Since November 16 last year when a police patrol was attacked in the village of Dobrosin in the Bujanovic municipality, at least five civilians, one policeman and one assailant carrying a Kosovo Protection Corps identification card have been killed, according to available information. Six police have been wounded. Civilian facilities, like the central heating plant in Bujanovac been extensively damaged. The results of investigations into these incidents remain unknown and, apart from the murdered attacker, the identities of those responsible also remain unknown. Bujanovac, whose name is a neologism meaning "abundant money" has sixty per cent Albanian population, thirty per cent Serbian and the remaining ten per cent are mostly Romany. The municipality is now classed among the poorest in Serbia. Officially the population lives on agricultural, unofficially on smuggling. People speak of tension since the Kosovo conflict began. Both Albanians and Serbs say that there were no problems during the bombing. However the situation has changed dramatically since last autumn, particularly since January 26 when the Sacipi brothers were killed and three policemen wounded. four days later, at the funeral of the Sacipi, an armed group calling itself the Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja appeared for the first time and from that moment police stay out of the village. For many people this is reminiscent of a similar situation more than two years ago in the Kosovo village of Lausa when, also at a funeral, the Kosovo Liberation Army made its first appearance. The connection with Kosovo can also be expressed in distance, the municipality has a 45 kilometre border with the province and many see this a bringing the threat of weapon smuggling and the infiltration of rebels who already refer to this part of Serbia as Eastern Kosovo. We begin our story about Bujanovac with an incident which occurred in Dobrosin and a conversation with the president of the municipal assembly and the local Yugoslav Left branch, Stojance Arsic.

ARSIC: I know these people well: they were model citizens. In the beginning our media called them terrorists who were killed in a showdown, which I immediately denied. Even now the Albanian terrorists are using them for manipulation by saying that they were their terrorist comrades. These people were in the forest collecting firewood and were coming out of the forest on a tractor when they found themselves in the crossfire between police and terrorists. They lost their lives tragically in that shoot-out. They were completely innocent.

But members of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja appeared for the first time at their funeral. What do you know about this group?

ARSIC: The terrorist gang in the village of Dobrosin has twenty or thirty armed members at the moment. They’re mainly from Kosovo, Kosovo citizens, and three or four of them are from the municipalities of Presevo and Bujanovac. Their story that there are a hundred or a hundred and fifty of them is fabricated. They said in their statement that they can mobilise 2,500 or 3,000 people. I don’t know where from, only if they bring them from Kosovo, otherwise they don’t have the support of the local population here in the Bujanovac municipality.

You seem to know a lot about them. What about the police?

ARSIC: After the first terrorist attack on the police on November 16 when, fortunately, there were no human casualties, we knew the exact name of the assailant - he was one Sefket who moved from Dobrosin twenty years ago: he had lived here and then he moved to Kumanovo; from there he fled to Albania - he is wanted in Macedonia and Albanian for a number of murders. After that he settled in the KLA and returned to his village to make problems. then, on November 16, the village was out of control for three days: those terrorists had it under siege. Talking to locals, to representatives of the local communities, decent citizens, family heads, we agreed that the police should not use force to drive them out because civilians would get killed, but that the people should try to remove them, not from the village but from the whole are and the people succeeded, they presented them with an ultimatum: either you stay and we will have to leave or you go and we will stay and live here where we’ve lived to now. And they did it. we had seven meetings with those people and enjoyed excellent cooperation. The police later made routine checks, meeting the presidents of local communities, and everything turned out well. On that fatal January 26, when the largest incident happened, a police patrol was attacked and a policeman wounded, the two Sacipi brothers were killed and since then the police haven’t entered the village simply because they thought that a border incident could follow and that the consequences for the civilian population would be fatal.

I think it was Mr Riza Halimi who once said that several hundred Albanians from here had joined the KLA.

