Part Two
[A sentence was cut from the video-interview]
…the First, Second and Third Yugoslavia until the end of the twentieth century. This journey…now I finished the gymnasium and went to Skopje to study Law. I didn’t like it, I felt strange. I didn’t even had the financial conditions and I decided to work as a teacher for one year in order to survive. Yes, I made the first travel from Skopje to Kaçanik, the street of course was not paved and had big holes, and since I was sitting on the last seats of the bus, the back wheels of the bus fell in those deep holes on the street and my head crashed against the roof of the bus. This is how that journey was, it lasted two hours. I arrived, then I made part of the street on foot, I went to the school, I started my job as a teacher, I stayed there for one year, I mean I practically lost one year, yes I lost one year, but it was a lifetime experience, a lifetime experience.
Then in September I passed five exams in 25 days, four, five exams were left, because I had only passed one in June. And in the second, third and fourth year I earned the scholarship from the University. The scholarship, back then it was the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, Pristina and the scholarship, not many students could gain a scholarship because you needed a high grade average and the criteria was strict, the scholarship was the same as the teacher’s salary, I mean it was the same as the salary I earned as a teacher there, and now I obtained a scholarship as a second year student. The same in the third year, the scholarship increased in the fourth year, I remember it was 32 thousand Dinars of that time for the first and the third year, and for the fifth year it was 50 thousand Dinars, that was the same as a teacher’s salary. In the fourth year I could cover my expenses, I studied, I was living in the dormitory number one near the Students’ Center and I managed to even send money to my parents, my mother and my father, and that left an impression in the village, X manages to study and also send money to his parents.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: So, this was your last move to Kosovo?
Agim Vinca: Yes, and I finished my studies in three years, I returned to my birthplace. I worked for one year as an Albanian Language and Literature professor in the gymnasium of Struga where I had finished my high school. In the meantime as a fellow of the university, as a student with high grades, they opened a vacancy for an assistant, I applied and I was selected as an assistant.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: In the University of Pristina?
Agim Vinca: Yes, in the University of Pristina. I thought about it for six months, how will I make it? not for myself but my parents didn’t allow me, they put pressure on me, “Stay here, we will take care of you. We will build a house, we will get you to marry,” that parent feeling is normal, but then it turned out that…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Which years were those, ‘72?
Agim Vinca: This was ‘71, ‘72, the ‘71 school year. I graduated in ‘70, ‘71, ‘72, I worked a full year then I started the second year, in the meantime I had published my first book of poems, Feniksi [Phoenix] in Skopje, Flaka e Vëllazërimit [Brotherhood Flame] in 1972. Back then a book was not small work, it was welcomed, those were the lines of my youth, you know, a lyrical diary. This, the world of…those inspirations, those concerns, those dreams, those desires, I tried to articulate them through my love for my birthplace, for humans, for the world. Eh, like this of course, I also treated love as a feeling.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: How did ‘81 find you in Pristina?
Agim Vinca: ‘81, airplanes were flying over people’s heads, over houses’ roofs and people’s heads, supersonic airplanes, of course military ones, they wanted to bring fear. After, not after the 11th nor after the 26th but after the 2nd of April, when the state of emergency was declared, at that time since I had finished my Master’s degree in ‘74, I had also finished my military service, I got married. In the meantime I became a father, I took one semester off to finish my Ph.D. thesis, but then they came, the demonstrations of ‘81 took place, I remember the 11th of March well.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did you go to the demonstrations?
Agim Vinca: I didn’t, we couldn’t go. We couldn’t because, you know, you would automatically be fired from the Faculty. They were organized by youth, by the students but we had inspired them, some of us had inspired them and supported them morally. But the notorious period of diferencimi started then, it lasted nine years, nine years from ‘81 to ‘89. In ‘89 some of us who were considered the ones who indoctrinated the youth, nationalists, irredentists, separatists, were expelled from the Communist League, I mean around 70 intellectuals all around Kosovo, the Local Committee, they expelled us. I was punished with pre-exclusion back then, they expelled us.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What was the reason behind the pre-exclusion?
Agim Vinca: Because…first we were sentenced for being charged with nationalism, some professors and me, then since we were colleagues, they defended us and that sentence was lowered, they modified it into: they haven’t fought as much as they should against Albanian nationalism, this was it. In fact, there was no Albanian nationalism, those demands were legal, I mean, the main demand of the demonstrations of ‘81 was for Kosovo to gain the status of Republic. What was wrong with that? Montenegro was a Republic, Macedonia was a Republic, why could Kosovo not be so? With the borders it had, I mean, this was the demand and we supported it. Of course there were those who judged them, because my generation, I participated in the demonstrations of ‘68 when I was a student, I was part of the demonstrations, not the organizer but part of them, I mean, in what is now Nënë Tereza square, it started from the theatre.
