A look at the littered streets and lots as well as bombed out buildings in Pristina. Inset: Code and Yohan, a Swedish police officer, stand beside a bombed car in front of the Pristina police station -- photos courtesy of Bill Code

Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jun 21/00) - Sgt. Bill Code returned from nine months in chaos-ridden Kosovo last month, after working with the UN civilian police contingent.

NATO intervention in the political state of Kosovo in 1999 and the flooding of Albanian refugees into neighbouring countries caught the attention of the world. But for most it was something that happens "over there" and the conflict between Albanians and Serbs was far removed from the comforts of many Northern homes.

Code arrived in Kosovo in August because he wanted to end his policing career by doing something extraordinary. Even upon his first impressions the remarkable differences between the post war-torn province of Yugoslavia and his 24 years in the North with the RCMP were obvious.

"I just couldn't believe the devastation and garbage, people were moving back into Kosovo and the roads were jammed," he said.

Code arrived first-off in Skopje, Macedonia, where several refugees were based after Albanians were forced to flee, driven out by the Serbian army. The two-hour drive from Skopje to Pristina, Kosovo's capital city where Code went to help organize the first Kosovo civilian police station, took a lot longer as hoards of people at the border blocked traffic for about four hours.

"(Pristina) wasn't as big as I thought but what amazed me was the number of vehicles on the road and garbage everywhere," he said. "It just looked like somebody built a really bad brick skyscraper in the middle of the Yellowknife dump."

Code served as operations commander of the first Canadian police contingent to work there for the United Nations. He served at station number one with a large mixture of other international officers from Europe, East Asia and Africa.

From dragging an old desk out of the garbage to use as well as recycling trashed paper to write reports on to discovering executed civilians behind the station, Code's experiences in his professional duties were harsh. But the satisfaction of helping create order in a city of chaos has the nearly retired RCMP member prepared to go back.

"Grenade Alley was the name of the street we were on -- that's what we called it," he said.

"The worst thing I saw was at the celebration for national flag day," he added. "The Albanians blocked the streets and partied for three days straight. There was a lot of violence and we had three people murdered in that span. The worst was a (Serbian) father, mother and daughter returning home. They pulled the father out of the car and shot him, executed him. Then they beat up the mother and daughter and put firecrackers in their mouths with thousands of people watching.

"The problem there is if you try and arrest an Albanian for any reason you'd have a crowd of people around you."

When Code and the other officers first explored their station they found reminders of its use by the Serb military such as a small torture chamber with grappling hooks and an electric chair.

"I thought about the people who get thrown in the drunk tank here and thought they should go there and see it," Code said.

But the lighter side of Code's experience surfaced in the people he met. The interpreters were young, in their 20s, dressed in GAP and Nike clothing and had a good attitude and vision for Kosovo's future, he said.

The other officers were different, being from different parts of the world, but still police officers and Code said it sometimes takes as little as that to find common ground.

"We had Russians working at the station and boy did we have a lot of fun," he said. "We used to have some pretty big battles over hockey."

Code explained how Albert, a Russian officer, thought one of the interpreters had large, pretty eyes and tried to compliment her on them.

"Albert had a few drinks and says to her, 'Emira, you are so beautiful, in my country we say you have eyes like a cow.' We had a good laugh over that," he said.

Since Code lived near the station in a rough part of Pristina, his home life there was never really far removed from work.

Albanians were continuously pouring back into Kosovo and looking for apartments.

Code took with him Canadian, Northwest Territories and RCMP "G" division flags to hang near his apartment. He said he considered taking them down due to a large amount of animosity toward internationals. He told a 10-year-old boy, Ronnie, who lived near him and had become a friend, of the possibility.

"His mother came down in tears and said, 'please don't take your flags down, they protect us all," Code explained. So the area where the flags were sort of got left alone. When I did eventually take them down to when I left you wouldn't believe the number of people who asked why they were coming down. People in Pristina felt protected by a Northwest Territories, a RCMP and a Canadian flag."

Code returned to Yellowknife May 30. He currently has resumes out to different organizations such as Caradem and other peace mission projects because, with the support of his family, he wants to go back, possibly to help in the training of Kosovo police officers.

"I want to go back," he said. "It's very frustrating and stressful but I don't know...it's just that we have so much to offer and we can make a difference over there."