The Devil Couldn't Break Me (3 page)

I know now that they were only trying to protect me, and slowly, through the medium of television, it all started to become clear. The television news was always on in our house and the main topic of conversation and the reports and live television pictures were to do with the unrest sweeping the whole of Yugoslavia. It was around this time that Slobodan Milošević rose to become president of Serbia and federal president of Yugoslavia and for some reason, I can't explain why, whenever his picture came on television the image disturbed me and when they televised a speech he was making I had a strange desire to walk out of the room and do something else. His head reminded me of a large pig.

In one speech he said it was necessary to deter Albanian separatist unrest in the province of Kosovo. I was more than concerned because Kosovo was not that far away. It was clear from the television news that animosity between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo was deepening by the day and in the spring of 1987 Milošević was driven into Kosovo to address a crowd of Serb. As he talked to the leadership inside the local cultural hall, demonstrators outside clashed with the local Kosovo-Albanian police force. It was clear to me even at that young age that there were many agitators on both sides and that they were spoiling for a fight.

I would be about fourteen at that time and that was when I really started to sit up and take notice. Not that I could avoid it, as it was becoming a daily occurrence. It started with protests and occasionally sticks and stones but it wasn't long before people began to pick up the guns. The newsmen and journalists then started to talk about massacres and ethnic cleansing and the name of Srebrenica was on everyone's lips, where it was claimed over 8000 Bosniak men and young boys had been slaughtered. It was the worst war crime committed since the Second World War they said. It seemed like the whole world was fighting but in reality they were just the countries and autonomous regions around Veliki Trnovac and as luck would have it our beautiful town was right on the border. The Bosnian Croats were fighting as were the Bosniaks, the Bosnian Serbs, Croatians, Croatian Serbs, Kosovans, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbians, Slovenians, Vojvodinans and even NATO had become involved with peacekeepers on the ground and targeted bombing from the air. There were mercenaries and bandits and criminal gangs involved and of course religion inevitably reared its head with Muslims fighting Christians, as has been the trend for sixteen hundred years. Watching the news night after night, I tried to understand who was fighting who and why, but it all appeared so complicated. Wars were normally fought between two sides but this was totally different, total chaos.

And yet it still seemed so far away. Television makes things seem so close as it brings the drama right into your living room. I wondered how far Srebrenica was. I took out a European map and found it and charted a course of exactly where it was. It was only six centimetres away but I breathed a sigh of relief as I realised it was in fact, over 400 kilometres away. I reassured myself in bed that night that the soldiers who had committed that atrocity would never make it this far.

A few months later everything would change and suddenly the war seemed a lot closer to home. I was in the local coffee bar and picked up a newspaper that someone had left. There were more tensions in the Kosovo region and the Kosovo Liberation Army had been formed, an ethnic-Albanian paramilitary organisation who were now demanding the separation of Kosovo from Yugoslavia.

For the first few years The KLA remained fairly passive, but in early 1996 they undertook a series of attacks against police stations and Yugoslav government offices, saying that they had killed civilians as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign. Serbian authorities denounced the KLA as a terrorist organisation and increased the number of security forces in the region. This had the counter-productive effect of boosting the credibility of the KLA among the general Kosovo Albanian population. The cafés and bars were alive with tall tales coming from Kosovo and I'm sad to say that I sat and listened to most of the gossip. My friends told me what they'd overheard their parents say and one person claimed that The KLA were abducting and murdering Serbs and ethnic Albanians considered collaborators with the state.

The more I listened the more I feared the KLA. It seemed they would stop at nothing to achieve their goal but some of the rumours spread about them were ridiculous beyond belief. One young student called Arsal, claimed to know all about them and said they purchased their arms through drug running and the sale of body parts from the murders of its enemies. We couldn't help but laugh at Arsal. He was such a great storyteller. We nicknamed him Arsal the exaggerator.

