War reporters and TV crews, who had already begun to be pulled from their vacations, had not had time to start packing for good when the alert was called off. Border crossings between Kosovo and Serbia have been opened again, mysterious gunshots during the night have subsided, the head of EU diplomacy stressed on Twitter that “open issues should be resolved through EU-supported dialogue”. There was even a prospect of talks between Kosovo and Serbian representatives in mid-August that are as ritualistic as they are routine.

If one looks at the events of August 1 and 2 from the perspective of a week, one can even consider that the elation or, to put it more fashionably, hype of both sides was downright grotesquely incongruous with reality. Naples is not that far from Priština and Belgrade, the elation we used to associate with Italian opera can easily be observed on a Balkan street as well.

Dejan’s abduction

Indeed, on the afternoon of Monday, August 1, news of “barricades” and “closed border crossings” gave way to chilling news of the abduction (or rather, as Serbian media reported: ABDUCTION) of the driver of the Serbian sanitation column’s transport vehicle, Dejan Spahić.

– I confirm all the information. The driver of the sanitation vehicle serving our Central Health Center, Dejan Spahić, was abducted. We lost track after ROSA (Kosovo police special units – ed.) stopped him in the town of Rudar. He was abducted in an unknown direction – Dr Zlatan Elek, director of the health centre in Kosovska Mitrovica, reported on television in a slightly trembling voice.

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And while the subsequent details coming from Dr Elek’s mouth showed the rather quiet daily life of the province during the summer (“like every day, he carried a supply of medicines and IVs from the Health Centre in Lešak to Mitrovica”), the driver, Dejan, was promoted from van driver to “ambulance driver” and then to “emergency worker” within a dozen minutes. The director of the Chancellery for Kosovo and Metohija, the Belgrade “super-ministry” dealing with Serbs in Kosovo, Petar Petković did not fail to call it an “act of terror” and considered it “proof that the authorities in Priština are striking not only at the subjectivity of Serbs, but at the institutions that serve to save their lives”. The Serbian media also reported at a cracking pace that Dehan Spahić had been abducted at the personal (“PERSONAL”) request of Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti.

On Monday evening, tensions eased somewhat – it turned out that Dejan Spahić “regained his freedom after seven hours of detention, imprisonment and humiliating interrogations”.

Even top Belgrade officials did not hold back their tweets on the matter. “Confirmed – Dejan is already at large”, wrote officials at the Serbian PM’s office. The results of the forensic medical examination were not publicised – suggesting that the impetuous 32-year-old, probably recognized by Kosovo special forces in one of the photos of the previous day’s scuffle, was held for three hours in a police car on the side of the road, with poor cooling, presumably clipped round the ear a couple of times as well. As evidence of the low standards of the rule of law in Kosovo – this is a telling picture. As the subject of a conversation between Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (and “super-minister” Petar Petković and EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue Miroslav Lajčak) – a rather trivial matter.

Menacing smear

Tuesday was quieter. But already on Wednesday morning... On Wednesday morning in the town of Kišnica on the outskirts of Priština, one of the many mini-enclosures, on the bilingual plaque with the name of the village (“Кишница / Kishnicë”) someone – it pains me to say! – smeared the Serbian variant of the name with black paint. And as if that wasn’t enough – on a nearby pole appeared a plaque with the name and symbols of the UÇK, or Kosovo’s independence guerrillas of the 1990s, with a lot on their conscience and as much hated by Serbs as officially revered by the Kosovo authorities.

Let’s recap: a smear of black paint and a placard, thousands of which hang on every other street corner in Kosovo anyway. Taken together, it looks like the result of the combined actions of a teenager returning from a party with beer and spray paint and an overzealous junior clerk at the municipal office of Priština, Gračanica. But not in the eyes of the Kosovo Chancellery! “These [two] boards are viewed by Serbs living in the Serbian part of Kishnitsa. It represents an obvious threat directed against the Serbian people, who have suffered so terribly at the hands of this terrorist organization. (...) There is no doubt that we are dealing with yet another provocation directed by the Albanians, who are encouraged by the anti-Serbian policies of Priština and Albin Kurti personally, whose main goal of action is to expel everything Serb from Kosovo” – Dr Petkovic’s office assessed the situation in a statement from August 3. If micro incidents are described by central offices in similarly histrionic language, it’s no wonder that war correspondents have to pull their backpack off the cubbyhole every quarter of an hour.

So much for the fact that the conflict – low-intensity at first, of course, pacified not by regular NATO units, but by the EU police mission EULEX, and as a last resort by the NATO military-police KFOR – could indeed erupt at any time. And every brawl that under other circumstances would hardly merit a mention in the local media – an anointed plaque, a detained hooligan, a few shots fired in the air by a bloodthirsty Balkan uncle – echoes back. For all serious observers realise that the northern part of Kosovo cannot function in a state of permanent contradiction, which is the subjection of one area to two reluctant states, and neither of which recognises the other. This contradiction breeds tension that at some point must shoot out like a spring that has been stretched out too much.

