Serb Train by Andrew Testa
A
t 5 a.m., through an impenetrable mixture of coal dust from the nearby power station and fog, NATO peacekeepers patrol the platform at Kosovo Polje station, a few kilometres from Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. Although only a few hundred Serbs remain in Pristina from a prewar population of 20,000 or so, in the villages that surround it their numbers are still high. The train that runs from this station through the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica, and on to the Serb stronghold of Zvecan in the north of the province, is mainly for their benefit. Protected along its journey by NATO troops, who both ride the train and guard the tracks, it provides the safest way for Serbs and Roma to travel through the Albanian-dominated parts of the province. The train is a consequence of the Kosovo war, which left thousands dead, 120,000 homes burned and looted and nearly a million ethnic Albanians expelled to neighboring countries in an orgy of ethnic cleansing organised and executed by Serbian forces. The entry of NATO forces at the end of the war saw the immediate return of most of those who had been expelled and the beginning of a campaign of revenge attacks on Serbs and Roma, who were viewed by the Albanians as collaborators with the Serbian regime. Thus the train, which during the war had been used
14 ei8ht