Throughout the country the most prominent reminders of the war in Kosovo are the memorials to the fallen members of the KLA which appear in every town and dot the countryside. Many strongholds of resistance, even in the days before the KLA came to prominence, formed around family units in small villages. In particular the Drenica Valley and the Jashari family have come to symbolise the struggle for independence – but the symbols are everywhere, including the capital.
Martyrs' Hill, Prishtina - click for more images
Running through the centre of Prishtina is the newly pedestrianised Mother Theresa (Nene Tereze) avenue. At the northern end of this stands an immense bronze statue of the Albanian hero George Castrioti Skanderbeg. A vassal prince to the Ottoman empire in the 15th century, Skanderbeg ensured his place as the most revered of Albanian figures by rebelling against his Ottoman masters. Albanians and Kosovans celebrate his two decades of rule as Albania’s only period of independence during 500 years of Ottoman subjugation.
Further down the street , past a hunched, unassuming statue of Mother Theresa herself, stands a sculpture of a more modern kind of ‘Kosovan hero’. The sculpture is in the rough hewn socialist style and could be of a World War II partisan, but on closer inspection turns out to be far more recent. Zahir Pajaziti, a Kosovo Liberation Army commander from Podujeva, is depicted with a steely glare and rifle in hand. Pajaziti was a founder member of the KLA who was killed fighting the Serbs in 1999. He is one of a generation of KLA figures who are being elevated to legendary status in the narrative of the Kosovan national struggle.
This is far from the only symbol of the KLA in the capital. Streets named after KLA leaders and ‘martyrs’ run alongside those named after more moderate political figures. On Martyr’s Hill, overlooking the city, the graves of KLA fighters lie beneath the Albanian flag. The simple wooden crosses are adorned with garish floral wreaths arranged around plastic shields. On the other side of the hill sits the tomb of Ibrahim Rugova, a restrained marble plinth. There was controversy when this spot was chosen for his resting place. KLA fighters were known for their willingness to resort to force; Rugova was known for the exact opposite, leading the region through a decade of passive resistance.
The image of Adem Jashari is the country’s most prominent KLA symbol. In Prishtina his face stares out from billboards, from flags, from graffiti. Underneath is the slogan ‘Bac, U Kry’ – ‘Uncle, it’s done’. The black and white silhouette is carefully crafted to evoke Alexander Korda’s famous image of Che Guevara. Enter his name into internet search engines and you’ll find hundreds of videos made in homage to him. One of the city’s unmistakeable landmarks is the Palace of Youth and Sport, with its distinctive ridged roof.
Everyone knows it as the Boro Ramiz building after two partisans – one Serb, one Albanian – who fought together against German occupation in World War 2. This message of Kosovan harmony is now overshadowed by a massive banner of Jashari hanging over the front entrance.
To understand the devotion to Jashari’s memory you have to travel outside Prishtina to the village of Prekaz in the Drenica valley. The valley was one of the focal points of the KLA campaign and hotbed of armed resistance to the Serbs. In 1997 20,000 people attended the funeral here of a teacher killed during skirmishes with the Serbian police.
It was there that the KLA first came out into the open with a speech proclaiming that they would ‘fight for the liberation and national unity of Kosovo’. As you drive through the leafy valley the KLA memorials appear more frequently. Every rise in the road seems to bring a new one. But the grandest memorial is saved for the Jashari family.
Adem Jashari was born in 1955 on 28th November – Albanian Independence Day. Much reproduced photographs show Jashari with his brother Hamza and father Shaban standing in the green fields of the valley, the father dressed in an embroidered waistcoat, an old wooden rifle at his side, the sons in combat fatigues, binoculars and semi-automatic weapons in hand. A locally produced guidebook describes him as quiet, tough, ‘with his ear to ear moustaches and black beard he resembled a cloud threatening to throw lightning’ who never ‘parted from his gun’. In many ways he was the modern incarnation of the kacak – those brigand-freedom fighters who had fought for his homeland in early 20th century Kosovo against the Serbs, the Turks, the Austro-Hungarians. He also embodied the ‘Drenica spirit’ – the rejection not just of Serb authority but of any authority.
Through the 1980s Jashari distributed pamphlets calling for end to Serbian ‘occupation’. In 1990 he took up arms and crossed the border into Albania for training – allegedly by Albanian army officers.
By 1998 the family’s compound had become a nucleus for other increasingly militant young men who began to make ever more frequent attacks on the Serbian police.
In January 1998 an attack on the compound was repelled when other militants (so-called ’friends from the woods’) came to the Jasharis’ aid. But on 5th March a much larger assault was made by thousands of Serbian troops who had amassed at a temporary barracks in an ammunition factory in Skenderaj. Over three days of fighting, 58 inhabitants of the farm were killed – over 20 of them from the Jashari family.
When Adem Jashari was gunned down on his doorstep, it’s said he was still singing songs about his Kosovan heroes. The last to be killed was thirteen year old Kushtrim Jashari, who died ‘holding an automatic weapon in his hands’ according to the guides at the site.
Prekaz was one of the incidents responsible for hardening the international community’s position towards Serbia’s activities in Kosovo. Hundreds of thousands of people have since visited the compound, which has become something of a shrine to Kosovan nationalism. You don’t have to imagine the scale of the destruction – the half dozen or so buildings have been preserved exactly as they were following the assault. Visitors are given a summary of the Jashari family resistance before walking across a series of gangways around the buildings. Scaffolding now holds the structures together, but other than that they are untouched. Bullet holes pockmark every square foot. Circular patterns on the white plaster mark the impact of exploding shells. Loose tiles hang precariously from the roof and the remains of a tractor are rusting outside. Across the road from the complex lie the graves of the family, guarded by members of the Kosovan Protection Force.
In a small museum and shop you can see photos of Jashari the fighter, the figurehead. And you can buy mugs and keyrings emblazoned with his portrait or the Kosovan flag. Not everyone agrees that Jashari was a hero, and he is generally considered a terrorist by Serbs, but there is no doubt that the ruins of his family home have become a potent symbol of the Kosovan national struggle. Amongst those who have visited the Jashari memorial are the booker -prize winning Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, who described it as ‘the place where a magnificent flame began, the flame of freedom, which enlightened Prekaz and after it Drenica and the entire of Kosovo’.
