wfn.org | United Methodist delegation finds renewed spirit in Kosovo

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Sept. 5, 1999        News media contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville,
Tenn.     10-21-71BP{509}

NOTE: This report is accompanied by a sidebar, UMNS #510, and photographs.

By Mike DuBose*

KOSOVO MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (UMNS) - The village of Bare is busy again. 

The small mountain community near Mitrovica, about 25 miles northwest of
Pristina, is emerging from the dark shadows of war and ethnic cleansing.

A line of trucks carrying red clay tiles and roofing timbers from Croatia
waits six-deep on the narrow road outside town, each waiting its turn to
unload at a United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) depot.

Elementary school students take their lessons outdoors, perched on wood
beams destined to repair their shattered school. Winter tents, erected as
temporary classrooms, are being filled with new school furniture and the
parent-teacher council is once again holding meetings.

"This is the happiest day of my time here," said Angela Oliver, UMCOR's
director of community development in Kosovo. "This is what it's all about,
when we're all working together." As she spoke, villagers lined up with
tractor-drawn wagons for their share of tiles.

A delegation of four spouses of United Methodist bishops and a
representative of the churchwide Board of Global Ministries Women's Division
traveled to the Balkans Sept. 18-28 to view UMCOR's work and help devise new
strategies for church relief efforts around the world.

Members of the delegation included: Mitzie Dew, wife of Phoenix Area Bishop
William W. Dew Jr.; Jane Ives, wife of West Virginia Area Bishop S. Clifton
Ives ; Leigh Kammerer, husband of Charlotte (N.C.) Area Bishop Charlene
Kammerer; Hannah Meadors, wife of Mississippi Area Bishop Marshall L.
Meadors Jr.; and Claretta Nesbitt of the Women's Division. The group was led
by Meadors and Judy Wollen, UMCOR's volunteer coordinator for the area,
based in Armenia.

Until a few months ago, Kosovo was a province of Serbia, one of two
countries that make up the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Today, Kosovo is
under military occupation by a United Nations peacekeeping force.
Multinational U.N. civilian police patrol the streets.

The federal republic was formed in 1992 by Serbia and Montenegro, which were
once part of Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia during the Cold War.

UMCOR began assessing needs in Kosovo in June, just days after the end of a
NATO bombing campaign that forced Yugoslavia to stop its strategy of ethnic
cleansing of Kosovar Albanians in the province. The fighting had forced some
800,000 Albanians to flee their homes. Full-blown relief efforts began in
July.

As the refugees began to return, humanitarian agencies like UMCOR helped
provide hope for the people, Oliver said. More than $4.5 million in aid has
been raised by UMCOR alone.

"The change in the people in this village is remarkable," Oliver said.
"They're smiling.  It's just remarkable."

"We had nothing after the war," said Imer Kadriu, a member of Bare's
parent-teacher council. "We have hope now."

There is a sense of urgency to the work in Bare (pronounced BAH-ray). The
steep dirt roads of the village will give way to rivers of mud in the coming
Balkan winter, just a few weeks away.  

"This is a high-priority village," Oliver explained. "If the homes aren't
repaired before winter, the people will flood the towns."

Of the village's 168 houses, 130 were destroyed in the war.

The housing repairs are part of UMCOR's three-prong strategy to return a
whole village to a sense of normalcy.  Other components include food
security - distribution of hand planting tools, tractor repair and
winter-wheat seed distribution - and community development such as helping
reform parent-teacher councils in the schools.

UMCOR is undertaking this process in four villages, including Bare. It will
repair about 500 homes. "Rather than getting ourselves spread too thin,
we're getting one whole community up and running," explained Robert Harris,
head of mission for UMCOR in Sarajevo.  

The shelter project is considered a "self-help" program through which UMCOR
provides the materials and homeowners do the work themselves. It's meant to
replace the roof and provide windows and doors for one room that can be
heated for winter. More complete repairs will have to wait for spring,
Harris said.
 
UMCOR may hire local engineers to create a cadre of trainers skilled in
local construction methods since many of the young men with those skills
were killed during the war, Harris said. "Some of the people don't have any
able-bodied help and some don't have the skills."

The trip left a deep impression on members of the delegation. "To experience
first-hand what we've heard about - miles and miles of burned out houses and
knowing each of those is somebody's home -- really changes things," Ives
said.  

"Before I came, people said they would pray for us," she said. "What I'm
seeing is so many people who need so much more. I feel humbled. There's so
much we take for granted, not just material things, but intangibles -
security, freedom from terror.  I've always believed that from those to whom
much has been given, much will be required.  I know that on a deeper level
now."

Meanwhile, the mood in the Kosovar capital of Pristina is buoyant. As
Kosovar Albanians emerge from 2,000 years of occupation by various colonial
powers and an 18-month campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Serbs, national
pride is running high.

The nighttime streets are crowded with strolling couples. Cafes and
nightclubs are packed. The Albanian flag is proudly displayed on stores,
homes and cars. Children wear miniature KLA uniforms to school. All of these
scenes would have been unimaginable just a few months ago.

"I think this is our year," said Enver Krasniqi, 41, a Pristina resident and
local program officer for UMCOR. "We have the heart and we have the energy.
1999 is the year of Kosovo." 

"You're talking about creating a new country," Oliver said. "This is one of
the first times in history a former province may become an independent
country."

The United States is held in high regard by Kosovar Albanians, despite an
11-week NATO bombing campaign targeting Serb strongholds - a campaign that
wrecked many of Pristina's high-profile buildings and left the country
without communications links to the rest of the world. 

"The Albanian people have a saying," Krasniqi said, watching an elderly man
pick through the rubble of a home destroyed by a stray bomb. "'First God;
second USA.'"

Seeing the long-term work of healing begin, Dew reflected on her feelings
about being in the delegation. "It's United Methodist Church members who
start the avenues of help in our churches all over our global network.  I
felt a sense of real pride that we were here representing our church
members."

                                                                  # # #

Editor's note for optional inclusion in story:  Support for the people of
Kosovo can be provided through financial gifts to these UMCOR Advance
numbers: Kosovo Emergency Relief, No. 982450-8; Mother/Child Survival, No.
982645-1, Kosovo; Youth House, No. 982844-8, Kosovo. Check donations can be
placed in church collection plates or mailed directly to 475 Riverside
Drive, Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Credit-card donations can be made by
calling (800) 554-8583.

*DuBose is a photojournalist for United Methodist News Service.

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United Methodist News Service
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