Kosovo's changing identity

Checkpoint in Kosovo: Reminiscent of the peace line in Belfast

By Denis Murray

So okay, the first question has to be - what was the boy from Belfast doing in Kosovo?

It is a simple answer - a TV programme has been making a series on nationality and identity, and I was asked because those issues are such a big element in Northern Ireland.

And while I cannot draw the comparison too far, because no conflict is exactly like another, and we made a point of not doing so in the report, I still found many, many resonances.

For instance, the Albanians are the majority population in Kosovo, but the Serbs are the majority in the greater region. Compare with Ireland, where Protestants are a majority in Northern Ireland, but a minority within the island as a whole.

Now genuinely, I am not comparing Protestants or Catholics with Albanians or Serbs, but you can see why the place felt familiar.

Army checkpoints

After 25 years of reporting Northern Ireland, army checkpoints hold little novelty for me - but in Kosovo, they are something else.

Huge squat tanks from the armies of 18 different countries sit in the middle of the main roads, at the crossroads, and most particularly, at the barbed wire barricades that surround the Serb enclaves which are left in Kosovo.

They are eerily reminiscent of the peace line in Belfast that separates Protestant and Catholic areas.

The peace line was built as a temporary measure by the British army 30 years ago. The line and the soldiers are still there.

In some places in Kosovo, they even protect the ruins of the Serb churches, expertly demolished by the returning Albanians after the end of the war last year.

Churches targeted

Pec monastery: The heartland of the church

The churches, many of them built within the last few years, have been targeted because Albanians saw them as symbols of Serb domination - built at key junctions in areas where there could be barely a handful of Serbs to attend the services.

Everywhere you go you see graffiti - UCK Nato. Now at first, I thought this was rude word, with the F painted out. But UCK is the Albanian for KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army.

But given that Nato, the Albanians' liberators are now protecting the Serbs, many I spoke to there believe that the worm will turn, and that Albanian relations with Nato will worsen.

Remember the British army welcomed by the Catholics in 1969, and how that honeymoon period ended?

Change of identity

Since last year's war and Nato's bombing there has been a major change in Albanian identity. It may have been changing anyway, but now almost all Albanians in Kosovo, whom I will now call Kosovars, do not want to be politically part of Albania, but instead want independence.

On the Serb side, the identity is much more certain - and also much more confused.

We met Father Petar. He's a senior member of the church, young charismatic, and determined to stay in Kosovo. He lives in the monastery at Pec - that is the Serb word, the Kosovars call it Peija.

It is the seat, the heartland of the church - it is one of the reasons the Serbs call Kosovo a Holy Land.

A holy land

Milosevic: Could have been a saint

Just outside the church at the monastery, there is an ancient mulberry tree. Father Petar told me that centuries ago, when the Serbs said they must flee, the priests stopped to pray.

He said God sent a bolt of lightning, which split the tree in two.

The year? It was 1690 - the year of the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland, when Protestant King William of Orange defeated Catholic King James. It is a battle still commemorated in Ulster's controversial orange order marching season.

But the extraordinary thing is the Serb church now hates Slobodan Milosevic, and the Belgrade Government.

One priest we met was Father Antonio who has sent a bitterly critical open letter to him, told us in our interview that Milosevic could have been a saint, but now he is a Judas, an antichrist.

Father Petar told me in private conversation that to be a Serb is to be Serb Orthodox. Any Serb, he said, who over the centuries had converted to Islam or Catholicism instantly ceased to be a Serb.

That is how deeply nationality and identity run, in a history that goes back to the 1300s.

I cannot claim after reading some books, a load of cuttings, and having been there for five days to be any kind of expert on Kosovo.

But as I told Serb and Kosovar alike, I had an instant feel for the place.

Who from Northern Ireland would not?

Reporter: Denis Murray

Producer: Robin Barnwell

Editor: Fiona Murch