Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Chapter 4 • Nicola Mai
Narratives of self-victimization used to describe the situation after 1998:
• Loss of property and of status for Serbs; further improvement for
Albanians;
• Fear of attacks, kidnapping and rape;
• Threats and intimidation by Albanian gangs;
• Murders and retaliatory violence enacted against Serbs;
• Repression of Serbs;
• Pressure on Serbs to leave Kosovo;
• “Our police were always impartial, Albanians were safer under the
protection of Yugoslav police and army than the Serbs were under the
KFOR”;
• Serbs were not nationalistic; Albanians were.
Narratives of responsibility and conspiracy: “it was them!”
• Albanians began the conflict; the Serbs were defending their legitimate
status;
• “They never liked us, they were pretending to be friendly”;
• Albanians were manipulated (supported) from outside Kosovo; by
Albania, European powers, America;
• The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was directly controlled by foreign
powers;
• The western media orchestrated events in collusion with the KLA;
• The Albanians were the ones truly responsible for the NATO bombings;
• Albanians fled Kosovo exclusively in order to blame the Serbs and provoke
the bombing;
• Serbian rage was a mere reaction to unjust humiliation;
• Albanian demands for greater rights were unjustified;
• It was always the Serbs who suffered most;
• The Albanians were ungrateful: they already had everything;
• NATO intervened to serve its own secret interests: since Kosovo is full
of mineral resources, America has always wanted to control the
Balkans;
• It was not the Albanians nor Serbs from Kosovo who did this. Some
stronger power influenced them;
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