Recak, the village that death visited and forgot justice

Two decades from the day that death visited the small village of Recak in Shtime, survivors of the massacre remember the horrors they have experienced and await justice to act. The massacre that revived international diplomacy efforts to end the humanitarian disaster in Kosovo, by historians, is seen as a turning point in resolving the Kosovo issue.

Bilall Avdiu takes his steps slowly into the snow, and stops breathing deeply. Two decades ago it was a similar, cold day when death came to Recak.

His lips tremble as he tries to build confession for the day when Serbian forces entered the village and killed 45 residents.

It is just before his location, two decades ago, he was taken out of a field of livestock with 30 neighbors to see death firsthand.

Death that left him in incredible circumstances.

Ahuri had made his journey to death no more, but the heavy smell inside him and the cold walls are still in the memories of the 72-year-old man.

I and some of my neighbors were gathered here. We were over 30 men. They threw us in the yard, lay us down, and started beating us. We heard them talking on the radio saying: Where do we kill these or hill?

The police had ordered them to go up the hill where the execution was scheduled. A death squad was waiting for them there.

When we got there the police waiting said “Welcome to terrorists”, Billal Avdiu showed.

But all those who had gathered for firing were civilians, unarmed and frozen by the cold.

It's been as cold as it is today, except there's been less”, he remembers.

All the victims were civilian, despite the Serbian police's insistence that most of the <x0-terrorists” wore Kosovo Liberation Army uniforms.

Bilal relates that when the hail began he had fallen to the ground without realizing whether he had been hit by bullets or slipped unconsciously until he saw the bodies fall on each other in the narrow space between the mountain slopes.

I was lying, facing from the ground waiting to be killed. The shots once stopped. But I kept standing still. I thought I was frozen. I got up once. I didn't see anything, then I crawled up and I walked into the mountain”, he remembers.

As the night approached on Recak, he had noticed an old man and summoned to approach.

I wanted to light a cigarette while he was coming. But the box was broken by bullets in the pocket, and the pockets were made to view”.

None of the bullets touched him.

Then he went up the hill again to see if anyone survived.

I went by touching one of the bodies up to about half the pile. Nobody was alive. Then I fainted until a neighbor had come and touched me”, he says.

Bilall Avdiu says that along with three other neighbours, they had stayed on the mountain at night between January 15th and 16th, not far from dead bodies.

Walker, savior.

The next day about 10 o'clock, the villagers who were left there were hearing rumours saying that Serb forces have left, and the “foreigners have come to the village”, referring to the O Verifiable Missions. The SEU was then led by American William Walker.

Walker was here with his team and the media. He looked me in the eye and said: Go home”, he says.

A few minutes later, a Serbian forces helicopter arrived, overseeing the bodies.

“Walker told us they could take the bodies but we've already filmed”, Bill shows.

The American diplomat, who had just seen the consequences of that attack, had called it “crime against humanity”, still guards a father “ifure” for village residents and Bilall Avdiu doesn't hide a point of admiration when talking about it.

The head of the village, Ademi Ramadani, sees Walker on a broader horizon.

And I hope there will be thousands of years that William Walker sees as a savior. Not only Recak's savior, but as a savior of all Albanian people in Kosovo”, Ramadani says.

Above all, Ramadani praises Walker's determination to preserve the truth of what happened, despite pressure from Serbia.

Serbia would have bought and paid his word, and surely Kosovo would have many more massacres, which would have had no major echo for the world”, he says.

Walker himself recalls efforts by the Milosevic regime to manipulate the evidence immediately after the massacre.

He had gone to Recak on the morning of January 16th and had recorded the entire situation, including the corpses lying on the narrow mountain road between the bushes.

I only arrived several hours after the massacre occurred. I saw in the middle of that cold winter day the bodies and what had happened to those men and boys. The Belgrade government came out on the first day with various versions that were adapted to what the world taught about that event and has constantly changed its opinion”, Walker says in an interview three days ago for the “Zer of America”.

The United States and the European Union reacted angrily to the 45 Albanian massacre. President Bill Clinton had said that “was an intentional act to sow fear among the people of Kosovo”.

While then Germany's Foreign Minister, Joshka Fischer, speaking on behalf of the EU, said the “at that are responsible for this act should know that the international community is not ready to accept the brutal murder of civilians”.