***

My cousin's fiancé was a beautiful boy, his name was Nasijet and he was only eighteen with gorgeous black, wavy hair. He had been at university in Pristina, which was only an hour's drive away and most of the students from Veliki Trnovac studied there as it was the nearest university town. Because of the Kosovan unrest, the Serbian Army had introduced a curfew. No one knows why Nasijet was out after dark but without asking him any questions they mercilessly cut him to pieces in a hail of bullets. He was eighteen, he was far too young to die and my cousin Rejhan was inconsolable. Everyone gathered at Rejhan's house - it was the first time I'd experienced the chill of death. I stood and cried with everyone else, with Rejhan and her mother Shejnaz and the rest of the family. Rejhan's father, Sali, was in Germany working and at that point in time was in the air on an aeroplane on the way home. Nasijet's killing really hit home and the fear of uncertainty coursed through my body. It was all so very surreal and we even watched as the incident was reported on TV. The reporter stood where he had been gunned down and it was all too much for poor Rejhan who collapsed in a heap on the floor when the reporter walked slowly towards where the body had been found and pointed out the blood stained road. A few hours later his broken body was brought from Pristina and we prepared for the funeral the following day.

It was the most horrible day and one that took an awful lot of energy to get through. I hadn't slept well the night before thinking about Rejhan. I wondered how she was going to cope. Nasijet and Rejhan were deeply in love and enjoyed a more western courtship and engagement. Most of their friends would not have that opportunity and instead their marriages would be arranged for them. Rejhan and Nasijet were different, they had fallen in love and both sets of parents hadn't stood in their way and allowed them to plan their long life together. I don't think I ever saw them without a smile on their face.

Everyone wanted to be like Nasijet and Rejhan.

It was autumn but quite warm for that time of year and yet I was chilled to the bone as I shivered and shook despite being wrapped up in a thick woollen cardigan. I stood in the main street of the town waiting for the funeral procession to arrive. I had been there for about twenty minutes and as the time approached more and more people poured into town. I had never witnessed so many people in one place, familiar faces but strangers too, men and women from outlying villages as well as the local people. It seemed that everyone had heard of Nasijet's death and wanted to pay their respects. By the time the procession came into view the narrow street was dark with people, it was as if God had turned off the lights.

I saw Rejhan first. She was barely able to stand, propped up on either side by two women and at times she appeared to be being carried, or should I say dragged. I later found out that Rejhan had been pumped full of sedatives to get her through the day. I could hardly take my eyes off her and cried her tears with her as she sobbed uncontrollably following her fiancé's still body. As was the Muslim way, he was carried on a flat table wrapped in a white cloth. There was no coffin and his face was covered but I could clearly make out the shape of the body and it took my mind and my memories right back to when my Grandmother, Nexharie, was buried when I was small. That was a ghastly day but this was a hundred times worse because of Nasijet's age and the violent way in which he was taken. The funeral procession passed and I slipped into the following crowd as we walked slowly through the town and towards the graveyard on the outskirts of the village.

I wasn't allowed into the graveyard, that was for men only, but I think Rejhan and her mother were allowed to pay their last respects over his grave. It was probably a good thing I wasn't there. I can't imagine what it would have been like to see that beautiful boy lowered into the cold earth.

Nasijet's friends were angry. He had been a student not a soldier and many of his friends talked about joining the unofficial army in Kosovo and fighting against the Serb soldiers who had killed him. It was all spiralling out of control and I feared for my village and the town's people that up to this point had escaped relatively unscathed.

