Reportage from a Trip to Kosovo
"Ska Sahati" - I Do Not Have a Watch
AIM Podgorica, 5 December, 1999
(By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)
Tyranny is eternal, I believe now after my latest journalistic odyssey around Kosovo. Only the tyrants are new. Crimes persist. Others have taken the baton from the Serbian regime. Indeed, they are doing their best to surpass it. Travelling around Kosovo nowadays reminds of a gambling game in which the main prize is to escape with one's life.
It is the second half of November. At the border between Kosovo and Serbia, the check-point of Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), just to make it clear that the "blue uniforms" are still around. The bus travelling between Novi Pazar and Skopje passes through Pristina. Control of identity cards and "bon voyage". A middle-aged Serb who is travelling to Skopje says: "I have emptied myself well and I have no intention to even go to the toilet in Pristina". Then come the Belgian troops in KFOR, a mere formality.
We first pass through Leposavic. They say there are no more Albanians here, peace, quiet and hopelessness. Zvecan: a Serb woman grumbles because the bus does not pass by the Serb part of Kosovska Mitrovica. The driver, just to say something, notes: "Go back to Pazar and find a better line". She goes out of the bus in the middle of the road and walks to this town which still cannot imitate Berlin. Mitrovica is divided only at the bridge, the ones can go to the others, but neither dare do it. There is no Albanian check-point, you just enter and you are in the Albanian part. It is horrible to see the traces left around Kosovo by Milosevic's armies: from the unearthly ruins only chimneys stick out. The Balkan is even more infernal than the inferno itself. With due respect, Mister Alleghieri, even you were not capable of describing what I am looking at now.
The driver throws a piece of mutton sausage into his mouth and says: "Don't you raise any fingers, you may make a blunder. It's not three fingers any more, but two". Those who have money are rebuilding, those who do not - are silently suffering. In yards - pitched tents, and houses hardly protruding above the ground in the attempt to make them fit for living before snow falls. Between Mitrovica and Vucitrn, at the righthand side of the road, five graves, quite recent. A wooden spear thrust in the ground, on the spear a red flag and black two-headed eagle on it. There is more chance of meeting a Serb in Kenya than here. In Vucitrn, a settlement for refugees opened after the war in Croatia by Buba Morina, Yugoslav minister for refugees and Albanian sister-in-law. The Albanians live here now, and the Serbs from Croatia have gone to a new exile. I am, of course, already sorry that I have started on this trip, I have an interpreter who speaks perfect Turkish and Albanian, but what can I say. I can say just: "Un nam Enes Halilovic prej Novi Pazar, gazetar Free Europe". I know that the Albanians think well of Radio Free Europe, but they resent everyone who does not speak Albanian.
In Pristina the buildings are sound, but the souls worn out. Postwar worries on faces, scars of the war blaze in every eye. I step out of the bus and wait for the one going to Prizren. Twilight, I am the tallest figure at the station and this does not speak in my favour, whoever glances at me, it seems to me, thinks: "That is a Serb". Some people come up to me and ask me for the time. "Ska sahati", I say, which means I do not have a watch. They ask whether I need a taxi. "Jo". The bus for Prizren comes to the platform. I enter it, the interpreter buys the tickets. There is a young man and an elderly who is singing: "Djindjile o Djindjile". The interpreter tells me that these are Albanian -partisan. Financed by KLA. I call home and say where I am. I end the conversation by "Alahimanet". So may be they will at least slightly think better of me.
The bus passes through Lipljan and then Stimlje. Darkness, there is no electricity at all. Either the Serbs have intentionally given up on it or the Albanians do not know how to actually start up (thermo-electric power station) Kosovo A. It is so dark that it cannot get any darker; something like the twilight zone when a guy gets lost and wanders down a plain. This is what Kosovo is like at night. After Stimlje, on the left side of the road towards Prizren there is a psychiatric hospital. Anyone who speaks Serbian and does not know any Albanian, if by some chance reaches Stimlje alive, should go to this hospital because that is where he/she actually belongs. I wonder what on earth made me tempt providence to come here.
