VZCZCXRO8857
RR RUEHIK RUEHYG
DE RUEHPS #0549/01 1741453
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 231453Z JUN 06
FM USOFFICE PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6251
INFO RUEHBW/AMEMBASSY BELGRADE 3405
RUEHVJ/AMEMBASSY SARAJEVO 0032
RUEHVB/AMEMBASSY ZAGREB 5324
RUEHSQ/AMEMBASSY SKOPJE 7183
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0893
RUEHZG/NATO EU COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000549 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR PRM/ECA, BELGRADE FOR REFCOORD 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREF SR YI
SUBJECT:  KOSOVO MINORITIES:  RURAL POVERTY AND A 
SUCCESSFUL URBAN RETURN TO PEJA/PEC 
 
REF:  A) PRISTINA 275  B) PRISTINA 425 
 
Sensitive, But Unclassified; Please Protect Accordingly 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY:  Many Serbs and other minority members 
who either returned to or stayed put in rural areas of 
Kosovo after the end of the conflict in June 1999 or the 
ethnic riots in March 2004 live marginally.  Their 
immediate preoccupation is their livelihoods. 
Determination of Kosovo's final status is something they 
hope they can weather, though they realize they may have 
to seek shelter elsewhere, depending on the severity of 
any disturbances that may (or may not) accompany it.  A 
few of the Serbs who have recently returned to Kline/Klina 
and Peja/Pec have regained rental properties that provide 
them an income as well.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (U) In early June, Regional Refcoord (Belgrade) spent 
several days in Kosovo, visiting beneficiaries of a Danish 
Refugee Council (DRC) returns program and a Mercy Corps 
economic sustainability program.  The visits recounted 
below have been selected from the ten or so visits made 
during this period and are representative of the attitudes 
encountered throughout the region. 
 
--------------------------- 
PRAYING FOR BULLS IN LEPINA 
--------------------------- 
 
¶3. (U) Lepina is a small Serb village southwest of 
Pristina.  Half of its population has left Kosovo since 
¶1999.  Many of its inhabitants worked on a large state 
farm located nearby and maintained their own small farms 
in their spare time.  The state farm, for all practical 
purposes defunct, was privatized for 2.2 million euros. 
Twenty percent of the sale price is supposed to be 
distributed to its employees, but this has yet to happen. 
The enterprise had not yet been revived on any scale and 
only a few people work there now.  Because of the reduced 
level of population and economic activity, Lepina has a 
faded, semi-deserted air about it. 
 
¶4. (U) In 1999, there were 700 head of cattle in the 
village.  Now there are slightly more than 50.  Many local 
people reportedly abandoned farm work in favor of better- 
paying jobs with KFOR and UNMIK.  These jobs are now 
drying up as UNMIK begins to down-size.  Residents largely 
support themselves by small-scale farming and various 
social payments. 
 
¶5. (U) Nonetheless, PRM implementing partner Mercy Corps 
decided to refurbish and supply a small veterinary clinic 
in Lepina in late 2005.  The clinic serves seven 
surrounding villages with a mixed population of ethnic 
Serbs, RAEs, and Albanians, some of whom are returned 
internally displaced persons (IDPs) and others of whom 
never left. 
 
¶6. (U) Next to the veterinary station stands a milk 
collection point installed by another NGO.  The wholesaler 
finally stopped buying milk from the collection point 
because the collection point manager was allowing his 
providers to water their milk in order to increase their 
revenues. 
 
¶7. (U) Goran Simic, a young Kosovo Serb veterinarian runs 
the station.  Simic did his studies in Pristina and 
Belgrade and has never left Kosovo.  He says there are no 
jobs for veterinarians in Serbia.  He earns between 300 
and 400 euros a month, occasionally not charging a friend 
and rarely charging those who cannot afford his services. 
So far he has not had to re-supply his station, but when 
he does, it will have to be out of his salary or out of 
increased charges to his clients.  Simic is married, with 
two small children, one of whom is in the local Serbian 
language school. 
 
¶8. (U) While we were visiting the station, two local 
farmers came in.  They made their living by breeding 
cattle and pigs.  The younger farmer, in his thirties and 
accompanied by his four year-old son, was described as the 
most successful farmer in the village.  He owns five 
 
PRISTINA 00000549  002 OF 003 
 
 
hectares and rents an additional five.  He had three milk 
cows, three pregnant cows and a bull, and a number of 
pigs.  Steers bought 1.7 euros a kilo from a local 
Albanian cattle dealer.  Cows did not sell so well, "So we 
pray for bulls." 
 
¶9. (U) The older farmer only had two and a half hectares 
and consequently fewer cattle and pigs.  He clearly led a 
more marginal existence (a small residual salary had 
ceased when the state farm where he had worked was 
privatized) and spoke little, except to say he saw no 
future for himself in either Kosovo or Serbia.  No one was 
returning to Lepina anymore, especially the young. 
 
