Kosovo: Five Years Later

(From the issue of 7/8/04)

The following guest editorial was written by John McCuen, Catholic Relief Services Sub—Regional Representative for the South Balkans.

Last year in Dragash, Kosovo, three girls – Miranda, Albulena and Fitore – quit school. In rural parts of the province, where barely a tenth of girls complete their elementary education, such a thing happens all the time, for any number of reasons – because miniscule employment rates make parents question the value of an education; or cultural beliefs dictate that a girl’s role is in the home, not in the classroom or the workplace; or there’s no transportation, and parents can’t bear envisioning their daughters walking so far so alone, in a dark countryside haunted by bad memories, where the scent of danger lingers in every cool mountain breeze.

June 10 marked the fifth anniversary of the end of NATO’s 78—day air war in the Former Yugoslavia, and the return to Kosovo of nearly 1 million refugees – the vast majority of them ethnic Albanians fleeing Slobodan Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing campaign. It was the worst humanitarian emergency in Europe since World War II.

Five years: a blink of an eye, considering the antiquity of ethnic claims in this alpine province, not to mention its long memory. Many school lobbies in Kosovo are lined with pictures of Albanian and Serb youth killed during those convulsive months; and in ways like this the shared trauma seeps like routine itself into the youngest, purest hearts and minds.

If we needed any reminder that ethnic tensions continue to simmer and sometimes scorch here, this March violence in the city of Mitrovica – literally divided by the Ibar River into Albanian and Serb parts – sparked unrest across the province. Nineteen were killed, more than 900 injured and hundreds of Serbian homes and dozens of Serbian churches and monasteries were destroyed.

But amidst this tragedy were also signs of hope for the future, indications that recent peace building and reconstruction efforts have taken hold in some circles. In the wake of the violence, members of a Catholic Relief Services—supported Mitrovica youth group comprising ethnic Albanian and Serbian students assessed humanitarian needs among people on both sides of the river and helped to provide relief based on need, not ethnicity.

Across Kosovo in the past five years, people of all ethnicities have come together to repair and rebuild schools damaged or destroyed during the 1990s and to construct new water systems, bridges and myriad other facilities. They have formed parent—teacher associations and other community organizations to work for peace and advocate for the interests of their children and communities in ways never before possible in this former communist land.

It’s that sort of grassroots commitment that brought the three young girls in Dragash back to school recently. The fledgling parent—teacher council in their town approached the local government on behalf of the girls’ parents and explained that the girls had to walk a total of eight and a half miles a day, round trip, to and from school, which was simply unacceptable. The government agreed to pay for a private minivan and now, in recent weeks alone, 25 more girls have returned to school through similar efforts.

The challenge ahead in Kosovo is great. But we must remain committed to this tiny, troubled corner of Europe, to reach more deeply into the folds of Kosovo’s society and work to change more hearts. It won’t happen quickly, but not much that lasts does, nor does much worth savoring.

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