ARSIC: That’s a known fact. But it wasn’t a hundred or a hundred and fifty but about eighty people from the municipalities of Presevo and Bujanovic who joined them. And I must say here that those people were former police, convicted felons, criminals, smugglers, people who had left the Yugoslav People’s Army and so on. The facts are known about these people, the services know, the people know.

Are they here now?

ARSIC: No, they are not here; they are across in Kosovo territory. Some of were given the positions they deserved in the Kosovo Protection Corps in exchange for their services.

These incidents and everything else that is happening still disturb the local people. What’s life like in Bujanovac?

ARSIC: These latest incidents were the most serious so far in terms of victims and property damage. The local heating plant blown up in central Bujanovac, a day later the attack on a police vehicle between the villages of Konculj and Lucan when Major Slavisa Dimitrijevic was killed, three police wounded and one terrorist shot. All of this causes anxiety, uncertainty, fear among the people about what is happening, why it’s happening, what the intentions are and so on but life continues as normal. In some villages, such as Veliki Trnovac, they considered establishing guards, fearing that certain elements would arrive and create trouble, pinning it on the local population. For the moment there are no local guards in either of the villages.

I’ve heard that people, both Serbs and Albanians, fear Serbs from Kosovo the most, mainly police from Kosovo and that they have the greatest problem with them.

ARSIC: That’s not the case. Those who have the greatest problems with police are smugglers. At the moment the most profitable work here is smuggling live stock and food products to Kosovo. They use the forest and rough paths and they are the ones who have problems. The local population is certainly involved in an incident here and there, not exactly an incident but someone’s irresponsible behaviour. However all that is being monitored and brought into line.

Many Bujanovac citizens and many of the journalists now constantly in the area believe the situation is not normal. The army is stationed in the Yumco clothing factory at the entrance of the town and the streets are patrolled from time to time by an armoured police vehicle. However Serbs and Albanians are not leading separate lives as they are in Kosovo. This is most obvious on Mondays at the market where everybody is doing business with everybody else. In the past the

Albanians in the leading local party, the Party for Democratic Action, supported the election of Stojance Arsic as president of the municipality because, they say, they were promised that Albanian would become an official language and that the law on election units would be changed. At the moment, under the law, they have a right to only twelve seats in the parliament although they are in the majority. In the meantime, because that promise has not been met, they have not exercised their mandates and are waiting for a decision from Belgrade. In the headquarters of the Party for Democratic Action in Bujanovac, we found the party secretary, Saip Kamberi. He had this to say about the incidents which have disturbed the whole region:

KAMBERI: We didn’t expect anything bad to happen to these people because they are part of the political system of the Republic of Serbia, so what has been happening has really surprised us. So far we have had mysterious incidents, murders, explosions, there have been twelve explosions in Presevo and Bujanovic, but so far there is no indication about who is responsible.

How much has that affected people’s lives?

KAMBERI: People are mainly living in fear, in fear of the possible "hot spring" which the press has been predicting since January.

Do you expect the crisis in Kosovo to spill over to here?

KAMBERI: The only thing that might happen, I think, is that people might move away from here.

And do Albanians expect KFOR to come and solve their problems?

KAMBERI: Albanians want to live in security. They don’t care about who will provide that security and it’s up to the state to protect its citizens. Serbia is considered to be the state of all citizens living in it, so the Serbian state has an obligation to protect the Albanians in this municipality.

Does it protect you?

KAMBERI: The harassment at police checkpoints is the opposite. There are many cases where people have been harassed, fined by police only for carrying an audio-cassette in Albanian, but we hope that this attitude will change.

Have there been any raids, weapon confiscations, that sort of thing?

KAMBERI: There were during the war. There was one operation in the village of Veliki Trnovac where weapons were collected but the people were asked to hand them over and they handed over all the weapons for which they had permits. After that they searched houses but didn’t find anything, two or three handguns as far as I know, the rest had been turned in and have not been given back since, not even the hunting rifles.

And in other villages, mixed villages, have there been any problems, any ethnic conflicts?

