Part Two
Selman Boçolli: I initiated going to their place. We did it, my brother, “Yes,” he was very strong, he led us and we went to their home. When we went there, and that was one good thing we did, because we found our paternal uncle while going there, he was even an old haxhi, the one who had given them the land, he was still alive, we found him and went there together with him. They were already there, the oda was full of young people, the initiators of the Blood Feuds Reconciliations Movement.
Anton Çetta was the leader, Ramiz Kelmendi, Bekë Lajçi, Flamur Gashi, who is now in Albania. There was Hava Shala, Nurije Zeka from Raushiq, the village of Raushiq, because you are younger, and there were many others, I remember and know all of them.
The conversations started. I will never forget one word of Anton Çetta, he asked the haxhi, our paternal uncle, he said, “How old are you?” He said, “Eighty-three.” He said, “I hope I will live that long.” Then a funny situation happened there, you know. So, they stood up, “Who is thinking about,” he said, “reconciling, stand up now, men,” and they stood up, hugged each-other, I was among them as well. They served us lunch, but there is a very difficult moment, not difficult but interesting, as soon as we hugged each-other and sat to have coffee, the children ran yyyyyy {onomatopoeic} from the second floor, they ran and went to our garden and called our children and played soccer together all day long.
That was very interesting, I said, “Ku-ku, look what we were, how did we not think about the children.” There were cases when our children were classmates with their children. When they were running in one side or like this, he said, “They stopped trrak {onomatopoeic} and not to come to the…” you know such moments, they were very difficult. The most difficult was holding ourselves, I mean them and us, until reconciliation happened, holding ourselves not to allow a worse conflict or bigger tragedy.
From there they took four of us, two from their side as well as my brother and me, and we went to the village of Lumbardh. They wanted to use [our case], now they had the encouragement that the first bloods, the first bloods in Kosovo were the ones that were forgiven in the village of Raushiq by us, and this way they were able to have stronger authority and greater encouragement when they went there, because nobody in the rreth believed that we would ever reconcile. We went to Lumbardh.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Was it a ceremony, a gathering or what?
Selman Boçolli: There were murders there as well…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: I know, but was the moment of reconciliation organized as a ceremony?
Selman Boçolli: To be honest, the organization was spontaneous, I mean they organized, they welcomed everyone, but we went to the village of Lumbardh right from there [the house where they reconciled]. They had previously prepared that some people had to go to Lumbardh in order to reconcile people from there as well. We went, we stayed there for two or three hours. We started with some younger ones throwing words that…” Do you know who are the Boçollis? Do you know how difficult were the bloods that they forgave? and so on.”
But they didn’t want to forgive there, and we shut it down. And we said, “When you are ready, we will not leave you alone, maybe we will come and stay at your place day and night, but we will not give up your reconciliation.” But still to this day, they haven’t reconciled, so…I mean, on the weekends they only took me, I went to many blood feuds reconciliations, I indirectly influenced people, I even…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Do you have any concrete case?
Selman Boçolli: Yes, I have one case. The Balaj family from the village of Isniq, his brother was my friend, his name is Tafë Balaj, my middle school friend. There was Mark Krasniqi, as well as three-four other people, at some point they were very angry that his father slammed the door [in their face] because Tafa’s brother had been murdered. I mean his brother had been murdered as soon as he came from Rijeka on vacation, because he was studying there, and he was murdered, he was murdered in the yard in front of his father’s and mother’s eyes, without knowing the reason.
And then I took over discussing with them. I had also drafted the plan of their house without asking them for money just because…and their father liked talking to me, I hung out with them, his father became more a friend to me than he himself. His son came and said, “You are the only one who can convince our father,” he said, “Because he is not even thinking about reconciling, about forgiving the blood.”
I went, I talked to him, he said, “I cannot say anything to you,” he said, “But I cannot reconcile,” he said, “No way.” Bre here and bre there, I convinced him, and Tafa showed up at Verrat e LLukës and forgave his brother’s blood.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Was it emotional?
