In Klokot, locals say, since the arrival of international peacekeeping forces eight Serbs have been killed, 36 have been wounded and nine houses have been mined. Before the war the village had approximately 1,500 residents. Following the 1999 exodus, last year approximately 700 men, women and children returned. Today Klokot has approximately 1,200 residents.
"We live as if we were in some kind of cage one kilometer long. The village still has a curfew but it appears that it is in effect only for Serbs. How else can we explain the fact that, despite the curfew from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., houses are still being mined?" asks Zivojin Stojkovic.
"The most difficult thing for us to accept is when the American officer says that we behaved badly toward the Albanians and that is why they are now mining our houses. The Americans even said that we might be mining them ourselves!" says Krsta Stojkovic. He continues: "During the time of the bombing, we helped and protected the Albanians in the neighboring villages. We delivered fuel and flour to them but today they do not come to visit us. Some, it is true, say that they don't dare because of their compatriots. During the time of the most Serb kidnappings, in summer of 1999, I would go to Albanian villages to make electrical repairs," says Stojkovic. Zivorad Stanojevic adds that even during the time of the bombing, state pensions were being delivered to local Albanians in Vitina.
"There were instances where we lent German marks to certain Albanians during the time of the bombing. They are the same ones who are appropriating Serb apartments in Vitina today," says Stanojevic.
"With the Americans we are on good terms and bad. In the past they have protected us while we worked in the fields. Recently they searched our houses. Approximately 40 rifles were confiscated including those for which the owners had licenses," interjects Krsta Stojkovic.
In Klokot there are a quite a few young people. The St. Sava Elementary School is attended by 250 students while secondary school students attend classes in Vrbovac. Sasa Stojiljkovic says that they had a radio station which played music in the village which was shut down a week later by OSCE from Pristina with the explanation that they had no [broadcasting] license. The president of the Klokot Youth Organization, Zvezdan Simic, emphasizes that young people in Klokot live as if they were in a concentration camp.
"Nothing has been done for young people. After the curfew we have to go home. The phones are not working, electrical power is intermittent. All of us living in the village believe that we should pay our electricity bills but first we need to secure elementary human rights: freedom of movement, freedom to work... Simply, we cannot pay utilities if we are unemployed and living on assistance," he says.
"Are we producing anything? We have sown some fields but the crops are for our own use. Even if there was extra product we have no place to sell it. Why would the Albanians want our product when truckloads of goods were sent to them from Serbia? Our police mistreats us at the checkpoints into Kosovo while all sorts of things were taken across [the administrative border] for the Albanians," claims Milan Stojiljkovic.
Commenting on the possibility of future cooperation with the Albanians, Srdjan Makic says that relationships with them are based strictly on interest. "They transport merchandise here at night so that no one sees them and that is all. Sincere, personal relations like we had before no longer exist," says Srdjan.
At the exit from Klokot there are two more mined houses. In the direction of Vrbovac lies farming land but there are few sown fields. The Orthodox church in Vrbovac is fenced in by barbed wire. It is protected by American KFOR troops. In this Serb village, too, the store owned by Dragan Vukic, a refugee from the neighboring destroyed village of Podgorac, is the only place where remaining Serbs can gather.
"Since the arrival of the peacekeeping troops, two locals from the village have been killed and seven have been kidnapped. During 1999 Albanian extremists shelled the village more than 100 times," says Stanislav Kojicic. Vrbovac, too, has a curfew in effect. Before the arrival of peacekeeping troops, the village had a population of 860; now there are approximately 600 people, among them several refugee families from neighboring Podgorac.
"The Albanians leave us alone now. Despite that, we do not leave the village. We live as if we were on a reservation. We cannot go to nearby Vitina. The phones do not work; we do not receive any newspapers except occasionally five or so copies of 'Blic'," says Apostol Kojic.
On the road to Vitina there is a little more traffic. On the entrance to the town there is a mobile ramp made of barbed wire while in front of the Orthodox church of St. Paraskeva [Sv. Petka] there is a huge observation tower put up by American KFOR. There is a bunker in the churchyard. On the entrance to Svetosavska Street, where the remaining Serbs live, another barbed wire ramp has been placed.
"In Vitina before the war there were approximately 3,300 Serbs. Today about 400 of us remain and we all live in the two streets near the Orthodox church on the right side of the Binacka Morava River. We do not go into town," says Milenko Mirkovic as we sit in the store owned by Dragan Tajic, encircled by barbed wire, located immediately across from the church.
"How long have we had all this barbed wire? Since last year when a bomb was tossed into the store next door owned by Sinisa Denkic. Fortunately, no one was killed or injured. Leave the barbed wire and the Americans where they are, it is more peaceful," concludes Dragan Tajic.
Jaksic further stated that during the previous year the number of instances of spontaneous miscarriage increased by 100 percent in comparison with 1998, to 98. Also, four newborns were born with physical deformities of the head as a result of uranium radiation, emphasized Jaksic. Another result of uranium radiation, he said, was that of the 400 births which occurred at this hospital in 2000, 17 percent were premature births.
"The majority of patients are between the ages of 30 and 50 years; among them was a large number of reservists who were in the locations where NATO projectiles with depleted uranium exploded. A total of 70 NATO bombs, some of them with depleted uranium, were dropped just on the communications relay on Mokra Gora near Zubin Potok in northern Kosovo. Last year there were four cases of cancer of the respiratory organs in the villages closest to this relay as a direct result of the fact that depleted uranium was used in this area. The thoracic department of the Kosovska Mitrovica Hospital had the greatest number of patients who died of cancer last year," said Dr. Marko Jaksic.