KAMBERI: We are completely happy with the behaviour of Serb citizens from Bujanovac and neighbouring villages apart from two or three incidents in the village of Lopandice, when a man from Trnovac was beaten by people from the village while he was working in his field. After that the president of the municipality and the military authorities had to intervene. But there were no other problems.

Do you go to Kosovo?

KAMBERI: I do. I have friends and relatives there.

What does the situation there seem like to you now?

KAMBERI: Well, it could be better. Until the situation improves... To me as a lawyer the lack of a legal state doesn’t look good anywhere in the world.

Do you expect that the final outcome will be the independence of Kosovo?

KAMBERI: That doesn’t depend either on me or on the citizens of Kosovo. I think it depends on the international community and international contracts.

If that happened where would you like to see Bujanovac, in Kosovo or in Serbia?

KAMBERI: A wish is one thing, real possibilities another.

But what is the wish?

KAMBERI: One’s wish, of course, is to be among one’s people.

The Bojana tavern in central Bujanovac is run by the president of the local Serbian Renewal Movement branch, Ugljesa Tomic. He says life in Bujanovac has changed in recent months.

TOMIC: According to my information Albanians have begun moving out of Bujanovac in large numbers. I can say that people are afraid of those devices, after eight or nine in the evening nothing is the same as it was. In the taverns and cafes you can see people sitting for an hour and a half until eight, after that it’s another story.

You say that Albanians are moving out. And Serbs?

TOMIC: I have heard that a lot of people want to sell their houses and want to leave and there are some who have already sold up and left.

How much has all this influenced relations between Serbs and Albanians? Do Albanians come to your tavern?

TOMIC: There are people I went to school with, there are several Albanians who come all the time but otherwise the Albanians no longer come to my place and, as far as I can see, they’re not going to other Serb cafes either. Relations before the war - there was a misunderstanding here and there, maybe an argument or two, but I wouldn’t call it hate until now. I’ve even heard that bakers have begun to move out, two bakeries run by Albanians have already closed down, we had known each other for 25 years, they used to make biscuits for me, they moved out. Whether or not they did it because of KLA threats or something I really don’t know. But they are afraid. A few days ago I was buying a motor and my friend, we used to work together in the same company, tells me he is afraid of Serbs, although I told him he had no reason to be. Who would lay a hand on him?

There are a lot of police and army here.

TOMIC: The police and army are in the streets. I see that some special police have come, three hundred or so of them.

The appearance of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac could disturb the people. Have you heard about them?

TOMIC: I’ve heard about the village of Dobrosin, which isn’t far from here, and that, supposedly, Albanians from Trnovac have organised themselves, that the Albanians from Presevo held a meeting and that they were opposed to the LAPMD, that older people from Trnovac were opposed to joining the KLA but that the young ones were keen to fight. If it comes to that there’ll be a lot of blood.

Could you imagine the Kosovo scenario being repeated here?

TOMIC: There have been some attempts. I think that our people didn’t set up that explosive here, that needs a certain amount of training after all. Somebody trained came from outside, or something like that. We’re afraid of that scenario: our people could plant something as well, cause something in order to stay in power. Anything is possible. You have so many murders in Belgrade and nobody knows anything. Maybe that will come here as well. So far we’ve had no problems with Albanians. You’ve heard about Veliki Trnovac, I’ve had no problems. Disgruntled police from Kosovo might cause some incident and that incident would spread. One incident is enough for a war, like in Bosnia, that wedding.

The village of Veliki Trnovac has been mentioned several times. It is almost continuous with Bujanovac. The people there say they number almost 10,000 and that it is the largest Albanian village in the Balkans. Until the sixties there were Serbs living in the village as well - there is an Orthodox church there - but the people of Trnovac say the Serbs moved out because of the poverty. A casual glance tells you that the village is not poor now: there are huge houses and luxury cars. The villagers say that they built their post office themselves but the telephone line has still not been provided. This is why they have mobile phones. Veliki Trnovac is known as the centre of the drug trade, but the people we spoke to say that this isn’t true, that they only grow tobacco and that they have relatives abroad who support them. We were interested in how the villagers live these. They brought out a table and drinks in front of a tavern, but they weren’t too keen to talk.

