TROUBLE AT THE TOP.
Kosovo's provisional government
are angry over the international community's refusal to accord them even
temporary legitimacy.
By Garentina Kraja in Pristina.
WELCOME TO IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, NO. 63, 3 August 1999THE KLA'S NEW MODEL ADMINISTRATION. While the UN recruits staff to govern Kosovo, the KLA has appointed its own local administrations throughout the province.
By Laura Rozen in Malishevo.TROUBLE AT THE TOP. Kosovo's provisional government are angry over the international community's refusal to accord them even temporary legitimacy.
By Garentina Kraja in Pristina.
THE KLA'S NEW MODEL ADMINISTRATION
While the UN recruits staff to govern Kosovo, the KLA has appointed its own local administrations throughout the province.
By Laura Rozen in Malishevo
For two months last summer, before it fell to Serb forces, Malishevo was the pride of Kosovo Albanians--an oasis controlled entirely by the Kosovo Liberation Army. Now it is again under KLA control and a peace-time administration appears to be putting down roots.
As the KLA's main stronghold, Malishevo served as an experiment in what life free from Serbian authority might be like: KLA soldiers ran a checkpoint at the southern entrance to the town; put up a sign saying "Liberated Territory of Kosova"; dispatched uniformed KLA civilian police to direct traffic in the town centre; and staged press conferences. While Serbian forces pounded away at not-distant Drenica villages and other parts of the province, children in Malishevo swam in a pool next to the town mosque, enjoying a bit of summer-time normalcy.
Today, all of Kosovo is living the reality that the KLA in Malishevo dreamed of last year: that they would finally be free to run their own territory; put up their own signs; make laws; police the streets; and have their own checkpoints. Or almost. A shadow remains--a UN Security Council resolution which designates the UN Interim Mission in Kosovo UNMIK) as the province's only legitimate government.
Kosovo's KLA-led provisional government, headed by 31-year-old Hashim Thaci, hopes that the UN Security Council resolution is mostly so much ink. And given the slowness of the UNMIK deployment throughout the province, there has been little to dispel his government from this view.
While the UNMIK recruits some 2,000 international staff to administer Kosovo (as well as some 3,000 international police), Thaci's provisional government has appointed local administrations for all of the province's 28 municipalities. Malishevo's KLA-appointed governor is one Gani Krasniqi.
A middle-aged economist who previously worked in the Democratic League of Kosova (LDK)-led local government, served time as a political prisoner, and then joined the KLA last summer, Krasniqi comes across as a capable and committed public servant. He estimates that about 60,000 people, and 45 villages, come under the zone of his authority--one of the most devastated during the past year and a half of conflict.
Krasniqi works out of a cement public administration building in Malishevo, that flies the red and black Albanian flag. Locals mill around the front steps of the building, seeking help from Krasniqi and his staff in solving their multiple problems: missing family and friends; contaminated water wells; destroyed property; money owed; possible jobs.
Given that no one else is there to help them, local residents seem to view Krasniqi as the man to get their water and electricity turned on, report missing relatives, and figure out how to proceed with their broken lives. He serves as a kind of clearing house for their problems.
To date, no UNMIK representative has made it to Malishevo to tell Krasniqi that his administration may be illegitimate. Meanwhile, Krasniqi is getting on with the business of government.
Krasniqi's eyes light up when he talks about water. It may be Malishevo's most pressing problem. He goes to get a three-ring binder from an office bookshelf that contains the plans for a water project for the region.
"This is the dryest area of Kosova. The centre of Malishevo does not have running water," Krasniqi explains. Before the war, we had a referendum which passed, and then collected money from local people to make a water system for Malishevo and eight nearby villages, that would have capacity for six litres per second."
Krasniqi describes the fine details of the project: the water source, the pipes, the costs. He comes across as an able civil servant, patient, committed, detail-oriented and helpful.
Sergio Vieira de Mello, the Brazilian diplomat who served as interim UN administrator for Kosovo, told a press conference last week in New York that his successor Bernard Kouchner would be willing to work with KLA-appointed civil authorities such as Krasniqi, if they "carry out their functions democratically and inclusively". If not, he warned, they would be removed by KFOR.
