Sometimes the most widely acknowledged problems are the ones that are most difficult to nail down. They are the the quotidian problems of life, the news that surprises no one, the facts that are as invisible and as omnipresent as the air we breathe. As one such issue in Kosovo, corruption might as well be respiration there.

I met Lorik Bajrami in a noisy Prishtina café last week to discuss his work at a local anti-corruption organization named Çohu. He was enthusiastic about his work and more than helpful, but when I continued to ask him for the names and networks that constitute Prishtina’s political bazaar, his sly humor surfaced. As I ran down my list of private establishments and public institutions in Prishtina, he leaned back in his chair and said with a knowing grin, “I think you are maybe a police investigator. I think you already know these things. Everyone knows these things.”

We’ve been taking a fresh look at the prospects for full independence for Kosovo since the recent events in the north. We learned a lot about the forces at play on the ground by travelling to the north; assessing Kosovo’s governing capacity, however, always brings us back to Prishtina. It’s easy to point accusatory fingers at the north and its problems, but the regular and systemic swindling that happens in the central government is no less astonishing.

Lorik’s wit notwithstanding, official corruption is not easily unearthed and corroborated. My questions concerning corruption, political influence, and the failure of cumbersome institutions here frequently engender sardonic confirmations, “Of course!”  But the follow-up questions often elicit only vague references and generalizations dressed in nondescript pronouns. Too many prefer to give only a wink and a nod rather than names and sources. This is not a shocker, of course; corruption is by definition shady and informal, but it is nonetheless troubling how impervious these problems remain to the very institutions that should be sorting them out.

Journalists, EULEX officials, civil servants, and activists have all told me story after story about suspicious conduct. Many of these stories are never opened as official cases. Of the ones that are, few merit more than a couple hundred words in the press, and most seem to fade away without prosecutions or systemic reform. In 2006, for instance, Jona Med, a pharmaceutical company, filed a suit against the Ministry of Health for mismanagement of a tender issued by then-Health Minister Alush Gashi. A local prosecutor handled the case, and the Ministry of Health lost. In 2009, after “missing” its opportunity to appeal, it quietly paid 1.4 million euro to Jona Med. In 2010, Minister of Health Bujar Bukoshi wrote letters to Minister of Internal Affairs Bajram Rexhepi and Chief Prosecutor of Kosovo Ismet Kabashi alleging that the damages were awarded without merit. The letters claim that the whole case and payout was set up by organized crime, and they even implicate former Minister of Justice Nekibe Kelmendi, whose sister is married into the Deshishku family, which owns Jona Med. Bukoshi called for prosecutions and publicly submitted the file to EULEX, but after that, the trail goes cold. Bukoshi is no longer the Minister of Health, and the name “Jona Med” is no where to be found among EULEX press releases, 2010 annual reports, or anywhere on the website.

Selvije Bajrami has been covering the justice beat in Prishtina since the middle of 2006. She has worked for a number of news outlets, but for the last two years she has been writing for Zëri, one of the two biggest newspapers in Kosovo.  It is unusual for journalists in Kosovo to focus for so long on one set of issues; Selvije says she believes perhaps only one other journalist besides her have spent any significant time covering the Kosovar judicial system.  We chatted for two intense hours; her insights will keep me busy for weeks.

It was Selvije who turned me on to the Jona Med story. She referred to it when I asked her whether she, as a widely recognized journalist invested in such a contentious beat, had run into censorship issues. She recalled with a smile how she had worked last year on a story about the Ministry of Health accusations. In the midst of this work, she received a call from her editor, a man she describes as “well connected” in the business world. He asked her how she was, and then queried casually about what she was working on. “Who called you?” she responded. As she had suspected, he had received a phone call from a Jona Med executive who warned Zëri to be careful about what it published on the case. Selvije and her editor agreed that she could go ahead with the story, but the article she published remained underdeveloped due to the limited availability of documentation and statements.

Lack of documentation is a problem Selvije deals with frequently in her job. She spends lots of time attending proceedings (often running through the night), but she can’t be everywhere at once. While she tries her best to follow developing cases and proceedings, there is not much readily available information. Not even the Chief state prosecutor’s office had a media spokesperson until 2011. Until now, the only media office in the Kosovar judicial system was for the Kosovo Judicial Council (KJC), but when Selvije visited the office to request some information, a very young woman stared back at her across the desk and said, “Look, I graduated with a degree in Albanology. I really don’t know that much about the law.”

“How do you get your information?” I asked Selvije. She said she calls a lot of judges and prosecutors. Her work has made her face a familiar one around the circuit. Still, there are limits to what they can or will share with her. More often than not, she is left with no sources she can name and a dead end in research. “I am a journalist. I respect my work. I can’t publish things without the right documents.”

Besides the Ministry of Health case, Selvije admits she has encountered problems with censorship and intimidation in the past. This is why she has bounced to and from several different publications, leaving offices whenever she has been explicitly asked to politicize and censor her work. She resigned after only six months of work at Express, a notoriously pro-PDK source. At one point she was hushed by a co-worker while casually recounting a story about a case she overheard in a district court in which a cousin of Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was accused of possession of an illegal firearm. Her jolly face crinkled with laughter as she told me the story, “I couldn’t even talk about it at lunch!”

