American Council for Kosovo - Organized Crime in Kosovo

The Slow Birth of a Nation

Two months after Kosovo declared independence, thousands of foreign experts are ready to descend on its capital to shape Europe's youngest republic into a constitutional state -- although its status is still disputed. Soon the EU will take over, and its team can expect a country ruled by corruption and organized crime.

It's 8 p.m., and Joachim R�cker, the highest-ranking representative of the United Nations in Pristina, is heading out for a bite to eat. Past Bill Clinton Boulevard, past three mosques, R�cker's Japanese jeep zigzags through the darkened city. His Albanian bodyguards, speaking English, constantly rattle off the vehicle's coordinates into their radio.

But where, exactly, is R�cker? What country is he in?

According to international law, Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, still belongs to Serbian territory. R�cker's boss at UN headquarters in New York, Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, has not said anything new to the contrary. Under UN Resolution 1244, adopted in 1999, Kosovo was placed under an interim UN administration, after enduring a 16-month war that claimed about 10,000 lives. The resolution makes no mention of Kosovo's right to secede from Serbia.

On the other hand, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence on Feb. 17. More than three dozen countries worldwide -- including the United States and Germany -- have recognized the tiny republic, whose population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian. There are now signs with the words "Republic of Kosovo" along the southern border and Kosovar customs officers at the Pristina airport.

But in the north and in the Serbian enclaves south of the Ibar River, separate elections will probably take place on May 11 -- for the Serbian parliament in Belgrade and for the local Serb government. Here, in the shadow of medieval monasteries, time seems to stand still. The Serbian dinar is the standard currency here, and wages, food and political directives come straight from Belgrade.

Kosovo's situation is complex. Two countries claim a territory that is about one and a half times the size of the US state Rhode Island (and has about the same population density). In the middle, acting as a UN referee in a diplomatic minefield, sits Joachim R�cker, 56, the former mayor of the small southwestern German city of Sindelfingen. At the request of the UN Secretary General and in response to pressure from Russia, R�cker is expected to continue behaving as if nothing had happened, as if Serbia's national borders had remained unchanged.

He's returning from a reception held by the newly appointed German ambassador in Pristina. Strictly speaking, according to diplomatic protocol, R�cker had no business there -- as the supreme UN administrator in Serbia's southwestern province. But he calls Kosovo's hermaphroditic condition "cohabitation," and manages to find complicated language to describe the future of this torn region.

In June, administrative duties are expected to change hands from the UN to the European Union, which plans to send 2,200 judges, prosecutors, police officers and customs officials to Pristina. But without the approval of the Russians and the Chinese in the Security Council, the UN will hardly be able to slip quietly out of Kosovo. Instead, says R�cker, it will have to maintain its presence, and its mission, "while keeping its status neutral." The UN will have to "reconfigure" itself and emphasize the "discontinuity" between the EU and UN mandates.

The UN will stay in Kosovo, in other words, and discreetly phase out its presence, hoping for a change of course in Moscow, Beijing and Belgrade -- so that the skirmishes over Europe's youngest state don't turn into a full-blown war.

For now, at least, life is still relatively good in Pristina. The penne arrabiata and chocolate tarts at "Il Passatore," an Italian trattoria, are exceptional. R�cker seems pleased as he leaves the restaurant.

Elephants at the Watering Hole

The UN's Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is the largest show of strength in the history of the world body. R�cker has led it since 2006. The multinational administrators oversee everything -- government, police, judiciary, customs, the economy. The goal of the now nine-year operation is to transform Yugoslavia's former poorhouse into a home for more than two million people that deserves to be called a constitutional state.

The UN has the active support of the EU, NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), each represented by its own substantial battalion in Kosovo, as well as several hundred non-governmental organizations. Like elephants at a watering hole, the giants of the global peacemaking trade huddle in this disputed corner of Europe and naturally step, now and then, all over each other's toes.

Kosovo's foreign rulers -- especially the French, Americans and Germans -- are wrestling for billions in reconstruction contracts, for key positions in the new government and for influence over the Kosovar parties and clan leaders. The region is awash with intelligence agents and soldiers of fortune, idealists and professional adventurers. This constellation could, of course, hinder the planned birth of democracy here, rather than help it.