For his part, Krasniqi says he is open to working with representatives of other political parties. There are no Serbs in the area with whom the Albanians might be asked to share power.
"I have two explanations for why I should be the local president for now. For one, I was previously in the local government, so I have experience. And also I was previously elected as a deputy to the local government, so I had the respect of people before."
Krasniqi says the UN shouldn't be afraid of the KLA.
"The UCK [KLA] is our pride," Krasniqi says. "The Serbs had everything: weapons, sophisticated technology, communications. The Serbian military and police and paramilitaries, they had so many more weapons than we had. They treated Kosova as a colony. Nobody could accept this situation. But the KLA was the first group to say 'No' to the Serbs. To say 'Stop'."
Even if unrecognized by the international community, the KLA's power is felt in Kosovo's towns and villages.
Outside the public administration building where Krasniqi toils over plans for a Malishevo water plant, stands Adem Bajrami. He says he is from the village of Bubavec, where out of 151 houses, only one is not damaged. But he has come to the regional center of Malishevo to report missing friends..
Last year, as his family fled Serb forces into the woods, Bajrami, 40, was among 14 Kosovo Albanian men arrested and charged with being members of the KLA. He spent five months in jail, and still cannot locate six of his comrades.
"I am waiting here for help from the government. I believe in the provisional government," Bajrami, a school teacher and father of six children, says. "I believe in Thaci."
Analysts say the appointment of local governments by Thaci and the top KLA leadership is part of a strategy to translate the popular post-war appeal of the KLA into future political power. In other words, the local KLA-appointed governments will in future elections help "get out the vote".
In an interview in Pristina on Monday, Thaci said he would soon announce the formation of a new political party, that would "represent the interests of the KLA".Laura Rozen has been reporting on the Balkans since 1996.
TROUBLE AT THE TOP
Members of Kosovo's provisional government are angry over the international community's refusal to accord them even temporary legitimacy
By Garentina Kraja in Pristina.
While the UN struggles to put together a team to administer Kosovo, the province's Albanians already have their provisional goverment, albeit one which the international community appears not to recognise.
Formed on the basis of a gentlemen's agreement concluded during the Rambouillet talks, under which all political groups were to be included and the prime minister was to be a representative of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the provisional government became operational soon after the beginning of NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and his cabinet have set themselves up in a building in Pristina's central square, which ten years ago was known as the Economic Hall of Kosovo, together with their deputies, advisers, secretaries and bodyguards.
At Rambouillet, the international community welcomed its formation and considered it a step towards unification of Kosovo's many Albanian factions. Now, however, international attitudes appear to have changed.
"Hashim Thaci is not considered as a prime minister in the diplomatic missions here. He is seen as leader of the KLA." says a western diplomat. "The so-called provisional government of Kosovo is being consulted, because they are a real factor in the field, while the other factors, like LDK [the political party of Ibrahim Rugova], are fluid."
According to diplomatic sources who did not wish to be identified, the international community is looking to the Transitional Council of Kosovo-a body created by the UN which includes two representatives of each Albanian political party or faction, two independent Albanian politicians and representatives of Serbs and Turks--as its principal local partner, rather than Thaci's provisional government. Moreover, the UN intends using this body for consultative purposes to get a feeling for public opinion, not for decision-making.
This attitude frustrates Kosovo's would-be new rulers in the provisional government.
"We are trying to impose ourselves with all the political means and democratic methods. We are making an effort to prove that we can govern too," says Bilal Sherifi, Thaci's chief adviser.
"Many times we feel like we're being used," another government official says. "I feel like a minister under an international protectorate."
Meanwhile, ordinary people in Kosovo are focusing on finding missing loved ones, rebuilding their properties and picking up the pieces of their former lives. As a result, most are apothetic about developments on the Albanian political scene and what may or may not be happening between Ibrahim Rugova and Hashim Thaci.
"I know that foreigners are here and that they will take the decisions. Luckily, someone who is not Albanian will now be boss in town", says a citizen of Pristina.Garentina Kraja is a journalist with Pristina daily Koha Ditore.
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