Selman Boçolli: Words were very interesting there. My friend Tafa said, “My father is telling me that when the murderer is free from the war, I mean prison, as soon as he is released for his break, he goes out in Deçan and whenever my father, my brother or I are there, he comes in front of our eyes in order for us to see him.” I looked at him and said, “Tafa, you are an intellectual, if you kill him you kill yourself. Don’t think that killing him is an honor. You cannot bring your brother back to life. And it is difficult for the father, it is mostly difficult for him, because you and I should understand. Do you think it was easy for me?” I said, “But is it easy for you to have him in front of your eyes without reconciling, or is it more difficult, take whichever you want, after you reconcile? because everybody then will say, ‘Let him go wherever he wants, they are already reconciled.’” He said, “To be honest,” he said, “This word that you said…” I said, “Yes,” I said, “Because when you are reconciled and he shows up in front of you, someone will say, ‘Don’t you have the courage to kill him?’ They will push you.” I said, “But when you are reconciled, you are reconciled and that is all, you didn’t forgive the blood to him, but to the nation. And the nation knows who you are and everything, that’s the greatest honor.” He said, “You’ve put me in a bad position now,” he said, “I will show up at Verrat e Llukës and forgive it.” And he showed up and forgave.
The cases were very touching, each one of them had its own specifics. I didn’t know, neither did I ever think, I thought that there was only ours and some others like that. But other specific cases were very, a lot more difficult, hasret son, boy….They all had who knows what, terrible cases, and the work that was done, I think, that a bad side of our nation, a black side that was buried, remained, or survived traditionally, became a tradition because it was not our tradition, it was, it had suffocated our nation.
So after that, I have one, I had the case of meeting one of my friends here, whose daughter had finished her Master’s degree in America, in Ohio or I don’t know where, and he told me that when she finished her Master’s, her professor asked her about the thesis, he said, “Write a thesis about Kosovo.” She chose the Blood Feuds Reconciliation Movement, and the whole hall was surprised when he said, “I have never heard a better thesis because there was never such a public organization like the one of blood feuds reconciliation there.”
So, thanks to the intellectuals, the professors and the youth, because the initiative began in the village of Prapaqan in Deçan, on February 2, 1990. We had a ceremony recently, I was there that day that I told you {addresses the interviewer}, I was in the village of Lumbardh as well, in the municipality of Deçan.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Were you at Verrat e Llukës?
Selman Boçolli: I was at Verrat e LLukës in the first place. I was, the ceremony was organized two years ago.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Yes, on May 1, 1990?
Selman Boçolli: Yes, I was there. There was, I don’t know if there is greater pride than seeing such a wide audience. I saw people from all around Kosovo arriving there, there were people coming from Macedonia, from Montenegro, a little less from Albania. But it was spring, it was as if they were previously organized because the doors of all the yards of those villages were opened. The doors of fields, gardens, communities and so on, they were all opened. So, nobody remained and nobody faced any obstacle with each-other, but everybody went to gardens, yards and so on….And the greatest pride when it was closed, the ceremony, I mean, the greatest pride was the act of forgiving, when they showed up on the stage and all positively forgave the blood.
I remember one scene there, Zekerija Cana, three or four meters from him, a school friend of mine, a friend from the gymnasium, he was a secretary in the Internal Affairs Secretariat at that time, his name is Bedrush Shala. Then they were afraid of potential incidents with the police and so on. Because it was….
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Were you besieged?
Selman Boçolli: Yes, we were besieged. But I always said that there would be nothing to worry about if that friend was still a secretary there and hadn’t resigned yet. Don’t be afraid. And fear doesn’t solve the problem, you know. So, they went with a kind… all of them went without any fear, even if they were to be killed, they went that way.
But when the time came to leave, when the field was getting empty, there were two bridges, one canal right at Verrat e LLukës and someone from the crowd shouted something about the police, “Leave from here,” they were like, “Rrrp” {onomatopoeic} and went from both side to take the ones who were shouting out of the crowd. Zekerija Cana, the now deceased professor, took his coat off and threw it to the people, “Shut up, nobody should say anything at all!” He went and talked to them and said, “I take the responsibility, they were young and emotional…” and that ended it without any trouble, and then all of us went to our houses.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did you physically show up and talk in the front there, or not?
