rrufff, do you derive pleasure by making these accusations and false conclusions. I find attempts to undermine charitable deeds of compassion to be sick.
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Crisis in Kosovo
Ex-judge Hoti escaped assassins at last minute
Jeff McDonald
STAFF WRITER
For the record | On the basis of information from a source, a June 27 story about Kosovar refugee Hasan Hoti incorrectly identified his english teacher as Ruth Trimble. The teacher was Jane Halsema. The Union-Tribune regrets the error. (990707. A-2)
27-Jun-1999 Sunday
Hasan Hoti
Impossible, to be sure, but Hasan Hoti has somehow been able to close his mind to pervasive thoughts of his homeland -- the view from his bedroom, his downtown nightclub, the familiar chair in his Kosovo law office.
For moments at a time, at least.
He tries to concentrate on his new life as a refugee. Like so many others,he landed in the United States with next to nothing, save hope and plans for a brighter future.
The former judge and defense attorney for the Kosovo Liberation Army took a
far different path to desperation from most of the ethnic Albanians who fled the terror of Serbian armies this past spring.
And the well-educated and once-wealthy litigator has bounced back far sooner than most.
"It's hard to leave everything that you created -- all the wealth and everything else, your place in society," said Hoti, who made it to San Diego only through blind luck and the goodness of strangers.
"But it's easier for me," he said, speaking through an interpreter. "Most of my colleagues lost their lives. I barely got away."
The day before NATO bombs began dropping on Yugoslavia, Hoti said, he got word that he and his law partners were on a Serbian hit list. He escaped by dark, learning only later that his friends were killed, along with their
sons.
Serb assassins camped for a week outside his abandoned house before giving up and going away, Hoti had heard. But he and his family had already crossed into Macedonia.
They endured an overcrowded refugee camp before migrating to the United States, all the while filled with worry. Are their relatives safe? Was their house looted? Will they ever get home?
But unlike many of the refugees who ran from the soldiers of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Hoti had money, an education, a thriving business and influential friends.
And good fortune has smiled on him since.
Home fires
At Stankovec I, the largest of the Macedonian refugee camps, he met Anthony Elgindy, a stock trader who took it upon himself to travel from San Diego to the Balkans and offer help to any victims he could find.
Inside a month, the Hotis -- Hasan, 52, his wife, Drita, 41, and their 16-year-old daughter, Valentina -- had landed in the United States and begun making their way to Elgindy's home in the Olivenhain section of
Encinitas.
"The future president of Kosovo may be sitting right here," Elgindy boasts in his living room.
The Hotis' 21-year-old son, Valton, or "Tony," who has attended American schools for the past five years, joined them here to translate and help
settle his parents and sister in an apartment rented by Elgindy.
Although their resettlement here has been easier than for most of their compatriots, their worries about what's happening at home persist.
The concerns intruded into their last dinner with their hosts in Encinitas, when the Hotis were far more focused on a phone call they would make at midnight than moving into a rented apartment in Clairemont the next day.
Drita Hoti had gotten word that one of her younger brothers made it out of Kosovo and was somewhere in Macedonia. She had a phone number and instructions to call at 9 a.m. Balkans time to speak to him for the first
time in weeks.
All through dinner, Hasan peeked at his watch between bites and polite conversation.
"We've gotten everything ready in the apartment," he was saying. "We've still got some work to do on the car, but it's very nice."
One of Elgindy's neighbors offered them an aging Oldsmobile van that Tony will use to chauffeur his mom and dad until they get properly licensed.
Learning to converse
Days later, the relief on Drita Hoti's face was plain to see.
She was radiating good cheer as she took a break from her nightly English classes in Linda Vista. She had gotten through to her brother; he was safe and planning to join them in San Diego.
Inside the classroom, Hasan Hoti was following the lead of teacher Ruth Trimble. He repeats questions like, "What is your telephone number?" and, "Could you repeat that, please?"
By now, Hasan and Drita have picked up enough English to converse, albeit in bits and pieces.
Even better, the news from home was good.
The Serbs had agreed to withdraw from Kosovo and NATO peacekeepers are now patrolling the streets they know so well. Hasan is confident that peace will prevail and he will return home soon.
Their two-bedroom apartment has taken comfortable shape. A nephew and his family made it safely to San Diego and are staying with a host family close by the Hotis.
They have found stores where they can buy Arabic coffee. They watch CNN regularly and complain about the lack of Kosovo coverage since the bombing
stopped.
