UNMIK ON AIR
August 14th
2003
PEJA VIGIL
(Luan
Qorraj)
August hasn’t been hot only in terms of the thermometer
rising – this summer has unfortunately also seen an upsurge in violence – 3 people
killed last week in a drive-by shooting in the center of Peja, only a few
meters away from the police station. Two of the three victims were children. A
couple of days later, one person killed and another wounded in a family dispute
in Jabllanica and a few days ago, a Serb shot through the mouth while fishing
near Lipjan.
There were the usual official condemnations of these acts
and a few headlines in the papers, but otherwise it appears not many people
took notice of what happened, with the exception of the famous “Cooper family”
in Peja. Last week, they organized a two-day silent vigil as a citizen’s
protest against what seems to be becoming the rule of the gun, instead of the
much- talked-about rule of law.
For two days members of the Cooper family and some of their
supporters sat on the streets of Peja in silent prayer. According to Casey
Cooper Johnson, the reason for doing this was not the hope that something would
change drastically, but that people would start opening their eyes to what is happening:
Casey Cooper: It seems like, as a community
in Peja our eyes are a little bit glazed over, so that next month someone else
gets killed, some other teenager gets killed, it’s almost like “That’s life- it happens everywhere, it happens
here every month. It’s life, what to do about it- “hajde shkojme me e pi nji
kafe”(let’s go have a coffee, in Albanian). And this is something that we
thought “Ok while you are on your way to drink that coffee you’ll see us and
maybe it will bother you a little bit, maybe you’ll even make a joke about it,
or maybe you’ll walk past and just be punctured a little bit.
The disconcerting part
about the vigil, says Antoneta Krasniqi, who joined the vigil for a day, was
the fact that there were more people of foreign origin protesting against the
murders than Kosovars. For her, joining the vigil was a way of expressing her
concern and show that people do have a voice in what is happening. That by
turning their heads away, they only contribute to the confusion.
Antoneta Krasniqi: It was very difficult for me
to accept that there weren’t more Albanians taking part since, instead of us
doing something and standing up against that- someone else, the Cooper family
or some foreigners, stood up against it. It was also difficult because if there
is a political protest or something to do with this or that party everyone gets
out. But when it is something – when Albanians do bad things, everyone closes
their eyes – they do not want to accept that it is us who are doing evil things
now.
Yet, many Kosovo
Albanians can argue, the non-violent method has been a tried and tested one in
Kosovo. Over a decade of peaceful struggle against the Milosevic regime failed
to garner international support – Kosovo, they say only appeared on the world
map when the people took up arms.
The point is however to
look towards the future and take today as a starting point. Kosovo has seen
enough violence, enough deaths, and enough burials.
The denial, or apparent
apathy towards what is happening, says Casey, who arrived in Kosovo with his
family right after the war, is one of the biggest problems of this society.
People, he says, are tired and have lost the hope they had four years ago- that
is exactly why they need to be reminded that things can change.
Casey Cooper: right after the end of the war
there was some sense of elation and renewed hope. And in the past four years
maybe a lot of expectations of what freedom would be, or what this new time
will bring, maybe haven’t been what people expected. So I think there has been
some demoralization. I don’t think that people have their eyes completely
closed but I think there’s a need for more provocation.
Peter Longings agrees. He
prefers to describe his country of origin as the Czechoslovak republic, even if
that entity ceased to exist more than a decade ago. People, says Peter, have
become too preoccupied with their own everyday struggles and do not react until
something happens directly to them or their families- and by then it is usually
too late.
Peter Longings:
the three concrete murders have nothing to do with me but the
violence, the disrespect for life, the messages that we have posted out there
are very close to me, exactly as it is to anybody from Peja or anybody from
Prizren.
Criminals are dangerous
but their power lies in the fear and silence of the population. It is when people turn their backs on what
is happening that crime succeeds. A handful of people staging a silent vigil
may not change anything, but insists Neta Krasniqi, it is important to stand up
and be counted.
Neta Krasniqi: The last murders that happened in Peja, I couldn’t
believe that they could happen. Two children getting killed, aged 14 and 11,
and I wanted to do something, if only to say that we cannot continue closing our
eyes to what has happened – not just to say “never mind it happens”: but to do
something and say that I am against it, that I do not agree with what is
happening.
People have a voice and
they should raise it against what is happening, adds Casey Johnson, since their
silence means acceptance of what is happening and that does not create a bright
future:
Casey Cooper: This vigil wasn’t about the
criminals- I don’t think what we can do is going to directly change them. But
it is about the rest of us who want to live and raise our families in Peja.
Or any other place in
Kosovo for that matter. That does it for this edition of UNMIK on Air. Thanks
for listening.