PRISON - THE ULTIMATE PRICE!

AIM Pristina, 24 May, 1997

Way back in 1989, Serbian assembly adopted the Law which bans real estate trade, in case the buyer and the seller were members of different ethnic groups. Although this Law which is contrary to the Constitution because it limits freedom of citizens to control their property, refers to the whole territory of Serbia, but is nevertheless implemented only in Kosovo and moreover solely in cases when the seller is a Serb and the buyer an Albanian. in the opposite cases, it is considered that this Law has not been violated. Immediately after adoption of the Law, lawyers and other representatives of the population and authorities in Kosovo reacted with specific comments. The Constitutional Court of Serbia also questioned it at the time, but this did not prevent its implementation. By the manner in which various committees and commissions of the Socialist Party of Serbia have lately worked, there is a founded fear that it will produce serious consequences and burden the already highly strained relations between the Serbs and the Albanians. But, the authorities and Milosevic's party are working according their own criteria and interest: to keep the small number of the Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo at all costs, and bring as many refugees from Croatia and Bosnia. Just now, when the Serbs from this region have started to fear that the state, which had brought about the bad situation they are in, has left them in the lurch, forgetting the well-known political marketing always used by Belgrade when it was necessary to show that the authorities took care of ordinary people, the party in power is promising the moon to them again because of their votes they badly need.

But, despite this Law, buying and selling among the Serbs and the Albanians have never stopped, nor has it been reduced. Mostly it was the Serbs who offered apartments, houses, land, business premises, for sale. Lawyers and agencies dealing with real-estate trade promised complete safety in these transactions. Many different modalities were used: contracts on tenancy for 99 years, mortgage on real estate belonging to the Serbs for a fictitious loan extended by the Albanians. In fact, the Albanians paid the full price of the real estate, but sale was not mentioned in the contracts which were mostly even approved by the court. The party of the contract, due to "incapability to meet obligations" to the creditor, in this case the Albanian, gave a mortgage. An interesting solution was found when land is concerned. There are cases when the Albanians offered the Serbs land, mostly in Voivodina, in exchange for theirs in Kosovo. One of them, who is expecting to be summoned to court for volation of the Serbian Law which bans real-estate trade, describes how such transactions were performed. The Albanians are not banned to buy land in Voivodina. Over there, it is possible to buy, for a negligible sum of money unarable land, mostly marshy, and "the owner does not even know its whereabouts". But, the needed paper is provided in this way and given to the Serb in exchange for his land in Kosovo. The price is, of course, several times higher than the actual value of the Voivodina marsh. What is important is that the word "sale" is not at all mentioned.

However, all these cases could not proceed further than these contracts or promises that everything would easily and quickly be resolved with the Serbian authorities, more precisely the Ministry of Finance whose approval is needed for real-estate trade. When this approval is occasionally obtained, the buyer-Albanian becomes the owner with all property rights. But, this Ministry, although it was informed about various calculations, mostly did not give its approval, but did not protest either. That is how both the buyer and the seller become reassured that everything would be silently resolved, without any problems.

In the past few days, this topic was highlighted by Kosovo Socialists who inspect this issue and established that the trade between the Serbs and the Albanians had not been interrupted at all, leading to the conclusion that the number of the Serbs and the Montenegrins moving away from Kosovo was not small. Due to that, all the municipalities were entrusted with the task to establish commissions which would go through all the contracts, and nullify the ones between the Serbs and the Albanians, and suggest measures which should be taken against the buyers, in this case the Albanians. Kosovo Socialists concluded that this revision of contracts should be carried out "all the way and uncompromisingly".

The public has already been informed about the first "results" of the work of these commissions. Twenty citizens of Prizren have been ordered to "free their apartments" with the note that criminal proceedings would be instigated against them for "violation of law". In Pristina, Halit Ahmetaj, an Albanian, is serving a sentence of two months in prison because he has bought a flat from a Serb. It is possible that twelve other citizens of Pristina will experience the same destiny, among whom there is only one Serb and one Muslim, because "they influenced emigration of the Serbs and the Montenegrins". In Klina, the municipal commission shut down 13 shops, because they had been built solely for the Serbs and they have rented them out for a limited period of time to the Albanians. Some time ago, a physician from Pristina, also an Albanian, was forced to move out from the house in which he had lived for seven years because he had bought it from a Serb. After divorce, the wife of this Serb reacted by declaring that "the sale took place without her consent and this was the reason why she had moved to Belgrade". An Albanian family in the beginning of the seventies, came down from Rugova mountains in order to settle down near Pec. From an old Montenegrin woman they bought two hectares of land. They had no problems until the known events in 1981 and the appearance of political stands about the Albanians exerting pressure on the Serbs and the Montenegrins. That is when the daughter of the mentioned old woman appeared. The signatory of the contract and the declaration that she had sold the land under no pressure "disappeared", but her daughter, who by the way lived in Kragujevac, stated in her appeal that her mother had been very old and that the Albanians had exerted pressure on her in order to force her to sell the land at a very low price. In this way the Albanian family lost the property and started a litigation for material compensation.

Problems also appeared after dissolution of cooperative farms and distribution of their property as compensation to those who had lost land by nationalization. The Serbs offered the arable land they had got in this way at a very low price for Kosovo conditions. It so happened that a Serb from the village of Zegra near Gnjilane, got a hill above the village used for pasture as compensation. He put it up for sale, and the Albanians, being traditionalists, in order to prevent anyone else from buying it, bought it. In this way they deliberately took the risk to lose both the money and property. A housing estate financed from the known "Yu Program for Kosovo" is under construction downtown Pristina. However, all the flats are up for sale, regardless of the source of money for such an investment. Will the future owners perhaps also have problems with the Serbian authorities, when it is well known what the intention and aim of this Program was?

Nekibe Kelmendi, lawyer from Pristina, says that the Law which bans real-estate trade among different ethnic groups which is valid throughout Serbia but is implemented only in Kosovo, is best evidence of discrimination of the Albanians, but also of segregation regulated by Serbian authorities by means of laws. It remains to be seen what legal consequences this will produce, but it is a fact that some earlier buyers, meaning Albanians, have been deprived of their property rights, and their demands for material compensation are delayed in courts for years. The Albanian political parties are warning the Albanians not to buy real estate from the Serbs and various enterprises controlled by the Serbian administration, because they expose themselves to great risk in this way. Dr Ibrahim Rugova, President of the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo, said that litigations against 22 Albanians from Prizren and 13 from Klina who had bought flats from the Serbs or temporarily rented their business premises, was yet another form of pressure exerted on the Albanians and plunder of their property by the Serbian authorities.

AIM Pristina Ibrahim REXHEPI