Enough is going well for them to practice their English with new friends.
"Why (is there) sugar in bread?" Hasan asked.
"Hamburgers are nice, when you're busy," said Drita, who is already one English class ahead of her husband. "But not for lunch."
They have been busy since they moved.
They applied for Medi-Cal and food stamps and other assistance programs they will need until they get work. They have learned their way around some of the city.
Perhaps even more telling was this rite of passage: For the first time, Hasan Hoti drove the family van to and from his English class.
Earlier that day, President Clinton visited the same Macedonian camp where Hasan, Drita and their daughter spent four weeks. The sweetness of the occasion was not lost on Hasan.
"This month for us has been very strong," he said before heading back into class. "We now go in our second month. Step by step."
Some good news
It was a hot morning in the living room at the Hoti household, and Valentina was stretching into her one-piece for a swim. Drita fixed Arabic coffee for her company while Hasan smoked Marlboros and talked politics.
Tony was translating, but Hasan understood many of the questions.
"It is not going to be hard to rebuild (Kosovo)," Hasan predicted. "The hardest part will be to change the mentality. We were so used to living the
way we had been living."
NATO peacekeepers will usher in a new wave of democracy, and Kosovo will be self-ruled for the first time in years, he said. Kosovo Liberation Army soldiers will form the basis of a local police force.
"Our only goal was to reach freedom," Hasan said, spinning coffee around his ceramic mug, "not to seek revenge."
Already, the Hotis were talking about making their way home. Hasan Hoti knows many of the would-be political leaders from his years as a judge and
defense attorney.
He will leave within months if needed to help build a government. But if he has time, he will stay as long as a year to master English, so he can read
the American law books he plans to draw upon when mapping a new political system.
"I am like a student," he said, without benefit of a translator.
The scholar in Hasan Hoti is obviously re-emerging. He has spent hours
writing an outline for a book he wants to call "Kosovo: The Last Apartheid
of the Millenium." Using anecdotes from his own files, he plans to trace
the discrimination that was legal against Albanians under Milosevic.
"It will be interesting for people in America to understand what's going on
over there," he said, "because they just don't know."
Incredible news arrived just that morning, only hours after phone service
was restored to Pristina. Hasan had dialed his old number, and heard the
familiar voice of his brother come on the line.
His house was safe. Serb troops had not been able to force their way past a
thick, locked security door.
Hoti and his family have a life and a home to reclaim
============================================
Kosovar's life now a mix of frustration, hope
Jeff McDonald
STAFF WRITER
01-Aug-1999 Sunday
Hasan Hoti
Like many of his countrymen scraping together a new life back in Kosovo,
Hasan Hoti is living through difficult days.
He can't speak the language used almost everywhere around him. Money is
tight. He is a professional without a profession. And, thousands of miles
from home, he can do little but wait and hope.
"When I used to wake up in the morning, I'd jump up and be ready to go to
work," said Hoti, a reluctant San Diego transplant who in March escaped the
armies of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic by just hours.
"Then I realized that, OK, I'm not going anywhere," said Hoti, 52. "It's
really hard, but we passed that phase. We're in phase two now. Basically,
you learn how to cope."
Frustration over the daunting work of rebuilding his homeland drips from
the voice of this former judge and Kosovo Liberation Army defense attorney.
His hands swirl with the passion of his words as he speaks. His son Tony,
21 and a five-year resident of the United States, can barely keep up
translating from Albanian to English.
"It's going much slower than I expected," Hoti said of the reconstruction
effort under way in Kosovo. "But that's understandable because a lot of
things are happening at the same time."
Fresh into the third month of his life in San Diego, the
lawyer-turned-refugee is no longer convinced he will find his way home
anytime soon.
Gone are Hoti's plans for a quick return to Pristina, the capital of
Kosovo, where he owned a thriving law practice and one of the most popular
nightclubs in the city. Gone are plans to help write a new constitution for
liberated Kosovo -- for the time being, at least.
Instead, the optimism and sheer joy that flowed in the wake of withdrawing
Serbian troops has yielded to the hard realities of drawing up a framework
for peace and crafting a government that can survive the pressure of so
many influences.
To be a part of that, Hoti is convinced, he must learn English. And soon.
"I never believed I could be so dependent on my son," he said. "All things
can happen."
Hoti has been taking English classes three hours a day, four days a week,
almost since he arrived in San Diego in late May through the efforts of
Encinitas stock trader Anthony Elgindy.
