Mixed neighborhoods and Government Intervention

I must clarify. Mitrovica is a municipality in the North of Kosovo where the Iber River happens to run through it. Within in the municipality there is a large city and this city is divided by the Iber into Mitrovica North and Mitrovica South. The North is predominately Kosovar Serb and the South Kosovar Albanian. However, in the northern part of the Mitrovica municipality, which is very rugged, mountainous, and underdeveloped, there are small villages or neighborhoods of Albanians, Serbians, and Bosniaks. But there is a Kosovar Albanian and Bosniak population in Mitrovica North; thus I do not want want to draw a picture like West Germany and East Germany during the Cold War, even if Mitrovica North really only answers to Belgrade. This is not the case. Anyone can cross over the main bridge (and people do this frequently) although there is a Kosovo police car sitting in the middle, for monitoring purposes. There are other bridges to Mitrovica North, and at least two that I have taken lead in to K-Albanian neighborhoods.

This is makeshift bridge along a dirt road. You can see the rails in the center of the first photo, and ahead is a a Kosovar Albanian village. The second picture is going across the bridge in the car, below is the Iber River.

This is a K-Albanian neighborhood in Mitrovica North. It is surrounded by K-Serbs for the most part, but there is not constant fighting between the two. The red flags are Albania's national flag. The bridge is at the end of the road, as unlike the bridge above, this is more suitable for traffic,. and is also guarded with a Kosovo police car.

Interestingly, the Kosovo government is trying to devise a way to create mixed neighborhoods in the north part of the municipality (i.e. the mountainous regions that can be developed). This is the plan but again, it remains to be seen how this will go. Below is the construction of a K-Albanian house that is the first house in over nine years to be funded by the government. This house is being built to create a mixed village - the thing is, the Kosovo government does not want funding or assistance from Belgrade.

I'm not certain but from what I can fathom is that Belgrade is not happy with this plan and believes it will only be a village for K-Albanians. This is probably not far off, and thinking like this is common in this situation. And as a side note, looking at the second picture of the tilled dirt, I believe that the houses behind this is actually a Serbian village, therefore Belgrade could view this construction as a blockade to expanding the Serbian village. This leads me to another interesting facet in this new village. Not more than 100 yards away did the Serbian government start constructing its own buildings right between two K-Albanian houses.

The two large buildings on the right hand side, the first one is bright red, are the buildings constructed by the Serbian government. Every other house or building you see is K-Albanian. Things like this are not uncommon in the Mitrovica municipality and it really hinders any type of cooperation or feelings of security for the citizens. It's like a chess game, a very strategic chess game that hopefully will not end in violence.