Day to Day Impressions

 

Day One Report

Besa, Tijana and Thomas
 
Five days of intensive lectures and courses gave an introduction and overview on the current situations of Serbia and Kosovo; two countries opposing each other, which now have to deal with their common past. In order to reach the ideal of European integration the countries should not longer oppose but cooperate. The European claim of regional cooperation demands that Serbia and Kosovo – ten years ago enemies on the battlefield – have to work together.

In this process of transitional justice the countries will be confronted with their past. This confrontation has to lead to an acceptance of the past. Accepting will form the stepping stone to dealing with the past; wherefrom being confronted and dealing with the past will form a stable future.
 
After five days of intensive lectures in Skopje the theoretical was changed into practice. With a bus trip to Pristina, we entered the stage of the former conflict between Serbia and Kosovo.
 
During the following five days we would be confronted with personal experiences, politicians and NGOs which still deal every day with the consequences of conflict and violence. We were faced with the past and now we had to deal ourselves with it.
 

The first day in Pristina three visits were scheduled; meetings with the legal advisor of the deputy-Prime Minister, the ICRC and EULEX. The skepticism we all had when entering the first meeting with the legal advisor seemed undeserved. Although sometimes answers on critical questions were politically correct, an honest and sincere dialogue was created wherein the legal advisor also critically reflected on – the political position and internal affairs of – Kosovo, mostly by giving his personal opinion. The meeting with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was confronting. Numbers and statistics were shown of missing persons. We were confronted with the victims of violence. By hearingpersonal experiences, feelings and the way how people who lead this whole process cope to work with such a painful topic, numbers were given faces. We weren’t any longer dealing with statistics but individuals which were the victims of war.
The last meeting was shocking after the first two. We were confronted with the distant hardliner approach of EULEX. Two policemen had to tell about the EULEX-mission in Kosovo and how it operated. Seemingly uninterested they were able to tell us how the most powerful legal and police system in Kosovo operated. By saying themselves that they weren’t interested in and didn’t have to deal with the public opinion, it became clear that they weren’t interested in how they represented themselves and the EULEX-mission. The biggest problem of EULEX was immediately shown and admitted; the bad representation of EULEX into the media and towards the public in Kosovo. The source of the anti-EULEX graffiti on the streets of Pristina was found; the disinterest of EULEX itself of dealing with the public opinion.
 

Day Two Report

Bujar, Sara-may and Nadezda
 
Day II started for most people around half past eight. The Dutch and the Serbs were having breakfast in the hotel of the centre of Pristina, or just slept till five minutes to 09.30 when we went by cab to the Humaitarian Law Centre. There we met the Albanian Kosovars. It was a special meeting at the Humanitarian Law Centre. The employee who worked there was really sympathic and informed us well about the organisation. We could ask as many questions as we liked. It was a heavy subject though, topics concerning data about missing and killed persons during the war. Everybody seemed really impressed and compassionate with the guy who gave us the lecture.
 
In HLC we heard more about the way this NGO works, their plans and problems. "We had a lot of victims in past which are not recognized by other side", Bekim Blakaj from HLC. He talked about the Kosovo memory book and it’s list of missing and killed persons.  
 
The goal is to know more about people, their destinies and cases, not just about numbers. There are three persons in Kosovo who works active on this problem, and seven persons who work in their homes, although in Serbia six person works active. There are several lists, made by gender, age, nationality… This project is not political, but humanitarian. 
 
HLC can find information in every country, but they need approval of families of victims. Furthermore Bekim told us something about the importance of support from intellectuals for the promotion of this project. RECOM is very necessary for avoiding manipulation of the number of victims, there will be a list with concrete persons and their names. RECOM project will not be easy, but at HLC they are optimistic.
 
We had time for coffee afterwards in a trendy bar around the corner. There was some casual chat and the atmosphere was really nice in the group. This meeting was more confusing, people got tired and I think more than ten people during this hour to the badroom, although we only had one cup of coffee. The Ombudsman was a middle aged man with an impressing live story and resumé.
 
