March 2003
Issue - Essay # 7
Images
of Kosovo
By Ann Mackie
Miller
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In early 1999, the world watched in horror as the crisis in Kosovo escalated and the atrocities committed there were reported. A few days after NATO entered Kosovo as a peacekeeping force, I also came to Kosovo with an international medical aid organisation, IMC. This article was written at the time and the writing style, not my usual one, reflects some of the confusion, elation, horror and hope of that time. I have left it deliberately unedited. - Ann Miller ************* The
sun is rising in a huge red ball over misty hills as we cross the border
from Macedonia
into Kosovo. I
brought a dozen rolls of film and cannot bring myself to use them.
I am left with the pictures in my head.
The mist lies heavy, low in the fields.
Where the light touches the mist, the fields blush, a poetic
reminder of the blood that has coated this country for the last nine
years. Bekim,
a Kosovar Albanian doctor and Linda, his nurse, sit on the edge of their
seats. For them this is the
first sight of their homeland after four long months of exile and horror
and before that, years of being denied education, health and basic human
rights. Both are coming home
to Prishtina, unknowing if their homes still stand or if their families
are alive or dead. "Look
what they did," Bekim keeps saying as we pass houses and restaurants
burned or flattened by shellfire. Linda
clutches my arm, her eyes huge. Bekim
rolls down the window of the car, "to breathe free air," he tells me,
his voice choked and tears running down his face. Line
upon line of army vehicles ply both sides of the road and then there is
Prishtina--suddenly spread before us, the city red and brown in the
early morning light. It
looks untouched. Inside, though, the houses have been devastated.
Personal treasures have been destroyed and valuables stolen.
Death threats and insults are painted on the walls and booby
traps await the unwary. In
our newly rented house, we are told not to lift any ornaments, not to
enter rooms that have not been cleared by K-FOR, not to open cupboards,
turn on electrical appliances or walk in the garden.
My introductory talk is from Fred, an Australian expert in
explosives (how to keep from getting blown up). Heavy fines for
anyone who forgets the protocol, like going into an uncleared building.
My colleague picks up a fragment from a hand grenade to take home
as a souvenir. I turn away.
The house screams of violation, graffiti on the walls as you
enter and all semblance that it was once a home gone.
It even smells alien. Driving
through the streets is like driving through a ghost town; few people
walk the streets except for British troops on full alert--men facing
front and rear, rifles on station. Practically
every shop is smashed and broken. Garbage
is piled high in the streets; stray dogs and cats scavenge.
The smell is ripe but some piles are burning as the returning
people try in vain to clear it away, there is no fuel yet for garbage
trucks. Within
days are signs of life. Some
food is beginning to appear, limited supplies are trickling into the
shops and within a month much will be back to normal-- but not yet.
Café bars are beginning to open with one enterprising soul
calling his K-For in honour of the men who keep the peace here.
Ten days after my arrival, I am treated to a very plain pizza and
beer at a newly opened café. With
a curfew in place in Gjilan, no such pleasure has been possible.
Ten days of bread and tomatoes.
The pizza is wonderful. ‘Garages’
appear--jerry cans of petrol with empty lemonade bottles as funnels. Row after row of cars that have made the trip to Everything
they own has been stolen or destroyed.
The city has water for only one
hour every day and electricity most of the time but little else.
People queue for hours for the hope of bread and 400 apply every
day to IMC for jobs: doctors, teachers, businessmen, willing to take
even the most menial job in a world where there is no state, no
industry, no money. One man
cries as I tell him there is no work. There
is little peace between Albanian and Serbian Kosovars.
Gunfire is common at night and most mornings find a new fire
burning in a Serb house. Serb
areas are ‘liberated’ by revengeful Albanians. Gypsies are
expelled. They looted too many homes during the crisis and are hated
by everyone. One blind old
gypsy lady walks the road between Gjilan and Prishtina and back again.
In
the hospital little work is done because of the hatred there--a hatred
expressed very quickly with violence.
Almost everyone seems to carry a gun or knife and seems only too
prepared to use them. A huge
explosion rocks the whole city--the British are destroying arms and
explosives found here. There
is a feeling of euphoria in the city.
The people are delighted to see the British army and the troops
allow children to climb on the tanks.
They wave back to the people and stop to speak, shaking hands,
Balkan style. Yet they have
a deadly serious purpose. It
is the troops who disarm everyone they find with weapons, be they
Albanian or Serb. It is the troops who patrol the streets in full combat
gear, always on alert. It is
the troops who curtail the most fervent of the KLA and the troops who
try to allow ordinary people freedom within their own city. The
second day of July, a night of celebration, the streets of Prishtina
fill with Albanian Kosovars. Thousands
pile on lorries, on top of cars, anything they can find and drive round
and round the city, blowing horns, waving flags from every NATO country--showing the world the sheer joy of freedom.
