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From The Times

December 8, 2007

Kosovo: a divided land where hatred is passed down the generations

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Catherine Philp in Racak

It is nine years since Hafiz Mustafa last spoke to a Serb. He made that vow the day his son Muhamet was shot dead by Serbian paramilitary fighters in a ditch outside the village of Racak.

Muhamet was marched up to the hillside on the day that he turned 21; he died only hours into manhood. Mr Mustafa found his son’s body the next day, among the corpses of 44 other Albanian villagers slain with him.

Now there is another Muhamet, Hafiz’s grandson, named after his dead uncle. At 4 years old, he has never so much as seen a Serb, but he has learnt plenty about them. “We’re going to see the uncle!” little Muhamet cries as he races up the path to the hillside cemetery where red-painted tombstones mark the graves of the massacre victims.

“He asks to come here every other day,” Mr Mustafa says, limping behind. “He knows exactly who killed his uncle.”

It is eight years since Danilo Vujadin last spoke to an Albanian. He and his family fled Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, after his uncle was ambushed and killed by Albanian refugees returning home after the war.

Mr Vujadin and his family came to north Mitrovica, the Serbian side of the segregated city divided by the Ibar River. Sometimes on Sundays he takes his four-year-old son to the bridge across the Ibar. “He asks me why we don’t go over there to the south,” Mr Vujadin says. “I tell him that over there are the Albanians and that Albanians killed my uncle.”

It was the Racak massacre that shocked the West into launching Nato bombers, an air campaign that halted Slobodan Milosevic’s brutal ethnic cleansing of the Albanians in Kosovo. On Monday, international envoys will gather at the UN in New York to admit defeat in their quest for an agreed future for the territory that has lain in limbo ever since.

Eight years of UN administration and two years of international negotiations have failed to alter the fact that Kosovo’s Albanian majority want independence and the Serbs, in both Belgrade and Kosovo, would settle for almost anything but. And eight years have done nothing to heal the wounds in Europe’s most ethnically divided territory. If anything, they may be worse, raising fears of a return to violence between people still unwilling to live under the same flag.

To visit Serb Mitrovica, we drive into the Albanian side of the city and stop at the bridge. There our car — Kosovo plates, Albanian driver — drops us and we walk across the bridge to meet our Serbian translator on the other side.

Albanian roman script gives way to Serbian cyrillic, Kosovo plates to Yugoslav ones. Over hot chocolate in the Café Incognito, the change for our euros — the currency of choice in the rest of Kosovo — comes in dinars. Serbian secret police are soon seated at the next table, glancing over to register whom we are speaking to.

Despite being under UN administration, Serbia is still the de facto power here; Belgrade sponsors Kosovo Serbs with free electricity, cable television and state salaries for officials at double the rate of the rest of Kosovo. Everyone gets a modest pension, employed or not. The benefits are Belgrade’s way of persuading Serbs to stay in Kosovo; two thirds of the Serb population fled the reverse ethnic cleansing that followed the war, leaving only 100,000 today. Mr Vujadin, a security guard, says it is patriotism, not money that keeps him in Kosovo. “This is Serbia,” he says firmly.

That he cannot visit the Serb holy sites in the south for fear of his safety enrages him, but he admits that he would rather live among only Serbs than in a mixed city as he did before. “I can teach my children to be proud Serbs,” he said. “It is better that they do not have to go to school with Albanians as I did.”

His bitterness against his former neighbours is compounded by the murder of his uncle. “I know the name of the person who killed him, but he gets to walk free,” he mutters. “Why is that allowed to happen?”

Should Kosovo declare independence, Mr Vujadin says he is ready to take up arms to protect the northern Serb enclave. He belongs to a shadowy Serb militia, Tsar Lazar Guard, named after the prince who led the Serbs against the Turks at the Battle of Kosovo. A similar Albanian outfit, the Albanian National Army, has vowed to do battle for the north.

Insiders say that the guards’ numbers are negligible but Mr Vujadin says that there are more within Serbia proper who would fight for secession. “If they try to bring their rule here, we will fight,” he said. “This area will never be part of an Albanian Kosovo.”

There is no such fighting talk in Gorazdevac, a tiny Serb enclave ringed by Nato peacekeepers that nestles beneath the mountains south of the city of Pec. To Daya Petrovic it is a concentration camp from which the villagers cannot move, other than under escort to Serb Mitrovica two hours away. If independence comes, however, they will leave for good. Mr Petrovic has already moved once since the war, fleeing to his ancestral village when returning Albanian refugees burnt down Serb houses in Obilic, where he lived.

The threat of violence in Gorazdevac is not imagined. In the summer of 2004, the year that widespread anti-Serb violence and church-burning broke out, two teenage boys were shot by a sniper as they played in the river. No one has faced justice for the crime.

