When the miners locked themselves in the mine pit, I was in my office. So I showed solidarity with the miners and joined them. Day one, day two passed, the miners would not leave the pit. They requested to meet the leaders, political leaders of the then Kosovo Province. The Trepça employees who were not in the mine pit transformed the production hall into an improvised hospital. Miners’ health condition began to deteriorate. 

[…] There we had a role, we took the role of the nurses. We had our on-site doctors, they worked as doctors for the Trepça enterprise. Nurses were there, but a greater number was needed. The miners were in the pit from February 20 ‘til 28. When they came out… day and night I was there and did not go home, not even once. The day I went home to take a shower, they came out of the pit. 

After they came out only the miners with a poor health condition remained and were transferred to the Mitrovica hospital. Afterwards, the Serb State Security of that time mistreated the miners though they were already hurting. Everything ended. The violent measures set in, we were interrogated. Everything was bleaker after the miners came out of the pit.

Linda was, they did not let her get close [the courtroom], she was in the city center. She put on the radio, she listened to Musë Preniqi, he was a journalist at the Radio Prishtina. I saw him run through chairs and tables of the courtroom to get out and broadcast the news as soon as possible. She ran so fast to the courtroom that the security was surprised […] They said to her, ‘He’s free!’ She wanted to see her father. All the citizens were out, people were on their balconies, but we were surrounded by the police. So we decided to use the transit road that passes by the Dudin Krš to come to Pristina […]. 

In five minutes people gathered and it was as if a large gathering was taking place in front of the house, there were so many people. We lived next to the elementary school in Sunny Hill, and there is a large plateau. When we arrived there were hundreds of people. The entrance of the residential building had a red carpet that the residents and our friends placed. On top of it all, it was a time when lilacs bloomed, so there were a lot of lilacs. 

He went out on the balcony and saluted everyone. There were children, school children. I had two-three chocolate boxes, and I sent a kid to buy all the candy there was in the store. From the balcony he showered them all with candy. They somehow calmed down, and there was police presence everywhere. Perhaps I am describing this with ease, but this was not easy.

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.

I took Adem and Sellma to Prishtina in my car around four or five in the afternoon to take them to Nadira’s family in Bijeljina, Bosnia, which is 140 kilometers away from Belgrade. I thought they should be safe and spared from the horror that was going to happen. I don’t know, whatever happens, happens. When I… I was listening to the meeting in Belgrade on the radio all day long. By chance, like in movies, while I was driving through Belgrade to continue into Bosnia and Bijeljina at Nadira’s family, I heard them [Slobodan Milošević] talk in the meeting and promise imprisonment, this and that. 

I took my children there. The next day I wanted to return to Prishtina. Whatever happened, I had to go back to deal with the situation, you can’t escape yourself and your country. I didn’t have reason to flee, I hadn’t broken any laws. The next day I talked to Nadira on the phone, she said, ‘Wait for me,’ she said, ‘Tomorrow because there’s a colleague of mine Jelena Lavorić from Zagreb here, she’s coming back by car and she will go through Bijeljina. I will stay, then we will come back together.’ ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’ll stay one more day.’ Late at night they activated the mechanism for imprisonment. They followed me, they knew where I was going and that mechanism was so that if I weren’t Prishtina, a request was made to the Bosnian police to find me in Bosnia, to bring me to Prishtina.

Late at night the Bosnian police come and knock on Nadira’s family door. ‘We’re sorry.’ ‘What is it?’ ‘They told us to bring you back to Prishtina’. I said, ‘I’m going to Prishtina  tomorrow with my car.’ ‘No, they said you have to come with us’. ‘Let’s go!’ Nadira had already left and I couldn’t inform her. I headed from Bosnia to Prishtina in a police car, Nadira was headed from Prishtina towards {explains with his hands} Bosnia with her colleague, Jelena Lavorić’s car. Later we talked about it, we said, ‘We passed each other at some point, we don’t know where.’

We organized a second strike, ‘Either free them, or we will not get out of here alive. We will not get out of here alive!’ On October 27, ‘89, yes ‘89, on October 27, ‘89 the second strike began. […] And we went and broke the cupboards, I said, ‘Let’s go downstairs and break the cupboards’ there were some stairs there, we thought maybe we’ll find something. When I went there, I found a kilogram, a jar, a glass jar of salt and a jar of sugar, and we were happy we found those. We came upstairs and said, ‘We found them, and this and that.’ I swear to God I often remember it, I get goosebumps, I get goosebumps like a child, ‘Give me more salt’ {opens his palm}. But that’s what kept us going, the salt, because people weakened without eating, drinking, dark, no water, we drank water from the machinery, from the ground. And we kept going with that salt for three days and three nights until… 

As long as we stayed there, on the second day, they blocked our phones, they blocked them, when they wanted to talk to us, Qazim Shala would come to talk to us, he answered the phone and said, ‘I know how many people are down there, how many workers, your names and last names, I found your documents, you are fired.’ Islam Xhafa said, ‘Director…’ his [maternal] uncles were from Vidishiq, he was from Vidishiq, ‘Uncle,’ he said, ‘Bring us a sack of break down here, we’re not asking for anything else.’ ‘There’s no bread,’ he said, ‘for terrorists.’

[…] There’s a manhole, so another elevator, Germans had built it in the past, it’s up there at Mažić {points right}. We thought someone would come down from there, but some said, ‘It rotted, it’s too old, it’s broken.’ The police got us out of there through that manhole. We thought it was too old, the Germans built it back then.