Radio 21, Kosovo (The Globe and Mail - Thursday, October 12, 2000

[Paola Lucchesi <paola.lucchesi@mail.inet.it>]

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

JULIAN SHER
Special to The Globe and Mail
Thursday, October 12, 2000

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.

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