In 2002, Bilall travelled to The Hague to testify in the trial against former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic. But he remained very distressed with justice. I told Milosevich that 45 people were killed at your command”

20 years after Bilal still suffers the trauma of his horror.

No one was convicted for Recak's justice. And now the job is starting, even the court for Kosovo”, he says.

Recak's massacre has also been one of The Hague Tribunal's charges against Vlastimir Djordjevic, retired Serbian Colonel General, former Interior Ministry minister and head of the Public Security Department. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Kosovo Special Prosecutor Drita Hajdari says the Special Prosecutor is also investigating this massacre.

“The Special Procuror of the Republic of Kosovo is also investigating the role of other people in this” massacre, she told KALLXO.com.

Residents like Bilalli in Recak say the massacre in this village and Walker became turning points for NATO to intervene in Kosovo two months later.

But before NATO warplanes arrived, the negotiating teams of Kosovo and Serbia had to close for weeks at the medieval castle of Rambouillet in France in an effort to find a political solution to the political crisis and the humanitarian catastrophe facing the country.

A document-acquired agreement by the international community received the support of the Kosovo side, despite numerous reluctance and objections.

Bujar Dugolli, professor of History at the University of Pristina Faculty of Philosophy and participants at the Rambouillet conference, says that that the world escalation of the conflict was growing in Kosovo as Serbian forces launched police and military offensives aimed at <x0 use of fear and horror in the civilian population” so that they could abandon their homes as much as possible and leave Kosovo.

This was a long-standing Serbian policy that was applied in Kosovo many times during history aimed at ethnic cleansing and changing the ethnic structure in Kosovo. Because other massacres remained in memory of history the massacre against Albanian civilians in the village of Recak was identified by the international mission of O The SEU, led by US Ambassador William Walker, who did not hesitate to give up this massacre, a crime against humanity”, says Dugolli of KALLXO.com.

The “Recak case and other crimes that took place continuously during those days in Kosovo gave impetus to the international diplomatic process in search of a halt to conflict and resolving the Kosovo issue”, he adds.

Crime Undeserved

Bujar Dugolli says that “without literal justice, there is no lasting peace”.

According to him, the two international missions so far in Kosovo, UNMIK and EULEX, but not even Kosovo justice institutions “did enough to whiteen and bring criminals to justice who caused the Recak massacre and other crimes in Kosovo”.

“Knowing that even in the aspect of the right crime does not age, it is very important not to let those responsible for this massacre and other massacres in Kosovo be brought to justice”, he says.

Kosovo's justice institutions, he says, have the obligation to examine evidence, interview living witnesses, and on such evidence be required that criminals be punished for crimes committed.

This will be a satisphation for families and clear message for all those who think that justice does not act”, Dugolli says.

Besim Jakupi of Recak, who was 12 years old at the time of the massacre, says he still lives with experience when he saw the bodies killed and crippled on the hill piled up in the mud. It was a terrible “scene, he says.

Among the bodies killed was a relative.

Some of the other victims were found with the eyes of pulling out or heads crushed in the backyard, including a young woman and a 12-year-old boy. But many of them were elderly. The oldest of them was 77 years old.

Adem Ramadani, chairman of the village of Recak, says every January turns the village into the heavy memories of that day of 1999.

This pain will be with us at least until generations change which are directly related to the loss of their families”, he says.

This is where everyone lost any family and relatives. This is the generation that will still experience this” event, Ramadani adds.

Shurrests have covered the execution site, and Billel's legs are barely able to hold back as he crosses a section of that road again.

It is the way he takes it often, whenever he needs to see the bad fate of his fellow villagers.

Faith Jakupi, who handles construction skills in winter days when Recak's memorial is covered by snow and ice, picks up the shovel in his hand to remove snow from the slippery steps leading to 45 tomb pyramids, which hang two national Albanian flags.

On the cemetery side, William Walker's September makes the village a guard.

The American diplomat has been carved into the bronze with the sight of the village and the index finger pointing at Recak's land.

“Rendi is also to be a Kosovo flag here”, Jakupi says.

But a flag more or less, however, does not carry heavy weight to his attention.

Jakup is distracted by the fact that death visited the village 20 years ago, justice has sided with him.

“There should be justice for crimes against humanity that have occurred in Kosovo. So far we didn't see”, he says. /Cashho. com