UNMIK ON AIR

31 Dec. & 1^st Jan.

GOODBYE SUSAN

(David Balham)

Susan Manuel: “UNMIK has no intelligence….” (laughs)

Remember this voice? The inimitable Susan Manuel, long-time UNMIK spokeswoman, in action at a press conference. After ten years in the Balkans – in Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo - she wasn’t often caught out without the right answer.

Susan left the mission earlier in the year. Just a couple of hours before her plane took off, we lured her into the UNMIK Radio studio for a farewell interview. How was her three and a half years in Kosovo?

Susan Manuel: It’s been an extremely intense experience, with a lot of tragedies, a lot of crises, a lot of interesting developments, and I think that to have been witness to the development here has been an incredible experience and a privilege. Most people have no such opportunity in their lives.

QU: Tell me about that first day when you rolled in three and a half years ago. You were one of the first.

Yeah, there was a small team of use with Sergio de Mello, we met in Skopje on the 12^th and it was amazing how little prepared this team was for this mission. Of course the UN didn’t know that it would be having the mandate until pretty much the last minute, but we had nothing and here I was supposed to be the spokeswoman, so I went into the office of the chief of mission of the UN in Macedonia and I simply stole his UN flag because I thought we have to have something, you know. So we drove up here and NATO troops had come in the day before, so already there were Albanians on the road waving flowers and waving and that was really very emotional. And then we came to Prishtina, which was a big mess. There were 2500 journalists, mostly internationals, there was basically no water and everyone gathered in the Grand Hotel, where the toilets were overflowing into the lobby, and so there was just this feeling of chaos. Albanians coming back very happy, celebrating day and night, and then at the same time houses burning up in the hills, up in Velanje where I was staying, Serb houses, Roma houses, it was such a strange juxtaposition of scenes.

QU: How much of that sort of thing was going on in those first few days? The burning, the attacks, the continuing to drive out the Serbs?

It went on for quite a while. I remember going to a meeting in the OSCE up on one of their high floors where they have the panorama windows. And you could just see houses burning all over the hills of Prishtina. You know, I’m saying maybe five to ten houses burning at a time. That went on for quite a few weeks, and there was an effort by UNMIK staff and particularly the police, who were very few in number in those first few weeks, to try to stick with those Serbs who wanted to stay, and eventually it became impossible.

One of difficulties Susan faced in her time in Kosovo was poor treatment at the hands of the press. She often found herself misquoted, or accused of bias – particularly for opposing the NATO bombing campaign in 99. The Albanians, it seemed, often saw her as pro-Serb.

Susan Manuel: The fact that I happen to have lived in Belgrade - I’m sorry, I happen to have lived in Cambodia, Ohio, Hawaii, I often opposed my government in my personal views, I opposed bombing in Cambodia, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. But that didn’t change at all the way I carried out my professional duties here.

Conversely, though, the Serbs believed she was pro-Albanian – a sign, perhaps, that she was doing her job well.

Susan Manuel: In some ways I was really punished for my public position, especially in Serbia, the Albanians don’t seem to realize that. When I came back from Belgrade I was saying goodbye to a couple of colleagues in our office and at the last stop on the “autoput” where you pay the ticket toll a man said to me in perfect English, he didn’t even say hello, he didn’t say my name, he just said “You have defended the indefensible.” And I said “Well thank you for your sympathies” and he said “No I have no sympathy for you. Only god will know what to do with you.” Now this was a Serb man in a ticket booth, you know. And Covic often called me a hypocrite.

On the subject of Kosovo’s future, Susan Manuel was diplomatic, calling the subject “something that we are not allowed to speak of” – a reference, of course, to the limitations of SCR 1244. But she did say that there’s one vital condition for Kosovo to move forward.

Susan Manuel: It really depends on if the rule of law can be successfully established. I know people are very worried about the economy, but I think the people of Kosovo are extremely industrious, and they may not know how to make a market private economy work in a government way, but they know how to do it for themselves, so I’m more worried that the objective rule of law must be really established from the locals, not from us.

QU: From a personal point of view, what have been some of the high points, what have been some of the low points over the last three years?

The low points of course are the horrible murders of Serbs and of Albanians. I didn’t know Commander Drini, I knew of Rexhep Luci, and I felt the murder of Rexhep Luci was really such a negative turning point in our time here. That was a man who tried to follow the law, and he was told “no you’re dead.” So for a couple of years after that a lot of people in Prishtina and the rest of Kosovo thought “we can get away with it”. With corruption, with property theft. That’s definitely starting to change. So anyway – I would guess that some of the highs are watching some of the positive changes.

QU: What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you in your three and a half years?

One recent funny thing was when we turned Seselj back, we didn’t allow him to campaign here, and of course it’s always the spokesperson’s fault, you know. We didn’t allow him to campaign, so he went back and gave a campaign rally somewhere that night in southern Serbia, and one of our staff called me and was putting the radio on the phone, and he said that Seselj was saying “Zivali Velika Serbia, and down with the bandits: Nebojsa Covic, Zoran Djindic, and Susan Manuel, and I thought that was really funny”

QU: You made it!

I made it… I made it into the big time.

Susan Manuel is in New York now, working in the UN’s peacekeeping unit. But she says it won’t be long before she’s back.

Susan Manuel: Yeah, of course I’ll come back here. I feel very strongly about this place, whatever they feel about me! (Laughs).

And we’re looking forward to seeing Susan Manuel again. That’s all for today from UNMIK on Air… thanks for listening.