The big gap

Friday, November 30th, Residence Palace Press Center, Brussels

In front of me a well-known Kosovar lobbyist and diplomat, active in Brussels since the late seventies.

It was a good talk about Kosovo, the Balkans and (should it surprise?) history. If everything will still be running smoothly in the future, this man should bring me in contact with some Kosovar intellectuals while I am travelling in Kosovo at the end of this month. But we aren't there yet.
The Kosovar lobbyist (For personal reasons I am nog going to give his name, it's too early for that) wants my MiniDisc recorder to be put of. If I object and tell him that it would make my work easier (the interview is being taken in French, and although I have enough knowledge of this language to talk about different subjects, it is nog my native language) while writing the transcript. "Ok then, we'll start the interview and somewhere in the middle I will ask it again," I say by myself. My diplomat answers other questions that I had written down and given him in advance, but after a while I start to think that I am also hearing some important things. Mainly political and historical. Now, I know that on the Balkans, everyone has its own version of history, but I can't say that this man was telling nonsenses. After a while the interview becomes intense, and I am finding myself by the core of what I am doing other than writing an article about the economic livability of Kosovo: What is Kosovo really? A question that I had maybe forgotten while searching economic facts about the (future) country.

But, it should be said: I didn't like some aspects that were said. Saying that the uçk has never comitted war crimes is a bridge too far, just like saying that it was just a liberation organisation. Also the phrases that Serbia is just proceeding with the same policy as before 1999 is somewhat...unreal. Like the detention of Slobodan Milosevic was just a sacrifice for continuing the same Serbian policy. Kosovo has suffered long years, but I think that after 1999, Serb policy didn't affect the region of Kosovo that much...for it was ruled by different international organisations who could act stronger than Serbia. Serbia has liberalized, and although they have difficult arguments to maintain Kosovo as a Serbian province, the point of view of the Serbian government simply isn't the same as before 1999.

So, again I have learned some important things...this while the December 10th deadline is coming closer and a double-backed (by Albanians and Serbs) solution is becoming utopia. It will be or this, or that, but not both of them.