In a meeting this week, the Council for Human Rights in the Presheva Valley in Serbia reported that between 1999 and 2002, an estimated total of 11,073 Albanians left the Valley due to security and economic pressure, and have yet to return. There are no official figures, but the Council estimates another 5,000 left since 2003. This includes a minimum of 600 ex-fighters in the first months of 2009, following the arrest of ten Albanians in December 2008, some of whom were former fighters in the KLA, accused of war crimes.

 

Whilst Albanians in the Presheva Valley, in contrast to Serbs in Kosova, cooperate with Serbia's central and local institutions, they are subjected to continuing discrimination, and silent economic and political pressure, which aims to slowly reduce the total population size. The 2002 census showed that there were 57,595 Albanians in the three municipalities, but municipal data shows that approximately 27,000 Albanians were not included in that census, because they have lived outside of Presheva for over one year.

 

Young people are being discouraged from returning home after their studies. Serbia will not recognize the diplomas of Albanian students who study in Prishtina, thus ensuring that they have no economic future if they return. There is no Albanian language teacher training college available in the Presheva Valley and no qualifying exams are offered for Albanian teachers to gain teaching licenses. Whereas Serbs from Kosova can study according to Serbia's curriculum, Albanians in Presheva are still obliged to use history and geography texts, written in the Milosevic era. While in Kosova, new Serb majority municipalities are being created through ethnic decentralization, in Serbia, the system is being centralized under Belgrade's control. The municipality cannot choose its police chief. The courts have just been centralized, making them sub-units of the court in Vranje.

According to the 2002 census, Albanians constitute about 89% of the population of the municipality of Presheva, and Serbs about 8.5%. Whilst Albanians are now represented as employees in local government structures and in education, still 50% of jobs in state structures in this municipality are held by Serbs. In Bujanoc, where Albanians constitute about 54% of the registered population and Serbs about 34%, Serbs still constitute about 64% of all employees in local government structures, about 78% in state structures and 45% in education. With the exception of education, all local and state structures are dominated by Serbs in Medvegjë. Albanians were 30% of the population prior to the war, but now it is estimated there are less than 800 (approximately 8%). Financial investment for the region has been determined by ethnicity. Medvegjë received approximately four times more investment per head than either Bujanoc or Presheva from the Coordination Body between 2000 and 2008. This Body has proposed that if a teaching college be opened for the Presheva Valley, that it be opened in Medvegjë.