VILLAGES ARE BURNING IN THE DISTANCE
VREME, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
Issue 463, November 20, 1999Translation:
A witness of the times: Father Sava
VILLAGES ARE BURNING IN THE DISTANCE......
By Zoran B. Nikolic
"Among the Serbs during the period of greatest repression against the Albanians, and this was during the bombing, all mechanisms protecting human dignity failed. Now among the Albanians, too, we see very few people who are prepared to raise their voices."
Father Sava Janjic, a monk at the Metohia monastery Decani, is known among foreign reporters by his nickname, "the cybermonk". The Internet site of the Decani Monastery has been, during the entire Kosovo crisis, a source of information which could not be found in either state or Albanian resources.
VREME: At the beginning of 1998, did you suspect what was coming?
FATHER SAVA: The rebellion gathered momentum slowly. In Decani as far back as 1996 masked attackers broke into the cafe "Cakor" and killed several men and one woman.
It was common knowledge that following the events in Albania in 1997 a large quantity of arms arrived in Kosovo. Because of the corruption of the state organs and the police, the import of those arms was not seriously obstructed. We have to keep in mind that Kosovo during the past decade has not governed by Serbs but by Milosevic's corrupt governors, by police chiefs who took bribes from Albanian businessmen. Those Albanians who paid their dues and indirectly contributed monies to the election campaigns of the Socialist Party of Serbia had exceptional privileges and grew incredibly wealthy. The poorer class among the Albanian population was under pressure and control. However, I think that that the greatest quantity of arms entered with the help of those privileged business circles who had a sense of how the situation was developing. Although many people also went individually to Albania to purchase cheap weapons. Consequently, even before the beginning of 1998 it was clear that the whole of Drenica was armed, that Metohia, especially the hinterlands of Decani and Pec, were under arms. I had opportunity to speak with police representatives who were cognizant of this fact.
The biggest mistake of Milosevic and his regime was in opposing Albanian separatism and terrorism only by using force, brutal force in fact, the purpose of which was not only to destroy the terrorist movement but to collectively frighten the Albanian people and discourage them from raising in rebellion. Unfortunately, this strategy showed itself to be a key factor in the advancement of the separatist movement.
After the first terrorist campaigns, in the month of February, Bishop Artemije, Momcilo Trajkovic and I were in the United States. We spoke with ambassador Gelbard, who told us that Milosevic had made an enormous mistake and that he was in fact encouraging people to join the KLA. He said that Milosevic should have consulted with people who had experience in fighting terrorism and changed his politics in time to prevent this. By then it was obviously too late.
How did the rebellion begin?
The first major police campaign was in Prekaz, where forty members of the Jasari family were killed. Among them were several known to have participated in attacks against the police. At that time the KLA attacks were already occurring but at first they were not directed against the civilian population.
The Prekaz campaign was of crucial importance. We later had occasion in the West to hear from some diplomats how up until that campaign the so-called KLA consisted of a group of two hundred people from Drenica who were more like renegades, outlaws.
However, in that campaign disproportionately great force was used and many people were killed who could not be called terrorists: women, children and elderly persons. After this, a horrible situation ensued: the bodies were kept in a sort of improvised garage, burial was not allowed, autopsies were not even conducted. The bloody corpses were displayed to reporters and those pictures were seen around the world. The Albanians reacted in a manner that might have been expected: with complete decisiveness to continue the rebellion. They were not frightened, quite the contrary. And so the number of rebels quickly rose to approximately two thousand, and shortly afterward, during the summer months, there were twenty thousand of them. The terrorist attacks on the police quickly became acts of armed rebellion which continued to be called terrorism by our official media even though they had taken on far wider dimensions. There were many other methods of ensuring that those terrorists, those who had attacked the police, were brought justice but the method that was selected was an illegal one because in no state based on law can campaigns be undertaken which can lead to the killing of so many civilian residents.
