the kosovo crisis

The Days Ahead for Kosovo

Continued

As Winter Sets In
Ever since a cease-fire was signed between NATO forces and Serbia in June, CARE's relief effort in Kosovo has been primarily about one concern: winter. "It's possible people will freeze to death," says Mike Godrey, of CARE's Emergency Unit based in Atlanta. "It's going to be a brutally difficult winter for everyone."

Ringed by ranges of mountains and hills, the most dramatic of which are the snow-capped Sar Mountains of northern Albania, Kosovo sits at the heart of the Balkan region. Most of the territory rises in a high plateau 1,200 feet above sea level, which accounts in part for Kosovo's achingly cold winters. Snow can start in October and coat the region as far south as Greece. It is said that water from the Drin River that flows from Kosovo down into Lake Ohrid in Macedonia is, even in the summer months, cold enough to kill a man.

The ruins of Chaber Village, Mitrovica.

"I couldn't believe my eyes when I came back here," says Osman Rhama, the town's genial mayor. "Our village does not exist anymore."

One of the few Albanian villages in this largely Serb area, Chaber was deliberately targeted, first by snipers in the surrounding hills, then by arsonists who set houses ablaze, then by bombs set to destroy the scorched shells that remained, and finally by bulldozers that plowed the village nearly flat.

"It would be difficult without CARE to survive here," says Chaber resident Mustafe Veseli, a farmer whose wife and eight children crouch under a tent provided by the humanitarian organization. "If we didn't have tents and food from CARE, we would have to dig a primitive hole in the ground and cover it with plastic sheeting and live in there."

Besides shelter materials, CARE is providing food and other materials such as soap, toothbrushes, sanitary napkins and washing powder to tens of thousands of Kosovars in the region's two worst hit areas: Urosevac and Mitrovica, where Chaber Village sits.

But delivering this aid isn't easy, as Andrew Ross -- sitting at a roadblock in Dobrotin -- or Petra Coosterman Boodt -- a CARE field officer in Mitrovica -- can tell you. "It's getting harder to come by truck," Boodt says to Xhemal Krasniqui, a village leader in the neighboring village of Zhilivoda, in northern Mitrovica. Boodt cracks and eats walnuts offered to her by smiling locals as two large CARE trucks are relieved of several hundred "hygienic kits" -- toothbrushes, toothpaste, three bars of soap, washing powder.

"On Saturday we couldn't pass here [because of rain]," she explains, pointing at the village's twisting, dirt roads, many of which have been torn up by the passage of tanks and trucks. "It is why I come to these remote places first, because in the winter these roads will be blocked."

She discusses alternatives with Krasniqui. "How many tractors do you have?" Tractors may be the only way in and out of Kosovo's remote areas when winter comes.

"Three or four, but they are not dependable," he replies.

"Maybe if you used chains? What about horses?"

For Boodt, there is urgency to the relief effort that makes even a scenario of horse-driven aid plausible. She knows she must get thousands of tents and blankets distributed to the several dozen villages in her assigned area before the cold becomes a white wall of snow.

"Even if you give something small, you help them, you give them hope," she says. "They need anything, everything."

Another Lurking Threat

Young children collect the grim remnants of the fighting in Kosovo.

He has reason. More than 600 minefields have been identified across Kosovo. An additional 333 drop-sites for cluster bombs -- bombs dropped from planes that spring open to scatter smaller bomb across the landscape -- also have been mapped. There are now more than 2,000 "suspected" mined areas in Kosovo.

"Some of the areas we work in are ludicrously dangerous," says Paul Stock, a CARE field officer who works with Ross in the southern region of Urosevac. "Without Mine Tec, I don't know how we could do this."

A Mine Tec deminer gently prods the earth to "feel" for hidden land mines. His metal detector lies beside him.

Mine Tec is CARE's "operational partner" -- a demining organization based in Zimbabwe and staffed by a tough, weathered group of Africans who have pulled dangerous explosive from the ground in war zones from Angola to Somalia. But even for an experienced deminer such as Jeffrey Josphat, Kosovo is different. "I've never worked in snow before," he says, as his demining team snaps on ear-pieces attached to the metal detectors they will use to survey suspected mine sites.

Snow conceals cluster bombs and trip-wires, so the bulk of demining must be done before it arrives; every day in the field for Josphat and his team is a race against time. Demining is painfully slow work -- a single wheat field might need as much as six months to be "cleared." Mine Tec's goal is to be able to approve travel on at least the main roads CARE must use for its relief operations in Urosevac and Mitrovica. But to clear Kosovo utterly of land mines will take "more than a decade" says Josphat. Until then, he and his team will set up "Danger!" signs around suspected mine fields and hope that villagers will stay away. For the moment, it is all that can be done.

Safe Passage and Relief
Back in Dobrotin, Andrew Ross's team has negotiated access to Oklab Village. They will go with an armored escort of Finnish troops -- one APC in front and one behind, with numerous military checkpoints along the way. It is still no guarantee of protection from snipers, and Ross knows it. Dobrotin's Serbs -- their war lost, church attacked and village forcibly closed - are angry, and unpredictable.

The CARE convoy moves through almost deserted streets. But the physical emptiness of Dobrotin is in direct contrast to the charged atmosphere. NATO troops that greet Ross and his team at each checkpoint are alert, eyes moving constantly around them.

Then, in a tangible release of tension, much like the top coming off a pressure-cooker, the convoy is past Dobrotin and into Albanian territory. Here the landscape is strewn with bombed or burned houses, but the atmosphere is sunny, welcoming. The Finnish NATO troops turn and head back to Dobrotin, but not before a NATO helicopter makes three passes overhead to ensure the convoy is safe. They will return at 5 p.m. to escort the trucks home. Albanian residents of Oklab village stream out of their houses to welcome CARE staff, who have parked their vehicles in a long line on the road overlooking the curving hillsides of the town.

"Only this can save us, this is very important," says a smiling Hali Gashi, 64, as he helps CARE staff unload wood from one of the trucks. "It gets very cold here in the winter. There is so much snow and ice. We need shelter."

It is a large distribution, materials enough to build "warm, dry rooms" for 1,000 people. It takes several hours for all the townspeople to come and collect their materials. But it is not just the tools and wood which bring joy to the people of Oklab. Cut off by the blockade of their neighbors down the road, CARE is their first contact with the outside world for days.

A Balm But Not A Cure
In a perfect world, the provision of life-saving humanitarian assistance could be applied smoothly and evenly, like the balm (but not the cure) it is intended to be. What places like Kosovo teach us is how sensitive the skin of a nation can be after years of exposure to the worst effects of man's nature. In the months ahead, it will be up to the Andrew Rosses and Petra Coosterman Boodts of the world, the hundreds of dedicated CARE staff in Kosovo, to tread lightly as they move through this land of sacred myths and shattered ambitions. Not an easy task when the urgency of reaching thousands is so desperately, obviously clear. "Hospitality discloses the devil," goes an old Albanian saying. The moral is clear: acts of kindness can bring both honor and trouble. A lesson, and a warning perhaps, for the long, hard months that lie ahead in Kosovo.

Back