Vjosa Dobruna
Expert Spotlight
Before 1990, Vjosa Dobruna lived in Kosova [Dobruna, like many Albanian Kosovars, prefers the spelling “Kosova” to “Kosovo”] and worked as a pediatrician. Hers was an ordinary, middle-class life. Although Milosovic began the war in 1991, real armed clashes didn't happen until 1998. There had been a strong civil society with a long tradition of pacifism. But as events changed, so did Dobruna's life. She was locked out of the hospital where she worked because she was Albanian—“it was a system of apartheid.” She joined the civil disobedience movement and, when war did come, she helped displaced persons and wounded civilians. As a witness to breaches of human rights, Dobruna sent out reports about violations of the Geneva Conventions.
In the 1990s, violence tore through the remains of Yugoslavia as President Slobodan Milosevic strove to create a “pure” Serbian state. Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanian population fell victim to harsh discrimination, but responded non-violently through a system of civil disobedience that lasted until the formation of the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1998. Milosevic responded with escalating violence to this new guerrilla resistance, and in the aftermath of what the world was coming to acknowledge as genocide in Bosnia, international concern for the fate of Albanian Kosovars quickly mounted. NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslavia in March 1999. Following the war, the United Nations created the UN Joint Interim Administrative Structure of Kosovo in order to establish a new system of governance in this post-Communist region.
In the UN structure after the war, each ministry was co-led by one Kosovar representative and one UN representative—it was an ideal model for transferring power from the UN to locals. Dobruna was offered the role of minister in charge of democratization, good governance, and media.
She became a partner to Kosova's civil society, and the whole department became a model of cooperation between internationals and nationals and among the Administrative Structure, central and local governments, and grassroots organizations. According to Dobruna,
It wasn't difficult: After the war, people in Kosova were eager to participate; they wanted to help rebuild. For the first time, a ministry included marginalized minorities. We asked them what they wanted, and we listened to their responses. The policies were based on the vision of the people. But although I enjoyed the process, the product simply was not there in the end. Final decisions were made by UNMIK (the UN Mission in Kosova), and they had certain “criteria” for accepting decisions that came from local actors. At the end of the day, we were somehow “ministers” with responsibilities but without power.
Problems became apparent early on. The UN's opinion of what Kosova needed was different from that of the majority of Kosovars, who cared about rebuilding their homes and having the genocide and apartheid they'd lived under acknowledged by the international community.
One of the biggest obstacles to early talks was that many Serbs at the table had supported Milosevic, some of them actively participating in civilian atrocities. But in 2000, both communities were invited by the US Institute of Peace to engage in a dialogue. Dobruna participated and emphasized the importance of women at these talks:
There's a tendency to think that women can work on social issues, but not in “higher” politics—that's why women aren't usually brought to the negotiating table. I was at the table because there was respect for my work. People started to recognize that I had the information, knowledge, and will.
Working together is key for Dobruna. When preparing for the elections, she held several meetings with women's NGOs. Women agreed that they needed a platform for action, and they talked about a quota for women in the assembly. But when it came time to create a new constitution and basic law, the people of Kosova and the departments and ministries that had already been developed were not consulted. This was unacceptable to Dobruna.
When I resigned [from the Ministry],” she says, “I sent an open letter saying I was leaving because there was no real partnership between the international community and Kosovars, and because women were being prevented from taking part in reconstruction—which was their right and responsibility. The ideal model for transferring power to the local people had, in my opinion, failed in practice.”
Despite this failure, Dobruna believes she will always work with women, “because it will be a long time before women are treated as equal partners with men—not only in Kosova, but also around the world.”
