"Boll ma" - "Enough is enough" - "Mjaft është mjaft" campaign against any violence in and about Kosov@ by "the Forum" Rruga e Goleshit 18/2 38000 Prishtinë Kosova Tel: + 381 (0)38 24 678 Mob: + 377 (0)44 111 964 http://www.forumi.org   mail  jet@ipko.org
Logo used with permission - Copyright: "the Forum", Rruga e Goleshit 18/2, 38000 Prishtinë, Kosova, Tel: + 381 (0)38 24 678, Mob: + 377 (0)44 111 964

http://www.europeaninternet.com/yugoslavia/news.php3?id=419407

"Enough" Say Kosovo Anti-violence Crusaders

PRISTINA, May 11, 2001 -- (Reuters) "Boll ma" -- in colloquial Albanian: "Enough is enough" -- trumpets a row of posters, two black words on white paper with a red hand held up like a traffic stop sign.
    The slogan is simple, with no explanation, the kick-off to a spring anti-violence campaign in Kosovo.
    Crime has plagued Kosovo in the last two years, much of it ethnically motivated, and numerous cases of violence remain unsolved. Organizers of the new campaign say they're just trying to get law-abiding citizens to speak up.
    "All we're doing is saying 'enough is enough' to criminals and violence," said Jetemir Balaj, 25, co-founder of The Forum, an energetic group of young ethnic Albanians, most of whom have studied or worked abroad.
    "This will mobilize the population to make it OK, even popular, to say, 'enough'."
    It may sound like a small thing, but Balaj and his friends hope the mostly U.S.-funded campaign will change public thinking to stop what he calls a worsening "code of silence".
    "'Boll ma' is a part of that -- acknowledging things are wrong instead of doing nothing about it," Balaj said.
    Many violent acts, including a February bus bomb that killed 10 Serbs and seriously injured several others, and a recent car bomb that killed one Serb and injured others have been met with stony silence among Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.
    Violence against Serbs and members of other minorities has afflicted Kosovo since it came under international rule in June 1999, after NATO's bombing campaign to end state-sponsored Serb repression of ethnic Albanians.
    An estimated 180,000 Serbs have fled Kosovo fearing ethnic Albanian revenge attacks.
    "I'm proud to be Albanian. I don't want to be ashamed. I don't want to leave that heritage to my children, that we ethnically cleansed Kosovo," Balaj said.

CHANGING THE MINDSET

In recent months, serious crimes against ethnic Albanians in the province have risen faster than those against Serbs, police say. Crimes against minorities remain disproportionate to their numbers, however.
    Some 23 ethnic Albanians, 13 Serbs, three Roma and seven others were murdered from January 1 to May 1. Ethnic Albanians make up more than 90 percent of Kosovo's population.
    Campaigners also hope to change the mindset of ethnic Albanians who learned to avoid repressive Serbian police, said Kirkpatrick Day, country director for the U.S.-funded Office for Transition Initiatives, which is giving $64,000 to the campaign.
    "This is a cultural and psychological phenomenon we're trying to overcome as well," Day said. "For 10 years, people tried to avoid police stations."
    Yugoslav police and security forces were sent to the province in increasing numbers after Kosovo lost its autonomous status in 1989. Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo in June 1999 as NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers moved in.
    Now, an international police force of more than 5,000, the local police working under them and more than 40,000 KFOR soldiers provide security in the province. But it appears many criminals still operate with impunity, Day said.

POLICE NEED MORE HELP

More people seem to be reporting crimes now than when international police first took over in the province, but there's still not much help from the community, said Dean Olson, an United Nations police spokesman.
    "For a while, nobody trusted the police. They wouldn't report crimes at all. Without the community to support us or give us shared information, we can only do so much," Olson said. "Otherwise, we're just spinning our wheels."
    Kosovo is currently run as a de facto United Nations protectorate, but is still technically part of Yugoslavia.
    Day compared his group's funding for the Kosovo campaign to U.S. support for Otpor ("Resistance"), the student-led movement in Serbia. Its campaigns with the slogan "He's finished" helped to bring down former president Slobodan Milosevic.
    "For this to become a movement similar to what Otpor was able to do, it has to be organized," Day said.
    Next come buttons, T-shirts and television advertisements, followed by well-known Kosovo Albanians saying they support an end to violence. Various other groups will also spread the message including teachers in schools and police on the streets, Balaj says.
    But the message is not welcome everywhere. Some posters put up just days ago in southern Kosovo have already been ripped down, leaving paper fluttering in the wind.

(C)2001 Copyright Reuters Limited

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