teo spiller on Thu, 7 May 1998 16:23:06 +0200 (MET DST) |
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<nettime> I was a soldier on Kosovo |
I was a soldier on Kosovo: July 1984. My mother is crying I just brought my call-up to army home. Location: Prizren. Kosovo. Border with Albania The 2nd of August 1984. In the plane for the second time in my life. Destination: Skopje Than with the bus to Prizren. For the next 15 months. No... After 6 months they sent me to Gjakove (Djakovica) Kaptain Jovich: You are from Slovenia. You have those Punks there. They are all nazis. Are you a nazi too? You'll have to prove you ain't... We go to the cinema. Out of baraques for the first time in four months. Flashdance! What a feeling... Girls. Not very dressed. Soldiers are going to the toilets from time to time. There is a sperm on the walls of the toilets... Riding a bicycle or playing a guitar? They put a burning paper between your fingers as you sleep and you wave with your hands or legs like playing a guitar or riding a bicycle. They laught than. But you are burned. It hurts! Major Vucicevic: Be always in two as you go in town. Take care for yourself, soldiers. Don't come back as loosers! Russian jeep UAZ. Woman with three children on the street. Kapitan Abramovic: "Drive over them, bloody Skipetars, fuck them off, all of them!" A man with a white cap on his head. His wife and two children, walking 3 meters behind him... I saw it many times there. It is incredible to me, but it is normal to them... In the town on the Sunday afternoon. A nice girl passing by. I ask her if there is a nice Restaurant near. Two guys coming. Threatening: "Do you need anything, soldier?" Patrol to find, where are the wires to frontier guardhouse are interrupted. There is a knot in Decani beside a house, where a beautyfull, young Albanian girl lives. We will ask her for a water and so on...her father is in Germany anyway...I am shamefaced and am staying few meters away... This time her father is home. He has a gun in his hands. Double-barrelled. He point on other two soldiers. I point on him with my Kalasnikov... Are those two guys closer to me, than a father defending his daughter, just because we waear the same uniforms? Sunday afternoon. Permission to go out to the town. I eat a Burek, a Pljeskavica, than I went to confectionery, where I eat Sutlias, Bakljav, Rahatlokum,... It's all three or four times cheaper than in Ljubljana. I go to a buffet than and they ask me where am I from. That's what they ask every soldier. I say I am from Ljubljana (not really without pride). A man comes a few moments later and he say "they say you are from Ljubljana" in perfect Slovene. What do you think, where am I from?. I would bet, he is from surroundings of Ljubljana! "No, I am from Gjakove, I just worked for few years in Ljubljana!" I remember words of the secret service captain: "They will be kind with you, they will ask you those and that. They will try to get some informations about the army. Take care, what do you say!!!" The water supply in Gjakove is under-dimensioned, so there is no water in the barracks on the hill in the summer. We haven't shower for three weeks. I have a stain of milk on my shirt. Capitan see it, as we stay in the line: "Is this a sperm, soldier?" Frontier guardhouse Prokletije. The sergeant major says: if you piss over this wall, you piss to Albania. We all piss over the wall. "In ten minutes, Albanian soldiers will be there. Watch them, how bad equiped they are!" After ten minutes 3 Albanian soldiers arrive. They have high boots made of plastic (we have leather), they have copies of Mauser guns form the beginning of the century (we have all Kalashnikov). They really look poor. I have orderly duty on the corridor of our barracks. Two jeeps arrive, millitary police, two colonels nad on major. They break into the bedroom opposite of ours, they chase away all soldier except one. They stay there for almost two hours. Than they bring him away. We never saw him again... "Captain Tmava was there and he sent me to bring him cigarettes", the guy, we work in the radio-telegraphy station together, told me. Tmava is the chief of the military secret service. And he was alone in the room for over 15 minutes... I have all my letters there. And some newspapers too. What you may read in Slovenian newspapers, can bring you to the military prison for ten years on Kosovo. So he is following me... What a feeling, you can't trust anyone! Everyone can be their spy. They tell you "Your grandfather was an Ustasa, wasn't he? Are you an Ustasa too? You will have to prove, you ain't. You know, this guy from Slovenia, he is suspicius. We guess, he is against the socialistic settlement, brothership of Yugoslav nations and the communistic union. Begin some discussins about the politics with him and then tell us, what he thinks, will you?" At 25 th of June 1991 I saw Miriam for the last time. I wanted her to go with me to town. There is a celebration because of the proclaiming of the independence of Republic Slovenia. She don't like me anymore. So I go alone. I sleep this night very bad. I know, I lost her. I never have luck with girls... Next morning I take my car to go to my job, because it is raining a bit. There are almost no cars on the streets. But there are trucks on every corner and drivers beside. I can't understand what is happening. Ciril in the next office is listening to the radio; it's war! Jugoslav army is on the streets with their tanks. The trucks are there as barikades agains the tanks. Now the Yugoslav army is the enemy! It is a short war. Ten days. Slovenia is independent. But Croatia follows. And Bosnia... I hate newspapers. So many trees must die so paper can carry all the human anger, hate and meanness. I read newspapers again...there is Kosovo in newspapers... I learned about the people on Kosovo. I learned about the relations on Kosovo. I learned about the life and death on Kosovo. And I learned about the differences on Kosovo. And people are dieing because of the differences on Kosovo now. --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl