Ruairi O'Connell

Outreach in Central Kosovo

As we approach the end of the 'final status' process, everyone in Kosovo is asking 'when?'.

For the Kosovo Serbs, this is a time of uncertainty. Many Serbs live in Northern Kosovo, or in and around the small towns of Gracanica and Strpce. But the majority of Kosovo's Serbs live in small, somewhat isolated villages; as one man told me today "we don't have any information - and don't know how much of that is disinformation".

So, working with the OSCE Mission in Kosovo (www.osce.org/kosovo),  we  put together a programme whereby each of these isolated villages would be matched with one of the 'country' offices . This would bring three benefits. The villages would have a 'buddy' in the international community, who could give them unmediated information. The villages would gain another advocate for their interests. And finally, it would ensure that the villages' concerns and perspectives were heard at the highest levels of the 'international community'.

As a British diplomat, I enjoy a specific relationship with these villages. At first, they were suspicious of me; they see the UK as one of the prime movers behind the airstrikes that  forced Milosevic's forces  out of Kosovo in 1999, and now see us in the vanguard of support for UN Special Envoy's proposal for Kosovo's supervised independence  (at http://www.unosek.org/unosek/en/statusproposal.html). But they  really appreciate that, even despite our political disagreements, we are willing to invest time and energy to look after their interests.
 
I spent yesterday in the small villages of Plementina, Crkveno Vodica and Babin Most, in Obiliq/Obilic municipality. These are mostly rural communities, poor, with little access to information. In most cases, people just want to see and hear that, even though they have problems,  the 'decision makers' are interested in what is happening to them. They also ask us to help with some small problems; in this case, we secured assurances from the local municipality that they would not change the names of the villages without the consent of their inhabitants (something vital for their own identity). But I also made one point to the villagers; we can sometimes help them with these issues, but wouldn't it be better if they had elected representatives who could raise these issues inside the institutions? In this light, the decision of the government in Belgrade to enforce a boycott of the Novemer 2007 local (as well as national) elections is even more damaging.
 

Posted at 10:52 01 February 2008 by Ruairi O'Connell  |  Comments[2]