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23 03 2007 Large amounts of money have been spent on the returns process, which has engaged not only Kosovo's government, but other local and international organisations as well.
BIRN’s Life in Kosovo TV debate on March 23 explored whether people are
returning to Kosovo. And, if so, what are their expectations and what
do they actually find when they return.
The panelists were:
Nazmi Fejza, deputy minister for return
Valdete Idrizi, from the Development of Communities organisation in Mitrovica
Hasim Uka, a returnee from the village Kashtanjeva, Shterpce municipality
Dragana Gercic, a returnee from Kosh village, Peja municipality and
Nazmi Mikullovci, a Mitrovica resident unable to get to his property in the northern part of the city
Fejza
said that the ministry for returnees doesn’t just provide new houses
for those who return. “We also give them the opportunity to work in
agriculture,” he said. He stressed to date not one returnee family has
returned and struggled to make ends meet.
But countering Fejza
remarks, Gercic said that his family were encountering problems all the
time. “We still don’t have water, not even the minimal conditions for a
normal live!” he said.
Uka said that besides being happy that
they’d returned, they did not live well, “I’m not working, no one in my
family works. We survive on social handouts.”
Gercic agreed with him and said that they have no prospects in Kosovo, “We have no jobs. We have nothing.”
Uka pointed out that there was a lack of health services, which were sorely needed.
Mikullovci
explained how displaced Albanians from the divided city of Mitrovica
have to pay high rents to live in the southern part of the city and are
not able to sell or even to have access to their own houses in the
northern part of the town.
Idrizi said that Kosovo’s political
leaders were making false promises to the people of Mitrovica. “The
government has done nothing for us,” said Idrizi, “for them, the Serb
returnees are priority.”
Fejza explained that the ministry for
returns has no local competences in the north part of Mitrovica,
“That’s why we can’t help the Albanian inhabitants to return there.”
During
the debate, BIRN broadcast a field reportage that showed how families
who have returned to the municipality of Leposavic live.
Three
months before, in a Life in Kosovo debate, Fejza promised residents of
these villages that a bus service would be established to help them
attend local schools and workplaces. The reportage showed that the
promise had not been fulfilled.
Fejza defended himself by claiming that the ministry had already provided a bus for those villages.
“It is not duty of the government to provide cost-free transport for all citizens every day,” said Idrizi.
“If we don’t have transport, what else can they expect to get from the government.”
Fejza claimed that the ministry for return is doing a lot. “It all depends on how much people appreciate our work,” he said.
At the beginning of 2010 BIRN network published Digging Deeper - A Guide for Investigative Journalists in the Balkans, written in cooperation with Sheila Coronel, Director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and professor of professional practice at Columbia University, New York.
