A day trip to the South-West Kosovo town of " Gjakova " in Albanian; "Djakovica " in Serbian on Saturday. Gjakova , historically a centre of Albanian intellectuallism , and later Albanian nationalism (dating from Ottoman times), suffered heavily in the war. During the fighting in 1999, Yugoslav forces drove out the population of the city; many hundreds of people are still missing. Having driven out the population, the Yugoslav forces then proceeded to burn down or blow up the historic centre of the city.
After KFOR entered Kosovo in June, most of Gjakova's population returned - and set about rebuilding the destroyed town. Today, most of it is rebuilt, offering a glimpse of Kosovo's Ottoman past.
But, alongside the return and reconstruction, there was also further destruction; the Serbian Church in the centre of town was destroyed in a revenge attack. The church, a modern build, has not been a priority for restoration work, and the site remains empty. With no Serbian community in Gjakova to rebuild it for (even before the war, very few Serbs lived in Gjakova - mostly connected to the state structures) , it's not clear when, if ever, the Church will be rebuilt.
This leads me to consider some of the questions people have put on the blog. To answer some of your questions, as I noted before, Mosques and Churches were targetted by using culture as a weapon in the conflict. The war in Kosovo wasn't related to religion; Islam does not play a central role in Kosovo Albanian identity. Neither were Mosques used to store weapons; they were targetted as symbols of the Albanian community.
It also leads me to a final thought; the Kosovo that existed before the war will only be fully restored once the Kosovo Serbs come back to rebuild - and they themselves choose to get involved.
Posted at 11:01 08 May 2008 by Ruairi O'Connell |
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