During this time, Bishop Artemije, Mr. Trajkovic and I frequently traveled to the United States, attempting to thwart the further escalation of events and to explain the danger which existed from Albanian terrorism. However following this campaign the terminology had already been changed. Mr. Gelbard, who during our previous visit had used the word "terrorists" now no longer it and this was the turning-point.
By the end of March fighting broke out around Decani as well.
The situation then grew progressively worse, especially in the region of Decani and Pec. This region had earlier been some sort of cradle of the Albanian rebel movement. The Serbs living there were scattered, there were perhaps twenty or so Serbian families which immediately found themselves exposed first to verbal threats, then to open suggestions that they move. They began to leave somewhere before Easter. People were discontented, they could not understand how the state could permit such terror. It was obvious that the Albanians had begun creating some sort of breakaway republic of their own, an independent territory which would establish ties with Albania and enable the further expansion of the rebellion. Members of the KLA very clearly foresaw and anticipated what Milosevic's reactions would be. Their goal was to provoke the regime as much as possible. Individual attacks on the police could not lead to what they call the liberation of Kosovo but they knew how Milosevic would react and that the pictures of dead civilians would secure great support for the Albanians in public opinion. Unfortunately, the KLA very frequently used the civil population as a kind of live shield. Otherwise, why else would they attack policemen in an Albanian village if they knew revenge was to follow?
In the region of Decani gradually it came down to only a few Serbs remaining in their houses; then we heard that they had been killed or were missing. Nothing was known for certain, it was not possible to go to this region, the police did not go there any more. By then in the region between Decani and Radonjic Lake [Radonjicko jezero], with Glodjane at its center, an ethnically clean territory had already been created.
We took in Serbian refugees from the surrounding villages and provided them with food. They were situated on a hill above the monastery and would observe their houses in the distance, hoping to return one day. I remember once, during the summer, we went to visit them and saw villages in the distance burning, much smoke, the thud of cannon, spurts of machine-gun fire. An old woman, Milka Stojanovic, said to me: "Look, my house is over there somewhere. These young people are happy, thinking that this will end well, but I think that I will never return to my home again." And she was right, the Serbs never returned to that region again. All the Serbian houses were set on fire and destroyed. The bodies of seven or eight elderly people who stayed in their homes were later found in a grave near Radonjic Lake.
What were the army and the police doing at this time?
It was obvious that the state had to do something and in fact it did. After Easter special police forces and an army tank unit from Pec came to Decani. Immediately before the beginning of the attack, according to eyewitness accounts by Serbs from Decani, it was impossible for them to leave their houses because Albanian snipers were posted among their houses. The KLA, therefore, was already present in the town. The Serbs were concentrated in the area of Monastery Street [Manastirska ulica], we did not dare step outside the monastery walls. An attack by the police began which lasted three or four days. Half of Decani was leveled to the ground, especially the old part of town and the road toward Djakovica. This was supposed to be a campaign against an armed rebellion, however, what happened was the systematic destruction of one part of town in which the majority of houses was destroyed without any fighting. It is very easy to see where fighting took place, it is where there are traces of bullets in the walls. It seems to me that there was some scattered resistance, especially around the school, where many bullet marks can be seen on the facade, and on several more houses from which the Albanians were shooting. The Albanians later claimed that the KLA was not in the town at all, that these were local people who had organized some kind of watch because they were afraid of attacks by the police. However, according to the opinion of the Serbs from Decani, there were snipers and lists of Serbs to be liquidated. It was explained to us that had this campaign not taken place, the KLA would have entered Decani very quickly and completely liquidated the Serbs and that this was prevented literally hours before it was due to occur. Many houses, including those which were undamaged by grenades, were subsequently looted and set on fire, as were the shops. It was the same model which we saw earlier in Bosnia. This only served to further fan the flames of rebellion. After this campaign the majority of Albanians from Decani moved to the surrounding villages, while some fled to Albania and some to Montenegro, and Decani was left without an Albanian population. Only about 300 were left, mostly elderly people from a part of town which did not come directly under attack. The head of our monastery, Teodisije, and the brothers organized assistance for those Albanians who remained in Decani, who were frightened and afraid to leave their homes. We took food and medicine to them.
