KOSOVO 1999

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M I N U T E S T O WA R : Picnic in Hell Cast of Characters: Picnic in Hell DOMCULTURA DORDOGNE MR ED DANIEL KELLER RICHARD House of Culture the theatre troupe in exile from Pristina Kosova Camp Commander at Stankovitz Camp Administrator at Stankovitz 1 Camp Skopje Macedonia humanitarian director of the US Embassy who was originally stationed in Kosovo but during the crisis but forced to relocate to Skopje Macedonia DIETER ERMINE ALMA SAHBAZ MELINA MECOURI FRANCIS DE MARIKIS cameraman for the Public Broadcasting Service, Munich Germany cameraman with Kukes Television who also befriends Ryan and Malekzadeh, negotiator with thieves for bag and tapes friend, co-director of Exile in Sarajevo with Tahir Gambis Greek actress who subsequently became the Minister for Culture for the Greek government. Cannes D’or for Never on A Sunday former Prime Minister of Greece Locations STANKOVICH BLACHO NIKI ST CAPFHTICA PRESPA SCANDENBERG SQUARE BOULEVARD DASHHOMET DRINE RIVER LAKE FIEZA MOUNT GJALICA MORINE RD TANGIERS LEY LADAKH BASHKIRIA OSCE refugee camp in Skopje Macedonia refugee camp close to Skopje Macedonia street in Thessalonica Albanian /Macedonian border crossing close to Prespa one of the most picturesque ravines in the Republic of Macedonia. It is situated in the Southwest of Macedonia, exactly where the 21st east meridian cuts the 41st parallel the main square in Tirana, Albania the main boulevard in Tirana, Albania Skopje the lake beneath Kukes the panoramic sometime snow capped mountain above Kukes the road to the border crossing from Prizren to Kukes International Zone in the 1950s in Morocco, sits below the straits of Gibraltar on the coast of Africa province and capitol in the northwestern province in India offices of the Mayor in Kukes, Albania Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe
M I N U T E S T O WA R : Picnic in Hell Picnic in At one of the refugee camps I spied a boy in a cotton T-shirt with ‘hello’ stenciled on its front. When I used the VX1000 video camera to zoom in there was a tear in the fabric, the O was hidden and all I could see was ‘hell’. The Diary of Dominic Ryan kept during the Kosovo Crisis from 23rd of April until the 23rd of May <strong>1999</strong> in Albania, Macedonia and Greece. Once upon a time in the Balkans there were many wars, punctuated by small moments of Peace and the times changed but the wars remained the same. They had different masks but always the same ugly and deathly face hid from inside the mask. The roles might be constant, but the scenes and the names of the places always changed. There was the first and then the Second World War and afterwards came the Serbia Croatian and Bosnia conflict. The story was written long ago but it was still being acted out by people who had forgotten the pain of its origins, who had forgotten that the roles they play would only keep more suffering alive from generation to generation. This malignant cancer was always growing and although it seems as if the source of this cancer had not been cut out, so this war and suffering had crept into Kosovo. As a result of the refusal to sign the Rambouillet Accord, the Western allies and NATO had gone to war against Slobodan Molosevic and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on March 14. Waves of refugees were now pouring over the two borders of Macedonia and Albania. Kosovo had become a war zone after the expulsion of all western diplomats and journalists. As more limbs were falling off and more people were suffering, all Firouz my companion and I could do was get to that border and see for ourselves what was happening. The year was the year before the turn of the millennium and the time was the end of the month of April. How the events were to unfold we could not even guess at. All we could do was to stand and stare, like fleshed out statues, whilst others fell into the abyss. Wednesday, 21st of April <strong>1999</strong>, Thessalonica, Greece, Hotel Pella The cabin of the DC 9 was claustrophobic and stultifying even with the air conditioning purring as we flew on Air Italia flight AI 097 from Milan to Thessalonica International airport Macedonia. My seat was behind a bulkhead. As I stared through the oval plastic window the condensation between the glass panels and the ice outside formed beautiful crystalline patterns which refracted with the opal Thermaic Gulf sea below us. I pressed my two index fingers against the frigid glass and felt the heat from my hand escape. As the plane descended rusted hulks that only just resembled ships became slowly visible as specks growing. I could see them now birthed in the harbour of Thessalonica looking like sleeping humpback whales with their stomachs lazily turned towards a golden light of sunset to reveal rust and crustaceans. The container ships shimmered as the plane descended to land around 7.15 this evening. I am now sitting in the Hotel Pella foyer dictating this diary into the GENEXXA micro cassette recorder. It is my lazyman’s diary, ready to stop/ eject, record and fast forward this yet to be recorded journey. This will be the Monitoring Report for the
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KOSOVO 1999

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