May 19, 2006

KiM Info Newsletter 19-05-06

Reporter of "Glas" visits Serb enclaves in Metohija, which survive under the watchful eye of KFOR

On the other side of the administrative line after the Konculj crossing in Kosovsko Pomoravlje in the first ten kilometers for the most part one Serb village follows another. When one passes Cernica and Partes, it's a sign for Serbs that they are crossing into a high-risk area. Travel is at the highest possible speed dictated by the first jeep of the Kosovo Police Service in the escort. In most of Kosovo and Metohija in the direction of Mt. Sara and Srbica roads are so bad that speed limits are unnecessary.

Although the Serbs have been expelled, the Serbian language has survived, at least in the signs along the road. Just so that one knows that Ferizaj is, in fact, Urosevac, and Skenderaj - Srbica, even though the Albanians have not changed most names, merely adjusted them to their own pronunciation. It is unmistakably obvious when one enters a village where Serbs have survived. People in the street don't whisper among themselves or flash "the finger" when they see a Belgrade license plate, occasionally someone will even wave. And there are no new houses.

The Serb community in Orahovac, a small town in Metohija half way between Prizren and Pec, survived in the upper part of the town. Even before someone tells you that, you can see it for yourself by the fact that the names of the streets have not been changed. We continue to Velika Hoca. In the village center, in front of the Decani Winery - the cellar that processes the grape from the famous Hoca vineyards into the even more famous Decani wine. Father Marko, who runs the winery on behalf of Decani Monastery, says that the 20,000 bottles they produce annually does not get to the market. Most of it is sold to friends of the monastery.

One day at a time

Earlier the production was far greater. Until 1999 there were 120 hectares of vineyards in Velika Hoca while currently about 35 hectares are being cultivated. Everything else has been completely destroyed by the Albanian neighbors. Even if new vineyards were planted right now, it would take at least four years for them to be ready for harvesting. According to statistics, the security situation in this area is improving yearly. The last crime occurred in 2002, when Nebojsa Pavlovic and Mladjen Mantasevic were killed 700 meters above the village while cutting firewood. Since then no one goes out of the village. The perpetrators have not been found.

"I did not complete my military service, I've never held a job, like most young people I live one day at a time from humanitarian aid, which is also how I support my wife and children. It would be best if we could get jobs somewhere. We have a factory above the village but it has shut down," complains Ivica Nakalamic, who helps in the Decani Winery.

"The children understand in what kind of environment they are living," he says, "and we know we always have to have an eye on them." The environment: not a single Serbian cell phone operator has a signal in Velika Hoca, Belgrade television channels can be watched only by way of satellite antenna, one can go as far as Orahovac twice a week by organized convoy, and once in two weeks to Gracanica. The closest big towns are Prizren, 30 kilometers away, and Pec - 40 but Serbs are not welcome there. There is a lot of uncertainty, there are no new houses, in fact, as they say, "no one is doing as much as driving in a nail anymore".

In front of the UNMIK building in Decani so-called "demonstrations". Several dozen Albanians are carrying neatly written placards demanding that Italian KFOR troops guarding Decani Monastery withdraw. The response of the Albanian side to the recent agreement between UNMIK chief Soren Jessen-Petersen and Bishop Teodosije of Lipljan, abbot of Decani Monastery, and Hieromonk Sava Janjic that KFOR protection for Decani be extended. This protection is the only thing that makes it possible for this Serbian and Christian symbol in the south of Metohija to survive.

For the past seven years there have been no Serbs in the town of Decani, two kilometers distant from the monastery, nor in nearby Djakovica. The only sign of civilization there is to be seen in this part of Metohija is Decani Monastery but it attests to the glory and the power of another state, not that of the Albanians. It is most frequently visited by other Christian soldiers, generally members of Italian KFOR in whose sector the holy shrine is located. Many church pamphlets which can still be purchased in the monastery have been translated into Italian for them.

