The Presevo dispute is the latest, but by far the worst, in an increasing number of disputes across the region about how to remember the past

AN INCREASINGLY vicious quarrel between Serbs and Albanians in south Serbia is threatening to spin out of control. In the next few days, either workmen protected by Serbian police will demolish an Albanian war memorial in the town of Presevo or a last ditch deal will see it moved to another location. The Presevo dispute is the latest, but by far the worst, in an increasing number of disputes across the region about how to remember the dead of the wars of 1990s. There are also bitter discussions about revisionist memorials and court cases relating to the second world war. On January 14th a memorial to wartime Bosnian army soldiers in the divided town of Mostar was blown up. A plaque dedicated on January 13th to a pro-Bulgarian assassin in Skopje was also reportedly destroyed in what is becoming a tradition every time it is replaced. Presevo is a small, overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian town in south Serbia, close to the border with Albanian-dominated Kosovo. Following the 1999 defeat of the Serbs in Kosovo by NATO and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an offshoot of the KLA, the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB), began a rebellion in this part of south Serbia. Of the 90,000 people who live in Presevo valley about two thirds are ethnic Albanians.

The armed uprising ended in May 2001. Kosovo’s Western backers made it clear that they would not support any change of borders, and Serbia’s first post-Milosevic government was keen to avoid a new conflict. A deal was struck and UCPMB members were amnestied. The conflict cost the lives of 18 Serbian policemen, six soldiers and ten civilians. On the Albanian side the figures vary but the UCPMB war memorial erected in November records the names of 27.

While Albanians regard them as heroes, Serbs see them as separatist terrorists. There are other UCPMB memorials in the Presevo valley but this one stands out because it has been erected in front of the town hall. On January 11th Presevo’s Albanian dominated local council decided that the monument would stay. Ivica Dacic, Serbia’s prime minister, has called the memorial an “open provocation” and said that it has to be taken down by January 17th or he will have it demolished.

Local Albanian leaders have now called on Albania to give them diplomatic support. Some have threatened a new rebellion if the monument is demolished.

The flare up in Presevo is perhaps no coincidence. On January 17th Mr Dacic and Hashim Thaci, the prime minister of Kosovo, will meet for the fourth time in European Union sponsored talks. On January 12th the Serbian parliament adopted a resolution on dialogue with Kosovo. The impeding Brussels meeting is set to open the question of what to do about the Serbian-inhabited and Serbian-controlled north of Kosovo.

Many Serbs would like the border redrawn so the north can stay with Serbia. More likely however is a deal which will give it some form of autonomy within Kosovo. What frightens Presevo valley Albanian leaders is that they should be forgotten. If the north of Kosovo goes to Serbia they want their region annexed to Kosovo, and if the north gets autonomy then they want autonomy too. Ratcheting up the tension over the monument thus serves both the local Albanian leadership and Mr Dacic, who can appear tough here, just as he is perhaps readying to make concessions in Kosovo.

The Presevo monument, being part of a bigger political game, explains why it has become such big news. However, in the last year especially, there have been similar arguments in many parts of the former Yugoslavia.

Last August Fatmir Besimi, the Macedonian minister of defence, and an Albanian, caused a rumpus when he laid flowers at a memorial to members of the ethnic Albanian, National Liberation Army who had died fighting the Macedonian security services in 2001. A monument to them has been erected in Skopje as part of the city’s controversial redevelopment plan.

In Bosnia, where war memorials to those who died fighting one another in the 1990s are sometimes only a few hundred metres apart, a political quarrel erupted last May when a memorial to 1,500 Bosniak, mostly civilian victims who died in the town of Visegrad was erected. Visegrad is now in the Republika Srpska, the Serb-controlled part of Bosnia. Serbs objected because the memorial refers to the “Visegrad genocide”.

Last summer a quarrel erupted in the Sandzak region of Serbia, which has a slight Bosniak majority, over two monuments. One commemorated Acif Hadziahmetovic who was put in control of Novi Pazar, the main town in the Serbian Sandzak by the Germans in 1941. Serbs regard him as a Nazi collaborator while many Bosniaks regard him as their savior from Draža Mihailovic’s Chetnik forces. The ceremony unveiling the monument was attended by one Bosniak minister in the Serbian government but denounced by another. When the Serbian government then demanded that it be taken down some Bosniak leaders demanded the removal of a monument to Mihailovic.

The Balkan memorials war even spread to London last summer. Bosniaks protested that while the world’s largest steel company, ArcelorMittal, was praised for sponsoring the giant £19.1m Orbit sculpture for the Olympics, the company has refused to honour an agreement to finance a memorial for Bosniaks in Omarska. During the Bosnian war the Omarska iron ore mine was the most infamous of the Serb-run wartime camps for Bosniaks. Now the mine belongs to ArcelorMittal which says that it remains committed to doing something, but that this needs “support from all sections of the community.” This includes the local authorities, which are Serb-controlled.

On January 10th Sarajevo bucked the trend by signing a contract for the building of a memorial to people killed by its own side during the war. The monument will commemorate some 30 Serbs and Croats murdered by what Alija Behmen, the mayor of Sarajevo, called a renegade unit of the Bosnian Army during the Serbian siege of the city. The leader of the unit died in 1993 but six soldiers were later convicted of the crime.