Postwar Deprivation Breeds Violent Crime in Kosovo

Hardships of Daily Life, Social Chaos Provoke an Increase in Killings, Robberies and Bombings

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Foreign Service

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia - Two cars recently brushed against one another in a small village 20 miles from here, an event normally unworthy of notice. But this is Kosovo, which often seems an otherworldly place.

One hapless driver was an ethnic Serb and the other was an ethnic Albanian. They argued, naturally, and within minutes, a crowd gathered. A riot ensued, causing a region-wide traffic jam. The crowd did not disperse until someone targeted one of the cars with a rocket-propelled grenade.

These days, this seems to be the Kosovo version of exchanging driver's license numbers.

In the midst of persistent deprivation stemming from last year's war and growing lawlessness in the social chaos that followed, a culture of violence is beginning to infect routine civic affairs.

With a barely functioning judicial system and an acute shortage of international police, Kosovo is experiencing a rash of bombings, robberies, kidnappings, assaults and highway banditry, not to mention garden variety slayings and house-burnings, as borne out by police reports compiled here in the capital of Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic.

Although there are no reliable statistics for comparing prewar and postwar crime rates, U.N. police have reported a surge, and anecdotal evidence is widely available. Some crimes are related to ethnic enmity, but many more appear to stem from petty disputes over money, property and business.

Two ethnic Albanians recently assaulted a third when he tried to stop children from fighting in Suva Reka, a recent police report said. In another case, a driver "produced a handgun and shot the other driver" dead after a recent traffic accident here, another report stated.

A week ago, employees of a bus company drove into a crowd of armed employees from a rival company along a road north of here, resulting in the shooting deaths of two men and the seizure of an AK-47 assault rifle.

Police say a Pristina man, angry about the price of champagne at one of the city's new girlie bars, recently detonated a bomb in retaliation outside the building at 4 a.m. Another man, apparently angry at being spurned for a job with the Kosovo police, tossed a grenade into the police union's Pristina headquarters, police said.

In postwar environments, violence can be "a sign of despair and disillusionment-of people being at the end of their tether," said Maryanne Loughry, a clinical psychologist at Oxford University's Refugee Study Center who visited Kosovo last month. "Formerly there was a great euphoria, but now they are facing the reality" of hard challenges.

"You are reminded of violence all the time," she said, and contributing to that sense of lawlessness is the belief that no one can provide adequate protection. Western officials say most local residents are still friendly toward international officials. Without NATO peacekeepers, many beleaguered Serbs said, they would be dead, and most ethnic Albanians say the foreigners' presence is critical to guaranteeing their autonomy from Serbia.

But the hardships of daily life--including the frequent absence of water, heat, electricity and telephone service--have exposed a growing bitterness.

Thieves have stolen electrical generators and cash boxes from humanitarian aid groups such as the Mother Teresa Society and the Norwegian Refugee Council. Gangs are pressuring the employees of other foreign groups--including NATO-to reveal where money is kept.

An Italian nongovernmental organization in the city of Pec was robbed of $10,000; the Libertas aid group was robbed of $3,000; the Red Cross office in Kosovo Polje was robbed. A car belonging to Doctors Without Borders was stolen in Pec, and valuables were taken from the Saudi Joint Relief Committee's office in Pristina. Two offices of DynCorp, the American firm that pays U.N. police, also were robbed.

Peacekeepers also have been targeted. Three ethnic Albanians assaulted a Belgian soldier recently and stole his handgun and ammunition in southern Kosovska Mitrovica. While German Gen. Klaus Reinhardt, the commander of NATO forces in Kosovo, stood on a tank to calm a large demonstration last month in Mitrovica, someone stole his pistol.

In Srbica, a 15-year-old ethnic Albanian shot and killed a Russian soldier who was escorting a Russian officer to a meeting with Albanian leaders.

Last week, the youth escaped from jail, probably with help, officials said.

"Given the number of weapons floating around and the enormous needs that so many have, I am astounded that there is not more" crime, said Lynn Jones, a clinical psychiatrist with Child Advocacy International who has worked extensively in Kosovo.

Jones rejected the notion of a predisposition toward crime in the region, saying, "The vast majority of ordinary citizens are remarkably restrained." But she said a lack of functioning institutions--such as courts, police, schools and employers who pay a decent wage--has fostered criminality.

The situation may get worse before it improves, she added. As others note, few courts are operating and those that do frequently decide in favor of well-connected ethnic Albanians. Only 2,335 police are deployed now, less than half the number called for by NATO and top U.N. administrator Bernard Kouchner.

"We don't see concrete action at the community level to try to stem the violence," complained Dennis, an official here. "No one is free from blame."

Veton Surroi, the editor of Koha Ditore, a leading ethnic Albanian newspaper, said he attributed much of the violence to a political leadership vacuum, a lack of local experience with democracy and the absence of a productive economy.

How much ethnic tolerance and patience would there be among citizens of other countries, Surroi asked, "if they had no heat, water and electricity for seven months?"

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