Committed to covering corruption cases, Selvije tracks many allegations concerning public tenders to private companies. She and her editors have frequently received calls from private parties who use the prospects of an advertising boycott to keep stories from seeing the light of day. While covering criminal cases, she has also received threats to her personal safety, even sinister visits to her family’s home by friends or relatives of defendants.

Shutting out media coverage of court procedures certainly greases the wheels of corruption, but the roots of it go into places that are much deeper—and often darker. In last week’s blog, Susie mentioned the case of former Deputy Director of Customs Services Ekrem Hajdari. According to a high level EULEX official who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, Hajdari had arrested the owner of a local Prishtina club as part of an organized crime bust. The official candidly referred to the man as “the biggest criminal in the north.”  (His club has for years been on an UNMIK blacklist of criminally backed businesses that internationals should avoid attending or supporting). This begs the question of how committed Thaci and company are to busting up criminal organizations, considering Thaci himself ordered the release of the man the very same day of his arrest. It was not long after these events that Hajdari was beaten outside of his home, resigned from his position, and left Kosovo. This case, of course, did not make it into the press or the courts.

This post is only intended to give a small glimpse of the factors that continue to insulate mafia behavior and political strong-arming from genuine attempts to implement rule of law. In the coming weeks I will discuss the weaknesses in the Kosovar judicial structures, as well as the efforts of the Anti-Corruption Agency and the unnerving sluggishness of EULEX to follow leads or exact any real consequences for criminal behavior. I will revisit developments on former Police Director Reshat Maliqi’s termination and the political connections of his successor.

For now, corruption and criminality in the higher echelons of government in Kosovo remain as common and as invisible as the air we breathe, and top players continue to maintain a frightening level of insulation from exposure, investigation, and prosecution. Amongst the buzz of public secrets, holes in the budget loom, and leaky public contracts and breakneck privatization speed along, complemented by a sinister backdrop of intimidations, unexplained resignations, and unreported attacks.

The road from Pristina to Mitrovica, and then on to Leposavic, has become a daily routine in the last two weeks. Since conflict broke out along the northern border, we’ve found ourselves leaving behind the Kosovo we came to know in Pristina and Prizren in an effort to track down contacts and leads along the Ibar River. It’s been yawning mornings on the road—saved by the world-class and shamefully affordable Kosovo macchiato—and late evenings greeting Dragodan Hill under darkening skies. But this bumpy commute back and forth is more than a car ride—its like moving between different worlds: different languages, different currencies, different politics, and an entirely different set of rules to the game.

The border dispute that broke out in late July, and the ensuing politics, have brought into full relief the complex set of issues surrounding the northern region. Organizations, from the International Crisis Group (ICG) and European Stability Initiative (ESI) to UNDP, have been warning about failing public security and the rickety judicial structures in Mitrovica and beyond since before the 2008 UDI. Up until now, these facts have hung gloomily over all the upbeat reports of progress in the region. But in the face of popular Serbian backlash to Kosovo Police (KP) actions, all of these warnings have turned out to be prescient.

Though the KP, the Kosovar state’s primary public security institution, has made progress on ethnic diversity and strengthened their presence in the north since the mid 2000’s, they are notoriously ineffectual. Community relations, essential for good policing, remain poor. According to a 2010 UNDP Survey only 3.4% of Kosovar Serbs in Mitrovica favored the KP as the main institution providing security in their municipality. In contrast, 52.3% chose KFOR, and another 35.2% chose Serbian Police (which were technically banned from Kosovo under UNSC Resolution 1244 way back in 1999). Earlier this year EULEX officials complained that arrests and investigations in the north are consistently undermined by leaks from within the local KP. And this brings us to the present reality in Northern Kosovo. Once you pass Mitrovica, the road begins to snake, the green, wild looking hills grow larger and rockier, and the KP’s presence is noticeably thinner. But the land is not lawless. It is widely understood that Serb policemen continue to lurk in plainclothes—an enduring pillar of community justice structures—and while you may not find its leadership delineated in a public directory, clearly there is a system of order in place.

Last week our interview attempts were dismissed more than once by Serbs at roadblocks. We’d pull up to a general store near a Serbian flag draped over a woodpile strewn across the road and approach a group of watchers. Most frequently the response was something like, “We can’t talk… maybe the people in charge…” At one point, a ‘person in charge’ pulled up behind us in a black Mercedes while we were mid-request and told us to get the hell out of there, which we promptly did.

