http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/30/wblair23
0.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/05/30/ixnewstop.html

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (UK)

'The repressed have become the repressors'

Neil Barnett in Pristina
(Filed: 30/05/2004)

Branislav Cub, 17, stares out of the window of his mother's flat in a beleaguered Serbian apartment building in Kosovo Polje, on the outskirts of Pristina. "This is my jail," he says. "As a Serb, I have no rights here. I cannot walk safely more than 10 metres from the apartment building."

There are about 200,000 Serbs among Kosovo's two million population and most - like Branislav, his mother and his sister, whose house was burnt to the ground by an ethnic Albanian mob in March - live in a state of siege. Even five years after Nato ejected Slobodan Milosevic's forces, the vengeance of some ethnic Albanians shows little sign of abating.

Branislav and his friends receive a military escort on the school run from Nato's Kosovo Force (Kfor), but once he has completed his education he sees no future in Kosovo. "I want to be a lawyer," he says, "but the only opportunities here are to be a politician, a terrorist or a criminal. Most of my friends will leave as soon as they can."

It is widely accepted that when Tony Blair ordered the RAF to blitz Serbia in 1999, he intended to start a war for human rights in Kosovo. The most noticeable result, however, has merely been that the identities of the repressors and the repressed have swapped: the Serb minority is now being persecuted by the Albanians.

On Tuesday, Harri Holkeri, the head of the UN Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo (Unmik, the civilian administration), resigned on the grounds of ill-health, leaving the UN to find a replacement for a post now widely regarded as a poisoned chalice.

Yet few local or international observers doubt the true reason for his resignation: he had failed in his task of developing Kosovo and
addressing its ethnic divisions. Five years after the Albanian majority welcomed Nato and the UN as liberators in 1999, they now regard Unmik as more of a colonial administration - and not a particularly competent one.

Dr Bajram Rexhepi, an ethnic Albanian who is the prime minister of the provisional government that operates under the aegis of Unmik, says that there is frustration over Unmik in many fields. "Economic development and job creation are the biggest failures," Mr Rexhepi says.

"Organised crime is a cancer in the region that we are not immune to and if the young can't find jobs, they have two choices - to leave the country or become criminals. Plus we don't have security, and who will invest without security?"

Despite a contingent of 19,000 troops, Kfor is unable to keep order.  Some estimates put unemployment at 30 per cent, others as high as 50 per cent, while the EU's best estimate for GDP per head is $790 in 2003 - double the $400 of 10 years ago under the Milosevic regime, but still a figure that leaves most inhabitants stuck in grinding poverty.

Public services remain in disarray, with mains water being turned off every night and power cuts common. "Electricity is Unmik's
responsibility, as are the airport and the post and telecoms office, all of which are under investigation for corruption," Dr Rexhipi says. "We see a symbiosis of corruption between locals and international administrators."

Despite the often pompous tone of Unmik's pronouncements on "transparency", "human rights" and "gender equality", some of its own officers do not set an example of incorruptibility or integrity. Allegations are often made against Unmik officers and seldom proven, but in 2002 Jo Truchler, a German manager of an electricity company, was jailed in Germany for filching $4.5 million of public funds.

The embattled Serb minority and frustrated Albanian majority seem to be equally disenchanted with Kosovo's international administration. Midway through next year, talks on the province's national status are due to deal with the limbo in which Kosovo finds itself: officially a part of Serbia, it is still under UN administration.

The overwhelming majority of ethnic Albanians want full independence, while the Serb minority and the government in Belgrade are implacably opposed to that: they want Kosovo partitioned, with the Serbs hanging on to the mineral-rich northern province.

Armed and masked men from the shadowy Albanian National Army have raised their profile with public appearances recently, which has increased fears that the talks will spark more violence from the people behind the attacks on Serb churches, medical centres and houses which erupted in March.

Agim Grozda, an ethnic Albanian who is the editor at Radio K, a multi-ethnic broadcaster, says: "When talks start in 2005, someone will be dissatisfied, so there's a big risk of violence."

It is a subject on which Dr Rexhepi is starkly uncompromising. "We will not," he maintains, "accept any union or partition with Serbia, or cantonisation or partition. If we don't see progress on partition we may be forced to hold a referendum on a unilateral declaration of independence.'

The worst may be yet to come. Families such as the Serb Cubs, who live in a state of siege under the noses of Kfor, must wonder how much worse things can get. They may find out all too soon.

stletters@telegraph.co.uk