UNMIK/Fr/031/01
FEATURE RELEASE - 27 April 2001

Minority transport
Driving towards a multi-ethnic Kosovo

By Eleanor Beardsley

At the foot of the Karadak mountains, a school bus winds it's way through the tiny villages, vibrating with the noise of the 80 rowdy kids inside.  It's the end of the school day and everyone seems to be letting off steam.  For most of these high school students, it's the only chance they get during the day to socialize with their friends from other villages.  Seating is limited and the aisle is full, making it all the easier for the youth to tease and jab at each other.  Their laughter and voices fill the bus.  Through the din, the driver keeps his gaze steadfastly on the road ahead, concentrating on getting his charges to their final destination.  Anywhere in the world this might be a common, after-school scene.  Here in Kosovo it is nothing less than a small triumph.  Because these kids are Kosovo-Serb and the driver making sure they reach home safely is Kosovo-Albanian.

Back in Gjilan/Gnjilane, Jakup Berisha sits at his desk.  As Director of Kosovatrans Gjilan, he is the man responsible for the operation of this bus and 44 other buses in the Gjilan region.  Today, like every day, he has a lot on his mind.  But in light of the bomb that exploded in downtown Pristina just the day before, his thoughts come back often to the school bus making its way through the Kosovo countryside.

"When I see what happened yesterday, I think to myself, perhaps it's too big what I'm trying to do here.  Is it really worth it to try to build a mult-ethnic operation?  I mean, I have a moral responsibility for the people in my buses and for the drivers who take orders from me.  If something happens, I am the one who is responsible - and all of those families trust me with their children."
  
So why does he do it? I ask.  His quick response tells me he never really doubted in the first place.  "Yes, it's a big risk, but without taking risks we cannot go forward.  It is better to take risks sometimes than to stagnate.  And I believe that the Serbs have the right to move and circulate throughout Kosovo.  They should feel that Kosovo is their home - to feel free in a democratic, multi-ethnic Kosovo.  These enclaves are weird and they can't work.  We have to be together.  To live together in one society."

These are powerful words coming from a man who spent six months in solitary confinement in a Serbian prison.  Berisha and a handful of former prisoners are writing a book about their experience.  Entitled Dark Tunnels, the book is to be published sometime this autumn.  "A government can be wrong, but this doesn't make all the people wrong.  I want to live with the Serbs, not the Serbian regime." 

Aside from the school bus transporting Serb students, Berisha's Kosovatrans also operates a bus that transports Serb municipality workers to and from their jobs in Gjilan every day.  And in his workshop he employs Serb, Roma, Bosniak and Turk technicians.  "Kosovo is for all of us," he says.  "I see one Balkans with no borders - one free market integrated in Europe."  
   
"No nation should be blamed for the actions of some," he reiterates.  "That's why it is so important to catch the people who commit these crimes - so that people can distance themselves from these actions and the society as a whole does not suffer.  
 
In Pristina, at the Department of Transport and Infrastructure, Berisha's name has been coming up a lot lately.  According to Department Co-Head Patrick Auffret, "Berisha's vision is the kind that Kosovo needs more of." 

Ultimately, the Department of Transport and Infrastructure would like to see the humanitarian, minority buses operate as commercial bus services.  Auffret would also like to be able to offer the Serbs more bus routes.  The end goal would be buses with paying passengers throughout Kosovo, full stop.  Ethnicity would not play a part of the picture.  Of course Auffret and his colleagues are realistic, they know that for now ethnicity plays a big part of the picture of life in Kosovo.  They know that any commercial bus service transporting Serbs would have to be protected by a KFOR escort, at least in the beginning.  But they are looking towards the future.

Meanwhile, out in the heartland of Kosovo, the school bus and its KFOR escort seem to be the entertainment of the day for the villagers - especially the children.  As the convoy weaves between the houses, the children run out to greet it, calling out to the students inside.  Depending upon whether the bus is in an Albanian or Serb village, you may spot a plis-wearing shepherd tending his cows or a mama pig and her piglets strutting down the street.  But the children are always the same - always laughing and waving. 

Svetlana Marcovic, a teacher at the Serb school, says she takes the bus every day with the students.  Ironically, today's bus driver is the same school bus driver from her student days.  Of the situation today she says, "we've never had a real problem between the students and the drivers.  In fact, the rapport between the drivers and the teenagers is very nice.  They greet each other and are respectful."   
  
Before picking up the Serb students from their school, this same bus also transports a group of Albanian primary school children.  Elias Gebre-Egziabher, Municipal Education Officer in Viti/Vitina says that without Kosovatrans they would be in trouble.  "We pay for and depend heavily on this service because we have to transport many students through various ethnic enclaves to get to their school."

Eighteen-year-old Alexander Dodic, who rides the bus every day, said that at first his parents were angry the driver was not a Serb.  "They thought it would be more dangerous," he says.  "But Kosovatrans is providing the service and the drivers are nice - especially this one."  Nevertheless, Alexander says that when he finishes high school this year he will have to go to Serbia to attend university.  "And I won't come back after that," he says.  "It's too risky.  There's no future for me here. " 
  
This is exactly the attitude that Berisha is fighting against.  "The Serbs have to see Kosovo as their homeland and to build it with us," he says.  They also have to accept that there is a new reality here since 1999.  But I also say to my fellow Albanians:  if we want a future for Kosovo, we can not do to others what was done to us."

(Eleanor Beardsley is a consultant with the Department of Transport and Infrastructure. She was previously a freelance journalist work in  print and radio media in the United States)

Contact: P. Ellwood
(038) 504 604 Ext. 5471
E-mail: ellwood@un.org