THE IBAR WALL

Reporter, Banja Luka, Srpska, B-H, December 15 1999

Scattered between them on bulletin boards and buildings, countless death notices. Graffiti, including the inescapable 'Serbia all the way to Tokyo'."

Every departure, some wise person has said, inexorably assumes a return. I knew this; I knew that sooner or later I would return to Kosovska Mitrovica but when I left, 25 years ago, I could not have guessed that I would return to witness the tragedy of my home town and the city I grew up in.

What else did I know back then?

I knew, for example, that Kosovska Mitrovica (Mitrovic e Kosoves) was one of the larger cities in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the second largest city in Kosovo and one of the largest industrial centers.

And I knew that it was in Serbia.

Today I only know that Mitrovica is a city with a mixed past, an unhappy present and an uncertain future.

And I know that it is no longer in Serbia.

By the time one reaches Rudnica, a village not far from the administrative border between Serbia and Kosovo, between Raska and Lesak, it becomes clear that Kosovo is an ugly reminder of the rule that every tendency towards expansion ends in decline.

A policeman, Yugoslav, Serbian, from Raska, I'm not sure which but definitely "one of our own", enters the crowded bus and picks out several passengers:

"You, you and you: your identification cards."

I am one of those selected. Instead of my dilapidated identity card, I take out my passport.

"You cannot go to Kosovo with a passport, sir. Our identity cards are valid in Kosovo. Kosovo is Serbia," says the policeman, turning my passport over in his hands.

I try to explain; I take out my press identification; I explain the passport is "just in case".

"You're screwing with me, aren't you?! Do you want me to send you back to Serbia?" he says and puts the passport in some kind of daily planner.

Then he realizes what he has just said, glares at me and gives me back my passport.

"Bon voyage," he tells the driver as he jumps out of the moving vehicle.

"Bon voyage," says the KFOR trooper only a few kilometers down the road. Their checkpoint, completely surrounded by sandbags, "introduces" me to a new kind of state. With tanks and armored vehicles, whose guns are pointing toward Rudnica, and scowling faces of young men in foreign uniforms. A little further from the checkpoint, more security. Three guns pointing at Rudnica, only one toward Lesak.

This is where Serbia ends and Kosovo begins.

Heroes and grave-diggers: The road which leads to Mitrovica is poor, full of mud puddles with a little bit of asphalt among the many potholes. The sky is heavy, gray and in constant motion. On the side lie brownish stones and dirty remnants of snow.

Then Zvecan and the famous chimney of Trepca which juts out toward the sky. To the right of the entrance to Mitrovica is the Muslim cemetery. The Serb cemetery is in the south part of the city. So is the central bus station, but the buses now end their routes on the plateau near "Polet". This is the "center" of Serb Kosovska Mitrovica.

After the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army and police, the deployment of KFOR and several days of "controlled coexistence", Mitrovica was divided into two "cities". The south part of the city went to the Albanians, the north part went to the Serbs, a small number of Albanians, Roma, Turks... Yes, and Egyptians, as well.

"What it means is that we are the heroes [supporters of the "red Star" soccer club from Belgrade] and they are the grave-diggers [supporters of the "Partisan" soccer club, deadly rivals of "heroes"]," says one of the Serbs trying to console himself.

The physical border consists of the Ibar River or, more precisely, the bridges over the river. There is one in the very center of the city, a second one leads to the train station, and the last one is an old railroad bridge.

The Ibar as always is dirty and shallow; the bridges have been "enhanced" with circles of barbed wire, checkpoints, French soldiers and tanks by unknown manufacturers.

"I do not recognize the division of the city into south and north parts," says Henri Poisset [the version of Serbo-Croatian language used by Serbs uses phonetic spelling for foreign names, so that this spelling is a guess], the French brigadier general who commands the northern sector.

"Well, let them come over for coffee and they'll see what kind of reception they will get," retorts a Serb from Zvecan, only a few kilometers from Mitrovica.

On the very day that General Poisset praised the security situation in the northern sector, an elderly Albanian man crossed the bridge into the Serb sector. He did not get further than 50 or so meters when three boys, 14-15 years old, descended on him, beating him on the head, delivering a series of kicks to his body on the dirty asphalt. All the French soldiers could do was to remove the almost lifeless body.

"They weren't the 'guys from the bridge'," I learned later, "Someone did that on their own initiative."

Cafes and death notices: A Belgrade photo reporter spent a couple of days in Mitrovica, in the north part, and then demonstratively left:

"No bodies, no barricades, no street battles: I can take photos of dogs and of mud," he said.

"If I so much as aim my camera to take a photo, the 'guys from the bridge' want to take my head off," he added and took off in the first bus.

Mitrovica has always has been, and still is, a very dirty city. In its abridged version, the northern part looks even more wretched. The main street, hardly half a kilometer in length, is patrolled by KFOR jeeps, armored vehicles, tanks. On the sidewalks, packed with various kinds of stalls and kiosks, walk people with nothing to do. Dogs mill around their legs and get in the way.

Almost the whole city of Mitrovica has been transformed into one big cafe. That's how many of them there are. And all of them are packed from the early morning hours on.

