There is little respite from the harsh reality of life in Kosovo, writes DANIEL MCLAUGHLINin Pristina
BLEDI DRIVES a taxi around Pristina to support his wife and young son. He also runs a music website and works occasionally as a graphic designer. And when he’s not doing any of these jobs, he’s making a few extra euro installing security cameras and alarms.
“One job doesn’t pay enough to survive here,” he says, cursing the lines of honking cars that tell a story of independent Kosovo: decrepit Yugoslav-era Zastavas locked bumper-to-bumper with Mercedes limousines and the hulking jeeps of the “internationals” who help run this fledgling state.
Eighteen months after declaring sovereignty from Serbia, and taking over most of the powers of the previous nine-year UN administration, Kosovo is arguably doing a better job of establishing itself internationally than of providing for its own people.
The republic of two million people has been recognised by 62 countries, including the US, Japan, and 22 of the EU’s 27 members.
Of its four immediate neighbours, Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro have recognised it; only Serbia has refused.
Among major global institutions, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have accepted sovereign Kosovo into the fold, though Russian support for Belgrade in the UN Security Council has stymied Kosovo’s efforts to become the UN’s 193rd member.
Few of Kosovo’s majority ethnic-Albanians, or Kosovars, worry what Moscow or Belgrade thinks about their country.
They care about the support of Washington, and to a lesser degree the EU – the countries whose warplanes bombed Serb forces from their land to end a 1998 to 1999 war.
Kosovars are proud of their hard-won independence, and are grateful to their western allies, as demonstrated this month when thousands of people turned out to see former US president Bill Clinton unveil a three-metre statue of himself in central Pristina.
Such events help rekindle the enthusiasm with which Kosovars greeted their independence, but offer only brief respite from the harsh reality of life in Europe’s poorest country.
Unemployment is about 50 per cent, and the average monthly wage is about €200. Most houses are without electricity for several hours each day, and about one-third of Kosovo’s people do not have direct access to clean drinking water.
Foreign investors who may covet Kosovo’s low wages and young workforce are put off by its organised crime, corruption and role as a major smuggling route.
Ordinary Kosovars have no doubt that politicians and police are some of the main beneficiaries of this trade in people, weapons and drugs, but rarely speak out in a state where clan loyalties are strong and weapons rife.
“This is my main concern,” Pieter Feith, the top international official in Kosovo, says of its parlous economy.
“The main issue for Kosovo remains governance, economic governance, reforms – including the fight with organised crime and corruption – and development of the private sector,” adds Feith, who is both international civilian representative and EU envoy to Kosovo.
Talking to The Irish Timesin his office overlooking Pristina, Feith says he believes Kosovo's many other problems are "manageable, and can be solved with the goodwill of the communities".
But there is a dearth of goodwill between the 90 per cent Albanian majority and the 100,000 Serbs who still live in Kosovo, mostly in northern areas bordering Serbia proper, but also in isolated enclaves dotted around the country.
They refuse to accept Pristina’s authority and, from their stronghold on the northern side of the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, they run “parallel structures” that are funded by Belgrade and provide health, education and other services to Kosovo’s Serbs.
“We have got used to living with very little,” says Oliver Ivanovic, a prominent Kosovo Serb leader.
“We have problems with all the basic things – electricity, water, security – in a way that shouldn’t happen in a modern European city. For Kosovo Serbs, everything is uncertain.”
Sipping coffee in a cafe in northern Mitrovica, where buildings are plastered with posters of Serb nationalist heroes and Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, Ivanovic says the international community must oversee fresh talks to resolve Kosovo’s disputed status.
“This is not independence,” he says.
“This is transition. Final status will only be decided when Serbia agrees. I think we will all sit down and discuss this in three, four or five years.”
Feith and the rest of the international community, which has poured huge amounts of cash and diplomatic capital into establishing an independent Kosovo, hope next week’s local elections will coax Serbs into deeper co-operation with Pristina.
While stopping short of calling a boycott, however, Belgrade has sent a clear signal to Kosovo Serbs by saying that conditions for a free and fair election do not exist.
But Kosovo Serbs risk losing Serb mayors and councillors in largely Serb areas of Kosovo if they refuse to take part, something which could prevent them from making full use of the broad autonomy and financial links to Belgrade that Pristina grants them.
Few Kosovo Serbs appear keen to vote, and they have little faith in the Serb candidates. Albanians are a little more enthusiastic, but are tired of politicians who seem more intent on lining their pockets than improving the lives of their people.
“We don’t need more politicians,” says Bledi, as would-be mayors grin down from Pristina billboards at his passing taxi. “We need more jobs, more money, and more food on our tables.”