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Life in Kosovo Analyses the Missing Persons, the LDK Crisis, Misconducts in Health System and the Global Financial Crisis

06 11 2008  The Life in Kosovo show introduced a new format for its weekly show. Four different in-depth stories were presented in 15 minutes each.

The report, prepared by Fatmire Terdevci, was on missing persons from the last war in Kosovo.

Many families of victims refused to be part of the commission for truth-seeking and truth-telling. What is the position of Kosovo’s government on documenting crimes committed during the recent war in Kosovo?

A report by Fatmire Terdevci revealed that many years after the crimes committed by Nazi Germany that constituted the Holocaust, a quick click on the internet shows a myriad of links, photos, interviews with survivors, images of concentration camps and other memorial views on the 11 million victims of Holocaust.
 
14 years after the end of apartheid in South Africa, its government and civil society contribute to a wide range of available documents reflecting on the injustices of that society’s past.
 
Kosovo’s victims, on the other hand, don’t have the opportunity to be remembered by their state’s government.
 
Not a single web page, no joint memorial for all the victims, not even a day set aside for their remembrance. These victims are commemorated only by their family members or, in some cases, by their villages of origin.
 
Shaban Ramadani from Fushe Kosova stated that there are no monuments for war victims and he proclaimed himself very disappointed with the government’s stance on this issue.

“There should have not been a differentiation of victims; the war was for all of us and from all of us.”
 
Other people from different regions of Kosovo said that they don’t have enough money to build statues for the victims.
 
Albin Kurti, leader of the Vetëvendosje movement, believes the government could have compiled a joint document, built a memorial and showed more commitment to victim’s families.

According to him, after the war Kosovars considered that there was no need to do something more, but more respect ought to shown for the victims now.
 
“There were 12,000 people killed, 20,000 females raped, 1,973 disappeared persons, 119,855 houses burnt, for which Serbia never apologised, while Kosovo’s government didn’t claim properly for Serbia’s responsibility,” said Kurti.
 
Feride Rushiti, head of the Kosova Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims, said that since 1999 her institution has served 15,000 clients. The centre she leads offers services for victims directly affected by the war, family members of disappeared persons, sexually abused females, war orphans, and imprisoned people.
 
“Until now, none of Kosovo’s governments have asked for any data or information that would be needed for their own documentation,” said Rushiti.
 
Haki Kasumi, Head of the Association of the Families of Disappeared Persons, talking in front of the photos of disappeared persons at the gate of Kosovo’s parliament, said that the photos have been positioned in that place to raise political leader’s awareness, but it seems this is not happening.

“The government could have convened a governmental commission for the disappeared. This is very worrying. Anytime a new government comes into power, a new commission is set. It seems that all the commissions are politically motivated,” said Kasumi.
 
While Kosovo remains inert on the issue of war documentation, work is being done by the head of the Humanitarian Rights Fund, Natasa Kandic, through the creation of a commission for truth seeking and truth telling.

However, this initiative is not supported by many organizations of victim’s families and other Kosovar NGOs.
 
“The whole plan is that we arrange wide consultations throughout all the former Yugoslavia, and create a coalition. A petition is to collect 1 million signatures, give recommendations on what people think and then see how our governments are to act on our requests,” said Kandic.
 
For Grajqevci the fact that Kandic is a humanitarian is beyond question, but according to him, she has her own interests and she has some boundaries which she will not cross.
 
“We must have our own commission and this ought to require a green light from the families of the disappeared persons. In this case, we didn’t have support from these families to sign this cooperation,” said Grajqevci.
 
For Kurti, there should be hundreds of prosecutions against war criminals and after that we may establish such a commission.
 
“I think these commissions tend to create the idea of a substitute justice, which represents an injustice itself. I don’t think responsibility is less important than the truth, rather, pledging responsibility is the track to come to the truth,” added Kurti.
 
 
The second 15 minutes were devoted to the political crisis in Kosovo’s Democratic League, LDK, prepared by Muhamet Hajrullahu.
 
LDK, the second-largest political party in Kosovo and the coalition partner with the ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, seems to be dealing with another internal crisis.
 
