Kosova Crisis Center
link to alb-net
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) -- Unable to shake the image of her grandfather suffering Nazi horrors, Shalevet Friedland left early for her evening shift at McDonald's to make an important stop on the way: a collection depot for Kosovo refugees.
Friedland, whose grandfather survived a Nazi labor camp, stuffed blankets and warm clothing into three white garbage bags and piled them onto a suitcase cart.
"We need to help them, to give, to give what we can," Friedland, 24, said Thursday as she tossed her bags on the growing pile of contributions in Rabin Square.
The saga of thousands of ethnic Albanians fleeing Kosovo -- families ripped apart, children and women packed onto trucks, illness breeding in cramped refugee camps -- has special resonance in Israel. In the Jewish state, the Holocaust, the murder of 6 million Jews during the German occupation of Europe, is a defining historical moment.
"Since I saw the pictures, I got a pain in my chest, simply a pain," said Avraham Zelig, a survivor of Poland's Lodz ghetto who is raising funds from fellow survivors. "All the pictures took me back to another period."
The concern extends beyond survivors and their descendants. Tens of thousands packed the same square in central Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening for a fund-raising rock concert dubbed "We of all People Cannot Remain Silent."
"To act normally at an abnormal time is itself abnormal," Israeli Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau -- himself a Holocaust survivor -- told the youthful crowd.
A daylong radiothon raised more than $600,000.
"It's beyond survivors," said author Tom Segev, who has written extensively on the reverberations of the Holocaust in Israeli society. "It's connected to the Israeli ethos -- to empathize with the refugees."
In Israel -- a nation built by immigrants -- even those not related to Holocaust survivors are still likely to know of refugee experiences in the family.
Yaakov Rachminovitch spoke of the hardships his parents went through when they emigrated from Yugoslavia to pre-state Palestine in 1930. Rachminovitch was born that year, en route, in Turkey.
"We know these problems of refugees very well," he said as he watched preparations for the concert.
The fighting in Yugoslavia -- and the refugees it has created --has pushed the faltering Mideast peace process and May 17 elections out of the headlines.
The refugee crisis is simply too compelling, said Yuval Natan, a columnist with the daily Maariv.
"Call me an idiot, tell me that I'm a sucker for kitsch, but every time I see a crate of aid with the Israeli flag pasted to it landing in a crisis zone, it makes me feel good," he wrote.
Many Israelis have expressed embarrassment at their government's failure to unequivocally support the NATO action against Yugoslavia, whose forces have emptied Serbia's Kosovo province of its majority Albanian population.
Yossi Peled, a retired general who backs the opposition Labor Party, said the silence was especially conspicuous as Israel prepares to mark Holocaust remembrance day on Monday.
"The day should never come where they shake their finger at us and say 'Where were you?"' Peled told Israel television. "Our conscience is there," in Albania.
Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon has angered the United States by suggesting that a Yugoslav defeat could lead to a triumphalist "Greater Albania" that would sponsor Muslim fundamentalism.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has distanced himself from Sharon's statements and offered to take in some refugees.
The Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental organization once known only for Jewish rescue, is airlifting more than 40 tons of supplies to the refugees. Israel's army has set up a field hospital among refugees in Macedonia.
Some of the relief workers say they are paying Albania back for protecting its small Jewish community during the Holocaust.
About 2,000 Jews from Yugoslavia fled to Albania during World War II, joining the tiny Jewish community there, said Avner Shalev, the chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.
"Everyone was saved, everyone," Shalev told The Associated Press. "No one was turned in by informants or collaborators."
Israel has honored some of the Albanians who saved Jews during the war, he said.
"The Albanians helped the Jews, I'm returning the favor," said Bala Bajram, a doctor at the field hospital whose parents were hidden by an Albanian family during the Holocaust.
Some Israelis, too young for memories, were moved only by the images.
Aviha Travis, 7, contributed his allowance to the family donation he and his father dropped off in Rabin Square.
"I saw on the television that people don't have blankets and they are living in tents and they are hungry," he explained.
Old Brown Coat Is 'Main
Reason That I Am Alive'
Prisoner's story: Kosovo Albanian tells how he and others were tormented, robbed, denied
food by Serbs.