After the break we had a meeting with the Ombudsperson and heard more about this institution, which celebrates his first anniversary. The Ombudsman was a middle aged man with an impressing live story and resumé. They have offices in Kosovska Mitrovica, Pec, Prizren and Gnjilane, also in Gracanica and North Kosovo. There are around 45 employees. Most of them are Albanians, but also four Serbs and one Turkish employee. They try to employ multiethnic people, but it’s hard to find graduated people in the different ethnic groups. The Ombudsperson told us that every problem could be politicized very quickly. He mentioned the problem of Serbs who came back to their homes in Kosovo, but have been harassed by Albanians. Also, for Albanians is not safe to walk in North Mitrovica. Also, there are small, but not interethnic problems. Everybody can come to talk about their problems to the Ombudsperson, for example illiterate people. The institution initiated a campaign to encourage people to come to the ombudsperson with all the problems in Kosovo, but they don’t have the budget for a TV-campaign. So, people from rural areas are not informed about the institution. Ombudsperson is financed by the Kosovo Parliament, not by the Government. It is also supported by international institutions as the OSCE, UNDP, Council of Europe… The ombudsperson told us that the people have difficulties to accept the idea of Human rights. It’s not visible, but they are trying and sending letters to relevant institutions to insist on human rights violations.
 
Though there was a lot of pessimism about the situation in Kosovo and even more about the important institutions who are controlling the country. The Ombudsman had a similar story as the persons who spoked to the day before and it did not had a lot of optimisim in it. So we all left a but confused, tired and pessimistic. Some people got mad, because they thought it was rude to disturb this meeting by going to the toilets or repeating questions that have already been asked. This was a hot topic during lunch, though easily forgot when we sat down outside in the sun and with big delicious sandwiches.The groups splitted into little groups after lunch. Some went shopping and some just taking a walk in Pristina. When we came together at three again, everybody had had a great time, just relaxing, laughing and enjoying the free minutes we got that day. Free minutes were not that common in these ten days.
 
By cab, we went to ZFD an NGO with two nice guys who informed us about their work. It was more an interactive lecture. They expected a lot of questions of our group, though we all were pretty tired again. Still some perfect students had interesting questions. We went back to the hotel were we had reflection groups in the park and had dinner at Ben-Af restaurant. After that we finished the day with a few drinks at café Tingle Tangle.
 

Day Three Report

Femke, Vladimir and Mjellme
 
It was an exciting day because we went to Mitrovica.  The cab driver turned on the music and while listening to some chill-out sounds we were driving up to the North. In the northern part of the city, a meeting was planned with Community Building Mirovica (CBM) and the Centre for Civil Society Development (CCSD). During our way to the building of these NGO´s the streets were quite empty and there was kind of a lonely atmosphere. Albanian and Serbian flags mark the boundaries of the city. Some participants of the group recognized the flats they once owned or lived in, but because of the difficult situation between the North and the South, they’ve never returned to the city.  At the place where the meeting was, Momcilo Arlov (director of CCSD) told us that there were a lot of safety problems around the area.
Not a long time ago they had been attacked and even a grenade had been thrown through the office window. The situations shows the difficult work situation of the NGO´s. Inside the building an amazing presentation was given by Valdete Idrizi (Kosovar-Albanian) and Momcilo Arlov (from Croatia and living in North Mitrovica) Both directors gave a clear view on the work circumstance and the difficulties they face during their work.
 
The influence of the Kosovo and Serbian government is strong and the complexity of the government parallel institutions even worse. It was impressive to see how they managed to implement their projects to bring together youth from the North and the South, no matter what the ethnic background. It was inspiring to see how they tried to create a blooming and peaceful future for the people living in Mitrovica, in spite of the difficulties on identity and ethnicity issues.

Of course, they said, identity and the past still plays a huge role in people’s lives, but here it is about accepting each others´ history, to put the common problems on the table and to agree to disagree about the past. Arguing about the past doesn’t bring you forward you need to work on the future. This view was very enlightening and the whole group was impressed by their words. 

