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In the hamlet of Ruhot, Istref Berisha, 43, found 10 bodies and buried them in a grave near a brook. The victims had been shot, knifed or burned. On a nearby gate, someone has spray-painted in Cyrillic WHITE EAGLES, the name of the paramilitaries associated with Serbian ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj. Nearly two miles away at Staradran, K.L.A. fighters are investigating a long stretch of freshly turned dirt, 8 ft. by 65 ft., believed to contain as many as 100 bodies. A leg clad in a black sock pokes out of one hole; a jawbone lies in another.
GENTIANA GASHI'S STORY
Death came to Cuska--a town about three miles east of Pec--fairly late in the war. Its villagers were especially peaceable, hoping to get along with two predominantly Serbian hamlets on either side. They had voluntarily given up their weapons, they say, on previous visits by the police. Residents were going about their normal business on the morning of May 14 when 30 or 40 men in masks appeared. Lirie Gashi, 28, was one of the women packed into a courtyard where police and VJ troops sat down to drink raki--a local form of grappa--from little black glasses before lining up the women to demand money. One soldier told Lirie to unfurl her bun to check if she had hidden cash in her hair. As they ordered the women to strip off their jewelry, they casually fired bullets at their feet. When they discovered the senile Aimone Gashi among the women, the Serbs pumped an automatic round into his back, killing him.
Over the next hour, 33 men were ordered into three separate houses by paramilitaries in red scarves and cowboy hats. Ahmet Gashi, the father of Gentiana, was one of them. Rexhe Kelmendi, 49, was another. "I was taken with the second group down here," he says, pointing to a low, wood-and-brick two-story house. "I was together with eight others. When we entered the hallway of the house, one of the VJ gave us a lighter and told us to burn down the house. When I bent down to take the lighter, the shooting started. I started crawling, not lifting my head." He reached a window and tumbled out.
Others were less lucky; lined up against the walls in other houses, they died as one or two Serbs fired from left to right, execution style, then fired a second fusillade to make sure. The raiders forced Syle Gashi, 48 (the Gashis are a large extended family), to translate their commands into Albanian, promising to spare his life. When he jumped onto a tractor to leave with the women, a Serb grabbed him and thrust him alive inside a burning house. Caush Lushi, 52, was one of the wealthier men in Cuska. A Serb holding his son said he would free the youth if Lushi brought them all his cash. When he returned with the money, his son was already dead. The Serb frog-marched Lushi to the nearest outhouse, stuffed him in and carved the Serbian national symbol of a cross with four Cs into his living chest. Then he kicked the door closed and fired round after round through the door.