Kosovo, The Human Landscape

(Inset)

We were doing a report on the process of the disintegration of Yugoslavia when at four o’clock in the afternoon we received the news we were to be expelled from the conflict area of Kosovo. We had to leave first thing in the morning. We had about three hours of light and we were about half an hour from Pristina the capital. The report was half done. Things had got a bit complicated two afternoons before when we went to a meeting in a Serbian neighbourhood in Pristina. We had filmed for a bit but suddenly everyone got very edgy. We did not know why but they refused to continue with us there and insisted that we leave the meeting. We left but we had no idea what was wrong. Once at the hotel our interpreter listened attentively to what we had recorded.

“I’m the problem, because I’m Albanian,” he explained. In the meeting they said something very compromising for the Serbians and they were scared that an Albanian accompanied by TV crew was witness to it. This also explained the translators own particular interest in the proceedings. Going through the tape we found out that we hadn’t recorded the critical moments, possibly because we did not understand Serbo-croat or perhaps because by the time we had set up the camera the most crucial part was already over, but obviously the Serbians didn’t know this. The translator was Veton Surroi, an Albanian journalist who had lived in Spain, where his father had been an ambassador for Tito. He spoke Spanish perfectly, English, Serbian and Albanian so for us he was ideal. But he was not just anybody and although we knew that, we could not have imagined that he could have caused such a reaction from the Serbians. We must not forget that this was at the time that there was neither a war on, nor had one drop of blood been spilt, although there was considerable tension. Shortly afterwards Veton Surroi founded Koha Ditore, an Albanian language paper and in the midst of the Balkan war he would form part of the Kosovo-Albanian delegation who negotiated the Rambouillet peace agreement. In conclusion, working with him was a provocation for the Serbians, who thought we were spies.

Although the next day we hired a naive tourist guide as a translator, things had already started to get more difficult when we went to film at a mine, which was one of the hard-core centres for the Serbian nationalists. We couldn’t understand what they were saying there, but it certainly was not entirely innocent as we were given a very hostile reception. The same day the Serbian press proclaimed that the TV3 crew were personae non grata and would be expelled immediately but we did not know this at the time.

So, to round off, “What can you do when you only have a few hours to finish a report?” This caused some friction between the members of the team. As I mentioned, we were some way from Pristina when we knew we were to be expelled. On the way to the city the producer and my other colleague, who was also an ENG* like me, wanted to film some shots of the Kosovo countryside before it got dark. I flatly refused. I said we were more interested in the human landscape, which was what was cracking up, not the countryside. They insisted that we could use this type of shots to say what we wanted and in any case it was not necessary, because we almost had enough and it was getting dark. There was no time to argue and tempers flared. I took all responsibility for answering to the director and said that if we needed countryside footage we would buy it from archives. Bringing the hierarchy into it is not always the best way and if I offended my colleagues I repeat my apologies from here, but I still believe that my reasoning was basically correct. At the end of the day you can understand the Balkan problem without seeing a single shot of Kosovo but by concentrating just on the people; the place where they live is merely an accident of circumstances.

Finally we went to a farm where two orthodox Serbian families lived and where some of their relatives were gathering. In what remained of the afternoon we were able to find out about the Serbian point of view; they were scared of being oppressed or even exterminated, if the Kosovo Muslims gained independence. The sequences we filmed were powerful and restored the working atmosphere amongst us. We learnt that the human landscape is definitely more important than the geography.

And an additional word of advice: even though you don’t understand a word of what they are saying, record it.

*ENG: (electronic news gathering) in this case a professional figure who unifies the functions of journalist, operator and editor of news items and reports, a video-journalist.