The UN has spent an estimated �33 billion ($53 billion) for its mission in Kosovo since 1999, when a NATO bombing campaign drove out former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's murderous troops. This corresponds to �1,750 ($2,800) per capita, annually -- or 160 times the average yearly per capita aid for all developing countries combined.

Nevertheless, UNMIK isn't wanted by everyone here. The streets to UNMIK headquarters in Pristina have been known to be blocked by protest banners reading: "No access. Criminal zone." Stickers are affixed to some traffic lights in the city, displaying "No to EUMIK" when the lights are red and "Independence" when they turn green. At the Strip Depot caf�, a philosopher called Shkelzen Maliqi, surrounded by disciples lounging on couches, jokes: "Kosovo is a bastard country. You fathered it, and now it's your job to care for it."

Officially, close to half of Kosovo's residents live on less than �3 ($4.80) a day. Kosovo's per capita gross national product is lower than that of North Korea or Papua New Guinea. It has one of the worst balances of trade worldwide and Europe's highest fertility rate. Youth unemployment hovers at 75 percent.

But as long as Albania's young people, equipped with their bulky sunglasses and tiny mobile phones, can camp out in all of Pristina's caf�s before the third call of the muezzin, poverty alone won't explain the local population's growing discomfort with the international presence. Studies by scientists, intelligence services and EU panels seek to examine the deeper-seated reasons for this phenomenon.

These Kosovo analysts have one thing in common: They paint a picture of a clan-based society in which a handful of criminal leaders controls the population -- and are tolerated by bureaucrats from Europe and the rest of the world, who have come here under the guise of enlightening the Kosovars.

'Leading Political and Criminal Figures'

The international community and its representatives in Kosovo bear a significant share of responsibility for the alarming proliferation of Mafia-like structures in Kosovo. As a result of their open support for leading political and criminal figures, they have harmed the credibility of international institutions in numerous ways. (From a study by the Institute for European Politics in Berlin, completed for the German military, the Bundeswehr, in 2007)

UN special envoy R�cker wants nothing to do with "leading political and criminal figures," at least not as long as they've been convicted by a court of law. But not one of the former heroes of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerilla force -- who liberated Kosovo in their battle with Serbian troops -- has so far been sentenced. Now they control Kosovo's politics and economy.

Ramush Haradinaj is a former KLA commander who later became prime minister of UN-administered Kosovo. His indictment in The Hague consisted of 37 charges, including murder, torture, rape and the expulsion of Serbs, Albanians and gypsies in the weeks following the end of the war in 1999. Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor of the UN War Crimes Tribunal, called him a "gangster in uniform." He returned to Kosovo this spring, after his acquittal on April 3.

Haradinaj received a hero's welcome, complete with pistol shots and motorcades through a sea of Albanian flags. But there was also an announcement from UNMIK referring to reservations from The Hague: "The court was under the strong impression that witnesses in this trial did not feel safe."

Steven Schook, R�cker's American deputy at UNMIK's fortress-like headquarters in Pristina, was already out of office by then. The former American brigadier general said he left because he loved his job too much, but that wasn't the real reason. It also wasn't because of his supposed weakness for beautiful Kosovar women, or because he considered it useful to "get drunk with Ramush Haradinaj once a week," as described in a German situation analysis.

No, Steven Schook's contract was officially "not extended" after the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) investigated his administration and looked into (unproven) reports that the American had revealed the whereabouts of a man who had testified against Haradinaj. The man was living under a UN witness protection program.

Even before that, though, Schook's boss at UNMIK -- R�cker -- had given Haradinaj an exceptional private audience before his departure to a prison cell in The Hague. R�cker still insists this treatment was justified for a political alpha dog. "It's a completely normal order of business for a former prime minister and party chairman to pay me a visit before embarking on a longer journey."

As a result of his suspended sentence, Haradinaj's "longer journey" ended up being shorter than expected. During the trial he was even permitted to run as a candidate in the elections for the Kosovar parliament -- with UNMIK's blessing. Because of Haradinaj's background, this attracted attention far beyond the borders of his native region.

