© 1999 Global Beat Syndicate. All Rights Reserved.

Waiting for the Knock on the Door

 

 
By a correspondent in Pristina
March 29, 1999
 
PRISTINA, Serbia -- The NATO jets flew very low over the city Sunday night. Each one was met with anti-aircraft fire from the ground.
 
Outside on the street, I could hear shouting and cursing directed at Albanians, NATO, America, Britain, Clinton, Blair, Muslims, Turks -- in short anyone who doesn't speak Serbian.
 
Around 10 p.m. I heard someone wearing heavy boots run up the stairs of the building where I was staying. (I haven't slept at home for a week.) Then, I heard a hard knock on a neighbor's door.
 
"That's it," I thought, "they've arrived."
 
I'm amazed at how calm you become when danger is close. I used to be terrified whenever I saw a policeman or anyone carrying a gun. But last night it was completely different. I was cool. I waited and thought, "The worst thing they can do is kill me, so nothing can surprise me."
 
I made my decision: "I won't try to hide my identity or my native tongue." Albanian of course.
 
Then I head footsteps again but this time they were running downstairs. No one knocked on my door. But I had to know what was going on, so I peaked outside my door.
 
I saw a man I had spoken to before. I'd met him on the street a week ago and we exchanged a few works about, what else, the political situation. We spoke in Serbian. He seemed very open-minded, very "normal." After we talked, I thought to myself , "You can't condemn a whole nation just because of the government's policies. There are decent people among them."
 
Or at least that's what I thought last week.
 
When I saw him again Sunday night, he was wearing a strange uniform --neither police nor military -- and carrying weapons as he headed down the stairs. The knock I'd heard was that of his friend, also wearing a uniform and armed, coming to pick him up. Off they went, no doubt to try to kill "at least" one Albanian or to burn down someone's home.
 
I'll have to find a new place to sleep at night. I wouldn't want to run in him again.
 
Until few days ago, I felt very sorry for Albanians living in the villages and all they were going through. Not anymore. Now, I'm fighting for my own survival. I'm try to stay alive and act as normal as possible, though it's difficult.
 
In the morning, I ran back to my own home to check on my family. Out of breath, I nearly collapsed when I arrived. Since the phones are out, there's no other way I can check on my parents when I spend a night away from home. Every time I kiss my mother and father goodbye. I have this terrible feeling that I may never see them again.
 
Sunday, I walked pass my favorite cafe -- the place where my friends and I used to meet everyday. For years, we gathered here to meet and chat. We were so close that if you missed an afternoon, everyone notice, and wondered where
you'd gone. Now it's all destroyed. Even the chairs are gone. It doesn't look like my cafe at all. Inside five policemen were getting drunk on whisky in the middle of the mess.
 
It may seem ridiculous to be thinking about this cafe now, but not to me. It represents too many memories, too many friends. God knows when we will all be together again.
 
How many of my friends are missing? There is no way to find out. Telephones in Albanian houses are cut off, and the whole town is divided by police and armed civilians. No one can communicate, no one can move. For now, I can only remember my friends' names. I try to remember their faces but cannot. The only faces I remember are the frightening ones I see on the streets.
 
We wanted these NATO attacks so badly. We protested for them last year. I never dreamt that the sound of the incoming jets could horrify me so much. But it's not the air strikes that scare me. What I fear is their consequences on the ground and that there will be more killings.
 
I felt happy last night for the first time as I watched the Ministry of Interior building in the center of town be completely destroyed. I proudly stood at the window, watching. There are only ashes now where before the huge armored police vehicles would begin their daily tours. At least something of "theirs" has been destroyed and people can finally see it.
 
The big mushroom of flames that lit the night looked so beautiful,. When we saw that huge, ugly building burning, we didn't care so much about the consequences of the attacks. At last, something good was coming from this tragedy, that shows no sign of ending So what if the windows in the nearby apartments were blown out by the blast? We just hope that the attacks continue and that NATO planes fly even lower tonight.
 
How quickly day goes now. My friends used to call me "Nighthawk" because I adored the night and I adored waiting for the dawn. Night was my time. Now I hate it. When darkness comes, I will have to leave my home again and find someplace to hide. I will take my blanket, stay awake the whole night and hope not to hear a knock on the door. I'll listen to the roar of the jets, the anti-aircraft guns, the machine guns, and the shouting. Every shot sounds to me as if it's coming from the direction of my home. It fills me with a killing fear.
 
The electricity go off at about 6 p.m. It's not a good idea to light a candle that shows that someone is inside. So everyone stays in the dark, waiting.
 
 

The name of this journalist, a correspondent for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting's Balkan Crisis Report in London, is withheld to protect him from reprisals.

 

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© 1999 Global Beat Syndicate. All Rights Reserved. The Global Beat Syndicate, a service of New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media, provides editors with commentary and perspective articles on critical global issues from contributors around the world. For more information, check out http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/.

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