After interviewing KFOR troops at gate 31, we stopped at a restaurant and sat with some guys keeping an eye on the checkpoint. (KFOR told us this group serves as a relatively friendly communication line between them and the community. Troops tell them what the present rules of the road are—the kinds of things they will allow across the border, quantities, containers, products—and the watchers bring this information back to to the community. This informal communication prevents citizens from being turned back on arrival at the border. KFOR doesn’t need ordinary Serbs to grow even more resentful.) The group exchanged questioning looks as we approached the restaurant awning. On our inquiry, our interpreter Danica told us they couldn’t talk, but could offer us a sandwich if we were hungry. “They are just working here,” she said. “They live nearby and they come here to work for eight hours a day. We can maybe talk with a person in charge in Leposavic.” I looked around at the group on the pleasant little porch, the empty coffee mugs and full cups of beer sitting in front of them. “To work? You mean watching the road?” Danica quickly nodded, “Yes, of course.”

Then we met journalist X (see Susie Taylor’s recent piece “Politics and People”), and the routine changed.  Yawn, drive, coffee outside Mitrovica. “Who you want to speak with? Where are you going?” X’s hands flip between the three phones laid out in front of him on the table. “One moment, I will call.” One sim card out, another flies in, battery clicks into place, and he rattles off in Serbian until the table comes to life with the vibration of an incoming call on a different phone. ”Here is the number. Call, tell him I sent you,” or “Call, don’t tell him I sent you.” Doors began to open.

As Susie outlined, there are extensive criminal and political organizations pulling strings in the north. And while disputes often seem to be a battle of influence between Belgrade and Pristina as demonstrated by the negotiations that took place on Tuesday between Serbian leaders and local Kosovo leaders regarding the removal of barricades, the region seems to have become a third party. Some leaders in the north have taken on a renegade attitude, not only hostile to Pristina’s enforcement but lashing out at a “treasonous” Belgrade for their agreements with KFOR. As X pointed out, criminality thrives in this state of confusion. There is an order in North Kosovo, but the various actors have an interest in maintaining the status quo.

As Branko Ninić, mayor of Leposavic municipality, told us on Wednesday morning, this comes at the cost of regular citizens. Following the dramatic flare-up two weeks ago, KFOR stepped in to secure borders. But that’s an emergency response and KFOR is not meant to police communities. While interest groups capitalize on political rifts, corruption thrives, and the personal security of citizens depends more on community connections than any rule of law. This is felt at the local level: the same UNDP survey referenced above shows a majority of Mitrovica citizens feel that life isn’t safe there (though according to both ICG & UNDP, crime rates don’t actually appear much higher than in other Balkan locations).

So whom do we prop up to solve these problems? Since 2008, Pristina, in partnership with EULEX, has attempted to make inroads in the north, but it’s been rocky. There have been attempts to recruit more Serb KP officers, but they frequently get caught between their communities and their jobs. I recall last month sitting across a dimly lit dinner table in an informal meeting with a high level EULEX policing official before all of this began. When I asked about Kosovo Police in the north—if there were any officers I could talk to—he sat back in his chair looking bemused. “It’s not like that.” I almost expected him to add “honey”. “Police up there are frightened, they call me [on the phone] frightened. They get attacked for doing their job, and there’s nothing to protect them. I can’t give you any contacts.”

On Wednesday evening I spoke with ex-Police Director Reshat Maliqi, and he confirmed the situation. While director, he was frustrated by the seeming impotence of structures in the north. “Why am I getting calls from the police that they are being threatened? You are the station commander, arrest them!” But intimidation is complicated and politics stand in the way of improving operations. Earlier this year, two station commanders from the north were scheduled to rotate positions. One requested the move because he faced threats in his municipality, the other had been promised by a colleague of Maliqi’s to be returned to his municipality after serving at Gate 31 for six months. Maliqi approved both relocations, but carrying out the change required a shuffle of a total of six station commanders. When the time came, it became clear this rocked the boat too much. The station commanders (including the two for which the adjustment had originally been instigated) reported that they were not prepared to follow commands. Even the commander under threat took back his request. Maliqi suspended them for 48 hours—protocol for a break in the chain of command—and invited them to a meeting in North Mitrovica to discuss the problem. Two of the commanders attended, their suspension was rescinded, and they were reinstated in active duty; the other four were terminated. Maliqi’s frustration surrounding the incident is palpable.

Reshat is no spring chicken, he began his policing career in 1975 as a young cadet at the police academy in Vushtrri, and has been involved in policing ever since. Like most other Kosovars, his life was overturned by the war, but he has continues to be dedicated to his career, and has been in service almost without interruption for the last thirty plus years. He is pragmatic and experienced, and very dedicated to the Kosovar Police.

When I asked about working with EULEX, Reshat spoke carefully. “I have had good experience with EULEX, we have worked very closely.” But he couldn’t help express frustration, too. He believes in propping up the KP in the north, and views it as a cornerstone for improving other institutions, and several times EULEX has stood in his way. When he wanted to send Albanian forces into the north—even only as traffic cops—EULEX resisted, afraid it would stoke tensions. “I don’t have enough Serbs to increase the number of police officers… I would like to send Albanians. EULEX resisted on that. I told them, well I don’t have the Serbs, and it’s necessary to increase the number.” As if to illustrate his point, earlier this year there was an attack on a female KP officer’s house near Leposavic. Maliqi says he had requested EULEX to increase security around her house beforehand as there were signs that the officer and her husband might be at risk. He says EULEX surveillance teams observed the attack by two other officers clad in KP uniforms but failed to arrest either of them.