Selman Boçolli: Me? No, the first time, the first time then I was never out there, I didn’t want to be public because it’s not something you should brag about, it’s not…you should finish the job, one should only finish the job. And to be honest it was very important when we had the ceremony on the 2nd day of this month, in the village of Lumbardh, participating there was such a pride and people came from all around, there were people from Albania, Don Lush Gjergji, the rector of the University, and all of those who are alive, the deceased are dead now. We thought, I thought if only half of them were alive now to freely celebrate this, there would be nothing better than that. But there were values, I want to come to this point, how it is good to maintain values, to advance them because that is still a virtue of our nation, it was.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What kind of life did your family have in the ‘90s, but also the wider family?
Selman Boçolli: Right after the reconciliation, our family was invaded by people who came for condolences, I could not imagine it, people from all around Kosovo came for condolences, we had huad no mourning. I needed to take three weeks off in order to be here and welcome the ones who came here and we said, they first came to us, then to them, because he was a very sensitive boy, the one who was murdered on the hills in front of the cows without knowing anything. But their son was good as well, but the misfortune, and they said, “Would you be mad if we went to their home as well?” I said, “Not at all, I will come with you.” There were cases when I went, and there were cases when my older brother or my younger brother went together with them there.
There was one case when we even found them, we went there at around 12:00 AM and found them sleeping. “Aiih,” they said, there were over 25 men who went out of our house, they stayed a little longer because they had coffee. They said, “We cannot come anymore, because we are coming from far away.” “No,” I said, “Let me wake them up.” I went and knocked on their door with a courage, I entered from a prelaz and opened the door, I called and they came out.
They were afraid, I saw that it was a fact because everybody [would be afraid]. “What happened?” You know, we woke them up after they had fallen asleep and they always say, “You never did a better thing. We will never forget what you did, because if you didn’t wake us up but let the men go back home, that would leave a bad mark for the Boçollis.” So, they came out, crowds didn’t stop coming for six months, we had to go to the street and wait for the ones who came for condolences as well as to congratulate us for the reconciliation of these bloods.
You also had to be prepared to maintain that reconciliation, because the moment is easy, but maintaining it with children, men, with various mediations, with friends, there can be a lot of different words and everything else. I was the one, how to say, I was the youngest among my brothers, but I wisely and patiently tried to ask my people, “There is no business with them, not that they are our enemies, because that curtain is now removed, but when you are engaged in a business with someone, be it good or bad, then there is no other way but argue with them about something, so that means stepping over what we have achieved until now.” We will freely go to their dinners, weddings and everything, to the official events, but not go there for random things, enter their yards whether someone is there or not? Taking things from them and so on…
So, we had to be prepared in order not to have any trouble in the long term, no trouble and I think that it is an example for all the regions, they are all impressed, because we never said any bad word about them, neither did they say any bad word about us. So, the reconciliation fit very well and it is a good example, not only as a formality, but it was truly real.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: How were the ‘90s then?
Selman Boçolli: Sorry?
Erëmirë Krasniqi: How were the ‘90s for you after the reconciliations, I mean, your personal lives?
Selman Boçolli: But after reconciliation, it didn’t take longer than six or seven months and they split from each-other. I drafted the plans for their houses, the three of them wanted to build houses. I drafted the plans, I followed up the work when I went from here, they are very pleased. Eh, we had no chance to approach each-other in a brotherly way that much. Then, one year and a half later we split as well. Even though we split, everything went in the best way possible.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Were you fired in the ‘90s?
Selman Boçolli: I was fired in ‘93, just like the whole staff. I worked for the Public Housing Enterprise. They took a little longer to fire us. The reason was a Montenegrin director, let me not say it like this, but he held himself more and openly said that, “If I get reappointed as a director, nobody will be fired!” That is why he was fired and that is why they took a little longer and fired him… then right after firing him, we were fired within one month, 28 Albanians. They kept two or three who were their collaborators, we know who they were, it’s not a problem.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: In which organization? In Ramiz Sadiku or where?
Selman Boçolli: The Public Housing Enterprise. We built all the buildings in Pristina at that time through our enterprise. We sold them to social, public organizations, then they gave them to their employees. So, we were the only ones without any competitor, it was a little unfair because we had no competitors in construction, it was only us. But such was the system back then, each city, each municipality had its enterprise that was called BVI for residence and for profit shops. They were here as well as in Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia, there was the same legal system.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: How was the war, in ‘99?
