U.S. Diplomat Receives a Hero’s Welcome in Kosovo Village

U.S. diplomat William Walker, the former head of an international monitoring mission in Kosovo, walked past hundreds of smiling admirers Thursday on a hillside above this village. Then he reached the cemetery, and the mood turned somber.

At the burial site for 45 ethnic Albanian massacre victims, Walker and a local dignitary spoke solemnly as relatives sat by the graves and fought back tears. Afterward, one of the bereaved women, Sherife Syla, 62, rose and said she wanted to say a few words.

“You and God” are the ones who freed Kosovo, she said to Walker, expressing the sentiments of many in the crowd. “Otherwise, our whole nation would have disappeared.”

When he first came to Racak in mid-January to view bodies and talk to witnesses as the chief of the mission trying to head off worsening ethnic conflict in the separatist Serbian province, Walker forcefully concluded that the dead were victims of a massacre by Serbian military and police controlled by the Yugoslav government.

“Although I am not a lawyer, from what I personally saw, I do not hesitate to describe the event as a massacre, obviously a crime very much against humanity,” Walker told reporters in Racak the day after the killings, which the government claimed occurred in the cross-fire between security forces and separatist guerrillas. “Nor do I hesitate to accuse the government security forces of responsibility.”

Walker’s unambiguous statement helped trigger an outburst of international outrage that ultimately led to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 11-week bombing campaign to end Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s repression of ethnic Albanians in the province. It also made Walker, 64, a local hero.

As Walker prepared to leave Racak on Thursday, 13-year-old Shefkije Syla said, “I’m feeling very good that Walker came here, because he’s the one who saved our lives.”

“I was never happier than today,” said Aziz Emini, 65, a man in a greeting line of village elders who fought back tears after welcoming Walker to Racak. “His words on the massacre in Racak turned the international community to help us. It’s very important, not only for Racak but for all Kosovo, because now we are free.”

Now based at the State Department in Washington awaiting his next assignment, Walker returns the affection shown to him by so many people here. He has displayed personal warmth toward everyone he meets, including former leaders of the recently disbanded guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army. But he also has used the opportunity of his visit to stress that ethnic Albanians must quickly end violence against the remaining Serbian minority in Kosovo or risk losing international support.

A former ambassador to El Salvador who likes to note that he is a graduate of Santa Monica High School (class of 1953), Walker has received almost constant praise and adulation from ethnic Albanians during his four-day Kosovo visit, which ends today.

Admirers have ranged from ordinary people who run up to him on the street shouting things such as “You are a hero!” to former KLA leader Hashim Thaci, prime minister of an unofficial provisional government, who presented him with honorary citizenship.

Walker won this affection while heading a mission set up late last year by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to monitor an accord aimed at keeping ethnic conflict in Kosovo from escalating into full-scale war.

Though that effort failed, a great majority of ethnic Albanians here believe that Walker’s statement about the Racak massacre was the turning point in prompting the international community to take decisive action to free them from Serbian rule. Kosovo, currently under U.N. administration, technically remains a province of Serbia, the dominant republic in Yugoslavia. But most ethnic Albanians here seem confident that Milosevic will never again have power over them.

Walker, in a speech to several hundred people Wednesday at the National Theater in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, stressed his pleasure at being in a “liberated” Kosovo. But he went on to warn against ethnic Albanian violence aimed at Serbs, which has been a focus of international concern since peacekeeping forces entered Kosovo in mid-June.

Many foreign friends of Kosovo’s Albanians are increasingly concerned that this violence must end, he said.

Those committing such acts “seem to be seeking revenge, or demonstrating their power, or looking for thrills,” Walker said. “Whatever their motives, whatever their reasons, whatever justification they think they have, what they are doing is not only wrong but devastatingly harmful to the cause of the population of Kosovo, a cause you have suffered so long for.”