The seven men are dirty and smelly-not surprising given that they’ve spent the last eight days in this spot on the border between Serbia and its troubled province of Kosovo. They’ve set up their roadblock just inside Kosovo, stopping traffic with a collection of trees and wooden planks.
As we jump out of our car to plead for passage, we notice a small lopsided tent fashioned of plastic sheeting on the side of the road. Underneath its sparse shelter, another four men sit on logs around a small fire, smoking cigarettes and watching two of their fellow Serbs listlessly kick around a soccer ball on the empty asphalt.
Who are these men? They’re from nearby Banje, home to several hundred ethnic Serbs who work mostly as farmers or factory workers. Now they’re stopping traffic as part of a protest against a decision by Kosovo’s United Nations administration to set up tax-collection points on the administrative boundaries with central Serbia.
To them, the U.N. decision is an attempt to impoverish them further while turning Kosovo into a de facto independent country.
“They want to set up their own state, their own country!” exclaims Goran Lokovic. “We will have to pay two German marks [about 90 U.S. cents] just to walk across the borders, and another four if we are in a vehicle. This is robbery.”
U.N. officials counter there will no such tax and that the Serb population-a minority in a province dominated by ethnic Albanians-has misunderstood the purpose and process of the plan. “It will be a 15 percent sales tax on goods entering from outside Yugoslavia,” says Frank Benjaminson, a U.N. spokesman in nearby Mitrovica. “Luxury goods will be taxed, but things such as food and personal belongings will not be part of the program.” A similar system was started several months ago at the border with Montenegro, which is also part of the Yugoslav federation. “We’ve tried make this clear, but apparently our message did not get across to ordinary people,” Benjaminson says.
That’s an understatement.
Kosovo Serbs are so incensed about the tax decision that thousands of protesters have staged protests and set up roadblocks like this one on the road leading north toward the boundary. The result: repeated clashes with the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping forces in the province. The worst violence occurred just days ago on April 22, leaving one woman dead and 12 people injured-including one man who lost his hand picking up a KFOR-fired grenade and attempting to lob it back at the peacekeepers. “They showed up at five in the morning and with a megaphone told us we had five minutes to leave,” recalls 47-year-old Milovan Radenkovic of Sunday’s protest.
Exactly who started the violence is unclear, but within minutes Serbs were throwing stones and KFOR-armored vehicles were launching stun grenades. “We were here peacefully protesting, and they came in with tanks. What are we supposed to do?” asks Radenkovic. KFOR officials say the action was necessary to ensure freedom of movement.
According to the U.N., the tax has a dual purpose: to curb illegal smuggling of everything from cigarettes to guns, and to raise much-needed revenue for instruments of self-government within Kosovo. “This will actually consolidate Kosovo’s position inside Yugoslavia,” argues Benjaminson. “We are charged with setting up a provisional self-government, and they will need funding.”
The U.N. has administered Kosovo since 1999, pledging to institute autonomous self-government while keeping the province part of the Yugoslav federation. While U.N. officials say they expect the income from the tax to generate at least $4 million, the Serbian population argues that the plan is illegal. “If they want to do this legally, they should consult the government of the country of which they’re in, and that, in this case, is Yugoslavia,” argues Dragisa Avramovic, an accountant from nearby Zubin Potok.
U.N. officials, however, say they are acting within their mandate and are consulting with both local Serb leaders and Yugoslav authorities. “We’ve said a thousand times that this is not a country, and we began talking to municipal authorities months ago about this,” says Benjaminson. “[Yugoslav President Vojislav] Kostunica was also included in this, and though he opposes the move, he knows what we are trying to do.”
One problem may have been lack of information. The U.N. administration has been plagued by communication problems since its arrival, and the majority of Serbs still describe the international forces as a “smiling-faced enemy” that favors the Albanian population. Only one Serb radio station agreed to air a U.N.-prepared radio program explaining the tax system-a move that some U.N. officials argue may have been part of a deliberate effort by local Serb officials to foment instability and mistrust.
Still, U.N. officials do concede they made some mistakes in starting to implement the measures. One example: when tax-collection officers arrived in the area 11 days ago, they wore the uniforms of customs officials-even though the U.N. says the dividing line between Kosovo and Serbia proper is not a border, but merely an administrative boundary.
Nor did KFOR’s use of force endear itself to local Serbs. Says the U.N.’s Benjaminson on whether the attack was justified: “At some point, you have to stop attempting compromises and just go forward. It’s a difficult question to answer.”
That explanation will do little to placate Serbs who feel the taxes will drive up the cost of living in a place where their freedom of movement is uncertain. “We are forced by the situation to get all our goods from Serbia. We cannot go into the Albanian areas to shop around and look for cheaper things,” argued Avramovic, the accountant. “How will we survive?”
Until that question is answered to their satisfaction, the men pledge to keep up their vigils on the side of the road. “This is our home, our country,” says Lokovic. “we just want to be treated fairly.” He and his colleagues at the barricade decide to let us pass. As we pull away, he shouts: “Tell them, they cannot steal our country, and we want to know why they do this. We want to know why!” And then we’re moving along-until we have to stop at the next roadblock.