In Suva Reka a young Albanian comes in and greets other two men. He asks me something and the interpreter replies. It was something about a bag that stood in the aisle which was not mine. A Serb? Asked a fellow who let curly pigtails down his back. "Jo un prej Novi Pazar, Enes". He starts to shout mentioning an axe. I keep my mouth shut all the way to Prizren. I am silent, persistently silent. I feel looks at the back of my neck.
We get off in Prizren. What brought me here in the first place? The city of history, the city I heard wonderful stories about, but this is the year 1999 in which all sorts of things have happened. And still are happening. Darkness, motor generators growling from some of the yards. We are going to the interpreter's house, his folks do not know that their son is coming. They ask me who I am, what I do. A journalist and the rest. His father glances at him as if saying: just another worry I really don't need. I will remember that look for as long as I live. The Albanians tried to break into their (the Bosniacs') storage room, they were robbed during the war both by the Serbs and the Albanians while they were in Prizren. His father, a hard-working and honest man, does not want his house to be labelled, but he cannot go against his honour either. We talk about his business. To my remark that they are at least breathing a little more easily because they do not have to pay taxes, he says: "There is always something you must pay". I ask whether it is the racket to the Albanian mob I get the impression that he is afraid to confirm my doubt. Perhaps he thinks he would get into trouble if something like that would go on the air or in a newspaper. Dinner and then to bed. I dream the guy with pigtails who mentioned an axe.
In the morning I go to German KFOR, a man with a big moustache tells me that I must come tomorrow at nine o'clock sharp because a man in charge of journalists' accreditations will come then. And what am I supposed to do for a whole day? I go to the Turks. "Selam alejk i merhaba". Officer Hassan Jengis says that Turkish forces at check-points and in patrols guard the citizens and prevent robberies and looting 24 hours a day. "We have succeeded in preventing illegal cutting and sale of forests. We have helped schools in Dragas and the surrounding villages. We have distributed 5700 packages of humanitarian aid and we have given 20 tons of coal to the village of Dobrudzan. We vaccinated 857 children against various diseases. Our army physicians have checked about seven thousand patients and circumcised 271 children of Albanian and Bosniac ethnic origin. We did the same in the Turkish village of Mamusi and in Prizren. This is especially significant because it leads to closer relations among ethnic groups and it reduces hatred", says Hassan Jangis. In the Turkish camp, Turkish music. Iron discipline, they all work like ants.
H.T., merchant of Turkish origin, is happy because of arrival of Turkish forces. He says: "This is a guarantee, the Albanians would have done us in if it had not been for our brethren. I cried when they came, I threw flowers at the tanks. And the soldiers also cried." Transactions are done solely in German marks, telephones have just started working, but the lines are unstable and this is an additional difficulty. "People have money", says H.T. and adds "I make more money than before, I don't pay taxes, there are no inspectors to drain me dry". He also asks me: "Is it true that Slobo(dan Milosevic)'s son opened an amusement park? It is! I know that Slodo feels no shame of God, but how is it possible that he feels no shame of all the people? I remember when in '97 he said in Pristina that he would not give a single square foot of Kosovo. Whatever is going on in his mind now?"
Around noon Ahmet who owns a cafe confirms that he makes more money than before the war. "I charge 1 DEM for espresso (coffee), the same for juice. Everything costs 1 DEM, pal". In the evening about 19 h I learn that some Albanian knocked Ahmet on the head with a metal rod and that he is in hospital where the doctors are fighting for his life. "It's because he is a Turk", my interpreter says, "you'll see when the Turks from KFOR get hold of that one, he will be sorry he had ever been born". The Albanians used to force Turkish children to attend school in Albanian. It was forbidden to utter a single word in Turkish in Prizren. Nowadays, things have changed, the Turkish army is here and it successfully "hunts down" all those who used to throw the Turks and the Bosniacs from cafes or illtreated and beat them.