People, what on earth is going on here!? Are Sloba and Seselj the only people in this country who are seriously involved in politics 365 days per year? The battle for slightly more respectable conditions for counting the vote and the battle for relatively more tolerable media conditions during the election campaign are one thing. That is the battle against the Bengal Tiger and his cannibals. And just what are we supposed to call the friction, sparks, loss of precious time, tripping up, mud-slinging, vanities, underground war, psychological battle of the opposition champions amongst themselves? What is the right term? Treason? Cowardice? Settling of accounts? Trade? If this week passes in statements of generalist genre not binding for everyone - then things are clear! The Serb opposition leaders don't want to topple Milosevic, they don't want to accept responsibility for the fate of the nation and the state, they don't want to do final battle with the regime!? They only want to position themselves through mutual elbowing as close to the manger as possible and to be fattened for slaughter. To risk the fate of those whom the owner of the livestock farm allows into the manger to stop them from impaling each other on their horns and playing dirty tricks on each other in the barn. Perhaps I am being too metaphorical so let me say something openly: the opposition parties will pay more, in October, as a result of the anger of the people for everything they did not do when they could have, than Milosevic will pay for everything he has done to us every chance he got. Is it possible that Sloba can continue to play with them like this, as if they were children? He takes the university; the opposition organizes lukewarm protests. It's busy with more important consultations in Budapest. He takes the media; the opposition fails to comprehend that this is a death sentence to their own parties. So it fails to support the journalists because they didn't like many of them anyway. He arrests children and beats up demonstrators while the gurus of antislobism sip their whiskeys on the patio. The Bengal Tiger then appears on the scene with a sarcastic election offer which goes something like - it's all of you against me - if you can get together; knowing that there is no theoretical, let alone practical, possibility that all of his opponents will bind themselves to a common fate.
Sloba can't stand the sight of the members of the Yugoslav United Left (JUL), with the exception of one of the female members from their ranks [his wife, Mira Markovic]; he has the worst possible opinion of the Grand Duke of Karlobag, Virovitica, Ogulin, Knin, Drvar, the Pec Patriarchate and the associate professor of the Faculty of Law in Pristina [Vojislav Seselj]. This doesn't stop him from being in coalition with them. It doesn't stop him from striking a deal with Seselj five days ago for the latter to run independently in the elections and to imitate the opposition just a little, disparaging the social program of the regime but not touching the Family. This doesn't stop him from personally trying to save the members of JUL from their suicidal intention of also running independently in the elections because they believe that they are the largest party - as Ivan Markovic and Goran Matic are trying to convince Mira. Even though the Milosevic I know must be severely tempted to let them do it and to show Her the true value of those around her.
If Vuk refuses to support the joint candidate of the opposition - and what if it's him? - then his own membership will punish him by abandoning him and approaching the larger opposition formation. Then the opposition should punish Vuk by excluding him from the coalition for local elections and letting him figure out what he is going to do next on his own. Vuk is not the traitor of the opposition - only the feebleminded can make that claim - but he is going along with the widespread view: if we can't get the credit for toppling Sloba, then Sloba can rule for a hundred years just so long as Kostunica and Djindjic and Avramovic don't get the credit either. It's as plain as day.
Sloba's calculation is apparent: Vuk will not go with the others; Milo thinks it is too early to cross swords with Sloba in Montenegro so he will not go, either, for now; the Albanians are out of the game; there are no media which could be used by the opposition during the campaign; Seselj will take - by running independently - ten to fifteen percent from them; Djindjic will not support, for example, Kostunica, with any degree of sincerity; voter abstinence will be enormous because mutual quarrels will make the elections even more repulsive to the undecided; the time for campaigning is short and that is in the best interests of the militarily disciplined recruits of the Slobists and the Radicals. I am already ahead in the final score, reckons Sloba, by at least fifty votes in the parliament; I've put the Serbian state authorities in charge of the local administration; now the Serbian state institutions have been put under jurisdiction of the Federation and that concentration further strengthens my Slobists even in the event that they should lose in local elections.
With this system in place and this situation among the opposition, foreign observers don't bother me at all, thinks Sloba, because with their help, I am resolving the issue of the legitimacy of the elections and thus remaining in Putin's embrace.
If they know how to read, the leaders of the opposition can find - once again - antibiotics for the serious illness of the Serbs. But before they do that, can they and will they first find medicine for themselves, for what cannot be cured with antibiotics but with beatings, electroshock and lobotomies? Do the hunters of the Tiger know how many days are left to September 24 and how many days there will be in the next five gloomy years?
In Orahovac both the elementary and secondary schools are open with a total of 130 students, and there are 76 children aged three to ten years enrolled in the child care facility.
"Members of German KFOR are trying to provide us with better security in Orahovac or with an escort to northern Kosovo. German KFOR has been kind toward our medical patients and frequently treats them in its own medical facility. Our biggest problem is getting information because we do not get any of the Belgrade papers nor can we receive any radio or television stations in the Serbian language," says pensioner Toma Vitosevic (75).
In Orahovac there are only two Serb stores that are poorly stocked while the hospital is staffed by one physician and one nurse. 14 Serbs are buried in the churchyard in the town center because their funerals could not be performed at the cemetery. The residents of Orahovac say that 18 months have passed since anyone from Belgrade has visited them.