ALBANIANS: More than five hundred houses are ready to provide you with food and a bed.

We’ve been afraid for years.

People are afraid, anything can happen.

All kinds of people come here now.

The Serbs also say they are afraid.

ALBANIAN: Who are they afraid of?

Of Albanians.

ALBANIAN: What Albanians?

They say the KLA has turned up here.

ALBANIAN: Did they tell you about Trnovac?

Did they see them?

It’s not true.

Who saw them?

They saw them at the funeral.

ALBANIANS: They weren’t at the funeral.

Was there any television at the funeral to film that?

It’s not true.

Anybody can put a uniform on.

You think they don’t exist at all?

ALBANIAN: I don’t believe it. We haven’t seen those people yet.

And if you did see them?

ALBANIAN: Then I’d have seen them. So what?

What would you do if they came here?

ALBANIANS: Here? Why? We haven’t asked anyone for help.

And we won’t.

Were any of you here during the bombing?

ALBANIAN: I was here. I was in uniform. We were mobilised for fifteen days. We were digging at the border, near Presevo, we were digging for a cable or something. We went to Bujanovac, normally, and when we came back there were soldiers in the village but we didn’t have any problems.

And do you think the same thing that happened in Kosovo could happen here?

ALBANIANS: I wouldn’t like to think that and I wouldn’t like it to happen. It shouldn’t happen, the people are cultured here, these are decent people. As far as Serbs and Albanians go, these are peaceful people, they depend on each other. I depend on them, they on me.

There’s a bus from Kosovo, a regular service, twice a day. You sit on the bus. You only need an identification card.

And people from Kosovo? Can they come here?

ALBANIAN: They can, but they don’t come because of problems at the checkpoint. There are some older people, they come. The police look at their identification and see that they’re from Kosovo but nothing happens. The younger ones don’t come. Those of us here with families go there. I go there.

And what does all that there look like to you?

ALBANIANS: Not good. We’re different here, we’re a bit more open, we’re a long way away from them. It’s better here. Let them do what they want there, we’re not interested, we’re get on well here with the citizens of Bujanovac. If anyone wants to go, let them go there. There weren’t any problems here in the village, but at the moment, by God, it’s not stable. There are various people coming from outside, especially these refugees. As soon as they moved to Bujanovac of course they started to cause a bit of panic. Now you can’t go out freely at night, you don’t know what to expect from anyone. The police don’t bother us, our police in Bujanovac: we’ve never had problems with them. At the checkpoints, the ones who speak Albanian, you don’t notice they’re Serbs, they speak perfect Albanian, you can’t tell the difference. One of the chiefs was from Pristina.

But are there Albanian police?

ALBANIAN: There aren’t any now. There were dozens of them but they threw them out two years ago.

And the army?

ALBANIAN: They’ve gone now, they were here before. They came to the village at night, they threw people out of the tavern, they beat some people up, two or three of them.

They beat them?

ALBANIAN: Yeah, but it was nothing serious. They’ve left since then. There are some of them in Bujanovac, you have them in every factory, the whole world knows about that, not just us. And there was a man killed ten days ago. He was stabbed with a knife, they found him between Vranje and Bujanovac, in Pavlovac village, ten days ago. Nobody knows who killed him.

In the municipality of Presevo, the overwhelming majority are Albanians, 92 per cent. There are seven per cent Serbs and the rest are Romanies. The president of the municipality and president of the Party for Democratic Activity, Riza Halimi, says that one of municipality’s greatest problems is poverty - of 42, 000 citizens only 2,000 have a steady job. In contrast to Bujanovac, there has been only one explosion here in the past few months, and that without casualties. However, says Mr Halimi, the tension has been apparent since that bombing which, according to his data, led to more than 10,000 Albanians moving from the Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja municipalities in which, especially along the border with Kosovo, people have been murdered and houses burnt.

