UNMIK ON AIR

PITBULL GANG HITS PRISTINA STREETS

6 February

(Luan Qorraj)

CUt 1 : About 6 weeks ago the police became aware that two young women had been subject to abduction , forcible confinement and multiple sexual abuse and rape as well as physical beatings. This had happened in the Prishtina region and involved were a group of young man who called themselves a street gang named “the pit-bulls” .

UNMIK police spokesman , Derek Chappel, speaking about two separate rapes committed by a self-proclaimed street gang in Prishtina region.

These particularly vicious crimes committed by a group of young men, 5 of whom have been arrested and are currently in detention, have stirred a lot of questions about the direction the kosovar youth is going to. According to the police, this is the first time in post-war kosovo that something like this street gang has been encountered.

In general, street gangs with violent lifestyles, are nothing new in the western world. They are usually made out of angry young man who gather around the same territory, idea or ethnic concept and enforce it on helpless victims which almost never have anything to do with the reasons for the anger of street gang members. North America is well known for particularly vicious street gangs whose purpose is usually criminal cooperation in order to achieve some sort of financial profit, but sometimes, they form with violence as the only reason of their actions. They have been proven to be difficult to eradicate and always pose a big risk for ordinary citizens.

URBAN FM, a Prishtina-based radio-station, specialises in youth and social issues. Ariantin Abdyli, one of its heads and a person who organized numerous programs involving youth, told us that the appearance of youth gangs in Kosovo is not unexpected:

Cut 2: I am not at all surprised that a gang like that is found to exist and I believe that a lot of other gangs exist. Maybe not doing this kind of stuff , like rape and molesting but the police reports speak of gangs that are specializing in car thefts. For example there was a story about the arrest of ten or twelve minors who came from Podujevo and had “dardania” as their working place.

Ari adds that for a lot of kids getting into a gang, or another organized crime activity, may seem the only way to make some sort of a living. Or even the only way to provide financial aid for an impoverished family:

CUt 3 : This is a result of the economic situation, you do not need to be too philosophical about it, there’s a crisis and we all know that our families consist of a lot of members . Many family members are unemployed ,which means that the kids will perceive themselves as persons who should do something . Therefore joining gangs is the easiest way for them to make some money.

Which is something UNMIK Police’s Derek Chappel agrees with. But he adds that there is probably more to the problem than just the economic factor. Some of it may be coming from beliefs rooted deep within society:

CUt 4 : I think that possibly it stems from high unemployment rate , it stems from the lack of respect particularly for women – that a lot of young man seem to have. The fact that there is a great deal of frustration here in Kosovo and also it stems from the belief that might makes right the person that has the biggest gun: the person that has the most force can make their own rules.

Still, says Ariantin from URBAN FM, although gangs have been absent from Pristina in the last few years, that wasn’t always the case. And if it happened before, it is very likely that it might start happening again, maybe even on a scale larger than before. Prishtina is much bigger now then it was before the war and, according to Ariantin, that leaves a lot more room for creation of gangs that will not be organised strictly on “boys in the ‘hood” principle:

CUt 5 : This is what happened earlier, I am talking about the time when I was as old as the guys that were arrested . Then there were gangs based on locations –like Dardania, Ulpiana, vranjevc, “The muhaxher block” And now Prishtina has changed , there are much more citizens and the “neighborhood identity” is lost. Now, it might happen that gangs will be created from the people of the same background, maybe coming from the same region, same village or something similar.

Unfortunately, underlines derek Chappel, all the police can do about crimes like the double rape is deal with the consequences. Western experiences say that in order to prevent these things from happening the formation of street gangs should be prevented by society. And that is done by taking away the reasons for the rage of these young man…

CUt 6 : This is not a police function, this is a function of the community, to provide sports facilities, to provide employment opportunities, to provide recreational opportunities for local kids and teenagers so that they can make money and they can occupy themselves and they can have a sense of pride in themselves. If that isn’t provided and with a high percentage of young people in Kosovo society they will turn to drugs, they will turn to violence, they will turn to street gangs.

Not a very optimistic view, but perhaps a realistic one.

It took two horrible crimes to take place before people became aware of a group of young man called “the pitbulls” who express their anger through meaningless violence. And it will take some time before we know if “the pitbulls” and their crimes are isolated case or just the beginning of street gangs in Kosovo.

And with this we close