A cold shower for the small team of journalists and drivers of the trucks of the Yugoslav Red Cross, who drove humanitarian assistance to 7,000 Gorans in the Dragas Municipality, started exactly on that improvised "border crossing" in Merdare, where British soldiers "requested" that we leave the bus, and then collected out documents. While a marry cocker-spaniel sniffed around looking for drugs and explosives, and drivers covered number plates with masking tape, queues of passenger and freight vehicles that were arriving with escorts of armored vehicles flying flags of numerous nations formed on both sides of the crossing.
Images flickered through the window of the bus. In distance we could see the smoke rising form the stack of the thermal-electric power plant in Obilic, demolished military barracks in Pristina, Albanian flags flying on almost every building fenced off by high walls, gaudy road-side memorials for fallen KLA members. In Stimlje we encountered an almost surreal scene. I had the impression that almost all the residents of the town were standing or crouching in the main street, as if they were waiting for something. Swedish soldiers opened path through the crowded narrow main town street, while the locals silently stared at us with literally open mouths.
After the exit from Stimlje, the convoy continued at much higher speed on the curvy narrow road. Suddenly, the armored convoy stopped in the middle of some sort of pass, about thirty kilometers before Vraniste, our final destination. Swedish captain Henri Moran informed us that the command of the German KFOR battalion, in whose zone of responsibility we were, had without any explanation ordered us to stop and go back. We stayed at the spot for hours, it seemed, and then soldiers showed us to turn buses around and head back. After several kilometers we got a new order, to go back towards Vraniste. Then we stopped again and waited for hours.
The convoy escort, a Red Cross representative, Aleksandar Sokolovski, said that we were an object of negotiations, and the president of the Association of Independent Trade Unions, Dragoljub Stosic, who initiated the collection of humanitarian assistance for the members of his trade union in the factory "Drateks", as well as the other population, worth about $25,000, said that hungry people were waiting for us.
Finally, Captain Moran informed us that the command of the German battalion had requested that we return to the starting point and again request permission. In the nearby Stimlje mobile phones again established connection. First one in the pocket of Dragoljub Stosic rang. A trade union member from Dragas called. He said that Albanians had gone from house to house and "advised" Gorans that they did not need Serb assistance. That made everything much clearer.
Swedes escorted us to Lipljan. We passed through the Finish KFOR base and then entered the yard of a factory, where the bus with journalists remained surrounded by soldiers. While we were waiting Stosic told us that recently the president of the trade union local in "Drateks", Sultan Aslani, had come to his office and requested assistance for 7,000 inhabitants in 18 villages of the Dragas municipality, almost half of them children.
"Our idea was to make sure that as many residents as possible receive assistance, so that we approached the Minister for Social Matters, Ms. Gordana Matkovic, who helped us establish contact with the Yugoslav Red Cross and obtain clothing, footwear, food and toiletries, and also ensure some sort of continuity in supplies, as the workers in 'Drateks' haven't been working since 1997. Aslani told me that the last delivery of humanitarian assistance arrived a year ago, and that they had had to collect $150 for his trip to Belgrade," Stosic related while we were waiting.
Finally, we continued. We entered the Serb part of Lipljan, and then again stopped in the nearby village of Suvi Do, where workers in a warehouse, under the watchful eye of Finish officers, unloaded a part of humanitarian assistance originally intended for Gorans. Our attempt to strike a conversation with local Serbs were cut short by disapproving looks of Swedish soldiers who politely asked us to return to the bus.
On the way to Pristina we stopped in Caglavica, where the trucks were unloaded. As we later found out from the representative of the Red Cross and Dragoljub Stosic, none of the Serb officials in Kosovo knew what was going on nor did their intervention help.
It was already dark when the Swedish soldiers escorted us to Merdare and turned us over to our Police. In our mouths we only had bitter aftertaste of an unfinished job, as well as relief when masking tape was stripped off a Belgrade number plate.