Martin Savidge with the CNN Kosovo team, along with their translator, Gulka. Photo: Martin Savidge

About 10,000 people died in the 1998-99 Kosovo war between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in pursuit of national self-determination. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, and this month marks the 10th anniversary of the end of the war.

Following our online radio show on statelessness, Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge describes his experience reporting on the struggle of Kosovars forced to flee in the war.

You can go from something to nothing in just 139 steps. I know, because I counted the footfalls.

It was the spring of 1999 along the border between Albania and Kosovo. The war was raging, and people were trying to get out of its reach. Many fled south, heading to where I was — on the Albanian side of the Morini border crossing. I watched the metamorphosis from a gully, marginally sheltered from occasional gunfire and mortar rounds.

On the Kosovo side of the bridge, the frightened people still had a history, somewhere — a home and a life. One hundred and thirty-nine steps later, they emerged into Albania with none of that, only the clothes they wore. Some even came without families, having been separated in the chaos.

Like most wars, this one was triggering a humanitarian crisis and Albania was in no position to handle it. That day, the traffic was heavier than usual, most of it tractors pulling wagons filled with a bumper crop of women and children.

We began asking questions. Our interpreter was from Kosovo — a teenager who in the early, frantic days of the conflict had become separated from her family after the Serbs forced them from their home, and NATO bombs sent everyone on the run. She had crossed into Albania at this very same checkpoint. A CNN crew found her while doing interviews in a refugee camp. She stood out because she spoke English.

The producer quickly realized that despite the best intentions of the relief agency, a refugee camp is still a very dangerous place for a young girl. The camps were rife with reports of women and children vanishing, kidnapped for the sex trades. After all, who would miss them? They were nobodies, lost in the confusion of war.

Gulka was brought to the safety of the CNN house and hired as a translator. Eventually, we took in a number of similarly-rescued young people, temporarily orphaned by the upheaval of the war.

The group of women before us said they had no idea where their husbands were. The men of their town had been taken away by Serb soldiers and police when the fighting began. The women said they had fled into the mountains, fearing the soldiers would come back for them. They also told us that while it might have looked deserted across the border, just beyond our view was a heavy presence of Serb troops, tanks and artillery.

As if on cue, our conversation was interrupted by a blast. The first mortar round struck on the Serb side of the border…but the successive explosions walked their way over the line.

I was impressed that instead of running when the first round struck, most of the refugees dropped flat. This clearly wasn’t their first time under fire. Even the kids knew to get down. It was only after the sixth explosion that the crowd finally broke and the air was suddenly filled with screams and wails, the sound of revving engines and drifting smoke.

A week later, as we neared the border, we were suddenly forced to stop by the sight walking toward us…bedraggled columns of men. They staggered, stumbled and shuffled. Some men supported others; many were bloodied and beaten, showing scars. All of them looked emaciated and filthy. We pulled over and started filming, gathering a story and documenting what would later be judged as war crimes.

The men described being released from detention centers and camps days earlier. They told of torture and starvation, of unspeakable horrors inflicted on humans by humans. Some cried as they spoke, and one collapsed. Another died at the side of the road — and the men just kept coming.

Eventually, we moved our coverage to the refugee camps. The scenes and sounds of pain and anguish were overwhelming. Tony, another one of our young adopted interpreters, went with us. He had escaped to Albania early in the crisis. As he listened to the men’s stories he often had to wipe the tears from his eyes.

When the interview was finished, as was their habit, the teen translators would often ask personal questions, like where the men were from or if they knew anything of friends and family. After one such conversation, Tony suddenly jumped up. Something the man said had set him off. He raced through the crowd shouting. We ran after him, afraid we’d lose him in the crush of people…maybe for good. Eventually we caught up and found him deep in the embrace of an older man. The two were so overpowered with emotion they couldn’t get out a word, only tears and shuddering gasps. But you didn’t need words to understand. It was obvious…in the middle of a war, in the middle of the chaos on the edge of Albania, Tony had found his father.

