Interethnic relations in Kosovo, prey to dezinforms

Ramadan Ilazi, director of research at the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies (QKSS), says these deinformative campaigns in the country are deliberately distributed to strain interethnic relations.

“We have campaigns aimed at creating distrust among the Serb community especially towards public institutions in Kosovo and aiming to create a kind of perception of whether in the north [of Kosovo] we have an ongoing response situation towards citizens there”, says Ilazi of Radio Free Europe.

To test this impression, the QKSS has conducted a study, where, in addition to analyses and polls, it has gathered several young Albanians and Serbs to discuss disinformive campaigns.

This study reveals that most Kosovars, regardless of ethnicity, believe dezinformation is affecting interethnic relations.

Most even say that they themselves have encountered such disinformations.

According to Ilazi, these deninforms are widely distributed in cases of tensions in Kosovo's predominantly Serb-inhabited north Last year's attack on Banjska or Attack on Iber-Lepenci Canal.

He believes that the role in distributing these disinformations has Russian media services, RT and Sputnik, In Serbia, operating despite sanctions imposed by the US and the EU.

“In Serbia, through these media, they disperse the gear around Kosovo, which is extremely unconstructive and harmful to interethnic co-existence. They also aim to harm the normalisation processes of relations between Kosovo and Serbia”, says Ilazi.

Adea Beqaj, programme manager at the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Pristina, says the high presence of Kosovars on digital platforms makes society in the country vulnerable to these disinformive campaigns.

According to her, the lack of media education also plays a significant role.

She says institutions in the country must create a strategy that equips citizens with <x0 potential to navigate in an increasingly complex information environment, fight dezination and make informed decisions”.

“A key component of this effort should include the integration of media education into the curriculum of the education system at all levels, starting from primary education”, it says of REL.

The very lack of media education in Kosovo's educational curriculum is seen as one of the factors that is leaving Kosovars vulnerable to disinformive campaigns.

Online media are seen among the platforms making the largest distribution of deninforms.

However, most Kosovars believe they know to identify these disinformations.

But for Ilazin, the problem remains the language barrier between the Albanian and Serb communities. He says the lack of dylingism in the media in Kosovo causes media to report without full context.

We don't have Kosovo Albanian-speaking professional media with journalists from the Serbian community, nor vice versa. Thus, often reports of the north lack the context to address information that may be not fully accurate”, he says.

Since members of different communities read various media content, the cause of language barriers is perceived differently in Kosovo among ethnic communities.

Ilazi believes the fight against disinformations would make normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia easier.

For as long as we have tensions between Kosovo and Serbia, society will remain vulnerable to deinformation campaigns. Every time we have tensions, even disinformive campaigns grow significantly and aim to create the perception of fear”, he says.

But societies in Kosovo's neighbouring countries in the Western Balkans face similar problems.

Deeply entrenched cultural and religious structures are often manipulated and used as tools to promote division and distrust. Taking advantage of the region's social divisions and historical complexity, dezinformation continues to undermine efforts for reconciliation and stability in the Western Balkans”, says Beqaj from the NDI.

These deinformation problems in the Western Balkan states have a negative impact on these states' democracies, she adds, as they set off on the path towards integration into the European Union.

The prerequisite for the actual functioning of democracy is for citizens to be informed correctly and correctly, to take informed decisions and be able to keep the government” accountable, Beqaj concludes. /Radio Europe Free