Hearing Maliqi relate these frustrations of his job, and his professed loyalty to ideals for rule of law and objectivity, its easy to start sympathizing and feel like maybe with a little extra capacity and overt support from the international community, things could be a whole lot better. But it’s not that simple. Criminals in the north have strong community connections and local support, so law enforcement institutions lack legitimacy. And EULEX actions do frequently provoke revolt—a recent arrest in June instigated a roadblock protest. And furthermore, the KP has a whole slew of problems faithfully carrying out their job all across Kosovo—including right here in Pristina.

Since 2008, when the KP graduated from UNMIK supervision and became a full-fledged department in the Kosovar government, it seems to have become increasingly subject to political influence. According to Nedgemin Spahu, director of Radio Mitrovice (located in the south), “they were better under UNMIK.” Spahu says there is no guarantee of personal safety for anyone. As political parties have exerted influence (both the Democratic Party of Kosovo and Democratic League of Kosovo have historical association with different intelligence sectors in Kosovo, and each has made moves to control the development of the KP), the force seems to have gotten less effective. Furthermore, as the EULEX official noted to me last month, EULEX oversight is too removed from what’s going on. He pointed out that while their mandate is supervision, its not carried out in a meaningful way. How can you supervise an officer if you never go to his work place to see him? He recounted how a six-month KP progress report was publicly presented in Pristina but only in Albanian. This surprised a visiting journalist, who wondered how supervisors from the international community might understand the presentation. But there was no issue—none attended.

However, the problems don’t just lie at the community level. The reason I found myself sitting across from Reshat Maliqi at 7pm at a pizza parlor table in Prishtina is because was recently released from his position as Police Director, and despite some reports that it was a voluntary resignation, he says that is definitely not the case. Maliqi described some of his initiatives prior to his dismissal. These included implementing a new system which would streamline command and cut down on the number of colonels (the highest paid policing positions). The mechanisms would create a more systemic mechanism for promotion, possibly stemming some political influence. And he had tried to rotate some high level police officials into different positions because “they weren’t doing their jobs well,” or or because there were indications they were involved in suspect activity. According to Maliqi, these efforts were not popular among the politicians and may have led to his termination.

Looking at the security crisis in the north, one can lament the lack of institutions and the lawlessness, and the crime that flourishes in this vacuum. But corruption is endemic in the entire country. As the Kosovar government seeks to expand its control, justifying it in part as a measure to control crime and corruption, it’s difficult to take them at their word. Without improving transparency and rule of law in the central government, the prospects of securing a restive semi-autonomous territory seems unlikely at best.

Sitting across the table from me is a slender, blond Kosovar woman who is home in Pristina for the summer between semesters at McGill, where she is pursuing her M.A. in International Relations. She is engaged in conversation with a young Kosovar man, recently returned from London to begin work at the The World Bank supporting the Kosovo Ministry of Trade and Industry. They are discussing the recent customs dispute, in English and Albanian, and wondering aloud at the potential economic impact of the embargo on the Serbian economy. She believes the impact will be significant–he disagrees loudly enough that the rest of the cafe quiets noticably. Neither of them cite any actual trade figures.

This conversation is representative of many of the discussions had in the realm of Kosovar public policy. When I asked my two table-mates where they got their statistical information, she looked puzzled and he gave me the name of an organization that doesn’t recognize Kosovo’s independence and therefore collects no statistics on trade balances. The fact is that no one is sure how things are going, because the government agencies responsible for reporting facts and figures are notoriously tight-lipped and often willfully ignorant.

I sat down with Albin Kurti and Shpend Ahmeti, two leaders of the Vetevendosje (self-determination) party which garnered roughly 13% of the popular vote in the last parliamentary election, to discuss their opposition to the work performed by the Privatization Agency of Kosovo (PAK). Both Mssrs Kurti and Ahmeti are against the proposed privatization of Post and Telecoms Kosova (PTK), the publicly-owned postal and telecommunications service provider. Mr Ahmeti, a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and former head of the New Spirit Party, is particularly adamant that privatization should not move forward before a full cost/benefit analysis, including long-term revenue projections, is performed. But who would pay for and undertake such a report? Mr Ahmeti will find few advocates for more reporting in the current administration.

One set of data readily available, however, are the Pristina government’s outstanding debts. While the debate between privatization and continued public ownership takes place in parliament, Kosovo’s debts are coming due. One particular large red mark in the ledger is the Albania-Kosovo Highway, a €700m project linking Pristina to Tirana that will reduce travel time to a mere three hours. To pay for the road, the current administration plans to sell off state-owned assets (including PTK). The road, according to Mr Kurti, is a mechanism to advance the privatization agenda of the current administration by forcing the government to raise revenues otherwise unavailable.

Neither camp is awfully fond of citing numbers. The PTK annual report for 2010 shows revenue increasing 5.6% year-on-year in 2010 to €70.3m, but does not list operating costs. While the subscriber base increased 7.2% over the same period to over 1m total subscribers, the report does not list employment statistics. Knowing whether PTK will continue to show profit over the in the medium- to long-term is a function of projecting costs and revenues–an exercise currently outside the capacity of government sponsors. The numbers are certainly there, but they remain unavailable because they are not demanded.