HALIMI: According to our information there are 44 burnt houses and more than 20 other buildings. There were more than 200 houses demolished and looted houses during the war, in April and May.

Let’s be precise: you say the houses were burnt down. Were they destroyed by bombs or from the ground?

HALIMI: In that region, closer to Presevo, we have two houses destroyed by bombing and there are also consequences of bombing in the villages towards the Macedonian border, below the highway. In this region there is a group of about a dozen mountain settlements towards Gnjilane. The people there say these were mainly crimes committed by the Yugoslav Army. People were very uncertain in the beginning because these were mixed groups of civilians and men in uniform, but certain criminal deeds, even murders at the time, were committed by members of the Yugoslav Army. The most drastic case was when two citizens of the village of Gosponice were killed in front of their family.

Have you reported that to the police, the authorised bodies? What has been the outcome of all that?

HALIMI: We have handed over complete documentation, including statements from citizens of our municipality, to state bodies back when the crisis headquarters was still working, during the state of war, and of course we have reported our problems to both the republic and the federal government. However, according to my knowledge, so far at least, no adequate court or legal procedures have been launched.

If I’m not mistaken, it was you who said that a couple of hundred young men from here had become members of the KLA. How much does that contribute to new tensions created by the regime, Albanian citizens themselves and Serb citizens as well?

HALIMI: We don’t know the exact figures. It’s possible that there were two hundred of them but, I repeat, these are not exact figures. People can’t provide exact figures. However it is true that there were young people involved in the war conflict in Kosovo.

Are the people calling themselves the LAPBM recruited from here?

HALIMI: These people are a force which can be used to recruit other people for the group which showed up in village of Dobrosin. This is a group whose members we still can’t identify precisely because our political structure is no longer functioning in the village of Dobrosin. At the moment we have no detailed information on the size, the importance, the level of organisation nor who is part of it.

Do you expect them to expand outside Dobrosin?

HALIMI: There is accumulated discontent but the vast majority of the population we are in contact with every day still strongly opt for political solutions to these problems. In a statement from our Presevo Municipal Assembly we said that the solution lies in better cooperation of state bodies with UNMIK in Kosovo.

Do you feel that the state bodies are willing to establish better cooperation in order to calm down the situation here?

HALIMI: Whenever there has been a problem we’ve always addressed the republic and federal governments directly, but we have the constant impression that we’re being ignored. This can be demonstrated by the fact that in the past seven or eight years, since I have been head of the local government, we have had one visit from the minister for ecology and a visit from the minister for education in 1995.

You say that you are in contact with the republic and federal governments, but you are also in contact with representatives of political parties in Pristina. Which are the closest to you and what is your message to them?

HALIMI: In the past ten years we have had a traditional connection with the Democratic League. As a political party we have cooperation with a lot of other parties in Kosovo. On our last visit we did not manage to meet Mr Taqi: he was simply too busy at the time. However Rugova’s influence was far greater then.

In Presevo, almost all the Serbs live near the entrance to the village, around the railway station. The police are much more visible than in Bujanovac and army troops withdrawn from Kosovo are, as in Bujanovac, stationed in a factory building near the Serb houses. We asked people in the local tavern whether they were afraid of conflict with their Albanian neighbours.

SERB: There’s no such thing, there’s no problem in Presevo. People have made a whole lot of noise, saying there’s a war here. Yeah, sure, we have a war here with no casualties.

All right, but you had an explosion here.

SERB: Yes, we had one. The police station.

How do you live here. Do you spend time with Albanians?

SERB: Lately I’ve been avoiding it. I was seeing them before, but now they can drag you into something, kill you or something. I work with an Albanian but he hates me. I hate him too. We talk and make jokes but it’s not the way it used to be because I hate him as an Albanian and he hates me as a Serb because he bows to pray and I cross myself.

