Kosova Crisis Center
link to alb-net
Actor Richard Gere in refugee plea
(BBC)
Richard Gere in a camp at Stenkovic, near Skopje, last week. Photo
by AP.
Hollywood actor Richard Gere has called on the US and UK governments to do more to help
refugees caught up in the Kosovo crisis.
Speaking in the Macedonian capital of Skopje, the Pretty Woman star said thousands of the
refugees he met during his six-day visit to the Balkans wanted to go to safe haven
countries.
He added all the countries involved in Nato's bombing raids had a responsibility to take a
leading role in helping refugees.
He said: "Considering the bombing is being led by the US and British, their
commitment to take refugees must be much, much higher.
"It is certainly up to the developed countries of the world, especially Nato
countries, to take much more responsibility more than they have."
Gere said the Yugoslav government's claims that many refugees were fleeing to escape Nato
attacks were untrue.
Refugees 'tortured, abused and frightened'
"Every one of them had a story of being tortured, abused, and frightened out of their
minds because of the regular forces of the Serb army, police and paramilitaries," he
said.
"This situation is very clear where the force, the terror is coming from."
He added he had asked to be allowed to stay overnight in one of the camps, but he had been
refused permission on security grounds.
Gere is best known for his support of Tibetan independence, but arrived in the Balkans
last week to tour refugee camps and talk to relief workers.
Upon arrival in Macedonia last week he said: "I support many humanitarian causes. I'm
just trying to find out what's happening for myself. If there's any way to help then I'll
do it."
Celebrities such as Vanessa
Redgrave and George Michael help Kosova (BBC)
Vanessa Redgrave has already visited the Balkans for UNHCR
Actress Vanessa Redgrave and singers George Michael and James Dean Bradfield are spending
the holiday weekend leading efforts to help refugees from Kosovo.
Vanessa Redgrave will appear in a special fund-raising recital at London's Phoenix
Theatre, while George Michael has recorded a radio commercial. Meanwhile, Manic Street
Preachers singer James Dean Bradfield will be leading Welsh groups in a charity concert in
his home town.
Redgrave, who is a special representative of the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees, will also introduce a performance from pianist Katerina Wolfe, herself a refugee
in the Second World War.
She has already visited Croatia and Bosnia on behalf of the UNHCR, and she has made many
friends in Kosovo. All proceeds will go to the United Nations' children's fund Unicef and
the show will run on Friday and Saturday nights.
Wolfe says of her experiences: "Nobody knew what was going on outside of where
everything was going on. Nobody was paying attention. There was no UNHCR, no Unicef,
nobody was filming it, nobody was registering who was being stuffed into trains and never
being seen again. It was total chaos."
Redgrave says: "I don't take sides and cannot take sides on questions of nationality.
But I can take sides on the question of human rights laws. Then I do get fierce, and I try
to work very hard."
Michael's appeal for Capital funds
Meanwhile, pop star George Michael is doing his bit to help Kosovo's refugees - by
recording a radio commercial appealing for donations.
The commercial will appear on stations owned by Capital Radio in the south of England, the
Midlands and South Wales over the weekend.
In the broadcast, he says: "Hi. I am George Michael and I am asking for your help on
behalf of the UK's main aid agencies.
"The massive humanitarian crisis in the Balkans continues, with hundreds of thousands
of people now without food and shelter.
"Children and the elderly are most at risk, but all desperately need our help.
"For many, time is running out in the worst refugee crisis since the Second World
War.
"Please help the Balkan Crisis appeal by taking a donation to any bank or Post Office
or call 0900 222233 with a credit or debit card number."
A Capital spokeswoman said the appeal was Michael's idea, and it was being broadcast
during the stations' advertising time.
Welsh rockers backing appeal
Another initiative sees Manic Street Preachers lead singer James Dean Bradfield return to
his hometown on Friday to lead fellow Welsh acts in raising money for refugees forced out
of Kosovo.
Bradfield will play three or four songs accompanied by an accoustic guitar as the finale
of the show at the tiny Blackwood Miners' Institute, Gwent.
The Manic Street Preachers formed there in 1988, though none of the band have played in
their home town for over ten years.
He will be joined by The Alarm's former singer Mike Peters, as well as 60ft Dolls singer
Richard Parfitt and new band Big Leaves, who recently supported Catatonia.
Singer-songwriter Martyn Joseph will also perform, and there will be poetry from Labi
Siffre and the evening's organiser Patrick Jones.
