Ex-judge Hoti escaped assassins at last minute
Crisis in Kosovo
By Jeff McDonald
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
June 27, 1999
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. |
