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June 20, 2002
Mark Weisbrot
What
are They Doing to Argentina?
Jeffrey St. Clair and
Alexander Cockburn
Fire
Walk With Me:
Terry Lynn Barton and the Flames of Colorado
June 19, 2002
Gary Leupp
Red Targets in Terror War
Lenni Brenner
The Road
Forward for the
Palestinian Movement
Bernard Weiner
Inside
Cheney's Diary:
Cakewalking Through Minefields
Alexander Cockburn
The
Incredible Shrinking President
June 18, 2002
David Vest
Raise the
White Flag in Terror War?
Ben White
Is It Possible
to "Understand" the Rise in "Anti-Semitism"?
Edward Said
Palestinian
Elections Now
June 17, 2002
Jack McCarthy
Watergate
and All That
Philip Farruggio
A Maximum
Wage Law
Ron Sullivan
Law
and Orders:
The Assault on Trial by Jury
Rev. Charles Booker-Hirsch
Taking
on the School
of the Americas
Joan Smith
G.W. Bush:
The Man is Stupid
Dave Marsh
Corporate
Buy Outs and the Decline of Teen Jive
Robert Jensen
Rhetoric
Distorts Realities
June 15 / 16, 2002
Tanweer Akram
A Review
of Noam Chomsky's 9-11
Daniel Wolff
The Day
They Shot a Wolf in the Ghetto and What It Meant
Ralph Nader
A Corporate
Crime State
David Vest
Have You
Been Serviced?
Karl Kraus
A Minor
Detail
Alexander Cockburn
The
Terrorism of Everyday Life
June 14, 2002
Mark Weisbrot
US Trade
Policy:
"Do as We Say, Not as We Did"
Starhawk
The Boy Who Kissed the Soldier
David Krieger
Farewell
to the ABM Treaty
Tom Turnipseed
The Fear Factor to Promote
War and Trample Truth
Steve Perry
How the
Bush Adminstration Buried Coleen Rowley
June 13, 2002
Linda Belanger
Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict:
The Story Behind the Headlines
Amira Hass
Indefinite
Siege
Mokhiber / Weissman
Time to Put Lives Over Patents
Robert Fisk
Bush's Weird
War
Stanton / Madsen
Democracy
in Crisis:
What is to be Done?
Roldan Tomasz Suárez
Venezuela:
Five Facts
About the Coup
June 12, 2002
Fran Shor
Dirty Bombs, Blowback
and Imperial Projections
Dave Marsh
Shelley
Stewart, Radio and the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement
Chris Floyd
Murder, Inc.
June 11, 2002
Omar Barghouti
On Dance, Identity and War
Robert Fisk
The Bush
Afghan Gang:
Murderers, Gangsters, Stooges
Minerva Wright
The Donkeys of the Holy Land
David Krieger
Stopping
a Nuclear War
in South Asia
June 10, 2002
Jeffrey St. Clair
Executioner's Last Songs
June 8/9, 2002
Gavin Keeney
Mademoiselle
M.
Or Getting Screwed in Paris
Susan Davis
Sleepless
in the Suburbs
Curing Insomnia: a new use for The Nation?
George Sunderland
"Send
in the Weekly
Standard": The Screaming Pundits Assault Corps
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
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Cockburn
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The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
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The
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June 20,
2002
Kosovo 2002
Serbian
Reservations
by James T. Phillips
"Did you
come to see the zoo?"
A teenage girl wearing a colorful headband
and dangling earrings stared at me as she asked about my intentions.
The look on her face was a mixture of defiance and bemusement.
Journalists prowling around her turf were once a common sight
and, since the neighborhood is a small Serb enclave in the center
of Pristina, noticing a man with a camera wasn't very difficult.
The teenager's home is located in a six-story
block of apartments. One hundred and seventy-four Serbs live
in the apartments, and other buildings housing thousands of Albanians
surround the enclave. The Serbs have access to one small store,
a fitness center and, when I asked where do the children play,
the teenage girl pointed to a dusty courtyard that functions
as a football pitch. Twenty British KFOR soldiers live in one
of the apartments, and they guard the Serbs day and night. The
soldiers are alert, well armed and, like the Serbs in the courtyard,
easy targets for those staring in through invisible bars that
encircle the enclave.