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI, Times Staff Writer
KUKES, Albania--Like hundreds of thousands of his fellow Kosovo Albanians, Bashkim Millaku
was forced at gunpoint to leave his home and his country by Serbian troops last week. On
his way, the 36-year-old father of two was caught in a roundup of 400 men, held prisoner
for three days and two nights, tormented mentally and physically, robbed and denied food
and water. He was used as a human shield. By the time Millaku reached Albania on Saturday
night, he was in shock. "We did not hope to be alive again," he recounted.
Serbian authorities have claimed that the ethnic Albanians fled Kosovo because they feared
NATO bomb attacks. But the experiences related by Millaku and other refugees arriving in
Albania tell a different and far more sinister tale. His story may shed light on possible
war crimes committed by Serbian forces in recent days. What follows is his first detailed
account of an ordeal in which, he says, an old brown coat saved his life.
* The trouble began in Millaku's hometown, Glina, in northern Kosovo. It is a community of
6,000 people, more than 80% of them ethnic Albanian. He had been teaching basic
electronics and computers until he landed a job earlier this year as a guard for the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which was involved in peace
monitoring in Kosovo until it pulled out in late March. "Conditions were very bad
before that, but then they got worse," said Millaku, sitting on an air mattress in a
tent in northern Albania where he and eight family members have been living since Sunday.
Three days after the monitors left, the Serbs began a military offensive and shelled four
villages near Glina, sending displaced people streaming into the town. Serbian police
trashed or burned shops owned by ethnic Albanians. "The other Serb shops were kept
open, but only for Serbs," Millaku said. "They did not allow Albanians." At
this time, Millaku and his family--his wife, Mirdita, 26, and their daughters, Dafina, 3,
and Medina, 10 months--became virtual prisoners in their own house, he said. "We
could not go outside--everywhere there were police and security forces. . . . You could be
killed or massacred." One of his neighbors was wounded just looking out the window,
Millaku said. Houses on the edge of town were emptied and set on fire, and Serbs moved in
tanks and heavy guns. "We were waiting for them to come for us," said Millaku, a
rangy man with light brown hair. To prepare, he took an old sack and cut two holes in it
as a carrier for Medina.
* The police came Tuesday, March 30. Five of them knocked on the door of the Millaku
house, strode in and took away their passports and identification cards. They were given
five minutes to take whatever they wanted. When Millaku and his family left the house with
their luggage--accompanied by five of his wife's relatives--they found out that they
weren't allowed to drive their car. The police ordered them to walk to the center of
Glina. "There, we saw many of our Serb neighbors looking from windows, laughing at
us, even clapping," Millaku said. "They were mostly women and children because
the men had gone into the Serbian [paramilitary] forces." There, Millaku and his
family were crammed "like sardines" into a truck that was labeled
"Humanitarian Aid" in Serbian.
* The truck took them for a mile and then dumped them on the road. After walking for hours
in the direction of Albania, the refugees were diverted by nearby Serbian shelling to a
mountain village called Kraalan, where they were to remain pinned down for the next two
nights. "We slept in an unfinished building . . . on the cement. There were no
blankets. Everything was dusty," he recalled. After the second night, Serbian forces
started targeting Kraalan itself. Panicked refugees retreated to a schoolyard. Many young
men, fearing that they would be massacred, took off overland up the mountains. The rest of
the refugees and villagers wanted to surrender. They tied white bedsheets to their
tractors, Millaku said.
* The Serbian troops rolled into the village and lined up on both sides of the road.
"They had tanks, armored cars and other weapons, but we did not dare even to look at
them," Millaku said. There was a variety of uniforms: army, police, armed civilians,
men in masks. The refugees were ordered to walk between the lines of troops. Millaku was
carrying Medina on his chest in his makeshift infant carrier and had Dafina on his back.
But a Serbian soldier told him roughly to put them down. Dafina cried and clung to his
legs. She refused to let go. But at this point the Serbs were separating all the men,
about 400, from the women, beating them with rifles and kicking them. Millaku himself was
kicked and told Dafina to go to her mother, he said. "She was crying, of
course," he said. "The families were hysterical. Everyone was crying." The
men were marched into a field and told to sit on the ground, eyes cast down and arms
folded on their heads. They were ordered to take off their shirts and coats. Despite their
efforts to remain in the village, the women and children were pushed away by the troops,
who chased after them with a tank. "I heard the voice of my daughter crying out,
calling me," Millaku said. But, trapped in the field, he could do nothing. "It
was getting dark and starting to rain, and the wind was blowing." The men sat with
their arms above their heads for four hours, Millaku said, and some of them were beaten.