- Martin Savidge

A reminder of the NATO bombings in 1999.

Recently, air raid sirens marked the 10th anniversary of NATO bombing in Serbia –  strikes that were largely aimed at Serbia’s military but resulted in some civilian deaths.

NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 in response to Slobodan Milosevic’s crackdown on ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo. About 10,000 people died in the Kosovo war. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

“The attack on our country was illegal, contrary to international law, without a decision by the United Nations,” said Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic on the anniversary.

Nenad Pejic is associate director of broadcasting for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He writes about the lasting repercussions of the war.

Serbia’s Decade Of Denial

One spring day about 20 years ago, I entered the building of Serbian State Television in Belgrade to file a report for Sarajevo television. As I prepared to file my daily report, someone stopped me and said an order had come “from above” that my reports had to be approved prior to transmission. The day before, a documentary I’d done on the situation in Kosovo had aired and apparently the people “above” didn’t like it.

Ten years ago today, NATO launched air strikes against Serbia. The 78-day war ended with the Serbian Army’s withdrawal from Kosovo. Various sources say that between 1,200 and 2,500 people were killed. NATO suffered no casualties and did not use ground forces.

But now, a decade later, who can claim victory?

NATO forced the Serbian withdrawal and some 800,000 ethnic Albanians who had fled the region were able to return. The bloc prevented the crisis from pouring over into neighboring countries. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008, and to date 54 countries have recognized the new state.

Serbia could claim victory, too, of a sort. Strongman Slobodan Milosevic was finally defeated. Democratic elections were held, and Serbia today is moving toward EU integration. Voters have handed the nationalist parties that organized violent protests against Kosovo’s independence last year a series of defeats.

But, so far at least, this isn’t one of those happily-ever-after stories.

NATO’s action against Serbia created a precedent that the alliance is still trying to grapple with as part of its large post-Cold War identity crisis.

Kosovo’s independence still hasn’t been recognized by two-thirds of the countries in the world and, according to Serbian sources, about 200,000 ethnic Serbs have left the region. (Prishtina denies this.) The central government in Prishtina is still struggling to assert control over the entire territory of the country.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Curious Expeditions under a Creative Commons license.

Seal of the U.S. Department of State.

This week, the U.S. State Department released its extensive 2008 country reports on human rights practices, a country-by-country evaluation of worker rights, free movement, privacy and other basic expectations of the State Department.

The report covers often-criticized China, whose authorities claim that the U.S. evaluations — including reports of state persecution of ethnic minorities and dissidents — willfully ignored and distorted basic facts.

Blogger Akhila Kolisetty at “Justice for All” disapproves of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent statement that “our pressing on those issues can’t interfere with the global economic crisis.”

I’m shocked that Clinton chose to prioritize economic issues over human rights — not that those issues aren’t important, but simply because she’s denying that human rights is important. By choosing to separate human rights from all these other issues, Clinton also fails to understand that all these problems are interrelated. How can you progress on climate change or security when human rights at home are being violated?

The State Department also cited instances of political imprisonment and media control, among other charges, in Cuba. Despite such charges, Marvin Kalb of GlobalPost wonders if Cuba is the site of a “golden opportunity“ that President Obama may be missing in terms of engagement.

Raul Castro has launched a program of “reform,” but it appears to be successful only in generating demands for more reform. What had once been taken for granted in Cuba — unmistakable advances in education, health care and pensions — are now under a spreading cloud of doubt. I’m told the average state wage is $18 a month, clearly no longer adequate, if it ever was. And ration cards can provide no more than half the monthly food needs of a family.

Optimists exist, and they catch glimpses of a promising tomorrow. Oil, for instance: Cuba controls a corner of the Gulf of Mexico that has oil reserves estimated at 10 to 15 billion barrels, just waiting to be developed. Would it not be better for the U.S. to be moderately dependent on Cuba for its oil than on Saudi Arabia?