Last time we visited Gorazdevac, in February, the villagers were gloomy about their future; now, on the brink of an independence announcement, they are gloomier still. A few families have left since then, seeking their fortunes elsewhere in Europe.

The pig-slaughtering season has just finished and piles of sausages and hams are ready to see them through the winter. “But we don’t know if we will see the winter through here,” Mr Petrovic says.

The villagers invite us to return for new year: “Then you will see what kind of neighbours we have. They shoot their guns to celebrate, not straight in the air but over here, so the bullets fall down on us. We cannot even go outside.”

In Racak, the Albanian villagers have no Serb neighbours left any more — they fled the postwar violence in 1999. Mr Mustafa is dismissive of Serb concerns, which he sees as an aggravating impediment slowing down independence. Any Serb who is innocent of crimes against Albanians has nothing to fear, he insists. “But,” he adds ominously, “can you find any Serb who did not commit crimes?”

It was such a spirit of collective punishment that brought massacre to Racak. After fighters from the Kosovo Liberation Army attacked and killed four Serb policemen, the Serb security forces retaliated against the whole village. The youngest victim was a boy of 14, the oldest a man of 99. The village defines itself as the site of the sacrifice that pricked Nato into action.

Yhevxhet Mustafa invites us for lunch with his family and over lamb stew pulls from his pocket a sheaf of graphic photographs of the massacre. His five children, aged 10 to 16, look on nonchalantly; they have seen the grisly pictures dozens of times before. “It’s terrible, I know, but I like to carry them,” he says. “The children should know the history of their nation.”

Albanian schoolchildren come on trips to Racak to see the graveyard and hear the story of the massacre. No one has ever stood trial for the killings and the lack of justice embitters the survivors and denies them an historical accounting. In Gorazdevac, I mention our visit to Racak. “It didn’t happen, the massacre,” Mr Petrovic says derisively. “They were fighters and they just dressed them in civilian clothes.” In Racak the people are similarly dismissive about the murdered teenagers of Gorazdevac. “Everybody knows the Serbs did that to themselves,” Mr Mustafa said.

We leave Gorazdevac late and stuffed with sausage, setting out for Mitrovica where we must safely deliver Alex, our Serbian translator, before continuing to Albanian Pristina.

In the car, Alex chats pleasantly with Enver, our Albanian fixer, but in English — Enver learnt Serbian at school but has forgotten most of it; Alex never spoke Albanian.

At the bridge we bid farewell to Alex. “Enver and I — our generation — can get on despite everything because we remember living together before,” he said. “But with these kids, there is a problem because they have no contact. All they teach them is, ‘This guy killed your uncle, this guy killed your father’. How can they get along if they can’t meet?”

I think of Mr Mustafa’s answer when asked about reconciliation. “We don’t need to get on if we are separate,” he said. “It’s probably better if they all just leave.”

Kosovo must get its independence now. It will finally create a peaceful balance in the Balkans. Kosovo people will live together in a democratic and free state where the rule of law and not preferential treatement based on nationality will be the basis of co-existence. As you can understand, many people in here, I would guess Serbian, still speak a language of hate and conflict. They all live in denial. Europe and US must not allow a Sudanese-minded state like Serbia, hold hostage 2 million other Europeans. Kosovo people must get their statehood now, so they can hope and work for a better future for them and their offspring. Kosovo must be independent and souvereign as soon as possible. Only that will cut down the possibilities of other Millosevics showing up in the Balkans starting new conflicts.

Marie, Marseille, France

The article above inaccurately sequences events: "the year that widespread anti-Serb violence and church-burning broke out, two teenage boys were shot by a sniper as they played in the river".

The two Albanian boys were shot by Serbs, outraging the majority of Kosovo who then reacted.

Prishtina, Kosovo,

Aleksandar Simic, an advisor to Serbia's prime minister, was quoted in the Belgrade media as saying that Serbia had the legal right to use war as a means of defending its territory if Kosovo, a UN protectorate for the past eight years, declares independence in the coming weeks as expected.

Rok, Detroit, Michigan

Sorry, but Kosovo & Metohija was never ruled by Albania as your article says. Albania was created for the first time as an independent state only in 1912, afther Balkan wars, when Ottoman Empire was (hopefully!?) definitely expelled from south-east of Europe. It was created under the political and millitary pressure of Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was not very happy abouth the fact that winning Serbia and her allies (Montenegro, Greece and Bulgaria) should gain so much "new" territory. Off course, Kosovo was ruled by albanian muslims for centuries under the Ottoman rule in Balkans.

MiÅ¡a, Beograd,

There are two inaccuracies in your article. The first one is the "massacre " of Racak. It has long been established by forensic evidence that the dead were combatants and that the bodies were brought to that location by KLA forces.