The concert will be followed by an auction of memorabilia, including Manics' bassist Nicky
Wire's copy of the platinum disc from the group's last album, This Is My Truth Tell Me
Yours.
Admission to the hall, which holds just 400 people, costs a minimum of £5 with all
donations going to the Kosovo Crisis Appeal.
Pearl Jam Single To Aid Kosova
By Carolyn Horwitz
Billboard Daily Music Update
All proceeds from Pearl Jam's upcoming CD single "Last Kiss" will be donated to
CARE (Co-operative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere), an organization providing food,
shelter, and other needs to refugees of Kosova.
The song -- which was previously available only on vinyl, as the band's 1998 fan-club
Christmas single -- will be in stores in the next 3-4 weeks from Epic. It's at No. 31 on
this week's Modern Rock Tracks chart.
Meanwhile, Pearl Jam will be represented on a compilation album being assembled by Sony to
benefit a number of charities that aid Kosovan refugees. The label and release date have
not been determined. Talks are under way for participation by non-Sony acts, according to
an Epic spokesperson.
The consequences the chemical
poisons used by serbian terrorist forces against civil albanians and KLA soldiers are
appearing (KP)
Podujevė, May 3rd (Kosovapress) Serbian terrorist forces used chemical poisons against
displaced albanian population in the zones of Llapi and in the combats with KLA units, on
April 28. Journalists of"Kosavapress"- informed that the poisons have been
throwen through projectiles, from long distance, even over civil albanian population and
KLA soldiers during the combats that occurred in that day in the villages of: Dobratin,
Revuēė and in Qafa e Kaēanollit. According to informations, tens of civilians and KLA
soldiers are being hit by these chemical poisons and the health consequences such as :
loss of consciousness, dry of breath organs( mouth, nose) and the throat, unclear look,
unclear speak, contractions of the body, difficulties while walking and permanent
paralyzes, are evident now.
Also, near the border with Albania, serbian forces have thrown chemical poisons but
fortunately the strong wind has spread this poison away.There are only few KLA soldiers in
this zone that have been infected by this poison. Doctors from the health service of KLA,
have not yet reached to clarify the category of this chemical poison that has been used
there, nor in the zones of Koshare and Juniku. Doctors of KLA, zone of Llap are doing
everything to help tens of civilians and soldiers of this zone who are affected by these
chemical poisons.
Survivor Tells of Massacre at
Kosova Village (NY Times)
By ANTHONY DePALMA
KUKES, Albania -- It lasted no more than three minutes, three minutes of savagery
unleashed without even a word. "They just started shooting and I got hit in the
shoulder. The dead bodies behind me pushed me over the cliff and into the stream. I was
lucky because all of the dead bodies fell on top of me."
Isuf Zheniqi, who said he survived when 58 men died in a massacre near Bela Crkva in
southwestern Kosova more than a month ago, speaks out hesitantly, fearing Serbian forces
might take revenge on members of his family still in Kosova.
But after crawling out from under the bodies of his relatives, neighbors and friends, with
a bullet from a Serbian automatic rifle embedded in his right shoulder and horrors filling
his head, he has carried around the names of almost all the men who died that day.
In crimped handwriting he puts them down on the pages of an address book, name after name
of old men, young boys, teen-agers and men, like himself, who were suspected by the Serbs
of belonging to the Kosova Liberation Army, which is fighting to make Kosova independent
from Serbia.
He remembers the names of all but one. But he knows there were 58 because he helped bury
them, each one with a written name.
As refugees from Kosova continue to flee across the border, the accounts of atrocities
committed by Serbian forces in Kosova multiply: a killing spree in the village of Velika
Krusa, the rampage of troops through the streets of Djakovica, the slaughter of up to 100
men in the village of Meja.
Accounts from different refugees are consistent enough to lend a great deal of credibility
to some of those accounts. But eyewitness accounts by survivors like Zheniqi are rare,
either because the killing was done efficiently enough to prevent survivors, or because
the sheer terror of minutes like those on the embankment at Bela Crkva prevents survivors
from recounting their ordeals.
Zheniqi said that when he was brought across the border by relatives he told human rights
investigators what had happened at Bela Crkva. But until now he has not given journalists
a full account his experience.
Human Rights Watch separately interviewed Zheniqi and four other witnesses, who
corroborated parts of his account.
Zheniqi was the only one who testified that he saw the actual killing, Human Rights Watch
officials said. Four women who were separated from the men at Bela Crkva heard the shots
as they were walking to Zrze and later returned to see the bodies.
