Dateline ACT 

Kosovo Crisis 24/99

Krajina Serbs leave Kosovo

Pristina, Kosovo, July 5th 1999

In front of the Kosovski Bozur Hotel in Pristina, an old lorry is being packed with personal belongings.

Some 200 Krajina Serbs has lived in this hotel since 1995. Back then they fled when the Croatian army invaded Krajina and defeated the Serbian army. The authorities in Belgrade sent some of the Krajina refugees to Kosovo, with promises of jobs and education.

Anita Joka, 20, and Ratko Navajdic, 24, are busy packing the old lorry and while they do so they talk non-stop.

"We came four years ago. Now it is war again for the second time. Many Kosovo Albanians were in Macedonia and Albania for the last three months. Now they have come back with the full support of the international community. But nobody seems interested in our fate. Not back when we were in the Krajina, and not now that we're in Kosovo."

"The world must listen to us. We have no life left in Kosovo. The Kosovar Albanians cold-shoulder the Serbs and take over in every sector. A few days before an Albanian visited us and said we should leave because he wants to open a restaurant in the hotel. You see how people are leaving", says Ratko Navajdic.

He is fed up with running away from violence and ethnic tensions again. He hopes that his father, already in Belgrade, can arrange an Australian visa for the whole family.

"We have no future in the Balkans. Nobody wants us."

A Canadian KFOR commander, doing his regular round, can only confirm developments. "We try to give them as much protection as possible, but that doesn’t stop them from fleeing."

Two days later

This was the situation in the Bozur Hotel on Tuesday, 29 June. Two days later I visit the place again and run into the same Canadian KFOR commander.

"Have you heard the news," he asks, "The hotel is empty. They have all gone and an Albanian has furnished a restaurant on the ground floor."

I walk over to the hotel. Only a few older women have stayed behind. They are sorting the linen on the balconies. I wave to them. Maybe they could not afford the transport or were too old to travel hundreds of kilometers in the old lorry. There are no signs of Anita and Ratko.

This is Kosovo, two weeks after the peace accord and the withdrawal of the Serbian forces. Some Albanians are putting pressure on the remaining Serbian population in Kosovo. Thousands have left already. Between ten and fifty thousands are still in Kosovo, but nobody knows the exact figures.

In the Mitrovica region tensions are very high. A river divides the city into two parts. On the northern bank, Kosovo Serbs are the majority. In the southern part of the city, the Kosovo Albanians are the majority.

The streets in the northern part of Mitrovica are empty and the atmosphere is very tense. French KFOR soldiers control the bridge and keep both ethnic groups apart. Serbs marched through the streets on Thursday protesting against the KFOR arrest of a Serbian man who was beaten up by an Albanian. Albanians were on the streets the day after in a counter-demonstration. KFOR had to escort four Albanian women who were prevented from crossing the bridge by the Serbs.

The Serbian Orthodox Church is also a target for attacks by Albanians. The churches in Suva Reka and Drenovac were set on fire and demolished. Some of the Orthodox monasteries are protected by KFOR troops. In front of the gates of the Decani monastery, two Italian tanks have taken up their positions.

As emotions may eventually start cooling down and as a United Nations administration begins to function life may improve for the Kosovo Serbs. For the Krajina Serbs in the Kosovski hotel this will any way be too late.

Reported by Jaap t'Gilde, ACT Press Officer

 

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