BBC Correspondent Reflects on Kosovo War Difficulties

David Loyn, a BBC correspondent who reported on the war in Kosovo in 1998- 1999, maintains that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s actions in Kosovo amounted to ethnic cleansing.

He emphasised that the international community intervened more swiftly than in similar conflicts after feeling ashamed of what had happened in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In an interview for Kallxo Pernime TV Program, Loyn recalled how he felt in March 1998 when he first arrived in Kosovo to report on the war.

“I arrived here the day after the Prekaz massacre, March 1998. For my first news report, I went to Skenderaj to see the line of dead bodies in Prekaz covered with white sheets,” he said.

Loyn stated that he was struck by the horror that the Serbian forces, led by Slobodan Milosevic, were inflicting in Kosovo. “It seemed to provoke a reaction that actually came a year later,” he said.

Regarding NATO’s intervention in Kosovo, he mentioned that there was harmony even in the international context.

“In the governments of London and Washington, there were two leaders: Clinton, who felt ashamed of the Bosnia case and the failure there, and a new Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who had always favoured intervention in Bosnia. [UK Prime Minister] Tony Blair was elected in 1997. Two governments in full harmony on a series of internal and international issues.”

For Loyn, who has reported from conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, and South Asia, reporting on the war in Kosovo was the most important.

“I think we as journalists were part of something. Journalism played an important role (in Kosovo),” he said.

He also recalled a conference with the former President of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, who opted for wagging a pacific resistance, in 1998, where he was asked about the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, which at that time was not widely known. He remembers Rugova’s evasive answer: “I am researching who they are, if they exist, or if it is a Serbian game. The main generator of violence in Kosovo is Serbia.”

According to Loyn, the situation on the ground during the first part of 1998 saw the gradual dissolution of the potential to negotiate an agreement.

“It took many people being expelled from their homes and losing their lives during July, August, and September 1998 until it was more widely accepted by the general population that the KLA was the answer,” he emphasised.

He also recounted his first interview with the KLA, who, according to him, had no media policy.

“They appeared suddenly as an uprising after the Prekaz massacre, which was a big recruitment tool.”

Loyn declared that Fehmi Lladrovci, KLA Commander, “showed great courage when he came out publicly in front of a foreign media outlet in 1998, even though he knew it could cost him his life.”

“The Serbs harassed us a lot in Prishtina, knowing we were Western journalists. One of the harassments they did was damaging our equipment,” Loyn said.

According to him, if we look at the incidents leading up to NATO’s intervention, it is clear that everything begins with the Prekaz massacre in March 1998, but in terms of changing the situation internationally, “a major movement of Serbian tanks came in August which led to more refugees during August and September.”

“When Paddy Ashdown, the former high representative for the Balkans, watched the Serbs from a hill destroying villages, he said: “The people responsible for this, the politicians who ordered this, can be prosecuted for war crimes.”
According to him, the report on the Abria massacre in September 1998 (where 23 members of Deliu family were killed) played a role in NATO’s intervention because it happened just before the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in the United States.

Loyn was awarded the Royal Television Society award, the highest body in Britain that awards journalists for the TV report he did in 19998 called the “The Blood Rock”.

“We saw and recorded people at the extremes of their lives. They had just left their homes. They had lost their homes.”

He emphasised that he was deeply impressed by the way Kosovo is remembering its history.

“The new memorial in Prekaz is very touching, as school buses full of children visit the memorial. They are told that the theme here is the resilience of Albanian culture, not victimisation, but the nature of Albanian resilience,” he added.

In one of his TV reports during the Kosovo war, Loyn reported that children were showing signs of Polio and the Kosovo parallel health system was trying to address it.

“The reason I mentioned polio is that it is considered a symbol of social failure. And when it appears, it means something has really gone wrong with healthcare,” he said.

Pwrparim Rama, the mayor of Prishtina awarded David Loyn with the “Prishtina key” that figuratively opens all doors to the city on the 25 anniversary of the end of the war in Kosovo on 12th of June this year. This was Loyn’s first return to Kosovo after covering the war as a reporter in 1998-1999.