Syndicate: Visit to Radio 21 in Skop

[jo@xs4all.nl (Jo van der Spek)]

"jo van der spek" <jojovds@hotmail.com>
Subject: Visit to radio 21
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 22:48:37 CEST


A visit to Radio 21 in Skopje (13th of May)

Afrodita Kamendi is the director of Radio 21, one of the independant
Radio-stations in Prishtina, Kosov@. Radio 21 is supported by Press Now
from Amsterdam, and by the team of helppB92, that was founded on the 24th
of March, the day NATO started to bomb. The staff of Radio 21 sought refuge
in Skopje, Macedonia and has re-established itself now on the air and on
the web. I have met Afrodita for one second in Amsterdam a few weeks ago,
so I recognized her when she came down to the street to meet me.
We sat down in het small but comfortable office on the 5th floor, together
with Eugene with cold water, coffee and lots of cigarettes. My first
question was about the internet-connections, but this she couldn't tell. I
would have to speak with Dritton Hapciu. Radio 21, she explained is a
professional journalistic product, which transmits statements of all sides,
abstains from editorial comments and presents analysis from diffrent
perspectives. Radio 21 is not a political station, we are not after
political power, she stressed. Admitting that this is sometimes very hard
under the circumstances.

Then I told her I make a radio-program on the response of Macedonian
society to the refugee-crisis and then she burst out in a long and
emotional speech about what has happened to her and what the Macedonian
government has done.  She herself had been lucky to spend just 7 hours in
Blace, where thousands of deportees from Kosov@ were stuck in the rain and
the mud without food, shelter, any help any care. After waiting on the
Yugoslav side of the border, Macedonia slowly let them onto its territory
which was in fact a no mans' land. Macedonia created this humanitarian
crisis to obtain money and other support from the west, playing a game with
the refugees. They behaved no better than the serbs,she feels. And to
Kosovars the Macedonian police is just like serbian police, e.g. in
Stenkovac, the huge transitcamp near Skopje.

I tried to point out that the west is at least indirectly responsible, not
only because the escalation following NATO's attack, but also because the
EU's record on refugee-politics. And isn't it true that Macedonia has
suffered for nine years already of several embargo's (by Greece and by the
UN), blocking exports, resulting in a social crisis with 30 to 40%
unemployment? No, those are not valid argumnets for such behaviour.
Albania, Bulgaria and Rumania have suffered just as much, now only
Macedonia gets some $250 million, and Albania double that. This is no
excuse for committing a crime against humanity.
My impression is that many in Macedonia are desperate about the economy,
scared about what will happen next and very insecure about the ethnic and
political balance in the country. NO! this feeling has been artificially
created, manipulated, with propaganda and insinuations. Again in order to
make a profit.

Then she continued to speak about herself. I have been working for four
years to train young people, including serbs, in peaceful reconciliation,
to forget about ethnic divisions. Myself I have been developing this spirit
together with women from Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia. But now, I am
exhausted. I was driving with my daughter from Prishtina, we sam how serb
police and soldiers were dragging people out of their cars, beating them
up, robbing them, taking them away... And when my daughter asked, "will we
survice this", I couldn't answer her. I wanted to have a gun."
So they managed in a way to kill her spirit. She cannot help others
anymore. Now others have to help Afrodita Kamendi. Fortunately, the women's
network is still working. They come from Bsnia and Croatia. Even from
Serbia they came to offer help. But she cannot accept that. The statemts of
ANEM (Veran Matic) of intellectuals and serbian NGO's make her sick. They
did nothing for Kosov@! Right now, the people from Kosova can only hate
serbs.

Then I showed her the draft proposal for the Internet-project. When she saw
the Children's Embassy (Medjashi) as one of the partners in this network to
get Internet-acces for refugees, she explained me that this NGO would not
be appreciated by Kosovars. Because they remember what the Children's
Embassy did in Bosnia. It is founded by serbs, the first ambassador they
appointed was the serb violinist Milenkovic. I said that I appreciated het
comment, because we may be naive in this respect, wanting to cooperate with
all people, not excluding but including.
She couldn't give me more exact information, so we have to do some research
here. Because I don't want to jump to conclusions, and even less would we
want to become unacceptable for Kosovars and their civic organizations.

Anyway, this point didn't seem to lower her enthusiasm about our
Internet-project. She has started two projects herself together with Garry
(?). With young women workshops will start in media-training (including
Internet), reconciliation and organizational skills. And this will be
connected with visits to people in the camps.
The other project is with the post-pessimists who will build a network for
creative workshops in the camps: theatre, poetry, etc.
I told her it is very important to me to cooperate with these two projects,
both as Balkansunflowers and in the Interent-project. So I hope this will
happen!

Then she brought me to the editing room, we entered quietly because a
speaker was just doing input in the computer.
Around the corner at the left I found Dritton Hapciu, the system-manager of
Radio 21. He is a very calm guy, with spectacles on his round, open face.
The good news was that since last night they managed to get their
audio-files to their website which is with xs4all in Amsterdam, the main
supporting provider for Radio B92. But it is not good enough, so we made a
list of needs and sent it to Amsterdam. I gave him my audiocable, and will
give him some software I brough on a CD-Rom to start with. Hopefully
somebody will come soon to deliver the rest! And maybe, this someone can
also work on the Internet-project.

And then we listened to the radio, and we discovered that Wam is a common
friend, because Dritton was the sysop in Prishtina for zamir.net.
Unfortunately we had no time left to send a joint message to Wam, but the
E-dress is known now to Dritton.

We have to work hard on connecting with the people and projects from Kosov@
that came to Macedonia. That's one conclusion from this meeting. And I am
sure you will like it too!

jojo
skopje 14th of May


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