Read The Devil Couldn't Break Me Online

Authors: Laura Aslan

Tags: #Yugoslavia War, #Women in Conflict, #KLA, #Kosovo War, #Serbia, #Croatia, #Albania, #Rape camps, #Former Yugoslavia, #Laura Aslan, #Torture, #abuse of women in conflict, #Angelina Jolie, #William Hague

The Devil Couldn't Break Me (4 page)

BOOK: The Devil Couldn't Break Me
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A Massacre Averted

We lived in fear of murder coming to our village or even worse, a massacre of the entire population. The news on TV and the newspapers, especially those brought in from Kosovo, were covering incidents of mass killings and
ethnic cleansing
. I must have been around seventeen or eighteen years of age when I first heard that term and even though I didn't actually know what it meant it made my blood run cold. I asked my father outright exactly what ethnic cleansing meant and he explained to me in detail including the stories of soldiers indiscriminately raping young girls and women. I think he guessed it was time that I should know what possible dangers lay ahead of me.

The television newsman was saying that there were too many reports of massacres for them to be without foundation and more and more
survivors
were coming forward to tell of grave incidents at places such as Tuzla, Zvornik and Visegred. It's not unfair to say that most of the massacres were reported to have been carried out by Serb soldiers and police but of course their generals and politicians were denying everything. I wanted to believe them... sincerely I wanted to believe them all. I knew what the word propaganda meant too and I was well aware that all sides in the conflict tried to score points against their enemies to try and motivate their foot soldiers and at the same time court sympathy from the outside world, especially the European Union and NATO who were now heavily involved in the conflict. In fact NATO were now coordinating air strikes on Serb positions in Kosovo pushing the Serb Army back to the border. At first I believed that it was a good thing that NATO had intervened in Kosovo but my father made a chillingly accurate prediction. I can still hear his words to this day.

“It's all well and good turning the heat up but it's the towns and villages on the border that will suffer the most.”

I was well aware that Veliki Trnovac was fifteen kilometres from the Kosovo border and I was also aware of an illegal army who were hiding out in the mountains close to Dubnica, twenty kilometres away. They were made up of Albanian speaking Kosovan's affiliated to the KLA and many of them, mostly the young men, came from our hometown. That made Veliki Trnovac a legitimate target in the eyes of the Serbs.

It was late autumn and light flurries of snow hung in the air most evenings. We had yet to have a covering in town but we could see the snow lying on the tops of the surrounding mountains including our mountain Beli Breg. We were having dinner at home when we first heard the noise outside. The garden had a raised wall with steel gates that were either being climbed or forced open. Whoever was trying to get through them clearly didn't have a key. My father had ran upstairs for some reason. At first I thought it might have been to get the key to the gates, but no, he was trying to get a better look from an upstairs window. I heard the familiar sound of military boots running up the path towards the front door and before we could do anything a soldier had kicked the door from the hinges. It didn't matter to him that it had been open at the time. He wore a Serb Army Uniform with a mask that covered his face. He clearly didn't want to be identified.

“What is it?” Agi shouted from the top of the stairs. “How can we help you?”

Looking back it seemed like a silly thing to say and yet it diffused the tension for a few vital seconds. The soldier spoke in Serbian, he ordered everyone from the house and as another four of them stormed in I began to shake with fear. They were screaming at my father to come down, training their rifles on him. He obeyed and calmly walked towards them.

“How can I help you?” he repeated.

One of the soldiers lunged at him and grabbed him by the shirt collar.

“Get your wife and your pretty little daughter into the street before I put a fucking bullet into your skull,” he snarled.

I remember thinking that my father was very calm but I also remember looking at one of the soldiers who clearly couldn't take his eyes off me. I felt vulnerable, more vulnerable than I had ever felt in my life and the horror stories that I'd heard about what soldiers did to young girls came flooding back. Nani and Agi were standing next to the front door where the winter coats were hanging on a hook and Agi politely asked if we would be out of the house very long. The soldier pointed to the coats indicating that we could put them on. Agi sat on the floor and reached for his boots while Nani took a coat and a scarf from the hook.

