Well, it was during the war so it was kind of like controlled chaos really, it was a
very oppressive atmosphere, I mean at that time there was very few cars around, lots
of Serbian police, army, special police units, checkpoints everywhere, there was a kind
of huge air of tension and, you know, the population was very frightened. Yeah, so it
was at the beginning the fighting was made in the countryside so you would drive out
through the checkpoints to find the fighting and yeah, or teetering on the brink of kind
of anarchy. Now that's a long question, well it varies, you know, I mean what I found with
the Albanians was that they were always very, very quite clever in their relations with
the media, they always, they knew the value of the media better than the Serbs, the Serbs
for whatever reason, Serbian police were usually quite harsh with us, the KLA, they had their
kind of strict rules and they could be very bureaucratic but they gave us good access,
it was different in those days to conflicts now, I mean in those times both sides needed
you in a way and so they kind of both put up with you and, you know, for that war we
could drive around in a normal car, not necessarily a normal car and just drive through the countryside
and find whatever was happening, completely different to how conflicts are going today.
Yeah, a few times, yeah, I mean if you're going to be in the total recovery of war eventually
something bad is going to happen to you, it's just, you know, you can take precautions
as much as you like but when the bad things happen it comes out of the blue, it's just
a mistake you've made or something completely out of your control and all of a sudden you,
I mean the thing that goes through your mind when you get in a bad situation, a life-threatening
situation is Jesus, you know, how stupid would it be for me to die for this because it's
never in the big battle, it's always some sort of crappy little firefight somewhere
that actually means nothing, you know, you realise when you come in the war that it's
not all big battles and it's small killings here and there and small atrocities here and
when you look at the whole picture it seems like a big thing but when you break it down
it's a lot of little instances and occurrences that by themselves don't have such a big meaning.
That was, you know, for the Albanians that was an amazing moment for them, you know,
it was the end of nearly a century of Serbian rule for the Serbs, it was a catastrophe but
it was interesting in Mitrovica, the northern part of Mitrovica, we were there two days
before independence when everybody knew it was going to be independent of it, I think
the only people in the world who didn't know it was going to happen were the Serbian population
in Mitrovica because their government had not told them, it was going to happen.
But it was an amazing thing to photograph.
Hesitations, there's many reasons I think, a lot of countries like Spain, Russia, China
they all have separatist movements within their borders and so they don't want to recognise
Kosovo because they don't believe it sets a precedent.
America, Britain and the rest claim that it doesn't set a precedent but in reality it does set a precedent.
Otherwise ideological reasons, maybe they're close to Serbia, maybe they're vacuuming the
opposition, it's a problem for Kosovo I think, and I think the Kosovo Albanian leadership
have not put in as much effort as maybe they should have done.
I think maybe there's a feeling there because they had the majority of the EU plus America
plus Britain, they felt that was enough but maybe they need to send out some more different
information.
So I think with this there's been a little bit of misreporting because what I think is
impossible is that it was a policy of the Kosovo Liberation Army or that it was happening
during the fighting, I don't believe that's true, I think the media have reported it wrong.
I think the allegations are that it was after the war because the majority of Serbs that
were missing were missing after the war, after June 1999.
So do I think the Kosovo Liberation Army were doing it as the Kosovo Liberation Army?
No, I don't, but possibly, I don't know, it's alleged.
I think it would have been possible after the war some elements of the Kosovo Liberation Army
may have been possible for them to do that but during the war and as a policy of the
Kosovo Liberation Army no, impossible because even logistically it would have been impossible
to do.
I mean the NATO troops were crawling all over the area, they were in Albania, all over northern
Albania.
How would you physically get the kidneys within 24 hours to Italy on those roads?
You would have to do it by helicopter, that's impossible because the airspace was controlled
by NATO so NATO would have had to have been aware of it so that is just pie in the sky,
I would say that's propaganda, to try to make the Kosovo Liberation Army look as bad as
the other side.
But after the war, that's a different question.
I'm not allowed to say too much but it was good, it was a very interesting day and I thought
the level of creativity was very high, it was good.
I was impressed with the winners, I think we could show some good winners and yeah, the
level of creativity was good.
I can't say too much because I'm not allowed.
