Refugees Insist They’ll Return Home to Kosovo

Drita Ismaili was damp, cold and exhausted Sunday from spending four nights in a muddy valley with tens of thousands of other refugees after being driven by Serbian forces from her home in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.

But when asked whether she thought she would return someday, Ismaili’s eyes widened and she spoke with a voice full of certainty: “I will be on the first bus back to Kosovo.”

“It’s my land, and I would not trade it for anyplace else--not even for America,” said Ismaili, 25, mustering a weary smile.

Over the last 11 days, Serbs have exiled ethnic Albanians by the hundreds of thousands from Kosovo. More refugees flooded across Kosovo’s borders Sunday, and NATO countries announced plans to begin offering thousands of them temporary shelter.

Despite the brutality and hardship, the refugees interviewed along this border have--almost without exception--retained a fervent determination to go home, and an optimism that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will make it happen for them.

Ismaili and her sister were ravenously eating bread and sardines while sitting on a curb and waiting with the rest of their family for a ride to a temporary shelter.

Although her short-term goal was safety, her long-term goal was finding a way back home.

“I know our house is burned down. But that does not matter. It is still our land. I do believe that NATO will make it possible for us to go back,” said Ismaili, a petite woman who wore only a light jacket and complained that her slacks were still wet.

“As long as I have life in me, I will strive to get back to Kosovo,” added Hamid Ismaili, 60, her father, a retired factory worker.

Like dozens of other refugees interviewed over recent days, Drita Ismaili expects NATO to seize Kosovo, a southern province of Serbia, the dominant republic of Yugoslavia, from Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and ensure the safe return of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians.

In spite of their dismal situation, there is some logic to the refugees’ optimism.

Although reluctant to commit ground troops, President Clinton and other NATO leaders have signaled their commitment to continue airstrikes until Milosevic agrees to stop the oppression, no matter how long that takes.

Pentagon spokesman Kenneth H. Bacon said in Washington on Sunday that escorting Kosovo Albanians back to their homes, where they could live in safety, is the Clinton administration’s goal.

Senior White House officials involved in developing U.S. policy toward Kosovo have insisted that Milosevic lost his last chance to keep control of Kosovo when he refused to accept a peace deal under which Kosovo would be an autonomous region of Serbia, and NATO would ensure the safety of the Kosovo Albanians.

Another reason for the refugees’ hope is that before the mass deportations, less than 10% of Kosovo’s population was Serb, so returning home does not necessarily mean the ethnic Albanians would have to live in the midst of their enemies.

This has been a major deterrent for Muslims who were expelled from their homes in the Bosnian war.

“This is not like Bosnian Muslims leaving Serb-controlled areas,” said Kris Janowski, spokesman for the Geneva-based Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “It’s understandable that these refugees see returning to their homes as just a matter of time much more than the Bosnian Muslims did.”

Unlike in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Serbs repopulated areas from which Muslims were driven out, Serbs are unlikely to be willing to live in Kosovo.

“That’s why these expulsions are so useless. There’s no way they will put Serbs in Kosovo,” Janowski said. “They would have to drag them with a team of oxen. They’ve been leaving Kosovo in droves in recent years.”

Promises from NATO and the sense that--despite their emotional attachment--Serbs don’t really want to live in Kosovo seem like distant hopes after the refugees’ long agony.

Nonetheless, they expressed remarkable faith in the future.

Many of the people arriving in Macedonia over recent days have been two-time refugees. Serbian paramilitary troops forced them out of their homes in villages in Kosovo months ago, and they took refuge with relatives or friends in Pristina. Then, together with their hosts, they were evicted again after NATO airstrikes started.

Hasime Asllani, 34, an elementary school teacher, watched as Serbian forces set fire to her home in the small town of Vucitrn in September. She and her family moved in with relatives in Pristina, where they lived until a week ago, when they were forced out again.

They moved in with other relatives in a nearby suburb, only to be forced out again, so they took refuge in yet another relative’s home. After the third eviction in as many days, they were forced to board a train to Macedonia. They crossed the border Saturday.

“We are prepared and ready to go back,” said Asllani as she waited at a Red Cross center in the Macedonian town of Tetovo for documents making her family eligible for donated food.

“We want to go back as soon as possible,” she said. “We will find another house. I am optimistic because I believe with NATO’s help Kosovo will be free one day, and we will be able to return.”

In the next room, Antoneta and Albert, a married couple, were eager to talk about the affluent, cosmopolitan life they had built for themselves as a two-income professional family in Pristina.

Their big house has been burned down. All of their belongings were looted, but Albert was most devastated by the fact that photos of their two children, ages 7 and 5, were destroyed.

“The pictures of my kids are gone. The pictures are our personal histories. [The Serbs] want to destroy everything about us. Our origins. Our histories. Our identities,” said Albert, a 37-year-old economist.

“They want to destroy us not just economically but psychologically, so we will never go back to Kosovo,” added Antoneta, 30, a lawyer, who feared reprisals and asked that their last name not be used.

But the couple said they were confident that the Serbs would not be successful over the long term.

“Everybody wants to go back. They can destroy our homes. They can destroy everything,” Antoneta said. “But nobody can destroy our hope.”

However, a small minority of refugees acknowledged that they’ve had enough.

Shefkei Ferataj, 32, and her 2-year-old daughter walked across the border early Saturday. She said she had been frightened by hearing gunshots and explosions for days on end and reports that the Serbs would target her city of Kosovska Mitrovica next for expulsions.

Their exit from Kosovo was easier than most because they took a bus and spent only several hours, rather than several days, at the border checkpoint.

“I am sorry, but I never want to see Kosovo again,” said Ferataj, who was the extraordinarily rare refugee wearing a fur coat. It was wet and matted from the steady rain, but she still looked much less bedraggled than the rest of the people crossing the border.

“My whole family is in America, and my baby and I are going to Chicago as soon as we can,” she said.

Ferataj’s daughter seemed to reflect her mother’s mood. While most of the children at the border looked dazed, and many of them sobbed or whimpered, Ferataj’s toddler cheerfully splashed in puddles with her red plastic boots.