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Overview
Mead's novel includes a brief history of the events leading to the Kosovo Conflict, a map of the region surrounding Kosovo, and a pronunciation guide.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781535217651 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | CreateSpace Publishing |
| Publication date: | 07/11/2016 |
| Pages: | 114 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.24(d) |
| Language: | Spanish |
| Age Range: | 9 - 12 Years |
About the Author
Date of Birth:
May 15, 1856Date of Death:
May 6, 1919Place of Birth:
Chittenango, New YorkPlace of Death:
Hollywood, CaliforniaEducation:
Attended Peekskill Military Academy and Syracuse Classical SchoolRead an Excerpt
Suddenly gunfire rang out from the jeep. They were shooting randomly over my head across the river. I heard two bursts of rapid machine-gun fire of about twenty seconds each.
I started running across the bridge. "Fatmira, get down! Get down!" I screamed.
But it was too late. She had already fallen. I threw myself on her and shook her to rouse her, but she wouldn't wake up. Big hands pried me off her body. From her hand I quickly took the folded piece of paper and slipped it into my pocket. I didn't want the Serb police to find the poem on her.
As the police pulled me away, I could see blood and a black bullet hole burned through her denim jacket in the middle of her back. Someone had turned her over. He face was white. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
I was screaming her name and wouldn't stop. The police brushed me aside and loaded her into their jeep. I grabbed on to the door handle and tried to climb in, too. "Let me go with you!" I screamed. "Don't take her away. I can make her better."
The police pushed me away and quickly drove through the crowd.
Author's Note:
Yugoslavia was a country in Eastern Europe until 1991. Since the end of World War II, it had been ruled by a strong leader named Tito. It was made up of six republics--Serbia; Macedonia; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Croatia; Slovenia; Montenegro--and two less independent provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina. Serbia was the largest republic, while Kosovo, where this story is set, was the poorest province in Yugoslavia.
Tito died in 1980. At that time the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo were growing more and more unhappy with the qualityof their lives. These people made up about 85 percent of the population in Kosovo; the rest were Serbs. In 1981, Albanian university students and many others began to demonstrate for Kosovo's independence.
The Yugoslav government in Belgrade had a very large army and police force. It responded to the Albanian students' demonstrations with beatings, imprisonment, and a crackdown on civil liberties. Many military police were moved to the region to keep order.
But the Albanians continued to seek rights and independence. Every time there was a demonstration, more soldiers and special police arrived in Kosovo. Every time they arrived, they brought weapons and stayed. Other republics of Yugoslavia watched the violence in Kosovo nervously to see what would happen, but no one offered to help.
Slobodan Milosevic, the leader of Serbia, wanted to sieze power during this confusing time. First he turned to the impoverished Albanian people in Kosovo. Serbs, he said, had the right to ancient landholdings there from hundreds of years ago. He reminded them that Kosovo had been part of the Serbian heartland until the Ottoman Turks defeated the Serbs in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo. Refusing to convert to the religion of Islam (as the Albanians and Bosnians did), the Serbs (Orthodox Christians) had been expelled from the area, where ethnic Albanians multiplied. Now the Serbs would reclaim their territory.
In 1989, Milosevic held a rally and declared his intention to consolidate Serbian power in Belgrade under his control. At that point, the other republics of Yugoslavia prepared to secede. That led, in 1991, to the outbreak of terrible wars with various Serbian factions in the provinces of Bosnia and Croatia.
Milosevic's method was to take over Yugoslavia's radio, newspapers, and TV. Then the media broadcast scary stories about Muslims in both Bosnia and Kosovo. According to the broadcasts, Muslim Albanians in Kosovo were "murderers and beasts, terrorists who kill Serbs in their beds." Milosevic said he would have to send more tanks and soldiers to Kosovo to keep the "unity" of Yugoslavia and to protect Serbs from those monsters. He created an atmosphere of fear between Albanians and Serbs, who, despite different languages, religions, and customs, had lived together peacefully for years. Milosevic also encouraged outbursts of local violence, which he then magnified in reports on TV.
In March 1989, Serbian tanks and helicopters surrounded the Kosovo government buildings. Milosevic suspended the province's constitution. In its place, he installed the "special military measures" needed for total control of the unarmed Albanians.
The region now contains 60,000 special police and soldiers. According to the 1995 United States Department Country Report, "Milosevic wields strong control over the Serbian police, a heavily armed force of perhaps 100,000, which is guilty of extensive, brutal, and systematic human rights abuses."
The Albanians formed a democratic alliance, held elections, and used nonviolence to protest these policies, but so far attempts at negotiations between Milosevic and Albanian leaders have failed.
Meanwhile, in Kosovo, there is no news from the outside world. Thousands of families subsist on bread and eggs. Factories and banks are closed. Many Albanian men and boys have left the region to escape abuse and to try to find jobs in other countries, while Serbian refugees from warring parts of Bosnia and Croatia have been moved in.
Neither Albanians nor Serbs in Kosovo want war, but no one sees a way out. This story starts in September 1993--more than four and a half years after the military crackdown by the Yugoslav army. The protagonist is one of the one million ethnic Albanian children in Kosovo. His story is typical of the violence and turmoil suffered by children all across the former Yugoslavia.