KOSOVO 1999

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M I N U T E S T O WA R : Picnic in Hell beautiful possession. That is the most important right that we must, respect and honour. The right to life! The technology of the aid workers is intriguing. The technocrats here are the elite rulers through their authority and power of their technology. The refugees have nothing while the others, the media journalists and aid workers are the powerful. I know they are here to help. They are not the ones initiating the abuses, but the disparity does seem apparent. Firouz also seems to be on an emotional pendulum swing while I must be the recipient to his recurring bouts of anger. I do not know whether the anger is more focused on me or the general situation. He sadly can not seem to release this anger and this I find this really difficult to deal with. He is not happy with himself and not happy with the sound quality on the tape, but the manner in which he deals with this anger is to inflict it on those around him. This forms a stain which is difficult to erase especially when I am with him twenty four hours a day. Of course this is only my opinion. After hanging the billboard, I had decided that what we could give to these people a concert. We had paid an exhibition tax to hang the billboard from the wall of the Cultural Centre, and now we were going to pay the musicians to sing. A few posters and every roll of sticky tape in town was how we were going to advertise the concert, and I think the western journalists just laughed quietly to themselves. We are hoping for at least five hundred to come, but I will be happy with two hundred people in the town square in front of the billboard. That will be enough. On Thursday we searched for the Mayor in his office where we were informed he was at present in Tirana on business. We then tried to invite the Deputy Mayor, and if Safet Sula did not know what was going on at least his deputy could attend. We felt that it was important to invite the Deputy Mayor. Ray at the Press Conference was still iterating what we had seen the days before. A variation on the same theme: ‘That UNHCR believe there were so many wide spread abductions of men that took place during that forced evacuation of peoples almost been turned into a killing field at times. About three days ago police then moved in and separated many men out. One man reported to us that 24 people from his family had been killed and he had seen their bodies.’ Today we began distributing the invitations for the concert throughout the city and amongst the people at each of the camps. More copies had been done, when I had an argument with Firouz at the United Arab Emirates camp. He wanted to film the children but I wanted to distribute the invitations instead. His loyalty is unquestionable. His commitment to the ideals are solid. But his moods are so difficult, but the same can be said for me. I find that sometimes he misunderstands and believes that I am here only to make a documentary rather than contribute by erecting a billboard. So instead of desiring to put these invitations up, he started complaining that I was disorganised in my schedule and that the invitations should have been done a week before. And if they had been he would have had time to do his filming. We walked to the Irish camp, one of the more distant camps and placed invitations on cork information boards. At every point people would crowd around gawking and staring. There is so little in these people’s lives that even this badly typed invitation is something important to these people. We have to go ahead and without anticipation see what will happen. I must try and make a good event from this no matter what might occur. The billboard is up and I can see it from so many different angles. It is now part of the city square and the surrounding area. That afternoon I had walked across the town to Frank Kennedy, the Director of the International Red Cross in Kukes, and had also spoken with Ray Wilkinson the Press Officer for UNHCR. The International Red Cross quarters were on located on the second floor of a non-descript corner shop. When I went upstairs the aid workers were deep in conference. I had to wait for half an hour downstairs, but when I went up I could feel that there was an energy change or shift which suggested a real positive influx. I could feel a healing energy that was there and how it was capable of being utilised. Frank met me with open arms and was enthusiastic about the billboard and concert which I had done. He felt that more things of this nature ought to be done; that not enough was being done for the people from a visionary, or how do you say, inspiring point of view. I rendezvoused with Salliarne, the Tiranan academic late that night and gave him the translation of my text. I also sat with Dieter, the Munich cameraman and the other Public Broadcast Television people from Germany and when the lights fused in a black out we used tiny torches while we ate the fish. I had a wonderful conversation with one of the German camera operators, whose name escapes me now, about Beirut and his experiences during the war in 1983 there.
M I N U T E S T O WA R : Picnic in Hell Please come and fill your afternoon by sending a message to the world that you have all suffered enough. Friday, 7th May, <strong>1999</strong>, Kukes, Albania What a day. That was the day of the concert and the closing ceremony for the billboard. We spent it Xeroxing copies of the invitation and sending them around town. The copies were humble as a result of the technology at hand. We bill-posted them with threads and messy sticky tape on all lamp posts and then handed them like pamphlets around to people in the streets and in the camps. After a brief meeting with the deputy mayor at the Bashkiria, I went to the radio station and spoke with Zhana, the woman who was the radio director. She had already found Mrs Brahar, the head of a feminist women’s organisation who would make a speech. I was happy for her as well as the Executive Director of the Cultural Center, Mr Bashkim, who I had forgiven as well as the deputy mayor to speak. Our idea for the concert was to collect as many refugees in front of the billboard as possible, and then use the billboard as the means for them to speak to the rest of the world. And the concert was there to entertain them. The event turned out in an extraordinary fashion. The square with the prefecture and the centre of culture allowed fifteen thousand people to congregate. The fourth side revealed a panoramic view of the lake and the cascading mountain of Gjalica. At 5.00pm that day after racing around like frustrated chooks because we were anticipating that maybe three hundred people might come, Salliarne had done my speech, translated it, but was unable to be the translator at the reading at the concert because of his helicopter trip early this morning.
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KOSOVO 1999

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