TREPCA: Making Sense of the Labyrinth (ICG Balkans Report N° 82)
TREPCA: Making Sense of the Labyrinth (ICG Balkans Report N° 82)

Author(s): Author Not Specified
Subject(s): Economic policy, Security and defense, Peace and Conflict Studies, Wars in Jugoslavia
Published by: ICG International Crisis Group
Summary/Abstract: The enterprise known as Trepca is a sprawling conglomerate of some 40 mines and factories, located mostly in Kosovo but also in other locations in Serbia and Montenegro. Its activities include chemical processing and production of goods as varied as batteries and paint. But the heart of its operations, and the source of most of its raw material, is the vast mining complex to the east of Mitrovicë/a in the north of Kosovo, famous since Roman times. This report examines the current position of the mines, together with the associated smelting complex at nearby Zvecan. The future of Trepca cuts to the heart of the Kosovars' identity. Its great mineral wealth is the basis of the economy of Kosovo, but the complex is badly run-down as a result of under-investment and over-exploitation by governments in Belgrade. Trepca figured largely among the issues over which Albanians took to the streets in 1988/9, and the issue of control over the mines has assumed tremendous symbolic importance. Trepca, as one circumspect Kosovar observed, is Kosovo's Berlin Wall. It has long stood for Kosovar Albanians as the symbol of Serbian oppression and of their own resistance.

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