Kosovo

8/18/01

Landing in Kosovo was quite different than landing in Ethiopia. As soon as I landed I saw military vehicles and personnel, it was like being at war again, the same feeling. Joel Murray, my new boss and Jack Carson, an old friend, picked me up at the airport. I was extremely lucky that my bags were not missing and that they were the first ones to come out. Everyone told me horror stories about losing their baggage for days. We immediately went to Jack’s apartment where I was to stay until we found one for me, and then we went next door to Joel’s for drinks. Jack and I had known each other for a while, so we had some catching up to do. Joel brought me up to date on what had happened to the guy I was relieving here. He confirmed my suspicions that it had been the guy we went through training with RONCO in Texas. Apparently this guy had no common sense, really disliked the locals (but let it known to everyone), and stabbed himself in the foot while playing throw with his knife, amongst many things. But the straw the broke the camel’s back was that he went drinking right after work with some people and after they got really drunk they found out that he was carrying explosives in the back of his truck! That was a major safety violation. So Joel had no choice but to fire his ass.

Today I got up early and went to work with Jack. It was my first day here and didn’t want to spend it in the apartment doing nothing. We went to the office and I met most of the guys in my team. I was getting two teams of guys from Mozambique. Come to find out, they spoke Portuguese and very little English. My job was to be a team leader of UXO teams; I was finally going to do real EOD work instead of teaching. We then departed for an hour’s trip out of Pristina to the work site. It was up on the hills surrounding the city and the view was absolutely gorgeous. I learned quite a bit from Jack but mostly we sat around reminiscing about our days in the Navy and our friends. After being in Ethiopia with Canadians for 5 months, it was very nice to be able to sit and talk to an American about American things. After work Jack and myself went to downtown Pristina to have a few beers at his local hangout, it was right next to the U.N. Headquarters, very nice place.

Coming from Addis, I found Pristina very hot, which was fine by me, I don’t mind the heat. Another nice thing here is the fact that I can actually see the blue skies, instead of the gray, cloudy skies of Addis. Noticeable for me also was the fact that the air was relatively clean and there was no smoke coming out of the cars’ exhausts. Almost immediately my cough was gone. Being here was a breath of fresh air…literally! Everyone had warned me about how dirty the place was but I found it actually cleaner than Addis, but not by much.

My first evening we all went to a Serbian village about 8 kilometers outside Pristina. The village has 2 roads leading in and out and are both guarded by KFOR (Kosovo Force) to prevent attacks by Albanians. Inside the village it was very different than in the city. Everything seemed so peaceful, quite, and clean. We ate in a very quaint little restaurant. As we sat outside and drank a few beers we watched the people stroll by on a very nice warm summer evening. The food was incredibly good, pork chops, veal and ribs. My only disappointment was that they didn’t have any good rum. They had some Croatian rum that tasted like someone mixed kerosene with sugar and added some diesel for taste. So after the first one, it was straight cokes for me. We all sat there for about three hours enjoying the conversation and the evening. It was very nice for me to be able to do that, since in Ethiopia there were no places to do that without being attacked by a mob of beggars, and people staring at you.

One only needs a few weeks in Kosovo to really understand what is going on there. At first one would tend to think of the “poor” Albanians and how they don’t have the resources to run their country. But the longer I spent in Kosovo the more I understand what really happened, and how apparent it becomes that we helped the wrong side. By “we” I mean the US, the UN and NATO.

The country was under Serbian rule under Milosevic. The population was approximately 80% Albanian and 20% Serbian. The Albanians wanted their autonomy but Milosevic would have none of it. It is very obvious that the Serbians took good care of the country, even though it was a communist dictatorship. When the war started 15,000 Serbian soldiers drove out close to 1.5 million Albanians because they didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to stay and fight even though they outnumbered the “enemy”. That was pretty impressive of the Serbians given that the population of the country was estimated at 2 million people. Kosovo is said to have been deserted.

The problems started for the Serbs when Milosevic went overboard with the killings and atrocities. Apparently he was doing the right thing, he just went about it the wrong way. The Albanians were doing the same atrocities as the Serbians but the media chose to expose Milosevic because he was in power, thus the Albanians became the “oppressed”. Therefore, the U.N. and NATO backed the Albanians.

Consequently, and thanks to NATO intervention, the Albanians won the war and were left with a country without a government or internal infrastructure to accomplish not even the basic city functions. The city now has gone to rubbish. The U.N. is the government and runs every governmental function. Corruption is rampant with the Russian Mafia and drug lords running amok.