Once we gathered at the Faculty of Philosophy then, here. The demands were read there, then the police intervened, we wanted to go to the back then Province Parliament which is the current Parliament. Then the crashes started, then the breaking of glasses, destruction of cars and it was not enough. I guess a boy was killed from a balcony, a pupil of the Murat Mehmeti high school, 17 or 18 years old, he was killed, others were injured. I participated there as a student together with my fellow students. While in ‘81, I mean the professors of the university were asked to judge [the demonstrations], and there were such professors who did that with pleasure, there were others who didn’t like doing it, and there were some of us who didn’t want to say the heavy accusation, because we thought they were unfair and they were really unfair. That system was a system that had a monopoly over the power and the truth.
A member of the Committee Leadership who was young at the time, Agim Zatriqi, had also finished the university and said that the assessments of the Province Committee are that, “These are nationalist, irredentists, separatists demonstrations, from the Albanian nationalism and irredentism positions, and other assessments cannot be accepted,” I mean the debate wasn’t allowed and we…this lasted meeting after meeting, eh, how many meetings? In one week only, in ‘82, there were 99 meetings held at the University of Pristina from Monday to Friday, 99 meetings on diferencimi, because in the whole University of Pristina there were 99 organizations. I was on the agenda every day from Monday to Friday, I was punished with pre-expulsion. My colleagues and students defended me, some of them were members of the League, even as students. I mean, the professor during his lectures deals with science and has a critical opinion on political phenomena, this or that.
And in ‘89 they fired us. I was a candidate to be fired from the university, but the circumstances changed in the meantime, monism fell, political pluralism was legalized, political prisoners started being set free and it no longer made sense for people to be expelled because of their political orientations. But, on June 28, 1991, the so-called violent measures were applied to the University of Pristina by the occupying Serbian regime, I mean all the Albanian Deans were fired, the Rector, the pro-Rectors, and they were replaced with Serbian ones and some Albanians quislings, this is how it happened, but also the Albanians who were pro that regime. Then I was fired from the University on September 15, 1991, because it was the end of the year, the summer holidays. We returned then with the motivation that I illegally participated in the protests. I have the decision. Then the diferencimi, the expulsions continued, the aim of the Serbian ruling power was not to expel some of us who were considered nationalists, but to close the University, that’s how it happened.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: When was the University closed?
Agim VInca: The university was closed within ‘91. And we organized to continue the education in private houses, in the schools in the countryside, i various facilities and so on. They had the buildings, Serbs, we held the lectures outside, I mean we didn’t recognize the laws of Serbia. It was that, how was it called, the system of home schools, I mean only elementary schools were in the basements of their buildings, the high schools and the University were outside. And this is how it continued for nine years, until ‘99, when we returned after Kosovo’s liberation.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: You were also engaged in other political activities, organizations…could you tell us about the Albanians’ position in Macedonia?
Agim Vinca: In the ‘80s, especially in Macedonia, there was a terrible repression of Albanians, and it was the same for them in Kosovo, but the repression in Kosovo escalated later. In Macedonia there was a real terror towards the intelligentsia, towards the youth, the institutions, I mean, Albanians were asked to even pronounce the names of the cities in Slavic forms, not Shkup but Skopje. Even when they talked in Albanian, at Radio Shkup, “Radio Skopje is talking to you,” also at Radio Debar, “Radio Debar is talking to you.” Children’s names, books, this was all allegedly made on behalf of the fight against Albanian nationalism. In fact, its only aim was to marginalize the Albanian nationality, to shrink their rights. High schools started to become the so-called united parallels, in an Albanian parallel they put for example five Macedonian pupils and then the lectures had to be given in Macedonian. Even the songs were forbidden, even the ones about Mujo Ulqinaku and Bajram Curri, not to talk about the others. People were fired from their jobs, detentions and such.
And I, as an Albanian intellectual who was born, raised, and educated there, but living in Pristina, of course it was not on me to do something, maybe we didn’t even have the chance to do something, but I guess we had the chance to raise our voice a little, and that meant putting yourself and your family in danger. And I have my first writing on defense of Albanians’ integrity and their rights against the political and police violence of ‘86, but the press here didn’t dare publish them, because they did not follow the line of the League of Communists. At that time there was a magazine being published in Zagreb, a newspaper, a weekly magazine which was called Danas, it was published once a week, on Wednesdays I guess, and it had a more liberal stand towards the political situation in the Yugoslavia of that time. There you could publish writings, papers, reactions, longer articles, more analytic articles about these problems, especially about the situation of the Albanians in Macedonia, where even the natality rate was limited. It was a kind of genocide, yes, you had to pay taxes for the third child, no way you could get any help from the state, I mean, it was a kind of ethnocide.
