Only when we go to visit central Serbia do we realize how we are living here

By Jelena Tasic

Destroyed and demolished: Old cemetery

Orahovac, Belgrade - Orahovac is located in the Podrimlje region, between Djakovica to the north and Prizren to the south. Like neighboring Velika Hoca it is renowned for its vineyards and cellars. One gets to Orahovac and Velika Hoca, which live like communicating vessels, by a convoy escorted by UNMIK police which leaves from Zvecan every Tuesday and Friday. Every second Saturday residents of Orahovac also have an outing to Gracanica, which they popularly call "the shopping tour".

All the convoys follow a route which was considered unsafe before and for some time after the arrival of international forces, and therefore partially closed to civilian traffic and many claim to police, too. The most dangerous is Malisevo, which in the past few years has undergone transformation from a neglected village into a bustling town with decorated store windows and always crowded cafes in the center. The fashion hit of the summer in the boutiques of this village, as well as in all others like it in Metohija, are glamorous ball gowns. Many shops of all kinds are called either "Teuta" or "Clinton". The stoning of Serbian convoys in Malisevo is practically considered a natural phenomenon, and consequently none of the domestic passengers gets terribly excited over them, even though all incidents are regularly reported to the Committee for Security of the Orahovac municipality.

New history Kosovo Albanians are investing a lot in cemeteries full of plastic flowers, memorial complexes and luxurious restaurants with memorial tombs. "They are building monuments in the busiest locations in Kosovo and Metohija so that foreigners will see them. They are doing it to give us a guilty conscience and to constantly remind the international community that they have to behave like they are behaving because of what they went through under Milosevic. The popular thing now throughout Kosovo and Metohija is to organize school field trips where the teachers have the task of standing in front of each and every monument and instructing the students. They are turning the members of the KLA into heroes, poisoning their youth and fanning hatred for the Serbs," said Dejan Baljosevic.

For those coming from somewhere else, unaccustomed to caution, the line of demarcation between the Serbian and Albanian parts of Orahovac draws like a magnet. Short and silent expeditions to the "other" side of the invisible border discernable by the torched houses have some chance of taking place without problems, especially if the streets are empty and the adventurer is a new face in town. Orahovac Serbs needing to go to the lower part of town on business usually go by car, escorted by the Kosovo and UNMIK police, as in the case of employees in the Municipal Court and the one Serbian official who works in the Municipality, Ljubisa Djuricic, the seconded deputy mayor.

Hot line With an appropriate escort, a combination of various circumstances and a lot of luck Serbs may have the fortune of passing the "hot line" Srbica - Glogovac - Malisevo in one try and undetected. This is something the Serbian police could only dream about while international forces accompanying Serbs avoid it as a rule. Safety on the roads is a relative thing and applies mainly to major routes even though there are really no rules. Albanians refuse to give priority to the convoys and escorts are frequently have to eject those who have cut into the line of Serbian vehicles. The route from Zvecan to Orahovac by way of Pristina leads through garbage dumps and weeds. From Orahovac to Prizren neglected vineyards stretch as far as the eye can see. There is a lot of construction going on but most of the houses are empty or used to store hay, serving mostly to give a false idea of Albanian population numbers.

When you enter the Municipal building in the company of the seconded deputy mayor of Orahovac, there are no dilemmas from which side you are coming. There are no unpleasant scenes but one need not expect more than a universal "hello" from officials in the Orahovac municipality. Ljubisa Djuricic explains that he had to work quite hard to get the guaranteed bilingual signs in the Municipal building.

Until the arrival of the "internationals", as they call the foreigners here, both Serbs and Albanians spoke a common "Orahovac dialect" not readily understandable to non-natives. Now the Albanians use Albanian exclusively and the Serbs aspire to the literary standard of their mother tongue with a strongly discernable Orahovac influence.

Readers of "Danas" have missed out on an interview with Esad Haxhia, the mayor of Orahovac, whose sudden and brief vacation overlapped with the request of the writer of this article for an interview. Trapati Yogendra, the UNMIK administrator for Orahovac, explained with Indian diplomacy that "he doesn't give interviews and has always rejected similar requests by Albanian reporters in the past so he can't very well make an exception for the Belgrade media".