The other defficiency is your implication of hundreds of years of hatred. First ,your story begins only a decade ago. Before that time the situation cause and all associated elements are absent.
There was NO hatred or exploatation of Kosovo Albanians before that time. Why would otherwise Albanian flock to Kosovo from Albania in hundreds of thousands of illegal immigration?

Drasko Jovanovic, Portland, Oregon, USA

Yeah erion youre right. gregory i understand you as a russian that you support ethnic cleansing from russia. for your information. albanians converted in the last 400 years from roman catholics to islam. albania is not a muslim state- 65% are muslims,25%orthodox christs and 10 % roman catholics. albanian dont recognize them because of their religion, they recognize them because of the albanian language and their antic european illyrian history as one of the oldest in europe and later their heroic leader and king who fought against the ottoman empire gjergj kastrioti"scanderberg" who was titled by the pope as "attila christi" as a man who contributed against a turk invasion in europe. the reason for converting to islam was to avoid assimilation and ethnic cleansing from the serbs and their supporters russia.albanians are europeans and have nothing to do with islamist in the orient,gregory you should go and visit kosovo/albania before you write propaganda. mother teresa was albanian to

Astrit, Karlsruhe, Germany

Gregory, you are the champion,
Biljana Lukan, Belgrade, Serbia

Biljana Lukan, Belgrade, Serbia

Albania is a hot bed of Muslim terrorism?!!!! What utter nonsense!!!!!!!! Albanians are some of the most, if not, the most pro-American people in Europe, let alone the Balkans. And Gregory or what ever your name is in Serbian, have you ever been to Albania/Kosovo?! Well, I have, and I travelled the region extensively and I can say for sure that Albanians in general, particularly the ones in Albania, are some of the least religious, let alone Islamic, people I have encountered. In fact, religion plays a much bigger role in America and in American politics than in Albania. You obvious one sided hatred, or maybe ignorance, in the matter wouldnâ€™t let you believe so, but maybe you should try and visit these two countries before spouting such nonsense. There are three main religions in Albania at present, Catholics, mainly in the north, Sufi Muslims, mainly in the middle Albania, and Orthodox, mainly in the south and the regions closer to the Greek border.

UKBob, London, UK

Albania has always been known/mentioned as a fine example of religious harmony and tolerance. Historically, Albania used to be Catholic, and Islam was only introduced when the Ottomans invaded 500 hundred years ago. Furthermore, when Hoxhaâ€™s regime took over after WWII, he outlawed all religious practice, therefore, all the generations that came during the following 50 years grew up as atheists. If you go to Tirana today (the capital in case you donâ€™t know), itâ€™s one of the fastest growing and exiting European cities, where the youth are some of the most affluent and western looking people I have come across. Albania is one of the most naturally beautiful countries I have ever visited, which has had a rough history and still have many problems, but the people are very warm, welcoming and hospitable. Maybe to an untrained western eye they might associate some of the things they see with Islam, but that would be confusing religion with tradition, and Albania has a lot of tradition similar with the Turkish/Islamic culture, as they dominated the area for 500 years, but thatâ€™s what it is, tradition more than religion........

UKBob, London, UK

Under its nationalist president Franjo Tudjman (1922-), Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia on June 25, 1991, provoking an immediate response from the federal military. Unlike the brief fighting in Slovenia, the other breakaway republic, the clashes between federal troops and republic defense forces in Croatia erupted into full-scale war. Federal ships off the coast fired on targets in Croatia, while Croatian forces blockaded federal barracks, cutting off utilities and food; besieged soldiers then shelled nearby civilian areas. In 1991 Serbs constituted one-eigth of the Croatian population; encouraged and armed by the federal military, Serb guerrillas took control of about one-third of the republic, driving out members of other ethnic groups. Some federal leaders in Belgrade (the Yugoslav capital) disagreed with the aggressive tactics of the army, which they saw as acting in the interests of its Serb officers and not of the country as a whole. In January 1992, after at least 10,000 people had died in Croatia and after 14 cease-fires had been broken, a United Nations-sponsored truce took hold. For nearly three years 14,000 UN peacekeeps maintained an uneasy standoff between the Croation defense forces and the rebel Serbs, who eventually declared their own republic of Krajina, consisting of the territory captured in 1991. As the July 1992 shelling of Dubrovnik by rebel Serbs shows, however, fighting never entirely stopped during those three years. At the same, neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina was also engulfed in war, and the Croats feared that Bosnian Serb advances in late 1944 would further embolden the Krajina Serbs. In May 1955 the Croatian army swept through one of the Krajina Serb enclaves, expelling the residents; the Serbs then sent missiles into the Croatian capital, Zagreb, killing a handful of people and injuring more than 150. The Serb retaliation did not halt the Croat offensive; by August Croation troops had retaken most of the Serb-held land and had sent more than 100,000 Serbs fleeing. The war in Croatian (along with the war in Bosnia) officially ended on December 14, 1995, when leaders of Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia signed the Dayton peace accords.

