UNMIK ON AIR

YOUNG PEOPLE MEET IN OHRID

By Zoran CULAFIC and Sputnik KILAMBI

A farewell party in Ohrid for 60 young people from Kosovo and Macedonia, at the end of a nine-day youth reconciliation camp organized by the OSCE.

Hello and welcome to this special documentary program on UNMIK ON AIR

The Ohrid meet brought together 30 young activists from Kosovo’s Peya/Pec municipality and a similar multiethnic group from the Macedonian town of Kumanovo - Albanians, Serbs, Macedonians, Bosniaks, Romas, Egyptians, Ashkalis spending hours on end together, discussing every subject under the sun to move towards a common aim: how to promote peace and reconciliation in the traumatized Balkan region.

This wasn’t the first such initiative – many of them still remember the trip to Northern Ireland last year for first-hand experience of how people from another divided society are trying to overcome the legacy of conflict and prejudice. But this project was the first of its kind to have been organized for Kosovo and Macedonia in over ten years, despite the mutual border and the short distance -- about eighty kilometers -- between the two capitals. Relations have also been undermined by the conflict in Macedonia two years ago, which left an atmosphere of bitterness and mistrust.

It felt like a school summer excursion at the Ohrid camp, where everybody is happy and no one interested in your ethnic background – seemingly a far cry from the reality of life in Kosovo and Macedonia.

That was the aim though - to gather young people from different origins and for them to understand that everyone is different, but that people are the same.

Natasa Stojkovska is a trainer from Kumanovo and works for a youth-NGO that seeks to help young people articulate and realize their ambitions.

Natasa Stojkovska: The key goal is that young people establish cooperation at a regional level. Here we have representatives from all ethnic groups in Macedonia and Kosovo and we hope that cooperation between them will continue even after this seminar is finished.

The emphasis was on interactive methods, which according to Natasha, have given the best results – games and theatre as well as training sessions on communication skills, conflict analysis, team-building and intercultural learning, understanding of interethnic dialogue, and youth-oriented media lessons. A documentary film and newsletter was also produced during the nine days.

A Macedonian in her mid-twneties, Eli Cvetanova is an editor with the private Sitel TV station in Skopje and conducted TV journalism courses for the young participants on the Ohrid camp. Teamwork she says is of the utmost importance and that one of the best things about the group is that no one asked about anybody else’s ethnic origin.

Eli Cvetanova: You’ll be surprised when you see that there are no more stereotypes in their minds. They are making friends amongst themselves here, with us too; they’re practically all the time together. Going out together, kissing, hugging, drinking coffee together. It’s fantastic. They do not live with the old stereotypes. They are just young people who want to learn something, who want to find their future place in society and who want to have fun.

A major reason for the lack of prejudice, according to Eli Cvetanova, is because they are not poisoned with politics. She’s not surprised that they are more into MTV than BBC journalism, it’s got too much politics for them and not a world they can identify with.

Project director Marija Stojanovska feels both sides can learn from the similar conflicts that tore apart their societies, Kosovo in 1999 and Macedonia two years later

Marija Stojanovska: I believe these youngsters can contribute a lot, they are like a sponge, they absorb everything and they have many skills. This is a very progressive generation.

A billboard in the Ohrid hotel where seminar was held proves the point - we are all different, we are all the same. A view shared by this 17-year-old girl from Kumanovo.

17-year-old girl: It’s super here, we are making friends and there are a lot useful things for us to learn I have learned about conflict situations, how to overcome it, to resolve it. The ethnic origin is not important. All of us are the same; human and we should become friends.

Obrad Milicevic comes from Gorazdevac near Peye/Pec He said that Ohrid summer camp offered good pointers as to how to push the reconciliation process in Kosovo.

His NGO Krug has linked up with six other NGO’s from Peye/Pec and neighboring regions, and has now hooked with a similar Macedonian network.

But he is aware that the reality in Kosovo is very different and that it will take time for people to get used to the idea of living together again.