And other refugees told Human Rights Watch that they were among the group of 20 or so
people who returned the day after the killings to bury the bodies.
"All the witnesses gave us highly credible and unusually consistent accounts of what
happened at Bela Crkva," said Fred Abrahams of Human Rights Watch. "They
corroborated what the eyewitness told us."
The other witnesses appear to have left Kukes since they were interviewed. It was
impossible to confirm the killings independently, beyond the refugee accounts, since
reporters and independent investigators have been unable to visit that area of Kosova
since the bombing started.
Today Zheniqi lives in a Kukes pool hall, with his daughter and her family. He cannot use
his right arm because of the bullet wound, and during the days he can often be seen dozing
in the sun outside the pool hall, trying to steal some moments of the rest that eludes him
every night because of his terrible dreams.
"My daughter tells me 'Father, sleep, why don't you sleep?' " Zheniqi said.
"But I can't. All those dead bodies on top of mine. When I meet someone from Kosova
and they ask me what happened, I cry. I'm embarrassed, because I'm 39 years old and I'm
crying."
The slightly built farmer, who worked for eight years in Switzerland before returning to
the fertile soil of southwestern Kosova, said that before the turmoil in Kosova began over
a year ago, he had almost no contact with Serbs living nearby.
But the area was a known stronghold of the Kosova Liberation Army, and the Serbs were
advancing ruthlessly on rebel positions, including the area of Bela Crkva. Zheniqi said
that he was not a member of the rebel force and that none of those killed had any
connection to the Kosova Liberation Army.
About 3:30 a.m. on March 25, on the first night of NATO bombings in Yugoslavia, Serbian
forces started their operation, Zheniqi said. He said he saw about a dozen Serbian tanks
take positions in Bela Crkva. "One was in front of my house," he said.
Anticipating violence, he took his family and his brother's family -- 17 people in all --
and ran to the nearby mountains to hide.
When the streets again fell silent, they returned, thinking the tanks had moved on. But
they hadn't. Smoke soon rose from the houses of Bela Crkva that were closest to the road
from Prizren to Rahovec. Zheniqi and his family fled again, this time scrambling down the
deep banks of a large nearby stream. It was about 4:30 a.m.
"The people from the whole village started to collect there in the stream," he
said. They went to a place he called Ura e Bellase, where a train trestle crossed the
stream. About 800 villagers tried to hide beneath the bridge.
After daybreak, the villagers tried to move toward Zrze and Rogovo, two nearby hamlets
they thought would be safe. But Serbian snipers followed their movements. About 9:30 in
the morning, Zheniqi said, 16 special policemen appeared, shooting their automatic weapons
in the air. Two families had strayed from the group and Zheniqi said the Serbs opened
fire, killing every member of both except for a 2-year-old boy who had been protected by
his mother.
"She hid the baby in front of her and saved him," Zheniqi said. His lips
quivered and he could not talk. When he continued, he said, "I saw this with my own
eyes, maybe 150 feet from me."
The Serbs then shot their rifles in the air again and shouted, in Albanian, "Get up
and come here."
The villagers climbed up the banks of the stream with their hands over their heads. When
they reached the train trestle, the men were separated from the women and children, and
ordered to strip down to their undershorts.
The police then went through their belongings, Zheniqi said, taking anything of value. A
local doctor trainee, Nesim Popaj, tried to talk to the police in Serbian because his
nephew, Shendet Popaj, 17, had been thrown on the ground and was under a policeman's boot.
"The Serb looked at the doctor, said just two or three words, and told him to move
over a bit," Zheniqi said. "Then he shot him. We were shocked. The man was a
captain, using an automatic rifle. He wore a green camouflage uniform, and on his
shoulders were stars. I don't know his name, but he was tall and he had a scrunched-up
mouth. I could recognize his picture easily."
The women and children were sent to Zrze. The men were allowed to get dressed and then
were forced to move over to the high ground above the steam. Zheniqi was in the first
line, at the edge of the stream bank, with many men behind him.
"We tried to say something to the Serbs but they didn't let us," Zheniqi said.
"If we tried they just said, 'Shut up.' We all cried. Sahid Popaj cried from the
moment we were forced to take off our clothes to the moment he died. He just cried."
