June 25, 1999
THE BALKANS
Serb, Albanian keep friendship amid the madness
But no one feels safe under shaky NATO rule
By Olivia Ward
Toronto Star European Bureau
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia - ''Help me, help me,'' cried the neatly groomed
man in the crisp white shirt. ''They're after me. They told me I had
to leave my flat.''
Standing on the dimly lit steps of my 10th-floor walk-up apartment
overlooking the ruined storefronts of Pristina, I hardly knew what to
reply.
The frightened man, a Serb in his 30s, followed me to my door,
glancing over his shoulder.
Milan described his afternoon of fear, as unknown Albanian-speaking
marauders battered on his door, smashing the lock and brandishing
metal bars. Then they left, telling him they would return later.
In our own rented flat, my driver, a Macedonian, was cowering on the
couch staring wildly at the door as we entered.
''Somebody tried to break in while you were away,'' he said. ''They
were looking for Serbs. They broke one of the locks. We must get help
right away.''
My American colleague Marcia and I looked at each other. In the
chaotic neither-peace-nor-war state that is Kosovo today, help is in
short supply, and knowing where to find it is next to impossible.
''Let's go to NATO,'' we decided vaguely, hurrying off to the giant
sports complex where the Kosovo peacekeeping mission has its press
headquarters.
There, an indifferent British soldier answered the door with a clear
message: ''You want the military police, but their hours end at 5:30
p.m.,'' he said. ''Come back tomorrow.''
Tracking down one of the many NATO troops patrolling Pristina, we
received an equally disconcerting reply.
''You really need the Irish Guards,'' said a pleasant young soldier
parked outside a bombed-out Serbian police building. ''They're in
there. Just knock on the door.''
Ten minutes later, a cluster of armour-clad troops clambered out on to
the roof, rifles at the ready.
''What's the problem?'' they asked, none too cordially.
Our reply failed to impress.
''If that's all, there's nothing we can do for you,'' said one.
''We really aren't set up for policing action. We're just trying to
secure this building.''
And what if our Serb neighbour was the next assassination target?
After all, we pointed out, bodies of Serbs who had remained in Kosovo
have been piling up.
The trooper on the roof shrugged.
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Cars screeched past looted shops and cafes
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''We get calls like yours all the time,'' he said. ''All over the city
people are looting and burning, kidnapping and killing. We don't have
the resources to do anything about it.''
He didn't need to explain. Evidence was piling up all around, in the
rainswept, rapidly darkening street, where groups of men were rushing
by us carrying mattresses, television sets and kitchen goods.
Gunfire sputtered in the dimness and unmarked cars screeched up and
down the dilapidated streets, spattering mud on the empty, looted
shops and cafes that once made up a bustling downtown.
Earlier in the day a small bomb had gone off somewhere near the main
square. Another body had been found a block away, but whether Serb or
Albanian, we didn't yet know.
The night went by uneasily. Milan, our Serb neighbour, had withdrawn
to a place of greater safety. Sleepless, we listened throughout the
night as doors in our building were smashed, and ominous footsteps
echoed up and down the stairs.
This is how it must have felt for our landlord, Nobel, a young medical
student who refused to leave Pristina after the Serb storm troopers
flushed his building of Albanians.
Night after night he spent in hideouts, only daring to creep back home
when the jackboots receded down the street.
''The person who helped me was Milan,'' he told us in the morning.
''He's one of the bravest people I know.''
When mobilization of all adult male Serbs was declared in Kosovo, and
many were funnelled into vicious paramilitary units, Milan resisted.
A tall, slight civil servant in his early 30s, he had no training in
heroism. But appalled at the assault on his Albanian friends and
neighbours, he dodged the draft.
While some Serbs joined in the carnage, and some looked the other way,
Milan had quietly made a choice for his own humanity.
''We hid him, and he hid us,'' said Nobel, smiling. ''Now a bunch of
idiots want to do terrible things to him. They're just crazy from the
war.''
Who were these people? we asked.
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'They've come back here desperate'
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According to Serbs, Kosovo Liberation Army ''terrorists.'' According
to Albanians, outraged returning refugees taking justice into their
own hands in revenge for the murders and pillages in Kosovo.
''It's somewhere in between, I think,'' said Nobel. ''There are people
who are ignorant and violent. They've come back here desperate, with
nothing to lose. They only need an excuse. People like them exist on
both sides.''
Whatever the truth, nothing was being done to stop it by the tightly
stretched 19,000 NATO troops.
So Milan could only return to his apartment in daylight, as Nobel had
done only a couple of weeks before.
As he sat with us looking out on the deceptive quiet of another
unpredictable Kosovo morning - a Serb chatting with an Albanian friend
and two foreigners - we were an island of sanity in the spiralling
madness of a territory still at war with itself.
Then Milan stood up and embraced Nobel.
''Thank you for your friendship,'' he said quietly, without
bitterness. ''Now I can't stay here any longer. I must go to Serbia.''
Something had snapped in this country. On a level far below surface
violence, it was broken. There was no first aid for this, we knew. No
help was on the way. The future had dawned fierce and raw in Kosovo.
''Take the key to my flat,'' said Milan, handing the metal chain to
Nobel. ''I will try to return one day.''
He smiled at his friend for the last time.
''If I don't . . . now everything here belongs to you.''
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