"We are like prisoners here,"
said the girl. "We live like animals in a zoo."
* *
*
Yugoslavia was once multi-ethnic and
modern, a member of the United Nations and, until 1991, ruled
by communists. Eleven years after the beginning of the endless
warfare in the Balkans, the nation of Yugoslavia has been cleaved
into pieces by various nationalist leaders identified in the
international press as freedom fighters (Croats), democrats (Bosnian
Muslims), rebels (Albanians) and butchers (Serbs). With the assistance
of politicians, diplomats and bomber pilots from the United States
of America - and compliant members of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Association) and the United Nations - the leaders of these various
entities have succeeded in creating ethnically pure regions carved
out of the carnage of war.
Capitalism has replaced communism in
these new nations and, although many of the same leaders continue
to rule, the cleansing operations during the past decade have
assured the people of the former Yugoslavia a future free from
oppression, fear and ethnically incompatible neighbors.
Except, of course, in Kosovo.
During the Balkans Wars (1991-2002),
Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians (Croat, Serb and Muslim), Macedonians
and Albanians fought and died for the right to be independent
and free. The Serbs living in Kosovo also fought and died, yet
three years after the end of NATO's brutal war against Yugoslavia
they are still not free.
Statistics about the success or failure
of the mission in Kosovo, gathered and published by KFOR, UNMIK
and humanitarian aid groups - and reported by journalists and
writers looking to confirm their own biases and agendas - are
available in many busy offices located in bustling city of Pristina.
The dissemination of this information and propaganda sometimes
seems to take priority over the delivery of food and supplies
to the people concentrated in a few ethnically pure enclaves
scattered throughout Kosovo.
The simple stories about the lives of
Serbs, Roma and other minorities living in these enclaves have
gone missing, and the less-than-equal undesirables of Kosovo
continue to live in fear, loathing the rise of a government dominated
by Albanians and the fall of their own precarious living standards.
* *
*
"I'm sorry," said the man sitting
next to me. "My son, he is full of energy."
I met Jovica Rajkovic and his seven-year-old
son Milan on the train that runs from Zvecan to G. Jankovic.
Milan was sitting in the seat across from me, and he was kicking
the edge of my seat. His father gently admonished the boy. Milan
stopped kicking and tried to stand up on his seat and look out
the dirt-encrusted window. Jovica reached over and took hold
of his son's arm. Milan sat down. He remained still for less
than five seconds.
Zvecan is a small town located north
of Mitrovica, the "flashpoint" city where Serbs and
Albanians live, separated by the polluted Ibar River. Serbs live
north of the river and Albanians live in the southern areas of
the segregated city. The railroad station in Zvecan sits in a
cleft between crumbling hills and shares a small valley with
the rusting remains of the Trepca mining complex, the source
of the pollution that flows in the Ibar River. G. Jankovic is
a large town located near the border crossing between southern
Kosovo and northern Macedonia, and it is the end of the line.
Three years ago, in the spring of 1999,
the same train and the same tracks were used to transport thousands
of Albanians to the Blace refugee camp in Macedonia. On a hot
and humid day in June of 2002, a Serb father and son boarded
the ancient train and traveled the short distance to their home
in Kosovo Polje. Armed KFOR soldiers from Greece provided protection
for the passengers as the train chugged slowly through areas
populated by Albanians. The damage done to the Albanian towns
and villages during the war has been repaired, and the new houses
dotting the landscape would be considered small mansions in North
America.
Jovica peered through the window. He
pointed towards blackened shells of burned-out houses in abandoned
Serb villages.
"Look there," said Jovica.
"The Albanians have destroyed our homes."
There was very little rebuilding or remodeling
occurring in the Serb villages, and there were no large homes
being financed and constructed for Serbs, as was being done for
the free and independent Albanians of Kosovo. Since the end of
the war between NATO and Yugoslavia, thousands of new structures
have been built by Albanians and paid for by the international
community. However, three years after the war ended many Serbs
continue to live in tents and small pre-fabricated shelters,
surviving on what little aid and assistance that is trickling
down to them after the Albanians have siphoned off most of the
money, goods and services being provided by the international
community.
"It is a catastrophe for my people,"
said Jovica.