The Great Kosovo Contradiction

The case of Kosovo has already made its way into all political science textbooks, so let’s just recall the most important: in the summer of 1999, under pressure from NATO, Serbia withdrew its military and police from Kosovo, after which in an area devastated by war, terrorist actions and scorched-earth policy, already among the poorest in Europe, a more chaotic reconstruction began than elsewhere, secured militarily and politically by NATO (especially the United States), and police and economically by the Union.

The Great Kosovo Contradiction remained in effect even then: it was known that there was no way the entire area could be returned to Serbian control, not only because of the obvious disparity of power, but also because of the disastrous legacy of Serbian rule, the colossal demographic disparity (even then 9/10 of Kosovo’s population was Albanian) and the determination of the local elite. It was also known that Belgrade could not agree to give up, just like that, its constitutional territory – because of Kosovo’s historical significance, because of the prestige and sovereignty of the state, and finally because of 100,000 Serbs living in Kosovo, 6 percent of the population.

What remained was a makeshift, “provisional state” – like all provisional states gaining importance, taking on more formal frameworks, looking more and more like something taken for granted in the eyes of subsequent generations. In 2004, Kosovo held its first parliamentary elections; in February 2008, the next elected parliament proclaimed Kosovo’s independence (which, it goes without saying, was not recognized by Serbia and dozens of other countries, from Russia, China and India to most of Latin America, Greece and Romania: some driven by fear of separatism, others by loyalty or antipathy, still others by solidarity among adherents of the Orthodox faith).

There is no good solution. In 2016, Aleksandar Vučić, then in his position as Serbia’s prime minister, declared in a moment of desperation that “the only solution to the Kosovo problem would be for Serbia to recognise the independence of the Republic of Kosovo – but this is impossible and will never happen.” Impossible is impossible: back in 2013, then-Prime Ministers Ivica Dačić and Hashim Thaci signed an agreement on “normalisation principles” in Brussels.

The core of this agreement – which did not discuss at all issues as distant and as impossible as the future of Kosovo as a whole – was the fate of the aforementioned 100,000 Serbs who did not migrate north after 1999, had land, workshops, and jobs here for generations, and are felling “at home.” Some – in scattered municipalities in the west and south of Kosovo. Most – in a compact area in the north of the region, the actual center of which is the nearly 70,000-strong Kosovska Mitrovica.

Picturesque bridges

This very area represents another level of the paradox. Formally – it is part of the Republic of Kosovo, its border is protected by border guard units, and the area is subject to the laws and administration based in Priština. Actually – the border with Serbia, with the exception of a few vehicle crossings and their immediate surroundings, it is not guarded. Instead, an informal border exists between the “Serbian part” and the rest of Kosovo; its hydrographic manifestation is the Ibar River separating the two areas, and its photogenic symbol – the bridges over the river, which are still closed or partitioned today.

But the border is only a line on the map! Priština, considering this territory as part of its state, is obliged to contribute to local roads, schools and health centers. But Belgrade, too, considering this territory a part of its state, is obliged to pay teachers’ salaries and pensions after all! Which, by the way, it does all the more eagerly, since these pensions are not so plentiful, and the compatriots, oppressed by the “anti-Serbian policies of Priština and Albin Kurti personally,” should be supported. Of course, it’s nice to get two salaries – but is it necessary to explain how many paradoxes, conflicts and criminogenic situations are created by the existence of a territory administered and financed by two centres of power that do not recognize each other?

It was the aforementioned 2013 Brussels Agreement that was supposed to settle this. It was a compromise wrapped in the tissue paper of a settlement and threaded with inconsistencies: four municipalities in northern Kosovo (Mitrovica as well as Zvečan, Zubin Potok and Leposavić) were to control “the areas of health, education, economic development and municipal affairs.” At the same time, “police divisions in the area of the four municipalities were to be fully subordinated to regional police authorities, BUT they were to be headed by a Kosovar Serb; judicial bodies were to be integrated into the Kosovar judiciary system, BUT a separate district court unit was to be established in Mitrovica.”

The plates of disagreement

Since 2013, as before, there has been a de facto – what to call it – bi-power? Bi-authority? Northern Kosovo settles inheritance and divorce cases according to Serbian law, but second-instance appeals sometimes go to Priština. Order on the streets is guarded by Serbian police officers (EULEX units were already withdrawn from northern Kosovo after the 2011 unrest), but occasionally ROSU special units will seize someone (like the unfortunate Dejan, a sanitation driver) on some highway connecting municipalities in southern Kosovo with those in the north. In Mitrovica itself, one drives on Serbian number plates – but when one has to move on to the capital (Priština), one turns the plates to Kosovar ones. And that’s what the plates were about…

Because the number plates are among the three ritualistic flashpoints.

