The Preševo Valley is geopolitical region in Southern and Eastern Serbia. The valley which geographically includes Bujanovac and Preševo and politically also Medveđa. It is home to most of the Albanian community in Serbia, who comprise around 2/3 of the population with the rest being Serbs and Roma. As of 2015, the area has around 75,300 inhabitants.
Terminology
In Albanian the area is referred to as Lugina e Preshevës and in Serbian as Preševska dolina. Albanians also sometimes call the region eastern Kosovo as parts of the territory were considered part of geographical region of Kosovo until the end of WWII. Preševo itself was a kaza of the Kosovo Vilayet until 1912. Medvedja was part of the sanjak of Niš until 1878. The change in the administrative border between In a series of administrative reforms after the war, it became part of Pčinja District. Because of Albanian demands for territorial autonomy, the use of "Preševo Valley" is somewhat politically loaded. In Serbian official statements, the area is usually referred to as the "territory of municipalities of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa".
Geography
Geographically, the Preševo Valley is coterminous with the river basin of Preševska Moravica from its source near the town of Preševo to the confluence with South Morava at Bujanovac. It is part of the Morava/Vardar North-South route across the Balkans, which follows the flows of Great Morava and South Morava through Serbia. This route carries the pan-European corridor X and E75. The importance of this route to Serbia has increased since 1999, when the main alternative route, through Pristina, became unusable due to the Kosovo War and subsequent loss of Serbian control over Kosovo.
History
In 1938, during the colonisation of Kosovo, Preševo was designated in the Turkish-Yugoslav Convention as one of the areas whose population would be forced to migrate to Turkey. The Yugoslav communist government, seeking to maintain the road and rail routes that passed through the region and also control Albanian nationalists, separated this region from Kosovo and organized it into Serbia. During the Kosovo War 6,000–8,000 ethnic Albanians left the area. They reported that they were being conscripted, and Serbian paramilitaries were trying to force them into military barracks.
Preševo Valley conflict
In 2001, as a follow-up to the Kosovo War, there were clashes between Serbian security forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas linked to the Kosovo Liberation Army, known as the Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac. The aim of UÇPM was to take full control of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa and hold them until such time as the adjacent lands, Kosovo and western Macedonia, also came under Albanian control. This should have been followed by the gradual opening of the borders. Lacking the attention of the international media, the incidents paused as the activities spread south of the border into Macedonia from where the twin organization National Liberation Army, engaged in a war against Macedonian authorities. The Presevo valley conflict ended after international intervention that led to peace treaty, which demilitarise the area, amnestied UÇPMB and granted to the Yugoslav army entry to the region under NATO's approval. In September 2007, Boris Tadić stated "that former and current terrorists, who recently managed to escape from prison in Kosovo, were located in northern regions of the Republic of Macedonia". According to Tadić, "terrorists are planning new attacks on municipalities in southern Serbia in order to start a new Preševo Valley conflict".
Demographics
Preševo Valley consists of two municipalities, Preševo and Bujanovac. The 2002 census recorded 34,904 people in Preševo and 43,302 in Bujanovac. Most of the Albanian population boycotted the 2011 census. Serbian government estimated that the number of inhabitants in these two municipalities is 67,900. Albanians are majority both in Preševo and Bujanovac, while Serbs are the second biggest ethnic group. In 2002, Medveđa had 10,760 citizens. In 2015, after an agreement between local institution and the Serbian government, an international team headed by the OSCE compiled a report which assessed the population in Preševo at 29,600, in Bujanovac at 38,300 and in Medvedja at 7,400.
Municipality
Area in km²
Population
Population
Preševo
264
34,904
29,600
Bujanovac
461
43,302
38,300
Medveđa*
524
10,760
7,400
Total
1,249
88,966
75,300
Politics
There are six parties which represent the Albanian minority in local and national politics. The Party for Democratic Action, one of the bigger organizations, won two seats in the 2014 Parliamentary election. Other parties boycotted the elections, citing deep discontent over Belgrade's treatment of the Albanian minority as one of the main reasons. As a result, the National Assembly of Serbia has only two ethnic Albanians. The region is often mentioned in connection with political negotiations of the Kosovo status process. Albanian leaders from the Valley wanted to participate in the talks but were not allowed. A territorial exchange between Serbia and Kosovo involving the Valley and North Kosovo is an often-mentioned topic in media and informal "probe" statements, but all sides in the official process so far rejected any prospect of a border change. A Chinese scholar proposed another territory exchange: the Serb enclaves south of the Ibar River with Preševo Valley.