And I started there in ‘86, then I continued, I published many writings about the Albanians’ position in Macedonia, about the violation of their rights, about the violence that they were suffering. Some of these were polemics with other Macedonian intellectuals, journalists, publicists, writers, some of them were more analytic approaches to the problem. And I know that in 1988 a terrible campaign against me took place in Macedonia, because there were just a few of us, it was like that, may somebody like it or not, this is the truth. Rexhep Qosja, professor Rexhep Qosja published writings and I, also Shkelzen Maliqi and Veton Surroi, there were no others. Shkelzen Maliqi and Veton Surroi published from pro-Yugoslav positions, they were pro-Yugoslavia, but an entirely reformed one, democratic and liberal, let’s say pluralistic. We wrote from the position of the defense of the vital interests of the Albanian nation, [which was] split, mistreated, left under foreign sovereignties, persecuted, massacred and so on. And of course, as much as we could, opposing the repressive measures that were used by the ruling power of that time, especially in Macedonia.
In ‘98 a terrible campaign against me took place, every radio stations from Radio Shkup to Radio Kërçova, newspapers, you know, Makedonija, Vecer and Flaka e Vëllazërimit, which published Albanian articles. There was even articles that said that as I student I had been expelled from the gymnasium as a nationalist, I was actually questioned, as I told you, but not expelled, I wasn’t expelled and I finished the gymnasium, I even returned as a teacher for one year. With defamations, with charges, in ‘98 when they saw that I was not about to stop, the Local Committee of the Communist League of Struga, in collaboration with state security organs, because they had the files, organized a campaign, they forced [them], maybe they forced [them], not that the representatives of the social political organizations of my village wanted to distance themselves from me. The leader of the League, the leader of the Local Municipality, I know them by names, but I don’t want to mention them.
The secretary of the Communists’ League, the leader of the organization of the League of Fighters, the leader of the Socialists’ League of the Working People and the leader of Youth, five of them published a letter in Macedonian where they said, “We have all the rights.” Never in their life have they taken any document with any Albanian letter, only in Macedonian, from the moment they were born to the moment they would die. And, “Agim Vinca misinforms the Yugoslav public opinion, and we are not surprised of his actions because he is the son of a nationalist family, his paternal uncle is this, this brother is that, the one who migrated is his paternal uncle’s friend,” such things. There are eleven or twelve-thirteen other names mentioned in that paper besides mine, but we are surprised of how can this kind [of people] educate the new generation. That paper was published in the newspaper Nova Makedonija [New Macedonia] under the title, “Deep Hostile Stand of Agim Vinca” and in Danas, the newspaper of Zagreb, because they published it as well, I mean, but with another title there, with a softer one. And it also came to the Faculty, the red envelope with a red stamp, because that’s how the Communist League had it as a Communist, Marxist political organization, and the Faculty of Philosophy was asked to undertake measures towards me as a person who had misinformed Yugoslav public opinion.
Of course it didn’t have its effect here, because the leader of the Sanctions Assembly was a colleague of mine, and he said, “I know what happens there.” He was from Presheva and had finished the Shkolla Normale in Skopje, but he came to tell me, to tell me, I saw him, and I said, “Publish it, don’t put yourself in danger for me.” “No,” he said. But it was published in Danas and left a very bad impression, you understand, and I was forced to take the train from Pristina to Zagreb and take my documents with me and ask for a meeting with the editor-in-chief of Danas, Mirko Galić was his name. First he didn’t want to see me, because his secretary told me he had a lot of work to do. Then I gave him the business card of a professor there, Matvejević, he was a Literature professor and a well known Literary Critic with whom I had met during the day. And he told me that the editor-in-chief was his friend, he wrote it on the back of the card. He accepted to see me and I said, “I am Agim Vinca, about whom you published an article here and I am here to tell you, am I the one who misinforms the Yugoslav public opinion or is it they?”
