Prishtina

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Kosovo

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There are two Kosovos. The landlocked Balkan state that welcomes tourists from all over the world - culturally diverse, undiscovered, vibrant, chaotic and friendly. Perfectly safe for travellers, it is an idyilic, bucolic and biodiverse land of pastures, hills and forests, set against a backdrop of high mountains.

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And then there's the Kosovo of 'Last Of The Blood', a predominantly ethnic Albanian country with a Serbian minority and small populations of ethnic Turks and Roma.  A Serbian province up to the Balkan Wars, it is still disputing its independent status with Serbia. It boasts the most inaccessible and inhospitable mountains in Europe, and is home to brown bears, wild boars, wolves and foxes. For the people, life is based on the clan structure. Impenetrable to outsiders, everything is secondary to the ancient honour of the family, and there is a code of retribution that goes back over two thousand years. There are men who never leave their home for fear of being murdered over some long-forgotten family feud.

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The Kosovo War

 

The Kosovo War was waged from 1998 to 1999. It was a highly destructive and brutal conflict, caused by religious hatred and territorial greed, and it has left a legacy of lasting tension between Serbs and Albanians. 

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Before the war, the Muslim Albanians were the ethnic majority in Kosovo province. When the Serbian government proposed to replace the Albanian language and culture with Serbian institutions, the Albanians took to an increasingly violent opposition. The Kosovo Liberation Army, an ethnic-Albanian separatist militia, attacked Serbian police and politicians and by 1998 were engaged in an all-out uprising. The US government took the side of the KLA even though it was on the State Department's "terrorist organization" list.

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Serbian and Yugoslav forces engaged in a vicious ethnic cleansing campaign throughout Kosovo, destroying entire villages and massacring whole communities. By the end of May 1999, 1.5 million people had fled their homes (approximately 90 percent of Kosovo’s population). The US government continued to support the KLA, turning a blind eye to the atrocities and crimes that they committed.

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When the Serbs refused to cooperate with a NATO peace initiative, NATO undertook a campaign of airstrikes against Serbian targets until, in June 1999, the Yugoslav government was forced to sign a peace accord to end the Kosovo War. The Yugoslav government agreed to troop withdrawals and the return of almost one and a half million ethnic Albanians and displaced persons.

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Tensions continued. In March 2004, anti-Serb riots and killings broke out throughout Kosovo. Over 4000 Serbs and other minorities were displaced. In February 2008, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia which, along with many other countries, refused to recognize the new state.

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The International Criminal Court established tribunals to try both Serbs and Kosovars for war crimes against ethnic minorities and political opponents.

 

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Prishtina

 

Kosovo’s capital city can still feel like a war zone, though in part this is due to the haphazard nature of its regeneration. The city is characterised by the skeletal remnants of previous construction projects, ramshackle apartments, the ruins of empty homes and the drab, brutalist buildings left over from the Yugoslavia rule. The old town square and little narrow streets have all but gone, though some historic structures from Ottoman and Turkish times remain. The recent boom in ultramodern high-end housing blocks and offices, with its reflective blue glass structures and other oddities, provides a stark contrast to the general decayl of the rest of the city.

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Yet, amidst the chaos, there is an unexpectedly cosmopolitan vibe, a warm, family atmosphere. of busy restaurants and booming nightlife.

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Mafia

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Following the collapse of the Soviet empire, a belt of political instability stretched along the olld silk road from the Balkans to Pakistan. This anarchic zone became the conduit for illicit goods and services (e.g. people and narcotics) moving from Asia into the EU, the US and Japan; the transfer of cash into the sanctity of Western banks and real estate; and the export of arms from the former Soviet Union into the world's trouble spots.

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After the Balkans war, many militias used their weapons and plunder to establish criminal empires, both large and small. These brutal mafia syndicates smuggled illicit goods and services from all over the world into the consumer paradise of the EU and US. In the process, their bosses became extremely rich. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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According to the German intelligence agency, BND, by carving Kosovo out of Yugoslavia, the US State Department created a de facto "mafia state." The US wasn't blind to these criminal activities, they just didn't care.

 

Many believe that Kosovo is in a parlous state. Unemployment is massive: crime is pandemic; and an ultra-nationalist movement, Vetevendosje, is on the rise. These are conditions  in which the Mafia can thrive.

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