The shooting started without a word from the policemen. Several of them standing just
behind the villagers opened fire with automatic weapons. Being farthest away from the
gunmen provided Zheniqi with some cover, but he was still struck by a bullet in his right
shoulder. The shooting lasted about three minutes, he said. The weight of the men falling
behind him pushed him over into the stream.
He fell about six feet, landing in the water. "At that moment, I was just thinking of
getting to one stone and from there holding my head above the water. I stayed there like a
dead man for a total of maybe 20 minutes."
The terror had not ended. The policemen lowered themselves down the embankment.
"I heard someone telling a guy in the stream: 'He's breathing, shoot him; he's
breathing, shoot him,"' Zheniqi said. They found nine men who had hidden themselves
in the bushes, and killed them.
He waited another 15 minutes, and when all was quiet he pulled himself out from under the
weight of his dead friends and relatives. That was when he saw the extent of what had
happened in Bela Crkva. "There in the stream, I saw terrible things: men without
eyes, men with half their heads blown off."
He staggered to Zrze, where he found some of his family and told them about the killing.
He said the men organized a group to go back to the stream, but Zheniqi was not among
them. He said they found four other survivors, and piled them into the wagon behind their
tractor, dodging sniper fire. On the way back, two of the survivors died.
The following day, about 20 villagers from Bela Crkva returned to the stream to bury the
dead. Already, they were thinking of justice and the memory of those who had been mowed
down in three minutes.
"We wrote the names of all the dead on separate pieces of paper," Zheniqi said.
Then we put the papers inside plastic soda bottles. There was one name in each bottle. We
put the bottle inside the grave, not on top. And we buried them, not far from the
stream."
Over 40 civilians have been killed
in Vėrboc (KP)
Gllogoc, May 3rd (Kosovapress) Serbian terrorist forces during one terrorist attack over
the civil population in the village Verboc, commune of Gllogoc on April 30, have killed at
least 40 albanian civilians. At the same day they have taken as hostages over than 200
persons and there no informations about their fate. Serbian terrorist attack over the
village of Verboc had started in the early morning of April 30 from many directions, so
the iron enclosure was formed. There informations about massive executions of albanian
civil population but the exact number is still unconfirmed.A part of this massacred
persons have been published by our agency "Kosovapress" earlier but the full
list of massacred people is difficult to be published because of the presence of the
serbian forces. Many people of this part of Drenica are starving for bread. The hunger is
everywhere, so the appeal directed to international community to intervene remains top
urgent request.
Serbian terrorist forces killed yesterday over 100
albanians (KP)
Vushtrri, May 3rd (Kosovapress) Our sources have informed today, that in Studime tė
Poshtme commune of Vushtrri, serbian terrorists have killed over 100 albanian displaced
people.It has been informed that, serbian terrorist forces have carried out the cadavers
of the killed people with tractors and they`ve buried them in a massive grave in Studime
tė Poshtėme. Serbian terrorist forces attacked the albanian civil population during the
yesterday attacks over the villages of the commune of Vushtrri.Also they`ve forced them to
move in unknown direction.The population tried to enter in Vushtrri, but up to
16°°o`clock of the previous day, only those who had given money to serbian terrorist,
have been let to get in, whereas the others have been maltreated, beaten and many of them
have been killed.
Serbian attacks are going on,
civilian population is in big danger (KP)
Podjevė, May 3rd (Kosovapress) The situation in the regions of Llap remains very dramatic
as result of the continuous confrontations between KLA units and serbian terrorist forces.
Only day, since early in the morning, hundreds of the serbian artillery grenades have
fallen in different villages of this region. KLA units are doing their best to protect the
villages of Bradash, Katunishtė, Dobratin and Qafa e Kaqanollit from serbian
attacks.Fierce combats are taking place in this region.Our KLA units are making strong
resistance and they are not allowing serbian hordes to enter in these regions. After few
days of armed confrontations, KLA units only in the Qafė tė Kaēanollit and in Potok,
have killed at lest 30 serbian para militaries. Targets of the serbian terrorist attacks
as in the past days but even today are villages of Potok, Lupē, Majac, as well as the
villages of Shala e Bajgores, and these are dwelling in which are concentrated the biggest
part of the displaced population from the regions of Llap and other regions. At least 10
civilians have been killed and 70 others are being wounded as result of these serbian
bombardments during these past days. KLA units of the region of Llap, have reached to
divide from these displaced families young people and to protect them from serbian
terrorist attacks. KLA units of the OZ of Llapi,during one military action undertaken
yesterday along the road Prishtinė–Leskoc, have liquidated a bus full of serbian
policemen and para militaries.