Wanting to be Boss

The family clan structure in the Decani region from which Haradinaj derives his power is involved in a wide range of criminal, political and military activities that greatly influence the security situation throughout Kosovo. The group consists of about 100 members, and deals in the drug and weapons smuggling business, as well as in the illegal trade in dutiable goods. (From a 2005 report by the Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany's foreign intelligence agency)

These charges weren't brought up in The Hague. But now that Haradinaj, dressed in a suit and tie, has returned to the political arena, he can call for new elections and consider himself officially confirmed as the guiding figure of an independent Kosovo. The need for politicians with an untarnished name in Kosovo has grown considerably -- because according to a study completed last year, "mafia boss" is the most commonly cited dream profession among children in and around Pristina.

More Greed Than Pioneer Spirit

It's estimated that 20 percent of Kosovars are illiterate, while more than 90 percent have a minimal education. The consequences of Serbian colonial policy under Milosevic have left their mark. Kosovo's three-percent economic growth is insufficient to provide adequate employment for the new crop of young people entering the labor market every year.

According to economist Muhamet Mustafa of the Riinvest Institute for Development Research in Pristina, the black market economy is responsible for 30 to 40 percent of Kosovo's gross national product. The path up the economic ladder is as good as blocked for the country's youngest and most hopeful.

"We must keep our best people in the country, but we lack young elites," says Harvard graduate Shpend Ahmeti, who heads the Institute for Advance Studies (GAP) and plans to establish an academy for future business leaders. Kosovo's main export is still scrap metal, but Ahmeti mentions what politicians intend to ask for at an upcoming international donors' conference -- a subway in the small industrial city of Ferizaj, for �36 million ($58 million), and an opera house dedicated to the now-deceased former president, Ibrahim Rugova, for �25 million ($40 million).

What embitters the idealists among international aid workers and democratic lone wolves among Kosovo's ethnic Albanians is that the UN mission tends to encourage greed, rather than a pioneering spirit. "Ninety percent of the people here come for the money," says a police official with the UN's organized crime division in Pristina. "The motivation (among UN workers) is moderate, people are constantly rotated, and we don't get the really good ones, anyway." Tours of duty in Kosovo, he says, are detrimental to careers at home.

Ten-Figure Sums and No Electricity

The UN mission is variously described as anything from a "paper tiger" to a "bureaucratic monster" to a "colonial administration," while much of its international personnel has the reputation of being in Kosovo either to pursue an adventure or for personal enrichment (From a 2007 study completed for the Bundeswehr) In the upper management echelons at UNMIK, in the Kosovar government and in international consortiums, ten-figure sums of money are thrown around. For the planned Kosovo C brown coal heating power plant, a bidding war has reached �4 billion ($6.4 billion). The new plant is needed because the existing sections of the power plant, despite �1 billion ($1.6 billion) in investments in the power grid, can't deliver enough energy. Daily power outages last up to eight hours. Many people use diesel generators. But who's responsible for this electricity fiasco? Ethem �eku is CEO of the current electricity monopoly. He's also the cousin of former Prime Minister Agim �eku and has close ties to UNMIK Director R�cker. �eku has also served as chairman of the steering committee in the race for the new �4 billion project. One of his former colleagues is part of the favored consortium, while other companies bidding on the power plant project include German energy giants EnBW and RWE.

�eku and his lot, together with UNMIK leaders, form "a sort of Cosa Nostra for Kosovo," says Avni Zogiani, who heads the anti-corruption NGO called �OHU! ("Wake Up!"), despite risks to life and limb. He has received threats because he prepares dossiers on the sins of members of parliament, and because he, to the dissatisfaction of Western ambassadors of democracy, utters sentences like: "So far, UNMIK has worked primarily with criminals and made deals with the devil, merely for the sake of stability in the country." Zogiani's claim, says UNMIK Director R�cker, "does not coincide with reality."

In early April, Zogiani's organization filed a complaint with the special prosecutor in Pristina alleging favoritism within Kosovo's privatization agency. The accused is 39-year-old Hashim Tha�i, who, as one of the KLA commanders in the guerilla war against the Serbian army, was known by his combat name, "Snake." He is now Kosovo's prime minister.

Will his past matter? German author J�rgen Roth cites a 2005 intelligence study (from the Bundesnachrichtendienst) which asserts that as far back as 1999, at the time of the Serb-Albanian peace negotiations, Tha�i controlled "a criminal network active throughout Kosovo." According to the report, he is also suspected of having hired a "professional killer." Tha�i himself has declined to comment on these accusations. The prime minister is busy with governing and dealing with his party, the PDK. Tha�i -- with the support of Germany's left-leaning Friedrich Ebert Foundation -- is trying to establish the PDK within Europe's spectrum of leftist parties, where his old comrade-in-arms and former Prime Minister Agim �eku also wants to build ties.