Whatever actually happened, freedom of movement was not established nor was the KLA defeated. Several kilometers from Decani the police set up guard posts, trenches, which remained there until the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army and the police.
Soon similar things began to happen in other parts of the Province. The region around Malisevo became the new center of rebellion. That rebellion spread to the region of Orahovac and Hoca and into the hinterlands of Prizren. Of course, in the region surrounding Devic, in Drenica, Lausa remained an important center. In the Lapska municipality, the KLA and commander Remi created some sort of independent territory where the few Serbian residents were also endangered. Only the region of Kosovo by the Morava River [Kosovsko pomoravlje] was more or less spared, there were no incidents there. Life in the cities during this time was relatively normal. According to the accounts of the Albanians themselves, in the cities there was not a lot of support for the KLA campaigns because they were considered to be rural rebellions. They were especially fearful upon seeing how in those towns were fighting between the police and the KLA took place civilians were killed and refugees fled. They saw the demolition and destruction. There was fear, especially among the wealthier people, of something like this happening in the cities as well. This is how the absurd situation came to be where in Decani tanks were destroying the old part of the town and in Pec people were drinking beer in cafes, listening to music and the stores were open during regular business hours.
The most intense police campaign that summer was their entrance into the Decani hinterlands but they did not remain there. They only passed through and as there was no Serb population there, afterwards the Albanians came back. I heard from reporters who passed through there how this went: they would leave a village, the village would be set on fire and destroyed, and then they would come back. A great number of Albanian refugees was concentrated around the villages of Istinica and Brolica.
The army here was practically not engaged. In conversations with some officers I noticed their dissatisfaction. They were of the opinion that a state of emergency should be declared and the KLA defeated. On the other hand, the police handled the entire campaign very incompetently and completely erroneously, and because of this many policemen were killed like sitting ducks while guarding their control points.
In autumn the OSCE verification mission came to Kosovo.
Their only significance was in that the truth about Kosovo was a publicized a little more in the international media. During the summer the situation was presented exclusively as organized repression and terror against the Albanian population. I thought that the verifiers would succeed in acting as intermediaries and that negotiations would be opened between the Albanian political representatives and the regime. During this time ambassador Hill was frantically striving to find a new plan, new versions were constantly appearing.
Bishop Artemije and Momcilo Trajkovic were the only ones expressing the desire to represent the interests of the Kosovo Serbs.
Bishop Artemije and Momcilo Trajkovic are a unique phenomenon because they are a political national alternative rooted exclusively in Kosovo and Metohia. Unfortunately, they were misunderstood, primarily because among the majority of Kosovo Serbs the belief prevailed that the regime's politics, that is, the politics of force against every attempt of secession, is the only politics which can succeed in Kosovo. The bishop and Mr. Trajkovic believed that Kosovo should be a integral part of Serbia, but of an enlightened, democratic Serbia. The Albanians, too, would find their interest in such a country. The other representatives of the Serbs in Kosovo were primarily representatives of their respective parties. These are the people who fled first from Kosovo and Metohia, often taking with them a rich booty. They situated themselves in their huge houses and apartments in Serbia and Montenegro but they still have the audacity to claim that they represent the Kosovo Serbs in parliament and, God only knows how, to present themselves as some kind of representatives of the Serbian people. The majority of these representatives are now refugees living in dire circumstances at Kopaonik [an exclusive ski resort] where they will be spending the winter this year. If they deign to visit their people, it will be only cast a glance their way and to promise that they will come to visit them again. These are people who never cared about Kosovo and whose goal was to secure the greatest possible material benefit to themselves. One of the fundamental problems is precisely this colonial attitude toward Kosovo and Metohia which have never been a wholly integrated as part of Serbia. The Serbs there were far more independent in their political decision-making while they were governed by the Turks.
Did Western diplomats take your efforts more seriously?