New massacres over civilian
population discovered (KP)
Deēan, May 3rd (Kosovapress) Many cruel crimes have been executed over the albanian civil
population by serbian terrorists during their latest offensive in Dukagjin. As result,
Misin Bardhosh Ēelaj (75), from Mazniku, who was taking care about his cattle in the
field, has been killed, whereas on April 27, Sadik Shaban Berisha (73), mentally ill, from
Prapaqani of Deēan has been massacred, whereas in the village Brodiq , father and his
daughter ; Hysen Curr Gashi (70) and Hyrė Hysen Gashi (30), are found massacred in cruel
way.In the same village in the house of Adil Boshnjakut, four carbonized bodies have been
found, their identity is unknown.Also, in this village, the 103 year old woman, Hanė
Dervish Ymeraj, has been massacred near her yard, where her hands and her head was cut
off. Rexhep Ali Ymeraj is massacred in the same way.Another massacred cadaver has been
discovered during these days in the ward Popaj of Llukė e Poshtėme, in the edge of the
Bardhė river(White river),about the age of 3 and her eyes were taken out and her ears
have been cut off.
Meanwhile in the village Rashiq of Peja, Sylė Tahir Gjocaj, age 70 and Tafė Miftar Shala
with his wife, have been massacred. For all of them, KLA units in spite of difficult
conditions, they have buried them. Whereas in private house in the village Bardhaniq
during the serbian criminal offensive, these persons have disappeared: Fatime Gashi
(1937), from Kusuriqi; Adile Gashi (1969), from Kusuriqi; Hysen Hatashi from Jabllanica of
Peja, Qazim Musaj (1951), from Lluka e Epėrme; Miftar Dan Pavataj from Strellci i Epėrm-
teacher and his wife Hatixhja (1951), Miftar Vishaj (1934), from Belegu i Deēanit and
others. It is supposed that in Lubeniq of Peja, there other massacred and killed persons
as result of the latest serbian offensive, but because of the limited possibilities caused
by the presence of serbian forces there, it is difficult to collect the evidences.
Albania to Take 60,000 Refugees
from Macedonia (Reuters)
TIRANA (Reuters) - NATO said Monday it planned to build camps for another 160,000 Kosova
refugees, including up to 60,000 displaced ethnic Albanians from neighboring Macedonia.
British Lieutenant-General John Reith, commander of the NATO Albania Force for
Humanitarian Assistance (AFOR), said he was looking for sites in Albania where Kosova
refugees from Macedonia could be placed.
"I am estimating at the moment ... but we are looking to see if we can build camps
for about 60,000," Reith told a news conference.
"But if we do not need to fill those with people from Macedonia, clearly we will fill
them with people coming to Albania from other directions."
Some 400,000 refugees, driven out by Serb forces, have crossed into Albania since NATO
started air strikes against Yugoslavia in March.
But while Albanians have welcomed their brethren from Kosova with open arms -- more than
260,000 refugees are being housed by Albanian families -- the influx into Macedonia could
disturb that nation's own delicate ethnic mix.
"We are looking at what is available now to see if we could move a certain number of
refugees almost immediately" from Macedonia, Reith said.
"It would be a limited number but at least a gesture of intent for the Macedonian
government to show that the Albanian government is willing to take people."
Macedonia, which now has more than 170,000 refugees from Kosova, has repeatedly warned
that its economy is struggling with the constant flow of displaced ethnic Albanians.
"Clearly we will also be asking the Macedonian government to have a degree of
patience while we build these camps because we do not have the space to take these people
for the moment," Reith said.
"In the meantime we will built camps as fast as we can."
While figures were only estimates, Reith said NATO was building sites for 100,000 more
refugees in addition to accommodating up to 60,000 from Macedonia.
One site under consideration for refugees from Macedonia was the southeastern Albanian
town of Korce, where NATO is building a camp for 9,000 displaced persons.
Reith said he now had 7,000 troops in AFOR, whose tasks include improving the flow of aid
into the country from Tirana airport and the port of Durres in addition to building camps.
Tirana airport -- which originally only took eight flights a day -- now had peaks of 80
flights daily, he said.
NATO soldiers were also going to improve pot-holed roads leading from the airport to
Tirana and the often single-lane road from the northern town of Kukes, where most refugees
were coming across from Kosova.
