radical Albanian party formed by the UCK guerrilla after the war.

The assembly mirrors the situation in Novo Brdo. On one side of the table sit 10 representatives of the PDK. On the other side are seven representatives of the LDK (Kosovo Democratic League), the Albanian party headed by Ibrahim Rugova, pacifist but no less secessionist than the PDK. There are no women among the representatives. In a remote corner of the room, two Serbs and a Gypsy sit at the assembly, following what is said with the aid of a Serbian translator. They cannot vote, because they are non-elected members of the assembly. In fact, they are not saying a word.

After some discussion between the two Albanian parties, Emin Gerbeshi, a brawny former UCK fighter who occupied the presidency de facto after the Serb withdrawal in June 1999, is elected in the third round as the PDK candidate. Once elected, Gerbeshi holds the presidential gavel and addresses conciliatory remarks to the Serbs. "I believe we can work together for the future of Novo Brdo," he says in broken Serbian, while being filmed by a UN television camera. Then the two Serbs stand up and shake hands with the new president. Everybody claps: Albanians, Serbs, Gypsies, UN officials, non-governemental organisation workers and American GIs.

The reason that there are only two Serbs in the assembly is simple: they are the only ones who have agreed to participate. The Serb population of Kosovo boycotted the local elections of October 28 following the instructions of their political leaders, but the UN insisted on their participation and recommended Serb non-elected representatives in every municipality. In Novo Brdo, the UN official recommended up to 20 Serb and Gypsy representatives, but only three accepted. "The rest of them were very concerned about Belgrade's opinion," says Raynold.

TROUBLES WITH "THE OTHER SIDE"

Milivoje Pavic, a 65-year-old farmer and former miner, is one of the Serb representatives. He lives in the village of Bostane, a Serb village two kilometres down the road. Close to his house is a small Orthodox church. It is abandoned, as the priest moved to Serbia some months ago.

Pavic is angry about how things are going in his town. "We have no work and I receive a pension of 850 dinars (10 euros) from the Yugoslav state," he says. "We have problems with the other side (the Albanians)," Pavic adds. "Three days ago, someone stole a tractor and a dozen cows. After the war, the Albanians took control of the hospital and if we are ill we have to go to Vranje (in Serbia)." He is pessimistic about the future of the local assembly. "We were supposed to be 16 Serbs, but only two of us came. The others didn't feel safe enough to go to Novo Brdo."

His neighbour, Velibor Trajkovic, also a former miner in Novo Brdo, is more positive about the future: "In my community nobody did any harm to the Albanians," says Trajkovic. As his wife serves home-made slivovica brandy in silence, Trajkovic speaks. "I think we have to talk with them and participate in the assembly, because if not the Albanians will do what they want without us."

Some metres down the valley there is a Gypsy community of 38 people: half a dozen houses in the dust. "When it rains, this is a mess," remarks Hasev Jashari, as women and children move closer, curious, attracted by the visitors. Jashari, 31 and blind, was chosen by the UN administrator as the Gypsy representative because he is the only one in the community to have completed secondary studies. Trained as a physiotherapist, he is now unemployed.

The Gypsy leader has mixed feelings about the future of his community in Novo Brdo. He points out that "for the first time we have an opportunity to express our point of view in the Assembly." But the fear is still there. "There have been many aggressions to our community and we cannot take the Albanian buses. We cannot go to the forest to cut wood. Some months ago I fell ill and I was sent by KFOR to a hospital in Pristina. My brother accompanied me and he was menaced and badly beaten by Albanians." There is a general feeling among Albanians that the Gypsies collaborated with the Serbs.

SIX THOUSAND GIS IN THE WINGS

Emin Gerbeshi, the elected Albanian president, denies any security problem for the other communities. "The proof is that we have six Serbs working with us in the municipality and they come to work with no protection," he assures, adding that "health, education and other public services are open to non-Albanians." How to explain, then, that most Serbs do not dare come to Novo Brdo, refuse to participate in the local government and prefer going to a hospital in Serbia? "There is a new reality in Kosovo, but many Serbs just don't accept it and prefer to isolate themselves or leave the country," answers Gerbeshi.

The conversation finishes when somebody knocks on the door. It is Captain Jerry Turner, commander of the local United States KFOR contingent. Captain Turner shakes hands with everybody and congratulates Gerbeshi for this "step into democracy." Novo Brdo is in the American sector of Kosovo. Thirty kilometres to the south-west is Camp Bondsteel, which with some 6,000 soldiers is the biggest military complex built by Washington outside the USA since Vietnam.

Gerbeshi says that the relationship with the American contingent is "fantastic". His voice becomes more severe and then he says that he hopes the KFOR "will localise and arrest the war criminals." To support this he pulls out documents written in Serbian that list the names of 45 Serb and Gypsy men who, according to the president, took part in "killing units" operating in Novo Brdo. In one paper dated March 26 1999 is written the order to "eliminate completely" 13 Albanian families in the nearby towns.

The president adds that "90 per cent of the Serb paramilitaries who committed crimes still live here." On the list of the supposed 45 paramilitaries appear the surnames Trajkovic, Pavic and Jashari. The PDK men do not mention any relationships with the appointed Serb and Gypsy representatives, but this is a very small town and families are very large.

Sonja, the Serb girl who dreams of going to America, finishes her working day at dusk and goes walking to her village with two other Serb friends. During the weekend, they plan to attend exhibitions of craftwork by Novo Brdo's women. On Saturday, the Albanian women of the Iliria association will show their creations. On Sunday, it will be the turn of the Serb women's Sloboda group. Curiously, both names of the associations mean the same: freedom.

GUILLERMO GAYÀ
in Pristina