![[The First Casualty]](pix/Wartitle.gif)
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Hamide Latifi, journalist and active trade unionist who fled Kosova last year explains the appalling conditions under which ethnic Albanian journalists have had to operate. The following transcript is from a speech made on 18 May.
We have had 10 years of war in Kosova. NATO involvement is only the latest phase. The problem has been the West's lack of information about our conditions - and the West's lack of interest until recently.
Independent journalism died a long time ago in Serbia -- and many journalists were independent in name only. The media there has a big responsibility for what has happened, and encouraging hatred towards Albanians.
From 1981 onward the Serbian media has campaigned against everything which was Albanian.
As a result of this campaign, Albanian television and radio and Rilindja, the main daily and the only Albanian newspaper in Kosova, for two milion Kosovans, were suspended.
At that time (10 years ago) when we were left without any sources of information and even last year, after my two colleagues were shot in the middle of Prishtina, I didn't hear much of a reaction against Milosevic's regime. And I didn' t feel support as it has happened to the Serbian media this year, because a lot of them have played a part in making this war happen.
They gave life to Milosevic, who destroyed many of them later.
We have been demonised. But Serbs are even bigger victims than us: they will have to live with what has been done in their name (and often by them personally) to people of another ethnic group, the Kosovans. The government, the regime is strong because Serbs - including journalists - didn't fight.
There are no links between different journalist unions within what was Yugoslavia. The "independent media" allowed us to be made less than human. There is no practical basis for unity.
I have never felt free as a journalist in my country, and I started in 1984. I have never been a member of any party. There was some space until 1989. But in 1990 my paper was closed. The journalistic staff was first split on ethnic lines and finally the Albanians were expelled from the building.
From three floors of space we were pushed in to a corner of part of one floor and forced to pay rent for our building. At the same time our Serbian collegues opened restaurants and coffee shops in our (ex-) offices.
For five years in the 1990s I was president of the "Rilindja" trade union of journalists. It was the most difficult period of my life, having to deal with people who didn't even have bread - although Kosovan journalists performed their jobs well in the circumstances.
I was arrested the first time for delivering sugar and other essentials to members of the union: I was accused of feeding terrorists
In March 1998 I was arrested again after I took a picture of an armed Serbian journalist hitting a demonstrator. The same journalist, Rade Negojevic, reporting for Belgrade newspaper, caught me and reported me to the special police. I spoke in English, and the police took me for a British journalist, and released me.
I never risk using my journalist ID at events I am covering; you cannot risk being seen interviewing someone for fear that Serb journalists we see, never mind the police.
I witnessed atrocities in the countryside. My colleagues have been threatened: "We will rape your wife, your daughter and anyone who is dear to you. Two my collegues Enver Maloku, head of the Kosova Informnation Centre, and Afrim Maliqi, a Rilindja journalist, were shot. Their killers are still free. It doesn't mater who fired the shots, it was Milosevic who killed them.
In the circumstances when Kosovan Albanian journalists are scattered all over the world, we are now trying to build a network of journalists in exile in Tirana, Shkup (Skopje) and Geneva.
Because of my experiences I support NATO's intervention and the bombing campaign. But just bombing is not enough, they should send ground troops in order to make it possible for people - and journalists - to go back.