In reality, they were blind tools of the ruling power, they were, they did this even if they told them that the Drini i Zi flows upwards, they would sign it, and even when they put their signatures, they did that in cyrillic alphabet, the three of them. And I gave him my birth certificate, my marriage certificate, four gymnasium grade transcripts, my diploma, in order to prove to him that every document, everything was in Macedonian as everything else as well. And he welcomed me very warmly and said, “What can I do for you?” I said, “First, publish a long article of mine which is waiting,” and he published it right away in the next issue, in one page and a half. Being given one page and a half by Danas was a big deal at that time. And then, a group of intellectuals from my birthplace here in Pristina had a response for them, then this left a good impression and of course ‘88 passed and ‘89 came.
1989 was terrible for Kosovo. In Macedonia the climate was getting softer because pluralism was about to take place and some personnel changes happened. Petar Gošev, who was a little more reformist, became the leader of Communists League, some chauvinists fell. And here, because here now Milosević’s Serbia was fighting a battle for constitutional change and the return of Kosovo under Serbia, I mean, they wanted to take back the jurisdictions that Kosovo had according to the Constitution of ‘74. And in ‘89 there was a very terrible situation, a harsh campaign, swearing, offending, charges against our mothers, Albanian women were called washing machines, machines that produce children and so on and so on. And I reacted against these as well, I even published an article in Politika and one in Nin, of course they were shorter, but mainly published in Danas.
Then it moved, how to say, the problem moved here, also as a consequence of that repression, violence, those harsh campaigns against everything that was Albanian, from ethnogenesis to the new borns. The famous strike of the Trepça miners happened in “the ninth horizon” and it shocked Yugoslavia and Europe as well, at the same time our students locked themselves in the sports hall, which at that time was named 25 Maji [May 25], today it’s named 1 Tetori [ October 1] and I participated there, together with some other colleagues. After that, I mean, the demands for Ali Shukrija’s resignation as a member of the Leadership of Yugoslavia, of Rrahman Morina, who was the number one quisling in Kosovo, representative of the Communists League, Husamedin Azemi had came from the police and the Mitrovica Committee Secretary. They acted as if they resigned, then the miners withdrew, as I told you, from the pits, the students from the sports hall as well, and the repression continued, violent measures, the police arrested people.
I was there, I found out later on that the meeting of Kosovo Parliament was being held in March 23 just when the constitutional changes were supposed to be made, the Kosovo Parliament was besieged with tanks, there were policemen everywhere, the Serbian and the whole ex-Yugoslav milicia at every step. The constitutional changes were violently made, the meeting of Serbia Parliament was going to be held. I was arrested in the early morning of March 28, at 5:30 in the morning, seven people came to my flat’s door, three policemen came to warn me. Three policemen, three civilians and a woman raided my house, they took some files, some writings and me. They questioned me for twenty hours, they asked me from when I was born until then. But I had a fortunate circumstance let’s say, that my action was public, I made writings, I made debates, I had reacted publicly, I didn’t belong to any illegal political organization, any troika, and maybe this saved me, how to say.
Twenty-two people were killed that day, in March 28, young boys and girls, while in Belgrade they were drinking champagne because now Kosovo had lost the autonomy of ‘74 and it no longer had the constitutional competences that it used to. This is what they had long fought for, the Yugoslav press was terrifying, especially the newspaper Politika, they made a monstrous campaign, mobbing, accusing, threatening, and everything else. We, I mean some intellectuals, there were some who were imprisoned, such as Ukshin Hoti with his group, some were taken before, some were threatened, some were expelled. I was among those, I mean, they had taken me, they kept me, they questioned me and then set me free, they also took me once again for the Appeal, for the Appeal of 215 intellectuals which was made in ‘89 as a defense of Kosovo’s Constitution. Then in July 5, when the Radio Television of Kosovo was violently taken, they warned me not to influence my students to go to the streets, because there would be bloodshed. This was the main word, how to say, you are responsible!
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What did you say to your students, and why were you under supervision about this?
Agim Vinca: Like this, then 1990 came and the Action for Blood Feuds Reconciliation started. It was initiated by our youth, our students, former political prisoners, on February 2, 1990 in the village of Lumbardh of Deçan or Peja, of Peja. And they initiated it because in the demonstrations of ‘89 for the defense of Kosovo’s autonomy, Serbian propaganda had spread the defamation that Albanians were not killed by the Serbian police, but they had killed each-other because of blood feuds. This was the starting point. This action expanded, and besides the students and the youth, university professors, intellectuals and other writers from Kosovo were involved,in villages, in cities, I got involved as well.
