Much of the world only knows of Kosovo as a conflict zone, fought over between Serbs and Albanians. Based on such media representations, one can get the impression that there is not even one example of positive relations or events in Kosovo.
But the town of Kamenica challenges this notion. It is a small town and the center of a municipality of around 26,000 people with the same name, located in the eastern part of Kosovo. Kamenica offers an example of a rare coexistence between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. There is a long-lasting coexistence embodied in the ordinary everyday life of members of two or more ethnic groups within a deeply divided post-conflict society.
Kamenica is a place where local Serbs and Albanians succeeded in preserving peace during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo. The representatives of the international peacebuilding and peacekeeping missions in the municipality also succeeded in maintaining peace in the years after the end of this war.
Based on our research, we recognized the following factors that affected the peaceful coexistence of local Albanians and Serbs in Kamenica: historical-demographic, geopolitical, institutional, and economic factors, as well as the role, approach, and efforts of the representatives of international peacebuilding and peacekeeping missions.
Although historical, demographic, and geopolitical factors show that the locals of Kamenica worked hard to maintain peace in turbulent times during and after the war, our research showed that the decisive factor was the role played by representatives of international peace and security forces. This was assisted by the city’s geopolitical location and distance from areas of revolt and arms transfer. Relatively far from Pristina and Mitrovica, cities that have been the centers of discontent and revolt, as well as the border with Albania, Kamenica benefitted from being on the conflict’s sidelines.
Additionally, the local Serb and Albanian populations lived among each other for only about 50 years before the 1999 war. Kamenica was a village inhabited almost exclusively by Serbs before World War II (Stanković, 1910), except for a few households that belonged to Roma and Gorani residents. Given that the Serbs welcomed their new Albanian neighbors, who were first a minority after World War II, the groups coexisted well together.
All of these factors were the basis for good inter-ethnic relations, but not the only necessary conditions. Immediately after the end of the war in 1999, a major threat to the survival of Kamenica’s remaining Serb population was attacks by Albanians from surrounding areas. The biggest threat was from the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja, and Bujanovac. The work of the Kosovo Force (KFOR) peacekeeping force’s Russian contingent, which was deployed in Kamenica municipality from the end of the war until 2003, along with representatives of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), prevented— according to the respondents of Serbian nationality— a complete exodus of Serbs from the town. Satisfaction with their work was also expressed by respondents of Albanian nationality, who said that the presence of the Russian KFOR contingent was good for the remaining Serbs.
Representatives of the UNMIK administration in Kamenica made major efforts to reintegrate local Serbs into the regular flow of everyday life after the war. They worked to ensure that the number of employees of different ethnic groups in all institutions in Kamenica is proportional to the number of inhabitants of those groups.
They also made great efforts to revive some of the positive social practices that existed in this city before the war. For example, they significantly contributed to the revival of the market in the city center, which before the war was a kind of symbol of the coexistence of the local population. Respondents confirmed that it was not easy to convince local Serbs to sell their products again at the local market, as they lived in great fear. With its “revival” by representatives of the UNMIK administration, it became the first “multi-ethnic” market in Kosovo after the 1999 war.
We do not claim that the work of the representatives of the Russian KFOR contingent and UNMIK in Kamenica was ideal, but our research has established that it was dedicated, systematic, and purposeful, which was not the case in many municipalities in Kosovo.
The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (in English), specifically the project “Anxieties in “divided cities” in post-conflict societies: developing and testing innovative (experimental) approaches in peacebuilding” (N5-0178), and the research programme Obramboslovje (P5-0206).
Keywords: Kosovo, Kamenica, Serbs, Albanians, coexistence, peace, conflict, conflict resolution, unmik, kfor
Anđela Đorđević
Anđela Đorđević is a Ph.D candidate and research assistant at the Faculty of Social Sciences,
Department of Defense Studies, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia).
How to organize life in post-conflict environments? What models of coexistence do members of
different ethnic groups resort to in environments that have faced war? How did the inhabitants of
certain micro-environments manage to avoid involvement in war events, even though their wider
environment is engulfed in war? As a researcher at the Center for Defense Studies, she tries to
find answers to these questions. She is focused on research in post-conflict societies of the Western Balkans.
She was engaged in the project "Anxieties in Cities of Southeast European Post-Conflict Societies: Introducing an Integrative Approach to Peacebuilding (Anxious Peace)" led by Associate Professor Dr. Rok Zupančič. Within that project, she conducted research with colleagues in the following post-conflict places: Kamenica (Kosovo), Baljvine (Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Gorski Kotar (Croatia).
Rok Zupančič
Rok Zupančič, PhD, is a Full Professor at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences. His expert sphere includes peacebuilding, conflict prevention, and regional security (Southeast Europe). He is the Principal Investigator in the research project "Anxieties in cities of Southeast European post-conflict societies: introducing an integrative approach to peacebuilding," which explores how different sort of anxieties in post-conflict societies affect the bodies and minds of people, and how this hinders the attempts to reduce the ethnic distance between people previously involved in armed conflicts.