“Fucking hurry up,” one of them shouted and cuffed Agi across the back of the neck. “I'll fuck your wife and daughter one after the other if you don't get a move on.”

I was more shocked at their bad language than I was from their aggressive nature. I could feel the tension and menace in the air and yet bizarrely I was more upset at the filth that had poured from their mouths. These were not the sort of words ever uttered in Agi's house, at my uncles or even in the school yard.

As I made to walk towards the door the soldier who had been looking at me blocked my path, slid his hand around my back and grabbed my buttock. I was frozen in fear and despite the fact his face was covered I could tell he was grinning a perverted grin from ear to ear. Thankfully he released me and moved out of the way telling me to put a coat on. As I walked passed him he slapped my backside hard. I wanted to turn around and hit him but I managed to control myself. I sensed that it wouldn't take much of an excuse for these soldiers to shoot all three of us.

We were marched out of the house, through the garden and into the street then made to form part of a line of other villagers we of course recognised as our neighbours. We were ordered not to talk and as we stood in the cold my mother put her arm around me and pulled me in tight.

“What's happening Nani, what do they want with us?”

Nani didn't answer. She shook her head and placed a finger across her lips motioning that I should be quiet. We stood for some time while every single house in the town was cleared of it's inhabitants. It was plain to see that the Serb soldiers had wanted everyone out of the houses and onto the street. There were children in nightclothes and the elderly with walking sticks and even heavily pregnant women who all stood in a long silent line. The only noise I could hear was of children crying and of course the soldiers barking out their orders.

“It's cold,” one man said.

He pointed to his wife who was carrying a small child in her arms.

“My daughter is only six weeks old, she needs to go home.”

A soldier stepped forward and head butted him on the bridge of the nose. There was a loud ‘pop' and the man collapsed in a heap onto the ground. A few of the women screamed out but the man said nothing more.

The soldier took a step backwards.

“I said no talking.”

The man was helped to his feet as his wife offered him a handkerchief to stem the flow of blood and soon afterwards we were on the march.

There were around a thousand villagers and we were tightly packed into a group overseen by about one hundred and fifty soldiers with rifles and machine guns. I clung to my mother as Agi walked alongside us. It was a slow progress as we were tightly packed together and yet the soldiers kept shouting at us telling us to hurry. One man shouted that he couldn't walk any faster and he was knocked to the ground with a rifle butt in his back. It was terrifying and I tried not to think of what was waiting for us when we got to wherever it was they were taking us. The fact that they were taking the entire village made me fear the worst. It was clear they didn't want any witnesses to whatever it was they were going to do. The names of the massacres at Gospic and Dalj and Vukovar burrowed into my brain even though I tried my hardest to blot out the images I'd seen from the TV reports.

We walked uphill and the tightness in my calf muscles was unbearable and of course it was getting colder as we climbed ever higher. I became aware of a commotion up ahead and I recognised a familiar voice. It was my Uncle Demir who stood with my Auntie Naxhia and her little boy, my cousin Amir. It appeared Uncle Demir was refusing to move and when we saw him he had blood pouring from the corner of his eye where one of the soldiers had clearly hit him.

“I am waiting for my brother.”

He was pleading to the soldier.

“Is that not too much to ask?”

The soldier was urging him forward but at that moment he spotted us.

“There he is, there he is,” he shouted, “I will move now, don't worry I will move now.”

This seemed to placate the soldier and as my father and Uncle Demir embraced briefly, we were on the move again. I was still holding onto my mother for dear life but homed in on my father and his brother's whispers. They were both strangely calm, unlike me, and my heart was beating so loud I was convinced the soldiers could hear it.

“What do you think is happening?” my father said.

“I fear the worst.” Uncle Demir said. “It's not looking good brother.”

“Shut up you mother fuckers,” one of the soldiers bellowed and it was all quiet again.

I stared at the soldier who had yelled. His face was covered from the mouth down. His hair was unkempt and he was unshaven with a pock marked face. Not the smart, well groomed, normal looking military type. Father had said that half the Serbian army were made up from released prisoners and mercenaries, battle hardened vicious men, desensitised and lacking compassion.