The uncertainty surrounding a major policy question, in this case whether government revenues would be higher with a public or private PTK, results in an ideological debate when sound data is lacking or outside the realm of discussion. According to Atdhe Hetemi, a project officer at UNDP responsible for generating content for their Public Pulse report, the lack of reliable data is a product of indifference and complacency. He urged me to stop by the Statistical Office of Kosovo (KOS), to check in on their work, related to both government reporting and the 2011 census project.

The KOS stands three stories high next to both the municipal court and a large pile of rubble. In the front entrance, the security guard barely looks up from what appears to be an eye-resting regimen. There is no secretary to be found, nor does there seem to be a reception area of any kind. Two tables in an inner courtyard are populated with coffee drinkers, but most of the offices in the halls are empty. At 2pm on a Monday, very few desks seem to have seen much action. No one seems to working on the census, the early results of which suggest the numbers are inaccurate (Pristina’s population was listed a mere 200,000, which most citizens agree is well below the true figure). Considering the paucity of publications from KOS (outside of a a semi-helpful annual report), it is little wonder the office is so inactive.

The inactivity of the KOS has led to the creation of alternative data-sets. The UNDP’s Public Pulse report has been the object of much attention from international NGOs in the past year, given the methodology employed and the speed at which the results are published. The report, resulting from a survey of 1200 individuals, captures information on consumer confidence, political participation and satisfaction with government. Public Pulse marks the first non-governmental effort to capture a demographic snapshot of Kosovo, and as such will likely provide an excellent reference for policy-makers.

While lamentable, poor data collection and reporting is completely understandable for a government emerging from conflict. Current administrators almost certainly extract enormous rents from government tenders and public contracts, a practice that would be threatened by better reporting. Furthermore, lack of supporting evidence keeps both support and critique of government policy in the realms of the qualitative and ideological. In addition, international interventionists are often willing to deal with local power brokers, trading corruption for stability and entrenching corrupt practices within newly-established institutions. But such a trade-off should not be permanent. It is up to Kosovar institutions to begin holding politicians to account, and accounts cannot be balanced without good data.

The main bridge that passes between the North and South of Mitrovica is short.  It’s a steel truss structure, rebuilt in 2005 by KFOR; decorative metallic framing wings out and arches high across on both sides, as if determinedly trying to declare a strength of connection between the two riverbanks. Driving into Mitrovica in our little rental vehicle I was taken aback at how quickly the structure approached us—no ominous or climactic signals, no buffer zone between the quiet Saturday afternoon activities and this infamous fault line. I stood in the center boulevard on the southern Albanian side, staring across this brief two-lane segment of pavement that crosses the Ibar River, and wondered about these two communities so notoriously at odds. From the literature and the stories one imagines formidable barriers in this place—some great palpable force of division. But the little bridge seems benign, and despite the drama that played out earlier this week at the border, is almost deserted. The clicking of KFOR, Carabinieri, KP, and EULEX boots at each of the four corners of the bridge echoed across empty pavement. Occasionally a single vehicle passed through. A young mother let her small boy pull her out onto the bridge, but when they neared the center she shook her head and restrained him, patiently quieting him in Albanian. I walked from one side of the bridge straight across to the other—a privilege of my foreign nationality—and reflected on how this short span had become a measure of distance rather than access; how bridges become borders, and whether they can be changed back.

Mitrovica is at the fault line of Kosovo’s ethnic divide—the city a geographical manifestation of the rift between Serbs and Albanians. Deciding who will control the North has been an exceedingly sensitive topic in the last 12 years. The issue has been studiously skirted in efforts to diffuse tensions, but this has both populations living in a sort of limbo. The Kosovar government’s recent attempt at wresting control over its border with Serbia has pushed the question to the fore again. With political rhetoric escalating, the status quo feels increasingly untenable. But what is the alternative? Neither partitioning of the region, nor the full integration of Northern Mitrovica into Kosovo’s sovereign territory are particularly appealing options.

Integration and partition have both been on the table in Kosovo since the end of the conflict. While Belgrade does not officially recognize the independence of any part of Kosovo, the possibility of partition has been unofficially floated as an acceptable outcome on their side. This could be unwise, the opening of a Pandora’s box of sorts, which would lead to another round of violent state reorganization around ethnicity in the region. Republika Srpska in Bosnia, the Albanian-dominated Presevo Valley in Serbia, and multi-ethnic Macedonia are all likely areas of conflict. On top of risks to regional stability, partition would probably not help Mitrovica and its environs economically. According to the European Stability Initiative, Northern Mitrovica is almost completely reliant on government funds. A great deal of this has traditionally come from Belgrade, but according to an International Crisis Group report released in March of this year, that assistance has drastically decreased.  While there is a need for Mitrovica to further develop the private sector and begin standing on its own two feet, partition may inhibit this effort. Cutting the North off from the South deprives northern businesses from the nearest sizeable markets; the closest alternative is Novi Pazar, 90 minutes away. While inter-ethnic relations may inhibit trade across the bridge to a degree in the present, locals claim that money and trade have always been (and remains) a connecting force between the two sides, regardless of pained relations, even if it happens quietly. Recent research seems to confirm this.

