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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
As international support for Kosovar independence wanes, hatred still seethes between Albanians and Serbs. And the U.N. oversees their division.
Oct 23, 2000 | The road out of Pristina to the Serbian monument at the Field of Blackbirds, where the Serbs lost the mythic Battle of Kosovo in 1389, is littered with the carcasses of dogs. When Kosovar Albanians fled Serbian destruction last year, they abandoned their pets. Now the dogs roam the streets of Pristina, scavenging alone and in small packs, eerily indifferent to humans -- and, sometimes, to cars.
Albanians despise this monument. It's where, in 1989, Slobodan Milosevic gave his infamous "never again" speech initiating Serbia's crackdown on Kosovo's autonomy.
For such a reviled object, it is surprisingly unimposing. A brown obelisk maybe 30 feet high, the monument resembles a stone wall turned on end. Though nothing seems to grow on the farmland it overlooks, blackbirds still fly overhead, huge clouds of them filling the sky at dusk, blocking out the sun. To the Serbs, who lost the Battle of Kosovo, the birds represent the souls of slain Serbian warriors. Kosovars point to the two-headed black eagle that adorns the Albanian flag and claim the blackbirds as their own.
Serbs and Albanians live divided in Kosovo, separated by centuries-old hatreds and more recent bloodshed. Standing awkwardly between the two, compelled to prop up the very barriers of separation, are the bureaucrats and soldiers of the United Nations. More than a year after the NATO bombing, the world has turned its attention elsewhere. George W. Bush has even called for the return of the 7,000 American troops in the region. The U.N., meanwhile, is struggling to keep the peace in a desolate part of the world where violence has never been conquered.
A British journalist standing at the monument asks if I can translate the Serbian inscription on its front. With Serbia having erupted in protest against Milosevic, he's writing a feature about the place where the Serbian leader launched his career. I can't read Serbian, so he asks the two machine-gun-toting soldiers from the United Arab Emirates who guard the monument. In hesitant English they explain that they used to have a translation, but the previous day, somebody stole it.
I'm not surprised. Since NATO's bombing halted Milosevic's terror campaign, Kosovo's Albanians have become the aggressor here, and language is one of their weapons. Serbian names for towns have been scratched out on virtually every road sign. New businesses proclaim themselves part of Kosova, using the Albanian word (pronounced Kuh-SO-va) for the territory. A few months ago, a Bulgarian soldier made the mistake of speaking Serbian to a group of Albanians, and they beat him to death.
The next day, I visit the Serbian Orthodox monastery in the Serbian enclave of Gracanica, about 15 minutes outside Pristina. To enter Gracanica one has to pass through a checkpoint manned by NATO's Kosovo Force, or KFOR. A Swedish soldier carrying a machine gun checks cars. Behind him is a sandbag fort big enough to house a couple of soldiers, with peepholes to see and shoot out of. A tank looms over the fort.
Maybe half a mile down the pothole-strewn road, another guard stands outside the monastery's front wall, and another tank is parked in its driveway. Inside the modest, graceful building, a nun, her face furrowed with age, peers over the shoulder of a young monk who is surfing the Internet. (The monks and nuns used to live apart, but now they share the monastery, for safety.)
Another Serb, a local politician, is talking hopefully about the Yugoslav election. He has family in Serbia, and he thinks they will be safe. "It will be OK," he says. "The police, they are with us now."
Days later, he was proved right. But both Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo have mixed feelings about the downfall of Milosevic. Most Serbs here supported Milosevic because they thought he stood up for them. The Albanians, of course, hate Milosevic, though his departure now worries them. Newly elected President Vojislav Kostunica takes an equally hard line against Kosovar independence and has done nothing about the hundreds of Albanians imprisoned in Serbian jails. U.N. officials say that while one path toward healing would be a Serbian apology, they don't expect one to come from Kostunica.