They were threatened as well. "They had lined us up in four lines, and they brought a
tank there and said they would run over us," Millaku said. "I heard some
soldiers saying they needed a mass grave." Around midnight, all the coats and shirts
were brought back in a heap in front of the captives. Two men at a time were allowed to go
to the pile and take two items each--in the dark they could not see well enough to pick
out their own. Some men ended with clothes too large for them and some too small. Millaku
made a lucky choice. It was a beaten-up brown coat, unfashionable but practical, lined
with sheepskin. It was two sizes too big, and in it he looked older than his 36 years.
Later he would say: "I think this is the main reason that I am alive now." The
night was cold and sleepless, but the second day as a captive was worse. The Serbian
forces were firing their tanks at a hill on the other side of the valley, where Kosovo
Liberation Army guerrillas were dug in. The KLA was shooting back. The return-fire bullets
were whistling among the men. During this time, Millaku said, two of the ethnic Albanians
were wounded. "This lasted all day. We were begging them, 'Please let us go.' But
they did not allow us. And they did not give us food or let us drink water for two days
and two nights." The Serbs would offer only one loaf of bread for the 400 men.
"They were laughing, just to see what we might do," Millaku said. "But we
shared." During the day, the Serbs demanded the captives' remaining money from their
pants. The cash that had been in their shirts and coats had already been stolen. One of
the Serbs told a spokesman for the prisoners: "The game is not over yet. We're just
getting started." During the second night, a military truck appeared, and the Serbs
culled the oldest and sickest of the prisoners and took them away. They would later turn
up safely at the Albanian border. "The night was very, very cold--icy. They did not
allow us even to light a fire," Millaku said. "This was the coldest night I have
ever experienced." In the morning, the captives were begging for bread, he said. Some
of the men said they had food in their tractors, still parked nearby. "We said,
'Please just let us take some food.' But instead they burned the tractors." Shaking
his head, he said, "They burned our bread in front of us when we were starving."
On Saturday, the third morning of their captivity, a Serbian major appeared. He stood
before the prisoners and railed about NATO. "He told us: 'You can see that NATO is
very dangerous. . . . Now you can see that NATO is very dangerous for you and for us,'
" Millaku said. But that was untrue, Millaku said. "We knew what NATO was doing.
We knew that NATO was not bombing the Kosovar Albanians. We couldn't wait for NATO to come
and bomb them. But there, we could not speak." While the major was talking, some
Serbian soldiers behind the prisoners began to walk among them and pick out the young men.
Then the whole group of captives was made to walk between two lines of Serbian soldiers.
"They picked out people they wanted," Millaku said. "They would say, 'You,
you, not you,' and pull somebody out." This is where he felt fortunate. "When we
were passing, I was in this old coat and also I was stiff and walking like an old man. My
legs were very tired, and I could not walk well. So it was good luck for me." Those
being freed were sent walking down the road. But they left 90 young men behind. As they
crested a hill out of sight, they heard automatic machine-gun fire that lasted for about
10 minutes behind them, Millaku said. Millaku voice choked when he talked about the
missing men, but he said he is not convinced that they were executed. It is possible that
the gunfire was just to frighten them, he said, because the Serbs had often played such
games.
* On the road south, Millaku's thoughts turned to his family. On the pavement, there were
spots of blood. There was also an ominous-looking wagon covered in plastic and driven by
men with yellow doctor's masks. Millaku surmised that they were collecting bodies. But he
also found a more welcome sign. His wife had left a trail of photographs and articles of
clothing strewn on bushes on the way so that he'd be able to find them. Nevertheless,
Millaku was distraught. "Every step I took, I was expecting to find the bodies of my
family." His wife had been thinking the same thing about him. Their daughter Dafina
was crying constantly, saying, "Oh, they are going to kill my father," recalled
Millaku's wife, Mirdita. "And I was saying to her, 'Your father will come,' even
though I didn't believe it." They all found each other Saturday night when Millaku
climbed up to the border crossing into Albania. "I couldn't stop crying for one
hour," he recalled. And in a tent here, Dafina was still clutching his leg.
