<nettime> I was a soldier on Kosovo

[teo spiller <teo.spiller@rzs-hm.si>]

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.
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