DRAMA OF THE DISPLACED SERBS
By Milena Markovic

March 25, 2004

Mali Zvecan. Veliki Zvecan. The name doesn't matter. It's the greatest tragedy among the Kosovo Serbs who fled their burned and looted villages. They stopped them near northern Mitrovica with their bundles. What could these homeowners, who have spent half a century building and furnishing their homes, have possibly put in their bundles in ten minutes?

"The icon and a rug," says Milica Savic (62) from Slatina near Vucitrn.

"I took the icon, an incense burner and some incense," adds Jelisava Janackovic.

Mali Zvecan, unfinished lamellate houses intended for those whom Operation Storm swept from Croatia. They stopped here, the new exiles, on top of the hill. In March of this year, they went back down the hill and now they have nowhere else to go. Going up the hill, it seemed that the sky was within arm's reach.

"I do love Serbia. That's where my brothers are. But I don't want to inconvenience anybody. You understand? Maybe you don't understand. There I am a guest, here I am closer to my home," says Milica Savic in one breath.

Her house is gone. Everything went up in flames.

"Here, take the rug... take it to remember me by. It's all I have left of my property," Milica offers us the rug. It's a moment when horror convulses the body. When the chest is too tight for the heart, ready to burst. These people have been piecing together their homes and everything in them for decades.

"The soldiers came, Germans. One of them took me by the hand, like this. He said: Come, you must come... Should I take anything from the cellar, I asked him. We have no time, the German replied," Milica Savic testifies about the drama of her expulsion.

"In Slatina near Vucitrn, before 1999, there were 46 houses. By March 17 only eight remained."

"We struggled to stay. We did not win in our struggle. The Albanians attacked us. They hit Goroljub Janackovic on the head with a shovel. He's in the hospital. They told me: We will slaughter you and no one will be here to see it."

The lamellate house on the left, Mali Zvecan. The sign on the door says: "Occupied. Andjelkovic family, Veliko Svinjare". We ring the bell. Two children, Filip (5) and Ivana (4), answer the door The boy does the talking; he sounds like an old man.

"I left my cow tied up. And my dog on a chain... I keep dreaming of my home. I loved the tractor and the dog. Especially the tractor."

These children had no toys to miss.

Radoslav Mihajlovic earned his pension in Trepca. He was a firefighter in the zinc plant. He left two houses in Svinjare.

"They're not just houses; they're 42 years of my work. And see what's happened to me now." He spreads his arms as if to show us. "I would go back, why not. But where?"

"Even to the wilderness, if necessary, but only accompanied by the Serbian army and police. Only with them," say Radoslav Mihajlovic from Svinjare and Milica Savic from Slatina, speaking all at once.

"There's Kosara! She's returning from Slatina," someone says. The people turn to face the approaching woman. Journalists are of secondary importance right now. The most important thing for these people is to hear what Kosara saw in Slatina. The woman managed to convince UNMIK police to take her there. She came back with a broken flush tank.

"This... this is all that I found. Everything else has been burned, looted," says Kosara.

"But why did you take it, Kosara? When you look at it, your heart wants to break," Svetislav Savic tells the woman.

"Let it break. That's why I took it," answers Kosara.

Veliki Zvecan, still unfinished houses, the smell of plaster. This is the new address of the displaced Serbs, most of them from Svinjare. The rooms consist of plasterless walls. The people have coated the walls with styrofoam. The beds, too, are styrofoam. The mattresses arrived only yesterday. Marija Mihajlovic says: We all went through the same thing.

The Jovic family lives in one room: Ljubisa, Slavica and their children: Marija (19), Miljan (17) and Milan (9).

"For five years we have resisted leaving," says Slavica. "When everyone left, we stayed. The children went to school by armored transporter. Until the train started, they were escorted by soldiers. Then they traveled without an escort. We worked hard to pull our home together. Every brick was hard work. Look at where we have ended up now. Nowhere to cook, nowhere to wash. Where to marry my sons and my daughter, where to receive my guests?

Elderly people climb up the stairs, one of them on crutches. The crutches strike hard on the concrete floor. The sound reverberates to the very brain. Mitar, Gorica, Milena, Marija can barely hobble.

"It is from grief," says an old woman. "My son has became mentally ill. Small wonder considering all we have lost: the house, the tractor, the plows, the centrifuge for honey, the beehives, the bees and the mill.

The old man clutches half a loaf of bread in a plastic bag. He stands dumbfounded. With nothing to say... In the background the cries of their son, the head of the household, can be heard.

"If you go to Svinjare, please, can you get my dog out? His name is Bibi. Just him," says little Milan.

"My medical secondary school diploma was left behind," adds Marija. The voices collide. The sorrow of the displaced cries to the very heavens.

CADRES OF GRIEF

"No one comes to visit us; no one tells us what will become of us. We can't go on like this but and we have nowhere else to go," says Ljubisa Jovic from Svinjare. "They advised us to move out of these apartments. What apartments? Walls, concrete above and concrete below. No electricity, no water. I understand, I understand everything; just tell us where we should go. They tell us that these apartments are for state cadres, that their owners have official decisions. Well, whose cadres are we? Cadres of grief, that's what we are. They should inform us of some decisions, too. I don't know if Covic knows about this.. If he doesn't, he should come and see.