Kosovo and Macedonia. Gunning for local power

Armed Albanians oppose devolution in Kosovo but want it in Macedonia

AT LEAST from a distance, the scene at a playground on Kosovo's south-eastern edge looks like a soft, fuzzy advertisement for peacekeepers who can be tender as well as tough. A group of well-armed sergeants from America's National Guard - some white, some black, all from the deep South - look on while children kick a football round a schoolyard that is used by both of Kosovo's peoples, Albanian and Serb. In part because NATO's soldiers have done better here than in other places, the town of Kamenica was one of the few mixed areas that was spared from an orgy of anti-Serb violence last March.

But look harder: even here, Serb and Albanian children do not play together regularly; they use the playground at different times. Moreover, each community has its own schooling system, in its own language, and there is little desire on either side for education to be anything but monocultural. Still, the mere fact that in this corner of Kosovo the communities tolerate one another's existence - and co-operate in local politics - is an achievement by the province's dismal standards.

Elsewhere, the atmosphere is tense and moody, thanks to a vicious circle of economic depression and uncertainty about the political future. Unemployment among Kosovars is over 50%. Polls suggest that the province's 100,000 Serbs and (very roughly) 1.9m Albanians agree on only one thing: it is their international overlords - in charge of the place since the 1999 war between NATO and the Serbs - who are mainly to blame for the slump.

This view is not quite fair. The violence of last March - in which 19 people died and 4,000 Serbs, and other non-Albanians, were made homeless - was indeed a failure by Kosovo's protectors. But the economy is not entirely within their control. As long as the UN Security Council cannot decide where the province belongs politically - and hence who ultimately owns its assets - there is only so much that can be done to revive its commercial fortunes.

In the meantime, UN officials say, they are getting on with what they can, economically and politically. This week they announced plans for a power plant and lignite mine which would turn Kosovo from an importer to an exporter of energy. But in the words of Nikolaus Lambsdorff, an energetic German who oversees the province's economy, some “legal and technical issues” must be settled first. Meanwhile provincial elections are due in October - though many Kosovars grumble that it is hardly worth voting in a poll that will not deliver independence.

One of the UN's proposals, as it searches for ways to improve the political atmosphere, is to devolve more power to local authorities, like that of Kamenica. Ethnic-Albanian nationalists loathe this idea; they want Kosovo to be as unitary as possible - or to put it another way, they don't want Serbs and other non-Albanians to consolidate their power in those areas (like northern Kosovo) where they predominate. The War Veterans of the Kosovo Liberation Army, a shadowy group which hints of a fresh war, says “decentralisation” could be a step towards reviving the Serb oppression of the 1990s.

In contrast, militant ethnic Albanians in neighbouring Macedonia love the idea of boosting municipal power. Indeed, a big increase in municipal authority was the price that Albanian nationalist fighters, closely tied to their cousins in Kosovo, extracted for laying down their arms in 2001. Devolution was the centrepiece of a settlement, brokered by the European Union, which stemmed an incipient war. Now that the deal is about to be implemented, tension between the Slavic-Macedonian majority and ethnic-Albanian minority - about a quarter of the population - is rising fast.

In the south Macedonian town of Struga, a recent protest against the peace plan, and in particular against the provisions that would boost Albanian influence at local level, turned into riots in which 40 people were injured. Last week, 20,000 people joined a demonstration against the plan - and its concessions to the Albanians - in the Macedonian capital, Skopje. Especially controversial are provisions that would widen city limits to include several Albanian-dominated districts and hence push the Albanian share of the city's population over 20%. That would make Skopje a bicommunal, bilingual city.

Opponents of devolution (in other words, those who oppose enhanced Albanian power at local level) say they have gathered at least 90,000 signatures: if they gather another 60,000, they could force a referendum on the issue. Even if - as expected - the legislation needed to implement the peace plan squeezes home, its implementation could be a fraught business. As things now stand, the coalition partner of Branko Crvenkovski, the prime minister, is Ali Ahmeti - an Albanian nationalist who led the uprising in 2001. The main opposition, VMRO, is heir to a century-old Slavophile tradition and it is trying hard to rock the political boat.

In the southern Balkans, moreover, the contest between local versus central power is not just about schools and drains: in an ethnically-divided country, devolution can be a stepping-stone to virtual partition - and thence to the outright break-up of a state or territory. Or alternatively, it may be the minimum needed to appease nationalist pressure and hold a state together, albeit in a loose, ramshackle way.

Both in Kosovo and Macedonia, there is a palpable risk that rows over devolution, and other seemingly technical issues, could lead to fresh shooting. In the words of Nenad Sebek, director of the Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation, a Salonika-based NGO, “this is a part of the world where even the moderates are more extreme than they pretend to be.”

Armed Albanians oppose devolution in Kosovo but want it in Macedonia.