Nato's children in Kosovo

Kosovo Albanians commemorate a KLA military hospital

David Sells reports from Kosovo on the power vacuum that still exists two years after Nato's air campaign.

Kosovo is the arena for an age-old rivalry - that of two peoples competing for one land.

It is just two years since Nato ended its 78 days of bombing Yugoslavia, an air campaign designed to bring former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to heel.

Kosovo Albanians are still overjoyed at their freedom from the Yugoslav yoke. They can sleep at nights. It is a dream come true. That's the good news.

They are now a 20 to one majority in the province.

The flip side of the coin is that Kosovo Serbs live in fear of their lives.

Albanian retaliation

Two years ago 800,000 Kosovo Albanians were driven from their homes. The vast majority has now returned.

Since Nato's takeover of Kosovo some 180,000 Serbs have fled their homes.

Their flight has received little media attention. The 100,000 or so who have stayed live in enclaves dotted around the land, guarded by K-For troops.

A prominent, moderate Serbian Orthodox priest, Father Sava, summed it up: "Ethnic Albanians experienced days of suffering, exile and death inflicted by the immoral and destructive policy of Mr Milosevic's regime.

"Now Serbs are being exposed to suffering, exile and death from the immoral and destructive policy of the ethnic Albanian nationalists."

Bombed bus in which 11 Serbs were killed

In February a bus full of Kosovo Serbs, the so-called Nis express, was bombed in a K-For-protected convoy. Eleven passengers were killed.

Three Kosovo Albanian suspects are in custody, under investigation. The fourth suspect, the principal one, according to a UN source, has escaped.

Why the violence? The answer is simple enough: to frighten more Kosovo Serbs into fleeing and, just as important, to deter those Kosovo Serbs who have fled from deciding to come home. The aim is a Kosovo ethnically cleansed, Serb-free.

Kosovo's UN governor, Hans Haekkerup, said: "Ethnic violence is one of the bad features of Kosovo still. Time is important. Severe atrocities were committed in the past and that has created a lot of hatred that has to be overcome."

Kosovo in a vacuum

For the international community Kosovo stays in a vacuum: nominally part of Yugoslavia still, but without rule from Belgrade. Kosovo Albanians all want independence.

"It is clear that Kosovo should be an independent country," Blerim Shala, Kosovo Albanian editor of the newspaper Zeri told me.

"But let's be realistic. The concept of independence, of sovereignty, has dramatically changed in the last 10 years. Sovereignty, in reality, is self-governance, your right to choose your own leaders because - let's be very open about this - I think the security of the region will be for a long time in the hands of Nato."

UN Governor, Hans Haekkerup

But although elections and a constitutional framework for the province have been announced, a political vacuum persists.

Kosovo Serbs have said they will boycott the whole process. Much will also depend on the new regime in Belgrade.

Hans Haekkerup himself confessed: "It will be a difficult job to get a solution that will be acceptable to all - and especially to, and including, the international community. My job would certainly be easier if I knew what the final political settlement would be."

Macedonian border

Kosovo is still a Mad Hatter's tea-party. Violence has not been wholly ethnic in origin. Kosovo Albanians have also been killing their own, targeting moderates who favour peaceful solutions.

A senior British K-For officer said organised crime was "at the heart of just about every other problem that we have." It permeates Kosovo life.

K-For is engaged in trying to stop arms and ammunition getting through the Kosovo border to the Macedonian rebels.

"It is rugged border, thickly wooded, a series of single tracks, a very porous border," a British officer told me.

He added: "I think it would be impossible to suggest we could seal the border. It is an understandable aspiration, but it is not militarily achievable."

Unemployment in Kosovo is at around 60%, which means hordes of young men sit idle, ripe for recruitment into who knows what.

But many young Kosovo Albanians are getting jobs as interpreters, translators and drivers for international bodies who pay them double or three times what a local judge can earn.

Good for the brightest and best, said one UN advisor, but they should be studying. What will Kosovo do for doctors, teachers and lawyers in 10 years time ?

Kosovo's legal system is all at sea. Late in the day, the UN has empowered international judges and prosecutors to deal with certain crimes, where local courts have exhibited bias. Kosovo Albanian judges and prosecutors are subject to intimidation. Journalists too, the OSCE reports, are increasingly being harassed.

It's going to be a long, long haul. Nato and the UN totally under-estimated the size of the task they faced. Bosnia, six years on from the Dayton agreement, is still a mess.

Will Serbs return, for instance? Not the way things are going, they won't. Everybody pays lip service to the idea, but the facts speak otherwise.

TV producer Visar Reka, who used to be a spokesman abroad for the Kosovo Liberation Army, said ultimately the choice was not in the hands of the Kosovo Albanians.

"We Albanians, we have resources, you know, human and material, financial, so we can use them in different ways. Whether we are going to buy guns or build schools and factories, it is up to Macedonians, Serbs and the West to decide."

Nato and the UN should read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.

Nato's children: Sunday 3rd June at 1915 BST on BBC 2.

Reporter: David Sells
Producer: Nicky Bolster
Deputy Editor: Farah Durrani
Editor: Fiona Murch