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Cleaning
up Kosovo
Environmental
problems in Kosovo were prevalent prior to the conflict here,
because Yugoslavia's economic system was created without much real
concern for the environment, in spite of some legislation for that
purpose. The situation, however, undoubtedly worsened with the
military activity starting from 1998 culminating with the NATO air
strikes in 1999.
Long-term
environmental problems are difficult to quantify, and problems
such as widespread illegal cutting of trees, waste disposal,
suspected asbestos, air pollution and over-demand on the water
supply, just to mention a few, are a difficult reality to deal
with. Moreover, in the absence of legitimate civil government
institutions and legal controls, people are behaving in an
environmentally irresponsible manner.
For
these reasons environmental issues as a whole have been included
in the reconstruction process since the beginning.
From
this point of view, UNMIK is a unique mission, in that this
mission is characterised by the fact that environmental
considerations are being borne in mind while providing
humanitarian assistance and focusing on economic reconstruction.
Even more, in UNMIK’s vision, and specifically in that of the
Department of Environmental Protection headed by Dr. Onelia
Cardettini, environmentally sound natural resource management is
being instituted in order to bring significant economic benefit to
local communities.
Kosovo
is rich in mineral resources such as (asbestos) limestone,
lignite, lead, zinc and copper. In the past, extracted minerals
from the Trepca mines were the source of a good part of Kosovo's
GDP, but now they contribute in a great part to the territory’s
pollution. The Obelic power plant just outside Pristina, Kosovo's
largest stationary source of air pollution, used to export
electricity to Greece and Italy and now provides the power for all
of Kosovo. Agriculture, it should be noted, is still the economic
activity that employs the greatest number of Kosovars. It is clear
that if all these environment-related activities are managed
according to sustainable use criteria, their side effects on
environment and public health will be strongly reduced.
The
biggest challenges for the Department of Environmental Protection
are trying to set forth viable principles of environmental
protection in economic and urban planning, the protection of air,
water, land, forests, biodiversity, to reduce the amount of waste
and hazardous materials and to ensure that they are disposed of in
an acceptable manner.
To
do that it is necessary to diversify the strategy between short
and medium-long run. In the short run, special attention as well
as resources should be put into the clean-up of contaminated
sites, and control of the macroscopic illegal activities such as
tree-cutting, illegal dumping and unlicensed building
construction. Detailed groundwater studies and monitoring of
drinking water are also urgent. In the medium-long period, we have
to set up an effective legal framework (there had been an
environmental legislation set forth by all the government levels
of Yugoslavia - Federal, Republic and Provincial in the past, but
ethnic Albanians refuse to recognise the validity of the
legislation enacted after 1989), mechanisms of implementation,
monitoring systems and a system of economic instruments including
pollution non-compliance fees, water charges, sewage charges,
waste charges, a deposit/refund system for reusable materials and
natural resources exploitation charges. These instruments must be
designed in accordance with an integrated approach of
"command-and-control" and incentive policy aiming at the
creation of revenue-generation mechanisms at municipal level.
Along with these measures, a permanent environmental awareness
education program must be undertaken to make people, above all
youngsters, aware of the problems and interested in finding
solutions.
For
this it is important that a steady collaborative effort be adopted
by all of the departments within the Civil Administration, which
have direct responsibility concerning the quality of the
environment. The environment is an interdisciplinary subject and
environmental considerations need to be incorporated within
private sector development, rural economic development, energy and
industry policy, public utilities, just to mention some. These are
the premises for the protection and advancement of the
environment. Only in this way can the Department of Environmental
Protection safeguard the environment, provided the Kosovo
Consolidated Budget allocates funds to these activities.
Vito
Intini
Marc
Dickinson - UNV 00004
When is the
end of the Registration?
As you know, the
registration is ongoing process. Phase one is to end on 15 July
and phase two will continue in order that all citizens who didn't
take part in phase one have the opportunity to register. This
phase will be carried out by UNMIK and later will hopefully be
handed over to local authorities.
You have been
here since the beginning of the preparations for the registration.
How do you evaluate this preparation period and what has been
done?
Yes, I have been
here since August 29 when the project of registration had been
initiated and if I look back to what we achieved during one year,
I'm pleasantly surprised at the extend of progress that has been
made. It has not been perfect, the merger between OSCE and UN in
the early stages, back in December was problematic and created a
few problems: two institutions with two types of orientations but,
as time went by, we all found out that we have common points.
To be honest, I'm
surprised at what we achieved, I never thought we would get so far
under such a timeframe.
I think UN
Volunteers in the large part have done a tremendous job. For the
last 3 months since the registration supervisors arrived in the
province, they worked under very difficult and not always fair
conditions. There have been a lot of clashes between OSCE and UN
and UN Volunteers have got the wrong end of the stick where not
everything has made clear to the respective institutions about the
status of UNVs. UNVs carried out their job professionally and we
tried to provide them with as much support as we could.
Some UNVs have
the impression that they are in limbo. This is a joint exercise,
the press is always referring to registration as an OSCE exercise;
it is not, it is joint operation between UN and OSCE. Regarding
the field component of registration, 99% of international staff
are UNVs and they are UN staff. Some of them feel they have been
let down by the UN and the reaction of some UN municipal staff is:
"You work for JRT--so you work for OSCE" and from some
OSCE officials: "You are not OSCE, so you don't have the same
rights". UNVs are professionals, they are motivated and they
are not here for the glory.
How do you see
the political success of the registration?
We were here to
register all habitual residents of Kosovo including the
minorities. The fact is that Serbs are not participating for their
own reasons. When we initiated this exercise we wanted to register
1.2 million persons--the estimated number of eligible persons to
be registered in the first phase. To this date we registered about
950 000 (as of the second week of July), we are still a bit off
from the original mark, but it was difficult to evaluate the
number of people we needed to register because we didn't have any
proper statistics, no one had reliable numbers.
Politically,
every adult who is successfully registered will become eligible to
vote. If you look at the province at large, prior to the war there
were 200 000 Serbs, meaning about 120 000 Serbs were adults who
could vote. 500 of them have been registered, so the registration
will not reflect the wishes of all habitual residents of Kosovo.
All the other minorities will have their say except Serbs. I'm sad
to know that Serbs do not register because it is like shooting
yourself in the foot.
What is the
point of elections if Serbs do not participate?
I'm not
clairvoyant, I can't see the future but in these circumstances any
kind of deal can be made. It depends on the level of cooperation
that we can get from various parties. Of course, if a strong
minority cannot take part in the vote, then it does make fragile
the validity of the election process because there will be a large
number of voices who will not be able to forward their opinion.
Nothing is irreversible--the registration is not over. Under
exceptional circumstances we could get an extension to hopefully
bring the Serb minority into the process.
I hope people
will come to their senses. Considering what happened here for the
last decade I can understand that it will be hard for the Albanian
majority to set aside that period. However, instead of looking at
the past, you should look at the future and the only way you can
do anything positive is by talking to one to another and try to
build the future together and to define the parameters you are
going to work in. I hope the international community will play an
important part in it and try to reconcile the both sides.
What lessons
can we learn from the first phase of the registration?
When I arrived
here I knew absolutely nothing about registration. The best way of
conducting the exercise is by building a strong team. If I had to
redo this registration there would be a number of issues I would
address, the main one being to select the people who know what
they are dealing with in order not to waste time and to avoid
mistakes through the application of knowledge and experience.
When will the
ID cards be available?
When will the ID
cards be available? Ha!!! We have had proposed the date of July 22
but there are so many issues to solve, some of them technical
others may be political. I would guess the first ID will be issued
in August but that is just my personal opinion. Printing 1,2
million ID cards will be a tremendous exercise and distributing
them is another part of the operation. It is not going to be easy,
UNVs right now need to take a break. They put so much time into
registration, they need to relax a bit. I'm not saying that
distributing the card will be as hard as registering the people
but, in order for them to conduct the distribution properly, UNVs
need to have a rest.
Will you sign
your third six months contract with UN Volunteeers?
That is a very
personal question. I would like to gain as much experience as
possible throughout this exercise. I'm interested in elections and
in gaining enough experience on that to move on afterward. And so,
yes, definitely, I think I'll sign again.
Trip to Crepulja
Like a thunder of hair and wilderness, a wolf jumps from the bushes in front
of the UN jeep while I drive up the mountain. An old woman is sitting in the
back surrounded by plastic bags full of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.
Sweet hitchhiker.
The road to Crepulja is dusty and hard. The oak trees’ leaves have a strong
colour in the summer. There is something in these mountains that make them
deaf, rude, beautiful. Mokra Gora, hills of water.
Not much goes on around here. Not even the war touched this place. Only the
sound of the bombs, falling by mistake in some warehouse down in the valley.
My mission is to inspect a school. An old building with wooden floors and
pictures of Tito covered with dust forgotten in some wardrobe. “Is this your
first mission?” is a frequent question in Kosovo. Mission of what? The
missionaries don’t get paid.
The school is closed. I walk up the hills to find the guard. His name is
Dobrosav D. He has a bull tied up near his home, there are also bees and
hens. No television or telephone. His wife brings us home made burek,
slivovica and Turkish coffee. Dobrosav is missing one eye and his leg
doesn’t work properly. However, he smiles. “On the other side of the hills
there are the Albanians, you know”, says he. “We never had a problem until
these last years”. A small chicken walks inside the house looking for burek crumbs.
“I need to see the school”, I tell him. Then an old man wearing a green hat
comes in bringing some historical atmosphere to the reunion. “I was in the
big war”, he says. “They caught me in Italy, and when everything finished I
came walking back to Zubin Potok”.
Dobrosav serves the third glass of rakja. He would like me to buy him a
satellite TV receiver in the southern side of Mitrovica. I start forgetting why I
came to this town at all. “I need to see the school”, I repeat
“I’ve been living here for sixty-two years”, says the man of one eye,
“cheers to you”. The chicken accompanies us to the car and we drive down the
mud road to the school of Crepulja. As I expected, the NGO in charge had done
very little to improve the place.
The school is dirty and the floor is flooded. Anyway, it has only five or
six pupils. They look at its optimistic maps of a Europe that doesn’t exist
anymore. I thank Dobrosav and give him ten marks to clean up the place. He
is happy. I drive down the hills back to Mitrovica. Mission fulfilled.
Chema Arraiza
An
effort to trace Kosovo’s past
If
we delve into past, we find that the area which is now Kosovo,
with its fertile land and exceptional geographical location as a
crossroads of the Balkan peninsula, has always been an attraction
for invasion by roaming bands of people of various origins and
cultures.
The
first of these people who found a haven on the fertile land of the
central Balkans can be traced to Dardania (yes, the namesake of
Pristina’s neighborhood famous for its cafes). The Dardani were
one of the Illyrian tribes that lived not only in Kosovo but also
in parts of Macedonia and southwest of Serbia. Because of the
importance of the Balkans, the Romans waged war against the
Illyrians and crushed a Greek uprising in Corinth (146 B.C.).
Kosovo, at that time, was in Dardania province. Byzantine and
Bulgarian rule followed the period of Roman rule. During the 11th
century, Serbs began to expand their area of habitation and after
defeating the Byzantine army founded the first Kingdom of Serbia
that included Kosovo, Albania and parts of what is now Greece.
The
first battle of Kosovo was fought between the Serbian army and
Ottomans on 28th June, 1389 at Gazi-Mestan (in the
vicinity of Prishtina) whereupon the Ottomans defeated the Serbian
army and their leader King Lazar was captured and executed.
The
second battle of Kosovo was fought in 1448 between Ottomans and a
combined force of Hungarians, Serbians and Walachians (Romanians)
at which point the Ottomans won a decisive victory. During the
period when Serbian and Ottoman forces were entangled, an Albanian
resistance hero, Skenderbeu who adopted the flag of a “black
bird” on a red field as his standard, and defeated the Turkish
army in 1462 on the plain of Pollog.
The
Austrian army invaded Kosovo and took over Prishtina, Prizren and
Skopje, but in 1690 the Ottoman army recaptured Kosovo. In the
years that followed, Kosovo`s history saw many upheavals under
long Turkish rule of five centuries which ended with the Balkan
war in 1912.
The
First World War witnessed the resurgence of Serbian forces in
Prishtina, Prizren and Gjakova and Montenegrin forces in Peja.
Following the retreat of Serbian forces, the territory of Kosovo
was divided into two occupation zones, one Austro-Hungarian zone (Mitrovica,
Istog, Peja, Djakova ) and the other Bulgarian zone ( Kaqanik,
Gjilan, Prishtina, Prizren…).
The
territory of Kosovo at the end of First World War became a part of
the newly created Yugoslav state, dubbed the Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes. The name was changed to the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia in 1929.
During
the Second World War, German and Italian forces annexed Kosovo.
The Germans occupied Mitrovica and Vuqitern, whereas the rest of
Kosovo came under Italian rule except Kaqanik, which remained
under Bulgarian rule. The defeat of the Axis powers in 1945 gave
birth to Yugoslav republic which included Kosovo as well.
Demonstrations for a Kosovo Republic were held in 1968. A new
constitution was adopted by Yugoslavia in 1974 giving more rights
to Kosovo. Massive demonstrations were held following the death of
President Josip Broz Tito in 1980 for the status of a Republic to
Kosovo. The central government suppressed these demonstrations.
However these resurfaced with a string of violence when the
autonomous status of Kosovo was taken away in 1989. The Albanian
deputies of Kosovo Assembly on 2nd July, 1990 declared
Kosovo to be a full fledged Republic. The move was followed by
central government suppression, which included a series of crimes
committed against humanity during the years to follow. NATO forces
began air strikes against Yugoslav targets on 24th
March,
1999 in order to force Yugoslav Federal troops and irregular
forces to halt their campaign of violence. The UN Security Council
adopted its resolution no.1244 setting the groundwork for UNMIK to
take over as an interim government in Kosovo following the
deployment of KFOR on 12th June, 1999.
The
people in Kosovo are now looking forward for a lasting peace under
the aegis of UNMIK.
Though
Kosovo still reverberates with histories of crimes committed
against innocent and peace loving citizens, the people of Kosovo
are keen to rebuild their country and live in peace.
There
appears to be no easy answer to the question of Kosovars about
their future as to “what /who after UNMIK”. Will there be a
peaceful tomorrow and will lady luck continue to smile upon
Kosovars or will the dark days of strife and struggle return?
Perhaps UNMIK has an answer to these questions but this writer
cannot see any answers. I suggest only that the people of Kosovo
should look upwards and attempt to ensure socio-economic
development in order
to pave a bright path for the future of Kosovo. Only in this way
may Kosovo integrate itself into the progressive streams of the
contemporary world.
AQEEL AHMAD
REGISTRATION
SUPERVISION
UNV
00403
INDIA
“Man,
there is no electric-city man”
Is
it the fault of Kosovo B, we, or all thee who do not see fit to
pay their fees? On water matters—and it does indeed when you
have none, what of the Norwegian project to pump five times more
water than before? Is my neighbour who braves the traffic of
vehicles and pedestrians alike to water the road from dawn to dusk
in a generous attempt to dedust Pristina single-handedly actually
a foreign agent sent here to ensure that when Elektro sees fit to
give me a little juice for my washing machine—there is no water
to rinse my over-ripe undergarments?
Most
importantly, will we or won’t we have electricity to heat our
flats when Auntie Autumn gives way to Herr Winterbastard?
The
problem of the state of the water and electricity facilities seems
to be everyone’s fault. The government of Yugoslavia neglected
to modernize the infrastructure of the region of Kosovo in the
last few decades. Nato is responsible for the destruction of at
least one water pumping station and to top things off only 10% of
Kosovars pay their electricity bills. This means that old
facilities, with old equipment are expected to provide services to
a population that does not currently pay its bills. One of
Kosovo’s largest newspapers, Koha Ditore recently ran an article
about the situation with electric bills, in it they presented the
case of “Gazmend Krasniqi, a student of medicine, who despite
regularly paying his power bills was sitting in dark Wednesday
night. ‘Why am I to blame because others don’t pay their power
bills,’ Gazmend was reported to have said, while waving the
bills verifying that he had paid his debts.”
The
paper then presented the other side, “On the other hand, close
to Gazmend’s apartment, a housewife holding a child told the
paper she never paid her power bills. ‘I will not pay the bill,
since this is not my house. When the power bill comes in my name,
in my house, then I will pay,’ claimed the housewife.”
The
situation with the water is a bit different. Despite the dry
weather, there actually is enough water to go around. The problem
is pumping. Nato destroyed the pumping station built in the 1980s,
so Pristina has been getting its water pumped from a station built
in the 1960s. The Norwegian government funded a project to
increase the pumping capacity of the plant. There is just one
slight problem--pumps require electricity in order to function. No
juice—no water. Huge generators have been allocated to run the
pumps when there is no electricity, but such generators require
massive amounts of petrol. No one paying water bills—no petrol
to run the generators—no water. Quite simple really.
What
is being done? Our friends in Pillar IV (that would be the EU) are
pumping (pun intended) lots of money and equipment into improving
public services, but a population which doesn’t pay and as a
result does not conserve overtaxes already limited resources.
Would Basri water his street if he knew he would have to pay for
it? Probably not. Would people heat their houses with electricity
if they had to pay market prices? Probably not. Will we have water
and electricity next winter? What do you think?
Quit
yer Bitchin’!
(Stop
complaining)
Environmental
issues. Not everyone gets paid to enjoy the wonderful scent of
Parfum de Rubbeesh en Feu. Consider yourself lucky. Be a hit at
the disco back home as you’ll be the only one who glows in the
dark (what’s a little uranium anyway?).
Danger
and violence. Grenades, shootings, bombs and mines are indeed
scary things, but on the bright side, they pay the rent (hazard
pay).
Lack
of Entertainment. In workplaces around the world, workers are
sacked for playing Civilizations on their computers. In Kosovo,
our masters actually want us to wrack our brains trying to figure
out how to make a society viable.
Health.
No pangs of guilt for not making it out to the swimming pool
for a workout. In NYC people pay 200 dollars per month to go to
the gym and do nothing but Stairmaster—here, you get to take on
hundreds of steps every day, even carrying weights, and it’s
completely gratis.
Child
Labour. Where else can you get cheap cigarettes without
leaving your table in a restaurant or café? Hey, they’re not
begging and they’re learning about the market economy.
Driving.
Become an experienced off-road rally driver by navigating the
Pristina “Ringstrasse” on a daily basis. Know you have a fair
chance if the police chase you—as they have the same vehicles.
Visitors.
No worries that annoying distant family will want to come visit,
stay at your flat and be shown around the city.
Utilities.
Candlelight dinners and darn, no water, no doing dishes. Just like
being at a nice restaurant.
“Always look
on the bright side of life…dum-dum-da-dum-da-dum-da-dum”
David
Kahrmann
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