Although a short walk down the main street does not seem dangerous and in "safe" stores elderly Albanians will accept a conversation in Serbian, the simmering tension suggests that all take care not to create problems for either themselves or others.

"I only see the lower part of town at night. When I see the lights, I remember that Orahovac has another part. During the day I know it no longer exists. It has been erased from our minds. You see a wall that doesn't exist. You know you can't go anywhere because you have to wait for a certain time and place in order to leave town. It's an inhumane system but we are incredibly adaptable. Only when we go to visit central Serbia do we realize how we are living here," said Igor Saric, one of the editors of Orahovac's Radio Fokus.

Until you get used to the local conditions, life on the line of demarcation begins shortly after four in the morning with the call of the muezzin to morning prayer from the minaret of the Orahovac mosque. There are four mosques. One is new and three are from before the war. One of the latter bears the markings of a clash from 1998. After the muezzin come the calls of the first roosters on the hill. Although neglected, upper Orahovac is a valuable environment no one is concerned about. The remains of old family houses, the customs and manners of its residents attest to a genuine urban culture.

The house of priest Baljosevic is the biggest and most beautiful in the Serbian part of town. From the window of the highest floor there is a breathtaking view of the surroundings. A NATO flag flutters atop the Sahat Kula (Clock Tower), the symbol of Orahovac, as a compromise imposed by foreigners.

"For the Albanians the Sahat Kula, whose keys have traditionally kept and which has been maintained by Serbian families, is a symbol of how they conquered the city and pushed the Serbs toward the old nucleus. Since the Sahat Kula can be seen from every part of the lower town, they wanted to show the lower town how far they had gotten so they hoisted an Albanian flag, which was promptly knocked down by the wind. They thought that the Serbs had removed the flag so they gathered in great number to place it by force on all four corners of the room. KFOR found a compromise solution. In order to prevent arguments, they put the NATO flag," explained Dejan Baljosevic, the deputy chief of the UNMIK local community office for Velika Hoca and upper Orahovac.

According to him, no one has the keys to the Sahat Kula any longer. The doors are open anyone can enter there if they can manage to get through the sea of debris and remnants of barbed wire. For a time KFOR blocked the doors with sandbags and placed shock bombs all around to prevent the Albanians from entering.

The dispute regarding the Fortress has also expanded to the official symbols. On all official documents Albanians use an emblem including the Sahat Kula, grapes, a grapevine leaf and the letter "R" for the Albanian name of "Rahovec". The Serbs asked that the letter "O" be added but this was not accepted. Although UNMIK has not signed the document on symbols, Orahovac Serbs and Albanians are still engaged in a silent "war" of logos on official documents.

Ljubisa Djuricic said that last year the Municipality received a letter from the Bureau of Statistics which proposed the standardization of settlement names in the Orahovac region prior to the census announced for 2004. Enclosed were proposed name changes which, according to Djuricic, affected 50 percent of present names with a clear Slavic and Serbian origin.

Among the most drastic examples were Bela Crkva (White Church in Serbian), which the commission proposed to rename Fortese, Ratkovac - Drinas, Sanovac - Thanisht, Pusto Selo - Shkamaze... The Serbs appealed to former UNMIK chief Harri Holkeri on the matter, reminding him that neither municipalities nor the Kosovo provisional assembly have the legal authority to change the names of settlements, villages and city quarters.

One of the big problems of the Serbian part of town is the cemetery. "They refuse to give us a new tract, and the old cemetery is destroyed and demolished. Even if we could use it, locals are afraid that Albanians would dig up freshly buried bodies of deceased Serbs. Since 1999 Serbs have been buried in the courtyard of the church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God, where we have opened a new tract," said Dejan Baljosevic.

Recently the fortified wall below the improvised tract on the main street collapsed and the new cemetery had to be urgently protected. Many saw this as a sign that "even dead Serbs are trying to get out of Orahovac".

Even though the Serbs have asked for a new cemetery tract on the periphery of the upper part of town, OSCE has announced a campaign to fix up the old cemetery in the Albanian part of town. According to Ljubisa Djuricic, the old cemetery is to be fenced in, a gate will be installed, and all toppled gravestones not broken will be returned to their rightful places.

To be continued