A phone call to relatives in Pristina, Yugoslavia, brought tragic news for Skender Hoti of West Palm Beach on Wednesday: Two of Hoti’s cousins, Arbin and Ramadan Hoti, Albanians living in the Kosovo village of Gjakove, were killed by Serbian soldiers last week.
“They were civilians, they were unarmed, and they were shot in their homes while the women and children waited for them outside,” said Hoti, 45, an accountant.
To protest the atrocities the Albanian people have suffered in Kosovo and to show support for the NATO bombing campaign, Hoti joined about 200 other members of South Florida’s Albanian community at a rally in Hollywood’s Young Circle on Saturday.
Loudly chanting slogans like “Free Kosovo” and “Save the Children USA,” the group, many of them wearing shirts supporting the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), spent an hour marching, chanting and listening to chilling testimonials about the ethnic cleansing their people have been subjected to in the troubled Yugoslav province.
“I have family in Kosovo that I haven’t heard from in a week and a half,” said George Philipi of Pembroke Pines, a member of American Friends of Albania, the group that organized the rally. “I have no idea if they are alive or dead.”
“We’re here today to show support for the U.S. troops. There are men and women over there who are risking their lives to bring freedom to my people.”
Participants waved U.S., U.N. and Albanian flags and held up banners saying “Stop the Genocide” and, to show support for the U.S. soldiers captured in the region this week, “Ramirez-Stone-Gonzales, We Are With You.”
Many participants in the rally didn’t have relatives in Kosovo, but wanted to show their support anyway.
“I would show the same support for any group of people that were being killed this way,” said Edlira Maska, 21, a student at Palm Beach Community College who was born in Tirana, the Albanian capital.
“The peace talks failed more than once, so I think it was time for the military to go in.”
Some at the rally support the NATO air strikes, but feel more military intervention is necessary to stop the genocide campaign against ethnic Albanians.
“NATO needs to send in ground troops, or they need to give more weapons to the KLA,” said Kemal Matoshi, 32, of Deerfield Beach, an Albanian who used to live in Macedonia before coming to the United States. “If [the KLA] were properly armed, I would go back to fight with them.”
American Friends of Albania plans to continue its rally this morning at 11:30 in the southeast corner of Young Circle with an open-air prayer for the troops and the people of Kosovo.
“There is a lot of anguish in the Albanian community right now,” said Nasi Lesku, another organizer of the event. “Many Kosovars don’t know where their families are right now, if they are dead, detained or on the run.”
