Homing instincts

A successful Bronx publisher, Kosovar Ismer Mjeku, thinks of returning to Pristina

Paulette Farquharson-Beckford, Bronx Journal Staff Reporter

It's hard to tell if the Albanian Yellow Pages is coming or going. Take the publication’s offices in a second floor office walk up space at 2322 Arthur Avenue (between 187th Street and Crescent Avenue). On the permanent side there is the industrial size xerox copier placed against the left wall of the inner office, the gray metal desk that graces the outer reception area and a couple of PCs perched atop wooden desks.

Aside from the furniture everything else could be easily stuck into a box or bag if the occupants ever need to make a quick get-away, almost as if the folks here were expecting Yugoslav troops to drop in any second. There are plaques that grace the walls, framed family photographs and desk top portable files, but nothing that couldn’t be stowed away in a box on the fly in case there was any need to evacuate.

Of course, the Albanian Yellow Pages is here to stay if Ismer Mjeku, a former resident of Kosovo has anything to say about it. Yet Mjeku, 39, has other worries on his mind, too. A lean 6-feet, Mjeku has found himself waking in the middle of the night a lot this year, more often than not covered in sweat, and filled with a sense of foreboding. Mjeku says he’s had to call relatives again and again to try to comfort them or even find a way to lead them to safety.

Mjeku, it turns out, was chased out of the Kosovo capital of Pristina by the Yugoslav government long before the Balkan conflict hit the headlines here this past Spring. And, although it hurt to leave when he did back in the mid-80s, Mjeku can only speculate about what his life might have been like had he stuck around to experience the ethnic cleansing being carried out in his country by Serbian forces and Yugoslav President Sloban Milosevic. Mjeku, in fact, has a scar of his own from those turbulent days just before he left, a spot on his left leg where a bullet had pierced his skin 18 years ago and still remains lodged today.

Mjeku is only one of 250,000 ethnic Albanians who reside in the tri-state area, according to Shirley Cloyes, the Balkan Affairs Adviser to the Albanian American Civic League based in Ossining, New York. Just this May the United States joined the fight of Kosovars who were being threatened with possible extinction by the Yugoslav army. The United States agreed to accept 20,000 of those refugees who fled Kosovo, placing 4,000 of them in camps at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Still other refugees were scattered over 40 states living with relatives and friends until they are sure it is safe for them to return home after the Nato bombing.

Mjeku also fled his homeland after the communist regime interrupted his quiet, routine way of living, expect almost 20 years earlier. “As a people our dreams are simple,” he says. “Our parents hope that we graduate High School and college, find a good job, get married and have children in that order.” However, he had to put those plans on hold when after four and a half years as a lawyer representing a factory in Pristina, which employed 22,000 workers he was forced to quit. The Serbian government had taken over Kosovo and ordered Yugoslavian police to fire all Albanian workers and State institution employees and arrest those who refused to quit.

For a few months Ismer took on odd jobs to survive but decided to secure a visa to the United States. He traveled to Belgrade under the guise of a Serbian citizen and was successful in obtaining a U.S. visa. “It was a fluke, I never expected to be granted a three month visa. So for two months I did nothing to leave, I kept expecting someone to come take it away,” he now says. “I also knew that it was easier to go to Belgrade than it would be crossing the border in Macedonia to travel to the United States.” He was afraid that the border patrol would not only confiscate his passport and other official documents but that he would also be arrested or worse.

It is easy to understand why when he tells the story of his first three months in the U.S. Back then he suffered from insomnia and lost 10 pounds in a matter of seven days “I went to a travel agent and was willing to pay the $150 penalty for cashing in my round trip ticket early,” he reminisced. “I called my father the night after cashing in my ticket and told him that I was coming home in a few days.” But that night the unexpected happened, “I slept like a baby,” he says. Ismer soon realize that although he was concerned for the relatives he left behind, after making the decision to go home and informing his father of his plans that he felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

He tells the story of a friend whose wife was butchered in her seventh month of pregnancy by Serbian forces a few months ago. “She was placed on her back, raped and her belly cut open and the baby was ripped from her body.” This kind in incident influenced his decision to leave and his three brothers and one sister fled to Germany to escape death.

So, it seems unlikely that this lawyer would be content scrounging up advertisement and operating a small Public Relations (do you mean who are the clients?) business in the Bronx. But that is exactly what he did after taking a course in graphic design while working at Illyria, an Albanian newspaper in the Bronx shortly after arriving here. His uncle, a Kosovar who consequently returned to Kosovo landed him the position when he worked for the paper. After four and a half years at the publication he ventured out on his own in 1997 and rented an office space in a second story building on Arthur Avenue. There he sold 99% of the advertisements in the yellow pages by himself, over the phone in the first year of production.

He reminisces about the joy he felt when he sold his first ad. After trying for weeks to convince businesses on the phone to purchase ads in his book he walked around the corner from his office one day and stopped at Universal Locksmith. After a short talk with the owner about his new business, the man took full page for $1,385. Mjeku felt he was unstoppable after that, and found it easy to secure not only a sponsor for the back cover but the front one as well. But that was only the first hurdle.

There was also the inevitable computer crash. “There I was with the design and ads half done when I lost it all.” The printing was held up for one week and he worked for 24 hours straight to get back on track .

One would think that this man would be content to pursue his quiet, safe life after succeeding at business. However, the sense of activism that got Ismer shot has again risen to the surface. He recently answered the provisional Kosovar government’s call for go back to help in restoring Kosovo.

He is ready to give up his life of freedom in the United States and venture back into Pristina his childhood home to assist United Nations-led forces in securing his home. And, if called he will go back to practice law and help businesses and individuals with legal issues. “It will not be easy rebuilding and the United Nations will have to stay there for the next 5 to 7 years to ensure peace, but I am ready to go back,” he comments.

For now, Mjeku has to wait while outside forces work to return Kosovo to normal. “I am sure that one day my comrades will sleep soundly again, as I did in the early years in this country but it will take time,” he says.