Prisoner in Kosovo - American activist; member of Peaceworkers

Progressive, The, July, 1998 by Peter Lippman

We were relieved to be out of jail, but sorry to be forbidden to reenter the country for three years. The privileged Americans are free, but for the Albanians, life goes on.

Albanians in Kosovo are close enough to Bosnia to know that no amount of human suffering will necessarily force Western policymakers to act. But every day I spent there, I heard the same things: "What is America going to do? NATO needs to wake up and help us."

Meanwhile, as the West cranks out "strongly worded statements," the atrocities continue. Serbian soldiers keep pouring into Kosovo. They are setting up more checkpoints, and violent attacks on Albanian peasants are not restricted to the Drenica area, but are taking place all over the province. At last count there were more than 40,000 refugees. Some even showed up in Sarajevo.

As long as the conflict does not spill over the borders, sending thousands more refugees into NATO-member countries, the West seems content to stand by and watch. Conversations with officers at the American embassy ("We are doing all we can") made this clear to me. There will be more Drenicas. Madeleine Albright's declaration that "we will not rule out force" and the decision to place an arms embargo on Yugoslavia are pathetic gestures. It is getting very late for the Albanians.

Peter Lippman is a carpenter and human-rights activist from Seattle, Washington. He has been working as a translator and refugee-relief worker in Bosnia since the fall of 1997.