Integration is also not an easy sell. Simply giving the north over to Kosovo would seal the Serbian community off from many of the institutions they still currently rely on, not to mention the emotional connection to their “motherland.” Emotions would undoubtably run high, especially if this solution was imposed from outside. And though the Ahtisaari plan imagines the creation of a 38^thmunicipality (yet to be mapped out) largely along ethnic lines, with some autonomy as well as continued relation with Serbia, the new status would undeniably require increased interethnic interaction. What would this look like in North Mitrovica? Depends on whom you ask.

Interethnic relationships in Mitrovica, as in all of Kosovo, remain a complex issue. Serbs and Albanians have lived together in peace in Mitrovica for long stretches, but relations were grievously harmed by the conflict in the 90’s, and have progressively worsened with tit-for-tat outbursts of violence in the last twelve years. Not only is there still a thick layer of resistance between the groups, but a significant level of internal pressure encourages people to stick with their own, making it doubly risky to cross ethnic lines. You don’t know what is waiting for you on the other side of that bridge, or who will be waiting for you when you come back. And though mobility across the bridge has improved since 2008, Albanians still complain about the presence of “bridge watchers”—Serbian thugs who intimidate and attack Albanians that venture across.

This begs the question of some form of “reconciliation”—admittedly not a word I’ve found to be in the common vernacular here. When I question internationals on the subject, I am most frequently met with a knowing smile and a sideways nod. Albanian friends look at me with a grimace and a head-shake. “They haven’t even apologized. How can I negotiate, much less reconcile, with a people that killed thousands of my people, and they haven’t even apologized?” Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to speak with many Serbs in depth about these questions.

In the Albanian south of town, while the conflict is not forgotten, a mix of exhaustion, exasperation, and youthful hope for a better life may lead to a more hopeful future. Engjell, a young bank security guard in South Mitrovica, has mixed feelings but big aspirations. He used to live in North Mitrovica with his family, but was driven out during the conflict. “We still have two houses there, but they are burned, burned by our neighbors,” he laments.  His mother teaches in a small Albanian school in North Mitrovica. She travels back and forth each day on a big pink bus that runs between the Albanian enclave and the South, to a small building where she teaches two classes together, four children in first year and four children in fourth. “It is very hard, they have nothing there.” Engjell eagerly translated for us as we spoke with her.

Still, Engjell speaks hopefully about repairing relations between the two communities, and sees it as the only way forward. Last year he helped to organize an electronic concert and art collaboration for members of both communities. He tells us that both Serbs and Albanians attended, though many fewer Serbs than Albanians showed up. He believes many Serb artists wanted to come and collaborate, but were frightened by threats in their own communities. He seems to believe that there is potential for “breaking barriers” with young Serbs. He says the young “bridge watchers” may not even want to be there, but that times are hard and that thuggery undoubtedly serves as a sorely needed and readily available employment opportunity.

Engjell’s outlook sounds inspiring, but it is difficult to measure the accuracy with which he perceives the other side, and how Serbs would receive his statements. Albanians in South Mitrovica have an incentive to embrace tolerance, considering their interests in keeping the largely Serbian North in Kosovo.

But there may be other ways to connect the two communities, through working together for shared interests rather than directly seeking to reconcile the painful wounds of conflict.

Valdete Idrizi has been an active member of Kosovo civil society since the late 90’s, and for the last ten years she has been a leader of a small local NGO called Community Building Mitrovica (CBM). CBM was created in the hopes of reviving a more united Mitrovica, which Valdete says still survives as an ideal despite the politicization of the last twelve years. “We are there just to serve as a bridge and to soften this division,” she says. In the beginning, CBM existed in two offices, one in the North and one in the South, but in 2003 they decided they needed to lead by example. The entire staff, comprising members of all the various ethnic groups, joined together to work in the same office space in the center of town, near the symbolic bridge.

Valdete remembers a time when Mitrovica was not so divided, when it was a vibrant center of arts and culture. Several locally famous rock bands and popular jazz festivals got their start here. “Mitrovica was on top,” she says. “We wanted to try and restore that.” In 2008 CBM’s Mitrovica Rock School opened its doors. The school serves kids of all ages and from all communities, and gives them the means and outlets to produce music. The project has been a runaway success. Not only do the kids hang out together at school, CBM found they were contacting each other outside of school time to arrange their own bridge crossings to meet up. And beyond the kids, the Rock School gives parents in Mitrovica a reason to communicate regardless of their ethnic identity. Valdete recounts with a smile how parents would show up to events and seek each other out. “You must be so-and-so’s mother, ah yes, my daughter tells me he plays so well!” As parents watched their kids grow and succeed in the music school, the importance of ethnicity seemed to slip away.

