Balkans Situation Report

Bernard Kouchner has welcomed the decision by the Serb National Council of Gracanica to join the Joint Interim Administrative Structure (JIAS) on an observer basis for three months, saying:"This was not an easy decision, and it will not be an easy period for those Serb leaders who voted to join us. But this courageous move will open the way to a future Kosovo can be proud of, a future of democracy and real peace, with a place and a role for all its communities."

UNMIK stated: "The Serbs had been representatives on the Kosovo Transitional Council when it was formed - last year they started a boycott. When we began the JIAS in December, it was crucial that the Serbs participate. They have one out of four Kosovo seats on the Council. They said they would attend the Council as observers for three months and at the end, they would decide on whether to participate fully. We hope they make this decision earlier."

The Serb National Council (SNV) of Kosovo is led by two figures from Gracanica – Bishop Artemije, the head of the Serb Orthodox Church in Kosovo, and Momcilo Trajkovic. Both are long-time opponents of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. They are asking Kouchner to improve the services and confidence in their enclaves, particularly as regards security.

The Mitrovica Serbs have decided to boycott the decision. They apparently represent about 50 per cent of the Serb population of Kosovo, but claimed last Monday that they now represent all Serbs in Kosovo. Mitrovica Serb leader Oliver Ivanovic told AFP that the Gracanica leaders who decided to join the joint administration were not representative of the province's Serb population.

Ivanovic said that the SNV of Mitrovica, which opposes any Serb presence in the interim administration, now considered itself as the SNV of all Kosovo: "We will contest the right of people form Gracanica to use this name [SNV], because the population is not behind them".

On 5 April over one hundred Serbs gathered in front of the Monastery of Gracanica to protest against the Gracanica Serbs' decision to participate as observers. They tried to enter the yard of the monastery but were prevented by KFOR forces and were eventually persuaded to address Bishop Artemije and Momcilo Trajkovic in writing. "Work in Kouchner's government represents justification for NATO's and KLA's crimes. It is acceptance of the situation in Kosovo", the letter of protest reads.

The SNV was created in order to defend the interests of Kosovo Serbs, those who left as well as those who remained. More than 240,000 and other non-Albanians have fled Kosovo since the end of the war in June last year.

Kosovar Albanian newpaper Zeri called on "Artemije and friends" to "express at least one word of regret for the crimes that were committed…"

The Political Council of Presheve, Bujanoc and Medvegje are requesting from the international community 'concrete political engagement' to protect the Albanians of this area. The Council says that the pressure of the Serb military and police on the Albanian population is being increased every day.

Meanwhile, the Army of Preseva, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB), are reportedly still in uniform and training in Dobrosin, a village in the buffer zone between southern Serbia and Kosovo. NATO Saceur General Wesley Clark told the press that NATO won't tolerate attacks in Preseva. One hundred and twenty-five US special troops are being sent to Kosovo because of the fear of troubles in this area.

UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Jiri Dienstbier said of his recent visit to the Balkans:"The freedom of movement in Kosova is limited, and such a right does not even exist for Serbs." He further reported to the UN Commission for Human Rights that ethnic cleansing is underway in Kosovo with Serbs, Gorans, Roma, Bosnians, Turks and Albanians fleeing the country. These and other recent remarks have lead prominent Albanian novelist Ism Kadare to tell Bota Sot : "Dienstbier is a servant, a puppy of Belgrade and Moscow," in a piece entitled "Dienstbier – rapporteur of UN or Milosevic?". Kadare continued: "This man, with his thoughtless positions and unfounded accusations, biased and pro-Serb, is dangerous not only for Kosovo and Albanians, but also for peace as an inciter of new conflicts in the region." He went on to call on the UN for Dienstbier's dismissal. UNMIK has agreed to publicly oppose Dienstbier's report.

Russian Government radio station Voice of Russia World Service broadcast the announcement by General Leonid Ivashov, a General in the Russian military leadership, that Russia has been involved in plans for a military intervention in Kosovo, and that the Yugoslav army could launch ground offensives against NATO. Russia has complained to the UN Security Council that UNMIK has usurped many aspects of Yugoslav sovereignty in Kosovo, and that Russian KFOR are disturbed by attacks by Albanians on remaining Serbs in the region.

UNHCR has stated that despite media rumours KFOR can find no evidence of Albanian-run detention camps for Serbian prisoners in Kosovo.

