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The Globe and Mail, Thursday, October 12, 2000

Ethnic Albanians use Web in fight against Serb control
  TRENDS: The Internet is growing in popularity among Kosovars who continue to push for an independent nation
By Julian Sher


PRISTINA, YUGOSLAVIA -- Former Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic's power may have collapsed in the face of hundreds of thousands of protesters from across Serbia, but a small army of Web warriors in the province of Kosovo vow to continue their fight against Serbian domination, regardless of who rules in Belgrade.

In the capital of Pristina, Afredita Kelmendi gazes out of her 16th-floor office, over the rubble and mangled buildings of a city scarred by war and ethnic hatred, to the satellite dishes that pump her Albanian-language Webcasts around the world.

"We started in exactly the opposite way the media in the West did," she explained.

"We began on the Web and then moved to the old-style radio airwaves. We were forced to survive on the Web, and that survival showed us that anything is possible."

Just over a year ago, she was huddled in a Macedonian refugee camp, one of tens of thousands of Kosovo Albanians who fled the province in the face of Serb aggression. She cobbled together an emergency Web page as the voice of resistance during the Kosovo war.

Now she is the director of Radio 21, a full-fledged radio and TV station, respected for its independent reporting.

Four out of five journalists are under 30. Most of them are women. The toilets don't work in the building; the elevators are erratic; the hallways are filled with debris.

But thanks to funds from foreign foundations and a helping hand from U.S. Internet firms, Ms. Kelmendi, 43, has put together a bustling news operation.

"We are the future, the 21st century; that's why we call ourselves Radio 21," she explains.

Like its most popular radio station, all of Pristina seems caught in a curious time warp: There is often no running water in the evenings; the phone service is notoriously unreliable; the electricity flickers during regular brownouts; there is no functioning postal service. But computer users can surf the Web at lightning speed, with networks connected directly by satellite to servers abroad.

In the middle of Pristina, next to the twisted metal and crushed concrete walls that used to be the police station, young people line up at café for a hot connection.

Last year, Pristina had not a single Internet café; now it has nine Web salons and there are about a dozen more in the region.

Veton Rugova sports the short-cropped hair and fast-clipped, slightly accented English that are the trademarks of the under-30 Web warriors here.

He is the foreign editor for RTK, the public broadcasting network.

"The Web is the best solution to build bridges between communities. Through the Web, I can speak to Serb dissidents," Mr. Rugova said as he clicked through various Albanian, Croatian, Serbian and English-language Web sites.

Ironically, it was Mr. Milosevic's repression of ethnic-Albanian culture, starting in 1990, that gave birth to what people call the "Internet generation" of Kosovars. The former president shut down Albanian-language radio, TV stations and newspapers, forcing young people and journalists to turn to e-mail and the Web.

Ms. Kelmendi and her colleagues, including her news-editor husband, went underground. Radio 21 emerged in 1998, when Ms. Kelmendi started broadcasting Albanian news on the Web.

She and her family moved from house to house, from computer to computer, to get the news out. She hung on for almost a year, until Serbian police caught up with her. She and her family left Kosovo in April, 1999, joining thousands of others of ethnic Albanians who fled to safety across the Macedonian border.

Within days, she had set up a new Web site and was issuing news reports for two hours a day.

"I'll never forget the first message we sent on the Web: 'We are back; we are going to try to do everything to inform you,' " Ms. Kelmendi recalled, her voice cracking.

When North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops entered Kosovo in June, 1999, Ms. Kelmendi's Web army was right behind them. Last summer, Radio 21 began broadcasting by radio on the air 24 hours a day and expanded its Web broadcasts. It also offers Albanian-language news 24 hours a day on the Web.

Radio 21's newscasts are now filled with much more than resistance bulletins. Its reporters cover human-rights issues, international relief efforts and infighting among Pristina's politicians.

But even with Mr. Milosevic gone, ethnic-Albanian journalists do not hold out much hope for substantive change for Kosovo.

The new President, Vojislav Kostunica, is also a strong nationalist and an opponent of NATO's policies.

Having survived Mr. Milosevic, the challenge now for Kosovo Albanian journalists is how well they tackle the enemy within.

There have been more than 330 serious ethnic crimes in Kosovo since January, about two-thirds committed by ethnic Albanians against Serbs and other minorities.



Copyright 2000 | The Globe and Mail

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