Women and Heroin

It is assumed that a corporate structure of organized crime and corruption is behind every political party in Kosovo. (The UN's Directorate of Organized Crime)

The UN special investigators for organized crime work in a dilapidated collection of trailers on the edge of Kosovo Field (Kosovo Polje), the historic site of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo between Serbs and the Ottoman Empire. Rain echoes on the corrugated metal roofs of the trailers while the officials inside drink thin coffee. Their weary faces reflect doubt in the purpose of their assignment.

We are fighting with wooden swords against an extremely well-armed opponent," says one of the investigators, who prefers to remain anonymous. "In 2005 and 2006, when the first locals were admitted into the Kosovo police, we suddenly found not a single gram of heroin. Our undercover investigators and informants disappeared. We know literally nothing since then."

According to law enforcement agencies, Kosovo is the most important interim destination for opiates and heroin coming from Afghanistan . It is believed that up to four or five tons of heroin are brought across Kosovo's borders every month. The drug then reaches the EU countries through Albanian distribution rings. (Rastislav B�chora, Notes from Southeastern Europe, 2008)

The central Balkans' drug smuggling route, under observation of international police since 1999, runs through Kosovo. According to Europol, ethnic Albanian organized crime groups now control 80 percent of heroin smuggling in some northern European countries, and 40 percent in Western Europe. Officials at UNMIK in Pristina are familiar with the reports, as well as the warnings of a "further aggravation of the security situation" -- now that the tiny republic's independence facilitates access to government business for the ruling clans.

But nothing is happening. The multinational apparatus is too large, too out of control and too involved with itself. The daily bureaucracy of compiling organizational charges, sending progress reports (known as "okay reporting") to New York, and preparing proof of activity, keeps people busy.

The UNMIK list of Kosovar brothels and bars suspected of promoting or tolerating illegal prostitution -- which are off-limits for UNMIK staff -- includes 138 establishments of various calibers. "Dodana," a dimly lit bar in the divided city of Mitrovica, sits just outside the French Kosovo Force (KFOR) barracks. It's not on the UNMIK list and, at first glance, doesn't seem to have any prostitutes, either. But the owner is a KLA veteran who did time in a German prison near Stuttgart for drug trafficking, and it doesn't take long for him to change his mind and say: "Come back tomorrow, and then you can get what you want."

At the Buze Ibrit across the Ibar River, Fatmiri, who leases the establishment, offers his rooms for �5 ($8) for two-hour "relaxation" periods. Turkish, Albanian and Moldovan women are available in the bars further east along the river.

Bajram Rexhepi has himself driven past the Buze Ibrit in a Jeep every day. He's a slim, gray-haired man who carries a Croatian nine-millimeter pistol concealed in his suit jacket. He knew Mitrovica as a coal-mining town, before there were KFOR troops, UNMIK police and the attendant brothels. He's a former prime minister of Kosovo and the town's current mayor.

To be more precise, he's the mayor of South Mitrovica, the Albanian section. But his villa is across the river, on the city's Serbian side. This puts it in the future Serbian special administrative zone. But somehow the powerful Rexhepi has managed to have his house -- surrounded by Serbian neighborhoods and with a panoramic view -- assigned to the Albanian south.

Rexhepi trained as a surgeon. He served as a doctor at the front during the guerilla war, and as personal doctor of KLA co-founder Adem Jashari until Jashari was murdered. After the war Rexhepi went into politics. As prime minister he gained particular respect by denouncing the anti-Serb pogroms in March 2004 which killed 19 people, injured thousands and destroyed or damaged monasteries, churches and cultural sites.

The Serbian Orthodox cemetery in South Mitrovica, which is now cut off from the Serbian neighborhoods, is still seen as a memorial. Its chapel was desecrated, gravestones were disturbed and cow manure and bits of clothing scattered among the graves. But violence tends to be the exception now, says Rexhepi calmly, pointing to nearby Serbian houses. "Those people over there," he says, "want to create parallel structures."