An Indebted Israel Shelters a
Kosova Family (NY Times)
By JOEL GREENBERG
MAAGAN MIKHAEL, Israel -- When Lamija Jaha and her husband were driven out of their
apartment and herded with thousands of ethnic Albanians to trains that would take them
from Pristina, the capital of Kosova, she took a memento of her dead father in her pocket.
Trudging into exile on that first day of April, she had no idea that the simple souvenir
from her lost home -- a copy of a certificate bearing her father's name -- would help
pluck her family from the Balkan flames and bring it to this kibbutz on the northern
Israeli coast.
That piece of paper would take the Jaha family, in a way, full circle. It was the copy of
a certificate, issued by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, commending her
parents, Dervis and Servet Korkut, both Muslims, for risking their lives to save Jews
during World War II, and honoring them as "righteous among the nations."
In World War II, Mrs. Jaha's parents lived in Nazi-controlled Sarajevo, where she was
later born and her mother remains today. Not only did the Korkuts hide several Jews from
the local pro-Nazi regime, but Dervis Korkut saved the precious Sarajevo Haggadah,
concealing it in his home and thus keeping the 14th-century volume, the best known
illuminated Hebrew manuscript, intact.
Now it was Mrs. Jaha who was expelled from her Kosova home and herded onto a crowded train
in scenes that have evoked comparisons with the Holocaust.
After arriving in Macedonia, Mrs. Jaha showed her father's commendation to officials of
the Jewish community in the capital, Skopje.
They helped Mrs. Jaha and her husband, Vllaznim, to join a planeload of Kosovar Albanian
refugees accepted by Israel.
More than 50 years after her parents sheltered Jews in their home, she found shelter in
the Jewish state.
"I don't know how to express how much this means to me," Mrs. Jaha, 44, said in
an interview at a hostel in Maagan Mikhael, where the 115 refugees are being housed.
"My father did what he did with all his heart, not to get anything in return. Fifty
years later, it returns somehow. It's a kind of a circle."
Mrs. Jaha's father was a museum curator and a prominent figure in Sarajevo, an expert on
the ethnic history of Bosnia-Herzegovina who knew several languages and took a special
interest in Jewish contributions to the cultural mosaic of his country. In published
articles, he wrote about the culture and art of Bosnia's Jews, defending them against
anti-Semitic attacks and asserting that they were an integral part of Bosnian society.
As thousands of Jews were rounded up and shipped off to concentration camps, Korkut took
the deadly risk of hiding several in his home. Mira Bakovic, a Jewish survivor who was
traced by Yad Vashem, recalled that the Korkuts put her up for half a year after she
sneaked back to Sarajevo following a stint as an anti-Nazi partisan fighter.
She was was presented to visitors as a housemaid with the Muslim name Amira and served
guests, including German officers, veiled according to Muslim custom.
Mira Bakovic died last year at age 76, but her son, Davor Bakovic, 50, who immigrated to
Israel from Yugoslavia in 1970 and lives near Jerusalem, greeted Mrs. Jaha when she and
her husband arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport on April 12.
"It was an amazing discovery," Bakovic recalled. "I felt as if a sister had
appeared from a faraway place. I felt close to these people even though I didn't know them
at all. The circle of my life had become linked with Lamija and her family. To me it
proved that people can't be divided up into nations and sects. They're human beings who
can touch each other."
The meeting was also a revelation for Mrs. Jaha. She said that her father, who died when
she was 14, never mentioned to her that he had sheltered Jews, and that her mother told
her briefly about it only a few years ago. "My father didn't do it so he could tell
us about it later," Mrs. Jaha said. But in the end, "anything my father did
brought me good."
For the Jahas, Israel is a new beginning after days of hell.
In the crush at the Pristina train station, they climbed through a window to get into a
packed passenger car. Two bags in which they had tucked mementos of their life -- family
photos, a picture of Korkut, his books, a daughter's diary -- were lost in the chaos.
Dumped on the Macedonian border in darkness, the Jahas marched along the tracks into a
teeming no man's land where they spent 11 hours before gaining entry with a small group of
refugees at a Macedonian checkpoint.
After an unsuccessful attempt to get permission to go to Sweden, where her brother-in-law
lives, Mrs. Jaha went to the offices of the Jewish community in Skopje and showed the
certificate awarded to her parents. A few years ago, her mother had been evacuated from
Sarajevo in a convoy organized by Jews there during the Bosnian war, and Mrs. Jaha hoped
she might get similar help. The president of the Jewish community in Skopje, Victor
Mizrahi, promised help.