When we arrived at the station in Kosovo
Polje, Jovica and Milan said goodbye and stepped down onto a
platform crowded with passengers waiting to board the southbound
train. Gripping his son's hand tightly in his own huge fist,
Jovica quickly threaded his way through groups of Albanians standing
in and around the railway platform. The atmosphere was tense.
Hostile stares and smirking laughter by the Albanians quickened
the pace of the Serb father and son, and they were out of my
sight within seconds.
* *
*
UNMIK is the acronym for the United Nations
Mission in Kosovo, the international organization responsible
for re-organizing a shattered land and people. Although the landscape
of Kosovo has seen some definite improvements, many of the people
still live broken lives. And, fittingly for this surreal province
of Serbia, UNMIK has not even been able to provide a secure environment
for its own Serb civilian employees.
"This is terribly humiliating,"
said Marija, a young Serb woman who works for UNMIK.
I was escorting Marija to her job in
Pristina. She lives only three blocks from her office, but is
afraid to walk through the streets alone. Although she speaks
excellent English and passes herself off as an American, the
young woman, a hard-edged and proud Serb, is scared to acknowledge
her ethnicity.
Marija is not her real name. A Serb working
in Albanian areas of Kosovo can easily become a target of Albanians
who want to continue the cleansing of the ethnic minorities that
began immediately after the end of the war in June of 1999. UNMIK
also disapproves of any disparaging comments from the local staff.
Marija could lose her life or her job if her real name was published.
Like others Serbs, Marija has lost her identity as well as her
freedom.
"The internationals want to get
rid of us," said Marija, referring to the enclaves populated
by minorities, and protected by UNMIK and KFOR. "They want
to get rid of a problem, and the problem is the Serbs."
* *
*
"The Serbs are not free."
David Pierson is a 48-year-old American
from Colorado working as an UNMIK policeman in the city of Pristina;
he agrees with Marija.
"They are always under escort,"
said Pierson. "I don't call that free. They Serbs have to
come and go in groups."
Officer Pierson was sitting at a table
outside a small kiosk, drinking coffee and watching the people
pass by when I stopped and said hello. His perch was only a few
blocks from Marija's office. There are more than 500 American
policemen currently working in Kosovo. They try to offer protection
to the minority communities, but walking a beat in Pristina usually
means driving around in a brand-new Sports Utility Vehicle painted
to resemble a Coca-Cola can with wheels. Their contact with the
people is limited to responding to calls for assistance from
Serbs, and ordering coffee at Albanian cafes.
"Crime is down, murders are down,"
said Barry Fletcher, a press spokesman for UNMIK. Fletcher is
also American policeman. "Now, it's just street crime, car
thefts and sexual assaults. But if we pull out of here in the
next few years, the situation will return to what is was in 1999.
"Both side view themselves as victims,"
said Fletcher. "They do not accept that they are also the
perpetrators. Only time will heal the hate."
The Albanians once lived under Serbian
rule, and they rebelled against their alleged oppressors. With
the assistance of other Americans - politicians and diplomats,
aid workers and soldiers - the Albanians won their won of liberation
and have created a society that is discriminating against the
Serbs, Roma and other minorities. The policemen now stationed
throughout Kosovo have to deal with the problems.
"It's apartheid," said Fletcher,
the UNMIK spokesman, acknowledging the fact that good cops cannot
change bad behavior, and giving credence to the Serb complaints
about whether the international community really cares about
protecting innocent lives. "If you give us information about
a crime, and give us a name, we'll book them. We'd love to."
* *
*
Marija thinks it is a crime when her
right to walk to work is denied, and does not believe that freedom
for the ethnic minorities of Kosovo is very high on the agendas
of the Albanians or the Americans.
"The internationals want to get
rid of the Serbs," said Marija as I escorted her to her
job at UNMIK headquarters.
"The Serbs are going to remain in
a cage."
James T. Phillips is a freelance reporter. He has covered wars
in Iraq, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia. He can be reached
at: james@unet.com.mk
Today's
Features
Mark Weisbrot
What
are They Doing to Argentina?
Jeffrey St. Clair and
Alexander Cockburn
Fire
Walk With Me:
Terry Lynn Barton and the Flames of Colorado
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