Archives for January 2008

This week Today and PM are broadcasting my radio reports on my Balkans trip. One of the frustrations of radio or TV is that you can find someone who has some very interesting things to say, but in the quest for balanced pieces reflecting the whole story I can only give them a half-minute or so of airtime. Here, I am not limited in that way. So, over the next few days I'll be posting four different stories about how people are reacting to the Serbian elections or the looming independence of Kosovo. They are not meant to be comprehensive or in themselves balanced: they are a snapshot. But I hope together they add up to a bigger picture.

Rapper's studio

Genc Prevlaka sits on a low, antique wooden stool playing a traditional Albanian wooden flute.

In the corner of the small studio is a long necked guitar-like instrument which is a couple of centuries old.

Genc says he loves old things and traditions. We move from the studio to a control room-cum-chill-out room, bathed in a low, blue light.

The small but well-equipped studio is up a flight of stairs in a Pristina tower block.

Although Genc is proficient on the flute, he’s not best known as a folk musician but Kosovo’s premier rapper, now on his fifth album, his most famous song ‘Proud to be an Albanian’.

On the big studio computer we watch the video, an oddly successful mix of disparate images - Kosovo Liberation Army fighters, famous Albanians from Mother Teresa to the boxer Kreshnik Qato, prints of the Albanian hero Skanderbeg besting curved sword-carrying cavalry - intercut with Genc making that odd gesture with the fingers and thumbs that I am too old to understand.

Kosovo independence

Smoking a cigarette in a long holder, he tells me what it means to him that Kosovo is on the verge of declaring independence.

“Like every Albanian it means a lot to me, it means everything, we live for this day.

“Always we had hope, we had hope for our state that belongs to us. I must let you know that when we lived in ex-Yugoslavia, it was unfair because we were not Slavs. We were 2 million Albanians and there was not any connection with the Slavs, so we were originally part of Albania.”

I say that it is noticeable that the song is called “Proud to be Albanian”, not proud to be from Kosovo, and ask him why that is what he wants to stress.

“Kosovo is just a name for a special border. My identity is Albanian and will always be. Kosovo is OK. When we have an independent state we’ll have lots of jobs to do. The name of Kosovo I accept for political reasons, but my emotional feelings will always be connected with the Albanian nation, it will never change.”

Next, a rather thorny subject. At one time many Serbs, and some American commentators, warned that an independent Kosovo would lead to a Greater Albania, with the Albanians here joining up with those in Macedonia and Albania itself.

No Albanian, even those few who openly campaign for such a country, accepts the term itself. But I am not fully aware of this at the point I talk to Genc, so I ask the question.

Ethnic Albania

“I must correct you, it’s not about a Greater Albania, its ethnic Albania.

“The term ‘Greater Albania’ is kind of connected with Serbian propaganda. It’s just ethnic Albania, so if you ask me for ethnic Albania, OK, it depends on the political scene."

So to be clear: a Greater Albania is Serbian propaganda but he'd welcome a country that included Macedonia and Albania?

His answer is not direct.

“All the threat in the Balkans and eastern Europe was Serbian, the Serbian regime. I’m not telling you that all the Serbian people are bad, but the Serbian regime always for the past 100 years was all the threat to the Balkans."

He says Albanians are a peaceful people and a peaceful nation. "We always want what belongs to us. You can’t compare Kosovo with Albanians who live in Montenegro or Macedonia, that’s a different case."

'An emotional state'

“But if we talk about Kosovo we have all the right in the world to be independent. Ethnic Albania is just nowadays an emotional state, a state from history. What’s important is for Albanians to live free. It’s not necessary, if Kosovo gets independence, to be one state with Albania, that’s for sure.

“I can’t tell you about the future, because the mentality may change, but for now the only vision of Albanians who live in Kosovo is to live in an independent Kosovo, with good relationships with Serbia and Albania. So that was our mission, that was our idea, and that’s our vision about Kosovo.”

It is true that no mainstream politician in Albania itself countenances the idea of one big Albanian country. But on my first trip to a market in that country, I come across a group of market traders, playing a noisy game of dominos at the end of the day.

I try not to ask a loaded question, and merely say “What about Kosovo, then?”

The answer is immediate: “We are all Albanian, we have one flag and one language.”

So one country, I wonder? “Why not? Yes, of course.”

I have to agree with Genc that this is more of an emotional mood of solidarity that any sort of political project building steam but I think his rap may be getting a few more plays over the next few weeks and months.

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This is the first time I have been to a church service held behind barbed wire.

Inside the chapel next to the Gracanica Monastery in Kosovo, a priest in white robes adorned with red crosses swings a silver censer, and the tinkling of bells and and the sweet, musty smell of incense fills the air.

His companion is preparing the host, behind a wooden screen painted with glorious icons.

Most of the congregation are nuns, clad head to foot in black. There are six other worshippers.

The youngest of them, a girl perhaps in her late teens, yawns and covers her mouth. The service started at seven and it is now nine and the ethereal rhythmic chanting is somewhat soporific.