¶10. (U) Simic said he hoped the milk collection point 
could be opened again.  "Next time, we'll see that it is 
managed better," he said.  Marketing might be a problem, 
however, since the wholesaler had found other sources. 
The two farmers complained about the lack of quality of 
animal feeds available, saying that most brands were 
smuggled in from Albania and Serbia after being 
adulterated.  These products often made their animals 
sick.  Stronger state controls were needed, they said. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Asked what they thought resolution of Kosovo's 
final status would bring them, the younger farmer said, 
"Those with money and other possibilities left a long time 
ago.  Those who still have something left are hedging 
their bets and are waiting to see what will happen.  The 
rest of us who have nothing but our land and houses are 
stuck here, no matter what happens."  Pressed by RefCoord 
on what they might do if events took an adverse turn, the 
younger farmer said, "Let's put politics aside and 
concentrate on how you can help us."  He said that people 
were tired of conflict and attributed violence on either 
side to economic frustration. 
 
------------------- 
A BOSNIAN INTERLUDE 
------------------- 
 
¶12. (U) On June 5, Refcoord met with Rustem Nurkovic, vice 
president of the Peja/Pec municipal council.  Nurkovic, an 
ethnic Bosniak, said welcomed IDP returns to Peja/Pec and 
praised DRC's work highly.  Refcoord had first met him on a 
DRC-sponsored go-and-inform visit in the Konik One IDP camp 
near Podgorica in early April.  That day, Nurkovic was 
answering the questions of RAEs from Peja/Pec who were 
considering returning. 
 
¶13. (U) During the meeting, Nurkovic expressed a great 
interest in promoting the return of Bosniaks to Kosovo, 
saying that otherwise, the Bosniak minority in Kosovo would 
be fatally diminished.  Bosniak IDPs in Bosnia, Montenegro, 
or Serbia were less likely to return the longer they stayed 
away, he added.  Some thirty Bosnians, he said, had been 
killed for speaking Serbian after the Albanians had returned 
to Kosovo in 1999, he said.  The killings stopped after the 
Bosniak community had persuaded the authorities to declare 
"Bosnian" (i.e., Serbian) as an official minority language. 
 
------------------------------------------- 
THE FIRST SERB FAMILY TO RETURN TO PEJA/PEC 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶14. (U) Later that day, Refcoord visited Bozidar Fatic, the 
first Serb returnee to Peja/Pec.  DRC mediated the return of 
Fatic and his wife, an elderly Serb couple, and their 
unmarried 40 year-old son to their property in a prime 
location in the center of the city.  Peja/Pec, a large town 
in Western Kosovo was severely damaged in the fighting in 
¶1999. The local Serb population in Peja/Pec was driven out 
when the ethnic Albanian refugees returned. 
 
¶15. (U) The couple had ten surviving children, all of whom 
were married, except the son who had accompanied them back. 
The other children have families in Serbia.  Some have jobs, 
some do not.  The couple's return had been initially 
problematic because two sons had been associated with the 
Serbian side in the conflict.  One, in fact, had been a 
local policeman who was well known for his mistreatment of 
local Albanians and who had died in the conflict.  In the 
 
PRISTINA 00000549  003 OF 003 
 
 
end, thanks to mediation by DRC, the sins of the sons were 
not visited upon the father. 
 
¶16. (U) Greeting the DRC staffer who accompanied us, the old 
man said in fluent Albanian, "I knew your grandfather.  He 
worked in the post office."  His wife, who was from a nearby 
village from which all Serbs have now been driven out, spoke 
only Serbian, but said she had no problem walking around the 
town or speaking Serbian with local people. 
 
¶17. (U) The family occupied a surprisingly extensive 
compound on one of the principal streets in the center of 
Peja/Pec.  The ground floor of the building facing the 
street housed a cafe, which provided an income of 300 euros 
a month, a decent income for this part of Kosovo.  (Several 
families in the nearby town of Klina are able to support 
themselves in this fashion as well.)  The Albanian family 
who had been occupying the premises illegally had obtained 
housing elsewhere in the town, enabling the Serb returnees 
to collect rent from the cafe. 
 
¶18. (U) "I came back because I wanted to die in my own 
house," the old man said.  Whether any of his children would 
come back to live in Peja/Pec or simply sell the house is 
another question. 
 
¶19. (SBU) COMMENT: Since RefCoord's visit to western Kosovo, 
a 68-year old ethnic Serb urban returnee was found shot to 
death in his home in Klina town.  It remains to be seen what 
effect, if any, this incident will have on future urban 
returns by Serbs and other ethnic minorities to majority 
ethnic Albanian towns.  END COMMENT. 
 
GOLDBERG