But Valdete doesn’t just stick to rock-n-roll. Community projects, including the rock school, have instigated the organization of debates and community discussions that CBM has then helped to facilitate. In 2008 following the declaration of independence, a controversy over the installation of a water-piping system instigated an uproar of riots. Serbs reacted violently to the construction of the new pipe that would run through their communities to provide water to nearby Albanians. CBM recognized the need to create space for discussion, “Suddenly water became ‘Albanian water’, not ‘good quality water, ‘and so we discussed about that with people. So what is Albanian water, then, can you tell me? … Do you have good quality water?” Valdete and CBM pushed citizens to consider the issue in a practical, rather than a symbolic sense: solving on-the-ground community inefficiencies and increasing access to water supplies for everyone. Valdete believes that adamantly depoliticizing issues can bring people together and encourage positive relationships that precipitate productivity, breaking down divisiveness that only inhibits development. At the end of the debates, multi-ethnic CBM came forward publicly to sign a petition in support of the project, which is now in progress today.

Staring out across the bridge in Mitrovica, it is hard to imagine such small, close populations living such separate and parallel lives. By most indicators, the road to any sort of unity here is a whole lot longer than the distance across the Ibar. However, for the citizens in Mitrovica there are gains to be made by teaming up to restore a quality of life that was in living memory shared by both sides. The strength of civil society relationships may not be easily measurable, but when little else provides guarantee for a way forward, it may end up being a most valuable tool for future peace.

Knowing of our plans to travel to the divided city of Mitrovica this weekend, many of the friends we’ve met during our time in Kosovo called over the past week to warn us against going. Urging us to wait until things died down, they described a city set to explode, where we would be placing ourselves in imminent danger by merely walking around, let alone asking questions about the situation along the border.

Arriving in Mitrovica on Saturday morning put those fears to rest. As we drove along the main thoroughfares toward the bridge which separates the north and south sides of the city, everything appeared to be business as usual. Engjell, a security guard at a local bank, told us that everything has been calm so far–no indications of the imminent explosion of ethnic violence our Pristina-based friends warned us about. But if the situation is not palpably tense in a social sense, it is certainly tense on the political front.

The events of the past week are not merely the product of a customs dispute, as most news reports lazily indicate. Pristina’s actions are best understood as a move toward finally addressing the question of sovereignty in northern Kosovo. How the issue of collecting customs provides a pretext for confronting the sovereignty issue (which the international community has been content to let hang in limbo) and how unilateral action by Pristina forces the hand of the international community (particularly the ‘status neutral’ organizations) have been consistently absent in much of the available commentary.

Kosovo and Serbia have enjoyed a tumultuous trade history since the Kosovo unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) in 2008. While Kosovo was a signatory to the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) through UNMIK in March 2007, neither Serbia nor Bosnia (by veto of ethnic Serb minority political party Republika Srpska) recognize the validity of Kosovo’s accession to the treaty—anything bearing a ‘Republic of Kosovo’ customs stamp is turned back at either border. In 2010 imports from Serbia reached US$391m in 2010, while exports to Serbia were less than 5% of that number. Further compounding the problem from the Kosovar perspective was the lack of government customs officials on Serbian border checkpoints. Customs duties amounting to €30-100m have gone unclaimed each year—a serious loss of revenue for the government in Pristina.

Trade balance and custom stamp recognition were slated for UN-mediated negotiation at the end of July, but were postponed when mediator Robert Cooper recognized that the two sides were too far apart to reach agreement so soon. Postponing negotiations seemed enough to set off the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI), which had proposed a reciprocal embargo on Serbian imports as early as May 2011. On July 22nd, a decision handed down from Hacim Thaci, the Kosovo prime minister, ordered the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) to implement the embargo effective immediately—previously untaxed Serbian goods would be completely barred from entry into Kosovo, while goods from Bosnia would incur an additional 10% duty.

On July 25th, the KPS moved to secure the border checkpoint at Brnjak, halting or turning back tracks attempting passage into northern Kosovo. On the way to a second checkpoint at Jarinje, resistance from ethnic Serbs ground KPS movements to a halt. In the ensuing scuffle, one KPS officer was killed by gunshot, another injured from a hand grenade and several civilians were injured as well. On July 27th, ethnic Serbs burned the checkpoint at Jarinje in protest of KPS action. With the potential for regression into open conflict escalating, NATO forces moved to secure both border checkpoints, declaring the entire border region a ‘military zone’, giving NATO forces decision-making power over the use of force. Since the 27th, ethnic Serb protestors have made movement along the roads to border checkpoints difficult by sitting in roads or setting up physical roadblocks.

With NATO in control of Serbian border checkpoints, their actions will undoubtedly be construed as supporting either Serbian or Kosovar interests. If trucks are allowed to continue to pass into northern Kosovo, then NATO will severely undermine the legitimacy of the Kosovar government’s actions. If reports are true and trucks are not being allowed to cross the border, then Serbia will certainly take the NATO presence as support of the KPS checkpoint seizure attempt.