It was some months after the funeral when another incident was reported on television, an incident that to me was simply unexplainable and at the same time beyond belief. Even at that point in time, with all the anti-Serb feeling in Kosovo, the young men of Kosovo still had to do a period of National Service with the Yugoslav Army that was made up predominantly of Serbs. These poor men were sent wherever the Yugoslav Government decided to send them and in many cases they were sent to fight and restore order in places they were more than familiar with, towns and villages and cities where they had relatives and friends. I suspect a great number of them refused to fight or simply deserted and the news reported on those killed in active service. Their bodies were always sent back in coffins and the parents or families advised not to open them because in many cases the bodies had been shot or blown to pieces. The TV was reporting on a scandal that had angered the Kosovans and in particular the Muslim population. A young serving soldier of nineteen years of age had been killed and his body returned to his parents in Pristina in a closed coffin. The authorities once again had ordered the coffin not to be opened as their son had been almost blown to bits by a land mine. The normal Muslim funeral prepares the body for burial when the family or other members of the community wash and shroud the body. The deceased is washed respectfully, with clean and scented water, in a manner similar to how Muslims make ablutions for prayer. The body is then wrapped in sheets of clean, white cloth. On this particular occasion the mother felt she was unable to grieve properly for her son and almost as soon as the coffin came into the house she insisted on opening it and performing the pre-funeral rites. Her family advised her against such a practice but she insisted, as she wanted to wash whatever was left of her son. In the end her protests won through and they reluctantly opened the coffin. To everyone's amazement the body was completely intact and instead of bullet holes and shrapnel wounds, it appeared as if a surgeon had worked him on. There wasn't a single scratch on his face. Instead, it appeared that he had been cut open by someone with medical knowledge as a ‘Y' shaped scar ran the length of his body from just below his neck to his groin region. The authorities could give no explanation why. He had been neatly stitched together and there was no apparent cause of death. No bullet or mine damage could be found on any part of the body. It was a scandal with huge implications but even the TV news channel refused to suggest a likely cause or indeed reason for his death. That didn't stop the Kosovan rumour mill. They claimed he had been executed and that the ratio of Kosovan soldiers dying while on National service was ridiculously high. The young men and indeed the adults were furious and there were protests and riots all over Kosovo. I'm sure there were many reprisals carried out against Serbs in revenge ‘tit for tat' killings. One man interviewed on TV even suggested that the young man had been summarily executed and his organs removed for sale. I thought that comment was a little over the top. It was like something out of Mary Shelley's ‘Frankenstein.'

Over the coming months the recruiters from the Kosovo Liberation Army came to Veliki Trnovac. We were right on the border between Kosovo and Serbia and it was inevitable. The Albanian speaking young men from the town were ready to help their Albanian speaking brothers from Kosovo and I don't think the recruiters had too much trouble persuading the men, who saw themselves as freedom fighters, to pack their bags and make the short journey to Pristina and other areas of conflict. The young men seemed more than happy to fight for ‘the cause' and on one or two occasions as they left the town, I watched as they pumped their fists in the air, holding up guns and rifles from car windows as their friends cheered and clapped them on their way.

Sticks and Stones to Break Your Bones

Nani and Agi were at home one evening discussing the unrest in the next town called Bujanovac. There was an Albanian speaking school there and the Serbian authorities had informed them that the curriculum of the school would be changed overnight. The school was no longer to take lessons in Albanian and that only Serbian should be spoken. I remember thinking that wasn't so bad as everyone spoke the two languages anyway, even the children. But my parents and especially Agi was furious saying that it was a human right to be able to speak in whatever tongue they wanted and the Albanian speaking schools had been in existence for over a hundred years.

Bujanovac was only ten minutes drive away and was what was known as a mixed town. Serbs lived side by side with Albanian speaking people who made up a large portion of the residents. Fifty per cent of the town were Orthodox Christian and fifty per cent Muslim. The tension at the school simmered for many weeks and the Serbian Army were often in attendance to keep control. It was said that behind closed doors the teachers continued to give lessons in Albanian but over time, gangs of young Serb men formed and began to taunt and abuse the children and teachers alike as they made their way to lessons. As the abuse and the crowds and the violence grew (while the Serb Army stood and watched) many of the teachers and the pupils stayed at home. They were genuinely too scared to walk the daily gauntlet of abuse and even the Headmaster resigned.

