March of 1998 was a month of many protests. The women’s informal network organized eight out of eighteen peaceful protests held in that month. The protests were in response to the violence exercised in Drenica, Kosovo by Milosević regime. Through protests, women activists called out to international community to intervene and put an end to violence. This series of interviews map out the history of women’s activism in the public sphere, shed light on women’s political positioning, and forms of resistance in 1998.

The interviews were produced in partnership with ForumZFD, University Program for Gender Studies and Research and Oral History Initiative.

Eliza Hoxha

Architect/Artist

I have pictures from when they started off, when the march started and the walk coming from… because the were then stopped at Hotel Božur, there was a police line and I mean they didn’t let the women pass and then they turned back on the way that brings you to OSCE, where its building is today, to, to cross to the other side I mean. […] Every protest was super well organized and the keepers were very, very careful, and they don’t call them keepers by accident (laughs). For the fact that every protest could escalate over small stuff or to be provoked by somebody on the outside or they didn’t think the same as you, or it was important to them to incite [violence], for you to seem in the eyes of the media, in the eyes of the world as somebody who is inciting violence or, or problems. So, the protest went well, it was peaceful, it was massive to put it conditionally. Especially when you see recorded moments, especially photographs but also when you are present, when the confrontation between the police line with hard tools {pretends she’s holding something} with guns and a group I mean long line of women with bread loaves in hand…

Mevlyde Mezini Saraçi

Writer

When Drenica was sieged, Drenica was in a crisis, it was counting down to the last of its food supplies. At that time, the Women’s Forum, the Leadership of the Women’s Forum together with other women’s organizations, which began to organize at the time, [they organized the march] ‘Bread for Drenica.’ The delegation of the Women’s Forum from Gjakova was suppressed from the start in Gjakova and wasn’t allowed to continue to Pristina. […] We were on our way because it was a central [meeting] point, to meet in Pristina and to leave for Drenica. And our start had to be from Pristina. We started, and they stopped us at Gjakova’s exit. We were organized and had a car, and the police stopped us, they knew our moves and they got information about our march holding a loaf of bread. […] So, they tried to stop every activity that we did in an organized manner outside of Gjakova. But unfortunately none of us from Gjakova got to go to Drenica because they stopped us from the start.

Lindita Cena

Jurist

They were stranded, you know, they were under the siege of Serbian forces and could not secure food or basic medicine, for which they were in dire need, because they were surrounded by police forces. The protest was organized on March 16, 1998. We planned to start the march in Dragodan, at the America Embassy [Office]. There were a great number of women and girls, who, each of them held in their hands a loaf of bread and medicine, hoping to get to the families stranded in Prekaz. 

So, at the very beginning of the gathering there were various provocations by different people. But we did not stop the march. […] Near the Agricultural High School, throughout that part of the march we had people following us with cars that had Serbian plates. They provoked us, shouted at us, they tried to scare us or… but we did not stop, we continued marching, we did not shout back at them because we knew very well why we were going there. 

In one moment, I don’t remember it myself very well, it was a matter of seconds, and one of them drove the car into the crowd of women protesters. From that point on I don’t know what happened, I lost consciousness, I was one of the women who were hit by the car and I don’t know. I don’t remember what happened afterwards.

Igballe Rexha Jashari

Economist

…when the April 1 [1981] demonstration started, I was actually at home because I didn’t know, since I wasn’t in those activist groups, I wasn’t… but, since I heard that it broke out there, I went out immediately and my sister, who was only 15 at the time, was right behind me. Of course, I was trying to, I mean to convince her to go back home, but here where the Parliament is, we saw that the protesters were coming, rioters in fact, so we joined them. 

I tried to send my sister away from the demonstration once more, took her up to the Green Market, but she had tailed me that day. So, we stayed there, we were right in front of the megaphone, so in front of the stage where everything that was said, we listened until the police intervened. […]

And so we ran down the street, with, the tear gas, of course, affected my sister even more, and as I said that she was a burden in this case, I mean for me, because I had to hold her tight and not let go, even when we were chased by the police.

After a few hours we arrived at home, you know, at night. But, my sister continued organizing the high school students the next day. You know, she has been like that since she was 15. To avoid police persecution, they went somewhere above Shkolla Normale, above Gërmia in that area. So she went around with the flag in her hands like that and she didn’t come back all night. Actually she remained there.

Greta Kaçinari

Educator

…after the opera I wanted to treat my friends from the church. You know, I worship St. Anthony, St. Anthony and I prayed to him a lot as a young woman. Thanks to him, my life took several important turns, and I said to him, ‘Look,’ you know, I am talking to St. Anthony, and I said to him, ‘Look, all the money I will be left with after I treat my friends with coffee, I will donate for your cause.’ We went out after the opera. We were out of the opera hall. We were going for a coffee, but everything was closed, no coffee shop was open. It was 10 p.m. and everything was closed. I said, ‘Oh come on, now I have to give all the money to Anthony,’ ‘Which Anthony?’ I said, ‘St. Anthony.’ (laughs) So, all the money we were supposed to spend on coffee, I said to him, ‘Here, I brought it all to you.’ 

But when I asked for St. Anthony’s guidance, I even said to him, ‘Look, you guide me however you see  fit,’ when I met a man, ‘if you think that he is the right man make it happen, if not, do not make it happen.’ He did not make it happen the first time around nor the second. I said to him, ‘Look, if you don’t think he’s right for me, don’t make it happen.’ It didn’t happen. When I met the third, I said to him, ‘Look, St. Anthony, until now you stopped them all from happening. This time around I will decide on my own.’

