The wall that never went up because someone decided to tear it down before it was built
Baton Haxhiu
In May 2001, a project for the physical division of Kosovo was about to become a reality. Its publication was not journalism. It was a decision to intervene in history and not allow concrete to replace freedom. I kept it locked away for three weeks. After I got the project in hand, I shared it with Nebi Qena and Garentina Kraje. I decided that it should be published. And that no one knew. But no one until the moment of publication.
I did not make that decision as editor-in-chief. I made it as someone who understood what was happening beyond the paper and the project I held in my hand. That project was not simply a technical plan. It was a line that would irreversibly divide Kosovo. It was a decision that was being prepared in silence, with military logic and cold bureaucratic language, but with consequences that would remain for generations.
Koha Ditore, before, during and after the war, was not just a newspaper, it was not just an institution, at a time when we had neither a state nor Albanian political power and when internationals decided everything, it was the very voice, the very resistance and the very consciousness of a society that refused to surrender.
I saw immediately that it was not a story to be preserved for analysis. It was a project to be demolished before it took shape. Because when a wall begins to be built, it is no longer just concrete. It becomes a political reality, it becomes a habit, it becomes a border in the mind before it is on the ground.
That’s why I decided to publish it. Not to inform, but to intervene. Not to show a development, but to stop it. Because at that moment, silence would be cooperation. And publication was the only way to disrupt a project that was preparing to become irreversible.
There is a generation that talks a lot about the Ibar Bridge, about the north, about division, about sovereignty, but knows nothing about the time when these were not slogans but a real danger, when a single decision could divide Kosovo physically and definitively. There are people in public life who talk about the wall as if it were a political metaphor, while once it was a concrete project, with technical drawings, a construction plan, international support and with hours counted to become a reality.
This is the story of the wall that would divide Mitrovica.
On May 30, 2001, Koha Ditore published an article that today should be read as a document, not as journalism. The title was brutal in its simplicity. One day, we may wake up with a wall by the Ibar River. It was not a rhetorical warning. It was a description of a reality that was being prepared in silence.
Inside that article was the story of a project seriously designed by the French KFOR forces, which had taken responsibility for the north according to NATO’s operational division. It was not a crazy idea of some local officer. It was a structured concept, with military logic and with the support of part of the international chain of command. The goal was clear. Stability through physical separation. Tranquility through concrete.
The sketch published in that article was evidence of this thought. A wall along the Ibar, with permanent security elements, with checkpoints, with movement restrictions, and with an architecture that was not temporary. It was not a barricade that would be removed tomorrow. It was a structure that was intended to become an irreversible fact.
The legend under the sketch was not simply a technical explanation. It was a political statement hidden in engineering language. The device of permanent protection. This word permanent is the essence of the whole story. It was not about a temporary solution to post-war tensions. It was about institutionalizing the division. About a line that would become an everyday reality and then an acceptable fact.
At that time, the project had passed the discussion stage. It was on the verge of implementation. And what happened next wasn’t just journalism. It was an intervention in history.
The project was handed to me. As a document that was supposed to remain secret. As a plan that was not supposed to be made public. And that’s exactly where the part that is missing from the collective memory today begins. It wasn’t just a matter of information. It was a decision to make public a project that could divide Kosovo forever.
After the publication, the reaction was not institutional, it was investigative. In the French barracks in Mitrovica, I was questioned three times. The question was the same. Who undermined the project? They didn’t call it journalism. They called it sabotage. And in a way they were right. Because what was done was sabotage of an idea that was taking real shape.
The problems with the French generals were not easy. They were serious, direct and without diplomacy. Because for them, the project was a solution. For us, it was the beginning of a division from which there would be no return.
Today, when I hear people talking about the Ibar wall as a new idea, as a current debate, as a political option, I understand how shallow memory is and how dangerous ignorance is. It’s not a problem that they don’t know history. The problem is that they probably talk about things they haven’t lived and don’t understand.
The wall was not a metaphor. It was not a literary figure. It was a project. There was a drawing. There was a budget. There was a military command behind it. And there was even a moment when it could have become a reality.
And it wasn’t done.
It wasn’t done because someone decided to bring it to light. Because someone decided to take a risk to stop it. Because someone didn’t see it as a compromise, but as a capitulation.
At another time, the names of those who made it impossible to build the wall along the entire Ibar River will also be revealed. Not as personal stories. But as part of a chapter that is being forgotten with frightening ease today.
Post Scriptum
There is another part of this story that should not be forgotten. The courage to keep the secret for three weeks, at a time when any leak could destroy everything. Garentina Kraja and Nebi Qena took on this burden and carried it. It was not just journalism. It was responsibility. And at the time, it was also dangerous. These today’s idiots in politics, in sentences on TV and in letters will never understand the history of the war and its aftermath.