Copyright Los Angeles Times
Kosovars trapped in 'concentration
camp' say Macedonians are worse than Serbs
By Patrick Bishop
Televised plea raises £6.4m in two days
THE Macedonian authorities are holding 2,000 refugees in a crowded hillside compound in
conditions closer to a prisoner of war camp than a centre for innocent deportees.
The inhabitants claimed yesterday that they were receiving only bread and milk, had
nowhere to wash and the minimal toilet facilities had broken down. There is no clinic in
the camp. Ominously for the refugees, work was under way to build an ablutions block and a
sewage link, raising fears that the camp may turn into a permanent fixture.
The biggest nightmare for the fleeing ethnic Albanians is that they could be stranded for
the duration in camps that turn into the Balkan equivalent of the miserable settlements
found in the Gaza Strip.
Yesterday armed police and soldiers prevented journalists from entering the camp, a
wired-in compound about 100 yards square overlooking the ethnic Albanian village of
Radusa, close to the Kosovo border. But we were able to talk to inmates pressed against
the fence. "They only give us bread and milk twice a day and they stop us from going
out," said Qefsere Abdullahu, 15, who is on her own after being separated from her
parents. "The Macedonians are not helping us at all."
The refugees are sleeping in tents erected a few feet from each other, with up to 12
people in each. Many have been cut adrift from their families in the great exodus. No
attempt had been made to start the reunification process and the only aid agency presence
was a van from the Islamic relief organisation El Hilal. Later in the morning a lorry
bearing food and water arrived from the United Nations refugee agency.
A line of heavily-equipped police shooed away villagers trying to communicate with the
refugees behind the wire. On Wednesday night two men, two women and two children crawled
under the fence but were caught by the guards. The women and children were returned to the
camp and the men taken away, the refugees said.
The inmates have been there for up to four days, having been brought by bus from the
border at Blace. All said no one had asked them where they would like to go or told them
their destination. "They drove through the gates, opened the doors and told us to get
out," said Adnan Muharremi, 21, from Pristina. "Then they closed the gates and
we were no longer allowed out."
Several refugees said the police had taken away some of the extra clothes and food they
had managed to carry with them. "They are treating us like prisoners of war, not like
refugees," said Bujari, 23, from Pristina. "We thought they were better but they
appear to be worse than the Serbs. I don't know why they want to crush us. We have never
done them any harm."
A woman named Mevljude collapsed on the ground, pleading with police to allow her to meet
her husband. She was among hundreds of desperate men and women clinging to the wire,
shouting to police and a handful of journalists for help in finding their loved ones.
"I have a five-month-old baby in the hospital, I need my husband," Mevljude, 26,
said between sobs. "We were separated at Blace. I know he is here. I must find
him." "I need to find my baby," shouted Arifi Salja, 40. "It's been
days since we saw her."
Etem Ramadani, a civil servant from the Macedonian social affairs ministry, tried in vain
to placate the distressed refugees and said he felt helpless. "The biggest problem is
that they want to get out to look for their families," said Mr Ramadani.
Accommodation built by German troops in Neprostino, near the northern town of Tetovo,
contrasted sharply with Radusa. Police tape was all that held the refugees in, and a
Macedonian-run registration centre at the gate had started to take a note of people's
names.
An air of efficiency permeated the computer-run field hospital, tents were equipped with
heaters and a well dug by German soldiers provided abundant water.
Prishtina Resident Speaks With
ABCNEWS
ABCNEWS.com April 8 — The streets of Kosovo’s capital are nearly deserted. Those
who do go out may be beaten. Police are living in residential apartments. An ethnic
Albanian who stayed in Pristina described the situation to ABCNEWS’ Mike Lee by
telephone. Here is an edited transcript:
Give me a description of what is going on in Pristina? The situation is, as you know, very
tense. People are not going out. The water is on. Electricity is on until 8 in the
evening. You have all kinds of movements of VJ [military] and police around town. As I go
on my balcony I see people getting beaten by the police. Two or three times I saw that
because I live in the part of the city where you can see almost the whole city.