Between Decani and Pec there is just one little Serb community of about 1,000 souls left in Gorazdevac, a village where the local residents have had freedom of movement within a diameter of two kilometers for no less than seven years. The village where some of the Albanian neighbors are such heroes that two years ago they opened gunfire on [Serb] children as they were bathing in the Bistrica River. Pantelija Dakic and Ivan Jovovic were killed, Bogdan, Marko, Dragana and Djordje seriously wounded. The perpetrators were never found or brought to justice and since then "the number of incidents has decreased", i.e. no one dares go to the river anymore even in the worst heat.

"I don't know how to describe it, it's like a prison here. What can I do day in and day out, it's unbearably boring: I get up, I go to school, sometimes I play soccer. Going to the river is out of the question now. My cousin Bogdan Bukumiric was bathing in the river two years ago and he got seven bullets and barely stayed alive," says 18 year-old Veljko Stankovic.

Svetlana Dimic and her husband and three children live on the very border of Gorazdevac almost in the neighboring Albanian village. A year ago they were staying in a collective center in Kraljevo. They decided to come back to Gorazdevac, even though they haven't had a peaceful night since.

"We're seven kilometers from Pec but we don't dare go there even if we could. We're enclosed in this small space all day, you can cover the whole village in half an hour. Before people from the village used to work in Pec, in Istok, depending on their jobs, now they have nothing anywhere. We live on humanitarian aid and considering how that is distributed here, it would be better if they didn't sent that, either," said Svetlana bitterly. The Serbs somehow endured in Gorazdevac during seven long and difficult years. Their neighbors in the surrounding villages of Pocesce, Milovanac, Dobri Do, Vragovac, Krstovac, Babicevo, Oralija, Belo Polje... could not.

You can see that they believe in God

Mother Fevronija, abbess of the Pec Patriarchate, is of the same generation as Serbian Patriarch Pavle [aged 92], who spent much of his life as monk here on the banks of the Bistrica River. She seems fragile due to her years and physical construction but this impression disappears during the course of a conversation in the refectory of the Patriarchate, accompanied by coffee and the monastery's strong homemade brandy. When asked what the most difficult thing for her has been in recent years, Mother Fevronija replied:

"The Albanians would come and threaten us, saying that if we did not leave here we would have to chose whether to be slaughtered or to have our eyes dug out. They abused us, setting our hay on fire, trampling our gardens. But the hardest thing for me was when the people left from here. In just one day the courtyard of the Patriarchate was full of people who were fleeing, said Mother Fevronija.

Soldiers and officers from the Italian, German and other KFOR contingents are frequent visitors to the Pec Patriarchate. Mother Fevronija has nothing but words of praise for them. "You can see that they believe in God," she says. Commenting on [the efforts of] our negotiating team on Kosovo status, she says, "They must not give up, they must never allow this to become an Albanian state." When asked what she and the Patriarchate needs the most at this moment, Mother Fevronija says: "Just bring us back our Serbs, we need nothing more."

All that remains of my house is a photograph

Twenty kilometers from Pec in Istok municipality are Osojane, Saljinovica, Tucep and Kos, where the Serb community has retained five kilometers of room for freedom of movement. Osojane is a returnee village, about 30 families returned here as early as 2002 and every year a few others return to their native village.

Rados Tosic Primary school has about 60 pupils. Dusanka Radunovic, who teaches Serbian language, is herself a returnee of sorts. After leaving from Klina in 1999 she and her family went to Kraljevo, two years ago she came to Osojane and her family stayed in Kraljevo.

"We fled from Klina seven years ago. At first we did not want to sell our house and when the Albanians began blackmailing us, we did not want to give it away for a trifling sum. Last year my husband went and brought a photo of the house back with him and in February of this year the house was no longer there. My Albanian neighbor walled in the gate so I had to enter my own yard from the neighbor's. All I found there was a pile of rubble," said Dusanka.

By Sladjana Majdak

(Translated by sib on May 18, 2006)