UNMIK is making an urgent appeal to donors to assist further with the'garbage situation' and have contacted municipalities around western Europe seeking direct cooperation and assistance. They estimate the additional needs in the waste sector for the rest of the year at about 3.7 million DM.

They are also appealing to those living or staying in Pristina to stop throwing rubbish in the streets. In Mitrovica KFOR French Military Engineers and members of the KPC have begun Operation Clean City, where so far a rubbish site has been prepared and waste collected together. KFOR are calling for support and participation in this project from members of the city council and community leaders.

Balkans

The International Crisis Group last month released three new BalkansReports:

- ''Albania: State of the Nation' makes recommendations for continued support to develop Albania's weak state structures, particularly the judiciary, and for the establishment of conflict resolution centres. The Group calls for relaxation of visa restrictions for individuals whose activities will assist the development of socio-economic ties between the Balkan countries.

- "Montenegro: In the Shadow of the Volcano' challenges NATO to demonstrate 'seriousness of purpose' by planning for a forceful military response and moving forces to the region in anticipation of Milosevic's attempt to install a pro-Belgrade government in Montenegro by force. It also calls for the current Montenegrin government to receive a package of economic aid and guarantees and political support from the EU and US.

- "What Happened to the KLA?'' looks at the continuing influence in Kosovo of the former UCK and urges UNMIK and KFOR to engage in constructive dialogue with key trusted ex-leaders.

SERBIA

The UN High Commission for Refugees, Ms Sadako Ogata, visited Serbia and Montenegro , conducting meetings with officials and tours of refugee and IDP camps. She expressed her concern about the situation in Kosovo and in particular the current lack of conditions conducive to the safe return of IDPs.

The housing crisis for refugees and IDPs appears to be increasing in Serbia rather than abating over time: a new collective centre, MZ Sokolic, opened in Cacak, housing five IDP families from Kosovo, while another three centres opened in Gornji Milanovac, housing a total of 136 refugees.

Shortages of oil and sugar at state-controlled prices continue in Serbia, although these commodities may be purchased on the grey market at higher prices. This presents a huge problem for a population whose average monthly salary is estimated at 84DM.

MONTENEGRO

Due to the increased contraband entering Montenegro from Kosovo, the Yugoslav Army and the Montenegrin police are now jointly controlling the border check point at Rozaje (in Montenegro). It is not yet known if the Yugoslav Army will enforce the federal visa requirement for people entering Montenegro from Kosovo.

The blockade between Montenegro and Serbia continues – no commercial trucks have passed since late February this year. Some humanitarian aid has been allowed to pass, but only after lengthy delays and close examination of documents. The UN reports that Serbia's blockade of Montenegro has begun to impact on the availability of drugs there.

Montenegro is to receive 20 million Euros, double the original amount of assistance pledged by the EU, from the European Investment Bank.

At the request of the Patriarchate in Pec, the Government of Montenegro has provided the church with humanitarian assistance in the form of food, detergent and other items. This is the second time that the Montenegrin Government has helped the Patriarchate.

Montenegrin President Milo Djukanoviclast week met with the EU Representative for Foreign Policy in Brussels, Havier Solana. Theydiscussed assistance to Montenegro to further its democratisation and reform process.

ACT PROGRAMMES

SHELTER

Kosovo

Christian Aid has been invited by the European Agency for Reconstruction to apply to be an implementing partner in the municipality of Rahovec.

At the request of the UNMIK Coordinator for Minorities, CA has beensurveying war-damaged houses in the Roma quarter of Rahovec. There is going to be a clean-up day in Rahovec on 22 April. All volunteers welcome!

With the improvement in the weather full-scale assessments are being undertaken in both Mitrovica and Decani villages for selection of beneficiaries for both the Shelter and the Food Security/Agriculture programmes of ACT-LWF. Organisational and operational preparations continue for the ACT/UMCOR Shelter Reconstruction Programme 2000. The goal of the programme is to provide shelter materials (roof timber and tiles, doors and windows) for self-help reconstruction of up to three hundred homes in Shipol and Koshtovo. ACT/UMCOR Project Engineers have completed individual house damage assessment calculations for this year's programme, and have begun planning the reassessment of houses repaired in last year's programme.

ACT/UMCOR Shelter Reconstruction programme for 2000 is now just over 50 percent funded. The serious funding gap has meant that the position of Returnee Liaison Officer has been terminated and Kelly Grigas -Cleaver has been laid off. She had been working to increase contact with beneficiaries and communities and looking at how to respond programmatically to their priorities. Her contribution to the Shelter Progamme, especially her attention to the needy families in Category 5 housing, is greatly appreciated by all at ACT/UMCOR and by the residents of Bare, Bajgora, Shipol and Koshtova.

