By Tim Whewell BBC Radio 4's Crossing Continents

Workers took to the streets of Kosovo on 14 July to protest about living conditions as discontent grows over the United Nations' stewardship of the economy.

Cars burned by Albanian mobs during the March riots

Thousands of demonstrators in the capital, Pristina, called for a speeding up of efforts to privatise the province's publicly owned industries, many of them currently half-derelict.

Trade union leaders vowed to resume the demonstrations in September if their demands have not been met.

The latest protests follow a serious outbreak of violence in Kosovo in March, when 19 were killed, nearly 900 injured, and hundreds of houses ruined in three days of inter-ethnic rioting.

The main victims were Kosovo's Serb and Roma (Gypsy) minorities, who together make up about 10% of the population.

A PROVINCE IN TURMOIL Life in Kosovo after five years of UN stewardship. In pictures

The violence was directly triggered by reports - now widely discredited - that Serbs had caused the drowning of three children from Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.

But UN property was also targeted by the mobs.

Many observers believe the underlying causes of the violence were Albanian frustration over the failure to resolve Kosovo's political status - and economic stagnation which has left hundreds of thousands of young people without jobs, and school children without prospects.

Estimates of unemployment vary, but some put it as high as 70% - although in practice many of those probably work in the large shadow economy.

About 45,000 young people enter the jobs market every year - a very high figure for a territory of only about 2.2 million people.

'Europe's West Bank'

"Kosovo has a third-world demographic structure plonked down in the middle of Europe," says Alex Anderson of the International Crisis Group, an independent think-tank which has warned that "Kosovo risks becoming Europe's West Bank."

Half the population is under the age of 20 - 70% under 30.

Hundreds of Serb families were forced to leave their homes during the March riots

Alex Anderson argues that Unmik, the UN Mission in Kosovo in charge of administering the province since Serb forces were driven out five years ago, does not have Kosovo's social and economic development at the heart of its mandate.

"The UN has been treading water here," he says.

And it is the UN record on privatisation that has led to some of the fiercest criticism.

Five years after the war, only a fraction of so-called "socially-owned enterprises" have been put up for sale.

Without private investment, most of them are in the doldrums with many of their former workers laid off.

Nikolas Lambsdorff, the European Union official responsible for economic reconstruction under the UN, has now started a new, limited round of privatisation.

He defends the UN's record, pointing out that privatisation has been beset by legal problems because of uncertainty over ownership of the enterprises - in many cases Serbian companies claim ultimate control.

"We are introducing the rule of law," he says. "How would you like the UN to sell your property because they haven't checked on who the owners are?"

At fault

Charles Brayshaw, the acting head of the UN mission, points to its achievements in introducing democracy and a judicial system.

But on the economy, he is apologetic. "It's the one area where I will have to fault our effort in Kosovo, that we were slow to put together a programme of privatisation," he says.

In the central town of Rahovec, once the heart of Kosovo's wine industry, it is easy to see the effects of the delay.

The local winery was one of the main employers. Now it produces only a tenth of its pre-war output.

Down the road, ethnic Albanian farmer Sabri Popaj is one of many local people angry at the decline in the local economy.

Albanian Sabri Popaj's two sons were shot by Serb paramilitaries

Sabri, 46, was called to the Hague tribunal to give evidence in the trial of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

One of the worst atrocities of the 1999 war in Kosovo took place in the field in front of his house.

Seventy-six people were rounded up and shot by Serb paramilitaries, including Sabri's two sons, aged 14 and 17.

"No-one gave any reason," he says, "except the reason that they were Albanian."

Sabri has rebuilt his burnt-out farm buildings. He loves his work and tries to be an innovative farmer, importing seeds and livestock from Western Europe.

But now he says the economy has collapsed. "In the old days I sold my peppers in all the republics of Yugoslavia - in Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Sarajevo," he says as he hands me a glass of home-made brandy.

Desperate times

"They were famous. In 1985 I won first prize as the best agricultural producer in the country.

"In 2001, I had 38 cows. Now I have four. Next year I may only have two. Then I'll have to give up. And there's nothing for the young people - most of the unemployed round here are under 20 years old.

"One of my neighbours offered me a hectare of his land if I could get his son a visa to go to Canada. That's how desperate they are."

Sabri, and many others, blame high import tariffs on imported equipment and raw materials.

UN officials say the customs regime has now changed to make such imports easier, but only recently.

No-one doubts that the UN has had an exceptionally difficult mandate in Kosovo.

It has been tasked to build up democracy in the province. But Kosovo remains officially part of Serbia - against the wishes of perhaps 90% of the population.

The impatience that is almost universally felt was summed up for me by Etrur Rrustemaj, who came back from 12 years in London to work in the telecom industry.

"I don't want to see the UN as an enemy," he says. "They helped us gain our freedom. But now, because of all the mistakes, people aren't seeing them as a friend - they're seeing them as the enemy."

BBC Radio 4's Crossing Continents, Crossing Europe was broadcast on Thursday, 15 July, 2004 at 1100 BST.