That’s not a reason for conflict.

SERB: We didn’t contribute to that conflict. A year or two ago they ruined our monuments, they completely destroyed the church in Aravica, they stole some valuable things. And we weren’t bothering them, they want to achieve something by force.

You have army and police here. Do you feel protected?

SERB: No, because tomorrow there may be an order from Belgrade for the army to withdraw and leave us they way they left people in Kosovo. The police are creating problems here. They came from Pristina and Prizren and they behave like bosses. They’re not chasing smugglers but sitting in a tavern hitting on women. You can’t really see them as protection.

Do you think the politicians understand your problems? Do you think they can help?

SERB: Nobody can help, they can only make it worse. If they’d wanted the politicians could have sent in more army, another hundred officers, say, with their wives, given them apartments, let them settle, increase the population. Instead they let them move out. There are a lot of people who work here but they have moved their children to Vranje to go to school there. I went to school in Presevo: we had a basement we used to use. A few days ago I went there at night and saw that that basement is now being used by Albanian children as a classroom. Look at how many of them there are and look at us, we’re getting less and less. The problems of Presevo are being solved by people from Vranje and if we want to solve something, if we want something done for Presevo we won’t get it because there Albanians here and when we ask for something they say "There are very few of you there, you don’t need anything". But they have everything - they have schools in their language, they have shops, they have large houses and, look, Serbs in Serbia don’t have half of what they have.

How do you explain that? You live in the same town. They are wealthy and you are poor. Where does the problem lie?

SERB: If you had a hundred kilos of drugs you’d have money as well. The police aren’t doing their job. A man is a smuggler, he bribes them and gets away with it. when a policeman stops a Serb, when he catches him smuggling, it’s always something small. He catches him and he’s done his job, while the other one drives through in a truck full of smuggled goods. They wrote Presevo and Bujanovac off a long time ago.

You’re young, are you thinking about moving?

SERBS: Well, if they throw me out I’ll go. Why not?

I’m planning to leave.

And where are you going to go?

We’ll go further.

We also talked with Albanian, two young people. We asked them whether there is a Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedje.

ALBANIAN: I heard that this army turned up and I believe it did because one force draws another out. How strong that army is, how many people they have I don’t know. People don’t talk about it. I would like to know as well but I don’t. They talk about three hundred people, but I don’t know that. Considering what’s been happening here for the past twenty years it’s normal after all.

Do you think that people, especially young people, would accept it?

ALBANIAN: I think that the vast majority would accept it. If something isn’t done, mostly about foreign organisations and the foreign factors, if they don’t do something, I think, young people would accept it because, after all, they have no choice, because you can sense that the state is preparing something, I’m convinced of that. After all, we will have to defend ourselves and we have a right to do that. We’re Albanians, just like the ones in Kosovo. I personally support - I don’t know about the others - but probably a majority supports that army. They expect liberation from them.

What was the attitude of people to the KLA?

ALBANIAN: I would answer that by saying that a large number of people responded to the call of the KLA and joined.

How many?

ALBANIAN: There were about 820 from Presevo I think. It’s a large number but I think it was approximately that.

Where are they now? Have they come back or stayed?

ALBANIAN: All of them are in Kosovo. Imagine, if there is any escalation here you automatically have 820 fighters.

Are you afraid that in the end it might turn out as in Kosovo, turn into conflict?

ALBANIAN: Probably, if things continue like this, murders every day, strange murders, secret ones, committed overnight, nobody has a clue about who’s responsible, KLA or Serbian police, that’s how things escalate. If things go on this way, if someone smart doesn’t emerge on one side or the other, it will probably happen. In any case I think that the reaction of the international community will be much, much faster.

Do you think that KFOR will come here?

ALBANIAN: I would say that in the first place the US has some interests here, since they look things differently from, let’s say, France and other European countries. The things they say in public are different from what is being prepared. I think that they will intervene very quickly here.

What did people here think about the NATO bombing?

