[ALBSA-Info] FW: [BPT-R-K] BPT-Kosovo/a Monthly Report No. 14: April 2000

[Mimoza Meholli]

>
>-----Original Message-----


>Balkan Peace Team-Kosovo/a
>Monthly Report No. 14
>
>April 2000
>
>
>Balkan Peace Team in Kosovo/a
>Rruga Nëna Tereze 72-A/9 or Vidovdanska 72-A/9
>Prishtina, Kosovo
>Tel/Fax: ++381-38-42 708
>E-mail: BPT-K at BalkanPeaceTeam.org
>
>*******
>
>International BPT Office
>Ringstr 9a, D-32427 Minden, Germany
>Tel: ++49-571-20776
>Email: BPT at BalkanPeaceTeam.org
>
>********************************************************************
>
>If you wish to use or require clarification of any of the information
>included below, please contact the Balkan Peace Team at the above
>address. Please forward this report to anyone you think may be
>interested.
>*********************************************************************
>
>CONTENTS
>
>I. WORK OF THE TEAM
>1.      Personnel
>2.      Meetings
>3.      Observation of local demonstrations
>4.      "Stories of Survival" project
>5.      Dragash update
>
>II. KOSOVO/A POLITICAL UPDATE
>1.      Serbs divided on decision to join as observers the Interim
>Administrative Council
>2.      Serbs boycott Kosovo/a civil registration
>3.      Voter registration begins abroad
>4.      United Nations Security Council visit to Kosovo/a
>5.      Joint Committee on Serb Returns formed
>6.      Update on Mitrovica and the Preshevo valley
>
>
>
>I. WORK OF THE TEAM
>
>1. Personnel
>
>On 6 April, the Kosovo/a team was joined by our newest colleague, Cristina
>Bianchi.  We are again a five-person team and look forward to learning from
>the skills and fresh insights that Cristina brings to the field.
>
>2. Meetings
>
>Campagna Kossovo per la Non-Violenza e la Riconciliazione
>
>The team met with Zef Chiaromonte of Campagna Kossovo per la Non-Violenza e
>la Riconciliazione, an Italian organisation which is organising, together
>with the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), a series of three training workshops
>for local trainers in conflict transformation and reconciliation. These
>will be held on the last weekend of May and the 3rd and 4th weekends of
>June in Prishtina.  Kajsa Svensson, one of the BPT team members, was asked
>to participate as a trainer together with Pat Patfoort and Hildegard
>Goss-Mayr.  Kajsa will introduce the workshop participants to the
>techniques of the Theatre of the Oppressed.
>
>Forum
>
>Forum is an Albanian youth organisation based in Prishtina that was founded
>in September 1999 by five young Kosovar Albanians who have studied
>abroad.  Their goal is to work alongside their peers in building an
>alternative, more positive way of living.  Among their current projects are
>an Internet service centre which is open to local NGOs and youth to use
>free of charge, computer training classes for ex-KLA soldiers and the Forum
>Magazine, a bi-monthly magazine targeted at the young Albanian population
>of Kosovo/a.  The organisation would eventually be interested in making
>connections with the youth of the Dragash Youth Centre.
>
>3. Observation of local demonstrations
>
>On 20 April, several hundred people gathered in Prishtina in front of the
>steps of the National Theatre to demonstrate against the incarceration of
>Flora Brovina and other Albanian prisoners held in Serbia. Flora is the
>Kosovar Albanian human rights activist who has been sentenced to twelve
>years in prison by the Serb authorities.
>
>On 26, 27 and 28 April, the centre of Prishtina was closed to traffic due
>to another demonstration for the release of all political prisoners held in
>Serbia.  The demonstration coincided with the visit of the UN Security
>Council and attracted a considerable amount of people.  Most shops and
>schools were closed for the duration of the protests.  Several dozen people
>continued the protests after the Security Council delegation's departure
>from the province by holding hunger strikes in the center of the city and
>on the university campus.
>
>4. "Stories of Survival" project
>
>As part of our effort to constantly be aware of changed circumstances, and
>to reshape our plans and ideas to better respond to the needs of the local
>population, the team has been carrying out a series of meetings, with
>locals and internationals, to establish if it is still appropriate for BPT
>to carry out the "Stories of Survival" project.
>
>We became aware that other local NGOs were doing similar work. Therefore we
>felt that it was imperative for us to reassess the situation and establish
>if, at this point in time, the need for these stories to be told and
>recorded was already being met by the locals themselves.
>
>The team met with Sevdie Ahmeti of The Centre for the Protection of Women
>and Children, who has been gathering testimonies since the end of the
>war.  Sevdie made us aware of the difficulties of the local community to
>open up with internationals since they feel that after almost a year
>nothing concrete has been done to bring to justice the
>perpetrators.  Psychological wounds are still fresh, she argued, and the
>population needs time to heal.
>
>We received a similar response from Kosovare Kelemendi of the Humanitarian
>Law Centre.  She stressed the importance of all stories to be heard and
>remembered but she also highlighted how difficult it is for internationals
>to go through this process without being in close partnership with a local
>organisation.
>
>The team also met with a few internationals who have previous experience
>with oral history projects, to gather new ideas on how to use BPT's
>capacity in order to best meet the need of the local communities to have
>their stories heard and remembered.
>
>5. Dragash update
>
>BPT's work with the Goran and Albanian communities of Dragash continued,
>with three separate English language classes beginning on 17 April.  The
>classes are being taught in the town's secondary school to one group of
>Albanian students, one group of Goran students, and one mixed group of
>Goran and Albanian secondary school teachers. They are an important step in
>BPT's strategy to build a strong and trusting relationship between the team
>and the two communities of the area, as we continue to work together toward
>the goal of establishing a youth centre open to young people from both
>groups.
>
>The English language classes, the first session of which is scheduled to
>end on 1 June, are each being taught by a two-person team. We have
>incorporated co-operative games and empowerment activities that illustrate
>and/or employ the grammar lessons being presented.
>
>Throughout the month of April, the team traveled extensively to the
>villages that local Goran and Albanian representatives suggested as being
>appropriate for inclusion in the proposed centre's activities. We did in
>order to:  meet and establish relationships with village leaders and young
>people alike;  discuss the concept of the youth centre and make clear that
>it will be open to young people from both the Goran and the Albanian
>communities;  assess the needs that young people would like to have met
>through the services and activities offered by a youth centre;  and discuss
>Goran concerns regarding issues of safety and transportation from their
>villages to the centre's proposed Dragash location.
>
>These outreach meetings have served BPT well in beginning the process of
>building trust, without which our strategy of fostering the participation
>of both communities in the creation of the youth centre would be
>impossible.  Moreover, the team is beginning to identify young people who
>may be interested in facilitating future youth centre activities.
>
>II. Kosovo/a Political Update
>
>1. Serbs divided on decision to join as observers the Interim
>Administrative Council
>
>Leaders of the Serb National Council (SNC) announced that they would join
>as observers the leaders of Kosovo/a's ethnic Albanian majority in the
>province's UN-sponsored Interim Administrative Council (IAC) for a period
>of three months starting on 11 April.  The decision to end the Serb boycott
>of the joint administration has caused havoc among the hard-liners within
>the Serbian community who do not accept any form of co-operation either
>with the international community or with Kosovar Albanians.
>
>Swedish peacekeeping troops are normally deployed to guard the edge of the
>Serb enclave of Gracanica against ethnically motivated attacks. They were
>needed instead in the centre of town, after demonstrations and after
>threats were made by some Serbs to burn down Gracanica's 14th century
>monastery, home of the Serb National Council, in protest of the SNC's
>decision to join the IAC.
>
>2. Serbs boycott Kosovo/a civil registration
>
>Kosovo/a's Serbs are boycotting efforts by UNMIK and OSCE (Organisation for
>Security and Co-operation in Europe) representatives (who joined forces in
>the Joint Registration Task Force last December) to register Kosovo/a's
>population.  The function of this registration exercise, which began on 28
>April, is to define and identify the population of habitual residents of
>Kosovo/a who will require services from the Joint Interim
>Administration.  The registry will also be the basis for the electoral roll
>for municipal elections to be held sometime in autumn 2000.
>
>Four villages participated in a pilot registration one week prior to the
>official commencement of the process.  A total of 459 adult residents in
>the three pilot ethnic Albanian communities registered at OSCE centres, but
>no one had done so in the Serb-populated village.  The community in this
>village is asking for the return of displaced Serbs and better security
>before they will consider registering.  By 3 May, only three Serbs in
>Kosovo/a had registered with UNMIK/OSCE – two in Rahovec/Orahovac and one
>in Mitrovica.
>
>In order to encourage Serb registration, the Joint Registration Task Force
>announced that two registration stations would be erected on the border
>with Serbia proper, one in the Serb-populated Leposavic region of far
>northern Kosovo/a and one in Mucibaba in the south-east. This was done so
>that Serbs who fled ethnic Albanian reprisals after NATO air strikes
>resulted in the withdrawal of Serbian security forces last June could
>register without danger.  Belgrade has denounced the civil registration
>process in Kosovo/a as yet another violation of its sovereignty by the
>United Nations administration in the territory. This, along with the Serb
>National Council of Kosovo/a's announcement that it will withhold its
>support of civil registration, may be factors hindering Serb participation.
>
>3. Voter registration begins abroad
>
>Beginning on 26 April and ending on 15 July, the International Organisation
>for Migration, on behalf of UNMIK, will be engaged in the process of
>registering persons from Kosovo/a who reside outside the territory.  This
>registration process will take place in 32 countries and is valid only for
>the purpose of voting in the local elections to be held this autumn.
>
>4. United Nations Security Council visit to Kosovo/a
>
>  From 27 to 30 April, a delegation of Security Council members toured the
>province in order to assess the implementation of UN Resolution 1244 which
>established the mandate for the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK. The group
>consisted of representatives from Argentina, Bangladesh, Canada, China,
>Jamaica, Malaysia and Russia.  They attended a session of the Kosovo
>Transitional Council, the highest level Kosovar advisory body to UNMIK, to
>which both Serbian and Bosniak representatives have returned after a
>half-year absence. There, the delegates urged all Kosovars to reject
>violence in order "to help your children to grow up in a peaceful society."
>
>The Security Council delegation also met with the leaders of the Protest
>Council that had organised two days of demonstrations in the streets of
>Prishtina. The Protest Council protests sought to call to the attention of
>the UN representatives, the need for definitive action to be taken
>regarding the issue of missing persons and detainees held in Serbian
>prisons.  The Security Council delegates announced that they would
>recommend that a UN special envoy on missing persons be appointed.
>
>5. Joint Committee on Serb Returns formed
>
>On 29 April, UNMIK established the JCR -- Joint Committee on Serb Returns
>-- in order to prepare for the safe and sustainable return of those Serbs
>who fled from Kosovo/a over the past year.  The JCR is headed by Bishop
>Artemije, president of the Serb National Council;  Juan Ortuna, the new
>commander of the Kosovo Force (KFOR);  and Bernard Kouchner, the head of
>UNMIK.
>
>The leader of the Mitrovica Serb National Council, Oliver Ivanovic,
>announced this month that he has begun to organise the return of some 1,000
>to 1,500 Serbs currently living in refugee camps in Serbia to their homes
>in western Kosovo/a.  The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
>(UNHCR) has cautioned against such a large-scale return, stating that
>security conditions for Serbs in the territory continue to be unfavourable
>and that the Albanian residents of the region of planned return should be
>consulted beforehand.  Ivanovic has stated that he has no intention to open
>discussions with Albanian leaders regarding issues of return.
>
>6. Update on Mitrovica and the Preshevo valley
>
>Tensions in Mitrovica remain high as violent incidents continue.  For
>example, on 28 April, a UN bus that was carrying Serbs to an Orthodox
>Easter service, was stoned by Albanians.  The following day, Serbs attacked
>vehicles transporting Albanians to their homes on the north side of the
>city, resulting in the outbreak of riots and numerous attacks against KFOR
>soldiers and UN staff and the destruction of several UN vehicles.  As a
>result, the UNHCR announced that it would consider suspending its work in
>north Mitrovica if attacks against UN personnel continued.
>
>The political council that was formed in March to represent Albanians
>living in the Preshevo valley of southern Serbia announced that Serb forces
>killed three Albanians on 21 April.  In addition, KFOR continues to seize
>large amounts of weapons en route to the valley region and has added 120
>soldiers to begin surveillance operations along Kosovo/a's eastern,
>UN-administered boundary with Serbia.
>
>
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