There are basically three police forces in country. KFOR is the NATO led military contingency. It is comprised of a multi-national task force and is tasked to keep peace at a national level. They still patrol the whole country, which is divided into five sectors. A major country controls each sector: U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Italy. The next police group is the U.N. International Police Force (CivPol), not to be confused with INTERPOL. Each member nation of the U.N. sends regular police officers on a one-year loan to the U.N. to teach the local police departments the basics of police work. They also patrol the cities, towns and villages. The last group is the Kosovo Police Department. They have been funded, trained and equipped by the United Nations. Other countries through the U.N have donated everything they have.  They patrol the populated sectors of the country, usually accompanied by CivPol personnel. The local police force is the biggest group of crooks in this place. It is comprised of people that up to a few years ago were unemployed farmers with nothing going for them. All of a sudden the UN comes in, gives them uniforms, guns and a bit of authority and they think they are GOD. They have no clue what’s going on.

Things that we commonly we take for granted such as garbage pick-up, road maintenance and good electricity do not exist here. Sometimes we have electricity, sometimes we don’t. The Albanians do not take care of their cities; they throw the trash anywhere and are not proud in taking care of the cities. In every corner there is a pile of trash.

Under the Serbian government the city was in good shape, it was clean and the buildings were taken care of.

Driving in Pristina is a major health hazard. Up to 5 years ago there were very few vehicles here. All of a sudden with the communist regime gone, the floodgates of vehicles are open and everyone owns one. Most are stolen from Germany. All those people that had never driven before are driving now and they have no concept of driving etiquette or road courtesy. To compound the problem the city was not designed for so many cars, the roads are too narrow and there is hardly parking space. The deterioration of the roads is inevitable with the amount of heavy traffic, including tanks and all kinds of military vehicles. Since there is no road maintenance department, the roads are getting worse by the minute, which in turn makes the traffic problem that much worse.

Now the Serbians have been pushed to live in villages called enclaves. They are protected by KFOR. Every entrance and exits to the enclaves have KFOR checkpoints and they check every one coming in the enclave to make sure Albanians don’t go in an plant bombs or whatever.

Even though the “internationals” (as we are known here) keep the city alive, the locals hate us and have a major attitude towards us. It is very apparent in the way they treat us and talk to us. We are basically feeding them and clothing them, yet they despise us being here. It’s like cutting the hand that feeds you. They can’t wait for us to depart, which will cause greater problems because the unemployment will shoot through the roof, since the UN employs a vast majority of the locals and is the economy. Everyone here (internationals) knows that when we leave, if we ever do, the country will go down the tubes. This country has no visible way to support itself or generate income after we leave. There is no tourism, no industries, no major agriculture or foreign investments, so I am not sure how the economy will sustain itself. What will the economy base itself on no one knows. But yet the Kosovars (Albanians) still wants us to get out of their country. As far as I am concerned, I cannot wait to get out of here, the sooner the better.

The Albanians hate the Serbians and internationals alike. However, they seem to forget that we are the government and without us they would not have much. The Albanian attitude has now reached Macedonia, the only Balkan country that had evaded armed conflicts. During the Kosovo war, a lot of the Albanian refugees fled to Macedonia, which opened its borders and took them in to refugee camps. A few years after the war, these Albanians (still living in Macedonia) have opened fire on the Macedonians, demanding rights for living in that country. It just makes no sense at all.

Seems to me like all the countries in the Balkans hate the Albanians, I can definitely see why. It is very obvious to me now that we should have backed the Serbians.

9/25/01

My diary entries have been nil since the terrorists attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Probably for the lack of motivation. I am still in shock over the attacks. It seems so unreal for America to be attacked like that; it is like a bad dream.

10/06/01

Last week I found out that I am going to Zambia, Africa. I am pleased about it since it means I have work until at least December 20. In light of recent world events, any work is good work. I am leaving the 19^th of October. As far as to what I’ll be doing, I don’t know much. I know that I will be training someone on demining. To what extend I will be teaching I don’t know.

Our work is based out of State Department funds, and with the US economy in a downward trend, we really don’t know what’s going to happen to our funds. I would not have any problem if our funds go to fighting terrorism. 

My only disappointment right now is that I was not able to go to my best friend’s wedding in Canada. I was to be the best man and was looking forward to going to Winnipeg and getting out of Europe even if it was for just a few days. But with this new assignment I will not be able to get the time off. I was very frustrated about the whole thing. It hurt me a lot to have to tell Ray that I couldn’t go. I know it was hard for him too; he really wanted me there. I felt like I was letting him down, after all that he has done for me. Ray is like a big brother to me. But I do seek advice from him and he has yet steered me wrong.