Nerimane Kamberi

Professor of French Literature

We went there, descended into the mine pit, and from the archives I recalled, but I also remember it myself that I had many emotions, too many… because they have locked themselves in for Kosovo. Not to forget that news of all kinds was being published. We were all eyes and ears interested in the decisions that were about to be taken for Kosovo, and there was news of all sorts. So we were falling prey to news that today we would call fake news. 

[…] I sent my message to the miners, the message that the students stand in solidarity with them, that we are with them. And I remember that… even the archives reminded me of that, that I cried there because it was very touching. We realized that some of them were really in poor health. 

When I returned, I remember this very well, I took the word again as a woman, as a young writer, as a student of the University of Prishtina. I quoted Anne Frank, who said the following, ‘A terrible ending is preferable rather than an endless terror.’ We sent out our message to the miners that we were with them, and they thanked us for that. And really, it was a profound and powerful moment.

Florina Duli

Executive Director of IKS

The first protest was with white sheets of paper, the second with bread for mothers and children of Drenica. The bread protest was organized at a time when Drenica was entirely isolated from the rest of Kosovo. […] The goal of the walk was not simply to send bread there, so it was more about the effect it had on the international media, so we stopped and turned there. […]  I personally bought the bread and I think each… there was enough bread and bakeries gave away bread, but there were also people who bought it when they left the house, since we knew we would… You cannot imagine the level of solidarity at that time, it’s indescribable. Back then we didn’t think about the material side of our political engagement at any moment, there was always a way. […] There were also many protests which were simply symbolic, so they were an expression of the revolt that people needed to express, it was necessary for people to find an outlet for all that revolt that was built in them over the years.

Gjylshen Doko Berisha

Head of the Gilan’s Municipal Museum

Mrs. Lemane was my mother’s first cousin, the daughter of her maternal uncle. She completed the High Pedagogical School in Tirana and I think I inherited from her the desire to study Albanian Language and Literature. The way she taught us from fifth to the eighth grade was very unique. She would take the record player and play us poetry from well-known [national] poets, such as Naim [Frashëri], Andon Zako Çajupi, and others. So, we listened to recitals and music. She was like that, very good-hearted but also very harsh and that intimidated us. 

She was my aunt. When she came by our house to pay us a visit, I would hide in the other room. My mother would take me out by force. I would say to her, ‘No, because she…  she’s my teacher, I can’t show my face.’ So when my mother took me by force in the room, she would praise me in front of her. But what happened recently, quite recently, because she passed away four-five years ago, I went to her and asked her, ‘Aunt Leman, I always liked them, where did you get the poetry recordings?’ Today, no teacher would take the effort to do that. She said, ‘I recorded them myself. It was my voice.’ She had a very ringing voice, very melodic, but as a child I never thought it was hers, I thought it was just a recording.

Ajnishahe Azemi

Sociology professor

While talking to my students, together we saw it fit and we decided to open our school [Xhevdet Doda], but it was characteristic how we would open the school on both sides, on both wings {shows with her fingers}  of the school there were two tanks. While discussing it we were deciding that if we open the school door, the main entrance, they would see us, stop us and we wouldn’t achieve anything with that,  and then the violence, repression against us. 

And I said, ‘You know what? We are allowed to open the school elsewhere,’ because I knew it well, I worked for a long time. I said, ‘Since this is an old building and it has some window bars, but it’s possible that those bars, maybe you can do it together and we can remove those bars and get in through…’ it was the window in the basement, of the bathrooms {describes with her hand} of the basement. And we went there with those 17 students and we decided to open it.

[…] They did not stop us, nor did others come to stop us from opening it. And we stayed in that school. Of course, they came to school later asking, ‘How did you open it?’ and so on, but not to get us out of there. Maybe it was, how do I say it, a political maneuver so they could say in front of the world, ‘We are letting them, but they don’t want to. There’s this school that works in their school premisses, because we are letting them, we’re not stopping them.’

Edita Tahiri

Former Deputy Prime Minister and Chief Negotiator

Mother was always busy, she had two jobs. Before noon she worked at the textile factory, she got that job after my father was imprisoned, and since my father did not betray his friends, all of them were free and so they made efforts to find a job for my mother. And my mother had to become a tailor, she took a course and became a tailor. So, in the first half of the day, she had an eight-hour shift, and then she worked at home. So, she was busy making sure we survived. But what I appreciated her for, is her commitment to our education. Too much, so, that when we had to study, she would never interrupt us because of house chores. […]

I remember how she always sang songs of exile (smiles). Well, that was my mother. Also, mother was known as one of the strongest women of Prizren, because… I don’t know if you are aware of this, but in that time the Serbo-Slavic regime not only would imprison Albanian patriots, but had a tendency to abuse their spouses. So, I remember her saying, ‘Whenever I go to prison I have a pair of scissors in my bag.’ As a tailor, they were her working tools {pretends to hold a pair of scissors in her hands}. ‘I have my scissors in my bag in case someone attempts something.’ And this behavior of hers showed great strength of character, moral strength, and that turned her into a Prizren icon. So, whenever the most powerful women of Prizren are talked about, my mother is among them.