Four Serbian sanctuaries in Kosovo have been on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger for 18 years, what does that indicate?

The UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, meeting in New Delhi, decided to keep four Serbian medieval sites in Kosovo on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Thus, the Patriarchate of Pec, Visoki Decani, Gracanica, and the Church of Our Lady of Ljevis in Prizren remain on the updated list, which includes 56 endangered sites worldwide.

Written by: Dusica Radeka Dordjevic

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) added three Serbian monasteries and a church in Prizren to the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2006. Despite Kosovo's President Vjosa Osmani, Prime Minister Albin Kurti, and Speaker of the Assembly Glauk Konjufca requesting their removal from the list three years ago, claiming that "the security circumstances in Kosovo have completely changed since 2006 when these monuments were assessed as endangered," it was confirmed this year that there are still reasons for their inclusion on this list for a full 18 years.

Based on the latest decisions of the UNESCO Committee, one site was removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger. The Niokolo-Koba National Park in Senegal, which was included in 2007, was removed due to positive results being achieved. Meanwhile, the Monastery of St. Hilarion in Palestine was added to the list.

The purpose of the List of World Heritage in Danger is to provide information about the threats that led to a site’s inclusion on the list and to mobilize the international community to preserve the site, which is then eligible for increased technical and financial support from UNESCO.

Former Serbian Ambassador to UNESCO, Professor Darko Tanaskovic, told Kosovo Online that the UNESCO World Heritage Committee's decision to keep the four Serbian medieval sites in Kosovo on the List of World Heritage in Danger confirms that there has been no improvement in the situation, contrary to the claims of the authorities in Pristina, who continuously insist that these sites be removed from the list.

"In this sense, it is positive for Serbia, although, of course, it is not positive that these highly significant, universally valuable cultural sites are on the list of endangered properties. The decision was expected and not sensational because none of the conditions have been met that would lead to these sites being removed from the list," said Tanaskovic.

He stated that several conditions need to be met for the Serbian sites to be removed from the list, one of the three main conditions being full and constant protection in a safe and stable political environment.

"It is assessed that the political environment is still not stable. The second condition is an agreed medium-term plan for the restoration of frescoes, including a preventive conservation regime and the conservation and rehabilitation of the entire site. This is not something that can even be discussed. What medium-term plan, who will make it, with whom? The third condition is the implementation of a site management plan, the full establishment of so-called 'buffer' zones and site boundaries, including their legal protection. Given everything that is happening, roads are being built next to monasteries, and only after significant political intervention is the usurped property of the Decani Monastery formally returned. What 'buffer' zones, what respect for legal norms, none of that exists, including appropriate legislation. Therefore, much would need to be done to remove these sites from the List of World Heritage in Danger, and as we know, there are not even minimal conditions for that," Tanaskovic emphasized.

He points out that there is information in the media, allegedly new, that this year is the first time political instability is mentioned as the reason why the sites are on this list.

"However, this is not true because from the very beginning, since these sites were listed, which was back in 2006, political instability, referred to as post-conflict political instability, has always been highlighted as one of the most significant factors. This remains unchanged, and ultimately, I repeat, it is positive for us, although it is not good in itself," our interlocutor indicates.

He says that between the two sessions of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, there is always a struggle to remove something from this list or to include something on it.

"This is a dynamic that constantly occurs from one session to another, and the World Heritage Committee meets once a year. There are countries where the properties assessed as endangered are located, not due to political instability or physical endangerment, but simply because those countries do not take care of them in the way UNESCO standards require. This leads to situations where expert proposals emerge to place the properties on the endangered list, which people do not like because it reflects poorly on the care of cultural properties. On the other hand, for instance, Palestinians have always insisted on having their cultural properties placed on this list because they are endangered by Israel. Therefore, this is a dynamic in which our four cultural properties, as I call them because that is the official terminology of UNESCO, very stably remain on the list of endangered properties," concludes Professor Tanaskovic.

