First quiet night
after 20 months
"Here, in Bogovadja, we slept peacefully through the night for the first
time" – the strongest and the most beautiful experience
for 94 Serbian children from Obilic, Crkvena Vodica, Gracanica, Lipljan,
Zvecan, Kosovska Mitrovica, Vucitrn, Leska, Srbica and Leposavic, who, after
20 months lived in fear of Albanian terror and negligence of international
forces of KFOR, arrived to Belgrade Red Cross vacation home, for recovery.
With boys and girls, from 10 to 16 years of age, arrived their teachers and
Red Cross activists Trajko Kostic from Gracanica, Marina Saranovic from
Zvecan, Biljana Jokic from Leposavic and Zoran Vasic from Obilic. High school
pupils, Tijana, Vidosav, Bojan, Djordje, Milan from Crkvena Vodica, who after
recent bomb-attack of Shiptar terrorists to Bogovadja came with
personal "mementos" – tens of grenade-pieces in their bodies.
With grenade-pieces in stomach and legs
Vidosav Djordjevic (16) reminds that two years ago KFOR didn’t want to
provide escort to pupils from Crkvena Vodica to Plemetina (where elementary
and high school are located) so they were forced to pass exams at the end of
the school year only. This year however, KFOR is giving them a lift, in
armored transporting vehicles.
"In Vodica about 350 Serbs live. We are surrounded by Shiptars, who come
every day to our village, for shopping – and we are not allowed to go out of
our houses or backyards. Now, for the first time in 20 months of prison, we
are out" says Vidosav.
International humanitarian organization rarely come, Vidosav proceeds,
underlining that to Serbian inhabitants of Vodica heating fuel (wood) is
essential, for it is cold.
Djordje Dordjevic (15) and Bojan Jovic (16) one with a grenade-piece in his
stomach and the other in his legs, claim that after Shiptar attack on the
group of children playing in Vodica schoolyard, KFOR refuses to escort them
even 100 meters from school to home.
"While our people (the army and police) were there, no Shiptar has been
allowed to harm us. Now, there’s no life, unless something changes. But Kosovo
will be ours again" Bojan says.
Tijana Jovic (14), who has been most severely wounded, is telling how, a
short while back, she was taking a walk with a friend through Vodice, when
Siptars came and said: " You’re still here?! Since we didn’t chase you away
yet, from now on we’re aiming at the flesh!"
Couple of days latter, Tijana reminds, they have killed one Serb, in broad
daylight. "UNMIK police, allegedly, strengthened the patrols in the village,
but Shiptar policemen are among them" Tijana testifies.
Red Cross activist Zoran Vasic, who takes care of Vodica children, says
that representatives of humanitarian organizations, mostly Italian or French,
used to come to the village, but now even they are gone.
To all the pleas to protect them, KFOR response is always the same – Vasic
claims – not enough soldiers! Some of the foreigners are trying to help, but
consciously and discretely.
"If they’re discovered, or if there’s just a suspicion of warmer feelings
towards Serbs, humanitarians end their mission literally over night and are
immediately sent home" Vasic underlines.
According to him, the hardest thing is that Serbs have no fuel for winter,
nor flour – for they can’t go to forest to cut wood, or to their mills to
grind wheat and corn.
"Every once in a while we risk our necks, and go to Leposavic to get some
wood for heating" Vasic says.
Vojkan Vukovic (16) from village Banje in Srbica county, says that in his
village about 200 Serbs remain. They’re in Shiptar entourage, as well as
inhabitants of Suvo Grlo two kilometers away.
"In Srbica and Vucitrn, since June 1999, there isn’t a Serb left, and we
are guarded here in the village by French soldiers".
Driving without Kuchner’s plates
In Lipljan, there’s about 500 Serb houses, and are completely surrounded by
Shiptars.
Slobodan Djoric (11) says that in Lipljan they live in constant fear,
"because Shiptars are all around".
"They pass through the village in uniforms with KLA emblems, or drive fast
cars with loud sound of Shiptar music from loudspeakers. They make faces at
us, sneer and show us two fingers (victory)..." Slobodan explains.
Little Denis, whose mother is Albanian and father Serb, is nervously
twisting is hands and says how they were forced to flee, from Pristina to
Gracanica, because his mother was spitted upon on the street, and her cousins
were not allowed to even speak with them.
" I can’t remember anymore even one name from Pristina. Out of my tree
aunts, only one comes to visit us in Gracanica, the other two do not dare"
Denis explains in a vow voice.
Teacher Trajko Kostic from Gracanica reminds how in that surrounding
(Caglavica, Susica, Gusterica) about 15 000 Serbs live, and that this area is,
as he said jokingly, Kosovo "heart of Sumadija".
"Everything functions – schools, banks, post office, marketplace, service
of Ministry of Foreign affairs which issues Yugoslav passports, driving school
which issues driving licenses of Republic of Serbia – but we will not have
Kuchner’s driving plates, so we drive cars without so-called Kosovo plates"
Kostic says.
UNMIC blackmails, to close up all Serbian schools if teachers do not sign
contract offered to them, haven’t frightened education workers in Kosovo. They
all refused UNMIK salaries and its school program, so the classes in all
Serbian schools are proceeding normally, according to Ministry of education of
Serbia program.
Vera Raskov Djurovic
Author is Tanjug journalist for 15 years, married, mother of two students.
Specialized in humanitarian problems of Bosnia and Krajina refugees, questions
of missing persons from the region of former Yugoslavia. As a reporter she has
been in Kosovo in 1998/99 until the beginning of bombing and during 1999/2001
in Kosovska Mitrovica in north Kosovo region. In the course of her work, on
January 13th 1999, she was almost abducted by Shiptar
terrorists, visiting their main stronghold in Likovac, with OSCE mission chief
William Walker, by whose intervention alone she avoided being taken and
executed.