Swedish sentry

Outside, a Swedish soldier stands in his sentry-post built into the side of the monastery, cradling an automatic rifle.

Coiled razor wire tops the wall and big concrete blocks stand in front of it. Not that his Grace, Bishop Artemije of the diocese of Raska and Prizren , has much time for United Nations soldiers.

“Unfortunately, the destruction of our holy shines have been committed under the authority of the international community, in the presence of KFOR and UNMIK , so their presence here was not any guarantee or protection for our churches and monasteries.

“We can only presume what will happen to us if the Albanians would be granted independence of Kosovo. And I’m asking myself why would the international community sacrifice one historical nation and its cultural heritage in the 21st century. I wonder, why?”

Land of churches
There is no doubt Serbian churches were destroyed during and after the war and one American academic has made an interesting study of such destruction.

I have heard so many times how important Kosovo, the land of Churches, is to Serbs so I want to find out from a leader of the Serbian Orthodox faith how he sees it. The Bishop, a man with a rich voice, tells me: “Our main and historical seat is in Prizren but we were expelled from there in 1999 so this is our temporary residence now.

“The monastery of Gracanica and our other monasteries are like title deeds, witnesses, that Kosovo has always been and will always be part of Serbia. It is not only a question of territory, but a spiritual essence in giving identity to the Serbian people in general and to each Serb individually.

“And Kosovo is a symbol of eternal values which the Kosovo-Serbs determined for in 1389 in the famous Kosovo battle against the Turks . And Kosovo is the cradle of the Serbian spirituality because the biggest and oldest Serbian monasteries are here. It is the cradle of Serbian culture and Serbian statehood.

“What a heart is to a man that is what Kosovo is to Serbia and the Serbian people. And as no one can give his heart to anyone else and remain a man, alive, in the same way Serbia can never give up Kosovo and remain what it has been.

“What Jerusalem is to the Jewish people a kind of symbol of a historical, vertical line, that is what Kosovo is to the Serbian people .”

Kosovo lost

When I say that when I was in Serbia some people told me that Kosovo is already lost, the Bishop’s translator does a double-take and clearly believes she has misunderstood the question. She has not, and the Bishop chides me.

“First of all, you are still in Serbia now. Because Kosovo is Serbia and not only Serbia, but the centre of Serbia. I do not know who you have spoken to who has told you that Kosovo is lost, but Kosovo is not lost and will not be lost. It will always be in Serbia as an occupied part of its territory."

Will it ever be rejoined with the rest of Serbia, then, I ask. And if so, how?

“As God wills. I do not have a solution in my hands.”

Many Serbs say they will leave Kosovo when independence is declared and I am unsure whether they really will.

Those who have the opportunity to make a better life in Serbia have already gone and conditions would have to be significantly worse to force the remainder to hold to their emotionally spoken words. But one thing is sure, the Bishop is staying, and so is the barbed wire and the Swedish soldier.

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Underneath my feet are thousands of tons of lead, gold, silver, zinc and copper. I am at the Trepca mine near Mitrovica in Kosovo.

Some wait only for independence for the mine to regain its former glory, but will they wait in vain?

At first sight it seems completely abandoned apart from one person manning the main gate. Then one old miner appears to guide us up four flights of stairs, through a white-tiled building which is deserted and neglected, the white tiling cracked and dirty.

Then we mill about for a bit by one entrance to the mine. Over the door is a sign saying ‘Good luck’!

Tracks disappear inside and I venture a short way into the mouth of the tunnel, but it doesn’t look desperately safe. Some more miners appear. There are no youngsters among them, their faces are tired and lined and several look as though they should be at home, enjoying their pension.

At its height, more than 5,000 people used to work here. But the men tell me there are now only about 600 of them, trying to keep the creaking beast ticking over.

They say when the Serbs left, they stripped the mine of all its equipment. Now, no ore is processed here but sent via two companies, one Swiss and one British.

Wartime attack

One man tells me that during the war he fled his village on a tractor with many relatives. But under attack by Serbian troops they had to run. He had to leave his aunt behind because she was disabled. He says she was burnt to death. This is the sort of thing they are all trying to forget, and which perhaps forces them to be optimistic about the future.

He says: “Kosovo is rich in minerals and rich in farming land, is rich in all other aspects. Here, we provided wealth for so many years for the whole of Yugoslavia, there is no reason why we cannot provide now for just Kosovo. That’s why I’m saying Kosovo has a bright future.”

It is true Kosovo has the second largest deposits of brown coal” or lignite and there are United Nations plans for large scale generation with the hope that it will eventually export power to the rest of Europe.

But mineral mining doesn’t make huge profits and this mine is clearly in need of massive investment. Businesses worried about profits in an economic downturn may not rush to put their money in a place that has a questionmark over its future.

We clamber up a steep ladder and then a series of steps cut into the hillside. At the top is the pit head. Rusty sheets of metal cover huge holes in the ground and tools are scattered around on large work benches.

Two miners dressed in thick leather aprons are clambering up the tall gantry clutching huge spanners. They shout and a pile of debris shoots down the hillside, clattering on the road below.

