The Saudis dissident’s case reminds me that of my uncle’s, although they involve different contexts and timings. My uncle, Hafir Shala, a physician and a political and humanitarian activist, was arrested by Serbia police in April 1998, he was beaten and tortured, and then, he vanished.
Sebahate J. Shala
Since the story about Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance broke—followed by shocking revelations on his torture and murder, and the missing of now—his remaining—I’ve felt pain, and at times, anger. I keep visioning images of his entering the Saudis’ consulate in Istanbul, then being dragged, drugged, and dismembered while his fiancé was waiting just outside the walls. And waiting. And then waiting for the truth to come out. Endless waiting. I know how that feels. What strikes me the most, however, is a series of lies and “cover-ups” following his murder, which President Trump described as “the worst” in the history of cover-ups coming out from an autocratic regime such as Saudi Arabia. This typically happens when the state itself is involved in the killing of its citizens.
(His barbarous killing is believed to have shaken the world, or as a senior regional diplomat said, “…the world order died here along with Khashoggi.”)
Jamal Khashoggi was a well-known Washington Post’s journalist, a dissident and a critic of the Saudi Government led by Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, for which he would be forced into a self-imposed exile in the United States. As a former journalist, I stand up for him. As a daughter of a persecuted father, I show empathy for him. He was a patriot, or as his fiancé, Hatice Cengiz portrayed him, a “lonely patriot”—murdered for demanding freedom for the Saudi people. Again, as a member of a people—persecuted, tortured, murdered, and slaughtered from an oppressive, chauvinistic regime, I would solidarize with him. Above all, he was a human being—whose right to life has been taken away—allegedly—from a brutal, crazy despot.
Other than that, Khashoggi’s case associates with that of my uncle’s, a missing person. Different contexts and timings yet many commonalities.
On April 10, 1998, my uncle, Hafir Shala, was traveling to Prishtina to take medical supplies when he was stopped and arrested by Serbia police in Sllatine (a village in a central Kosovo), then separated from his two companions (who were instructed to follow the police car) and taken to the detention center. All three men were interrogated on the separate rooms. The last time my uncle was seen was his entering the police station. After six hours of interrogation, his companions were released, my uncle not. Since then, he simply vanished. That fateful day was supposed to be his very last route to Prishtina before his formal joining to Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
My uncle was a distinguished physician and a humanitarian and political activist. He served five years in prison for demanding Kosovo be a Republic within former Yugoslavia. Above all, my uncle was a patriot, a true patriot. He didn’t deserve such an unfortunate ending! Well, what good could have been expected from a regime such was Serbia under Slobodan Milosevic, known as the “Butcher of Balkan”?! Literally, we were in a state of war. Milosevic had already embarked his war machine across the territory of Kosovo, committing the worst atrocities against ethnic Albanians. 13,535 people were killed, 862,979 others were forced to flee their homes, and 6,057 went missing. Among those killed was my younger sister, as well.
- …20 years agony
What we, the family, didn’t however know was that our ordeal has had just begun.
We would be waiting all day on Friday, on that weekend, and following weeks, months, and years—in vain. 20 years later, we are still here—waiting—and—waiting for him to come back. To this day, we don’t know anything about his whereabouts nor is he dead or alive? We don’t know the truth, and justice is yet to be served. Nobody has ever been convicted or held accountable for this crime. In the meantime, we’ve been hearing dozens of narratives of what could have happened that day: that he was killed as a result of torture; he was seen in a prison; he was kept secretly in prison registered under different name and gender; he was kept in an underground prison somewhere in Serbia; that he was being used to do research in Serbia hospitals, and so forth.
What we were told by two witnesses was that they had heard him screaming as a result of torture used against him. The ICRC would search across Kosovo prisons and international media would regularly follow-up his case, unsuccessfully. I would myself go routinely to the lawyer, ICRC, and Serbia police station in Prishtina seeking an answer—just to be told that “we don’t know anything about him.”
After Kosovo liberated from Serbia in 1999, the UN Mission in Kosovo initiated an investigation on my uncle case—only to be transferred to the EU mission (EULEX) after ten years of investigation—with no results so far. I myself have continued searching using my both UNMIK and EULEX sources. In 2011, I managed to meet the Deputy/Chief Prosecutor for War Crimes in Serbia, Bruno Vekaric, using some sources from Serbia daily “Blic”—during a journalistic training in Belgrade. He would say that “my uncle’s case is a political issue” and it depends from Serbia Government to provide information about him and find and arrest his perpetrators. In one case, Vekaric would speculate that the “KLA had kidnapped and killed my uncle” while naming one Albanian inspector who arrested my uncle (later to be joining the KLA and Kosovo Police), as the main suspect of my uncle’s disappearance.
- The agony continues…
Every time I think of my uncle, I feel pain, anger and suffer, because more than the uncle-niece relationship, we used to be colleagues. I would work with him—days and nights—to provide medical help for people in need through the humanitarian association “Mother Teresa” he opened (and served) across the country.
19 years after the war in Kosovo, there are still over 1,600 missing persons. Only family members know how is to wait for their loved ones to come back—possibly in vain. Only they know how is to live in darkness, knowing nothing about their beloved. Only families of victims know how is to seek truth and justice and being rejected, yet and over again. That is why I feel with Jamal Khashoggi’s family because I know how they feel and I feel their pain. I hope the perpetrators of this monstrous crime will be held accountable, and Jamal’s family will – at least – receive his remaining and have a place to mourn. We, unfortunately, have hadn’t.
WAR AND PEACE 
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