Formerly the strongest political party in Kosovo, things started to change dramatically for the LDK, which had held power for 20 years, after its spiritual leader, Ibrahim Rugova, died. For many, that was the moment when problems could not be covered up any longer.
 
While most of LDK’s senior officials deny the possibility of crisis in the party, Ali Lajci, a member of the party directorate, declared that the downward trend of the LDK is led by President Fatmir Sejdiu and Eqrem Kryeziu.
 
“There should be general elections where reforms ought to be issued. The electorate has fallen drastically,” said Lajci.
 
“There is a crisis in the LDK, but this is just a mask hiding the real problem,” added Lajci.
 
The LDK won 45.42 percent of the vote in the 2004 elections, while in October 2007, the LDK won only 22.6 percent.
 
A party which split from the LDK, the Democratic League of Dardania, LDD, won 10 percent.
 
The LDK continues affirming that there is no internal crisis in the party. Led by Fatmir Sejdiu, the LDK formed a coalition with the PDK in the government led by Hashim Thaci.

For many of the sympathisers of the LDK and its former President Rugova, this was viewed as a betrayal. None of its senior leaders accept that there is a crisis inside. 
 
Sejdiu is surrounded by people who support him such as Deputy Prime Minister Rame Manaj, Minister of Foreign Affairs Skender Hyseni, Minister of Justice Nekibe Kelmendi, member of the party directorate Eqrem Kryeziu, and others.
 
The next 15 minutes were reserved for an in-depth look at the financial crisis and its effects on Kosovo prepared by Jeta Abazi.  
 
Kosovo is not affected by the global financial crisis. While it shook the most developed economies more severely than at any time since the Great Depression, economists reveal that the newborn country is too small and too poor to be affected by financial upheavals around the world.

However, the poorest country in Europe has an economic crisis of its own.
 
The financial crisis hit the consolidated financial markets around the world as the largest US banks started to have problems recovering money owed them by their clients.

The domino effect of credit crunches, which originated in the US, soon harmed trade in Asia, Europe and the Balkans.
 
While our regional neighbours took immediate steps to avoid any economic turbulence, Kosovo didn’t fear that the financial turmoil would spill over in the newborn country.
 
Shpend Ahmeti, an expert on economics, told Balkan Insight that “Kosovo is too poor to be affected by, and is not directly touched by, the financial crisis.”
 
On the other hand, Kosovo’s former Minister of Economy and Finance, Haki Shatri, is sceptical whether the crisis will pass unobserved.
 
“If the crisis shook the most powerful economy in the world, Kosovo, with its budget of 1 billion [euros] and some 300 million [euros] saved in the pension fund, should also be worried about the crisis,” Shatri told Balkan Insight.
 
However, if the crisis does not harm us directly, it will definitely have an impact on the donations from developed countries, which pledged to give Kosovo 1.2 billion euros.
 
While the former finance minister believes financial upheavals may have a direct impact on donations to Kosovo, the currentfinance minister, Ahmet Shala, seems confident that donors’
financial help will not be affected by the crisis.
 
The last 15 minutes of the show were reserved for an investigative story prepared by Alban Selimi on how Kosovo’s doctors take the patients from public institutions for treatment in their private clinics.
 
Kosovo’s health system is in very bad condition. Most Kosovars continue to be cured in Skopje and Tirana, while others risk dying due to lack of money to pay for health services.
 
Despite the very hard conditions, cooperation between private clinics and hospitals is surprisingly good.
 
The story displayed doctors taking their patients from public hospitals and asking them to come to their private clinics. When asked why they were doing such a thing, most of them reported that necessary equipment were damaged in the hospital.
 
The journalist, with his well –hidden camera, looked into the doctors’ private clinics, asking the doctors whether they checked if the necessary equipment is available in the public hospital.
 
The doctors revealed on camera that they didn’t spend their entire livesstudying and working to live with a salary of 240 euros per month.

Instead, they reported, they were obliged to open their private clinics.
 
Right after the segment “Kosovo’s Son-in-Law”, BIRN broadcast the municipality debate “Life in Gjilan”.


“Life in Kosovo”, a joint production of RTK and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, airs every Thursday from 20:15.