City Profile: Mitrovica

Kosovo was the last part of Yugoslavia to proclaim independence, in a move recognized by 69 countries (out of 192 UN members) to date but not by Serbia. The final status of Kosovo therefore remains contested.

Following the NATO-led campaign in 1999, which resulted in the retreat of the Yugoslav Army and Serbian Police Forces from Kosovo, the “Kumanovo Military-technical Agreement” and UN Security Council Resolution 1244, established the basis for the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNIMK) to become the administrative authority and the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR), the chief security authority.

Of Kosovo’s approximately 2.1 million people, it is estimated that Albanians comprise at least 88 percent and Serbs at most 7 percent of the population. After years of trying to reach some accommodation between the Belgrade government and Kosovo Albanians, the United Nations-appointed mediator Martti Ahtisaari put forward a plan calling for supervised Kosovo independence. The United States and the European Union embraced the plan, but the United Nations did not; Russia, which sided with the Serbs on the issue, withheld its vote in the Security Council. In February 2008, Kosovo’s Albanian-majority Provisional Institutions of Self-Government declared independence from Serbia, again with recognition from many Western countries and the United States, but not the United Nations. After agreement from the United Nations General Assembly, the Serbian government requested an opinion on the legality of the independence declaration from the International Court of Justice, a process that is ongoing.

The municipality of Mitrovica/Kosovska Mitrovica lies about 40 km north of Pristina. It consists of one town and forty-nine villages. Since 1999, the town has been divided roughly along the Ibër/Ibar River. Mitrovicë/Kosovska Mitrovica has a history of communal violence. With the war’s end, a severe outbreak of violence in 2004 and the declaration of independence, the population moved in two directions: Serbs who were living on the southern side of the river moved to the northern side and Albanians on the north side to the south. The northern part of the municipality has a Serb majority and the southern part an Albanian majority.

The northern part is administered both by the United Nations Administration-Mitrovica and by its own municipality, which is ultimately run by Belgrade. The southern part is governed by municipal institutions, which regard the northern municipality authorities as illegal and de jure claim jurisdiction over the whole municipal territory. Broadly speaking, Kosovo Albanians fear partition of the city and that the Serbian government will attempt to sever the northern Serbian-majority municipalities of Kosovo and have them integrated into Serbia. Kosovo Serbs fear being reintegrated into a Kosovo-Albanian controlled town, a small, marginalized group in an independent Kosovo, risking intimidation and the slow emasculation of their culture and language.

Mitrovicë/Kosovska Mitrovica city itself is less than three square kilometers in size with a population of approximately 85,000. On the northern side of the river, Kosovo Serbs account for an estimated 16,000 people and on the southern side there are an estimated 66,000 Kosovo Albanians. There are also several other ethnic communities living in the city and its surrounding villages. For all practical purposes, the two largest ethnic communities live in different systems (with different languages, currencies, mobile telecommunications provision, electricity supply, and so on). An estimated 18 percent of all Serbs in Kosovo live in north Mitrovicë/Kosovska Mitrovica.

The EU’s rule of law mission, EULEX, which is neutral on the status of Kosovo, provides mentoring, monitoring and advising of policing throughout Kosovo, including Mitrovicë/Kosovska Mitrovica. KFOR also maintains a security presence. The International Civilian Office, a body set up by states recognizing Kosovo’s independence, also has an office in Mitrovicë/Kosovska Mitrovica. One of the ICO’s tasks includes implementing Ahtisaari’s decentralization proposals, which would see the current Mitrovicë/Kosovska Mitrovica municipality split into two, governed by a joint commission.

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About the FCT logo

The logo for the Forum for Cities in Transition was based on the semi-circular arrangement of tables for the plenary sessions at the initial conference that took place April 14-16, 2008, at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. There is further inspiration from King Arthur's famed Round Table, with no head and everyone who sits there having equal status. In this design, the circle is presently half-complete, but with leaders of each city at their place, there will be collaborative work among Forum participants to realise a full circle.

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