LWF has distributed all its planned number (around six hundred) of prefab houses and most of them have been erected and put to use.

Delivery of construction materials for UMCOR continues to be a problem . Spring weather conditions have made the roads passable once more but recent reports indicate that travel through Montenegro might be complicated by the reported increase of VJ troops and special police at the borders.

Communications also continue to be problematic, with the satphone as the only reliable line.

On her recent visit to Mitrovica, the ACT/UMCOR Bajgora reconstruction programme was presented to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ms Sadako Ogata, as an example of a successful, permanent reconstruction programme .

UMCOR and LWF in Mitrovica, alongside local residents, have cleared the local football pitch for use. Everyone involved worked on a voluntary basis. "Now we hope for a multi-ethnic soccer game!" said UMCOR's Tim Madigan.

Both LWF and UMCOR have agreed to UNMIK's new standards on housing and shelter, but both agencies fear that costs will be too high, and may result in a cut to the number of houses available.

FOOD SECURITY AND AGRICULTURE PROGRAMME

Kosovo

Mitrovica

ACT/UMCOR's project to restock cattle farms in Bare, Bajgore, Vidishiq and Koshtove in Mitrovica municipality was presented to HEKS for funding and has gained verbal approval for over 90 per cent of the budget from Swiss Chain of Solidarity. Spring vegetable seeds will be distributed shortly in Vustri municipality.

ACT/UMCOR have just (end of March) established a chicken programme. Sixteen thousand egg-laying chickens along with 128 tonnes of food for them have been purchased from local firm, GJINI-TAG, based in Gjacova. The Gjacova area was famous for its chicken farms before the war, when there were around forty chicken farms for both egg and meat production; now there are just three. Two thousand chickens are being distributed to two hundred families per day.

ACT/LWF are reconstructing six agricultural/cooperative centres, providing seeds, fertiliser and tools for 1200 families in 28 villages, and providing working farm equipment to one hundred families.

WATER/SANITATION

Kosovo

ACT/NCA WatSan team will cooperate with the LWF on an assessment study of the villages in the Mitrovica area.

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Kosovo

In cooperation with Medica Mondiale, the Trauma Counselling Unit of ACT/LWF are to provide psychotherapeutic and gynecological counseling and care for women and children. Village women's groups, with the help of LWF, are establishing small-scale cooperatives for the marketing of the women's sewn and knitted items. The women will start to grow vegetables, both to improve the nutrition of them and their families and as another means of income generation. ACT/LWF is working in 28 villages in four municipalities - Mitrovica, Skenderaj, Vushtri and Decani – assisting approximately 20-25,000 people.

Last week LWF visited families who have just returned to their home villages, some of whom had come from abroad after being expelled from western Europe. They are in desperate need of any kind of shelter, even tents. Those affected are in Polac, Abrij e Ulet, Prekaz I Eperm, Dubovc, and Lubovec.

ACT/UMCOR are proposing for 2000:

Education and Psycho-Social Rehabilitation: strengthening local communities in the villages of Shipol, Koshtova, Bare and Bajgore) by providing children, youth and women with educational and psycho-social support. This will be done through the establishment of parent-teacher groups, women's development initiatives and youth leadership building.

Youth House Programme: This will build the capacity of local youth groups to develop, implement and manage sustainable, community-supported projects by establishing and operating a focal point for groups throughout Kosovo, where they will have access to office space, computers, library facilities and recreational space as well as to structured activities.

Youth Development Programme: Promoting ethnic and social integration by providing a non-threatening environment where youth will have opportunities to build self-esteem on the basis of positive skills and competencies. The project will support youth clubs in rural communities in order to improve access to educational and extra-curricular activities, and by fostering the development of networks and relationships among youth groups throughout the Balkans.

INCOME GENERATION

Kosovo

ACT/LWF are looking for ways to enhance the economy of rural communities by income-generation through credit schemes. The focus of assistance will be on around forty small-scale industries such as sawmills, carpentry workshops, garages, veterinary clinics, shoe-making units and others whose activities were curtailed by the war. Help will be given by LWF with construction of premises, purchase of tools and initial operational costs.

EMERGENCY DISTRIBUTIONS

Kosovo

The medical and administrative team of the Pristina Clinic told local paper Rilindja of their gratitude to ACT and two of its local staff members, Naim Dibra and Rexhep Thaci, for assistance with food supplies, clothing, sheets and other much-needed items.