He watches television with an eye on the news, especially when the American
president turns up on screen.
"I can understand President Clinton the best," Hoti said smiling, his son
again translating. "Somehow, he speaks very clearly. But I guess he gets
paid to do that."
This year, Hoti plans to meet regularly with a group of San Diego attorneys
who he hopes will mentor him in understanding the U.S. government and the
tenets of democracy. "If I can learn the law, I can understand them first,
then apply them in Kosovo."
Hoti worked as a judge in Pristina, he said, until Milosevic fired most
ethnic Albanians and replaced them with Serbs. After that, Hoti worked as a
defense attorney, representing many alleged members of the KLA.
"I need for them to help me learn and understand the laws here," he said of
his American counterparts, "and see in practice how the court system works
in America."
o o o
Like so many others, Hoti and his family -- his wife, Drita, 41, and their
16-year-old daughter, Valentina, -- were driven from home March 23, the day
before NATO bombs began dropping on Yugoslavia.
They made it to Macedonia a day before a Serbian hit squad showed up
outside his home. The gunmen camped for six days before moving on. Hoti's
law partner was shot dead.
Within weeks, the Hotis made their way to Southern California, where they
met their son, who at the time was enrolled at a private Los Angeles-area
university.
Elgindy helped the Hotis find an apartment in Clairemont, where they have
lived since early June.
Valentina just finished summer school classes at nearby Madison High
School. "I go back in September," the teen-ager said with a grin and no
help from her older brother.
With his strong ties to the KLA and other ethnic Albanians working to build
a new government in Kosovo, Hoti felt certain he would be summoned home
within months of the arrival in June of NATO peacekeepers.
But as the enormity of the job has unfolded -- and theft, violence and acts
of revenge broke out across the region -- Hoti has adjusted that schedule.
He now expects to stay for years.
"Now I can think more rationally, I can think more logically about the
situation," he said. "Everybody is going to be speaking English, so I have
to learn it before I go."
His days consist of studying, scouring the Internet for news from home and
working on a book, a series of anecdotes drawn from his own files detailing
courtroom injustices perpetrated by Serbs against his people.
Twice a week, Iliria, an Albanian-language newspaper based in New York, is
delivered to the door.
Drita Hoti shops, cooks and keeps house, while Tony Hoti works full time as
a translator for Catholic Charities. On hot afternoons, Valentina swims in
the pool in the courtyard of their apartment building.
Life got easier a few weeks ago when the family picked up another car. They
were given use of an older Honda sedan to go along with the Dodge van that
so often overheats.
Meanwhile, a nephew and his wife and children, who had been staying with a
local host family after they fled Kosovo, recently moved into a nearby
apartment.
o o o
Even before international aid reaches Kosovo with money to rebuild streets,
homes and public buildings, ethnic Albanians will make their way home, Hoti
predicted.
Three hundred Kosovars left from New York late last month.
And more and more refugees living in the United States and other countries
will return to their homeland once an independent government is set up,
Hoti said.
"Albanian people are very modest," he said. "They do not need much luxury.
They can go back and live under circumstances that Americans cannot even
imagine.
"But hopefully, we'll get the help that has been promised."
Land mines and other ordnance -- much of it scattered by NATO planes during
the protracted bombing campaign -- continue to be a major problem for
returning refugees, however.
"It was planned that after the Serbs pulled out, they would have a special
team come and remove them," Hoti said. "That team never showed up."
Hoti shies away from discussing the vengeance and violence at the hands of
the KLA and other ethnic Albanians that has continued since Serb forces
withdrew from Kosovo.
Ethnic Albanians are believed responsible for numerous beatings, lootings
and an average of one killing a day. Serb-owned houses have been set ablaze
as a matter of routine. Last month, 14 unarmed Serbian wheat farmers were
shot to death in a field outside the central village of Gracko.
"The two most important things keeping the government from rebuilding are
two very influential movements -- the democratic party and the radicals,"
Hoti said. "But everybody's looking for independence."
Still, Hoti says he is confident the carnage and chaos will cease, and law
and order will return to his homeland long before he does. And he is not
entirely comfortable with the idea.
"Even if I live 300 years, I cannot compensate the fact that I cannot
witness the beginning of freedom," he said over a cup of espresso.
"Compare this to a newborn and you can see the child at 2 or 3 years, but
you can never see the first step or hear their first words," he said. "When
we go there, the child will be walking."
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