And, buried deep in the State Department, but ready for rapid excavation after the Bush years, are numerous policy briefs for a considerable expansion of Cuban-American relations, including joint operations against drugs and organized crime and a lifting of the embargo in all communications and travel. Cuba could quickly become a very attractive market.

For more, listen to our online radio show on Cuba and the U.S. In other human rights news, Serbia’s arrest of accused war criminals who operated under Slobodan Milosevic led to five convictions involving 22-year sentences.

Balkan blogger “Grey Falcon” finds the acquittal of ex-Serbian president Milan Milutinovic bigger news, more atypical that the story of the convictions.  Falcon sees political motivations behind the acquittal:

The purpose of today’s verdict was threefold: to legitimize the NATO aggression from 1999 (i.e. NATO action was necessary and appropriate because the Serbs were engaging in a criminal conspiracy to murder and expel Albanians); to buttress the “Independent State of Kosovo,” proclaimed last February but so far recognized by only 55 governments; and to brand Serbia as the aggressor and criminal, rather than the victim of NATO’s aggression, occupation of Kosovo and the ethnic cleansing of its citizens that followed.

The UK has admitted complicity in the American practice of extraordinary rendition, which they had previously denied.

British blogger Stephen Linlithgow mocks Tony Blair’s previous denial of collusion:

To be fair to Tony Blair it now appears that collusion is indeed the wrong way to describe it. The Labour government appear to have actively handed over suspects to them to catch these flights. Far more than even Sir Menzies Campbell hinted at on that particular Wednesday when it was only assumed that our airspace or airfields were being used.

Venezeula is just one of several countries that responded negatively to the State Department report.  ”VIO News Blog” reports on the Venezuelan condemnation of the findings, which claim that the country  has a partial judiciary and harasses the media:

Venezuela on Thursday condemned the report and categorically rejected what it says are false allegations and a clear example of political meddling in its internal affairs. Contrary to the impression given by the report, Venezuela’s opposition parties enjoy all the political freedoms that are found in other democratic countries and have in fact made significant gains in recent elections.  Meanwhile, freedom of speech is fully respected, as is demonstrated by the fact that a majority of private media outlets remain ardent and vocal critics of the government.

The report offers no evaluation of U.S. human rights practices.

A gas station in Budapest.

Russia’s dispute with Ukraine over gas prices has impacted other European nations whose gas shipments pass through Ukraine. Hungarian imports from Russia were down more than 20 percent on Tuesday, but the country still has more gas than others cut off in the dispute — Hungary plans to deliver gas to Serbia, which has no gas reserves.

Gazprom, a state-controlled Russian energy company and the world’s largest producer of natural gas, reduced gas supplies to Ukraine after accusing the country of stealing 65.3 million cubic meters of gas since Jan. 1.

Eva S. Balogh is a Hungarian academic and blogger who writes at “Hungarian Spectrum” about her country’s position in the gas dispute. 

Crisis after crisis: now it is gas

There is a Hungarian slang expression: “there is gas” (gáz van). It means there is big trouble. The big trouble now is that there is no gas. That is, there is no gas coming from Russia via Ukraine. Of course, the trouble would be greater if Hungary didn’t have enough reserves to survive for at least two more months. Other countries–Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Serbia, for example–are in much bigger trouble because they have practically no reserves. Serbia already turned to Hungary yesterday for help. The initial Hungarian answer was negative, but by today the Hungarian government decided that after all it could spare a couple of billion m³ of gas because yesterday Hungarian consumption was lower than expected. Also Hungary has some natural gas of its own and a smaller amount reaches the country from Austria as well. Thus while Bulgaria and Slovakia are entirely dependent on Russian gas, Hungary relies on Russian gas for somewhere between 50% and 75% of its needs. Today, for example, 4 billion m³ gas arrived from Austria. The problem is that countries in Eastern Europe that depend on Russian gas can’t really help each other because there are no pipelines between Romania and Bulgaria, or Hungary and Slovakia, or Romania and Hungary.

