June 10, 1999
For Serbs in Kosovo, Frustration and Anger
Related Articles
Serb Military Accepts Accord, Clearing Way to Halt Bombing
Issue in Depth: Conflict in Kosovo
Forum
Join a Discussion on The Conflict in Kosovo
By STEVEN ERLANGER
APUSNIK, Yugoslavia -- Todor is a soldier, a factory worker from
northern Serbia who volunteered to come here to Kosovo and defend
it for his country.
He knows his war is about to end. But in this blasted,
burned-out village, where Serbian soldiers keep guard from inside
destroyed Albanian houses and shops, he wondered Wednesday whether
the outcome was worth the price, to his own comrades and to the
Albanians of this southern Serbian province.
"I'm angry about how it's ending," he said, rubbing his hand
along his dirty blond beard. "This should have been done better. A
lot of people have died for nothing. And I believe that in four or
five years, no Serb will still be living in Kosovo."
Todor is 30, with a wife and daughter, Tijana, 7, and he asked
that his full name not be printed. He was waiting at a military
checkpoint here, near a large Albanian business, smashed and
looted, that now bears a spray-painted inscription: Hotel Serbia.
Bricks are piled in front of a broken window, creating a sniper
position.
No civilians are left here. A helmeted soldier watches from the
balcony of a nearby house. Like every house here, it is burned out,
its roof gone. He waves an informal salute as trucks of soldiers
move past, turning onto the Malisevo road, which does not run out
of Kosovo, but toward the fighting.
Kosovo is where the Serbian national consciousness is rooted and
where its cultural treasures mostly lie. For the Yugoslav army its
loss, even against NATO's overwhelming firepower from the air,
feels like a professional catastrophe.
Another soldier said the army did not feel defeated. "People
here feel that Milosevic capitulated because Belgrade did not have
electricity for a few days," he said caustically, referring to the
Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic.
That soldier and two of his colleagues, who did not give their
names, were just returning from a couple days of home leave. Unlike
Todor, they are local men, mobilized for duty with this war.
Asked if it was hard to return to the front, one said: "It's
not difficult at all. We have to defend Kosovo. Do they think we
should give Kosovo back to them so easily?"
They had heard little of the news and were skeptical that 50,000
NATO troops were about to pour into this little province.
Nearly the only traffic here, as NATO planes still roared
overhead, was military. Lapusnik is only 30 miles west of Pristina,
on the road to Pec. But civilians, less worried now about being
bombed, are now more frightened of renewed sniping by groups of
Kosovo Liberation Army fighters, especially in the interlude
between full-scale war and NATO-led occupation.
Asked if the snipers had reinfiltrated Kosovo, these soldiers
said they suspected that the guerrillas, existing in such small
bands, had never left, but simply picked up their arms again as the
war appeared to be ending.
On the road there are endless reminders of the peculiar horrors
of this war. Near the crossroads town of Komorane, an Albanian cafe
called Kosovar is burned out, its red metal Coca-Cola sign the only
spot of color against the smoky charring of fire.
Two red tractors, also burned, their tires melted or missing,
sit at crazy angles to the road, pushed out of the way. A pile of
clothes lies by the roadside, filthy and twisted, near a mattress
that presumably fell off the tractor of a fleeing or expelled
Albanian.
At Komorane military trucks with soldiers turn north toward
Banjica and Srbica, where Todor and two comrades were wounded on
April 7 in a firefight with members of the Kosovo Liberation Army,
"They made an ambush, a horseshoe, and shot us," Todor said,
describing how his unit was surrounded on three sides.
He pulled back his sleeve to show where a rifle bullet passed
through his tricep. The wound still looks raw, as red as beefsteak,
but he says it bothers him less and less.
Asked what he thinks when he looks at the destruction around
him, at the ruins of the lives and dreams of Albanian civilians, he
went silent for a moment. "This is about pushing the people
back," he said. Back how? "Historically." He shook his head.
"We ought to be able to live together. I don't really understand
why this happened."
Is he ready to go home? "If I'm ordered to go," he said. Does
he blame Milosevic? "I'm not a political person," he said.
"Serbs should defend their country."
Closer to Pristina, however, there are more signs that the army
is preparing to move out of Kosovo. A few military trucks are
bearing equipment and men back toward Serbia proper. In Pristina
itself, outside apartment buildings, some military trucks were
being loaded Wednesday with the furniture and household goods of
officers.
Serbs are anxious about the end of this war and the return of
the Albanians and the guerrillas. They are not afraid of
mistreatment by NATO forces, but they have a hard time believing
that NATO will demilitarize and pacify the very fighters for whom
this fearsome bombing campaign was waged. They do not regard NATO
as neutral, and they believe that NATO countries support Kosovo's
independence under the rule of the Albanians for NATO's own,
mysterious ends.
But in the last few days, the sharp panic over the sudden
decision by Milosevic to accept NATO's terms has begun to recede,
and many Serbs now say that they owe it to future generations to
remain in Kosovo. Before the war, perhaps 180,000 Serbs lived in
Kosovo, compared to some 2 million Albanians.
Numbers are unobtainable, but some Serbs have already left
Kosovo, and others will certainly go. Already, because of the war
and the bombing, many wives and children of Serb men had left the
province, and they will not soon return.
"Some of these families already have one leg out of Kosovo,"
said one respected Serb journalist here, Milivoje Mihajlovic. "It
may be easier to lift the other foot." That will be particularly
true of Serbs who live in predominantly Albanian villages or
cities, like Podujevo.
"The dilemma for people here is to decide either to change the
way they live or where they live," Mihajlovic said. "There has
been too much damage now for things to be the same."
Still, under the sponsorship of the local Serbian orthodox
bishop of Rasca and Prizren, named Artemija, and of the local
Serbian Resistance Movement, a small rally was held Wednesday at
Pristina's sports center to urge Serbs to stay in Kosovo.
About 1,000 people came in the hot sun to the meeting, called
the People's Zbor, a traditional village council, to listen to the
bishop and to a Serbian community leader, Momcilo Drajkovic.
Drajkovic told the quiet crowd that the local authorities had
urged him not to hold the meeting, "that they will solve all this
for us." But it is important, he said, "that we as a people
continue to organize ourselves."
He cited Artemija, saying: "If we leave here, we will never
have the right to come here again. We will not leave our holy
Kosovo and Metohija," the formal name of the province, "to
anyone." Metohija means "land of churches" and refers to the
western part of the province, near the Albanian border, where many
of the church's finest monasteries and holy sites are located.
"We will not be led to be sacrificial lambs on our own
doorsteps," Drajkovic said. He called on the U.N. Security Council
to protect the Serbs. But his only mention of the Albanians was no
apology, but an indirect plea. "For those who want revenge on us,
revenge is not an answer," he said. "Peace cannot be achieved
through mutual revenge."
A few policemen listened but did not interfere. The crowd
clapped softly a few times, but moved away quietly, still anxious.
Tatjana Surlic, 40, who works at the local army officers club,
said she thought the rally was a positive step. "Serbs should
organize ourselves to stay," she said. "We have nowhere else to
go. With all the damage in Serbia, too, where would we live or
work?"
She is less nervous than "a little angry," she said. "The
honest working people here, who kept their honor, must stay and
they want to stay."
Moma Djokic, 42, has also been mobilized into the army. "NATO
is fighting for the other side, for the terrorists," he said.
"They're not interested in me." He, too, intends to stay where
his family has lived for generations. "I'm not leaving this Kosovo
alive," he said.
He did have one request for NATO troops, however, and insisted
that an American journalist take down his words. "I just ask the
Americans and the others not to shut both eyes about the KLA."