Longing for independence

Abaz Nimani who’s 60 has worked at the mine for 38 years. He is longing for Kosovo to declare its independence.

“I couldn’t even tell you all the suffering we’ve been through to get to that day,” he says.

“We’ve suffered a lot from the communist system and the Belgrade system which has ruled here. But it’ll all be worth it.”

But Kosovo has something like 50% unemployment and that worries him.

“We have to do much more to provide new job opportunities for the youngsters. They are just sitting around doing nothing, yet they are very hard working people.”

A short way from the mine itself is the HQ. It’s just as beaten up as the mine itself, adorned with communist-style crossed-hammer symbols.

We poke around for a good while looking for the right building. All look abandoned.

But one shows some signs of life when we tentatively push at the heavy glass doors. Although it seems empty we can hear one voice. Amid all the abandoned offices, a man sits busily looking at spreadsheets.

He tells us we need the next floor. Up the cracked and chipped marble staircase there is more activity and the headquarters of Trepca mine. We meet Nazmi Mikullovci, the manager of Trepca.

He is a man with problems. He tells me that it’s uncertain who even owns the land. He says in a normal business he could just go ahead and make a decision. Here he has to talk to four different international agencies as well as the Government.

He says this leads to delays that cost them a million dollars last year.

Handcuffed by the system

“So for me, the independence of Kosovo is not just about my own personal freedom, it means opening up the business and a real chance to change the systems that handcuff us.”

But some changes are hard if not impossible to make until Kosovo develops as a country. At the moment it doesn’t have a pensions scheme.

“It’s not about the law, it’s about morality,” he says.

“If I get rid of these old workers, they would get 40 euros a month. That’s pretty close to a death sentence. We have no social insurance, no medical insurance. So tell me what I should do about our rather elderly workers. They are willing to work, they want to work but they are very limited in what they can actually do. It’s another set of handcuffs.”

Finally and officially breaking away from Serbia may be much easier than shedding shackles on growth and development, and without economic success Kosovo will not truly be independent.

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Joe the Digger stands in a builder’s yard just outside Belgrade showing me the rather dilapidated vehicle that made his name.

The front window of the now engineless orange earthmover is pocked with bullet holes.

Joe, as Lyubisav Djokic prefers to be known, was in the forefront of the revolution against Milosovic eight years ago. Quite literally in the forefront.

As police tear gassed the crowds surrounding the parliament he drove his digger at the building. Pointing at the bullet holes in the windscreen he says: “Yes those are the scars, but the most dangerous were the two in the back window.

"The policeman who climbed up the back said afterwards in an interview that the minister of the interior had ordered him to kill me.

"The type of machine saved me because the whole cab moves with the scooper and when I turned the wheel he fell off.”

He tells how he smashed in the basement windows of the parliament and then people climbed on top of the scoop and he lifted them up so they could get in the building.

Joe’s rather watery eyes light up when he starts to remember that day on October 5 2000.

“They were stuffed in the scoops, then they broke the window and then they swarmed in over my machine and set the first floor on fire. I wasn’t afraid. I thought I was in a movie. Still, I thought I would die.”

But he feels betrayed by the politicians who took over after those days. He says until last year, when he got a job advising the local council, he couldn’t ever afford to buy bread. He says everyone in Serbia is much poorer.

'Nothing has changed'

“In my opinion, nothing important has changed. Maybe we’re not buying petrol out of a canister, now we can get it from a petrol station. But then I had money and now I don’t. What good does it do me having petrol at the petrol stations if I can’t afford to buy it?”

He says shortly after the revolution everyone was saying “Kosovo is still ours” so he decided to test this. He called on people to march behind his digger, saying if they were right, the Albanians would run away when they approached.

No one took him up. A few years ago he did make the journey and UN forces allowed him to cross the border. He says the Serbian media lied and said he’d defied the troops, rather than made the journey with their help.

“Kosovo is lost and there’s no doubt about that. Everybody likes having a big state but they tried keeping Montenegro, and it separated. Montenegro was important. Slovenia, Croatia, they were important Every part of Yugoslavia meant something to me.

"It’s too late to change anything now. The way we’re being led will lose other parts of Serbia to Hungarians. Everything will be taken from us. Anyway the Serbs who are in Kosovo will be better off than if they were in Serbia. They’ll be with the west.”

Joe definitely doesn’t like the idea that after the elections Serbia could move closer to Russia.

“How can we turn towards Russia when we know that in 1948 it was hard for Tito to get rid of Russia? If they’re so good, how come the Czechs and Poles and Hungarians, Bulgarians and Romanians couldn’t wait to get rid of them? And I see the Germans are under America for the last sixty years and no one’s complaining. I want that too!”

Tourist attraction

He hopes one day the digger will stand outside the parliament as a tourist attraction. He’s put it on sale for 90,000 euros. “Well, they sold Madonna’s knickers for a million,” he says.

As we go he has a final thought: “Put in your piece that I need a second-hand engine. Not a new one, just second-hand,” he jokes: “Then I can bring down this government as well.” At least I think he’s joking.

