May 7, 1999
KOSOVO
For Soldier and Civilian Both, Tension Rules
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By STEVEN ERLANGER
RIZREN, Yugoslavia -- An
ethnic Albanian woman pulled her
child's arm so hard to get away when
a stranger said hello Thursday that one
could almost hear the tendons pop.
Two elderly Albanians, chatting
quietly on a street corner, scurried
off when a stranger approached
them to talk, heading in opposite
directions.
A middle-aged Albanian, walking
his bicycle up one of Prizren's ancient cobbled streets, past the shut-down stores and broken windows,
stopped politely. But when asked how
his life was now, his eyes darted
convulsively as he pushed his bike
away.
This charming medieval city in
deep southwestern Kosovo, where a
15th-century church hugs a steep hill
just above a 14th-century mosque, is
rank with tension and fear.
Although a few Serbs stopped
briefly to talk, the anxiety of the
people on the street is matched only
by the edginess of the many soldiers
and militarized policemen who fill
the town, and who stopped a reporter
to check his papers nearly every
time they noticed a notebook or a
camera.
There are many more soldiers and
policemen visible here than in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, or in Pec, and a
few plainclothesmen with automatic
rifles are also walking the streets.
There is much to make everyone
nervous.
In the last week, as NATO intensified its air strikes in the area, as
many as 30,000 of Prizren's Albanians, United Nations officials said,
were pushed and panicked into mass
flight in the few days following a
bomb blast in a poor residential area.
At least 5 civilians were killed and 23
wounded, Serbian news media reported.
The exodus of ethnic Albanians
brought new charges of organized
ethnic purging from NATO officials
and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. A spokesman for the United Nations agency,
Ray Wilkinson, said in Albania on
Thursday, "To me it seems this is the
final cleansing of Prizren."
The city itself is echoing, but hardly empty, and many Albanians, however afraid they may be, remain
here, rarely going outside. As they
walk, they watch warily for anyone
who approaches, and when they pass
a soldier, they drop their eyes.
It is not entirely clear what happened last week in Prizren, a mixed
city of some 180,000 people before
this war began, including some
11,000 Serbs, 130,000 ethnic Albanians, 10,000 Turks, 20,000 Muslim
Slavs and about 4,000 Gypsies.
The bombing early Friday of the
residential area known as Ciganska
mala, or Gypsy neighborhood, did
frighten many, who had been holed
up in the houses and apartments for
days, some residents said Thursday.
But the bombing also served as a
trigger, it seems, for an effort by the
Serbian authorities -- though they
deny it -- to arrest certain Albanians
and order others to leave, setting off
a wider panic that became a form of
mass hysteria.
People rushed for the bus stations,
even if no Serb came to their door. In
two days some 30,000 ethnic Albanians from Prizren crossed the border
into Albania. That was on Friday and
Saturday, when much of the world
was preoccupied with the Rev. Jesse
L. Jackson's mission to Belgrade to
free three captured American soldiers, when residential areas of Belgrade were bombed and when a passenger bus was hit by a missile just
north of Pristina, killing 41 people.
Others took buses to Pristina or to
Podgorica, in Montenegro. Refugees
arriving in Albania said many people
had been warned to leave by the
Serbs, who charged them a dollar for
the 10-mile bus ride to the border.
Rexep Hoti, a 60-year-old who
agreed to speak Thursday, said people
were terrified by both the bombing
and the Serbs. "They told some people to move, but not in my neighborhood," he said. "Nobody came to tell
us to leave, but some were threatened."
"Some left because they were told,
some because they were scared, and
some of them saw their neighbors
leaving, so they left too," he added.
"Some from the villages were sure
they would be killed, and they made
a fear among the ones in the town."
He stopped and said with wonderment, "They just walked out of their
big houses and left them."
In the early days of the NATO air
attacks, there was little bomb damage in Prizren. "But when the bombs
landed on the houses, a lot of people
also became afraid," Hoti said.
"I'm afraid, too.
"I stay at home and came out to
buy some bread," he said. "I'm not
walking around much."
Hoti is a widower, with a son in
Germany. Living alone, he said, he
had less reason to worry.
Hoti's comments about panic
reflected those of the United Nation
spokesman, Wilkinson. "We
have started to hear that panic is
setting in," he said then. "A lot of
these people are saying, 'My God,
everyone is leaving. I've got to
leave.' "
The war came comparatively late
to Prizren. But since NATO expanded its air campaign in Kosovo last
week, Prizren and its surroundings
have been bombed almost daily.
The Car Dusan Silni barracks and
warehouses have been hit regularly,
as well as transmitter towers and
other targets, and 10 more civilians
have been killed since Friday, the
Yugoslav authorities say. Those people who would talk today said there
was an increasing fear of bombs.
There was a continuous rumble of
NATO warplanes overhead, invisible
through the heavy cloud cover, and
the intermittent sound of detonations
seemingly far away, echoing off
Prizren's embracing hills.
Lubica Stankovic, a 48-year-old
Serbian woman, walking quickly
with a friend, said: "Everyone is
afraid of the bombs and the sirens.
When they were just shooting the
barracks, we were not that scared,
but now when they hit the other
things and kill innocent people, it's
terrifying."
Asked about the Albanians, Mrs.
Stankovic said: "We're afraid,
they're afraid. A lot of people left
because of fear, including Serbs."
Many Albanians have left in the last
week, she said, "but many are still
here, and my Albanian neighbors ask
me when this madness will stop.
When they are bombing, we are all
together."
Aleksandar Milosavljevic, 24,
said: "The planes come every day,
and people are afraid, especially after the bombs hit Ciganska mala. In
my street, everyone stays in their
houses."
But Thursday, he said, he and his sister, Marijana, 22, decided to reopen their small sportswear store, with its
stocks of Levi's jeans, polo shirts and
Byblos sunglasses.
There is very little else that is open
in Prizren, he said, since most of the
commerce was done by Albanians,
and their stores are closed. "At least
there's electricity today," he said.
Asked what he missed most, he
said, "The night life."
Later Thursday, the road from Prizren
back to Pristina, some 50 miles, was
almost entirely empty.
Along the way, the former Kosovo
Liberation Army strongholds of Dule
and Suva Reka are practically depopulated, with most shops and
houses burned. The drivers of the
few visible vehicles race through the
villages at high speed, still afraid of
snipers. The roadsides are dotted
with dead animals, and lined with
overgrown fields and hidden anti-aircraft and artillery pieces.
Overhead, like a drill in the brain,
there is the steady rumble of NATO
aircraft circling for targets.
