When
Jamaica meets Kosovo
published: Sunday | November 23, 2003
From left,
international students at Cardiff University, Julia Ostroughvoka
from Russia, Cynthia Ghani from Sweden, Hyesook Jin from South Korea,
Virtyt Gacaferi from Kosovo, Klao Bell from Jamaica and Natia Abramia
from Georgia. - CONTRIBUTED
By Klao Bell,
Staff Reporter
HE LIVES in
Kosovo, thousands of miles away from Jamaica, yet he can identify
with many young men in the inner-city communities of Kingston.
With memories
of brutal beatings by Serbian policemen, he shudders when he sees
any such reports now.
"I was
beaten by police...but that's not the main thing I remember. It
is the fear and the constant care I had to take to protect myself.
Even here in Britain, when I pass by a policeman I still get anxious
even though I'm a British Council scholar. You have police brutality
in Jamaica, in Kosovo it was ten times worse," said Kosovar
Albanian Chevening scholar ,Virtyt Gacaferi (pronounced Veertut
Gatzaferi), as we sat at the graduate students lounge at Cardiff
University in Wales earlier this year.
Kosovo was a
part of Serbia for several decades as a somewhat autonomous state.
It was an enclave for the Albanian population.
However in the
early '90s Serbia reclaimed authority over Kosovo resulting in Albanian
repression. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) intervened
by bombing Serbia in 1999, but this didn't prevent thousands of
Albanians from being killed and more than one million becoming refugees.
Slobodan Milosovic,
as president of Serbia and later Yugoslavia, promoted Serbian nationalism,
the expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo and ethnic cleansing. He
is now on trial at The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity.
Virtyt, a ruddy
28-year-old, had been the youngest editor of Koha Ditore (the largest
newspaper in the country) in 1997 when he and other young Albanians
watched their hometown transform into hell. Suddenly his neighbors
and best friends became his enemies.
"When Milosovic
first came to power, Albanian and Serbian school friends started
fighting each other. I had a Serbian friend who I used to party
with. One day I saw my friend on TV in a protest asking for Milosovic
to abolish Kosovo's autonomy. She was chanting 'I want freedom'.
I thought to myself, 'what does she miss? How do I stop her from
having freedom'. The next day I saw her at school and we both hesitated
to talk to each other. We never spoke to each other again after
that," Virtyt said.
The Kosovo crisis
took a while to gain the attention of the world. But when it did,
media focus was unrelenting.
Many other Jamaicans
were drawn into the events of this country so far away.
Appalled at
the atrocities which were taking place. I remember being jubilant
when Milosovic was deposed. I certainly didn't imagine that one
of my closest friends would have been a Kosovar Albanian, who came
close to death time and time again.
"I don't
think of life and the experiences I had in terms of 'Oh my God I
could have died'. No, instead I think about the person who is the
only one left of a family of 12 and my heart goes out to them,"
Virtyt said with his hands clasping his toes as he sat cross-legged
on a comfy chair. "Serbian police went from house to house
killing innocent people in search of members of the Kosovo Liberation
Army."
He speaks several
languages including Albanian, Serbian and English. As such, he was
able to work as translator for international news agencies such
as CNN.
He felt it was
his calling to ensure that the Kosovo story was told. That was the
only way he thought his people could have been liberated. Being
multi-lingual also saved his life as many times he pretended to
be a Serb just to get past checkpoints or escape the police.
"One image
that comes to me a lot is seeing a father returning to a house in
a small village to find his wife burnt to death. There are tears
in his eyes but he doesn't cry, instead he protects his children
by preventing them from going into the house to see their mother
like that. This is the worst image I have of the war this
guy getting on his knees to stop his children," Virtyt lamented.
Virtyt probably
wouldn't describe himself as a pacifist, but his views on the turn
of events following Milosovic's overthrow are extraordinary.
"Maybe
I suppress feelings of anger and bitterness or maybe I don't. But
if you live in the past and go back to those horrible things, what
do you get out of it? There are Albanians whose lives are all about
revenge, but I'm not one of them."
He revealed
that, after the NATO bombings, Albanians began attacking Serbs,
he not only condemned this retaliation, but was also horrified and
confused by it.
In a strange
twist, a Serbian neighbor, before leaving town during the Albanian
reprisal, gave him a brand new rifle. Virtyt looked at it and looked
at the man, then dumped the weapon.
RESTORING
IMAGE
But those horrible
events are now behind him.
After a year
in Wales pursuing a Master of Arts degree in journalism, he is back
in Kosovo working with the United Nations development Programme
(UNDP) as a team leader in charge of advocacy and communications.
This role helps him to combat poverty, HIV/AIDS and illiteracy.
As a Kosovar
Albanian, he is also keen on restoring the correct image of his
country to the world.
"The right
image of Kosovo centers around culture and family. We don't have
much to give to the world but I'd like people to know about our
local sports heroes. We've had champions in boxing and martial arts
at the Olympics and we love football."
In fact, Virtyt
connected with Jamaica through Bob Marley when he saw a video of
him playing football.
"I was
so surprised when I saw Bob Marley playing football. I couldn't
believe a country so far away played the same game that we loved,"
Virtyt mused.
Now, through
our friendship, he knows a lot more about Jamaica.
"I remember
seeing the flag of Jamaica when I was a kid and thinking, 'hey what
a colourful flag'. Then I didn't know that Jamaica was so far from
Britain and so close to America; that it was a British colony and
that it got Independence; I didn't know it was a black people's
country and that black people made it their home after slavery.
Now I understand what Bob Marley meant by 'taken from Africa, brought
to America'."