ORAHOVAC: CITY ON THE WAY TO THE GRAVEYARD

Reporter, Banja Luka, Srpska, B-H, November 24 1999

"I don't understand who wants this experiment in which people are used as guinea pigs; I don't know how it is possible for soldiers from civilized, democratic countries in which human rights are sacred to serve as guards in a concentration camp. I don't understand anything; I only know that that is exactly what is happening to the Serbs of Orahovac." Zorica Tomic, a 22 year-old native of Orahovac, until recently, a student in Pristina, now a "displaced person" in Belgrade, begins her story with these accusations.

"I am sick of hearing it and sick of saying it - a displaced person. I'm not displaced; I have been betrayed and destroyed... The Serbs of Kosmet mean so little to this regime that they cannot even obtain the refugee status. They say you cannot be a refugee in your own country but they don't say how it is possible to experience what we are experiencing now in our own country. There was more humanity in the derogatory ethnic Albanian term for Serbs - shkinje - than in this cold, bureaucratic 'displaced persons', which is what we are called now by those for whom we were, until recently, ethnic brothers and sisters from the holy Serbian land. But the greatest tragedy of all is that my only wish is that my whole family - because I am here by myself - can leave Orahovac and become 'displaced persons', too."

"People were loading their children into the truck to get them, at least, to Belgrade. KFOR took all of them off the truck at the checkpoint."

Assistance: The Association of Single Mothers of Zemun [a suburb of Belgrade] is the only organization that offered help to the natives of Orahovac in Belgrade; besides providing humanitarian aid from its own reserves, it shared with these unfortunates its office space as a place for them to meet and exchange information. Among the regular visitors are the few people who managed to leave Orahovac after June 15 (when the Serbian Ministry of Interior Police and the Yugoslav Army withdrew from the city) in one of two convoys organized by UNHCR and the Red Cross, as well as people who came in one of the many earlier waves of Serb migrations from Kosovo, since they saw the province only as their own grave. The only topic of conversation is their loved ones who remain in Orahovac.

In this city, more than two thousand Serbs (approximately 1,500 in the city itself and approximately 900 in neighboring Velika Hoca) are being held against their will by German and Dutch KFOR troops. At the same time, the local Albanian population does not allow Russian troops to enter the city, even though according to an internal agreement among the multinational forces of KFOR, it lies within the Russian area of responsibility.

"Unlike other people, I don't see a possible arrival of the Russian troops as a real solution. I suspect that this crazy situation in which we Serbs from Orahovac have found ourselves is the product of the indirect convergence of the interests of the Serbian regime and KFOR," says Zorica and explains:

"German soldiers have brought electricity from their generators to the tents of the Albanians who are holding the city under a blockade and refusing to allow the Russians to enter. This is how they created the right conditions to hold us by force in this artificially multiethnic city. The Russians have no interest in entering the city because they would have to allow us to leave this concentration camp, and then they would appear to have failed to protect the Serbs. On the other hand, it is in the interest of the regime to have the imprisoned Serbs of Orahovac counted in the total number of Serbs remaining there. To whom else would they 'send' the overflowing truckloads of humanitarian aid every other night on the Serbian Radio Television [state-controlled national TV]? Despite the supposedly great quantity of the shipments, the Serbs in Orahovac have received literally two kilograms of potatoes and a small bag of onions each."

Pera Peric: Our discussion is joined by a man who arrived in Belgrade only the previous day in some manner which he refuses to discuss.

"It is a catastrophe down there. We have been feeding children mainly with pasta for months. We haven't even seen any fruit or milk. The only humanitarian assistance that we receive from the foreigners is flour, five kilograms per person, oil and macaroni. There is no medicine; there is not enough medical staff. We have no contact with the world; all six ham radio operators were arrested as soon as KFOR arrived, and here they tell me that they say on the news how the radio operators are sending us information. Everyone is lying and stirring up trouble at our expense. KFOR opened a shop for us in Gornja Mahala [upper quarter; it's on a hill] - that is the only part of Orahovac where there are Serbs now - in which they sell only candy and beer. A beer costs one German Mark, and for one Mark they want 35 Dinars."

