‘But I Will Stay Here’

Their security forces defeated and preparing to retreat, Kosovo’s Serbian civilians Wednesday were facing their own stark choice: Try to live in peace with ethnic Albanians or leave the province.

After watching Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic build his power base over the past decade by using the vulnerability of Kosovo’s Serbian minority as an issue, many of its members now feel cheated and abandoned.

But as some of Rusica Milak’s Serbian friends are getting ready to flee Kosovo with the pullout of Yugoslav security forces, she wants to mount her own last stand by trying to get along with the province’s ethnic Albanians.

She doesn’t have much choice. Croatian troops drove Milak and about 300,000 other ethnic Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia in 1995. Despite the West’s protests against “ethnic cleansing” in the Balkans, very few of those Serbs have been able to return home.

“People are saying different things. Some think we have been betrayed, but I don’t think so,” Milak said through an interpreter Wednesday. “Me and my three kids, we’re determined to continue to live here.

“We are connected to this place, through the soul of Kosovo, our schools, friendships--our Serbianhood.”

There are an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Serbs in Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia’s dominant republic, Serbia. Before the current conflict sent as many as 1 million refugees fleeing to neighboring nations, ethnic Albanians made up about 90% of the province’s 2 million people.

Many Serbs Fear Retribution

While Milak admits to being afraid that ethnic Albanians may seek revenge against Serbs in the province, she remains a die-hard optimist.

“In the [Krajina Serbs’] refugee barracks where I live, a lot of people are leaving,” said Milak, a soft-spoken woman with graying hair. “But I will stay here. I have a lot of Albanian friends, and I still do.

“I don’t care really whether someone is Albanian or Serb. I’m only interested in living and being able to move around.”

That could soon be much harder, depending on how the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Yugoslav military carry out the promised withdrawal of Yugoslav forces and the entry of about 48,000 foreign peacekeepers into Kosovo.

Russia, a traditional ally of the Serbs, has talked about sending peacekeepers into Serbian areas of Kosovo to allay the residents’ fears that NATO is secretly supporting separatist Kosovo Albanian rebels.

NATO has promised to disarm the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, who are mounting daily sniper attacks and ambushes along many of Kosovo’s roads and in its cities. But Milak insists that she won’t live in any area under NATO troops.

“If they come into Serbian areas, I believe that not more than two Serbs will remain here because NATO has clearly been on the Albanian side,” she said. “It’s a different story if international peacekeeping troops come in--that is, those from countries that have not actually participated in NATO’s aggression.”

For many Serbs, the choice between staying or going comes down to whether they can afford the cost of leaving Kosovo. Serbs who talk of departing say they don’t plan to come back.

The going rate for a fully loaded moving truck is more than $3,000--an enormous sum for most people here, many of whom lost jobs due to NATO bombing and are living off savings.

Unlike most ethnic Albanians, many of whom were forced to leave the province on farmers’ wagons with only a few possessions and the clothes they were wearing, Serbs at least have time to pack.

At least one family managed to pull out Wednesday from Pristina, Kosovo’s provincial capital. An open-backed truck loaded with a couple of refrigerators, a stove and other furniture headed north toward the administrative border between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia.

Milak and about 1,000 other Serbs weighed their options at a rally outside Pristina’s stadium Wednesday. The message they heard was partly a call for Serbs to stay in Kosovo but also a protest at Milosevic’s acceptance of NATO’s terms for peace.

Criticism for Milosevic

The local government refused to unlock the doors of a stadium meeting hall, so the rally went ahead on the front steps under a blazing sun.

Momcilo Trajkovic, leader of Kosovo’s Serbian Resistance Movement, told the people in the crowd that it was their patriotic duty to defend their right to live in Kosovo, which Serbs view as their cultural heartland.

“Those who brought us to this point are not letting us fight even for that,” said Trajkovic, a longtime opponent of Milosevic. “That should be their problem. But unfortunately, it’s becoming less and less their problem because the consequences are hitting the people.”

Milosevic rose to power, first as the leader of Serbia and then as president of Yugoslavia, by stirring up nationalist passions over Kosovo. His strategy set off a chain reaction that contributed to the Yugoslav federation’s disintegration beginning in 1991 and, after warfare, independence for Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Macedonia managed to break away without a fight, but war came to neighboring Kosovo in March 1998 when the KLA tried to win independence from Serbia.

Although Yugoslav troops and Serbian police were still very much a presence in the province Wednesday, Kosovo Serbs such as Nenad Vasic see the writing on the wall.

He reads Milosevic’s agreement with the West as total defeat and blames Serbian leaders whom he decided it was safest to call “they.”

“I must say I did not expect a capitulation, and that is what this is,” said Vasic, 22. “I think we would have had a much better chance if they had had a better vision of what they wanted.

“They knew, starting from 1991, that NATO was the mightiest power in the world, and perhaps by allowing them to have bases in our country, we could have had a much better deal.”

He expects NATO troops will probably be patrolling Pristina, so he’ll have to get over the anger he feels at the alliance for its devastating 11-week air war against Yugoslavia.

“I’m certainly not happy about it, but other people have decided our fate,” Vasic said. Referring to the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, he added, “The other option is to leave here and sell cigarettes in Belgrade.”