The first are the border crossings. As has been said, they lie – Jarinje, Brnjak and Merdare – on the border between the Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of Serbia. They don’t bother anyone on a daily basis, but given the narrow width of the roads (there is no highway; the largest of the crossings, Jarinje, resembles Polish Łysa Polana from before it was repaired), blocking them with a truck rolled to the side is as easy as it is pleasant.

The second issue is the Serbian members of the Kosovo parliament, the Serbian List deputies. They represent a minority from the north, sit in the parliament of a state they do not recognize and every now and then declare their intention to give up their seats and leave the parliamentary benches. They are usually urged to moderation by the authorities in Belgrade, for whom their presence is one more tool for maintaining behind-the-scenes relations. As calculated by Vreme weekly journalist Sofija Popovic, since the beginning of the current term, in March 2018, Serbian List has threatened to give up its seats six times – most recently in April this year.

Indeed, the Kosovo Serbs even have their own minister in the unrecognised government, representing the Serbian List, Goran Rakić. “I am part of this government, but I represent the opposition to this government – Rakić recently declared. – I was not elected by Mr Kurti, but by the Serbian people.” Speaking of contradictions!

And finally, the plates, plates and travel documents. Serbian authorities, while not recognizing Kosovo de iure, also do not recognize its number plates, and so they require its citizens crossing the border at Jarinj, Brnjak or Merdare to install temporary plates. They also do not recognize passports – so they require them to be deposited at a border post and accept a “temporary travel document.”

Of course, Albanians don’t like it – so much so that there really aren’t many people from Priština going to Belgrade these days. Serbs from Mitrovica, on the other hand, have so far not given a damn about this regulation: if they were going to Belgrade or to the market in the almost border (but already Serbian) Raška, they waved their Serbian ID and drove on the same – that is, Serbian – plates as always.

Uncle Vasa goes to the market

Meanwhile, the Kurti government decided this summer (possibly in connection with the broader geopolitical situation and a desire to say “check” to Serbia’s obvious protector, Russia) to perhaps do something about this paradox. And it decided to enforce, as of August 1, that Kosovo citizens use Kosovo license plates – and, reciprocally, deposit a Serbian passport at the border and receive a temporary travel document.

Of course, hardly anyone from Belgrade is going to Priština these days. But already for Uncle Vasa, going to the market in Raška, the necessity of changing number plates twice (even if the Kosovo police would look at such, after all, illegal precedent through their fingers) is difficult to accept. To top it all, getting rid of the ID...!

The regulation on the boards was issued on July 1 this year – reporters had a month to prepare for the blockade of crossings. On August 1, Kosovo went up in smoke. It smoked – and went out: as late as July 31 evening, the U.S. ambassador to Priština called for a “temporary easing of the communications regime,” in the afternoon of August 1 the Kurti government decided to suspend the new regulation for a month.

What does a month mean? And what does it really do? On September 1, traffic will be heavier than on August 1. Pumpkins, grapes and onions will be going to the market in Raška from over the Ibrus, between Rudnik, Zubin Potok and Mitrovica, school buses and cars full of freshmen will roll out – beware! Does anyone imagine that tens of thousands of signs – with “PR” as Priština, “KM” as Kosovska Mitrovica and “ĐA” as Đakovica – will be replaced that day with temporary ones with the letters “RKS” or the usual ones with Kosovo’s emblem?

Most likely not – and it can even be considered that the Kurti government, by pushing for the regulation of the number plates, has put itself in a lost position. Again, fearing barricades, EU representatives will negotiate some temporary solution, a compromise wrapped in inconsistency.

Unfortunately, this is the case with everything. The legal situation of a territory governed by two feuding capitals with powerful protectors resembles a knot in which, in addition, most of the visible strings have been cut – so that it is not very possible to untangle it, even if one wanted to. The cause of another increase in tension may be the plates, but also, for example, the cut of the hats of police officers patrolling the north of Kosovo. Or the placard hanging at the entrance to the Zvečan district court. Or the need to fill out a certificate for vaccinating a dog in two languages, Serbian and Albanian. And it doesn’t always end with the ritual blocking of a mountain highway and flying, to spite those there, a Serbian or UÇK flag on a local bridge.

All these are caps – but Kosovo lies on a mine. And that may be why on Monday, August 1, Ukraine decided to withdraw its soldiers from the KFOR mission in Kosovo. After all, one Ukrainian had already been killed in that mission in March 2008, while trying to push Serbian protesters out of the Mitrovica courthouse. Today those soldiers have the opportunity for a more direct confrontation with Russia.

–Wojciech Stanisławski

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and journalists

–Translated by jz