Between them, on bulletin boards and buildings, countless death notices. Graffiti, including the inescapable "Serbia all the way to Tokyo". Many advertisements are posted in shop windows: "Washing machine for sale" or "New, unused water heater".

Either due to their origin or other circumstances, these household appliances are exceptionally cheap.

For days the northern part of the city has been getting very little water. The water supply is regulated by the Albanians. Electricity is available here and there. The Albanians control electricity as well. The telephone lines are dead. The post office [which also provides telephone service] is in the hands of the Albanians.

"What, you expect me to pay them? To pay the Shqiptars [ethnic Albanians, can have derogatory connotation] for telephone service! I get a phone call from the post office and they say: 'This is the PTK; you have not paid your telephone bill and we are giving you a notice.' 'What the hell is the PTK,' I ask. 'Post and Telephone Kosova,' she replies. 'You can go to hell, both you and the PTK...'"

The vast majority of industries in Mitrovica are located in the southern part. The cultural center. The sports center, Jugobanka, the bus and train stations, the town market, the huge Adriatic Hotel...

From the Hill, to the right of the bridge that leads to the center, you can see the southern part of Mitrovica. I saw this part of the city as well. It isn't unusual, of course, to look at a city but the part of the city I was looking at was once mine. Like an old strumpet remembering her first love, I fell under the sway of insignificant memories, which took me back to the time when I attended the "Silvira Tomazini" High School and bought meat pies across the street from the cinema, burgers by the bridge and in the evening, crossed the bridge to get to the promenade in the northern part.

I lived in a building on the left side of the southern part of the city, right next to the bridge. Today there is not a single Serbian family left in that ugly gray building which we called, for some inexplicable reason, the Blue Highrise. In the Albanian part of the city there are no Serbs.

In the Serb part, especially in Bosnjacka Mahala [Bosniak Quarter], the Micro Settlement but in other parts as well, there are approximately 2,000 Albanians. The men, as a rule, do not go out of their houses. Kaplan Baruti, the chief justice of the court of Mitrovica, is an exception; he lives in his house in Zvecan and every day he drives to work without an escort.

Good news: Serbs cannot cross the bridge. Albanians, more precisely Albanian women and small children, can cross the bridge. The controls are rigorous and the French even search young girls. I observe the searches and the stony faces of the French who show no emotion.

After a third peek across the bridge, I go back by way of "Kras" [food store] along the street that leads to the city hospital. I have acquired an escort on both sides. Two young men in blue jackets are following my pace. I stop.

"Are you going for a walk, young man?" asks one of them.

I'm not sure what to reply.

"Did you hear me? I'm asking you if you're going for a walk?"

Finally it occurs to me what they're looking for and in off-the-cuff Belgrade style which would have even impressed today's jaded youth I drawl out:

"Yes, I'm taking a little walk; doing a bit of sight-seeing, actually; this is my home town but I've been away for a while and I've come back to...!"

I didn't finish. He didn't even look at my press identification.

"OK, no problem; I just wanted to hear your voice," he patted my shoulder in a friendly way and backed away.

I'm not an Albanian or a Shqiptar, as you prefer, and "the guys from the bridge" went back to their posts.

"The guys from the bridge" are not any sort of paramilitary formation. Or anything resembling Belgrade's "defenders of the bridges". They are, simply, young men from Kosovska Mitrovica who at every moment are observing the bridges. In the event of an organized gathering of Albanians on the other side of the bridge, they are the front-line "live barricade" which would prevent an attack on the northern part of the city. They are equipped with portable radios; consequently, in critical situations, thanks to an excellent communications system, they can assemble up to a thousand Serbs in front of the bridge. They are primarily young men less than 30 years old who receive symbolic compensation for their watch which is voluntarily donated by the small businesses of Mitrovica (but not only by them).

Is it true that they are supported by the Serbian National Council and Oliver Ivanovic, its president?

"Come on, what does Oliver... Oliver rules but never mind Oliver!"

And who elected Oliver?

"Well, the British queen also wasn't exactly directly elected."

I'm talking with an acquaintance regarding the extent to which the minds of these young men are infected with hate.

"It's not hate; it's a battle for survival. If a larger number of Shqiptars head into our part of town, Leposavic and Lesak will fall as well and they will end up in Raska," he says.

The guys from the bridge: There have been days when almost all the men in Mitrovica who were able to walk were "the guys from the bridge." Simply put, the Albanians will not accept that they have lost the northern part of the city and there were several organized attempts of mass break ins to the Serbian part of Mitrovica. Since they couldn't cross the bridge, they tried to cross the Ibar, which is shallow enough for a small child to wade across. They were greeted by "bombardment" with stones.

"Within 15 minutes, everyone who was then living in Mitrovica was on our side of the bridge. Women were using hammers to break concrete blocks into smaller pieces, children were carrying them in cooking pots to the bridge and we, with our pockets full of stones, were repelling the attacks. But they are like wasps. They are crazy; they just push forward. Under a hail of stones, believe me, you could not see the Ibar for the stones flying toward them but they were so determined they almost made it to where we were," says one of "the guys from the bridge".

