The position of non-majority communities in Kosovo - from land expropriation to language use

Although Kosovo Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, often talks about democracy and respect for human rights and national minorities, the head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Michael Davenport, recently assessed that there was still a lot of work to be done in Kosovo to improve the position of non-majority communities.

On that occasion, Davenport stated that the protection of community rights was included in all activities, as well as in the engagement of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, and added that compliance with the Law on the Use of Languages was an important area in which the Mission had been working for many years, monitoring all incidents and regularly reporting on it all OSCE members in Vienna.

The Serbian language is the official language in Kosovo, along with Albanian, which means that institutions and public institutions have the obligation to publish all documents in both languages.

However, although the Law on the Use of Language was adopted 16 years ago, in Kosovo that law is primarily not respected by the institutions that passed it. It is not uncommon for institutional documents to lack translation, or it is very poor, so it is difficult for the Serbs from Kosovo to understand what is written in certain documents.

Also, at the media conferences of high officials of the Kosovo government, translation into Serbian language is often not provided.

The Commissioner for Languages in the Government of Kosovo, Slavisa Mladenovic, told Kosovo Online that the Law on the Use of Languages in Kosovo was not fully respected.

"The law on the use of language is not fully respected in Kosovo, there are very frequent examples of violations both in the attitude of the administration towards citizens during the provision of services, and in communication with citizens and the media," Mladenovic said.

As he added, coordination of all actors was needed in order to achieve better implementation of the Law on the Use of Language.

"What needs to be done in order to better implement it is a very complex issue, and it implies the coordination of all positive actors in that process, namely citizens, media, non-governmental organizations, the government, and all actors on whom it may depend in the future, politicians for example. This implies pressure, systematic changes in the education system and administration, and above all, it implies goodwill and patience, because it is a very long process that I believe will last," Mladenovic said.

When it comes to the position of non-majority communities in Kosovo, the use of language is not the only problem. The Serbs in Kosovo have recently faced a large number of violations of their rights. Just one example is the expropriation of land in the municipalities of Leposavic and Zubin Potok, where the Government of Kosovo, as stated by the owners and their representatives, illegally usurped their property.

The Government of Kosovo states that the expropriation is of "public interest", but according to information, the Government of Kosovo is planning to build police bases on Serbian land in the immediate vicinity of the administrative crossings with Serbia.

Historian and analyst Aleksandar Gudzic states that every government has the right to carry out expropriation in accordance with the law if it is of public interest, but that everything indicates that land usurpation in the north has a political background.

"Each government has the right, if it considers it in the interest of the state, to carry out expropriation, but I think that everything that was done in the north has a political connotation and is colored by the political intentions of Pristina, to economically weaken the Serbs and make them as weak as possible,” Gudzic stated.

According to him, the Serbs in Kosovo were the most threatened nation in Europe today.

"When we talk about rights, we cannot help but be aware of the fact that Kosovo has been part of an international protectorate since 1999, their position is decreasing year by year, from 1999 until today, after every agreement, every agreement between official Belgrade and Pristina and the international community, the position of the Serbs is decreasing; today the Serbs in Kosovo are the most threatened nation in Europe," Gudzic said.

He added that Pristina did not respect the law when it came to the Serbian community and that the Serbs in Kosovo were marginalized.

"The institutions in Pristina do not respect their legal regulations and their Constitution, which foresees the rights of the Serbs, the right to use language and letters, the right to positive discrimination, where 10 percent of the total number of public officials must be the Serbs. All these are rights that are not respected; that is what we officially know, and we can say with certainty," Gudzic stated.

As he pointed out, the Kosovo authorities were pursuing such a policy as to deny the Serbs the freedom of movement and economic development.

"For years, Pristina has been creating such an atmosphere, such an economic environment, where the Serbs cannot economically strengthen themselves, become economically independent. And this can be seen in everyday examples, such as the pharmacies in Gracanica, we have 12 of them, and only two are owned by the Serbs, and those two received work permits in 2007, when the permit was issued by UNMIK, today the Ministry of Health in Pristina in order to issue a permit to a Serb, he needs hundreds of papers," Gudzic said.

As he added from the historian's perspective, the Serbs in Kosovo did not represent a minority, but a nation-building people.

"I have to say that the Serbs are not a non-majority community in Kosovo, the Serbs are the nation-building people, the majority nation in the state of Serbia. For the Serbs from Kosovo and the Serbs from central Serbia, Kosovo is an integral part of the state of Serbia. Kosovo is the area of the most expressed national sentiments of the Serbs; the battle that determined the fate and identity of the Serbs took place there, it is also the center of the church, in a word, Kosovo has the character of a holy land for the Serbs," Gudzic concluded.