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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'."

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