No one knows what the real situation is between the warring business partners, Russia and Ukraine. If one can believe the Russian ambassador to Hungary, there are four “faucets” that can be turned on or off. Three of these were shut off by Ukraine yesterday morning and only then did Russia move to shut off the one remaining “faucet.” The Ukrainians’ version of events, not surprisingly, is different. They claim that they would be most willing to send on any natural gas that arrives in their pipelines. But there is none. The Russians have shut off the flow of gas.

Then there are the two entirely different interpretations of the Russian-Ukrainian feud. There are those who claim that it is simply a business quarrel while others think that it is fundamentally a political issue. Russia is putting economic pressure on Ukraine to keep it within the fold. Ukraine, on the other hand, is looking westward; it wants to belong to NATO and eventually to the European Union. A Hungarian political scientist currently in Kiev views the crisis solely in political terms, a manifestation of Russia’s imperial aspirations. Even the Russian ambassador to Hungary admitted that Russia is unhappy with Ukrainian political ambitions. I’m inclined to think that Russia’s dispute with Ukraine is not solely economic. Russia’s loss of Ukraine must still be hard to swallow. After all, with the exception of a very brief period after World War I when Ukraine became independent, it was an integral part of Russia for over three centuries. Also there is a huge Russian population within Ukraine’s borders.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user zsoolt under a Creative Commons license.

Once marketed as a cheap alternative in the West, the last Yugo rolled off the assembly line in Kragujevac, Serbia on Thursday.

For Serbians, the Yugo is a rusted symbol of Yugoslav socialism, but to Americans, the hatchback car is more the brunt of a joke. Anchor Martin Savidge writes about a story that didn’t make it onscreen this week — and provides a few punchlines to boot.

Here’s a story we at Worldfocus actually had to drop from Thursday’s program simply because there was too much other bad financial news to tell.

But it’s worth mentioning here. I’ll start with a joke:

What do you call a Yugo at the top of a hill? A miracle.

Yes, the Yugo is probably the worst car ever exported to the United States. And it has finally come to the end of the road. On Thursday, the last Yugo — once the pride of Yugoslavia’s auto industry — rolled off the assembly line in the Serbian town of Kragujevac. Well, more than likely, it had to be pushed.

Why does a Yugo have a defroster on the rear window? To keep your hands warm while you push it.

If you remember the 80s, you’ll more than likely remember the Yugo. It hit our shores in 1986 at the bargain price of $3,990. Car magazines said it barely qualified as a car, calling it “an assembled bag of nuts and bolts.”

What do you call a Yugo’s shock absorbers? Passengers.

Yugo owners complained of engine failures and transmission problems. Some said the manual stick shift would break off in their hands. Doors and trim were also a problem. Where I was living at the time, Cleveland, you were lucky to make it through a single winter without the car rusting through.

How do you double the value of a Yugo? Fill the gas tank.

Government crash tests in 1986 found that of 23 compacts tested, the Yugo came in dead last. A slow speed crash produced $2,197 dollars worth of damage.

Even with all of those seeming detractions, more than 100,000 Yugos were sold in this country before Yugo America went bankrupt.

A proud Serbian owner of a Yugo claimed Americans simply didn’t appreciate the car. Said Momcilo Spajic, “This is driving in its most natural form. You feel every bump, squeak and jolt, and one can enjoy the sweet smell of gasoline and exhaust fumes.”

So take a moment to mark this automotive milestone. The Yugo is now Yu-gone.

Man to car dealer: “I’d like a gas cap for my Yugo.” Dealer: “Sounds like a fair trade.”

Thanks very much — I’m here all week.

- Martin Savidge

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Björn Söderqvist under a Creative Commons license.