Violence in Kosovo can escalate quickly. Why is the country so fractious, and what prompted the latest unrest? We explain
troops guarding a town hall in Zvecan in northern Kosovo, alarms sounded in the chancelleries of Europe and in Washington. At least 80 people were hurt, including 30NATO
troops had killed any of the Serbs, the situation would have quickly turned from a nasty scuffle in a Balkan backwater to an incident thatwould have exploited, accusing the peacekeepers of killing unarmed civilians. Violence in Kosovo can escalate quickly. Why is the country so fractious, and what prompted the latest unrest?
Until the violent break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Kosovo was part of the country—not as a republic within the federation, but a province of Serbia. Today, for that reason, Serbia’s leaders argue that Kosovo has no right to the independence it declared in 2008. But by then Serbia could do nothing to stop it. Serbia’s rule over Kosovo was forcibly ended in 1999, whenintervened to stop fighting between Serbian security forces and ethnic-Albanian guerrillas.
In 2013 the governments of Serbia and Kosovo struck a co-operation deal. One part foresaw the granting of some form of autonomy to Serbian majority municipalities in Kosovo, including the four in the north. But this never happened. In 2015 Kosovo’s constitutional court ruled that the plan was “not entirely in compliance with the spirit of the constitution”. When he was in opposition Albin Kurti, Kosovo’s current prime minister, campaigned against it.
Mr Kurti’s actions have enraged Kosovo’s Western backers. But Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s leader, is in no position to capitalise on the situation. His refusal to join the West’s sanctions on Russia has, and he is facing big anti-government demonstrations at home. The main Kosovo-Serb party is a subsidiary of his Serbian Progressive Party, but many Kosovo Serbs have lost faith in it. Instead, they see themselves as victims of political games played between Serbian and Kosovo-Albanian leaders.
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