Despite all our efforts, we had a very difficult time breaking through in the West and it was not easy for us to access the highest circles, since those in them did not comprehend the meaning of that political alternative. They were still ruled by some sort of conviction that a deal could be made with Milosevic. However, when it became obvious that this was impossible, it became apparent that only with the bishop and Mr. Trajkovic could cooperation be sought in the search for a common solution. Of course, we were extremely carefully because we know that in the West certain political interests exist with respect to Kosovo. We are not advocates of the conspiracy theory although elements exist in the politics of the West which could lead one to the conclusion that the intentions of certain politicians there toward the Serbian people are not good. It was especially difficult in the United States since the Albanian lobby has completely deluded the American public and the American administration had placed itself completely on the side of the Kosovo Albanians. They offered them assistance up to the point of almost openly aiding them in armed rebellion. We found far more understanding in Europe but also discovered that Europe itself was dependent on the United States and very fearful in articulating its opinions on Kosovo.
To what extent did Western politics influence the course of events?
The position of the West was unbalanced from the beginning. It considered the problem to lie exclusively on the side of Milosevic's regime, while on the other hand the Albanians were considered to be exclusively victims. In addition to Milosevic's undemocratic regime and Albanian terrorism, there is a third element in this crisis and that is precisely the international community which failed to find an adequate response for that crisis. All three factors used force as a method of resolving problems.
Where did so much hatred in Kosovo come from?
We see the naked hatred of the Albanians now in dimensions approaching madness. Everything which is Serb, not only Serb but Slav, everything which is not Albanian or to be even more precise, everything that is not controlled by the KLA, everything is exposed to some degree of repression and persecution. The same ideology which existed earlier on is emerging once again. During the period of president Milosevic's rule it was shoved into the background because Milosevic, because of his politics, became for the media throughout the world the bad man in the Balkans and everything else which was negative managed to hide and conceal itself in his shadow.
This hatred is the result of both sides' inability to distinguish individuals within a collective and their insistence, instead, of viewing everything generally, collectively. In our people there are similar tendencies as well, the Albanians are looked upon as sub-humans who are primitive, dirty and uneducated. But the scope of the Albanians' hatred is, according to what we now see, frighteningly greater. The degree of repression which now exists against Serbs and other non-Albanians did not exist during the entire period while the Serbs governed in Kosovo and Metohia, except for the three-month period of the bombing. Among the Serbs during the period of greatest repression against the Albanians, which was during the bombing, all mechanisms for preserving human dignity failed. Now among the Albanians, too, we see very few people who are prepared to raise their voices.
What further development of events do you foresee?
In Kosovo and Metohia there is now a great battle to find as many corpses as possible in order to justify the military intervention. On the other hand, there is an effort to minimize as much as possible the number of murdered Serbs and non-Albanian members of the population to within the scope of "normal criminal activities". Kosovo remains a powder keg. Now when Milosevic's forces are no longer in Kosovo, when there is no one on hand to blame, it is becoming clear that the Albanian problem is a key issue, a wound in southeastern Europe, which will block the stability of the region for a long time. The West has behaved like a bull in a china shop. It has created chaos everywhere and now it cannot find the way out. Now Europe is accusing the United States, which led the whole affair, because the intervention did not bring security and peace. The United States is accusing Europe for inconsistency and lack of unity, passivity. UNMIK is accusing KFOR, KFOR is accusing UNMIK, everybody is accusing Milosevic, Milosevic is accusing the whole world. The greatest victims are the Kosovo-Metohia Serbs, who for ten years have been manipulated, humiliated, shipped to meetings, loaded in railroad cars like cattle, spat upon in Belgrade for coming to defend the regime, humiliated and abandoned by those in whom they believed and now, left to the mercy of God. The regime, but also a good portion of the opposition, do not see Kosovo as a part of this country. Albanian extremism profits from it all. One Western diplomat told us not long ago: "We made a mistake, we fought against one monster and in doing so we created another."
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