The Multiethnic Future

A multiethnic Kosovo does not exist, except in the written pronouncements of the international community. (From a study by the International Commission on the Balkans)

Students at the technical university in North Mitrovica wear T-shirts reading "Kosovo is Serbia." The administration of Kosovo's recalcitrant north, funded by Belgrade, now resides in a small, cobalt blue house along the river. North Mitrovica is a planet with its own orbit, a collection of drab neighborhoods with apartment buildings dating back to the days of former Yugoslav dictator Josip Tito. It has shop-window portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin and perhaps 30,000 Serbian residents, who are being used as spearheads in the struggle over Kosovo's future.

Those who work in North Mitrovica's hospital, court system, schools and university are paid two to three times the standard salary, as compensation for living here. By simply persevering, the idea is, they embody Belgrade's legal claim to Kosovo. The leader of Serbia's Radical Party, Tomislav Nikolic, is greeted like the Orthodox Messiah in North Mitrovica, with bread, salt and folk dancing. He can except to capture 70 percent of the vote in this neighborhood.

Experts from the Institute for European Politics consider the dreams of a multiethnic Kosovo a "grotesque denial of reality in the international community," triggered by a "politically mandated pressure to succeed." It is not difficult to reconstruct the source of this pressure.

Washington's influence has been decisive, from the NATO attack on Serbian targets in 1999 to its leadership role in the peace negotiations in Rambouillet, France, and the road map for Kosovo's declaration of independence. "The Spaniards didn't want a decision before March 2008, because of their upcoming elections, but the Americans wanted February," says a UNMIK employee. "So February 17 it was."

The resolute phrase "no way" -- spoken into a mobile phone by an official at the American diplomatic mission in Pristina -- which barely prevented Kosovar Prime Minister Tha�i from declaring independence two days early (from an American perspective), is now one of the most colorful myths surrounding the establishment of the young republic. The Americans have reaped the rewards of their commitment to Kosovo: the Camp Bondsteel military base, arms deliveries for the future Kosovo army and a loyal community of fans among the Albanian majority.

And the Europeans? Javier Solana, the EU's chief diplomat and a dedicated supporter of trans-Atlantic cooperation, did not attract much attention with his moderate appeals during the gallop to Kosovo's independence. EU Commission President Jos� Manuel Barroso is already suggesting that Kosovo could be offered "EU prospects." UNMIK Director R�cker takes it a step further, when he says: "I see both Kosovo and Serbia a members of the EU in 10 years."

What steps need to be taken before that can happen? A few bastions would have to be worn down and bridges built.

The Serbs, in their blossoming, rural landscape in the north, bordering on the wild Sandzak region, and with their fields, pastures and beehives, would have to learn to find a common language with the Albanians in the south, in their sprawling settlements of unfinished buildings and streets littered with garbage.

The old and new residents of Prizren, at the center of the Kosovo controversy, a medieval residence of Serbian kings and the birthplace of dreams of a greater Albania, will have to find ways to reconcile once again. They will have to clear occupied houses, repair desecrated mosques and churches, and allow justice to prevail.

There are currently 38,000 pending lawsuits for the restitution of property in Kosovo -- mostly fields and meadows. EU experts expect to encounter 180,000 court cases that have not been processed yet. Among 40,000 criminal cases still pending, 700 are classified as "top priority," because they lead directly into the heart of the clan system.

It is that system, and not the people, which is still the source of power in Europe's youngest republic.

Kosovo's women suffer

PRISTINA, KOSOVO -- She purses her lips in a "tsk-tsk" when asked difficult questions. Questions about her life, about the husband who beats her, the father who denies her an inheritance and a place to live.

Slightly hunchbacked, her thin frame barely fills the several layers of donated clothing she wears. At 26, she looks 15. She has three children and an elementary-school education. When she showed up at the door of a women's shelter here, purple bruises blotched her face and framed her shattered, crooked nose. Chunks of her hair had been ripped out.

"I've been beaten a lot," said Fatima. "They beat me so badly the last time, I could not care for my children."

In the last couple of years, she says, she has spent more time at the shelter, hiding, than in her husband's house. It is only a slight exaggeration.

Fatima is actually luckier than many women in Kosovo, a harsh region weighted by twin burdens of poverty and unenlightened tradition. A United Nations study in 2000 estimated that one-fourth of the female population of Kosovo suffered physical or psychological abuse; Kosovo police last year recorded 1,077 cases of domestic violence.

