Women and Their Activities

AIM Pristina, 31 March, 1998

The month of March which has just elapsed will be remembered for numerous protests of Kosovo Albanians who raised their voices against what they assess as state violence which rules this territory for almost a decade. The immediate cause for re-activation of this form of expressing revolt of the majority population was the radically deteriorated situation in the central part of Kosovo - Drenica, where only in the beginning of this month more than 80 persons lost their lives. No less than 13 peaceful protests were organized, and the police stationed in Kosovo used brutal force during the first intending to prevent about 100 thousand citizens from expressing discontent about the current situation in this region.

The common idea of these gatherings can be expressed by the most domineering slogan which was both shouted and written on banners: "Drenica, we are with you". Out of 13 protests, seven were organized by women's organizations active in Kosovo, which is considered to be especially important, all of them appearing under the new name "Women's Network" (which includes: the League of Albanian Women, the Centre for Protection of Women and Children, Women in Black, ELENA Union, Forum of Women of the Democratic League of Kosovo and so on). Their message was clear: they demanded interruption of killing in which not even women and children were spared (among the killed were two pregnant women), and they demanded from humanitarian organizations to go to the critical region in order to offer help to the threatened, the ailing, the hungry and to attend the funeral of the victims.

The first protest organized on 1 March lasted for two hours at the initiative of the League of Albanian Women, after the massacre in Cirez in which 22 persons of Albanian nationality had lost their lives. It was decided that the protest take place in front of the American Cultural Centre in Pristina (in the part of the city called Dragodan), as well as during the few protests that followed, because as explained it was the only international office in Kosovo in front of which the Albanian women had the possibility to express their revolt. The motto of this protest "It is striking 12 for Kosovo" seemed to have been a harbinger of the developments which followed and resulted in a massacre.

The second rally was organized on 2 March at eight o'clock in the morning, and in a way preceded the all-national protest organized by the Coordinating Committee of Political Parties and Independent Union of Albanian Students of the University in Pristina. It was held in front of the Office of the International Committee of the Red Cross with the demand that a corridor be opened and that they be enabled to go to the region of Drenica to help the threatened population. But, this did not win support.

New victims fell in the village of Donje Prekaze which was the immediate cause for continuation of the protest organized on 5 March in front of the American Cultural Centre. Women held lit candles in their hands paying respect to the victims in Drenica. The motto of this protest was "S.O.S.". At the meeting which the delegation of the women had with representatives of this office, among other, an intervention of NATO forces was demanded "as the only solution for avoiding new massacres". On the 8 March - Women's Day, the most massive protests were held. The reason why the identification sign of this protest was a blank sheet of paper is interpreted by Ms. Flora Brovina, coordinator in the League of Albanian Women and one of the first initiators of the protests, by the fact that "white sheets are the symbol that for Kosovo everything will begin on a blank sheet of paper, and not by imposed predetermined programs for Kosovo". Continuing her explanation, Ms. Brovina stresses that the Contact Group which agreed that Kosovo remain within Yugoslavia, just announced a certain framework, but that on the other hand it was demanded that there be no framework at the negotiating table, because she adds, all options for resolving the problem of Kosovo are opened. "The maximum is not independent Kosovo, the maximum is Kosovo in the parent state. This is the maximum which we sometimes forget to stress. And the optimum", Brovina believes, "could be an independent state within Yugoslavia", she concludes.

And while in the beginning of March it was comparatively easy to find out the names of the victims, as well as their number, a period followed when it was impossible to establish it with certainty. Not even thousands of burning candles on the main square in Pristina during two nights (10 and 11 March) as a sign of "respect for the killed and as a sign of solidarity with all the mothers of Drenica" helped clarify the truth.

Unmet demands by the international institutions they referred to and continuation of terror in Drenica was the immediate cause for taking the next step: march towards Drenica with the motto "Bread for Drenica". More than 20 thousand women, each carrying a loaf of bread, diapers or notebooks, responded to the appeal showing that they were ready to give even more. This caravan was prevented to pass by a cordon of Serbian police at the entrance to Kosovo Polje, which warned them that the authorities had not been informed about the gathering, that entrance into the region would not be permitted, for "their own safety". The women took their humble aid to the seats of a few humanitarian organizations active in Kosovo asking them to carry out their mission for them.

Wishing to attract attention of the international community, almost the same number of Albanian women at the half-an-hour long protest gathering on 25 March organized with the motto "Peaceful Divorce", on the day when in Bonn the meeting of the Contact Group took place, wished to convey the message that every forcible "marriage" was detrimental, making an allusion to relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

The movement of women in Kosovo aroused sympathy and won support of various government and non-governmental organizations in the world. One of the rare organizations in Serbia which supported their demands and organization of protests is the organization Women in Black seated in Belgrade, the coordinator of which Stasa Zajovic believes that a form of war had begun in Kosovo much earlier, way back when the war in Slovenia, Croatia and later on in Bosnia began. "When our organization initiated various forms of protest against these wars, I always had the feeling of injustice because I felt that in Kosovo another form of war was going on for ten years", stresses Stasa Zajovic who along with members of this organization organized about ten protests against repression of the Serbian regime against the Albanian people.

Chroniclers of the events in Kosovo remind that March demonstrations are not the first, and neither are the victims. "Only the figures have changed, everything else has remained the same".

That this form of protests is moving from the outdoors indoors is perhaps best illustrated by the latest initiative of the League of Women which published a public competition for a drawing of pupils in Kosovo on the topic such as: Children of Kosovo are inviting children of the world; We are here in Kosovo; We too have the right to grow up in freedom... A catalogue will be printed with the best drawings which will then be sent to embassies and distributed to all the foreigners who will be coming to Kosovo. That is how Kosovo will in the next few days present itself by pencil and colours held by children's hands. Is not this just another form of demonstration?

AIM Pristina

Besa TOVRLANI