Pretty girls and handsome boys almost falling out of car windows,
dancing men in national costume, grandmothers with children, waving from
windows. Finally, so many
vehicles fill the streets, movement is hardly possible.
Thousands
line the streets. In the
biggest street party imaginable, old women cry over me, mothers give me
their children to hug, old men shake my hand and young ones want to
dance. Among the many
invitations to dinner a young man hugs his three-year-old daughter as if
he will never let her go. Today
his wife and children returned and it is also their fifth wedding
anniversary. "Come to my
home and help us to celebrate," he insists to this stranger from Rod
stands on a very old broken down car to take a photograph.
The owner, a young man in his early twenties, pleads with him to
get down. "My home is burned, my possessions gone, I have just been
released from a Serbian prison," he tells us.
"This is all I have."
He
is twenty-one years old and looks forty. The
journey from Prishtina to Gjilan in the south of the province shows
remarkably little in the way of destruction.
Kosovo is a beautiful country, very similar to Just
as you relax you spot a solitary house with roof open to the sky,
shellfire evident of Serb target practice, then, a burned-out building
that was once a restaurant. Yet
now, only a week after peace, men are gathering the harvest.
Piles of hay, rising six or more feet high, are heaped onto
seemingly insubstantial open-bed carts.
Ancient tractors pull the loads and without exception the boys
and men sitting proudly atop their work wave, cheer our car and signal
victory. "Thank you, thank
you, NATO," is repeated from a multitude of smiling faces that make
me want to cry. How can I
tell them I am ashamed of the bombing? Reception
in the Serb towns and villages is understandably less exuberant.
Sullen looks follow the passage of the car, in some cases stones
follow. The flags flying
from the aerial of the car taunt them--a stark reminder of their
defeat. These are now the
people hunted and hated, a new generation of hatred is born. The
mayor of a Serb village is escorted by K-For to talk to NATO officials.
The village is surrounded by hostile Albanians.
They have no food, no medicine, no communication.
They cannot harvest their crops, and they have taken in other
Serbs from neighbouring villages as they are forced from their homes.
They agree to allow us to bring a mobile clinic there--but only if
we can bring Serbian doctors and nurses from the hospital.
We agree and no more stones follow our car.
IRC provided them with food, but they live under siege with no
hope of improvement. Close
to the Serbian border villagers have been refused entry into In
one Albanian village two elderly Serbian couples refuse to move. Their
Albanian neighbours ensure they have food and are well cared for. In
another village, Serbian children use the school in the morning, the
Albanian children in the afternoon, and the troops have to check it for
booby traps between each change-over.
Such are the contrasts. Kosovo is a beautiful land: high verdant hills, deep lakes and abundant trees but this beautiful countryside has a kick. Sharp reminders of hidden dangers are seen when passing inviting lakes lined with trees--the side of the road is decorated with NATO ‘ribbons,' a sign that it has not been cleared of landmines. People take their chances or send their animals into fields and gardens to check for themselves. The growing number of mine-strike victims holds testimony to the dangers. We
commandeer any building we can for our clinics. A burned-out tank and military lorry destroyed by NATO
bombing, a bus
overturned and a car destroyed by the Serb paramilitary emphasise that
this is a war zone, newly liberated. In
the villages life has always been hard, now it is deadly.
Wells have been contaminated by dead bodies, some harvests were
never planted or have been burned, and women and children show signs of
months in the mountains. One
young mother holds her severely malnourished baby, eyes haunted. The
child was born a month premature while they were hiding in the hills.
Now her milk has dried, she has nothing to feed her baby.
The baby hardly stirs--eyes seemingly too large in a tiny
face, a fair reflection of his mother.
It takes two days to track down baby formula. An
old man bares his leg to show badly healed gunshot wounds; a young man
with no legs is carried in a cart to meet our doctor; an abscess is
lanced with a solitary needle tearing at the skin while the wee boy is
held down by his family. News
arrive
of three children caught in a nearby minefield--one dies.
Everyone
has needs, some we can meet, most we cannot.
Often
all we can offer are vitamin tables yet the fact that we are coming to
their village at all heartens them.
Villagers bring gifts of food and strong Turkish coffee.
It makes me ashamed of how little I can do.
Villagers
point out the hills behind them, where Serbian troops shot at anything
that moved and the hills in front of them that were held by KLA.
Caught in the middle, the village is now bullet-torn and houses
still blackened by shellfire. The
stories begin to blend into one another, so many atrocities, so much
hatred; it becomes unreal, and I leave with more guilt at my back.