We were walking up the main road leading through the mountains to Kosovo. The road was narrowing as it wound its way in between two mountains and I recalled picnicking there in the summertime. The grass was always greener and softer than the grass in the village and there was a waterfall too, a waterfall we'd play in and stand under until we were numb with the cold. It was an altogether different scene to the memories I had of this beautiful place. Now it was dark and grey and eerie and a few flakes of snow began to fall. The soldiers ordered us to stop and I was shaken from my pleasant thoughts. I could sense a small panic building as once again I became aware of a conversation between my father and his brother.

“Shush brother,” Demir said, “you are the clever one, a doctor, but when it comes to trading and business deals I am streets ahead of you. Let me do what I must do.”

My father was begging my Uncle Axhi to stay with us as was Auntie Naxhia but he was having none of it. Uncle Demir had singled out one of the soldiers and had walked straight up to him. I remember bursting into tears thinking I'd never see my uncle again and yet I listened carefully to the conversation that I could clearly make out from the stunned and silent crowd. My father had leaned against a tree and was shaking his head, tears running down his face.

“You, boss man, what's the deal here?” Uncle Axhi said.

The man was holding a walkie-talkie and I think that's why Uncle Demir had singled him out.

“There's no deal you stupid bastard, now get out of my face before I stick a knife in you.”

Quick as a flash Uncle Demir responded.

“Of course there's a deal, now what is it because whatever it is I can give you more.”

The man took a step forward and I feared the worst as I closed my eyes tight.

“The deal is we kill you all,” he said. “Call it what you like, a massacre, ethnic-cleansing, whatever, you are all going to die. That's the fucking deal.”

The man hadn't attempted to lower his voice and every word was perfectly audible in the still night air. People started to panic at this point and there were whispers of bravado amongst the young men and adults but most of the people were crying, frozen in fear as they felt their worst nightmares were about to come true. The walkie-talkie burst into life and in plain Serbian the words that filtered through the airwaves chilled me to the bone.

“Do it. Do it now.”

It was so loud. I think most people heard it and the panic rose to a new level as the man Uncle Demir was talking to pulled his rifle from his shoulder.

“Wait!” Uncle Demir said. “If that's your boss tell him we have a deal. I'll pay you double whatever it is you're being paid. I have enough money to buy you all off.”

The other soldiers were herding us like sheep, pushing us together in lines, pointing their guns at us and hitting or kicking anyone who failed to move quick enough. It appeared the boss soldier wasn't listening but Uncle Demir wasn't giving up.

“They'll hunt you down and you'll be tried as war criminals. NATO never gives up and they'll get you one day.”

The boss soldier was strangely curious now and it seemed Uncle Demir had no intention of quitting.

“They're still hunting Nazis to this day, is that what you want? Take my money and live in peace for the rest of your lives.”

Uncle Axhi spoke at a ferocious rate talking about trials and executions at a place called Nuremburg.

“You've seen the trials on TV, the old black and white footage of the men in the dock.”

“Shut the fuck up big mouth.”

I fully expected the sound of a shot because Uncle Axhi wasn't slowing down but the soldier seemed to hesitate for a moment. And then he stared at my uncle and held up a hand in front of his face. My uncle stopped speaking and the soldier slung his rifle back onto his shoulder and reached for his walkie-talkie. To everyone's amazement he relayed Uncle Demir's request to the man on the other end and he appeared to listen. There followed several minutes of intense negotiations and then my uncle walked over to us and said he was leaving. He said they had a deal and he was going home to give them everything he had. I thought he was crazy. If these men were mercenaries and ex-prisoners then they would take whatever he had and still kill him. That's what happened in every American gangster movie I'd ever watched.

“I'm going with you Demir,” my mother announced.

He was shaking his head, the soldiers were shaking their heads but Nani was having none of it. I didn't want her to leave me and Agi and Auntie Naxhia didn't want her to go either, but she insisted and in the end everyone gave in... even the soldiers. Nani had the most determined streak in her and father often said she would get anything she wanted if she put her mind to it. Nani and Uncle Demir climbed aboard a vehicle with three or four soldiers and it disappeared into the darkness.

BOOK: The Devil Couldn't Break Me
9.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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