United States steel bond to Kosovo and Metohia
On the road from Gnjilane to Urosevac, by the village of Sojevo on the left-hand side, is a place where the biggest US military base in Europe is located, with a symbolic name, Bondsteel.
In order to make this project possible, US army has usurped about 3000 acres of private property.
The word Bondsteel in English is interpreted litarally: a bond that is strong as steel. This name truly corresponds to US presence in Kosovo and Metohia, although the word “Bondsteel” is said to originate from Larry Bondsteel, born in 1947, who distinguished himself in 1969, in Vietnam war.
The base has several fences on its perimeters, and each one consists mostly of barbed wire, which reminds of the notorious Nazi death camps from WW2. The distance between fences is about 100 meters.
Bondsteel military base has tens of entrances, to which only authorized persons have access, who will be checked thoroughly by the security.
The movement of the base personnel is limited and the base has been divided into several colored zones.
Every worker in the base receives the special card that contains microchips used to control the movement within the designated zone. Should someone violates the zone limits, control sensors signal to the security that someone is entering the forbidden zone..
From the inside, Bonsteel base looks like a city.
In order to build this base, the army hired 2000 american soldiers, as well as more than 10.000 civilians, mostly Albanians from Urosevac and the surroundings. Prefabricated facilities are made mostly of timber, but the enormous amounts of sand and other construction material have been used in the building of the base. Today, the base has various army facilities, shopping malls, hospitals, sport facilities, airports, etc.
According to the personnel, most of the facilities is located deep underground. Power supply is done through big generators. During the night, the base is illuminated by strong spotlights.
When the American soldiers are in the base, they are using bottled water especially brought for them from United States or European countries, and the same thing applies to food.
The second largest US military base in Kosovo is Monteith, and is located in Gnjilane, in the location where, up to 1999, Serbian army barracks were located, but this base looks like a miniature compared to one near Urosevac. Until 2003, there was one US army checkpoint in every Serbian village throughout Kosovo Morava region. American KFOR was mostly taking positions next to Orthodox churches.
Only in very few exceptional cases, KFOR has paid for the usurpation of private property, or similar damage made.
Nowadays, there is only a small number of Albanians working in Bondsteel since the construction of the base has come to an end. There are numerous rumors that ther are secret US army prisons in the base near Urosevac, but that, of course, has never been confirmed.
The construction of this base was the primary American objective, and one can assume that the base will serve the US army longer that it was thought in the beginning, even though the facilities were made of prefab pieces of timber. The rumors spread among the people of Kosovo, is that within this base, more exactly under the ground, various testing is conducted, and it is assumed that the earthquake of 2002, whose epicenter was in Gnjilane area, was an artificial event.
There are plenty of speculations, but the facts are telling us that a lot of money has been invested into this military base, and it is to be expect that, unfortunately, the Americans will spend more time in Kosovo, than we thought they will.