Then a slightly bigger wave swept across the Ibar and the Albanians were forced to retreat. The "Gazivode" dam is in Serbian hands and the first wave of released water takes exactly 45 minutes to get from the lake to the Mitrovica bridge.

The Serbs were moral victors.

"We made a big deal as if we had successfully defended all of Kosovo."

On the Albanian national holiday Flag Day, thirty or so of "the guys from the bridge" simply tore through two French cordons and crossed the bridge running; the Albanians, although far greater in number, broke into panicked flight. The Serbs chased them all the way to the Jugobanka building; then they stopped and "calmly demolished the surrounding kiosks." Then, accompanied by KFOR troops, they calmly, like after a hunt, returned to their own territory.

Screwed up echo: The Albanians did cross the bridge once, nevertheless. With the permission of the Serbian side and the threatening escort of KFOR soldiers with loaded rifles pointed at the Serbs who lined the entire length of the sidewalk. With two raised fingers, with songs and chanting of slogans, the Albanians walked to the center and then returned to their part of the city by the bridge leading to the railway station. Greeted by provocations, they, of course, provoked the Serbs as well.

"A fat man was walking at the head of the column; he would point his finger at someone on the sidewalk, then draw the finger across his throat. He repeated this every two meters as if to say, he would slaughter everyone. We were giving them the finger, dying of laughter, tossing out comments... Someone jokingly called on the owner of a boutique in the column to show him his brand new tennis shoes; someone else invited the owner of a cafe to stop by the cafe 'as if it was his own', yet another informed someone that the meat in his freezer had spoiled!"

Furious because of all this, the next time the Albanians were better organized. Several thousand of them headed our way, some by the bridge, others crossing the Ibar. They broke through the French cordon but were met by "the guys from the bridge." Wading through the Ibar with the powerful support of the "prangija" (which is a kind of slingshot, but an effective slingshot) they almost reached the Serbian "shore". That's when all chaos broke out.

"Not a single young man on our side got away without a being hit by a stone in the head or chest. It was a madhouse. Then a French soldier asked me: 'Why are you throwing only stones at them?' Is that a fact, I said to myself. Alright!"

After a series of explosions, innumerable cracked skulls on both sides and beaten up French soldiers, the war came to a temporary halt. The exact number of people injured and wounded has not been determined to this day. Two Albanian flags were "captured".

A French soldier later said:

"A strange thing. We throw five bombs to frighten, then you hear eight times: boom-boom. A strange thing, no?!"

"Strange, very strange," a Serb man nods and orders a round. "The echo around here is screwed up."

"Must be the echo," says the Frenchman knowingly.

"It's the echo, I tell you; the echo around here is screwed up. Here's to your health!"

A good part of the KFOR troops (8,000 foreign soldiers deployed in the northern sector which includes Mitrovica, Zubin Potok, Zvecan, Leposavic, Srbica and Vucitrn) now view the Serbs in an entirely different light.

Popularity list: Many people interviewed by Reporter claim that KFOR, especially the French, at first had the clear intention of rehabilitating the Serbs by beating them up.

"I am a Serb; therefore, I am a war criminal. But in their heads the connection was even more magical: anyone who was a war criminal must be a Serb."

They were like tigers who had scented blood but now, the locals here claim, they are "tamed".

A few days ago in the "Sfension" Club in Zvecan, a Frenchman was despondent: soon his team would be switching places with the one controlling the southern, Albanian part of the city and he didn't want to go.

"What I want there!? No Serbs is there, only Shqiptar. What I do with Shqiptar," he asked, drowning his sorrow in wine.

Another French soldier asks:

"Why do you not give up the bridge? Out of interest, of course?"

"No, out of principle!"

"Hm, what kind of fucking interest is that?"

The point is, we need a picture of the bridge, whether a symbol of victory or of defeat, depending on how one understands it and who is talking. "The guys from the bridge" do not create problems for the Reporter's photographer; the French do. The debate lasts twenty minutes. The group of Frenchmen surrounding us gets larger and larger. Only one of them knows a smattering of English. An exchange of messages by a portable radio. They ask what nationality we are.

"O.K.," says the major, obviously on his own initiative.

"Merci beaucoup," I remember all the French that I know and wave for a long time upon leaving the bridge after we have completed our assignment.

Communications have, therefore, been established. The Serbs accept KFOR as a necessary evil, the army accepts the Serbs as normal people. The residents of Mitrovica praise the Italian carabinieri the most, then the French, the Belgians... The Danes are in the last place.

Not long ago the Danes blocked the road leading from Zvecan to Mitrovica; consequently, the Serbs from Leposavic were unable to come to a meeting at the bridge and it was decided to break through the blockade. Fighting broke out among the men and three Danes fighting with Serbs got the worse end of it; the Serbs even took their rifles, shields and helmets away. After extensive negotiations, the rifles were later returned; as a sign of gratitude the young men who participated in the fight were allowed to keep the other equipment as souvenirs. Since that day, the Serbs and the Danes respect each other.