Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
nesses, the biggest money and the biggest smuggling actions were taken
over by the oppressed Shiptars. The poor, illiterate Shiptars, as they were
described in the West. Those were the people who dealt with everything.
They lived really well, they drove the most expensive cars, they did what
they wanted, they bribed everyone and in the end, things happened the
way they happened. [(V16): Serb man, aged 60, an economist from a
middle-sized urban context and with direct dramatic experiences of animosity
and antagonism. He escaped an attempted kidnapping and later
saw the successive kidnap and murder of two of his colleagues while at
work. He is now suffering from angina pectoris].
I don’t know what to say about that, but... In the last 10-15 years, as the
situation got worse... I was bothered the most… during those demonstrations...
that mass gave me the creeps... It was as the “alternative” ordered
them, so they went out and as they ordered them… One day they say:
you’ll come and protest. And they come and protest. On another day they
go out, in masses... It gives me the creeps, even as I speak of it... it’s a
mob, a mass, and among them we recognized our friends, and since then
some things changed terribly. [(M4): Serb woman from an urban environment,
aged 30, pharmacist, married with two children aged 3 and 4.
Both she and her husband had experienced antagonism and conflict with
Albanians. She has been attacked several times, and once even raped].
Well, I think Belgrade, official Belgrade, that is the government, or
regime as some call it, was ruling with a use of force over something
which had not belonged to it since long before… That regime in
Belgrade made some moves, and they knew they couldn’t finish up the
job and that one day they would have to make some concessions and
those concessions are felt on our backs, the backs of common people
who lived there. With the help of the army and police, who more-or-less
didn’t care about Kosovo, they are professionals who just happened to
come there, they misused their power, especially in the last period of
their rule, during the bombing, during NATO aggression against
Yugoslavia, particularly against Kosovo. I think they reached the peak of
their abuse at that time, taking everything they could, which didn’t
belong to them, and left us there to pay for the damage they have done in
the past nine years, for something we haven’t done. That is what I think.
[(V6): Serb man, aged 33, supervisor, from an urban environment. He
had friends among Albanians and believed that the police had mistreated
them, as his personal experience confirms].
They protected people first, then the borders and finally the army were
fighting terrorism, like any army would do. They didn’t terrorize the
Shiptars because of their nationality, but they were merely fighting terrorism.
They had never harassed or mistreated anybody. They were just
protecting the borders and fighting terrorism. [(V4) Serb man, aged 26,
military, He has been shot twice since the arrival of KFOR. He is currently
working for the Kosovo Protection Corps in a position of great
responsibility].
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