HE WAS MURDERED BEFORE HE FOUND OUT THE FATE OF HIS SON

Nezavisne Novine, Banja Luka, Srpska, B-H, October 6 1999

A single death in the series of daily occurring deaths in Kosovo mostly does not grab anyone's attention apart from that of relatives and friends of a perished Serb. Unfortunately, such occurrences have become commonplace in the last three or four months. However, some cases reflect the whole horror of the Kosmet tragedy.

The death of sixty-year-old Zivojin Stepic, one of two victims of a massacre at the market in Kosovo Polje, when more than 40 people were wounded by grenades fired at the town market, reminded some of the correspondents who were in Kosmet during the summer of this humble man, whose son Zvonimir had been abducted together with four coworkers in the Belacevac coal mine a day after the arrival of KFOR to the province. Nothing has been found out about his fate ever since. On that day, June 12, a group of journalists that had just returned from the direction of Urosevac, where the first KFOR troops had arrived in their advance towards Pristina, found in the entrance hall of "Grand" hotel, in front of the Media Center, a crying and distressed elderly man who kept repeating: "Where is my son? What has happened to my son?" Only two of many present journalists showed interest in the plight of this man, asked him to sit down, offered him a coffee, listened to his story, and then tried to help as much as they could.

My notebook from that time says that Zvonimir Stepic (31), father of three children, left that afternoon, as every other day, in a bus of the Serbian Electrical Utility Company, where he worked as a driver, to drive a shift of workers to the open cast coal mine Belacevac, about seven to eight kilometers from Kosovo Polje. At the moment when he was turning the bus in front of the main mine office building, at about 3pm, a group of Albanian terrorists suddenly showed up. They immediately started shooting and ordered the bus passengers to stay still. Several bullets hit the bus. Workers who were waiting at the entrance to the mine, in order to get on the bus, managed to somehow run away under the rain of bullets, while the driver and four workers who were with him on the bus were taken away in an unknown direction. Later it was found out that they were taken to a suburb of [the nearby town of] Obilic.

One of the workers made it to Kosovo Polje and informed Zivojin about the incident. The unfortunate man, in despair, went to Pristina to inform the authorities but in vain. All of them were busy implementing the decision about the withdrawal of the Army and Police and no one had time to look for abducted persons.

"I was at the Police but did not make it beyond the entrance hall. They are packing and leaving. I talked to one of their bosses but he simply shrugged his shoulders and said 'we are not the authority here, you have to talk to KFOR'. I don't know where KFOR is, and when they will start to act, I don't know what to do," Zivojin was saying through tears. He kept repeating "if something happens to him, I am going to die".

We tried to help him, but did not really know what to do. By chance, Serbian deputy Minister of Police General Obrad Stevanovic, who was on his way to meet British General Jonathan Bailey, an assistant of KFOR commander, just arrived to Pristina. Stevanovic promised to do what he could and informed Bailey about the case. Unfortunately, that was all, since until today KFOR hasn't done anything to resolve that, first case on his watch. The rest is well known: many similar cases have been taking place daily since then.

"I beg all people from the International Forces who are coming to help to liberate my son and other abducted individuals. I beg them like God to show thereby that they want to help us," were Zivojin Stepic's words I recorded in my notebook.

His appeal as well as appeals of many other families were in vain.

Zivojin Stepic did not live long enough to find out the fate of his son. Nevertheless, it is 99 percent certain that his son has been murdered. Instead, Zivojin was cut down by the shrapnel of the bomb fired by the "demilitarized" KLA. Thus the words he kept repeating on June 12 that "there is no life for [him] is something happened to [his] son", came out to be true. Many similar cases have occurred in this region over the last seven to eight years. This is just another story about the cruelty of the Balkans.