Anyone out there got a spare 1981 D2 402 IHC engine for a 530 A (series 2) rubber-tyred loader, and we’ll see if he’s serious.

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President Barroso sees the European Union’s plans to deal with climate change as a route to popularity.

He told the European Parliament that it was a great argument for the European Union and shows that the world needs a strong EU.

I am not sure he won over quite everyone in the chamber.

Mr Barroso sat laughing and shaking his head as the UKIP MEP Graham Booth derided the plan. This is part of what he said:

“Climate change is precisely that! Climate changes - ALL THE TIME! So what if Earth's climate decides to cool down instead of warm up? Will the "experts" then suggest that we must produce much more carbon dioxide to try and offset the cooling?

"Of course not - they are so committed to their present "Global Warming" prediction that that would NOT be an option.

“But, sadly, it looks as if that is what IS happening. IF Global Warming has been just a temporary blip and we are now heading relentlessly for the next (inevitable) Ice Age, any reductions in CO2 emissions will have precisely the OPPOSITE effect to that which is intended.

“And all the fancy calculations of carbon trading, the "benefits" of which are highly doubtful anyway, will be completely pointless.”

Conservative MEP Roger Helmer, a fierce critic of the European Union, also doubts that global warming is caused by human activity.

So does Czech president Vaclav Klaus, and we had quite a discussion about it when we met last year. I was interviewing him, yes you guessed it, about his scepticism towards the European Union.

What is the connection between euroscepticsm and doubts about man-made climate change ?

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This is my first visit to Albania and it is a fascinating, beautiful country: Tirana much more impressive than I had been led to believe; the run-down Durres tower blocks and shanties more in keeping with my preconceptions.

I am here to report on Albania’s reaction to the looming independence of Kosovo and my report will be on Radio Four and the World Service next week and I will link to it when it is ready.

But that is for another day.

Today, religion.

On the way up into the town of Kruja, perched on the side of a mountain, we stop at a small road side shrine, a Teke, a green-domed, white walled, small building.

Down a few stone steps is a neat little room, covered with small, Turkish-style rugs. But a little area of the floor is bare, and what looks like limestone.

There’s a hole, about eight inches deep and it doesn’t take much imagination to see it as a footprint.

The shrine’s guardian, 79 year-old Masmut Subashi, tells me this is the footprint of Sari Saltik .

Holy man

The holy man’s portrait hangs on one wall, robed, with long dark hair, his hands apparently resting on the hilt of a sword. Masmut tells me how he was taken to the shrine by his father as a small boy and now he tends to it. Then he tells me the story of the saint.

A nearby village was terrorised by a monster who demanded a human life every day. Sari Saltik cut off the monster’s seven heads and for 25 years lived in the large cave which the beast had inhabited.

When he left, he first stepped on this mountainside. His next foot print was a hundred miles away and his next in Crete .

He tells us that the legend is that Sari Saltik had a brother who was a Christian, St Anthony, who had his own cave not far from here.

Please don’t hold me to the highest standards of BBC accuracy on this one.

A Muslim saint, a Muslim portrait, acknowledging a Christian brother?

Well, yes, Albania is the headquarters of the Bektashi, a Sufi group.

Sunni Muslim

Muslims are said to make up 70% of the population in Albania, and most of them are not Bektashi, who are Shia, but Sunni.

It’s mildly curious to me that while some people argue Turkey shouldn’t join the European Union because most of its population is Muslim, I have never heard the same argument applied to Kosovo or Albania.

Perhaps it’s because they are so small. Perhaps it’s because, for many, the religion is only nominal. As I write this, in Albania’s capital Tirana , I can hear the call to prayer but the approach to religion seems much more European than the more profound attachments one may find in other parts of the world.

I hasten to add I am not just talking about Islam and the Middle East: America’s devoutness seems very shocking to many worldly Europeans.

Anyway while some websites warn that Albania could be a base for “extremism ” or “fundamentalists” there seems little sign of even moderate conservatism or devotion on the streets or indeed in the villages.

Not a headscarf in sight, let alone a hijab or burkha. Is there a European Islam that is as different from Wahhabism as the Church of England is from Baptists of the Bible Belt?

Is it to be found in these lands?

Rock-and-roll poet

Ervin Hatibi is a poet and intellectual, a Sunni Muslim, who became serious about his religion after living a rather rock-and-roll lifestyle.

While some, like the historian Bernard Lewis, argue that secularism is a specifically Christian phenomenon, Ervin says Islam has its own secularism and should not be seen as a monolithic whole.

“Everywhere Islam is different,” he says.

“As an everyday experience in the Balkans, for centuries it has created unique features. I consider Islam as part of the European landscape. It was for centuries. It kept changing, especially in Europe, the continent of continuous change.

“As a believer I may have fantasies about a society that moves towards certain values, and so will an Albanian Orthodox, or an atheist from a Muslim background or one of the new Protestant Christians, but we all have to live within an Albanian space.

“We have to live in harmony with the will of the majority and this is our culture, a more and more European and Western culture. It has something special that is not only Islam, but Ottoman and from the communist regime, so we have our special flavour that gives more beauty to the European experience and is not something dangerous.”