After our visit we went on to the Serbian enclave Goljbulja, in a small village near Mitrovica. Here a meeting was planned with Bratislav Kostic. While eating our lunch in the taxis, we passed the bridge and finally arrived at the Serb enclave. Because of time shortage we couldn’t stay there as long as we wanted but we had an enlightening conversation at the school building. Mister Kostic spoke both in Serbian and Albanian. By speaking in Albanian, he wanted to show respect for the Kosovar Albanians he said. He told us about the difficulties of living in this enclave. At that moment, there was no telephone connection of the Serbian Mobile Phone providers because it was cut off by the Kosovo authorities, due to their illegal operation in Kosovo’s territory. Moreover, according to Mr. Kostic, the bus connection to Mitrovica for Serbs which was providing them transport to school is about to become too expensive for the children’s families to afford. According to Ms. Kostic a lot of Serbs lost their land and nothing had been done yet. At some point, the discussion evolved to the importance of language. Mister Kostic told that he used to be a teacher in Albanian language but he couldn’t do this any longer. Mr. Kostic comment was that the language issue is too sensitive and neither k-Serbs nor k-Albanians want to learn each other’s languages. In his view perhaps some people want to, however Kosovo government is not supporting this at schools. For those not familiar with the situation in Kosovo, it is important to bear in mind that the unemployment rate is around 40% Kosovo wide, which primarily causes a lot of citizens to be unhappy and face fundamental difficulties every day. In addition, regarding the language issue the Kosovo’s legislation grants all communities the right to education in their mother tongue and allows them to use teaching materials from their native countries. Moreover, Kosovo authorities are currently working on the development of the new Kosovo curricular framework which will provide all Kosovo citizens with the possibility of learning all languages used in Kosovo, within their formal education at the mandatory level.

The main message at this place was that we need to realize that we are the future generation, that we are the ones who can change the current situation and that we need to take that opportunity. 

After the wise words that we’ve heard in Vushtrri, the place where the Serbian enclave is located, we listened to the arguments of Vetvendosje. It was an interesting to visit but for some of us it was hard to grasp the aim of the movement. We didn’t speak to Albin Kurti himself but to three members of Vetevendosje. They gave us some background information about their point of view, the actions they have taken and the ‘peaceful’ way in which they try to change Kosovo’s political situation.  Although it needs to be discussed how peaceful the movement works, their main aim is trying to change the international climate and give common people their voices back. Vetvendosje in English means Self-determination. On the one hand this isn’t a completely wrong aim, it is important to listen to the people and try to achieve what they want. On the other hand, their way of achieving this, is not the best way. Besides, their argumentation seems somehow contradictory. Some of us believe that the Vetvendosje members know that it is needed to build up a good government in Kosovo but they don’t want the international support. They are not against the International Community and European Integration but want the people to decide for or against it. They don’t believe in the Arthisaari plan because it privileges some minority groups from others and some other reasons, and they believe that the Serbs have the right to return to their own places but at the same time, they want the people to choose whether to join Albanian or not, which is quite intriguing since the majority of Kosovar Albanians are of Albanian descent. After all, it was good to hear their arguments since we’ve visited a lot of international institutions and people who are pro international cooperation.

After our visit at Vetvendosja, we believed the day was about to end, but it continued. We walked to the Integra office to discuss more about the topics and people we came into contact with the last days. It was interesting and we improved our discussion skills a lot. Propositions like who controls the past, controls the future and Serbia will not join the EU without Kosovo and vice versa, had been discussed and interesting arguments had been made. Before we could finally enjoy our diner at the Proper Pizza Restaurant, we prepared the street action for the Europe day on the 9th of May. It took some time but in the end we managed to do so and the results will be described in the next report.

During the 3rd of the study visit we met different people with different perspectives. Overall we enjoyed this day and believe that it was greatly enlightening.

NOTE: This summary includes personal opinions and perspectives of the authors.
 

Day Four Report

Vladimir, Kushtrim and Bledar
 
During the fourth day of our study visit to Kosovo we went to Gracanica, small Serbian enclave 5 km from Pristina.
First we visited the monastery and the first thing we all noticed were armed guards on the front gate which we haven't seen many during the visit. Since it was Sunday there was a service so we went inside and observed orthodox Christian rituals and the interior of the XIV century monastery.
 
