EASTER MONDAY AT THE CITY GARBAGE DUMP Serbs from Pec visit Pec Cemetery for the first time in four years Danas

EASTER MONDAY AT THE CITY GARBAGE DUMP
Serbs from Pec visit Pec Cemetery for the first time in four years
Danas - May 11, 2003

The first Monday after Easter, which is called Pobusani and dedicated to the deceased, was the reason that a group of 120 expelled Serbs from Pec, now living scattered throughout central Serbia, for the first time in the four years since the arrival of the international administration in Kosovo and Metohija, came in organized fashion on this holiday to visited the Pec Orthodox Cemetery. Despite the three day-long efforts of the "advance guard", a group of 15 residents of Pec and Gorazdevac who cleaned and tidied the cemetery as much as possible, which had in the meanwhile been transformed in the city garbage dump, they found a disheartening scenario. More than half of the tombstones were broken and destroyed; the marble plates had been removed from most; some graves had been opened and dug up; and the clean up team discovered three unidentified bodies, subsequently claimed by the UNMIK police.

"This is scandalous. They lied to us when they said only a few tombstones were destroyed. More than half of the cemetery is leveled with the ground," commented Stevan Mihailovic, who came for the first time in four years with his father and sister to visit the grave of his mother.

Milorad Vladic, a native of Pec currently living in the collective center in Jagodina, and a member of the group working on cleaning up the cemetery, explains that even the entrance to the cemetery was unrecognizable due to the garbage that had been dumped there.

"I worked on the clean up for three days. We would finish cleaning for the day and the very next morning we would find new tombstones had been destroyed," claims Vladic.

Most of the Pec natives believes that the local city department of public works is responsible for the condition of the cemetery, although neither UNMIK nor the Belgrade authorities have missed out on a share of the blame. "They have been here for four years and they have done nothing. We are grateful to the Coordinating Center for making it possible for us to come to Pec but they need to act more concretely and swiftly instead of wasting their time arguing at meetings," claims Mihailovic, who now lives in Smederevo.

The group working on cleaning up the cemetery was received the day before the arrival of the convoy from central Serbia by the mayor of Pec. He received some praise for his goodwill "in allowing and enabling the clean up and visit to the cemetery, although Pec natives are disappointed by silence on the subject of Serb returns".

"We spoke but it all seemed pointless. I asked the mayor when he intends to begin returns, at least to Brestovik, Siga and Ljevosa, villages that the international community has been pushing a little more lately. There was no concrete answer," says Vladic.

According to Vladic, one of the main problems for expelled Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija is that they have no status. "We are not refugees and we have no rights. We are wanderers. We were not received in central Serbia as we should have been nor are we are allowed to return here to our destroyed homes. It's useless to try to remain calm. The provocations are great. It's hard to retain one's sanity if one just looks around this cemetery."

The majority of Orthodox cemeteries throughout Kosovo and Metohija, especially in locations where no Serbs remain, have been completely destroyed. Some, such as the one in Zahac, have even been leveled with a bulldozer. "In the villages of Babic, Glavicica, Svrke, Naklo, Brestovik, Ljevosa, Siga and Decani, not one tombstone remains in the Orthodox cemeteries. In many, such as Klina municipalities, the chapels have also been torn down and set on fire. Everything has also been completely destroyed in Petric, Drsnik and other villages," says a member of the Kosovo police.

The horrible condition of the Naklo Cemetery was also confirmed by Slavica Popovic, who was escorted to her son's and her husband's grave by UNMIK police. "The cemetery is uncleared. It is completely overgrown with weeds. The tombstones are destroyed. Even the wire fence around the cemetery has been removed," says Slavica Popovic, who has three other children and now lives in the collective center in Rakovica. She says she would return to Naklo but only if the other Serbs return as well, because her village is ethnically mixed.

The almost two hour-long visit to the Pec Cemetery was escorted by a strong presence of Italian KFOR troops and UNMIK police. The cleaning up of the graves, the serving of the requiem mass and the leaving of colored Easter eggs as tradition dictates was carefully followed from the other side of the low cemetery fence by the workers from the auto mechanic's shop and other stores on the other side of the street, from which newly composed Kosovo Albanian "patriotic" songs thundered at maximum volume.

The visit to the Orthodox cemetery in Pec, according to Radmila Sugovic, is a continuation of the campaign begun in early March when a petition bearing 1,041 signatures of Serbs expelled from Pec was forwarded to UNMIK, KFOR and the Italian Embassy in Serbia-Montenegro. Their request for the protection of Pec Cemetery and the possibility of regular visits was also supported by the Diocese of Raska and Prizren. The Easter Monday visit was organized with the assistance of the Coordinating Center of Serbia and Serbia-Montenegro for Kosovo and Metohija. Although interest in going to Pec was so great that five buses could have been easily filled in Belgrade, the list had to be limited to 120 people.

According to UNMIK's decree jurisdiction and responsibility for the protection of monuments, including Serbian churches and monasteries, falls on UNMIK police.

The worrisome condition of the Orthodox cemetery in Pec has also been mentioned in a report by a two-member delegation of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which visited churches and cemeteries throughout the Province at the beginning of this year. Monk David Perovic, a professor at the Theological Faculty in Belgrade and envoy of Patriarch Pavle, who visited Pec and surroundings reported that "the destruction of graves is continuing according to an already established routine, also including the resale of valuable marble plates from Serbian graves to the Albanian Muslim population." Natives of Pec who visited Pec Cemetery on Easter Monday saw for themselves the horror of what can only be partially discerned from the reports and photographs.