Old Gracko - Waiting for Justice: Two and a half decades since the murder of 14 harvesters

"It was nice to live in Old Gracko until 1999," recall the residents of this village near Lipljan, but then, they say, evil came. First the bombing, and then an even greater evil—the murder of 14 harvesters, after which nothing in this place has been the same.

Old Gracko was one of the most organized villages before the bombing, emphasizes teacher Zoran Cirkovic.

"People were mostly engaged in agriculture, worked in companies, and lived very well. There were many intellectuals, doctors, engineers, teachers... And then came the evil, the war, and after the war, an even greater evil, so we are all still in some kind of stupor, in fear. We mourn what you see, and that's what this village is about for now," he emphasizes while pointing to the monument to the harvesters.

On that July 23, 1999, nothing hinted at a tragedy.

"People went to the threshing floor to thresh the wheat because it was a wartime year. They called their neighbors, there were 14 of them, helping each other. In the evening, they went again, and it happened. It was an organized act because one person cannot kill 14 people. It was probably done by a group of people, some terrorists, so all 14 perished; not one returned home. It was something terrible for our village," recalls the teacher.

He emphasizes that the residents asked the British KFOR to secure the field.

"They said, 'Go home freely, go and thresh, we won't be there directly, but we will patrol the area.' Nothing came of it. They perished two kilometers from here, at the border of Gracko, Veliki Alas, and Bujance. To this day, the perpetrators are unknown. The investigation was stopped in 2018 without evidence. They say there was no evidence. EULEX was present. They simply said there was no evidence and stopped the investigation, which hit us hard. First the families, but also all the citizens of this village," says Cirkovic.

Attacks on Old Gracko continued even after that unfortunate event.

"This is a turbulent village, it's not just that. Even after that, we had daily attacks here. They fired on houses in the border parts of the village, injured people, and there was a pogrom on our village. They fired from the right side at the village, but luckily, we fared well. They wanted to take over the village by all means, and when they couldn't with weapons, they came with money, buying houses, and now this village is about half-and-half," he notes, stating that before the war, 530 Serbs lived in Old Gracko, and now there are 150, the same number as Albanians.

The "Brothers Aksic" school where he works has 18 students.

"We are trying, both as village leaders and as citizens. In the village, we have three of our institutions – a clinic, a school, and a football club, so we are still well-organized. There is life, there are children, there are young people, so just a little help from our state and I think this village still has a future," says the teacher.

And the wish of all Serbs in this village is unified.

"Our only wish is for the perpetrators to be found and placed where they belong. That is something we wait for every day. Both families and citizens," he emphasized.

Retired teacher Mileva Pesic worked at the "Brothers Aksic" school in Old Gracko from 1977 to 2013. Now living in Novi Sad, she recalls life in this village.

"The village is small, we mostly all know each other, and I knew all of them. Life in Old Gracko was very good, everyone was united. The children went to school here until the fourth grade, then to Lipljan. We had a lot of children; children from Veliki Alas came to school here. They socialized, played. You see, there is a lot of space here. People socialized a lot too, helped each other. Life was very nice, but 1999 brought us down in some sense, although our spirit remained strong," Pesic emphasizes.

The bombing, she says, caused about 30 families to move out of Old Gracko, but she is convinced that the displaced Serbs would have returned to their homes if the tragedy on July 23, 1999, and then March 2004, had not occurred.

Pesic then recalled the fateful July 1999 when 14 Serbs did not return from the wheat field.

"Our son built a house at the top of the village, and we were sitting there in front, with neighbors, my husband and I. Dragan Odalovic came and asked Stevo Lalic. Stevo Lalic was a sailor, the only one among us who knew English in the area, and asked him to go with him to the field because 'they went to harvest and haven't returned.' It was getting dark. Stevo, my husband, and one neighbor Cave went. Dula came with a tractor, put them in a small trailer, and they went towards the field. It was already dark. We waited. Stevo's wife had a walkie-talkie and called him to establish contact, but they didn't answer," Pesic recounts.