Meanwhile, stores in northern Mitrovica that rely on supplies from Serbia will be eating through inventories. With supply chains interrupted, communities in the north of Mitrovica will need to look elsewhere for goods. Many ethnic Serbs pay no income or sales taxes to the Kosovar government, and many of the cars on the streets of northern Mitrovica do not have license plates. Yet the disruption of daily life caused by the embargo along the border will negatively impact the quality of life for Kosovar Serbs far more than ethnic Albanians.

Whether the government in Pristina is willing to assume responsibility for the continued welfare for ethnic Serbs in the north is another story. Up to this point, Serbs living in northern Mitrovica have enjoyed privileged status due to the ambiguity of their political position. With customs checkpoints closed, this will certainly change. Should smuggling over porous borders in the north prove unable to fully satisfy demand, Serbs in northern Mitrovica will be forced to deal with their counterparts in the south. On top of additional charges for customs and transportation, the likelihood of Albanian companies charging Serbs a premium on business transactions remains present. This portends significant price shocks in the north, and drastic changes in prices can have unsettling social effects.

Ethnic Serbs are unlikely to get much sympathy from the majority ethnic Albanian government—complaints about increased cost of living after having lived tax-free for the past decade will likely fall on deaf ears. But ethnic Serbs will be looking for advocacy as times get tough, and the authorities in Belgrade will be eager to assume that role. If Pristina fails to sufficiently address the complaints of its citizens (as it claims Kosovar Serbs are), the international community will be put in a tough position. The embargo, while sending a strong political message, also sends a strong ethnic one. Kosovar Serbs are the most disadvantaged by recent actions—if nothing is done to even out the relative impact, tensions will certainly escalate.

Immediately following the July 27th checkpoint burning, consensus opinion seemed to be that Pristina had gambled and lost. By trying to assert authority in a region outside of its control, being subsequently pushed back by Serb resistance and allowing the Jarinje outpost to burn down, it seemed that the Kosovo Police Service had been outed as unable to secure claimed territory. Without a monopoly on the use of violence, Pristina seemingly lost bargaining power vis-a-vis Belgrade by showing itself unable to physically control northern territories.

But the actions of NATO forces have rescued the Kosovar government from a potentially costly gaffe. By securing the border and stopping trade, Kosovo has emerged victorious, even if still requiring international intervention to do so. Whether NATO will continue enforcing the embargo remains to be seen, but Pristina’s appeal to reciprocity on terms of trade is in the spirit of both CEFTA and the GATT, so continuation of a NATO-assisted embargo is at least feasible.*

Serbia must be feeling its bargaining position slipping from just weeks ago, when UN mediator Robert Cooper postponed negotiations on the customs issue until September. If the European Union is tired of the demands of the region, blame is placed equally on Serbia and Kosovo. From the standpoint of many international organizations present, Serbian intransigence in negotiations is as much to blame for the border standoff as Kosovar unilateral action. As ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo feel the pressure of economic isolation due to the embargo, negotiations on the customs issue will likely be undertaken with greater urgency. Such pressure to negotiate a workable position will certainly exacerbate the Serbian impression that status neutral organizations in practice favor an independent Kosovar state. Should Mr. Tadic pursue this line of reasoning, it could place organizations in the uncomfortable position of having to articulate how support of the embargo vibes with the position of status neutrality—an argument that would require a lot of harrumphing and hand-waving.

All of which places the ball squarely in Serbia’s court. In the coming days, Mr. Tadic must determine whether Belgrade will seriously challenge the legitimacy of recent actions on an international stage or merely accept them as the new status quo. Given the Serbian government’s priority of preserving de facto authority in the north, a challenge seems likely. Despite urgings from the EU that all issues be settled in bilateral negotiation, the actions of NATO indicate that the international community might be content to give Pristina a few more bargaining chips.

In the mean time, attention needs to be focused on the needs of Kosovar Serbs. With borders closed, responsibility falls to the government in Pristina to ensure their welfare**. Whether this position is tenable for Mr. Thaci’s PDK-led government remains to be seen, as appearance of preferential treatment would leave the prime minister open to internal criticism from minority parties. But if Kosovo is serious about claiming full sovereignty over the north, it must also accept full responsibility for the welfare of its citizens.

All is apparently calm in Mitrovica for now. Yet it is easy to see how tensions could easily boil over into open conflict. Much of the northern half of the city is composed of large projects housing ethnic Serbs in close quarters, standing in stark contrast to the bigger, nicer housing complexes on the south side—ethnic Albanian rhetoric that parallel institutions in the north have produced privilege and wealth obfuscates the reality that many ethnic Serbs live in relative poverty and squalor. While citizens of Mitrovica don’t seem to feel the short-term political consequences of the past week’s actions, they will begin to feel the economic consequences before too long. When that happens, the situation could change quickly and all interested parties will be forced back to negotiations in earnest. If both Belgrade and Pristian keep the welfare of Kosovar Serbs in mind, progress on the issue of sovereignty in the north could follow swiftly.

*The logic of appealing to the GATT or CEFTA requires recognition of Kosovo as a governing body to which GATT terms potentially apply—a position which Serbia would certainly challenge.