The military police HQ has been destroyed, is that correct? Yeah the the ministry of
internal police … is destroyed. There are shootings every night around the city now
where the VJ are located. …
Police in Apartments The police live in other people’s apartments? Apartments that
were left by refugees that were abandoned and the police go in there because they have no
other place to live. I mean it’s totally chaos.
Has the bombing had any substantial effect on the ability of the police to operate? The
Serb police? I don’t think the bombing made any substantial effect on the ability to
operate. Any policeman is able to kill people with a machine gun.
Has the bombing seriously affected the ability of Serb forces to fight the KLA
[guerrillas] or to go after these Albanian villages and destroy them? It certainly did
because now the forces of the Serb VJ are much more afraid of the bombing.
So they have been pushed back in some areas? Yeah, they are pushed back and they are much
more kind of they hide all over the place.
The Serb forces are hiding? They have no chance to use their weapons because if they
exposed their weapons to the airstrikes of NATO they will get destroyed immediately.
On The Streets What about the situation on the streets in Pristina. Are the Serb police
still on the streets of Pristina, and if so to what degree are they in control? The Serb
police is all over. They have the control total control of the city.
How are the police treating people? At night they have no movement because there are no
civilians and they have nothing to move. But at daylight they are brutal, very, very
brutal they beat all over everybody. They beat everybody they found in the street. They
don’t care if it is a girl or a boy or who it is.
Tell me about Pristina, how much is destroyed, what has happened to that city? Pristina is
destroyed. Pristina army and police are destroyed, 80 percent maybe 90. The buildings they
are destroyed by NATO airstrikes. But the civilian stores and Albanian markets they are
destroyed 100 percent by Serbian police and Yugoslav army.
How do you live? We have neighboring Serbs. We have no problem with the people here with
whom we live — the Serbians. They are very good and they help us a lot. I am not able
to go out and buy food, for example for my family, but Serbs can go they go and buy for
us.
Your Serb neighbors help you out — they don’t tell police where to find you? No,
no of course not. We get along real good with each other. It is the Serbian government
that has problems with us.
Refugees Return Describe the scene of people returning to Pristina. I saw it day before
yesterday. It was a big convoy… a non-stop convoy. Maybe 2,000 — 3,000 vehicles.
They had no problem. They were moving very slowly. Nobody stopped them, but I heard from
friends that turned back they had orders from the Yugoslav army and the police to go back
in the city.
What has happened to all of these people turned back from the border? Some of them are
returned to their homes. And some of them when they returned they see the police in their
houses so they go to their neighbors or their family or relatives or something
Do a lot of people feel they are trying to alter the demographics so when they have
elections it will change? I think that is obvious; everybody sees that. To everybody you
ask will tell you the same thing. Ethnic cleansing is their main goal. They have nothing
else. They just want Albanians out of here so they can have a bigger figure of Serbs.
What is the mood of Pristina? Mentally it is much better than in the beginning because
people are getting used to this war state. You see bombs falling and you see people
getting beat. We have no feeling now. You don’t care about nothing because you know
that is going to happen to you very soon. We expect that to happen but we still have hope
the European community will help save us from this situation.
Could NATO come through easily right now with ground troops? Can the Serbs defend Pristina
easily? I think it would be very easy because Serbian soldiers are much more afraid now
from NATO strikes. They are deserting and it would be very easy for them because they have
also support from KLA.
Is the Serb military pulling its heavy weapons out of Kosovo or are they hidden? I saw
them hiding tanks and different armored vehicles but I don’t want to mention the
places where they are hidden.
What about refugees shipped to Albania? Any thoughts on them? We are very very afraid for
the fate of those people because we heard that 10,000 are lost with no trace. And we are
much more worried about members of families getting separated from each other. That’s
the worst thing for members of a family getting separated in four different countries that
is a disaster for the European Community to let that happen.
Why did you stay in Pristina? Did you have to? No, I don’t have to stay but I want to
stay because I don’t want to go anywhere if nobody pushes me out and that hasn’t
happened yet so I am waiting.
The people returned from the border are they safe? Yeah, I think they are going to be
safe. Nobody getting killed in city of Pristina. People are getting brutally beaten by the
police. Killings haven’t started yet. If they do start I think it is not going to
finish until everybody gets dead.