ALBANIAN: I can say that the NATO bombing was supported by everyone, from three-year-olds who don’t know what politics is to the elderly, everyone supported it. They knew that in a way it was defending them, that NATO was defending Albanians from the Serb police and army. I served in that army too, I wasn’t afraid of that army but today I am afraid of that army.

SERB: They wouldn’t start anything, I’m a hundred per cent sure that the Albanians from Kosovo will do the whole thing. There was a brawl in a mosque recently: some Albanians came from outside, Albanians from the country and the city met and, normally, just as we Serbs do, they began talking about the political situation and then they began a fight because of the situation. Some of them said "Let them stay," the others said "No, it’s better as it is," and then an incident happened, they got into a fight, the police had to intervene. They’re essentially cowards, if you go into a cafe, an Albanian cafe, and bang your fist on a table they all leave. If America hadn’t supported them they wouldn’t amount to anything. I think this can only end in war, nothing else. If we now let KFOR come to Presevo, Bujanovic, eventually they’ll be in Nis. If anything happens, if they try to do something they’ll do it in Bujanovac, because in Presevo it’s already happened. They’ll buy out the three per cent of us with a sack of money and it’s done.

And do you think it could happen, that this is realistic?

SERBS: You know what, with everything that’s happened since Croatia it wouldn’t be strange for something like that to happen here. Nothing will happen in Presevo, it never has and never will. Something was happening before 1941 but, basically, Serbs passed their exam during the war, this war last year. Now it’s up to Albanians to pass that exam.

How did Serbs pass that exam?

SERB: Because nothing happened to the Albanians in Presevo while the army was here, we’re here along the border and nothing happened to them.

And what about the stories that their houses were burnt down?

SERB: That’s not true. I can take you to any Albanian house and ask honest and fair people to tell you. I was with the army at the border. I know all these people, these are all my people, my friends, nothing ever happened. Now it’s their turn to pass the exam. Because if they try to do something it will only backfire on them. I wouldn’t want anything to happen and I wouldn’t like to leave because I have nowhere to go.

Do you think that Kosovo will be independent?

ALBANIAN: I think so. In my opinion the only way for Europe to get rid of all the wars is to free Kosovo.

And were will Presevo be then?

ALBANIAN: Presevo will also be part of Kosovo, I’m sure of that. It’s not important to me where I live: I can live in Presevo even if it’s called Serbia but it’s important to me to have the rights I had fifteen years ago, before Milosevic. All the Albanians in Presevo had their rights in shops in the municipality, in the hospital. They had a right to have their flag. The Yugoslav, Serb and Albanian flags flew. We have been stripped of our rights. They sacked a lot of policemen, the court in Presevo is completely under Serb control.

And who is to blame?

ALBANIAN: The only one in Yugoslavia is Milosevic, I think. Serbia and the Serb people were the ones who lost the most with Milosevic. It seems to me that he’s got what he wanted - he wanted Serbs to be in one state and it seems that all Serbs will be in one state, but a small Serbia, not the Serbia he wanted.

And do you think that all Albanians should be in one state?

ALBANIAN: It’s a different matter with Albanians. Albanians are natives here. They were unfairly divided in World Wars I and II. If you were to correct history a little the Albanians would all be in one state but with other peoples in the same state as well.

Which politicians do you trust the most? I mean among the local politicians.

ALBANIAN: I trust Hashim Taqi absolutely and the former members of the KLA now involved in politics. I think that they stand firmly behind our striving for an independent Kosovo. I wouldn’t like you to think I’m advocating Greater Albania - or Greater Kosovo as I hear lately - that’s impossible because all the time we speak about an ethnic Albanian but I don’t think that it could happen in these circumstances, but a Kosovo with Presevo and part of Bujanovac would not be a Greater Kosovo at all, it would be a realistic Kosovo. I absolutely don’t trust any Serbian politicians because I don’t see any of them being able to achieve anything, primarily for the Serb people. From their statements a man would think they live on another planet, in some other conditions. You don’t have anyone to trust: at the moment neither Albanians nor Serbs have a say here. At the moment it is America and Europe who decide things here and for the moment it is unclear who will do what.