Fatima and her children were able to escape to a shelter, one of a dozen or so that now operate here. It has given her refuge from the violent men of her family and an alternative to an even darker fate: being sold into the expansive networks that traffic women like chattel in this part of the world.

But for every woman in Kosovo who is saved, an untold number do not make it, according to women's advocates and social workers.

Dominated by ethnic Albanians, Kosovo broke away from Serbia last month, proclaiming itself an independent nation, with fervent backing from Washington. Among Kosovo's many challenges, from building state institutions to combating rampant corruption, is improving its historically unjust and often criminal treatment of women.

Like much of the surrounding, rugged Balkans, Kosovo has long served as a notorious transit point for the international trafficking of women, mostly from Eastern Europe, who are forced into prostitution or slavery.

After a brutal crackdown by Slobodan Milosevic in 1999, Kosovo came under the stewardship of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations. During the years since, Kosovo evolved from a transit point into both a source of and destination for trafficked women. Often, Kosovo officials and former guerrilla commanders were complicit in the lucrative trade -- and the resident international community, including peacekeepers and civilian consultants, its market.

Unemployment problem

The question now is whether independence, which is still in an embryonic stage and not universally recognized, will result in a change of status for women and eradication of the trafficking networks. Or whether organized criminal gangs, with allies in the new government, will be given an even freer hand.

"The first thing our government must do, and they've promised a lot, is to fight unemployment. The violence is linked directly to economic conditions," said Naime Sherifa, director of the Center for the Protection of Women and Children in Pristina, the first such organization here. "People are very tired of being poor."

Tired, she said, and ready to explode. Roughly half of Kosovo's generally young population is out of work; the World Bank and other experts believe it could take a decade to dramatically reduce unemployment. Poverty strains Kosovo's families, which tend to be large. Add to that the dislocations of war: Thousands of people were killed and entire villages razed, their residents forced to move to urban areas. There, many live in cramped conditions, disoriented, unsettled in an unfamiliar environment.

The breakdown of family structure and the transfer of populations to cities created an anonymity in Kosovo society that did not exist before the war; as one consequence, it left women vulnerable to traffickers and other abuse, said Wanda Troszczynska, a Kosovo specialist with the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Women used to be relegated to restrictive lives at home, guarded behind the high-walled compounds that traditionally housed extended ethnic Albanian families, or clans. It wasn't freedom, but it was out of the reach of outside exploitation. Traffickers brought women from elsewhere, such as Moldova and Romania, initially to be shuttled to Italy or other parts of Europe and, after the war, to remain in Kosovo to "service" a growing international population.

Eventually, more and more Kosovo women, ripped from their traditional home life, also fell prey to traffickers and found themselves lured by promises of work, marriage or their own cellphone, only to end up in seedy bars, strip joints and brothels.

Need to enforce laws

In their long march to prove themselves ready to run a state, Kosovo Albanians set up a police force under United Nations tutelage that gradually took up the mission of raiding bars and rescuing victims of sexual exploitation. In 2006, the Kosovo police conducted 99 raids, arrested 28 suspected traffickers and "identified" 50 victims, according to statistics provided by the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

By all accounts, the work by the Kosovo police is an improvement but targets only the tip of the iceberg.

More insidious than the trafficking are the domestic abuse cases. Perhaps tens of thousands of women suffer violence at home or the denial of basic rights, according to human rights activists and social workers. Experts say the problem crosses ethnic lines -- Albanians, Serbs, Roma and others are victims -- and remains vastly underreported.

Igballe Rogova, head of the Kosova Women's Network, an umbrella coalition of about 40 groups, said she was hopeful the government, with the independence issue more or less settled, could put into practice laws that exist on paper.

More insidious than the trafficking are the domestic abuse cases. Perhaps tens of thousands of women suffer violence at home or the denial of basic rights, according to human rights activists and social workers. Experts say the problem crosses ethnic lines -- Albanians, Serbs, Roma and others are victims -- and remains vastly underreported.

Igballe Rogova, head of the Kosova Women's Network, an umbrella coalition of about 40 groups, said she was hopeful the government, with the independence issue more or less settled, could put into practice laws that exist on paper.