Clinton Says Ethnic Cleansing Won't
Stand
WASHINGTON--President Clinton accused Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic today of
presenting an "illusion of partial compliance" with NATO demands in Kosovo by
declaring a cease-fire after violently chasing nearly 1 million ethnic Albanians from the
province. Clinton said the ethnic rout won't stand and NATO airstrikes will continue.
"He hopes we will accept as permanent the results of his ethnic cleansing. We will
not," Clinton said. "What we have from Mr. Milosevic is not even partial
compliance, but the illusion of partial compliance. We and our allies have properly
rejected it."
Tales of Terror and Loss: Will the
Serbs be Brought to Justice?
By ELIZABETH SHOGREN, Times Staff Writer
Times staff writer Elizabeth Shogren, during visits to the refugee camps in Macedonia,
spoke with several displaced Kosovars about their experiences of the past few weeks. Here
are their stories:
ERANDA RUDARI, 28, obstetrics nurse ' Where will I have my baby?'
BRAZDA, Macedonia--For a week, Eranda Rudari had been hearing that Serbian forces were
running people out of their homes in Kosovo. But she kept telling herself that they would
not get to her apartment building in Pristina, the capital. And, if they did, they would
not evict a woman who was 9 months pregnant, she figured. But then, a week ago, Serbian
troops wearing masks forced their way into her apartment and ordered her and her family to
leave or be killed. She told them she was about to have a baby. They didn't care. None of
her Serbian neighbors came to their assistance. "I had a lot of Serb friends, but now
I am very angry with them because no one came to help me," Rudari said, gesturing
excitedly and rising to her knees to display her outrage. She and her family drove to the
Yugoslav border with Macedonia, where they were stuck for a week in the mass of humanity
held up there by Yugoslav and Macedonian authorities. Rudari, her husband and two
children--ages 4 and 6--stayed in their car for four nights and then abandoned it and
waded into the muddy, reeking field on the Macedonian side.
She slept under a sheet of plastic one night and then in a makeshift tent of the same
material donated by international relief agencies. Nonetheless, she was muddy, wet and
cold, and she frantically worried about the health of her two young children and her
unborn baby. Tuesday afternoon, they boarded a bus and rode about 10 minutes to a camp
with thousands of tents. An hour and a half later, her family was still waiting for a
tent. She was feeling pains in her belly, but was afraid to go to the medical tent for
fear she would be separated from her family. "I hope no woman in my condition will
ever experience what I'm experiencing," said Rudari, as she knelt on a woolen blanket
on the ground, holding her swollen belly. Her most immediate worry was that, a week before
she left, she had an ultrasound test and was told the baby was in the breech position and
that she would have to have a caesarean section. "Where will I have my baby?"
she asked. The thought of having an operation in a medical tent made her shiver. Unlike
most other refugees from Kosovo--a southern province of Serbia, the dominant republic in
Yugoslavia--Rudari said she was eager to go abroad and never come back, even though she
had never left Yugoslavia before. "I don't want to go back to Pristina. There are so
many bad memories," she said. "I had a dream once of going abroad, but I did not
want to leave my parents behind. Now I won't think twice."
HAJRIZ RAIFI, 78, retired night watchman 'I'm very angry. I've been humiliated.'
TETOVO, Macedonia--Hajriz Raifi sat on a folding stool outside the military tent where he
had been brought the night before. He stared into the distance, trying to make sense of
what had happened to him over the last several days. A shriveled old man in poor health
who has a hard time walking, Raifi was evicted from his home by masked forces who taunted
and ridiculed him. He was forced onto a bus that dumped him at the border with Macedonia.
There he spent two nights in the mud and rain, feeling his fragile body get sicker and
weaker. Then, he was loaded onto a truck and taken to a camp built by the German military.
The white stones of the camp reflected morning warmth, but Raifi still wore several woolen
layers of clothing on his body and a scarf around his head. "I'm very angry. I've
been humiliated. It's so stupid that I was forced to leave my house in my homeland to come
here and live in a camp," said Raifi, 78, as he sat outside a tent in the German-run
camp near Tetovo. He lived with his son's family in Pristina, and they had two cars and a
truck and everything they needed. "I don't want to stay here. I would leave tomorrow
for Kosovo if I could," he said.