The president of the Commission of the Republic of Serbia for cooperation with UNESCO, Professor Goran Milasinovic, told Kosovo Online that this Commission makes great efforts every year to ensure that the four Serbian medieval properties remain listed with UNESCO in their unchanged form, meaning on the endangered properties list.

"There are two sides to the problem we face every year. One is to keep those properties on the list of those in danger. There are a little over 1,100 properties on the World Heritage List, but only about 50 are on the endangered properties list, which is a very small number," emphasizes Milasinovic.

As soon as something is on the list of endangered properties, UNESCO states, "this is a concern for us, the whole world, and not just for you who are locally interested in it."

"In this sense, the moment something is on the endangered properties list, the monitoring of the whole world is significantly better directed, and I would say that we and those monasteries are safer that they will at least survive in their current form. Of course, it could be much better than this, but at least let it stay as it is now," says the president of the Commission of the Republic of Serbia for cooperation with UNESCO.

The second important issue he highlights is the report that Serbia sends to UNESCO, so that all experts can familiarize themselves with it, but also the importance of not voting on this document to avoid raising status issues.

"It is very important to us that the report we compile is accepted by UNESCO and that all experts are familiar with it, but that it is not put to a vote, so as not to provoke any potential debates on the status issue that such a report could generate. We write the report as a full member of UNESCO, the Republic of Serbia, and not submitted by some so-called state of Kosovo," emphasizes Milasinovic.

In the report accepted by UNESCO, as he states, it is clearly listed that the properties on the list are not maintained in an adequate manner.

"It is stated that they actually do not fulfill the full mission of UNESCO, which is to be open for visits to all citizens of the world, including those from Serbia. It also lists a series of irregularities that can be mitigated and avoided with better management of these properties. The report compiled by the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments lists all the irregularities, including political instability in this part of the territory, clearly stating that the conditions for removing these four properties from the endangered list have not been met, despite different voices coming from Pristina a few years ago. We see that the issue of monasteries and our general cultural heritage is highly politicized and that there is little concern from Pristina for culture and monument protection, and much more for the political connotation of all this," says Milasinovic.

He points out that on this topic, Belgrade should never lower its guard and must always act as if the so-called Kosovo will once again apply for UNESCO membership next year, regardless of the lack of objective criteria for such membership.

Writer and journalist Zivojin Rakocevic points out that in Kosovo there are a thousand churches, church sites, monuments, and cemeteries that are disappearing because they can no longer be accessed. This must be known and testified to somewhere.

"While we are discussing here, some special zone is being destroyed, church property is being fenced off, some stones are being taken away. It is very important that at the international level and at the UNESCO level, a civilization is protected, its basic heritage is protected, and in the end, perhaps most importantly, we must constantly explain to ourselves and others that there are three dominant cultural heritages here—Serbian, Ottoman, and Albanian—and that it is impossible to constitute a Kosovan cultural heritage, to establish an administration that will equally, in a balanced manner, and fairly deal with all these heritages. Serbian cultural heritage can only be cared for by our institutions, those who live in it, and they will be the living church, the living civilization, and the living future of this people," Rakocevic told our portal.

As one of the threats for which Serbian properties are listed on the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger, UNESCO cited difficulties in monitoring properties due to political instability. Rakocevic says that when it comes to the question of Kosovo and Metohija and cultural heritage, the essence is in three points: destruction, falsification, and finally appropriation.

"This is an entire corpus in which you cannot avoid responsibility, and in the end, you have to come to the correct term, the correct formulation. This is approximately the correct formulation in which political insecurity encompasses everything that is happening to us in Kosovo and Metohija, regardless of how we read and interpret it. This includes endangerment of lives, ghetto communities, endangerment of the Serbian Orthodox Church at all levels, and on the third level, innocent people in prisons, of which we have dozens at this moment. All this must be translated into something that is so gently called 'political insecurity,'" Rakocevic concluded.