We finish this story about Serbs and Albanians from Presevo and Bujanovac in the village of Bljac, which is halfway between the two. Of about six hundred houses, forty are occupied by Serbs. In a shop in the centre of the village we find an Albanian and a Serb, employee and proprietor respectively.

SERB: This is my shop. I am the owner. The Albanians have worked in my shop for the past six or seven years. I spend every night with them. I go there at night, watch television, drink coffee and tea, eat lunch and dinner and so on.

ALBANIAN: We’ve never had national problems with Serbs, nothing. Only when that started there, in Kosovo, things were spoiled a little then.

We saw police at the entrance to the village. There are a lot of police and army in the neighbourhood. Do you feel secure because of that?

ALBANIAN: I can’t answer that.

Have there been any problems?

ALBANIAN: There were some earlier.

Here, in this village?

ALBANIAN: After a bomb exploded in the police station, these new police came and... you know.

SERB: They came from Nis, they change every month. They beat up two or three people here, the police beat three or four Albanians, the man didn’t have his identification with him, he accidentally went out. It was "What are you looking at me like that for?" two or three slaps, the man became frightened and they beat him. It’s terrible. You’d be afraid to if you saw police with automatic rifles.

How do Serbs react when Albanians are beaten?

SERB: We protest. We intervened before these police came, the ones who were here beat up several Albanians. We asked the police commander to change these police, because all this will pass but we have to stay and live here, we have nowhere to go. Water passes, the sand stays: the policemen will move but we have to stay and live here. For example, if I knocked on any Albanian’s door in the middle of the night he would help me, lend me money or a vehicle. I really don’t have any problems with them.

Do other Serbs have the same relationship?

SERB: I think other Serbs have the same relationship as well.

Are you afraid when you hear there are armed people in Dobrosin, that police can’t go into the village?

ALBANIAN: Of course we’re afraid. It was peaceful here. I mean the trouble was there in Kosovo, here we never had anything. There was the army here but nobody was in danger.

SERB: The Albanians are afraid, like in the war in Kosovo, of persecution and murders and we Serbs are also afraid. There are one per cent of Serbs here, 99 per cent are Albanians. If there is a war, if there is shooting I won’t leave my home. I will defend it.

From who? From a neighbour?

SERB: I don’t know, if the KLA comes from Kosovo for example.

And are there any?

SERB: People say there are. I haven’t seen them, I don’t know.

If, for example, that Liberation Army showed up here, would you tell your Serb neighbour? Would you protect him?

ALBANIAN: Of course I would protect him. I’ve eaten in his home, why wouldn’t I protect him. But you know how it goes after that.

Can you imagine a situation where one minute you are together, you are good friends and the next minute you are shooting at each other?

ALBANIAN: I think it’s inhuman to shoot at somebody you grew up with. He’s done nothing to you. It’s all been done by politicians, those fat cats with ties.

SERBS: We will try not to become enemies, we even thought about an initiative - that the police withdraw from the village so that the people aren’t afraid. But nobody asks us.

ALBANIAN: They’re frightening us every day: if it goes too far, you know how it is - it’s suddenly different. War brings the worst. Whatever crosses a crazy guy’s mind he will do it, he has the guns. I get the creeps when I think about it.

SERB: Politics is mostly to blame. In the village of Bljac where you have one per cent Serbs, you can’t have a Serb as mayor and not ask Albanians about anything. It’s a long story, we can’t correct all those things. That’s what politicians are paid to do, we can’t do it.

Do the other Serbs think the same way you do?

SERB: As far as I know they think there should be a Serb mayor. I think it should be an Albanian. That’s how the situation happened in Kosovo in the first place. Podujevo, with a hundred per cent Albanians, can’t be...

Whenever you meet an obstacle you try to find another path. But it’s too late now.