HATIXNE IBRAHIMI, 43, laboratory technician 'I don't care about anything I left behind. I
only care about my kids.' SKOPJE, Macedonia--Hatixne Ibrahimi was at work in her
laboratory in the village of Ferizaj on March 27 when Serbian forces told her she had to
leave immediately or be killed. They did not even let her go to find her five children.
She waited two days in line at the border with Macedonia, then crossed, not knowing what
had happened to them. "I didn't believe I would find them alive because they were
separated from me," she said, her eyes filling with tears at the memory. "All I
did was cry all the time. I couldn't even eat." The children had come separately with
their father in a jeep over the mountains. The family was reunited by El Hilal, a local
charity run by Albanian Macedonians. The family arrived in Macedonia before the country
decided not to accept any more refugees, so, instead of languishing in the mud and
eventually going to a tent city, they were welcomed into the home of a stranger, who like
many other Albanian Macedonians was ready to give them a roof over their heads for as long
as they needed it. The seven of them sleep in one room, but they are grateful for what
they have. Nonetheless, the hassles, frustrations and agonies of being a refugee are
great.
Ibrahimi and her family worry about the fates of other close relatives. The children, who
range in age from 4 to 17, are extremely rattled by all they've been through. "They
are very scared, they don't sleep at night, and they cry all the time," Ibrahimi
said. She worries that she and her family will not be able to support themselves in
Macedonia. "I have worked 22 years analyzing blood, but no one will hire me here
because I have no documents, no proof that I'm a professional," she said. The
Macedonian government, concerned about its own unemployment problem, does not permit
refugees to work. Ibrahimi said she does not give a thought to the possessions she left
behind. "I don't care about anything I left behind. I only care about my kids--and
they are with me," said Ibrahimi, who stood outside a photo store where the whole
clan was getting pictures taken for identification cards for the Macedonian authorities.
Ibrahimi wants desperately to return to Kosovo, but not the same Kosovo she left behind.
Like many other refugees, she has had enough of sharing Kosovo with the Serbs and wants
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to make sure all Serbs are flushed out. The Serbs
made up less than 10% of the province's population before the forced exodus of recent
weeks. One Serb in Ibrahimi's laboratory killed an Albanian colleague, even though the two
had worked together for 20 years, she said. "I want to go back to Kosovo as soon as
possible, but I want the Serbs out," she said, her eyes squinting in anger.
Copyright Los Angeles Times
In Macedonia, Refugees Reject
Ticket to Cuba
By ELIZABETH SHOGREN, Times Staff Writer
NEPROSTENO, Macedonia--While thousands of refugees who camped out here were eager to sign
up for airlifts to Germany, no one seemed willing Thursday to take the United States up on
its offer for a ticket to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they would stay in a U.S.-operated
refugee camp. "Even if they promise to bring us back to Kosovo as soon as it is safe,
I would not go to Cuba," said Bukurie Tahiri, 36, an Albanian-language teacher from
Vucitrn, Kosovo. "I might go to Germany because I have cousins there, but I still
have relatives in Kosovo, so I would not go to Cuba because it is so far from them."
Tahiri was staying at a refugee camp operated by the German military--a step above most of
the other refugee camps in Macedonia. Most of the refugees appear to have a psychological
barrier against going to Cuba.
They fear that they would not easily be able to return home once there, even though
Washington has pledged to return them to Kosovo as soon as it is safe. On Thursday, with
more aid reaching the refugees and few volunteering to go to Guantanamo, U.S. officials
acknowledged that it is uncertain whether any will actually be housed there. For many
refugees, the first priority is getting back to Kosovo as quickly as possible. But after
being forced out of their homes and then being sheltered at tent camps in Macedonia that
they are not allowed to leave, many refugees feel they no longer have any say over their
own lives. "If they made us go there, we would go," said Miradije Shala, 38, an
office manager from the small town of Klina. "But not unless they made us." The
U.S. government has made it clear that refugees will only be brought to Cuba voluntarily.
Most Macedonian Albanian leaders oppose the idea of airlifting refugees to foreign
countries because they fear that such an effort will turn Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic's "ethnic cleansing" campaign into a fait accompli.
