MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents"
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MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents" |
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[EDITOR'S NOTE: Dragana Vicanovich, our Special Correspondent in Belgrade, and I have stayed in touch since the war in the former Yugoslavia. While we have discussed much of the aftermath, we have been aware of a certain --- and characteristically American --- "fatigue" with the situation in Kosovo. Nonetheless, her most recent dispatch --- centering as it did on the protests in the former Yugoslavia against the continued hegemony of Slobodan Milosevic --- struck me as particularly news-worthy. Herewith her dispatch, dated 2 October, 1999. ---RA.]
The result of the Thursday night police attack was 15 people injured and brutally beaten, 30 wounded (5 policeman among them) and 10 arrested.
The next night the situation was repeated - over 18 injured and 21 arrested.
During last two days, the police began arresting opposition activists and citizens throughout Serbia, mostly here in Belgrade. The beating [of opposition leaders] caused rage among the all people, so the amount of protesters are multiplying from night to night.
The regime's media (especially the resurrected State TV which is now again the regime's mouthpiece) are accusing the protesters and the oppositional parties of being traitors of the Serbian people, brigands, drug addicts and hooligans, NATO's myrmidons, KLA's mercenaries, etc. Now ... blood is running in the streets of Belgrade again, and we don't know how it will end, or will it end at all in the way we all expect.
The police arrest citizens every day, an independent newspaper Glas Javnosti, a daily was shut down and banned. The programs of some TV stations which do not support the regime are been impeded. The town is full of the armed police forces. The regime even proclaimed a decree that "each citizen should have his own policeman", so the policeman started to knock on every door checking the validity of people's documents (identity cards, passports, military cards, verification of residence, etc.).
On the other hand, food prices are jumping up every day as well as the prices of gasoline. Every day brings us some new taxes and extra taxes, the wages are lessened, the pensions are late (from the beginning of the year the government is owing three monthly pensions to the old people, so they decided to compensate it by giving the pensioners certificates for buying the electricity, wood or coal instead of the debt money).
As there is not enough fuel for the vehicles, Belgrade (in our language it means "White City") is becoming a huge garbage dump.
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But there will be more blood. Milosevic has no place to go and will no give up his fortune stolen in the last decade. If he resigns, he knows that there must come the time when he must be required to make a repayment for everything. So, he will try to bury the entire country before he [allowing] his downfall.
Meanwhile, the people's rage will escalate as the repression is going on and the explosion after 10 years of poverty and pressure is very near. At least I hope so and at the same time, I'm frightened.
Since the war ended, I avoided writing to you, Rod, about Kosovo.
I didn't wanted you to think that I'm trying to pass some kind of propaganda.
Of course, I am a nationalist if "nationalist" means a person who loves her country, tradition, culture, history. You must understand that I'm not a [Serbian] chauvinist.
A lot of my friends, very good friends indeed, are people of different nationalities. They are Hungarians, Slovaks, Jews, Croats, Bulgarians, Germans, etc., or some impossible mixture of each nationality like [Rastislav] Durman for instance.
In the former Yugoslavia we've never talked about nationality. It wasn't important until our homeland died. Then the differences started.
But we are still friends, no matter what, because the real friendship is priceless and no border or some stupid politician can change our feelings. So, don't get me wrong when you read about Kosovo. I still believe that justice must be done, no matter to which nation the perpetrators belong. But the truth mustn't be shut down. And the story is horrible.
Since the war ended, over 300 Serbs have been killed. Almost the same number of Albanians who do not support the KLA, Gypsies and other non-Albanians have also been massacred. Kosovo is becoming an ethnically pure territory.
In last three weeks, the KFOR [UN peace-keeping forces] discovered at least 3 mass graves with over 100 mutilated Serbian men, women and children, killed in the period after April 14. It was an unexpected discovery, so KFOR tried to obliterate this fact of it.
KFOR didn't allowed Serbian pathologists to see the bodies until they started to decompose so the identification was difficult. But some of the bodies were identified as the villagers abducted by the KLA terrorists after the KFOR came to Kosovo.
Last week in Prizren, the KLA incinerated a six months old Serbian baby in front of his mother. Then they raped the woman several times.
Few days ago they came back and abducted her. The 70 years old woman was killed with 17 bullets after she was raped, her hands were amputated.
The UN administrator, Bernard Kuschner interviewed 45 old Serbian woman in Pristina, who were raped 30 times by the KLA terrorists. But he didn't say a word of condemnation.
Now, hear the paradox!
Instead of evacuating all the non-Albanian people from Kosovo, Milosevic is trying to force the Kosovo's refugees to go back. When the refugees come to Serbia, the police put them into the buses by force and send them back. But they are still running from Kosovo.
Those poor people had no guaranteed accommodation (or at least it is under all humane levels), so many of them used to sleep in the parks or on the fields. Not to mention that the government is acting as if they do not exist at all!
Then, the regime decided not to allow refugee's children to attend schools in Serbia. The rage of public opinion was enormous, so they had to cancel that decision. But the regime found another way to make the refugees go back - they didn't allow wages and pensions payments here in Serbia. If the refugees wanted their money, they had to go back to Kosovo.
The only help for those people is provided by the cities where they came from. And it's not enough. The winter is coming, there are no food, clothes, medicines or homes for them. For Milosevic they are untouchable. If he admits their existence, it will be the end of the official story about his "glorious victory" and "successful defence of Kosovo".
BELGRADE - Eleven days ago, the opposition parties started the protests in all the major cities in Serbia, demanding Milosevic's resignation and democratic changes. For nine days the protests were peaceful, but three nights ago police forces attacked the protesters after their attempt to walk to Dedinje hill (it is a notorious part of Belgrade, the elite residential area where all of the regime politicians are living, including Milosevic).
There are more and more hungry people, people without the work, and almost a million refugees from Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo are especially imperilled. To earn a $100(US) monthly has become the ultimate art. We are all furious.
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Event #186: Be a Spirit, Not a Ghost
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