Asked whether she was willing to go to Israel on a refugee flight organized by the Jewish
Agency, an organization that usually brings Jewish immigrants to Israel, Mrs. Jaha readily
agreed.
"I told them that it was no problem, and that we wanted to go somewhere safe,"
she recalled, noting that she was unconcerned by the occasional outbreaks of Arab-Israeli
violence. "The problems here are nothing compared to the situation in Kosova. You can
find terrorism all over the world."
The Jahas' two children, Fitore, 20, and Fatos, 16, were smuggled out under false Serbian
identity to Belgrade and later to Budapest before their parents' expulsion.
They were brought to Israel on a separate Jewish Agency flight that carried Serbian Jewish
youngsters who had fled the NATO air attacks to Hungary.
Reunited in Maagan Mikhael, living in white stucco guest rooms overlooking the kibbutz's
fish ponds and the Mediterranean, the Jahas feel "like we're on vacation, not
refugees," Jaha said. The Jewish Agency has provided Hebrew classes and lectures for
the refugees, sightseeing trips, three meals a day and medical care. There are also plans
to start employing the newcomers at the kibbutz and in neighboring industries.
Many of the refugees, who have been accepted by Israel for six months, say they would like
to return to Kosova, but the Jahas say they have resolved to settle in Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally assured Mrs. Jaha that her family can stay,
and in recognition of her parents' deeds, the family is eligible for Israeli citizenship.
"This was a big thing for us, because we have no home, we have nothing, and we've
come to a country that won't turn us back," said Mrs. Jaha.
"We have left our house for good. We wanted to go far away, where we and our children
could live without war."
Mrs. Jaha, an economist, and her husband, an electrical engineer, say they plan to find
work and permanent housing after learning Hebrew, and their daughter, a college student,
is determined to resume her computer studies at an Israeli university.
"We're doing this for the children, not for us," Jaha said of the decision to
stay in Israel. "We lived one life. Now we're beginning another."
The Myth and Milosevic (The
Nation)
By Marlene Nadle
Contrary to US expectations, a Kosova peace agreement isn't going to be signed after a few
weeks of bombing, and maybe not ever. To understand why Slobodan Milosevic decided to
fight NATO instead of conceding, one must understand the contemporary role in politics
played by the 1389 Battle of Kosova. Milosevic is re-enacting the Serbian central myth of
the leader who lost the medieval battle against superior Turkish forces and became a
martyred nationalist hero. He is trying to keep his power by casting himself as the
reincarnated defender and shifting the public's anger over the possible loss of Kosova
from himself to the evil West.
There are many forces in his once small political base prompting Milosevic's defiance.
Their continued support for the president is critical to him now, but they are too
peripheral to gain power were he to be ousted. One group pressuring him is the
ultranationalist Radical Party, which won only sixteen seats in the federal Parliament.
Vojislav Seselj, its leader, might have pulled his party out of the ruling coalition and
weakened the government if Milosevic had agreed to NATO troops. He could have painted his
president as a traitor to Serbian interests. Seselj's popularity grew while he urged a war
with NATO and delegates at the Rambouillet peace talks considered caving in to the West.
To undercut his rival, Milosevic had to adopt Seselj's positions.
Another factor is the nationalist military officers Milosevic appointed after firing the
military brass who tried to restrain his actions in Kosova this past fall. These new
officers seemed to be implicitly threatening a coup when, according to the European press,
they told him that allowing NATO troops into Kosova would be the beginning of the end of
his power. Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic said the current military leadership believes that sacred
Kosova must be defended at all costs. Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic, the supreme commander,
speaking in the language of the myth, told his soldiers to "prepare for
martyrdom."
Belgrade political analysts say the Yugoslav president fears the public, which holds the
Kosova myth at the heart of its identity. He worries about being killed by an angry mob,
like Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu. To guard against that fate, he silences every
critic who could stir up riots or electoral opposition. He purged not only the military
but the universities. Death threats against students continue. There is an escalated
closing of independent media and jailing of journalists. Serbian journalists expect him to
follow Seselj's urging and crack down on the judiciary and the anti-Milosevic government
in the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro.