I am making an interview with Numan Balic, president of the Party of Democratic Action of Kosovo. He is a good interlocutor who does not need any preparations. I single out the following: "It is true that there had been cases of kidnapping and murders of Bosniacs by the Albanians. The situation has improved now, but it still has not reached the desired level of confidence. The struggle for our survival in Kosovo is a struggle for schools in Bosnian. We are about to ensure the maximum conditions for education of our children. We have organised a supply of textbooks from B&H".
A journalist of local review called Selam, Mustafa Balje, says: "We should fight for our rights. We the Bosniacs are not a bargaining counter. I am staying here and I want a future with everybody, I want to die here where I was born and I want to live a life worthy of man". In Prizren there is a tree, PLATANUS ORIENTALIS, which is six hundred years old. It could best speak of the past of this city, about the emperor Dusan the Mighty and Sinan Pasha. "UNDER PROTECTION OF THE STATE", but this is written only in Albanian, other inscriptions have been deleted. Those who deleted them had no respect for the elder. Therefore, apart from the Turks, the Bosniacs, the Serbs and the Romanies, even PLATANUS ORIENTALIS is in danger.
The Germans did not issue me an accreditation the next day either. They said: "If someone wants to kill you, they will kill you with and without it". A red limousine circles Prizren, on its licence plate it is written: "ZJJARI 002". The limousine is driven by an Albanian who sets houses of the Serbs on fire. They say he set two houses of the Jews on fire, too. Zjjari in Albanian means fire. A Bosniac says: "I wish Slobo would come back here for at least three days. The Albanians have become too oppressive. They will not let us, the Bosniacs, utter a sound. They keep telling us 'you'll either declare yourselves as the Albanians or get lost from Kosovo. And they cannot even stand themselves any more". The church in the centre of the town is guarded by the Germans, there are almost no Serbs left in Prizren, there are perhaps a few ten of them. Their names are pronounced with respect. "It certainly takes courage", citizens of Prizren say.
The interview with Ferhat Dervis was a real pleasure. Dervis is president of the committee of representatives of the Turks from Kosovo. He says: "I cried when Turkish soldiers arrived in Prizren. It is the greatest day in my life. Now we, the Turks from Kosovo, are to a certain extent sure we will have a future. We are part of Kosovo and we will not allow the Albanians to assimilate us at any cost". Writers Altaj Suroi and Iskender Musbeg are very close to Ferhat Dervis. A weekly in Turkish called The New Age appeared. On its front page, in large letters the following is written: "Eighty eight years after the Osmanli's, Turkish army is in Kosovo again". The article on Demirel's visit is titled: "Welcome Father".
Return to Pazar. It is hard to answer again "Ska sahati". An Albanian from Suva Reka heard what we are whispering in the bus. He pricked up his ears and heard. He calls the conductor, explains, points his finger at us... the conductor raises his eye-brows, shrugs his shoulders. The signs by the road which point to the monasteries are not deleted, but male genitals are drawn on them. From 10 to 13 h we are waiting for the bus in Pristina. For three hours I answer "ska sahati, ska sahati...". The bus arrives, I put my bag in the trunk, only four passengers board the bus. The driver in front of the bus, in a low voice: "Boro, stand by the door, check the tickets, I'll just ask Feriz who drives the bus to Pec to take me to the toilet". I address Boro: "Let's get started as soon as possible". And he says, in the lowest possible voice: "We are blessed with our Slobo". "Not mine he isn't", I say. "He isn't mine either", says Boro. The bus is on its way.
The KFOR vehicles are too high for the tragic Kosovo reality. That is how the men in them look upon life around them. From on high - condescendingly. Vucitrn, then Mitrovica. Passengers smuggle cigarettes and oil. KFOR check-point, then MUP check-point. The green waters of the Ibar, willows and trembling poplars.
Enes Halilovic
(AIM)
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