Is he right ? Could the much derided Ottoman Empire ,multi-ethnic and relatively religiously tolerant, have got something right in the Balkans?

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A busy, busy week. In London, MPs start debating the Lisbon treaty in detail.

Open Europe are trying to keep the argument for a referendum in the limelight, and compensate for some of the rather wonkish arguments that will ensue, by holding a series of votes in marginal seats.

They plan ten such campaigns at first starting in the seat of the Europe minister Jim Murphy in East Renfrewshire in Scotland .

The Government is pretty confident that it will win the votes that matter to it in the House of Commons and that any Labour rebellion will be of the “small explosion, nobody hurt” variety.

But the background for the debate is not auspicious for the Government: the Labour-dominated and important foreign affairs select committee has issued a report saying the Government has downplayed and underestimated the effects of the treaty .

This gives the Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague , the opportunity to use terms like “stitch-up”, “cynical spin” and “discredited.”

But the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister are in India so will miss the fun and the fuss, which is no doubt a side benefit to them of their trip.

Belgrade elections

In Belgrade, they will be absorbing the results of the Serbian presidential elections and working out where the votes of the knocked out candidates will go in the next round in early February.

Not only Belgrade: specialists in Washington and Moscow, Berlin and London will be doing their calculations too. The Russian deputy ambassador to Serbia was at the Radical rally I mentioned the other day and if they take power they are less likely to duck confrontation with the West over Kosovo.

I am never a great fan of the idea that party leaders can herd their voters like sheep but what the Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica says could be crucial. He backed the third-placed candidate.

Mr Kostunica is hard line on Kosovo and has a difficult relationship with President Tadic. But would he really throw his hat in with the radicals? Not an easy crystal ball to gaze into.

Climate package

In Brussels there is a long-awaited announcement of a big package of measures on fighting climate change . As far as I can see, on the end of a long lens from the Balkans, one of the main issues is a European mirror image of a debate that rages worldwide over carbon dioxide emissions.

Should less developed countries be allowed to pollute more that their richer neighbours?

The European Union’s answer is a resounding “yes”. “Burden-sharing” will be renamed to make it sound less burdensome. But the UK, France and Germany will be expected to make even greater cuts backs while some other countries like Romania will actually be able to pollute more. My carbon foot print will grow as I leg it back to Brussels midweek to listen to the details.

Kosovo's needs

In Pristina, Kosovo’s soon-to-be capital , amid the posters left over from the recent election , there are many declaring simply “Ramush: we need you now“ (in English).

Ramush Haradinaj, a former Prime Minister of Kosovo could be sentenced this week at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague .

Prosecutors say that as commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army’s “Black Eagle” brigade he was responsible for the murder rape and torture of Serbs.

They are asking for a sentence of 25 years in prison. It’s a reminder to the West that in Yugoslavia’s civil war there were atrocities on both sides.

No such reminder is needed for the Serbs. I have just been to a village in central Kosovo, a mixed village before the war, which was painstakingly rebuilt as such, at huge cost, in 2004.

Nearly 50 houses were set aside for Serbs and were taken up. Now only around ten families remain. No one suggests they were threatened or intimidated so it is not clear why they came back and then left again.

The Serbian man who would speak to me, while stressing his belief in a multi-ethnic future, said he would be off if independence was declared. I don’t quite believe him: given that everybody knows it is only weeks away, unless things get really ugly, everybody who wants to go has already gone.

Given such a busy week it’s difficult to know where to go. So I am heading for Albania. It seems pretty quiet there .

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Driving into Kosovo from Serbia, the villagers get poorer, the roads worse.

The road signs start being odd, with Skopje in Macedonia sign-posted but not the Kosovo capital, Pristina.

Then they stop altogether. As we pull over to stretch our legs before crossing the border, an old man offers us a coffee. “Its very quiet here,” he tells us.

So it is at the border too. We are the only ones crossing. As we wait for the Serbian police to examine our passports, an oil tanker pulls up, travelling the other way.

“Where’s it from originally?” I ask. “Look at the plates: KS, Kosovo,” replies my companion.

Just as he’s speaking the driver calmly removes the plates in full sight of the police and appears with a new set in his hands.

We get our passports back and are waved on to the United Nations checkpoint before I see for sure what he is up to. But I presume he is putting Serbian number plates on.

New tricks

The driver of the oil tanker is prudently sensitive but will he have to learn new tricks?

A lot hangs on how Serbia reacts when Kosovo declares independence, with the favoured date at the moment sometime during the second week of February.

That’s when America would like it to happen. The European Union won’t speak with one voice but may agree a statement recognising the situation has changed and then leaving it up to individual countries to decide what to do.

The Spanish want to delay that until after their elections in early March.

Whenever it happens, the Serbian Government has just approved an action plan setting out possible ways it could react. It’s secret but the elements are known.

They might break off diplomatic relations with countries which recognise Kosovo.

Many Western diplomats regard that as rather laughable, Serbia hitting itself on the nose to spite its face.

Cutting electricity supplies or closing the border wouldn’t be a laughing matter.