Residents, upon going to the field, found agricultural machines working in place by the roadside.

"When they arrived there, not even close to the field, they found a tractor, combine harvester, and motor cultivator all running, the sound still audible. On the first tractor they came across, they found a man who had been killed. He was behind the wheel, but the tractor was stationary. Then they thought, since the woods were nearby, let's take cover; someone must have shot him. So, they took cover in some wheat from the trailer while one of them turned the tractor around and went back. At that point, they only knew one man had died. Then Stevo went to Lipljan to the police and KFOR. We could only send him because he could communicate with the foreigners. He brought KFOR and went with them to the scene. There, they saw that all were dead," she emphasizes.

The villagers hoped, Pesic highlights, that not everyone had perished, that some might have escaped, recalling Jovica Zivic's bravery in 1999, hoping he would appear from somewhere.

"However, when they went with KFOR, perhaps around midnight, they found that all were dead and lined up, shot. They were likely first shot in the legs to prevent them from escaping, then killed. Then chaos ensued. Actually, chaos started in the village as soon as they didn't return by nightfall. KFOR came with trucks, collected them, and took the bodies to the hospital for identification. The next day was the recognition. Then, we had to dig 14 graves. But traditionally, graves are dug on the day of the funeral, not the day before. However, we didn't have the capacity to dig all the graves in one day, so people from neighboring villages came to help ours. When they brought the coffins from the hospital, they were lined up in front of this small hall, it was catastrophic," Pesic recalls.

She remembers it was forbidden for Stevo Lalic to inform family members; representatives of international missions said they would do it themselves, summoning the male family members.

"Now, among those families, two Zivic brothers, their wives, and mother, Ilija was the son of one of them, seven years old. From the Janicijevic family, also women. No men. Cvejic family, mother and father had a stroke and two sisters. Young Jovanovic from Topličani, has a mother and a sister. Kota, only a wife. One Cvejic also had no male members. Djekic had brothers, but they had gone to Serbia, only his mother was there, so again no men. Only Dragan Odalovic, whose son died, was the only man who could enter to hear the announcement. You can imagine how it was when they said, male heads of families come to hear the announcement, but there were no more male heads in those families," she notes.

In addition to the tragedy that befell the families, the KFOR personnel behaved cruelly, Pesic claims.

"It was terrible, there was wailing, crying. It cannot be described; they were rude. British KFOR was there at that moment, and they were laughing, talking among themselves and laughing, while we were about to jump out of our skins. Then some women started towards them, like 'what are you laughing at,' and they were rude, saying 'get away.' So, we experienced not only the tragedy of the killings but also the rudeness of those foreign people who supposedly came to protect us," she recounts.

Although life in Old Gracko now exists in the shadow of that event, Pesic says it is most important to live on.

"I must say I am impressed with the mothers who stayed with their children. From the Zivic family, there were seven children from two brothers. One had three and the other four children. All of them finished college and got married. The youngest, who was four months old when her father was killed, also finished college and got engaged, soon to be married. I am truly impressed and admire those mothers. Although the whole village initially tried to help them with work or whatever, we were always united in helping each other. But I am impressed that the children managed to overcome the crisis, get an education, and become people," concludes Pesic.

On July 23, 1999, during the harvest in the fields of Old Gracko, Milovan Jovanovic, Jovica and Rade Zivic, Andrija Odalovic, Novica, Slobodan, Mile, and Momir Janicijevic, Stanimir and Bosko Djekic, Sasa and Ljubisa Cvejic, Nikola Stojanovic, and Miodrag Tepsic were killed. Their murder is considered one of the biggest crimes after the Kosovo conflict in 1999, for which no one has been held accountable.

Seven Albanians were under investigation. In October 2007, UNMIK arrested Mazlum Bitici from the village of Veliki Alas, near Old Gracko, on suspicion of participating in the murder of the Serbian harvesters. However, he was released two months later due to a lack of evidence.

The Special Prosecutor's Office in Pristina, together with EULEX, stopped the investigation in 2017 due to a lack of evidence.