Later we met Srdjan Popovic from Cultural Heritage Protection Office who introduced us to his work and Sasa Ilic from Center for Peace and Tolerance, local NGO who introduced us to everyday problems people from Gracanica face, their unfavorable social, security, economic and political position. He also told us about limited freedom of movement, lack of inter community communication, lack of vivid perspective for sustainable economic development and distrust for people who take initiative to improve community life. We were given possibility to compare his statements to what we heard the previous day in Gojbulja, though many things we were already familiar with.
 
After the meeting with Mr. Ilic we met Mr. Momcilo Trajkovic, president of Political Forum of Kosovo-Metohian Serbs. Mr. Trajkovic who used to be Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia during early 1990s turned out to be influential insider in the political happenings during the last 25 years and hence was seen as very competent speaker. Lecture he gave started with historical background on Kosovo issues which, unexpectedly, evoked many reactions and questions during the following discussion. Some of the claims Mr. Trajkovic made triggered an avalanche of questions and reactions which he, unfortunately, didn't have enough time to respond.
 
In the afternoon we went back to Pristina where we held long-planned street action in the town center. Action was organized to celebrate Europe Day. It included interaction with
walkers who we presented the program we are involved in, and asked them to write their answer to questions such as "What does EU mean to you?" and "When you think about the EU, what do you think about?"on the big yellow cardboard stars we made earlier. We also asked them to write their answers on questions "Which chapter do YOU want to open and which one do YOU want to close" in a big book model we made, The action was evaluated as very successful and gained a lot of attention of people and media.
 
Later that day we had our final reflections and evaluations of Skopje and Kosovo part of program where we thoroughly discussed last 10 days and came to conclusion that we managed to make and improve dialogue, that we are glad to be involved in the program and Our Future Network, that we made new friendships and that we are looking forward to study visit to the Netherlands.
 

General Group Dynamic report

Wout, Miklos and Arber
 
And then it all began. Our Future European Integration program 2010. Fifteen students from three different countries, Netherlands, Serbia and Kosovo met to learn, work, share experience together but foremost to communicate with each other. IKV Pax Christi, Integra and Fractal chose a group of diverse personalities which during the ten days grew together by interaction and by showing willingness to listen to one another.
Although from different backgrounds we all were very articulate in the matter of learning and giving our opinion regarding the topics we were dealing with on the days of training and study visit. The topics we dealt with where: European Integration, Dealing with the Past and Transitional Justice. We visited several institutions and persons who are dealing with these subjects in daily life. For example: the Humanitarian Law Center, EULEX, the Advisor to the deputy-prime minister and the International Red Cross.
 
Like said before we bounded during the week. We had our differences and at some points the participants couldn’t agree with each other, but we listened to each other and opinions were respected. This gives us a bout of optimism, because the more young people think like this (dialogue over conviction) in the region the greater are the odds for prosperity. We found the ability to advance in understanding others, and vice versa, so it was kind of a symbiosis.
 
And for the end we have the social interaction of the participants. Well it was more then satisfactory in our opinion, because at our free time (after the end of the lectures/visits) there was an unspoken agreement that the topics of the day will be reduced to a minimum (of course the topics couldn’t be avoided they are what brought us there in the first place). Also learning the differences/similarities in mannerisms was extremely interesting. There where jokes being made about the stereotypes and nationalities (Wout didn’t care when Mjellma called him a stupid Dutch person). At nights we went to several pubs and had a lot of fun. After the socializing in the pubs we went back to our hotel and further discussed the subjects of the day in our nationality-mixed bedrooms. Well, some did, others went back to the other side of Prishtina to eat at the place where all the EULEX-officers always eat (Route 66). Not to forget, we also did reflect daily.

But then, after ten enjoyable days of interaction, great conversations and a lot of new information gained it was time to say our goodbyes to each other. However this will be not a farewell, we will meet again, learn more and keep on integrating, working on regional cooperation and fulfilling the European criteria ;)