In the early years of World War II Marshall Tito came to leadership of a group of highly nationalistic tribes living within an area that became known as Communist Yugoslavia in November, 1945 and continued until his death in 1980. He was followed by Slobodan Milosevic, not a good leader, and after violent civil wars strong nationalistic tendencies saw the division of Yugoslavia into Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Slovenia. During the Civil Wars atrocities were documented on the part of Serbia and Milosevic was deposed and executed before he could be brought to trial by the World Court. The United Nations stepped in and provided peace keepers to stem the slaughter with most skirmishes ending in 1995 with the Dayton, Ohio Peace Agreement. Even though Kosovo declared its independence in 2008 at this time Kosovo is still a recognized part of Serbia by 2/3 of the World's Countries, including Serbia. Because of this number Kosovo is doubtful for inclusion in the prestigious European Union, which will make reconstruction and the search for capital most difficult. Independence fighting continued in Kosovo and the United Nations sent in peace keepers, of which 700 came from Iowa. Those military personnel developed friendships with the people of Kosovo and with the end of the fighting and official recognition of Kosovo by the United States friendship tours have become common. Through this activity Iowa (through Governor Terry Brandstad) entered into a U.S. State Department Sister State program with Kosovo that now includes three Sister Cities Agreements: Fort Dodge with Gjakova, Johnston with Peja and Norwalk with Vushtrri.
Through the Sister City program Fort Dodge will begin to see the following initiatives:
- Youth exchange and culture sharing. There have been preliminary exchanges which are sure to grow in the future.
- Assistance to Gjakova schools to secure textbooks and computer equipment. The students excel at technology, entrepreneurship, problem solving, etc. Potential exists for Fort Dpdge service clubs to partner in this process.
- Assistance to work through a maze of land ownership agreements. Before World War I land was owned by the King with Serf squatters. After Communism all land was owned by the state, and now people want to own land, but so much uncertainty exists as to ownership or purchase potential investment capital is not present. Many land records are also held in Belgrade, which is less than forthcoming to release documents. Unemployment is near 40% but vacant factories exist and businesses want to develop industries. However, the land ownership problem keeps facilities vacant.
- Education needs to be restructured as now the system is European Based with an emphasis on academic growth to a Doctor's degree. However, what is needed is job training through programs offered in our community colleges. ICCC is beginning to work on sharing for this problem.
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