ROCK, Detroit, Michigan

"I don't believe that Kosovo should break away but should have a degree of autonomy so that they can conduct their own affairs in a responsible way, and these ethnic groups must learn to work together."
-Brandon Thompson, junior, School for the Physical City, Manhattan.

"I don't believe Kosovo should break away because it will cause other similar breakway problems in other countries."
-Mario Ramos, student, School for the Physical City, Manhattan.

-"No matter which way it goes, (independence or not) they're going to have a problem with the land. There'll be violence either way."
- Breselyn Perez, student, School for the Physical City, Manhattan.

Gary Dorion (teacher), New York City, New York

America is crazy for supporting the Albanians. The Serbs should be our allies in the global war against Islam. The Serbs would have gladly sent troops to Iraq if Bush had asked.
Why do we help our enemies? Albania is a hot bed of Muslim terrorism, just like Bosnia. That's not fanatical propaganda, it's fact. Check your history, read the papers, open your eyes. The Muslims are waging war against Europe and America, and we can't seem to figure out who the real enemy is, because we want the Muslims to see the world the way we do, and they don't; they never will. The west belongs to the "house of war" according to the Muslims, whether that's Saudis, Afghans, or Albanians.

Gregory , Louisville, USA/Ky

Anthony,I think you got the facts mixed up!
It was the Serbs who started ethnic cleansing and the reason for that was to reduce the Albanian population and claim Kosovo as 'the land of the Serbs'.
The people of Kosovo had no political power and no support from any super power, as the serbs had from the Russian
Government!
The only way to protect and be recognised from the West was resistance and fighting back the serbian militia.
Kosovo should be independent and free of ethnic hatred!
This will take time and fair decision-making, and the first step forward is letting the Albanians govern themselves and deal with all issues and past-scars,as a legitimate state!

Erion, Oxford, UK

Right now Serbia is full of people who think and act like Anna, (London, Ontario). I hope people like Anna one day see the light at the end of the tunnel and understand what they have done. I wish her positive actions and thoughts. Maybe "No Bravery" song from James Blunt would be helpful. It gives you an idea about Kosovo and its people.

Eric, London, England

The most important element mentioned in this article is the way little children are being raised, bound to be taught of a terrible past. Obviously the reasons are very understandable; you can not stop a person from reminding his younger relative of what has happened, but this will only make matters worse, and this rather than a calculation is a historical truth of the Balkans. As for the so-frequently mentioned 1389, it is important for whoever encounters it that the battles fought against Turkish invasions are not a property of some few Serbian princes but of almost all of the nations of the Balkans. It is no surprise that Croatian, Bulgarian, Albanian and a lot of other princes and kings of the middle ages and later are national heroes of the countries because of having fought the Ottomans, or Turks, call them depending on how much you know history.

George, London,

I was an American Soldier who served at Bondsteel from Sep 05 - Jun 07, and I say with a heavy heart that we backed the wrong side in the conflict. 200 Churches destroyed, 1/4 of a million people pushed from their homes, and this is with a NATO force there. What is committed in war on both sides was disgraceful, Albanian terrorist targeted old women, policemen, and civillians to incite the heavy handed Serbs who then destroyed villages as the terrorists hid in the hills. What is inexcusable is that with 50,000 troops and now 16,000 troops Serbs are still targets for discrimination, murder, and intimidation in their own countries. My nation sends its boys to Bosnia and Kosovo to support terrorists and tell the Serbs "bad serbs", then we go over to Iraq and Afghanistan and kill terrorists. Not to mention we do nothing for the genocide in Rawanda and the Sudan, but go into Kosovo for 2,000 dead terrorists. Lord have mercy . . .

Anthony, Bayonne, NJ, USA

As far as I am aware so called Racak massacre was thrown out of the indictment of trial of 6 Serbian top officials. As well books of Human Right - â€œas seen as toldâ€ and â€œunder ordersâ€ are also thrown out of the evidence by ICTY. Which tells me there were no massacre in Racak and many human right abuses you are citing from Human right watch is of VERY questionable worth.
You also forgot to tell of the genocide committed by Albanians over Serbs in WWII and the fact that communist CROAT TITO did not allow Serbian families cleansed from Kosovo to return. Instead he settled ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS from Albania to Kosovo who multiplied without control. Do you research before you quote?

Anna, London, Ontario

With all the respect, I must say that you have your numbers totally wrong. There were 10,000 people killed and well over 850,000 Albanians chased away from Serbian forces to other neighbouring countries. I want to believe this was a "mistake" or a lapsus as I don't think that cutting down in numbers would help any side in their positions. Human life must not have the "number" dimmension attached to it in order to become important. Right?

Eric, London, England

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