His self-protective propaganda campaign plays on the Serbs' sense of themselves as a
persecuted people, which goes back to the fourteenth- century Turkish occupation and runs
so deep that some Christians wear a Jewish star to identify with another historical
victim. In recent broadcasts, World War II movies were run as a reminder of what the
Germans did to Serbs, and claims were made that Madeleine Albright hates all Serbs and
that the Kosova Liberation Army had planted plastic dolls to fake a report about Serbs
killing children. State TV endlessly repeats the Serbs' mythic claim to Kosova, despite
the fact that until 1989 it had been legally theirs for only about sixty of the past 600
years.
There is no check on Milosevic's propaganda or policies from the democratic opposition. It
has become weak, discredited by its petty power struggles and the co-optation of its most
charismatic figure, Vuk Draskovic, into Milosevic's government. It is cowed by repression
that has created such fear that many are focused only on individual survival. One
dissident said, "I am not afraid of the war but of what comes after it. There will be
no chance for democracy in Serbia."
Many in the opposition and general public who detest Milosevic aren't opposed to fighting
NATO in Kosova. The main public opposition to that battle comes from mothers demonstrating
against their sons' military mobilization. Some reservists, like some 200 in Leskovac, are
staging protest rallies outside military barracks, and many draft resisters are going into
hiding. They see through Milosevic's strategy and believe that he has already sold out
Kosova but is forcing soldiers to die so he can survive his eventual surrender of the
province.
Except with the conscripts and their families, Milosevic's decision to re-enact a version
of the medieval battle has strengthened him. Earlier this year his approval ratings were
only about 20 percent, because he has devastated the economy and lost three wars, but by
early March a poll showed 37 percent of the Serbs willing to defend Kosova with force,
with more uniting behind him. Even members of the opposition are entranced by the myth of
the Serbian knights in the Field of Blackbirds, by the tales of glory, courage and
sacrifice that are part of their folk songs and history books. Like actor Milanko
Zablacanski, who was among the tens of thousands protesting against Milosevic in 1997,
many feel honor-bound to support a leader they loathe against foreign soldiers occupying
Kosova as the Turks did.
Milosevic can wait out NATO bombings while "cleansing" enough Kosovars from the
mineral-rich north and central regions to make partition into a Serbian and Albanian
sector a realistic exit strategy for the West. If that half-victory isn't achieved, he can
explain his loss of Kosova as the myth does, saying the Serbs' brave battle against NATO
was not a defeat but a moral victory.
Marlene Nadle is a journalist formerly based in Yugoslavia and an associate of the Central
and East European program of The New School.
How Do You Pronounce
"Kosova"?
On March 24, President Clinton told the nation that NATO would begin bombing
"Koh-SOH-vah." But 8 days later, at Norfolk Naval Station, he talked about the
situation in "KOH-soh-voh." Why is the president's pronunciation so
inconsistent?
As it turns out, Serbs and Albanians have different names for the province, with different
Western pronunciations. Incredible as it sounds, Clinton's choice of pronunciation may
therefore represent a conscious political statement.
The Serbian name, Kosovo, is derived from the Slavic word for blackbird, kos. The province
is so named because in 1389 the Serbs fought the Ottoman Turks in a place now known as
Kosovo polje, or "blackbird's field." The importance of this 600-year old battle
to modern Serbia's self-image can hardly be overstated. Serbs have long considered the
province a cradle of Serbian statehood and spiritual life, and the name Kosova expresses
its centrality to the national psyche. In Serbian, the first syllable of each word is
stressed and all vowels are pronounced clearly. Hence "KOH-soh-voh."
In Albanian--an ancient language with different linguistic roots from
Serbo-Croatian--Slavic place names are reinterpreted. In ordinary Albanian usage, the -ovo
ending to Kosova is translated to -ova and the second syllable is stressed. Thus,
Albanians usually call the province "Koh-SOH-vah."
Until recently, the international community used the Serbian spelling and pronunciation.
But increased tensions in the Balkans, have politicized the word. Albanian nationalists
started to use the Albanian pronunciation (Koh-SOH-vah) and spelling ("Kosova")
when writing or speaking in a foreign tongue.
When Clinton opts for the "Kosova" pronunciation, one might interpret this as a
wink towards Kosovar independence. The Serb pronunciation, on the other hand, may signal
the withdrawal of that support.
Observers might want to adopt the studied neutrality of some experts. Scholars of the
region have found a compromise solution. Rather than using the last vowel, they write
"Kosov@."
Explainer thanks Professor Victor A. Friedman, Chairman of the Department of Slavic
Languages & Literature at the University of Chicago and Professor of Slavic Languages
and Literatures Ronelle Alexander of the University of California at Berkeley.