The man, who cannot give us his name because his family remains in Orahovac, describes the situation in the city:

"Our only contact with Donja Mahala, where there are only Ethnic Albanians now and where they have everything, is by way of the Roma [Gypsies], approximately 1,000 of whom remain in Orahovac. In the beginning they, too, were killed and kidnapped but they collected money and gave it to Ismet Tara and Sebajdin Cena, local KLA leaders, and now they leave them alone. These Roma buy merchandise in Donja Mahala [lower quarter] and bring it to the Serbs in Gornja Mahala to resell. But what's the use when people have no more money to spend. All the Serbian houses in the lower part of the city were looted and set on fire. They would set one house on fire every night. Everyone who did not move to the upper part of the city in time was killed or kidnapped. They are constantly arresting 'war criminals'. It is enough for an ethnic Albanian to point a finger at someone. They even arrested a man who never handled a weapon in his life and whom we used to tease because he had been released from military duty. His name is Budimir Baljosevic."

The man tells Reporter that KFOR in Orahovac is located in the Ethnic Albanian part of town in the houses of the Shehu family, wealthy natives of Orahovac. KFOR rents the houses for a hefty amount. These houses once housed the Yugoslav Army staff headquarters "but then they were not rented." "KFOR soldiers walk around with notebooks and record everything but they almost never intervene. I don't understand what kind of defense it is when they record in a notebook that you have been killed or kidnapped or your house set on fire. They're not scribes; they're soldiers, damn it. All of their translators are Ethnic Albanians, who swear at us in front of them and tell us that KFOR is on their side and that we should go to Serbia. Not that that is a problem; the people would go to hell, if necessary, to save their necks and their sanity. But they won't let us leave," says this native of Orahovac, who says of himself that he "was lucky enough to get out" and responds to our request for his name with a shake of his head. "Don't ask me how; don't ask for my name. I still have family down there; they'll kill them. Think of any name, write that this is what Pera Peric [John Smith] said."

"It's not that I'm defending my own neighbors, but the majority of crimes against the ethnic Albanians were carried out by those who came from Serbia during the war."

Children: Ljiljana Simic had the misfortune to satisfy one of the criteria for a place on the UNHCR convoy. Namely, besides the ill, that convoy included people who had had a family member killed since KFOR's arrival. Choking on her tears, she fails to complete the story of the murder of her husband Dragoljub, who was killed in front of their house. But she collects herself again to say something which, she says, is very important to her.

"I left with two unmarried daughters; I have two more daughters who stayed with their children in Orahovac. Many other children remain there as well. They are the ones whom I worry about the most. For God's sake, at least save those children. They are not going to school; they are psychologically destroyed; they watch their parents as they go crazy; it is all too horrible. The people with children will go crazy if something is not done right away."

Ljiljana Simic tells about one unsuccessful attempt of the natives of Orahovac to evacuate the children from the besieged city:

"When a convoy came from Belgrade, they organized a three-hour-long visit by relatives from Serbia. When the time came to leave, many people loaded their children into the truck to get them, at least, to Belgrade. KFOR took all of them off the truck at the checkpoint, 16 kilometers from Orahovac, and sent them back. Children were screaming, crying; one little girl, she is eleven, told them through tears that she was too young to be a war criminal. The children had heard that we were not allowed to leave until war crimes were investigated."

War crimes: The only person who agreed to talk about the most difficult topic, without which this story would not be complete, was Zorica Tomic:

"The Serbs committed a lot of crimes, too, but not as many as the foreign media claimed. No one wants to talk to you about this because as a result of what is happening to us now, we can only see ourselves as victims. I try to be objective, even though I know it is impossible to be completely objective. It's not that I'm defending my own neighbors, but the majority of crimes against ethnic Albanians were carried out by people who came from Serbia during the war. All of these people, as well as the few local people with blood on their hands, left a long time ago. The Serbs who remain in Orahovac are truly innocent. That's why I can't understand how someone can call crimes against them acts of revenge, nor do I understand why they don't at least permit them to leave, to leave everything they have but at least to stay alive. If the present situation continues, the only multiethnic places in Orahovac will be the mental asylum and the graveyard."