WAITING FOR HOUSING UNITS

AIM Pristina, 14 June, 1997

The opinion that every Serb in Serbia who decides to emigrate from Kosovo is banished and running away from "the Albanian pressure and terrorism" is still widespread. Those who are analysing the "problem" that people are leaving Kosovo more logically and more rationally are much fewer in number, especially those who have realized that the current Serbian politics very successfully contributed to it in order to show its "defensive" power by stirring up nationalistic passions for the sake of short-term interests, as it turned out, and by making promises of a "bright future of the heavenly nation" in return. The other, constantly and repeatedly proved reason is of economic nature. The most expensive land in Europe was a good opportunity to make a small fortune "to last to the end of one's life" and secure the future for one's children. On the other hand, one can on the fingers of one hand count the cases of the Kosovo Serbs who out of fear, or as it is usually said, "pressured" by their Albanian neighbours had to leave a village or a town. And all of them, in the collective national euphoria, have managed to buy a roof over their heads and to get the generally accepted label by their compatriots from the "rich" North - "Shiptars".

Kosovo, which was always and still is classified among regions with the high level of natural resources, with a well-developed industrial zone and power generation potentials, is nowadays completely forsaken. Its economy, like on the territory of the whole country, is collapsing, and the enterprises which are still operating are on the verge of complete ruin. Obsolete technology, lack of professionals and the market, insufficient number of workers, a lack of money for production and salaries. In such a situation the recently signed contract between the giant enterprise Trepca and a Greek firm would seem ridiculous if it were not tragic, especially because it was presented as a way out from the "twilight zone". Experts have already given their judgement, but someone should be found to hear it. The few who are still employed in Kosovo economy receive nothing but "social welfare" of what they have earned. Big promises about salaries and European standard of living have gone up in smoke, like everything else which refers to the "Serb" interest - bringing university educated personnel from Serbia, physicians, engineers, miners... They came and went, "never to come back". Even those who had left their well paid jobs in various cities of former and present Yugoslavia have started to leave. And they had been told to return to Kosovo, that they would get jobs and apartments, that Kosovo was "the sacred Serb land"...

A Yugoslav program for return of the Serbs and the Montenegrins to Kosovo was adopted, but also all those who wished to live and work in this space for very attractive offers: employment of young experts in cities, higher salaries for doing the same jobs, and provided housing. Calculation of the ones and the others was clear. Returnees would have good conditions for living, and in return Serbia and Yugoslavia would "get a larger percentage of the Serbs". The issue is how this YU program is effectuated?

The only thing that can be claimed is that housing units were and still are constructed. It is generally known that the housing units constructed with resources from the YU program were least of all given to those who they had been intended for. An officer of the Army of Yugoslavia from the Pristina garrison who wished to remain anonymous said that many had been attracted by the promises and then, disappointed, returned to where they had come. "Young people lived as subtenants for a few years in Pristina and watched other people move into these apartments, mostly the Serbs from Kosovo who had "friends in the right places", he explained. In established contacts with a certain number of Kosovo Serbs, this story is confirmed, but only by people nodding their heads and refusing to say anything more, and skillfully avoiding to mention the names of those who have abused both the situation and the people.

The most drastic example of abuse of resources (housing units) of the YU program, has happened in Istok. The result - eviction of 12 Serb families of returnees, more than ten days ago went to Belgrade, more precisely into the park in front of the building of the Presidency of Serbia. They say that it is all the same to them whether they live in Istok or in Belgrade, when they have no roof above their heads.

With their wives, some of whom are pregnant, and small children, these people from Istok are asking only for what is theirs, what they were promised, because years lost in waiting and hoping cannot be compensated by anyone. But they met with closed doors of those very same people who had allured, used and rejected them. Even the hunger strike they started still has no effects, nor the possible childbirth in the park downtown Belgrade, tears... On their faces, one sees helplessness and resoluteness to meet the federal prime minister Radoje Kontic or minister Nedeljko Sipovac. The are rejecting suggestions of Milosevic's employees to return to Istok, to file appeals and offer a possibility to the just established commission to look into the matter and finally resolve their problem. They do not trust them especially after the return of a few families from the park to Istok, who had been told that their housing units were waiting for them as well as that they would get loans for them. The only thing they actually got after ten days spent in the park was a mobile WC and support of the citizens of Belgrade who "saw through this regime" a long time ago.

During all this time, the "local sheriff", mayor of Istok, Malisa Perovic, is silent as the grave, although he is the one who is responsible because without his doing, as the people from Istok claim, and without his approval nothing can be done over there. Mr Perovic is also the owner of the private enterprise called Perovic - Petrol and he owns gas stations, and poor inhabitants of Istok compare his house with a "castle". To the complaints of the Serbs from Istok and the surroundings about their difficult life, Perovic did not shrink from complaining to them that his "troubles" were much worse, that his tank trucks were stopped at the border, but that he was not lamenting because of it, that four apartments were "his", and that they had to pay for the rest...

When the fifth building had been completed with the resources from the YU program, the returnees decided that they would not wait for "priority lists", but moved in by force. Twelve families lived in that building for five weeks, and then the police showed up and roughly threw them out from the apartments. In the following eight days these twelve families lived in tents in front of the uninhabited building constructed for them. And then they realized that in Istok, far from the eyes of the public, the municipal authorities would calmly let them pass the winter outdoors. So they decided: they would go straight to Belgrade and, like before, the problem would be resolved...

They hoped that somebody would stop them and offer them a hand in the last moment. Some thought that they would be prevented to even set out towards the Yugoslav capital. Maybe they would be stopped near Lipljani... Near Pristina... Podujevo... They arrived in Belgrade without anyone even asking them for their names. Then they realized: the local authorities wanted to see them leave, to be freed of the "human burden".

About forty citizens of Istok are still waiting for an offered hand, while many still vividly remember their rallies against the whole world and in support of this regime, some of them remember their participation in the past war, and they all remember the sacrifice of a good life for the sake of national political interests...

The attempt to get an explanation from the Government (the Government being in charge as the coordinator of the program) about the use of housing units from the YU program, ended by referring them to the federal Secretariat for Information, where it is simply impossible to find a responsible person who can give any explanation!

AIM Pristina Boris Vukovic