Obrad Milicevic: This is just the beginning, it’ll need some more time to get a real reconciliation but I think that time will come. This friendship is very important for us. I have met many people here and now we are good friends, we call each other by phone often and so one step is already made.

If only young people like those gathered together in Ohrid could take over the political reins in Kosovo and elsewhere in the region instead of the current crop of politicians, he says. Politicians clearly leave these young people unimpressed. Take Gazmend Gudaci from Kumanovo – nobody is interested in politics these days, he says.

Gazmend Gudaci: You see, youngsters have a lot of interests, they are interested in entertainment at this age, they are fresh and want to learn new things every day. At the same time this is a good initiative, to break the stereotypes and prejudices that people have.

Jaime Valles, democratization officer at the OSCE stresses that the Ohrid summer camp was very much a local initiative. The OSCE he says only facilitated the event and that given the success of this and past meetings; there will definitely be a follow-up.

Jaime Valles: these people, at the end of the day, are very active and can be seen as leaders, and, why not, some of them could have a political career in the future.

The future does depend on the younger generation, agrees Hysen Pelaj, a former English language teacher in Peye/Pec

Hysen Pelaj: There is no doubt that this region could be better if it were governed by such people. I am not accusing politicians, but anyhow I think they are closer to reality. It would be easier to achieve the joint goal of living together in a peaceful Balkans and a united Europe. Of course there are still barriers, but with hard work, the goal can be achieved.

18-year-old Arsenije Donic is also from Gorazdevac, where he edits a monthly magazine.

There was suspicion initially in his village when he said he and some of his friends from Gorazdevac had decided to join the Ohrid gathering, especially because they would spend so much time with Albanians. But crossing to the other side and looking at things from another perspective was an eye-opener he says.

Arsenije Donic: Before that the picture we had about Albanians came only from the media. It’s all about absolutely normal people, but before I did not think like that, I was thinking all of them are the same, that all of them hate us, that we think totally differently, but here you have young people and we do have more or less common goals – we just want to build our future in the best possible way.

Arsenije Donic: For example, in my village they told us in the beginning – you should not do that, it is not good, or they called us a spy etc, but later on they slowly realized that the reality is different from what they think. After speaking with us and hearing our story they say – oh, that does not look so bad. But in the beginning it looks impossible – how can Serbs and Albanians make friends and when I tell them that we stay up until dawn, making friends, talking with each other, it raises some suspicions, but people think like that only until they go there and see for themselves.

The youth from Kumanovo and Peya/Pec did go and see – and it seems that all of them have learnt to see again, as it were, without the distorting lens of prejudice, suspicion and revenge.

Hysen Pelaj: Both regions face similar problems, but slowly these barriers, these prejudices have started to crumble, because here, you really cannot see who belongs to which community, everyone looks the same.

Gazmend Gudaci: I think the future could be good, but everything depends on us, particularly the young people, Young people need to make the first steps that will lead to a better future for the whole region.

Toplica: When we were on our way here, there were doubts at the beginning, like, who knows what is going to happen, maybe there will be some kind of discrimination there etc, but when you come here you see that you do not have to be frightened of anybody, after a few days all of us were one.

Toplica: Politics is the last thing we talk about. Not because we do not want to speak about politics, but simply young people are aware that if you start talking about some political issues then there can be conflict.

Arsenije Donic: But one must be realistic, accept what happened and face the truth. But everyone is trying to escape from it, because they don’t like the truth. Until we realize this, young people particularly, there will be no change, and this is not just true only for Albanians or Serbs there are similar conflicts everywhere in the world, Northern Ireland for example but until people realize they have to face the truth, there wont be any progress.

A message then for the politicians who control their peoples’ destiny – So many years wasted, so many lives lost in so many years of conflict. The future, insist the generation who will inherit this region, must be different.

This was a special UNMIK ON AIR programme. It was compiled and written by Zoran Culafic and produced by Martin Redi.