The reasons why I found it right to get involved in this Movement were, first because it was a humanitarian action, I mean, because we had the tradition of the kanun, revenge, and there is nothing better than reconciling families who were in enmity for decades, to remove such a heavy burden from their shoulders. But, besides that, besides that, we had to create a unity, a front against Serbian hegemony, against the violence and terror which were being used ,and at least I thought that it wouldn’t take long for Albanians to be forced to rise, to start the fight, and they had to be united, homogenized in order to start the fight. The Action turned out to be successful, bloods were reconciled, conflicts, injuries, mainly on behalf of the nation, of the flag, of Kosovo, of Kosovo’s youth. This was what made people, you know, overcome the great pain, the painful memories, because there were very tough cases as well.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: How old were they?
Agim Vinca: There were 30, 40, maybe even 50 or less years old cases. And of course, this mobilized the people because other movements, other forms of reaction were taking place besides Blood Feuds Reconciliations, it mobilized the people. I got involved, as far as I remember, on March 2, 1990, in the village of Bajqina, not Bajqina but in another village near Pristina. And the old man in the garden, at the gathering where he forgave the blood was taking place, his name was Hashim Bajqinca, a short man, I remember him. He was my first contact with this and then I even wrote a poem that day, I wrote a poem which is published in one of my books. It was March, April, the end of April, the 1st of May was celebrated at the time, I was about to go to my birthplace, in May 1...
Erëmirë Krasniqi: You were in the village of Bubavec as well, right?
Agim Vinca: In the village of Bubavec? Yes, I was in the village of Bubavec. A big gathering took place in Bubavec, at that time I was getting along with a person from Switzerland who had come to Kosovo for a visit, he was a teacher by profession. I don’t know whether he had any other mission or not, but they told me to accompany him since I spoke French. And he was impressed by that big gathering, I mean, all those people, it was a day of celebration. It was Eid, and the hoxha with the priests were together, the speeches, girls, women, men, men with moustache, with plisa. I mean, all the possible categories, then the lunch, the lunch on sofër, he saw the way we sat, then I met him after some months during a visit in Switzerland, the gathering in Bubavec was big.
By the end of April, I would go to my birthplace in Veleshta, Struga, and I thought that since there were blood feuds there as well, because we are one, we are one nation, we have the same tradition, we have the same mentality, I thought about starting and expanding the action there as well. I thought about taking with my car some of my fellow countrymen, my fellow villagers, and send them at Verat e Llukës so that they would get inspired and do the same thing. But when I went there, I saw that there was no need to go at Verat e Llukës, because what was happening in Kosovo was being transmitted through television, newspapers and word of mouth and it had had its effect already and we gathered, wrote a strategy of starting the Action for Blood Feuds Reconciliations in Veleshta of Struga. It happened that I was the one leading this group, and they came to me, since I was an intellectual who had a name, not only as a writer and as a professor, but also as a man who had resisted against Yugoslav, Macedonian, the Serbian ruling power.
They came to Ohrid, I was at, since my wife was from Ohrid, I was at her family’s, two people came by car, one of them was a doctor and had a problem in his family and the other an activist, they took me, we went. In April 30, we met in the house of a nation loving fellow villager whose name was Nazif Zhuta, and other intellectuals from Pristina and from my birthplace, we made a strategy, we made the list of the blood feuds, there were five or six of them, two for each, three or something. We started, we had the dilemma whether we were supposed to start from the case that seemed the easiest or the one that seemed the hardest? We decided to start from the hardest one. There were difficulties, but there were ten, fifteen, twenty [activists], the group kept getting larger. And in two days, in May 1 and 2 in Veleshta of Struga, for the first time in Macedonia, Tetovo and Gostivar hadn’t started yet, whoever says differently lies, these are documented facts in the press and everywhere else, there are also photographs and other testimonies. Five blood feuds were reconciled and two injuries and a conflict. It was a big success, some of them were very hard, two of them were in my family, Vinca, in my fis. One of them was, yes please?
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What was the nature of the cases?
Agim Vinca: One of them was a murder, each family had a victim, but they were not reconciled, Reqi, Vinca. And we did the reconciliation by taking the representatives of each families, by going to their families, not only in the square there, but also in the oda where they had coffee and then here again, it didn’t happen the same way in Kosovo because the work was bigger, we mainly didn’t do this for all the cases. There was another case where the father-in-law had killed his daughter-in-law, the father-in-law who was a criminal had been fighting with his son and the daughter-in-law had gone in between to separate them and he had shot her with a shotgun from below. This was a woman from my family, my cousin, and I cried when we went there, to my cousins’, because I had the main speech, I had to be the first one to speak, even though I was not the oldest, but I was, let’s say the leader. And when I started, because you had to convince them that it’s for the better, we know it’s not easy for you, but you are not forgiving it to them but to your future, to your children, to the nation, to this youth, to these people, to our values, we have our century old enemy in front of us.