"Albanians are upset about Albanian Kosovars being transported to other countries
because this would complete the exodus," said Mithad Emini, the leader of the Party
for Democratic Prosperity, an Albanian opposition party in Macedonia. "Maybe it's
good for the families to go abroad for a while, but it's bad for Kosovo." But another
leader of the Albanian community in Tetovo--a predominantly Albanian city in the western
part of Macedonia--said there might be a secret benefit to sending refugees to Guantanamo
Bay instead of to other countries. "It's better for them not to go anywhere,"
said Xhafer Xhaferi, a physician who is president of the Tetovo chapter of El Hilal, the
Albanian Macedonian charity that has placed 40,000 to 60,000 refugees from Kosovo with
families. "But maybe sending them to Cuba--rather than Germany, where they'll feel
more comfortable--will guarantee that the refugees come back to Kosovo."
A massive cemetery in Kotline of
the highland of Kaçanik has been found.
Kaçanik, April 8th (Kosovapress) In the village of Kotline in the highland of Kaçanik a
massive cemetery is been found, this is confirmed by the sources of KLA. There are doubts
that 26 albanians already considered disappeared, are buried there. The killing and
burying of the victims is thought to have happened in the middle of march, when the
paramilitary serbian forces have entered in the village, have divided the men and guys
from their families and than have expedited them in unknown direction. There are doubts
that the massive cemetery could be mined, therefore it needs relevant experts before being
investigated.
Serbian fuel reserves are exhausted
Gllogoc, April 8th (Kosovapress) Serbian military-police is looking for more fuel in the
occupied albanian places in Drenica. Many times has happened that tractors and cars are
taken by force from albanian people in order to use them for personal purposes, and after
the fuel is finished they burn them. This shows that enemy fuel reserves are becoming less
day by day.
The serbian infantry forces retreated from
Herticë and Batllavë
Podjevë, April 8th (Kosovapress) In the Operative Zone of Llapi, even today attacks from
the serbian military-police forces have taken place; today was the case of Katunishtë.
Also, the serbian infantry forces, today have tried to enter in the villages of Herticë
and Batllavë, but have been forced to retreat by the KLA forces. The situation of the
civil population is very grave. The international humanitarian organizations are being
appealed to bring urgent aids in food and medicines.
A serbian military-police vehicle
was destroyed near Malisheva
Malisheva, April 9th (Kosovapress) Serbian terrorist forces are placed for a long time in
the village of Arllat, ward of Bytyqve, commune of Malisheva. A big quantity of armament
is suspected to be placed there. According to the informations of KLA observers, serbian
forces which are placed nearby the graves of this village, are opening holes and canals
where they are hiding their heavy armament. Yesterday in the village of Tërpezë of
Malisheva, a serbian military pinzguaer has fallen in mine field and it is completely
destroyed.There are no reports about eventual victims.
Armament being hidden in Ferizaj and the
surrounding areas
Ferizaj, April 9th (Kosovapress) Yesterday and today, from the village Prelez in the
direction of the road Prishtinë – Shkup, serbian military is opening a big canal
using bulldozers.A large quantity of ammunition is placed in the mosque of the Preleza
village. There are 12 tanks placed in the both sides of the road. There other tanks also
in the yards of albanian houses and they are comouflaged with straw and bedclothes.
Meanwhile, in the city of Ferizaj, serbian police is placed in the Somatological ambulance
of Dr Ekremit and in the coffee club „Amazona" nearby the ambulance, down stairs
in the halls of the cinema a big ammunition is hidden too.In the central ambulance of
Ferizaj, serbian sharp shooter are positioned while in the down stairs there is ammunition
placed too. There sharp shooter even in albanian houses, while around the ambulance,
serbian terrorists have dig up trenches. As revenge for the undergone losses in
Fidanishtë nearby Ferizaj, serbian forces last night from 18:00o`clock in the evening are
shooting with grenades in the villages of Raqak – Petrovë and Mollopolc.
New Serbian reinforcements in the region of
Kaçanik
Kaçanik, April 9th (Kosovapress) Today, there new serbian reinforcements coming in
direction of Kçanikut. From the reconciliation field straight to Pear, there are 12
tanks, praga and armoured serbian vehicles being placed there. They are directed to
Kaçaniku and villages around.