Heading for Pristina

I am heading in June to Kosovo for the first time since 2003, when my colleagues and I at the United States Institute of Peace offered an OSCE-sponsored training workshop to the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government (PISG).  A number of ministers participated, including the then prime minister, Bajram Rexhepi (now Minister of Interior).  That’s leadership!  The idea was to prepare the PISG for negotiations with Belgrade that, as history would have it, only began earlier this year.  We delivered similar training to the Serbian Foreign Ministry.

The training was at the police academy in Vushtrri/Vucitrn.  One morning we watched the cadets line up in the yard.  The commandant welcomed them (remember this was four years after the war, and 90% of the cadets as well as the commandant were Albanian-speaking) in Serbian:  “dobro utro.”  That too is leadership, rewarded by a great deal of respect from the Kosovo population for their post-war police force.

I have seen enough of the Kosovo government people in visits to Washington to know that they have made enormous strides since 2003.  Eight years ago I would not have said that PISG was a real state–it was still more like an agglomeration of political trends with only a glimmer of consciousness of the need for an effective bureaucracy, an independent judicial system and civil society.  I trust I’ll find things much improved on this visit.

But I’m also going to be asking a lot of questions.  Here is a preliminary set that I’ll no doubt expand in the next couple of weeks before my arrival.  I’ll welcome suggestions from readers of other issues I should be exploring.

• Has the state established itself in a way that provides support to, and continuity between, different governments?  Is there a civil service worthy of the name?  Have the politicians learned to respect the bureaucrats and use them effectively?
• Is the state delivering services that are needed and appreciated?
• How well is Parliament playing its legislative and oversight roles?
• Why does Kosovo’s economy seem stuck?  Why has foreign investment lagged?  Why are jobs in the formal economy so hard to come by?
• Is the judicial system capable of handling high-profile cases involving Albanian bigwigs as well as inter-ethnic crime?  How much longer will EULEX be needed?
• How can more be done to reduce corruption and organized crime?
• How are relations between Albanians and non-Albanians, including but not limited to Serbs ?  How do non-Albanians, both those who live north of the Ibar and those who live in the south, regard the Pristina government?
• How has Kosovo’s once strong civil society fared since independence?  Is the press free?  Is it responsible?  How can civil society be strengthened?
• What role do Greater Albanian aspirations and their proponents play in Kosovo today?

A few days visit is of course not sufficient to answer all these questions in detail, but I am hoping that putting them out for public scrutiny will allow my many friends in Kosovo and elsewhere to offer answers, both in person and in cyberspace (answers as comments on this blog are welcome, as are answers addressed to daniel@peacefare.net).

I am looking forward to seeing Pristina again.  My only real regret about this trip is that I won’t make it to Belgrade, though I am also going to Sarajevo.  Some questions about Bosnia and Herzegovina in an upcoming post.