Anything aimed at destabilising Kosovo would be regarded as a grave provocation, threatening Serbia’s future along a road to Europe.

Indeed one of the main questions of the Serbian election is whether the country will continue down its painfully slow path towards membership of the European Union, or reject that, turn its back on Europe and face towards Russia.

Stability pact

The Prime Minister has warned if the EU recognises an independent Kosovo, Serbia will not sign a stability and association pact with the EU, generally seen as a very first tentative step towards membership.

Although the current president Boris Tadic has dismissed this threat, we are in the middle of elections for this very job. So it’s by no means certain he’ll be the one making the decision.

It’s easy to mock this threat: Merkel, Sarkozy and Brown are not going to be sent into fearful hysterics by the thought of Serbians throwing down their pens and refusing to put their names to a document which is of more meaning and benefit to them than anyone else.

But it would be an important moment. From a British viewpoint, where the European Union is often derided as irrelevant or worse, it is easy for people to miss the fact that for many in Eastern Europe, membership is seen as a badge of modernity, a guarantor of democracy and the rule of law, and a path to prosperity.

It may be a long time before Albania, Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine join, but the elite at least want in, and see their future with Europe rather than Russia.

If Serbia became the first nation to turn its back on the European Union, it would be a spoke in the wheel of the EU’s soft power, its intention to spread its values simply by attraction.

It would be particularly important because this would not be a simple rejection of an organisation, just another Norway, Iceland or Switzerland deciding that the EU was not for them. It would be high stakes geopolitics, Serbia turning away from the West to face East.

Of course Russia is not a johnny-come-lately, and has long been an ally of Serbia.

Its decision to come to Serbia’s aid against Austro Hungarian aggression was one of the triggers of World War I.

Trivial and profound

There are many concoctions from the trivial: the fashions in the streets and the blast of uncontrollable heat on entering a hotel room, to the profound: a shared Cyrillic script, similarities of language, religion and heritage. “We are the same people,” as one Serb I spoke to put it.

But this is not just history and culture. It is to do with Russia’s new found confidence and assertiveness under Putin. There is no doubt that many Serbs see Russia as more than just a true friend, a friend that understands.

They see Russia as willing, even eager to stand up to a sanctimonious, yet bullying West.

Then again, when I talk to Serbs about facing east or west they nearly all mention Tito.

Their message is that Serbia need not choose, and like Yugoslavia before it could steer a third, unaligned course.

Serbia certainly sits close to two of the important fault lines that define our history: that between Russia and Europe and between the old Ottoman Empire and Europe.

East or West, which for Serbia is best ?

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The streets of Belgrade are still brightened by Christmas decorations.

Twisted ropes of lights adorn every tree down the main roads; a parade of miniature Christmas trees in bright white light paves the way to the city hall and, especially impressive, four big ones lit up in shimmering purple stand in one of the main squares.

The Orthodox Christmas was on January 7 and Serbia is only slowly shaking its head free of holidays.

Perhaps that is why campaigning has been so sluggish in the presidential elections.

Yet they could hardly be more important: looming over them is the all but inevitable declaration of independence by Kosovo, shortly after the election of a Serbian president.

Kosovo politicians have been persuaded to delay their long planned announcement until after the vote for fear of inflaming and swelling nationalist sentiment.

East or West?

And behind this question lurks another. Does Serbia turn east or west?

Does it snuggle up to Mother Russia, which is fighting Serbia’s fight over Kosovo on the international stage?

And then does Serbia become the first of the post-communist countries of eastern Europe to reject the lure of the European Union? Reject joining an organisation that, however derided in Britain, is seen by most such countries as a symbol of civilisation, modernity and wealth.

Like many crunch-points it may turn out to be a little mushier than that, not quite so crunchy, but in crude terms and over years that is what is at stake.

Nine candidates battle it out this weekend but most expect that the two left standing for the big fight in February will be the current President Boris Tadic and radical, that is right-wing nationalist, Tomislav Nikolic.

But the radical party certainly tried to make up for lost time during Christmas with a rally in the city’s central stadium. In many ways it was like many high octane political rallies I’ve been to both in Britain and throughout Europe. But it had certain, shall we say, unusual features?

It certainly wasn’t speaker after speaker punching the air and making very vague promises.

It wasn’t the huge Serbian flag taking up one side of the auditorium.

Patriotic melody

The patriotic melody sung by a girl of 12 or 13 was striking. Dressed in black and white costume-dress, her pure voice soared about the accompanying choir of women in evening dresses, miners in blue hard-hats and matching overalls and, for some reason, a couple of men in chef’s tall, white hats.

“Far away from the sea is my village where the lemon blossoms,
Along the way that was the only road for the army …
Did that awful night have to come when you my darling went to the bloody battle?
Far away, the white flower blooms.
That is where a father and a son gave their lives…I am living in my sorrow but still happily calling out Long Live Serbia.”

It perhaps loses a little in translation but it is a song that the audience knows is about Kosovo, just as this election is about Kosovo and how Serbia reacts to its almost inevitable loss.

Kosovo, for which Nato bombed this European country less than a decade ago.

