This is the second 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.
In the photograph: Valdete Bajrami and Raif Musa in Blood Feuds Reconciliation, the gathering in Shtime, 1990.
Raif Musa: I was part of the First Assembly of the Reconciliation of Blood Feud Councils, I already told you that I had a direct communication with the Peja league through my cousin, my friend, Durmish Gashi and Egzon Gashi were there, we communicated with them. But while the other Councils were being founded, because that was the time when all the Councils were founded, they decided to hold an assembly. The First Assembly of the Reconciliation of Blood Feud Councils was held in the village of Strellc, municipality of Deçan, there I presented the results that were achieved until then.
Then the Second Assembly of the Reconciliation of Blood Feud Councils was held in the village of Osek Hyla, municipality of Gjakova. When we went there, they arrested me together with two other people at the entrance of Gjakova. They held us for four-five hours, we didn’t manage to attend the assembly. […] It was sometime in May, in the ‘90s, I have the precise date but I don’t remember it exactly now, and we couldn’t attend. There were no phones back then like today to notify the others, but anyway, they mistreated us a little, but not so much, more psychologically than physically, they knew exactly about our activism.
[…] They knew exactly about our activism, they had names and last names, my friend was from the village of Bellacerkv, now they call it Fortesa, near Rahovec, and we said that we went to visit our friend and now we are going for a trip to Gjakova, but they already had all our names and they knew exactly about our positions, who, how and so on, and they held us. When they released us, we couldn’t manage to do a presentation at the Assembly of Councils, but after two days I went to Pristina and met Prof. Dr. Liman Rushiti, the imam Kokrruk, and we went to Prof. Dr. Anton Çetta, who told me what was decided there. Right after that, some people came to pick up the professor, then I went with them as well, because that’s how we went.
In the photograph: Reconciliation Council of Ferizaj in the gathering of Shtime, 1990. The group is lead by Raif Musa, Valdete Bajrami, Mustafë Gashi, Syzana Jupa, Minire Ademi, Mehmet Bruqi, Rasim Halil.
For example, we went to one case, both Councils together, for example, there was one case when we went to the village of Petroviç as they called it, Godanc near the municipality of Shtime, a reconciliation was held there. Anton Çetta, Zekerija Cana, Muhamet Pirraku, Hazer Shala and some others came down there. There was the Reconciliation of Blood Feuds Council of Ferizaj, we, the one of Lipjan, of Shtime, three Reconciliation of Blood Feud Councils were there, and someone told us about a case, we took it from there and the three Councils went to that case. And we reconciled a very difficult case, the professor was fortunately there, there was also Adem Grabovci. […] Ramë Buja was there, because Ramë was part of the Reconciliation Council of Lipjan, Avdi… Avdi Kelmendi, professor Avdi Kelmendi has died, he was the one who led the Reconciliation of Blood Feuds Council of Lipjan, it was very interesting, anyway we reconciled that one, I mean this is the way we functioned. We didn’t bother […] with things such as who will start the talk, whoever was able to reconcile did so, not in the sense to brag about it, no! The aim was just to take care of the cases. There were then… one followed the other, various cases in the villages…
Valdete Bajrami Musa: There were [cases], you know, for example, one was from Ferizaj the other was from…for example, the murderer or the other one were one from Ferizaj, and the other from Lipjan, then of course you had to collaborate, the work forced you to.
In the photograph: Members of the Council of Ferizaj. From the left: Lumnije Azemi, Minire Ademi, Besa Abdullahu, Nazmi Shahini, Raif Musa, Valdete Bajrami, Syzana Jupa and Hajrush Musa.