UNMIK ON AIR

20 Dec. 2002

Violence in Kosovo

(Luan Qorraj and Sputnik Kilambi)

Mirdita, dobar dan and gun aiten – this is unmik on air with.

Violence unfortunately is a word that has been associated with the Balkans for centuries. Civil wars, murders and blood feuds became a trademark of a region, which people say, was created by poets and warriors at the same time. The ones who leave the Balkans and go west though are more often dubbed criminals and violators.

A part of that belief is a direct result of the last round of Balkan wars. It is also due to the reactions of the Balkan nations, whose usual policy, individually and nationally, in most cases, was to answer anything with violence.

Music up and under

And Kosovo is one of the places still synonymous with violence, although the overall crime levels have reduced dramatically within the past year. Not only inter-ethnic violence, but violence as an everyday feature in the lives of citizens, whatever their ethnic background. It is well known that entire families were wiped out through blood feuds that often started because of wrong word said at a wrong time. Blood feuds that may have started centuries ago still rage on and new ones start on a daily basis.

Pajazit Nushi, a sociology professor at Prishtina University thinks the reasons for violent behavior are many - one of them, he says, are the living conditions of a great number of Kosovars, who grow up in a society where violence is a perfectly acceptable solution to many problems:

Pajazit Nushi: for example the barriers that appear amongst people living in extreme poverty, or in families with a large number of children, the limited possibilities of development within such communities cause people to resort to violence in order to solve problems than using institutional forms of stopping it. (In these conditions a lot of individuals are used to reach their goals by any means, no matter are they (the means) proportional with the goal)

And, adds professor Nushi, violent surroundings produce violent individuals. And often this begins in childhood.

Even the families that try and stop individuals who behave violently, usually do it by using violent means. In most cases the result is exactly the opposite the individuals become even more violent. KPS spokesman, Refki Morina, says that force has become an unfortunate answer to almost everything.

Refki Morina: We had a case when a parent tied his child and held him there in chains for 10 days, like an animal. When we spoke to the parent and asked him why, he answered: “ Please, I do not know what else to do with him, we have asked him to speak to a psychologist, pedagogist, a doctor but after he spoke to them he again answered that there is other way for him, I do not know what to do with him

Another answer to the “why violence” question is the lack of trust in law and order institutions. Traditionally, very few people look at the police as an organization that provides security or guarantees that the perpetrators of a crime are punished. Therefore the law, or justice, has to be enforced through individuals. According to Professor Nushi, the entire society has gone through violent cycles for centuries and in the process, has learned to support those who use violence to solve problems.

Pajazit Nushi: We have a past, which, both at the individual and the collective level, is not very fit for cultivated, ethical, social and psychological behavior. The families themselves were encouraged to go into blood feuds since the executioner would be looked at positively by the Albanian society.

Blood feuds or kanoon are a thing of the past and should remain in the past, says the KPS spokesman. But the ground reality says something else - in the past three years, several murders have been attributed to blood feuds. In one of the more extreme cases, a person was killed to avenge something that happened way back in the 1950’s. But Refki Morina is firm in his stand - there is a law, and there will be justice, he says, not by kanun but through civil law – which, he adds, can be as unforgiving as the old code of the mountains.

Refki Morina: We know, even through Kanun of Lekë dukagjini that there is no lost blood. It means that even after 20 years the investigations on who killed whom will continue. Therefore, even if a certain category of people thinks that it will remain hidden, that they will not be found, that they will be able to use the moment they are very wrong. Time passes, but all murderers will be revealed, everything that happened in Kosovo, sooner or later. There are witnesses.

So what is supposed to be done to, at the very least, make the violence levels lower? Pajazit Nushi says that, first of all, more should be done to build the trust between people and the institutions representing them. The society itself should also start supporting other values:

Pajazit Nushi: The creation of a feeling of security for citizens will cause less and less displays of personal, or inter-personal violence, of family or inter-family violence, and even violence between different groups. The outside surroundings should support the kind of behavior and the motives that enhance human dignity.

Kosovo has its work cut out to learn that there are other ways of solving inter-personal feuds and conflicts than resorting to violence. The challenge is huge but then so will be the results.

With this we close today’s edition of UNMIK ON AIR. Thank you for listening.