Kosovo which looms over this election. Kosovo, so often called the cradle of Serbian civilisation, the Serbian Jerusalem.

Kosovo, which speaker after speaker declared must remain part of Serbia.

Much more unusual than this emotive melody was the speech that boomed out, powerful and eerie because no one stood at the lectern to deliver it.

Their master's voice

Some recorded voice delivered the words in a letter written by the radical party’s leader. He couldn’t be at this rally or any other because he is imprisoned in the Hague awaiting trial for war crimes, encouraging murder and massacre during Yugoslavia’s civil war.

But in the end that wasn’t what made me sit up. We had been tipped off that the widow of the notorious Arkan , the murdered mobster and paramilitary, might sing.

How would we spot her?

The intellectual who had just given me a lengthy and erudite run down of the election issues was succinct: breasts like torpedoes, he said.

But it wasn’t she who roused the crowd before Tomislav Nicolic’s big speech.

Getting the winner of last year’s Eurovision song contest to perform before the big speech certainly was a coup.

Marija Serifovic looks pretty normal for a pop star. Shortish, slightly plump with short, dark hair, dressed in grey check trousers and a black tee shirt, she’s a million miles from the high heels, caked-on make-up and bags of bling favoured by most Serbian pop stars.

In any other European country she’d have been campaigning for civic partnerships or more cycle lanes but here she was bouncing around the stage, egging on the crowd on behalf of a party where some supporters come dressed in paramilitary uniform and see men accused of mass murder as heroes.

I caught up with her by the side of the stage, as nice and as ordinary as I had guessed.

Returning a favour

What did she like about the party?

Well really she was just returning a favour. They’d been good to her. She knew nothing about politics.

What about Kosovo?

She started on a complex analogy about somebody being in your flat and saying they liked your TV set.

“It’s been stolen from you?” I interrupted.

No, she didn’t say that: “What do I know, I’ve never even been there?”

Of course neither had most in the hall or indeed most Serbs. Nor, I would guess, have most of the presidential candidates.

To many Serbs, Kosovo is like the garden of Eden, a place of enormous mythical significance but not somewhere you go for the weekend. And that was what WAS striking in a rally designed to raise emotions, banish doubt and unite everyone around the unquestioning belief that Kosovo must remain Serbian.

A moment of more than hesitation. Of genuine indifference… from the star guest.

Remaining oblivious to the claims of a whole political class that the loss of Kosovo is a hurt that can’t be borne is quite a feat.

In the coming weeks, Serbia as a whole might be more comfortable if it imitated the pop star, not the politicians.

You can hear a version of this article on BBC Radio 4’s “From our own correspondent”.

UPDATE

Several of you have written in to say the song quoted is not about Kosovo, but about World War I Serbian solders buried in Cyprus.

This makes sense, so many apologies. I was relying on the information supplied by the Serbian journalist I was working with.

I don't think I was casual about this: one of the reasons I went to the rally was because I was told a song would be sung for Kosovo, and afterwards I twice asked if it defiantly was about Kosovo.

I even queried the reference to lemons but was told they grew in Kosovo (which they still might).

I hate getting things wrong so it is heartfelt and rather cross when I say sorry to you all.

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Sait Vakmeta misses his Chechen homeland and watches a video about the motherland he has left.

It isn't exactly scenery or holiday snaps. But an explicit celebration of the fight against the Russians.

Stirring music underlays graphic pictures of rocket launchers being fired and Russian military vehicles exploding, quickly intercut with pictures of men and children performing a dance both wild and stiffly formal, that I in my ignorance would have identified as Cossack dancing.

A tiny boy in a green shirt whirls around, his hand above his head before we are shown a shot of a tank blowing up, the soldiers' bodies thrown in the air. Chuckles of approval.

As a helicopter gunship is bathed in fire, he says: "They landed in a minefield. Their people could not save them."

His wife Kameta adds something to the effect that Chechnya will not be beaten. As he turns to talk to me his son takes over the computer and puts on a game that involves firing big weapons at vehicles.

Not usually one to be bothered by such games, it's a bit more disturbing in view of the real life carnage that preceded it.

We are on the outskirts of a rather delightful Polish city, Lubin.

The couple and their six children, aged between six and 19, have applied for asylum in Poland and now live in a state-run centre for people waiting for their cases to be heard.

There's no doubt it's pretty crowded. Two rooms for eight people. In one we are in, a large triple bed takes up much of the space.

There's a one-ring cooker with a big pot on it, and a makeshift wardrobe by the door. A table and the windowsill serve as a larder for a loaf of bread and some cheese and butter.

They share a big bathroom with the rest of the people on their floor. "It's hard," they say but better than their life in Chechnya where they say there is no medicine, no chance for their children and conditions are much worse than this tiny and rather run down flat.

They are among 245 people living here, almost all of them in families.

The numbers have increased recently. Last September there were 170; by November 209 and by December 241.

Veoletta Kedziercka, a jolly if cynical Polish woman who runs the centre is in no doubt.

"The number of people here has significantly increased," she says.

