By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, May 29 1998 (IPS)

The province of Kosovo, it is said, has an almost mythical meaning for Serbs: it is seen as ‘the cradle of the medieval Serbian state’, the site of the most important monasteries in Serbian history, the official seat of the Orthodox church.

Now, the official propaganda of Yugoslavia’s strongman, Slobodan Milosevic, has added another myth to the list.

Increasingly it is being said that ethnic Albanians, who outnumber Serbs in Kosovo by nine to one, are pressing for an independent state in the province because they want to deprive Serbia of its natural wealth. These resources, says Belgrade’s state-run TV station, are “the very basis of Serbia’s economic future and development”.

The risk of Kosovo’s economic power falling into ethnic Albanian hands has become a favourite topic among the millions of Serbs whose only source of information is official TV.

But in reality, the truth is quite different to the official propaganda.

According to studies carried out by several institutes in Belgrade, as well as the respected independent weekly ‘Ekonomska politika’ (Economic Politics), there is very little economic activity in the province. The stories about huge reserves of natural resources are pure myth.

“Kosovo’s economy began to collapse when Slobodan Milosevic came to power in 1989 and stripped the province of its autonomy, introducing direct rule from Belgrade,” says Branka Kaljevic, a columnist with the independent weekly ‘Vreme’.

“All direct investment into the province stopped, Milosevic gave the top jobs to people who were loyal to him and he forgot about the economy. The national question became more important than anything else… As we know, the Milosevic regime has never paid much attention to economics.”

According to the Belgrade, billions of dollars were poured into the Kosovo economy after the second world war.

Aleksandar Vlahovic of the Belgrade Economics Institute confirms that between 1955 and 1985, 17 billion dollars went to Kosovo through a special development fund run by the six states of the Yugoslav federation.

“Some of that money was spent developing huge state enterprises such as Trepca or Stari trg, but most of it went into social funds that supported the people who lived there — Albanians and Serbs. During that time, Kosovo was a typical example of the administrative distribution of finances, with very small economic effect,” he says.

Trepca was one of Yugoslavia’s industrial giants, a combination of lead, zinc, gold and silver mines and a network of factories. Scattered around the town of Kosovska Mitrovica, it employed around 24,000 people, 16,000 of them ethnic Albanians.

Since direct rule from Belgrade was imposed in 1989, most of the Albanians have been laid off. Of the 7,000 people still working at Trepca, almost all are Serbs.

According to Aziz Abrasi, Trepca’s general manager from 1977-89, production today stands at a mere 30 per cent of what it used to be.

As an ethnic Albanian, Abrasi was laid off in 1989. He says he obtained the current production data “through the people who still work there, Serbs, who believe my place is at Trepca, where I spent my entire life”.

Burhan Kavaja used to be the director-general of Stari trg, a central coal mine in Kosovo. Like Abrasi, he was sacked in 1989. Now, he says, the mine is working at just 15 per cent capacity. “Previously, Stari trg had 3,000 miners. There are 825 now, six of them [ethnic] Albanians.”

Recent research from the Belgrade Economics Institute shows that the natural resources that Belgrade likes to boast about are nearly exhausted. Nickel reserves stand at around 18 million tons, sufficient for another 18 years of production in Glogovac mine.

Trepca is in better shape, with 46 millions of tons of lead and zinc — enough for another 30 years. The official line is that the reserves are “sufficient for centuries”.

Ekonomska Politika reports that the unemployment rate in Kosovo is three times higher than in the rest of Serbia, where it is officially put at 27 per cent. Milan Sarenac, an official of the Kosovo Chamber of Commerce, recently admitted that only one out of 17 ethnic Albanians is in paid employment.

In recent years, the production of coal and electricity has provided more than half of Kosovo’s gross national product (GNP), says Ekonomska Politika.

But, due to the economic neglect of the province by the central authorities, some 80 per cent of the equipment in factories, mines and plants is now outdated, it added. This has caused Kosovo’s GNP to drop to about half the level of Serbia’s, which stands at around 1,600 dollars per capita.

“Serb and Albanians are worlds apart in Kosovo,” concluded a report last year by the Forum for Ethnic Relations. The study, entitled ‘The Anatomy of the Kosovo Crisis’, was the first survey of both Serbs and Albanians in the province for seven years and showed that despite all the differences they did have one thing in common. “Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo share only one thing — poverty,” the study said.

The Democratic League of Kosovo (DSK), the biggest political party of ethnic Albanians, claims that 300,000 Albanians have left the province since 1989. Most of them are scattered around Western Europe and try to support their families back at home.

But at least one sector of the Kosovo economy is thriving. Privately owned small business and services currently provide jobs for up to 200,000 people.

Nine out of 10 private businesses are run by Albanians. “Most of them are doing their job, regardless of politics, and give an example to follow,” says Bosko Drobnjak, the secretary in the Serbian Kosovo Information Office.

“The story of Kosovo’s economy is really a story of myths and poverty,” says Branka Kaljevic of Vreme. “But there is a small group of people who profit from the situation,” she adds.

It is no secret that corruption is flourishing among the local Serbs who run the administration. It is common for ethnic Albanian businessmen to refer to ‘their man’ in the government.

‘Their man’ might be paid for granting a licence, working permission, or the necessary papers for starting a business. “For all those things, you need a pile of papers and contact with the state… Albanians do not recognise this state, but manage to get regular licenses and everything. That’s the only area where Serbs and Albanians agree — money has no nationality,” Kaljevic says.

“But the ones who profit are very few. The others, on both sides, are still poor,” she adds.

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