Word: kosovo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Since the 1999 Kosovo war, the smoke-filled, vinyl seated bar and cafe on the ground floor of a crumbling apartment block has been a gathering place for the hard line Serbs who want to keep ethnic-Albanians out of their enclave. Its position on the front line has made La Dolce Vita the target of bomb attacks against Serbs by ethnic Albanians (nine people were injured here in 2006), and also a bully pulpit for anti-Western tirades...
...still be the place to be seen in northern Mitrovica, but the riverside cafe no longer oozes a sense of imminent danger. It was tense, this past winter, when Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, and La Dolce Vita's regulars gathered in a tense silence, sipping slivovitz plum brandy, smoking, and waiting for the news from Belgrade. As the Serb capital was gripped by violent protests that included an attempt to torch the U.S. embassy, life became in Mitrovica became dangerous for Serbian and foreign journalists covering local demonstrations: Several had their cameras smashed; some were beaten. A Serb reporter...
...Serbs attacked NATO soldiers and U.N. police with grenades and rifles, and several hundred people were injured in the resulting melee - including one Ukrainian policeman in the U.N. force who died from shrapnel wounds. Despite the occasional rumor, still, of ethnic Albanian "terrorists" coming across the bridge to threaten Kosovo's Serb minority, the Serb "bridgewatchers" gathered at La Dolce Vita as an early warning system barely glance at the bridge any more...
...Belgrade is doing its best to shore up the Serb community, doubling the salaries of civil servants who agree to stay on. "Belgrade will never abandon you!" Serb politicians told crowds during a recent election campaign, but many locals who can afford to have reportedly bought property outside of Kosovo. Northern Mitrovica is taking on the look of an unloved relic: crumbling socialist-era apartment blocks are festooned with laundry; rickety sidewalk kiosks display Yugoslav-era money and postcards of fugitive indicted war criminals Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic. Vladimir Putin stickers are a hot seller...
...though: The power of hard-line Serb nationalists in the Serb capital has begun to ebb. National elections in early May were won by pro-Western moderates, who may begin to withdraw support from hardliners in the town. At least, that is what Western diplomats who want to unite Kosovo and end the stand-off in Mitrovica are hoping...