We
are flagged down by an old man. He
waves a paper in our faces and talks with the driver.
A medical emergency? No
he has found where a Serb neighbour has taken his personal belongings
and wants us to help him reclaim them.
We direct him to K-For. They
are never far away. But I
carry the image of his forlorn figure with me as we leave.
When you have little, the little you have matters more.
Roadblocks
are everywhere. In this area
of Gjilan the Americans try to maintain the peace.
The American marines are less friendly with the people than the
Brits in Prishtina--here they seldom smile, they take no little gifts
from the children and are forbidden to leave their compounds.
It is a sharp reminder that this is still an area of conflict.
It will be a long six weeks for them.
Marines
keep the peace at Gjilan hospital. Here
is the only hospital in Kosovo that is even vaguely working.
IMC appear to have worked a miracle.
With the help of the American marines they have managed to clear
it of weapons, have organised a board of three Albanian doctors, two Serbian
doctors and we two internationals. We
sit uneasily, all in the same room. The Serbs sit at the foot of the
table and refuse to move closer, the Albanians are icily polite.
"This
is too hard," they tell me in a quiet moment.
We assure them, they are doing better than anywhere else; and
the information that other organisations, such as the water company and
the electricity company, are following their example, encourages them.
I tell them the whole world is watching Gjilan to see how
Albanian and Serbian are going forward. I am unaware that Kosovo is
no longer newsworthy--no one is watching, no one cares. It
is only possible with the American marines in situ.
No guns are allowed in the hospital, everyone is searched on
arrival, no flags are allowed, no propaganda.
Half the staff has returned.
The Serbs still won’t come out at night--it is too dangerous
for them. But they do come: volunteers like everyone else now. Patients
feel confident enough to come-- but Albanian is treated by Albanian and
Serb by Serb. It is hard to
see how trust can ever return. An
assessment of the hospital facilities.
There is nothing left. An
inadequate service before has now become appalling.
Hundreds of doors are blown apart, holed, K-For’s
‘clearing’ of suspect areas after the Serbian occupation.
The only equipment left is antiquated and no longer works.
Beds have broken springs and old mattresses, there are no sheets
and the paediatric ward is over-run by rats.
Flooring has been torn up; with no water, sanitation is desperate
and the smell pervades the whole place.
K-For
marines agree to give up their dossing down area to rebuild a ward for
the children. A project
which they enter with glee--something constructive in an area of
destruction. The
baby "box." Here I find
Vanessa. Nine-month-old
Vanessa, abandoned by her mother, living in an obstetric cot.
She is tied down, so she does not fall out.
She struggles to sit up, first to her left side, then to her
right. Nine months old, she
needs stimulation, she needs attention, she needs food. I
must lift her. I carry her
on my hip for the rest of my inspection.
She doesn’t want to go back to her cot.
I don’t want to leave her.
Three
other babies, new born, abandoned by their mothers, two in one cot.
They are all girls, born to
teenage mothers with no family support.
Are they rape victims? Are
they gypsies? Or Serbian?
There is no food, no nappies, no clothes.
Albanian volunteer workers bring the little they can spare.
Another day to track down baby formula for them. Another hour to
teach the staff how to prepare it and care for the bottles.
I leave one month's supply of food--how inadequate. Flashes
of images haunt my dreams: old
men, women old before their time; young
women with no husband, mothers with no sons; young boys copying the soldiers, parading behind
them; young men barely old enough to shave, heartbreakingly proud to be
KLA. Burning houses, fleeing
Serbs, hungry children. Vanessa.
Often sorrow and joy is intermingled within minutes of each other
giving testimony to the horrors they faced.
So many emotions. I
too swing through them quickly, one after another and am left with the
inadequacy. ******* Since
then the charity Hope and Homes for Children have opened two homes there
for children like Vanessa. Reported in their recent newsletter: "We
have just had our 50th admission since we opened the first of our two
homes just 15 months ago. The
home in Prishtina is for abandoned babies and small children, and 15 of
them have been adopted within Kosovo and two have been reunified with
their natural families. The
other home in Prizren, which we opened only ten months ago, is for older
children in need of protection and this has provided a sanctuary for 24
children, 18 of whom have been reintegrated back into the community.
This is remarkable as they have all suffered in various terrible
ways. All credit for this
wonderful success is due to the love and dedication of Jacqui Fleming
our Country Director, and her local staff.’’ If you want to know more
about the work of Hope and Homes for Children all over the world, click
on their website at www.hopeandhomes.org |
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Author's Biography She is a free-lance writer, specialising in human interest and health topics. Check out her e-books at www.alternative-health-magazine.co.uk and at www.e-bookromance.co.uk E-mail Ann at AnnMackieMiller@netscape.net |
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