"Today we have really incredibly good mechanisms on gender equality," she told a European Parliament committee on women's issues in Brussels late last month. "We have a law on gender equality, we have an office on gender equality at the prime minister level and, in every ministry, gender equality officers. We are not happy with the implementation of these mechanisms, but we are very optimistic."

Sherifa said laws grant women the rights to own and inherit property on the same terms as men. But it often does not happen that way.

In the case of Fatima, for example, her father owns nearly nine acres of land, which he has divided among her brothers. But he refuses to give Fatima any, forcing her to live with her husband and children in her father-in-law's tiny house. Seven people live, cramped and unhappily, in the two-room shack.

Both her husband and her father-in-law beat her, Fatima said. Her "offenses" ranged from asking for money to buy medicine for a sick child, or asking for food. Sometimes, she said, she goes days without eating. Fatima has ended up in the shelter three times in the last two years, each time after a beating so severe she could not stand the pain any longer.

Haven for abused

The shelter, run by Sherifa's organization, was the first one in Kosovo. It is a three-story house behind a gate on a quiet street of Pristina. Police patrol it regularly. (The Times was granted rare access to the shelter and its residents on the condition that neither the location nor the victims be identified. "Fatima" is a pseudonym.)

The good news in Fatima's story is that when, bruised and bloodied, she called the police, they came. They took her to the shelter. She returned to the family after the men were briefly detained by the police and ordered not to touch her again. Now, however, it is clear the intervention has failed, Sherifa said, and she will look for a permanent place for Fatima and her children to live.

More than anything, Fatima seems weary. "I just feel sorry for my children," she said. "They see all this violence all the time. I'm afraid it will affect them."

The bad news is the shelters are full, unable to meet the demand; abusers are rarely prosecuted, witnesses too terrified to come forward.

Said Sherifa: "This is something we, and the next generation, will have to work on."

Mr. Ceku's Disorderly House

The recent column by Agim Ceku ("Kosovo Wants Independence," Nov. 15) presents the critic with what military planners would call a target-rich environment. Virtually every assertion about Kosovo's prospects as an independent state screams out for rebuttal.

For the sake of brevity, let us focus on just one: Mr. Ceku's suggestion that Kosovo, under his U.N.-supervised administration, has "put our structures in place and our house in order." This month's report by the European Commission tells a very different story:

"Due to a lack of clear political will to fight corruption, and to insufficient legislative and implementing measures, corruption is still widespread," the report said. "Civil servants are still vulnerable to political interference, corrupt practices and nepotism" and "Kosovo's public administration remains weak and inefficient," the report added.

Furthermore, "the composition of the government anti-corruption council does not sufficiently guarantee its impartiality," and "little progress can be reported in the area of organized crime and combating of trafficking in human beings."

War crime trials are being "hampered by the unwillingness of the local population to testify" and "there is still no specific legislation on witness protection in place," according to the report. "Civil society organizations remain weak" and "awareness of women's rights in society is low."

If this is the "house" Mr. Ceku claims "is in order" in advance of what he hopes will be conferral of independence, one shudders to think what disorder would look like. To be sure, Mr. Ceku makes use of the usual dodge that Kosovo's progress is limited by the absence of "clarity on our future status," namely independence. But Taiwan, by contrast, has gone without such clarity for over half a century and is nothing like the disaster over which Mr. Ceku presides.

Instead of falling for his fairy tales about Kosovo's fitness for sovereignty the international community needs to open its eyes to the reality of this corrupt, criminal, and nonviable entity. Granting independence to Kosovo, which would mean handing de jure power to those responsible for this state of affairs, can only turn a disaster into a catastrophe.

EU's Kosovo report scathing on graft, justice

BRUSSELS, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Serbia's United Nations-run Kosovo province is plagued by graft, human rights abuses and cronyism because of weakness in the province's authorities, the European Commission said on Tuesday.

The EU executive's annual progress report concluded there was little progress in the province and institutions were weak, mainly due to widespread corruption at all levels.

"Due to a lack of clear political will to fight corruption, and to insufficient legislative and implementing measures, corruption is still widespread," the report said.

There was little control on how politicians and officials got their wealth and "civil servants are still vulnerable to political interference, corrupt practices and nepotism."

"Kosovo's public administration remains weak and inefficient," the report added.