These were, how to say, the words, the arguments, and when I started there, I couldn’t stop from crying, I started crying because it was hard. I knew her, I mean, she was part of my family and she was killed, how to say, with her hands on dough and she left her children, five little children. And he was imprisoned, I guess he was set free, but we weren’t forgiving it to him. And like this, there were very hard cases, there were various cases, none of them were the same , we were successful. And since I was still working, you know, in the Faculty, I stayed three days and I returned.
I returned in May 5. A big gathering was held in May 2, 3, 5, maybe one of the biggest after the one in Verat e Llukës, the one of Bubavec, maybe even before the one in Bubavec, the one that was held in Kolovica of Pristina. And since I was part of it, they asked me to have a speech together with Anton Çetta, Mark Krasniqi, Zekerija Cana, these three. There were Lush Gjergji and the hoxha of Bubavec, Xhevat Kryeziu there, as well as many others, writers, intellectuals and professors who wanted to speak. I had written it like this, Pranvera e Pajtimit [The Spring of Reconciliation], and it showed on the Television of Pristina, since it had not been taken by Serbia yet. It was a special moment, I mean it was a big gathering, there was even one case, a person whom I known as well, two of his brothers had been killed, from the Sfishta family from Vranjevc of Kodra e Trimave, two brothers, and he was the son-in-law of a family from Struga. He had met the girl when she had come to the Medicine Middle School, she was my relative and there were many of those who forgave it there.
A doctor from Pristina, who was working in Zagreb, showed up, I guess his name was Nazmi Krasniqi. He was a defectologist and he had come, and showed up in the tribune all of a sudden, and I remember him saying. “We are forgiving the bloods to each-other, but we will never forget the blood that Milosević, Kadiević and Mamula made us spill!” Everybody knows who Milosević was, Branko Mamula was the Admiral of the Yugoslav Army, Kadiević was the commander in chief at the Army Headquarters, many boys were killed, they came back in coffins from the army. These were, you know, all part of the situation, of the events, they were an accumulation. We had even participated in their funerals and held speeches at the opening of the memorials at their graveyards, and so on.
And after his speech, the Serbian police came and arrested him, they arrested the doctor who had come from Zagreb and they stopped the big gatherings, the big gatherings which gathered tens of thousands of people, not to say even more. And then after a few days Croatia intervened, because I guess he was a citizen of Croatia and they set him free. Like this, the Action for Blood Feuds Reconciliations expanded in other Albanian lands as well, in Macedonia, in Tetovo, in Gostivar, in villages, in Kërçovë and it even continued in my birthplace in Struga, some others continued it in a village there, and sometimes they invited me. It happened that I went there for new cases, but then, how to say, this became a kind of undeclared institution.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Wasn’t there in Macedonia a good relationship with the state and the law, why was there a need to solve these issues on their own?
Agim Vinca: The murders?
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Yes.
Agim Vinca: They had happened 30-40 years ago, unfortunately they still happen. To this day they still happen, there are murders everywhere. We even sent out a message at the time, but things are being forgotten. We are a nation with values, but we also have our vices, we said, “We are forgiving the blood feuds today, we kindly invite you to open your eyes from now on, to pull yourselves together and never kill your brother or your neighbor for anything in the world and then say, I will send Anton Çetta to him and he will forgive me the blood, no!” And I mean it had its effect for some time. Now, people are people, they are alive, they are diverse, but the aim was to create unity, a front, and this happened, a consciousness. Then the events developed the way they did, I mean the political parties surfaced and in the end the KLA and Kosovo managed to get liberated in ‘99 from almost a century of Serbian occupation. From 1912-1913 to that year, because Kosovo was an occupied land, Macedonia, Serbia and Greece had expanded during the Balkan Wars and occupied Albanian lands, Kosovo and Çamëria.
And we as intellectuals, I for myself ever since I started having my own thoughts and became fully politically aware, I would say that from 1965 I thought like this, and I have many arguments for this and I thought, because this is the legal right of my nation. I wanted to defend the rights of the others if they were violated, because a human must be a human, but they should also be humanists, before being Albanians. Montesquieu, a famous French philosopher says, “Je suis tout d’abord homme par hasard français,” which means, above all, I am [first] a human and by chance I am French. I think this is a saying, an epigraph, a motto which I as an intellectual have tried to follow and respect during my whole life.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Where were you during the war?
Agim Vinca: I was in Pristina. Five days in my apartment, then on 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28 [March] I went to Macedonia.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: They forcibly chased you, right?
