By Tom Hundley
Tribune Foreign Correspondent
November 10, 1999
MOGILA, Yugoslavia -- Stojanka Ristic, a stout
woman with a leathery complexion, a few gold teeth and
an in-your-face demeanor, decided that life as a refugee
in her own country was "too much to endure." So last
week she and her ailing husband left Smederevo, an
industrial town in central Serbia, and moved back to
their old house in Kosovo.
"There was no money to pay the rent in Serbia.
Everything was very difficult," she said, adding, "There is
no better place than your own bed."
U.S. soldiers keep a 24-hour watch on the ethnically
mixed village of Mogila, where the Ristics returned. The
Americans' command post is next to the Orthodox
church on a bluff that overlooks the ragged scrabble of
stone houses and tilled fields below.
Even with the constant presence of the soldiers, Ristic,
48, said there are still "no peaceful dreams at night."
Ethnic violence continues to drive Albanians and Serbs
apart in Kosovo. Scarcely a day goes by without fresh
reports of house-burnings, abductions or killings. Mostly
it is the work of Albanian thugs who seem as interested
in stealing the houses and meager possessions of the
vulnerable Serb minority as they do in settling political
scores.
But Brig. Gen. Craig Peterson, the senior American
commander in Kosovo, said that despite the gloomy
assessments of some international agencies and the
complaints of the Serbs, there are signs the situation is
beginning to turn around.
"Serbs are starting to come back," he said. "Two months
ago we had 30,000 in this sector. Now we have almost
50,000. We have Serb mayors going back into Serbia
recruiting people, telling them it's safe to come back."
Population figures in Kosovo are, at best, guesses.
Before the war, an estimated 180,000 to 190,000 Serbs
represented about 10 percent of the province's total
population. At least half of those fled in June when
Serbian troops were forced to withdraw.
Some analysts believe the number of Serbs remaining in
Kosovo is no more than 30,000 or 40,000. The United
Nations generally uses the figure of 90,000. Peterson's
number is 105,000 for all of Kosovo.
Last June, when the exodus began, the Yugoslav
government wanted the fleeing Serbs to return to
Kosovo, and refugees were blocked from entering
Belgrade. The last thing Serbian leader Slobodan
Milosevic needed was tens of thousands of disgruntled
refugees whose presence would drain already limited
resources and remind the populace of the disaster he
had wrought in Kosovo.
But now Belgrade seems content to reap the
propaganda benefits of the Serbs' persecution in
Kosovo. It does as little as possible to accommodate
the incoming refugees but reports in vivid detail each and
every attack against the remaining Serbs and accuses
NATO of complicity in the attacks on Serbs.
For KFOR, the NATO-led multinational force that has
40,000 troops in the province, protecting the Serbs in
Kosovo and making it safe for refugees to return has
become a top political priority.
To that end, U.S. troops are guarding Serb villages,
churches, schools and even individual houses. They
escort Serbs on shopping expeditions and stand guard
while they work in their fields.
In the large Albanian market town of Urosevac, the
pre-war population of 6,000 Serbs has dwindled to
fewer than 30. U.S. troops provide around-the-clock
protection for each of them.
In Mogila, three soldiers with the 82nd Airborne stand
guard over the village elementary school. Serb children
go to classes in the morning, Albanians use the school in
the afternoon.
"I didn't expect anything like this," said Spec.
Christopher Morgan, of Katy, Texas. He was wearing
body armor and carrying an M-16 rifle as he watched a
group of youngsters frolicking in the schoolyard. "We
weren't trained to go into a foreign school and provide
day care," he said.
But according to Peterson, the American presence in the
sector has wrought some semblance of law and order.
Crime figures collected by the army over the last six
weeks indicate an average of two assaults and one arson
a day. Ethnic murders, which have totaled 348 since
KFOR took over in Kosovo, have dropped to less than
one a day in the American sector.
An average of a murder a day would be comparable to
the crime rate in a large American city like Detroit or
Atlanta, but given that the target population in the
American sector is under 50,000, the rate remains
frighteningly high.
Stojanka Ristic is not the only Serb in Mogila who does
not sleep well at night.
"Every day there is some kind of provocation or attack,"
said Siniasa Nojkic, a 38-year-old farmer who lives in
the village.
A few weeks ago, assailants--presumably Albanian--
launched a grenade attack against three Serb houses at
4 a.m. No one was hurt, but when frightened Serbs
grabbed their guns to defend their homes, several of
them, including Nojkic, were arrested and handcuffed
by the American troops, according to a U.S. Army
incident report.
"When the Albanians attacked, the Americans were like
mice in a hole. They took care of themselves first,"
complained Nojkic.
It appears the 600 or so Serbs in Mogila no longer look
upon the Americans as an enemy invader, but they
complain bitterly of alleged American favoritism toward
the Albanian population.
Despite the lingering mistrust, Zoran Krchmarevic, the
mayor of Mogila, has been making weekly recruiting
trips to Serbia to encourage refugees to return.
"A few are coming back, but not whole families.
Fathers, older sons come back to see if there is still a
house and to see how the conditions are," said Bozidan
Milosevic, 37, an unemployed factory worker.
"We are asking the Americans for more protection, and
they told us very plainly that they are not able to provide
a soldier in front of every Serbian house," added
Vladimir Markovic, 59, a resident of Mogila whose
front door bears the blackened scars of a recent arson
attempt.
"It's planned, it's deliberate, it's systematic. It may be
decentralized but it's definitely planned," the U.S. general
said of the attacks. "I don't know who is responsible. I
have not yet caught the ringleaders."
The UN's High Commissioner for Refugees, does not
dispute Peterson's figures on Serb returns but offered a
caution.
"It's unclear if people are coming to stay or if they are
simply bringing supplies or retrieving their belongings. At
this point, I think it's hard for them to know themselves if
they are here to stay," said Paula Ghedini, the UNHCR
spokeswoman in Pristina.
"It depends on the circumstances in each individual
village," she said. "It doesn't matter how much food we
deliver or how much building materials we provide. If
someone doesn't feel safe, he won't stay."