The school was slowly dying and it appeared there was nothing anyone could do to stop it from closing. It seemed the rule of the mob had won through in Bujanovac, that is until a document was leaked detailing that the Serbian Army would take over the premises once the last pupil and teacher had vacated the building. That seemed to galvanise the Albanian speaking population and in particular my parents who offered unwavering support for the school at Bujanovac.

One night Nani announced that she would take a job at the school. My father looked concerned but she was having none of it. She explained that she was a very good teacher and the school needed teachers and therefore she would apply for a position at the town and the children would be taught in the language they had always been taught in. I looked at Agi when Nani came out with this and although he certainly wasn't happy that his wife was putting herself in the line of fire, I'm sure I caught a flicker of a smile of admiration and of course we both knew he would back her all the way. Whatever people said of my parents I did not look upon them as rebels. A little militant perhaps, but they were pacifists too and tolerant of everything and everyone with an unwavering determination that no one could change.

So some weeks later a letter arrived telling Nani she could start work at the school whenever she was ready. She was grinning broadly as she announced she would be there first thing on Monday morning. I confess, that weekend I was absolutely petrified and didn't want Monday morning to come.

By this time there were very few teachers and pupils at the school and it became known in the town that a new teacher would be joining their ranks. The mob was out in force that day including whole families who ridiculed and taunted my mother as she walked through the gates. She was having none of it as she walked towards the school gates with her head held high. As she reached the entrance of the school one or two stones were thrown and a glass bottle but the perpetrators aim was poor and they missed their intended target. When she came out of school the mob had swelled in numbers and she noticed one or two of her old friends in their ranks too.

My father looked on proudly as Nani explained her working day over dinner that evening. She said there had only been three pupils in the class and the school had resembled a ghost town. As I sat and listened I thought my mother was fighting a losing battle and yet as her and Agi spoke there was a determined positive vibe as we sat cross-legged around a low table eating dinner. Despite the hostility and the abuse Nani suffered there was no doubt about it... she was more than happy in what she was doing and confidant that people would eventually see sense.

As the weeks passed something strange happened. The mob became smaller and the pupil numbers grew. It appeared that Nani and the other teachers had turned the tide and Nani was all grins one evening as she announced proudly that the pupils now outnumbered the mob. The protesters and antagonizers were growing bored it seemed and had turned their anger and hostility elsewhere. One of the mothers who had stood and shouted at the teachers in the early days even came to Nani and apologised. She said that she had been caught up in something she knew very little about and now realised that the teachers wanted nothing more than to be able to teach the children.

A few days later the Serbian Army were conspicuous by their absence at the school and eventually it returned to normal. We were all so relieved and happy and I can remember a celebration dinner of sorts when Nani came home that afternoon.

I lay on the sofa that evening and thought things through. Common sense would always prevail I whispered to myself, good would always triumph over evil. Soon these little hostilities would come to an end and we could all get back to normal.

But it didn't happen. The victory for the school at Bujanovac and for common sense was soon forgotten. We were watching more and more killings and unrest on TV and there was open fighting between Serbian forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army. Every day, every week seemed to propel us closer and closer to a Yugoslav Armageddon and massacres in towns and villages and indiscriminate killings were commonplace. It appeared there were agitators everywhere, men in particular, who looked as if they were happy for the war to continue, happy to agitate and escalate the violence. It was plainly obvious to everyone that a major Kosovo war with Serbia was inevitable.

But there was still a little hope and I reminded myself of my wonderful parents and their outlook on life and how Nani and Agi always tried to take a positive stand, no matter what was going on around us. Agi said that stabilisation forces and NATO peacekeepers were on the ground and we just had to hope and pray that people would see sense and the peacekeepers would bring about a permanent ceasefire. And while there had been some small-scale violence in Veliki Trnovac, no one had been shot on our streets.