Inside the province of death and decay

By Michael Williams

AFTER three weeks of Nato bombing, Kosova is an empty province. Many of
the villages are uninhabited - the people have gone into hiding or left to
find safety elsewhere. While hundreds of thousands found squalid sanctuary
in Albania and Macedonia, some went up into the hills of Kosova. Others
have gone to their graves. Kosova looks and feels and smells like a place
where the gravediggers have been busy.

In a hamlet of, say, 20 homes, some have been put to the torch while
others remain whole - the language of those who once lived there, their
religion, their names, their heritage, will have decided their fate. Along the
road, to the left and right, the houses burn.

Others bear distinctive scars from artillery or mortar rounds. The roofs have
been punched in, and black soot stains the empty windows. Some homes
have collapsed in on themselves; a few have been blown up with dynamite
perhaps or by the technique developed in Bosnia: a candle is lit in an upper
room and the gas taps downstairs are opened. Half an hour later the house
is gone and the displaced refugee has nothing to return to.

The scenes are repeated over and over again on the journey through this
terrified and terrifying province. At every bridge that remains intact, a pile
of tyres has been set alight. In the Second World War, the British did the
same to persuade the Luftwaffe that the target had already been
destroyed.

Every few miles another fuel dump or factory or military base has been
burnt and shattered by Nato's bombs. At night the blackout is complete
and the Yugoslav security forces sleep in the houses of those Albanians
who have been forced out. Requisitioned civilian cars carry armed men
through the streets on unknown missions. Every few miles a police and
army checkpoint brings you to a halt and cows and pigs run free along the
roads. Those who tended them are no longer here.

Kosova now looks like Bosnia did at the height of that filthy, ethnic war.
The province is empty and fearful and smoke rises from every point of the
compass. Nato jets can be seen high in the sky and the sound of explosions
shakes the air. While the alliance attempts to destroy the Yugoslav
security machine from thousands of feet in the air, the soldiers and the
special police find targets at ground level.

At the hospital in the southern town of Prizren, six corpses were displayed
for our inspection. "Victims," we were told, "of Nato's criminal aggression."
They were lined up on the mortuary floor. A man whose head was largely
gone. A child, perhaps three or four years old, lying next to her mother.

To be sure that we could see that women were among the dead, the
shrouds had been pulled down to expose their breasts. Terrible wounds,
showing how soft and wet and fragile the human body is. I didn't look too
closely and left quickly, eager for a breath of air not tainted by the smell of
decay.

The authorities wanted us to see the grotesque tableau - that was the
purpose of the military mystery tour. At the morgue and at the roadside -
where Nato is alleged to have attacked a column of refugees - the dead
were waiting for us to witness their silent testimony.

Two coaches passed us while we looked at the bodies and body parts by
the side of the road that links Prizren and Djakovica. The curtains were
drawn but I could see several women peering out.

Dirty-faced children gazed through the dusty glass. I don't know who they
were, where they were from or where they were going. Remembering the
confused and frightened looks on their faces, I wonder now if even they
knew what lay ahead.

Earlier in the day, near the Macedonian border, we were passed by several
other buses heading towards the fringes of Kosova. Each was filled with
people, mainly women, children and the elderly and each had a few soldiers
on board. They were heading eastwards. We saw them later, returning
empty to the heart of Kosova.

We drove up beyond the snowline, through the high mountain passes close
by the border with Macedonia, then down to the warm plain where Kosova
meets Albania. According to our military escorts, Nato was to blame for the
tortuous route into the province. "Bomb damage ahead," they said. "The
road is too dangerous. Maybe Nato will attack us. Or the Albanian
terrorists."

Perhaps. But the suspicion lingers that, somewhere on the road ahead,
were sights not meant for our eyes.

Michael Williams is Foreign Affairs Correspondent for Radio 4's Today
programme.