From Vice, December 15:
Crypto was meant to set the world free from the old worlds of centralised banks and strongman politics, but in a small and often neglected corner of Europe, a Bitcoin mining boom showed how historic forces are difficult to shake off.
MITROVICA, Kosovo – There are divided cities all over the world. Some are separated by walls, some by armed checkpoints but a lot are just separated by fear and mistrust.
In Mitrovica in the north of Kosovo, Europe’s newest country, the symbol and literal representation of division is a bridge. The optimistically named New Bridge that crosses the River Ibar separates less than 40,000 Serbs from the rest of Albanian Kosovo, and its government, law enforcement, courts, energy bills, and, most recently, licence plate requirements.
The day I cross New Bridge, a couple of bored-looking Italian cops in surgical masks ask if I’m a journalist but not for any ID. The Italian Carabinieri, and a smaller detachment of Polish military police aside also acting under a NATO mandate, have been the only semblance of law enforcement north of the river since early November, when the eight Serb members of parliament from North Kosovo quit in outrage over a demand from the government in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, for their cars to get new standardised licence plates. Local cops, prosecutors, and judges north of the river all quit too, and government offices shut immediately, leaving the land north of New Bridge in a weird, lawless grey-zone: People follow the obvious rules but there’s nobody around to make them. Sometimes the Carabinieri and Polish officers might walk around a bit, and they’d probably arrest someone for shooting at them.
But “nobody is getting murdered, if there was a serial killer here I guess NATO would escort the Kosovar police in to arrest them,” said a Serb resident, who declined to be identified because everyone in Mitrovica knows each other and fear the local gangsters-turned-politicians that keep the place in line for Serbia’s rulers in Belgrade.
“There’s no laws or government or real law enforcement, so we don’t pay our [utility] bills, who would pay governments in Belgrade or Pristina who don’t care about them? That’s why everyone started mining Bitcoin, no police and you don’t pay the electric bill.”
Asked if they had mined crypto themselves, the resident cheerfully ended the interview.
“Oh that’s not a good thing to talk about here, nice to meet you.”....
....MUCH MORE
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