This is the fifth story in a series of ten stories about the 1990 Reconciliation of Blood Feuds Movement. The tellers are Raif Musa and Valdete Bajrami Musa, husband and wife, information technology professionals from Ferizaj, who were activists of the Movement.
Lutfi Bajraktari holding the horse on which Anton Çetta is mounted. Pleshinë, 1990. Photo credits: Lala Meredith-Vula.
There was a very interesting case in the village of Zllatar, the old man was a troublemaker, he made his sons [like him], the old man was a troublemaker, and when the old man is a troublemaker, his sons are even worse, and he called us….Two-three gatherings were held in the village of Dardanë, they called us as the Reconciliation Council, they invited us to be present at the gathering, not that we closed those cases, those cases were closed by the Council of Vitia, but they invited us to be present and we too invited all the Councils when we held [gatherings]. And we were going there by car, and we saw that old man, that troublemaker, a friend of mine was sitting on the other side, I was driving, and from the other side of the street the old man, a big truck was coming, a cistern, and he saw us and…because in front of the crowd some people like to act like, “I have contacts and I know and”…and he wanted to greet us and the truck was coming like this, he didn’t even look at the truck that could crush him. We said, “Be careful, the truck, don’t come to the street!” The other held his hand like this, I said, “Let it kill him, what do we need him for?” I mean, there were some humorous scenes , relaxing humour. That man had been a pain in the neck for us, he was very vile as a person and had done a lot of harm in his village as well as outside his village. Then I also heard that he collaborated with Serbs during the war and did harm. I mean, human beings, I myself am driven by the principle that there are only two kinds of human beings in the world: the good and the bad, there are no others, there’s no in-between, only good and bad, and he was among the bad ones.
[…] The case of Minire, the one in the village of Greme. A girlfriend of ours was dressed in white, curly hair down to here, with a white dress and a white blouse. A cousin had burned the cows stable, he was very wild, a little crazy, and they forgave it, but they said, “He will do it again.” They were afraid of him, because he was that type of person. We went to calm him down and he said, “No,” he said, “I will burn it again right after they build it.” […] We said, “Bre this and bre that.” Now the professor found a way, and called our friend, our colleague “Doctor.” At the mention of the doctor, he just stopped and looked at her. She had curly hair and a serious attitude, dressed in white. “Will you give me an injection?” He was a grown up, a married man, “Will you give me an injection?” He was afraid of injections. She said, “To those who make troubles, yes.” Then he changed totally, he became another person when he understood. She was not a doctor, but this is what changed the whole discussion and things turned out that way, that he never made any trouble again. Because the cousins whose cows stable had been burned said that they told him, “We will call you that doctor.” I mean, there were this kind of cases that worked, that worked out fine. We had to find the moment.