In a reference to a widespread perception in Kosovo of cronyism, the report said that "the composition of the government anti-corruption council does not sufficiently guarantee its impartiality."

"Some but uneven progress can be reported in combating money laundering," and "little progress can be reported in the area of organised crime and combating of trafficking in human beings."

The report is an indictment for the U.N. bureaucrats running the province since 1999, and for the province's ethnic Albanian leaders, who are seeking independence from Serbia, political analysts said.

Belgrade rejects the demand, and the two sides have been locked in negotiations for months, closely watched by the EU that is preparing to take over some of the U.N. functions once Kosovo's status is settled.

According to the report, Kosovo's judicial system is still "weak" and institutions have made "little progress".

WAR CRIMES

Laws are not standardised and there is not enough qualified personnel. The case backlog is growing, and there are several hundred pending war crimes trials from the 1998-99 insurgency by ethnic Albanians and the counter-war by Serb forces.

NATO intervened and expelled Serb troops accused of killing civilians while cracking down on the rebellion. Serbia accuses the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army of also killing civilians not loyal to its cause, both Serb and Albanians.

"These (war crimes trials) are being hampered by the unwillingness of the local population to testify," the report says. "There is still no specific legislation on witness protection in place." The report notes that "civil society organisations remain weak," "awareness of women's rights in society is low," and there is no adequate mechanism to address complaints from Kosovo's citizens against the U.N. authorities in Kosovo.

It also highlights major problems in minority rights, especially related to the situation of Kosovo's remaining Serb minority. Some 100,000 stayed in the province after the end of the war, and as many left, fearing reprisals.

"Especially the Kosovo Serb community still see their freedom of movement being restricted ... Returnees' houses are still the targets of violent attacks," the report says.

It adds that acts of vandalism against Serb Orthodox religious monuments "including with mortars", remain a problem, and investigations into the crimes are not always professional.

(Writing by Ellie Tzortzi; Editing by Peter Millership)

Macedonia police chase Kosovo fugitive, at least 6 gang members killed

SKOPJE, Macedonia: Police search teams chased a Kosovo prison fugitive and his criminal gang on Wednesday, killing six gang members and arresting 12 others in northwestern Macedonia, police said.

The search operation led to gun battles in ethnic Albanian villages near Macedonia's volatile border with Kosovo, but the main target of the operation - fugitive Lirim Jakupi - was still at large.

Special police officers searched houses and seized weapons, including rocket-propelled grenade launchers and automatic weapons, in village of Brodec, some 45 kilometers (28 miles) west of the capital, Skopje.

At least 10 nearby villages were cordoned off as police searched door-to-door. Several of the men arrested had been disguised as women, police spokesman Ivo Kotevski said.

Police arrested 12 suspected gang members and found the bodies of six others, Kotevski said, but added that more might have been have been killed or wounded in the gunbattles. He did not confirm earlier media reports that eight people had been killed.

The identities of the men killed were not yet known, but Interior Minister Gordana Jankulovska said no bystanders or police were among the dead.

Police said they were trying to capture the group of gunmen led by Jakupi, who was still at large after escaping from Kosovo's Dubrava prison two months ago.

Jakupi, nicknamed the "Nazi," was a member of the outlawed Albanian National Army, and was wanted in Macedonia and Serbia for alleged participation in attacks in both countries.

In 2004 he was arrested in Skopje on suspicion of murdering a policeman and planting bomb outside a police station, but he escaped custody while awaiting trial. He was arrested by U.N. forces in Kosovo, and jailed on terrorism charges.

Gunfire was first reported Wednesday in Brodec, before the fighting moved into an open area, according to private news agency Makfax.

The mountainous area, close to the border with Kosovo, was also the center of an uprising by ethnic Albanian armed rebels in 2001, which was put down by government forces after several months.

An opposition party official in Tetovo condemned the police raid, which he said threatened area peace.

"With these actions, whatever freedom and peace we had as Macedonians will fade," Xhevat Ademi said. He also claimed several villagers had been injured in the raids.

Last week, another Kosovo prison fugitive was shot dead in the same region. Police denied involvement, saying Xhavid Morina had been killed in a skirmish between rival criminal gangs.

Macedonia is currently courting membership in both NATO and the European Union and is keen to project an image of stability.