Selman Boçolli: In ‘99…we were there in ‘93 until… I had to go to Germany for one year and a half to work. I couldn’t imagine [working] here, because wherever you went, you had to be part of their [Serbian] organizations, or under their shadow somewhere and so on. And not much for patriotism as for the fact that I couldn’t be that way, I couldn’t be submissive, I couldn’t allow them to step over me the way they wanted…that is why I had to go to Germany. First I was on vacation, I earned enough to be safe for seven or eight or ten years. I mean, we weren’t prepared back then either ,and we had just split from our brothers there.
I was in Frankfurt, my brother was there and I returned one year and a half later, we kept going. I returned in ‘96. I opened a shop with that money, I rented it, I brought my children closer, but in ‘99, ‘98, I had to close the shop because of the demonstrations of ‘99 and we all had to go to demonstrations and protests. So, we left in ‘99, our entire neighborhood moved to Macedonia, we were organized and went to Macedonia.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did they chase you from the neighborhood?
Selman Boçolli: Sorry?
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did they chase you from the neighborhood, or did you leave in an organized way?
Selman Boçolli: No, no, they didn’t chase us from our neighborhood, but we had agreed that nobody leaves the neighborhood until they violently make us leave. But they had shot in some surrounding neighborhoods and somebody called me on the telephone, because telephones were working back then, maybe they relied mostly on me, “If you don’t go anywhere, then we will not go either,” and things happened in a chain. The day we left from here, I received a call from Krasniqi, the brother of Avdyl Krasniqi, the one who is a doctor, Xhemajl, he said, “Things have gotten worse for three of us and we have no other option but leaving, because there is no place where we can stay.”
And this way, the same happened in another place and another one, and people were already in a queue, they said, “We are only waiting for you to lead them, because they don’t seem to know.” I returned, now some more details, there were three boys, they were students, they were living in the basement of my neighbor’s house and they had left a message, “We cannot know when you leave, but for God’s sake, please let us know, otherwise they will kill us here and we will not know anything.”
And my youngest son, the third one, told me, “Father, did you tell them?” I said, “But I don’t know anything.” He said, “But they are there.” One of them had joined the UÇK, and the two others remained there. I left my car on and returned to take them as well. I took one of them in my car, he was the seventh one in my car and I sent the other one to my neighbor’s car. Nobody asked at that time, they went wherever there was room. And I will never forget, we sent them until there and they had the luck to be the first ones to cross the border because they had no obligations, each of them had one bag and they went there, they told me that they crossed the border.
So, we didn’t enter the [camp] Bllacë, that was the time of Bllacë, we stayed in our cars. The order for us to return came, they didn’t allow us to go there and returning was our only option. We returned, he was very young. I knew that it was a big deceit, but there was nothing we could do. When we attempted for the second time, we were better prepared. I split all the money I had with my children and my wife, I gave them addresses. You know, there were no mobile phones back then, but only landlines, you have the telephone number, there were three-four families that stayed there. It was like a kind of center and they told us about the others as well as each-other, so we didn’t know where we would split and what would we do, but each of us was independent. My children were, the oldest one was in the second year of the gymnasium, the other in third grade, and the other one was in the six grade of elementary school. My children were young, such was their fate that the second time we left after ten at night, we waited all day long and then we left to the village of Stankovec.
In Stankovec we registered, there we were on guard, we organized being on guard, “Shkije can come at night and slaughter us or something.” I myself guarded with three-four people, we were friends and met each other there. But that is not important because we were a little euphoric. And my son had registered us to go to Canada. Our names showed on the list, we were almost the last ones on the list to go to Canada.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: How was it in Canada? How long did you stay there?
Selman Boçolli: In Canada we were welcomed so well, that even God doesn’t know better, we had everything we needed. There were around 1280 people in our group and we went there to a military cantonment where more special training was done, the highest level army of Canada, for two weeks during the summer, two weeks, but it was all available for us. The restaurants, hotels, I mean, television, halls and everything else, but mentioning that luxurious situation is not good now. We had to organize there as well, because it was a big group. People started stabbing each-other with knives, they had forgotten that…
We had no other option but to organize and lead them. They appointed me as the leader, without me knowing any of them. They appointed me as the leader of the camp. And I chose four or five people whom I didn’t know and we had meetings twice a week with them. I organized the schools in the yard there, they even said, “Just for one month because you will go to houses, you will be spread to cities.” And I never forget it, I told the director of migration, “One day of school is better than 29 days in the streets running here and there and causing troubles for each-other.” He said, “That is true, what do you need?” He said, “We have the desks as well as the tents.” I worked very hard that afternoon.