Serbia

ACT/IOCC continue to distribute to collective centres in southern andcentral Serbia, while also conducting assessments for further distributions.

IOCC is preparing information for future distributions in cooperation with the Serbian Orthodox Church in Presevo, where staff found both displaced Albanians and Serbs from Kosovo, principally from Gnjilane municipality.

In Smederevo, IOCC distributed a second round of hygiene parcels in the largest collective centre in Serbia with over a thousand residents, most of whom are IDPs. IOCC also conducted its initial distribution in the Roma settlement of Kostolac in Pozarevac municipality, where 150 Roma IDPs from Kosovo have resettled.

ENIVIRONMENT

Kosovo

ACT/LWF are to conduct training workshops related to prevailing problematic environmental issues and to distribute forestry manuals in local languages.

 Feature:

Toni Gicev: Why I came to Kosovo

Toni, 31 is IT Manager in the ACT Secretariat, Kosovo. In post since 28

June last year, he was previously with ACT partner Macedonian Centre for International Cooperation (MCIC). As the only Macedonian on the Secretariat staff, why did he choose to work in Kosovo?

"ACT in Skopje asked for my help. Before I was employed by them, I was always helping out. They would ask me favours. So I was giving information technology support to ACT already. I became more and more involved until I finally came to Kosovo for four days and I saw it was not like the Serbian propaganda."

What had you heard about Kosovo?

"That Albanians are bad people, killing Serbs. But the people [Albanians] I met in Kosovo were fine people – they would even talk to me in Serbian! So when I went back home to Macedonia I told everyone – 'I'm going to work in Kosovo to help ACT'. They were all terrified! But I told them: 'ACT has given me assurances'. So I resigned from MCIC and came back. After all, it was a good opportunity. Plus so much had been destroyed and the people needed help.

"Kosovo one year ago and now are not the same. Peja, Rahovec, Decani, Mitrovica…..ruins. In Macedonia they couldn't believe it when I told them. Nobody had heard about the burnt villages. So I took pictures to show my friends in Macedonia. The Serbs – you know, many Macedonians are intermarried with Serbs – I showed them to had real trouble believing their eyes. All this had been hidden from them. But what was good was they supported me, they understood why I wanted to go and help, even though they were fearful themselves.

"But Kosovo certainly was a challenge! For one thing I had no salary for five months! But I have good friends. I was much needed. At the beginning here ACT was foreigners coming with laptops and their biggest problem was email!

"Now I am working more closely with the implementing partners and their programmes, for instance I am providing 30 computers and back-up to the UMCOR social development programme which will train local people in IT. I am offering such help to other ACT members.

What do you think the future holds for you?

"I want to continue with this kind of work. It makes me feel dynamic, ithas variety. So I will continue with ACT if possible, and if not, with some other humanitarian organisation. Helping people makes you feel good! It becomes….infectious! I am learning the local languages, the local habits. I think that local people here have some trust in me. I am welcomed in Albanians' homes. This means a lot to me.

"I hope my next work is in a safer environment – Kosovo is still a dangerous place, even though nothing bad has happened to me. My family doesn't want me away from home but I must continue. At the moment I cannot leave the people here. ACT would find a replacement for me but I couldn't find a replacement for ACT! I love the variety of personal natures, cultures, faiths."

 OVERVIEW OF ACT RESPONSE:

The six implementing partners in Kosovo are the Lutheran World Federation, Christian Aid,United Methodist Committee on Relief, Macedonian Center for International Cooperation, Norwegian Church Aid, and DanChurchAid. Together they constitute the ACT humanitarian response within Kosovo, working in the predominantly rural areas surrounding Mitrovica, Decani, Djakova, and Rahovic; and engaged in shelter and school rehabilitation, winterization, de-mining, well cleaning /water sanitation, agricultural and food assistance, and social/community development.

Of the fourteen projects within the current ACT Appeal, four – Hungarian Interchurch Aid, Ecumenical Humanitarian Organization, the International Orthodox Christian Charities and LWF - are focused on assisting internally displaced people, refugees, and others in need within the FRY areas of Vojvodina, Sandzak, Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo.

Submitted by Jane Connolly, Information Officer: ACT Balkans

Phone: 381 38 549 187/188/190; Mobile : +377 44 120 076 and e-mail:

Konolo@hotmail.com

Communicators with member agencies should contact this office direct for information about current media opportunities.