Agim Vinca: No, I wanted to change place because the Serbian police settled in front of my apartment. There was the house of a Serbian doctor there, back then there was the Pristina Office for Water Supply, all the employees were Serbs, and the Serbian police settled there and that’s why I wanted to change place and go to a friend of mine in Ulpiana, but the paramilitary forces had gone there one night earlier and he was not safe for himself. And my wife and I had Macedonian passports, because Macedonia had become an independent country in the meantime and we had the Macedonian passports as Macedonian citizens, and we tried to go there.
This is a story in itself. Then in Veternik we got stopped by the police close to the gas station, they took me to their van and threatened to kill me, they robbed me. One of them pulled the trigger of the automatic, a Serbian police, then his boss who was checking the passports said, “Don’t, don’t dirty your hands with him, because the other ones will fix him.” That was it. And at some point he said, because we haven’t given these testimonies, “Imaš pare kod sebe?” [Do you have money with you?] I said, “I do.” “How much?” I had 320 Euro, not Euro but Marks because I was working in our parallel University, and the 3% was created in the meantime. We started with no salaries, then with 20 Marks, 30 Marks, 50 Marks. In ‘99 my salary as a University professor with the highest professorial title was 300 Marks.
I had gotten the salary, the last salary and they had given us 20 Marks because the Eid holiday was close and I keep that money in this pocket {shows the pocket}, I don’t keep a wallet. I took them out, the Serbian policeman saw them, I also had some Macedonian Denars which didn’t really have a value, he saw them and put them in the pocket, and as for the Macedonian Denars, he said, “Take them!” He threatened me once more and at some point he said, “Get out!” When we got out of the car, my wife kept looking at me trying to figure out where they had hit me. Luckily they didn’t hit me, they threatened to kill me, “You are Agim Vinca, Agim Vinca seems a familiar name to me. Ah you, you teach those, those from the KLA. You have asked for NATO, now you will see.” I said, “You leaving for Macedonia?” I said, “I would go if there is a chance.” I even regretted and wanted to return, I thought it would be better to get killed in my home rather than in the street. Then the Serbian policeman said, “You can, you can,” but I still had that, “Set him free because the others will take care of him,” and from Pristina to Hani i Elezit we were stopped seven times, robbed five times, we had in total 700 Marks with us, “Yes, please!” We went to Hani i Elezit, the Serbian police were in a very good mood there, because they were interested in robbing Kosovo. I also took a young woman in my car, she was holding two children by hand.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did you have to wait at the border?
Agim Vinca: Very shortly. The woman was from Ferizaj and I said, “Where are you going?” She said, “To Skopje.” “Where?” “To my sister’s.” “Come in.” When I crossed the border, in the Macedonian side, around ten or twelve cameras turned to me, maybe even fifteen, they were waiting there, “Why are you fleeing? Are you fleeing because you fear NATO bombings?” I said, “No.” “English, English.” I said, “No, French [English].” I said, “No, French. Nobody is moving from Kosovo because they fear NATO bombings, we are fleeing because of the terrible Serbian terror which is exercised on Kosovo civilians, where human life matters less than that of an ant. And even if they kill you, there is no one to bury you.” A journalist, I guess she was Macedonian, I said, “They kill, they massacre, they rape, they rob, they do…” She said, “They rob?” “Yes.” “Did they rob you?” I said, “Yes, they robbed me as well.” “Personally?” “Personally. We had 700 Marks in total, they took all of them.”
And I continued my journey, I sent the young woman with her children, her sister’s house was somewhere in the village of Çair and then I went to my birthplace. It was already full of Kosovars, they even joked with me and said, “They should have killed you,” (smiles) because now I was a refugee in my own birthplace, yes, a refugee in my own birthplace and I was the saddest Kosovar refugee. I experienced it very painfully, I couldn’t even write, I only made phone calls, I paid 300 Marks. I have an apartment in Struga, I paid 300 Marks for the phone bill, there were no cell phones back then.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Whom did you keep in touch with?
