Kosovo Mine Is Symbol of Unfinished Business

It's not just about a bridge; it's about a mine. The worst upsurge in fighting in Kosovo since NATO's victory last summer may be centered on the bridge dividing Serbs and Albanians in the town of Mitrovica, but this is no simple can't-we-all-just-get-along ethnic conflict. The northern Kosovo town that saw 13 people wounded in fierce gun battles over the weekend is also home to the Trepca mine, whose rich deposits of zinc, gold, lead and other metals make it the jewel in the shabby crown of Kosovo's economy. "Control over Trepca is control over the Kosovo economy," says TIME Belgrade reporter Dejan Anastasijevic. "So Mitrovica is the unfinished business of the Kosovo war." And, as if ordained by the script of some absurdist playwright, most of the mine's shafts are on the Albanian side of the river, while all of its processing and extraction facilities are on the Serb side. Needless to say, Trepca is hardly able to function right now.

Resolving ownership of the mine, though, raises political questions that the international community has been unwilling to confront. "Right now Belgrade remains the legal owner of the mine," says Anastasijevic, "although Kosovar Albanians insist it was previously owned by Yugoslavia's old Kosovo administration before Milosevic revoked the territory's autonomy 10 years ago, and therefore should be transferred to Kosovo authorities. So you have Belgrade, and three different groups claiming to be the Kosovar government, claiming ownership, and to complicate matters still further, Serbia had been in negotiations to privatize Trepca when the war started, so there's also a Greek corporation and a French corporation both claiming to have bought a share of the mine."

If Mitrovica had been further south, the question might have long since been resolved in the pattern of reverse ethnic cleansing that has driven out most of Kosovo's Serbs following the return of ethnic Albanian refugees under NATO protection. "But Mitrovica is not a Serb enclave; it's an outpost," says Anastasijevic. "The Serbs in Mitrovica have unfettered access to the Serbian border, which isn't tightly controlled, and Belgrade is able to send reinforcements and weapons to Serbs living there without appearing to mount a direct challenge to NATO. The town remains Serbia's most important foothold in Kosovo."

Last weekend's sustained gun battles, in which NATO peacekeepers came under fire from what are believed to be soldiers of the formally disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army, were simply the latest clashes in a conflict that has continued since last summer. "In Mitrovica, the war over Kosovo didn't end," says Anastasijevic. "Incidents of violence happen every few days. One side or the other tries to make an advance, shooting erupts, the peacekeepers declare a curfew and there are a few days of calm, and then the cycle starts over. The real question at stake in Mitrovica is who owns Kosovo." The U.N. resolutions that ended the war and allowed in NATO forces are what maintain Yugoslavian sovereignty over Kosovo, and while the U.S. is known to favor moving toward recognizing a de facto independence, its European NATO allies remain firmly opposed. "The international community is wary of provoking a new escalation of fighting and reluctant to decide on Kosovo's status," says Anastasijevic. "But in the absence of an answer, this cycle will keep on repeating itself, getting more violent each time."