Journeying across deep chasm of mistrust between Kosovars and Serbs

Letter from Gracanica: The man from Roberti's Taxis didn't fancy this fare. He had rarely, if ever, driven from Pristina to Gracanica, from the mostly Albanian capital of 90 per cent Albanian Kosovo to a Serb village a few kilometres away, across a deep chasm of mistrust.

He stared through the cracked windscreen of the old Mercedes for a moment, then called base to share the bad news. Base went quiet, retreating into a hiss of static as the driver glared at the black walkie-talkie, willing it to deliver his reprieve.

Finally, the handset squawked a reply and his shoulders slumped in resignation; with a feeble smile to his passenger, he bumped the groaning car off the kerb and trundled out into the traffic.

Moving through Pristina, between crumbling tower blocks and new hotels, puttering Yugoslav runabouts and gleaming UN four-wheel drives, the taxi driver flicked the radio on and off, roared past cars and then hung back, as if veering from sullen fear to shows of bravado, between wanting never to get to Gracanica to trying to be back as fast as he could.

Turning off the road to Macedonia, and seeing the first sign for Gracanica, he checks whether his passenger really wants to go to the village. To the monastery, he replies, the Gracanica monastery, believing it is just outside the village of the same name.

The driver stops at a petrol station to ask a fellow Albanian the way. He shrugs and peers into the back of the taxi, wondering who wants to go to that place. The driver gets back in and pulls off, drawing closer and closer to one of the few places in Kosovo where his people are outnumbered.

The road turns, following low contours that rise into snow-capped hills in the distance, and the driver almost skids to a halt as he spots an Albanian face on what he believes, rightly, must be the edge of Gracanica.

Relieved to find an Albanian taking a leisurely walk in such a place, and emboldened by his clear directions and reassurance, the driver jumps back behind the wheel and moves off, as the rain slants down harder across the bare brown fields that ring the village. Suddenly, all the signs are in Serbian and the walls beside the road are plastered with posters bearing the bespectacled, jowly face of Vojislav Seselj, the ultra-nationalist leader of the Serbian Radical Party, which won this month's general election despite his absence.

Seselj is on trial for war crimes at the UN court in The Hague, where he is reported to have enjoyed regular chess games with Slobodan Milosevic before his death last March. The two men were enemies for years, but they united over Kosovo when, in 1998, Milosevic sent in troops and paramilitaries to crush Albanian separatist rebels. During the operation, thousands of Albanian civilians were killed, before Nato bombs drove Serb forces from the region.

Few faces can be less friendly to a Kosovar than that of Seselj, whose party regards fugitive war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic as a Serb hero and vows to declare Kosovo "occupied territory" if, as expected, the UN grants it conditional independence this year.

A UN envoy revealed his proposals for Kosovo last week, and will be in Belgrade and Pristina this Friday to convince their leaders to support his plan. It would give Kosovo's two million people something similar to, but not called, independence - a declaration of which would enrage the many Serbs who see Kosovo as their historical and religious heartland.

This was the centre of the Serbian kingdom since the Middle Ages and is still home to some of the most important churches and monasteries of the Serb Orthodox faith. Scores were destroyed by Kosovar gangs during and after the fighting in 1999, when thousands of Serbs fled their homes amid reprisal attacks.

The monastery at Gracanica survived, and is a gem of religious art and architecture now set in the middle of a grey, depressed and isolated village. It was founded by King Stefan Milutin in 1321, some 68 years before the Ottomans defeated the Serb army at the Battle of Kosovo Field, an event etched into the national psyche as the heroic defeat that ended Serbia's golden era; the monks at Gracanica, it is said, gave communion to Tsar Lazar before he led the Serbs into that momentous battle.

Today, Swedish troops guard the monastery, which Unesco has placed on its list of endangered World Heritage sites.

Johan, a young soldier from near Stockholm, says Gracanica is calm; the driver parks his taxi right in front of him, and looks relieved.

The UN envoy proposes substantial autonomy for Kosovo's Serb enclaves, and foresees special protection for historic sites like Gracanica.

Inside the candlelit monastery, church fathers gaze down from 14th century frescoes at old women who offer prayers and Serbian dinars to the icons; the euro is the currency of independence-seeking Kosovo, Albanian is its dominant language and moderate Islam its main religion. Gracanica, however, seems determined to stay Serb.