I had to identify who was a teacher, who was an elementary school teacher and who could teach in the school here, I had to check the evidence. Not to be too long, I checked what we had and with all the qualified staff we had we established the school, the director of the school, there were three people there who said, “We have never seen such quick and yet good organization.” But people do [well] when they want to, you know, because it was the good behavior, and besides the English [Class] that was organized, schools started as well…the issue was not learning, but people started giving bicycles and children started fighting with each-other, then their fathers, their parents, not to be too long. Thank God we overcame that in the best way we could, and we held meetings with them and everything was alright, okay.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did you move to your own residences to Canada, how long did you stay there?
Selman Boçolli: They constantly talked to us and they also communicated with various cities. We were said to go to Calgary. In Calgary we had our own four rooms apartment, which we had to pay the rent for, but you could live well with the money that they gave us, if you knew how to manage it. You could pay the rent and everything else, but if you wanted to buy more things then [the money] was not enough either.
So, they gave clothes for the children and then when the schools were open, the news and everything else, and the children more, I thought about it… I thought, I don’t know, sometimes one…and I didn’t think right back then, now I think how I did harm to them. Because I said, “I don’t want to be the reason that leaves my children in Canada, would I be the author of harm to my children? I would loose them. They will never return there.” If they want, they can go whenever they want, but I don’t want them to have this from me, because the schools were opened here and they wanted to [return] as well, so we returned.
I was accepted to teach mathematics in the gymnasium because…our children had to take a few tests. They turned out to be, because it was not only that year, but there hadn’t been quality education for three-four last years, and they turned out to be unprepared. The results were very bad, so mathematics and physics, I gave additional classes in these subjects in their gymnasium. Eh, I had my advisor for Albanian Language, I respect him because they have a set program, and all of them were there, and I mean this is how we ended three more months in Calgary. The time came to return, and we did so.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did you return in September or June?
Selman Boçolli: I returned in October, I returned in October.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What did you do here then?
Selman Boçolli: In October, it was Sunday right the next day, on Monday, I was invited by some friends I had there, I went to work. And when we went there, we started everything from zero, there was nothing. We had to organize everything without salaries, or anything else. They had gone in September, one month earlier and met Serbs there for some time, then all of a sudden they got organized and didn’t come anymore.
Thank God I didn’t meet them there. They went before me, so we started to work without salaries for two or three months. I even finished around seven buildings that were left from them, I finished them after some time, not all at once, one by one. And like that, our profit was the legal percentage that remains from there, and this is how we got salaries and expenses…We were, not to brag about it, but those of us who worked, worked with banks, with bank accounts, not with cash money.
And now, they were being followed by all the Western countries, when six people came from Belgium. They saw that it was progressing, since ProCredit was the only bank back then, they saw the circulation, “This firm is successful,” and they came to collaborate with us, to help us. “You should come to us as well, organize and come, what do you need? We will give you construction material or whatever you need for some set period of time because we feel safe, we will not ask you for money, just for you to recover it.”
But, we unfortunately didn’t have the director, I am not only talking about the first one, but all the others as well, they were not good, they only had an eye for mismanagement. And we didn’t go there, we had to do everything with our own powers. We maintained it until recently. I retired one week and a half ago, I am out.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: When was it…was this enterprise privatized?
Selman Boçolli: No, no, this is a public enterprise, a public enterprise, and it still works today, but it doesn’t do constructions. It was founded to do constructions, but since four or five years ago it doesn’t do anything, but collect the rents of the shops.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Ah, because it has a lot of property.
Selman Boçolli: It has a lot of property in the city, around five hundred shops are under its management.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: And it can survive from them?
Selman Boçolli: Half of them or more were occupied, the rent was taken by someone else, but slowly-slowly I had to…so now, they are only living with those rents, there is no construction being done by them anymore. Maybe I bore you, but I apologize, thank you.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: I think that the interview is done, but if you would like to add something, anything you think you didn’t say, feel free…
Selman Boçolli: This is it, I don’t know, even if I spoke one hundred times, maybe one word early, one word forward, still there, reality.