"We've seen this since the begining of the autumn. A large influx happened in December and most likely it's connected with Poland joining the Schengen zone."

She adds: "We rather think that they tie up their future with countries a little bit further west than Poland. They dream of going to England. Or to Norway. Mind you, my dream is to live in Norway. But I haven't gone."

Sait and Kameta say they like Poland, but feel they could do better. They think if they made it to England their sons could be trained as sportsmen.

They have lots of talent, they say. Some of their friends have already made it to France and Austria. But they say as a family of eight it is not so easy to travel.

"Sait says the risks are high, with all the kids. But the Schengen roads are open," says Kameta.

All this is pretty much what I expected to hear, and indeed it's why I am here.

But I have a shock coming. I expected them to tell me how they got past the border guards into the country, and after entering illegally claimed asylum.

Not a bit of it. They took a train to the border and went up to the guards and claimed asylum.

"Poland welcome us," they say. They were then granted the right to live in Poland while their case is considered.

Last year more than 9,000 Chechens did exactly the same thing.

Although they make up the vast majority of people claiming asylum in Poland this way, the Polish Government is quite clear that just about anyone who turns up at the border and claims asylum has to, by international law, be let in.

Around fifty were refused entry last year.

And the same apparently applies to any of the countries along the European Union's long eastern border.

Until the end of last year this was nobody's business but Poland's. But now the Austrian Chancellor is complaining of an "avalanche" of Chechens coming into his country.

This isn't legal. Those claiming asylum in Poland aren't allowed to travel elsewhere. But it is happening.

The Polish police are just setting up mobile units to search trains and buses for people attempting to leave Poland into Germany or Slovakia, or indeed on one of the many coaches that leaves everyday for Britain.

But there are, I am told, 30 such units, and an awful lot of buses and trains. And indeed there is no barbed wire or fences along much of the now open border with other EU countries.

Officials rightly point out that once someone has claimed asylum in one EU country, they can't claim it in another.

And what they say is a new, efficient finger-printing system means that if they try, they will be deported back to the country where they first entered the European Union.

Of course that doesn't stop them disappearing into the black economy.

These are early days, less than a month since the borders came down. But it will be interesting to see how efficient and how effective that finger-printing system is.

Or whether, as several of you suggested after yesterday's piece, it matters a jot.

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Another year, another border.

I am out in south-east Poland with the border guards.

Their camera-van sits in a snowy field surrounded by hayricks, scanning for anyone trying to cross the border illegally.

With such a long border it seems an almost hopeless task and the amount of money spent here just doesn’t compare with the cash pumped into the Slovak border which I visited at the end of last year .

More of that side of the story in my report for the Ten O’Clock News, which I hope will go out on Friday.

Just a few miles away, the forest is like a scene from a Christmas card: tall fir trees are decorated with a scattering of snow on their branches.

It’s very beautiful. But this is treacherous country.

The last people the border guards caught, just before the holiday, were two men from Georgia . One was in a coma, the other managed to ‘phone for help before he too collapsed.

Kamisa's story

But the story that tore me up happened sometime before, in September, and was well publicised in Poland at the time.

This is what happened to thirty-six year-old Kamisa.
She is from Chechnya and wanted a better life for her four children.

She was afraid to go on living in Grozny. One of her daughters was sick and education was poor. So she decided to go to Slovakia and make her way to Austria where many of her husband’s family live.

She paid a man in Moscow $2,700. He drove her and her two-year-old son and daughters of 9, 12 and 14 for many hours.

He would not stop or let them out. Eventually he reached what he said was the border with Slovakia and let them out and told them to be on their way.

It was pouring with rain. She and the children walked from one hill to the next, until they were soaked.

Eventually they couldn’t go on any longer and stopped in a forest within sight of what turned out to be the Polish border.

They had a loaf of bread, sausage and some Snickers bars but the food was soon gone.

They had nothing to drink. There was no let-up in the wind and the rain. Her mobile phone wouldn’t work because it was saturated with rain and, although she knew her husband was texting her, she couldn’t read the messages.

She thinks she was there for four days. She didn’t want to go to get help and leave the children, for fear of animals and patrol dogs.

Her nine year-old daughter was in a coma but it was the 14 year-old who died first.

No help

Kamisa was crying and shouting and screaming for help, but none came.

Eventually she took her boy, covered the girls with forest leaves and said goodbye.

The 12 year-old knew what was happening.

Kamisa thought it best to save one child and hoped that she would reach help in time for the others.

But she stumbled around for a while until she came on the border guards and, by the time help arrived, her three daughters had died.

She and her son have recovered and her husband has joined her in Poland where they have applied for asylum.

Few Chechen asylum seekers are granted that status but her case may be different.

People trafficking

In Britain at least, the authorities would portray this tragedy as a lesson in the evils of what they insist on calling “people trafficking” but perhaps it is more complex than that.

People will always want to move to safer more prosperous parts of the world. And governments and many people from those safer and more prosperous places will probably always want to stop them.

So I don’t know what to think, except that it rips me up to think of a woman stumbling around in the dark, crying over the bodies of her children who died because she wanted to give them a better life.

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