Agim Vinca: I called Rexhep Mejdani, the President of Albania, Sabit Brokaj, the leader of his cabinet, my friend Dritëro Agolli, a famous writer, doctor Pandeli Qino, the leader of the Independent Albanian Intellectuals Forum. I called professor Arben Puto, the leader of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and said, “It is terrible at Bllaca, people are dying, they do their physiological needs there, tell the president to go to Marizia Lino, the American Ambassador, and say, ‘we will keep the Albanians of Macedonia, because this is a country of immigrants, their houses stand empty while they are in Europe, the Macedonian state doesn’t spend anything.’ People are dying, this is happening…”
Of course there were hundreds like me, even more important than I, but I know that Bllaca got unblocked and 300 buses with Kosovars were sent to Korça in order not to pass through Tetovo or Struga because that’s where they stopped the Albanians, It was blocked from Saint Naum to Korça, I mean, this is what I did, they were inside. And some concerts yes, some openings which I did not attend. I couldn’t attend because I felt very sad and I wrote two, three poems, one of them was: “I envy my friends/ The dead Kosovar poets/ Who didn’t get to see Kosovo mourning/ Who didn’t get to see it burned and wounded/ I envy my friends/ Azem, Din, baca Esat/ They are better laying there/ Than here, a refugee.” I published it in the newspaper Flaka e Vëllazërimit [Brotherhood Flame] and some of my colleagues, professors from Gjilan and elsewhere, told me that they cried when they read it.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What do you do today?
Agim Vinca: Today I am a retired professor. I keep being part of the university, I have Master’s candidates whom I mentor, I give lectures at the Fehmi Agani University of Gjakova. Two of my ex-students invited me, one of them the ex-leader of the department and the other, a dean, and I read, I write. I don’t exclude the opportunity to say what I say in the written form, in a more structured way than I managed to say it today. I wrote some after I returned, I returned a week after the bombings. Ten days after the bombings I made a journey with my car, I had a 101 [Zastava], with two of my colleagues and friends, Pristina-Peja-Gjakova-Prizren and back.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Have you documented it?
Agim Vinca: I have documented it with an article I wrote after I returned, titled, “Një ditë në Kosovën e lirë” [A Day In Liberated Kosovo], which was published in the newspaper Koha Ditore, which was still published in Tetovo, because its printing house in Pristina was burned. In four full pages, “Një ditë në Kosovën e lirë,” and I said that the after war Peja was a Hiroshima, Peja was {shows the demolition with his hands}, Gjakova had many victims, Prizren was saved because NATO troops intervened quickly, because they were stationed near Kukës, and I did this. And I also held a diary for the five days I spent here, I have published it in one of my books, I have published it at that time in the press, in Pristina press and Tirana press.
I guess I published the diary in the fifth anniversary of the bombings, and the article “Një ditë në Kosovën e lirë,” I have published it right after I returned, I mean it was published in full four pages of Koha Ditore together with some photographs. Aside from writing, I think that we, the intellectuals of Kosovo, should’ve done more, we haven’t left enough testimony, including myself. I can say that I left some testimony, I also articulated this in my poems, but even before, even later on, also in articles such as, “Si ai” [Just like him], in full detail. There I spoke, you know, about my whole journey and the meetings and particular cases of what people had experienced. As you all know, I mean there are many cases in the same family in Peja, especially the Balaj family, I have written about it. The paralyzed old woman laying in bed, the Serbian police and paramilitary forces who didn’t shoot her but went around her with an automatic gerrrrr {onomatopoeic}, they did such games, this is what they did, they raped, they robbed, they killed, I have [Testimonies].
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Are they in writing or oral?
Agim VInca: Oral, oral, because we did not have anything else. Oral from the family members left alive, but I have their names, I know the name of the family, it was the Balaj family. I mean, in Kosovo the houses along the street were attacked first. As it is the tradition here, the parents of four boys built four identical houses, villas, all of them were burned down. There were no good houses at the time, there were bad ones, but this is how it happened. There was no place where you could eat in Prizren, some kebab place somewhere, and it was ten to twelve days after the NATO troops settled, of course. I did this, and it was a very good idea, with professor Jashar Gabashi, English Language professor, and with the director Atdhe Gashi who now lives in Norway. He even insisted on going to Peja to see if the house of his daughter who was living in London was burned down, it was burned down. Nobody from the neighborhood wanted to take him there, he was disabled, he had suffered an accident and I said, “I will take you.” And we went together.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Do you have any footage of it?
Agim Vinca: No, we have no footage at all.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Ah, no.
Agim Vinca: There were no cell phones back then, there is no footage.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Since he was a director, I thought you might’ve documented it in that way.
Agim Vinca: Ah, no. He went there to see whether his daughter’s house was burned down. He asked a guy, he asked another, I said, “I will take you.” I was personally motivated to go. On the way it happened that we took KLA soldiers, young boys in uniforms, and we talked to them, we asked for their opinion, I also talked there about problematic political clashes, of course. But I guess I should’ve done more, I should’ve done more, and it’s not too late, better late than never, like this. This is it for today, because I talked too much.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Yes. Thank you!