Two Summers In Kosovo

We all watched it happen on television: 1 million refugees displaced from their homes; 78 days of NATO bombing over Belgrade and Prishtina; the destruction of whole villages and innocent lives. In the spring of 1999, Kosovo had become the battlefront for Balkan’s latest war. In the immediate aftermath of the war, some historians labeled the ethnic cleansing of Serbs and Albanians during the conflict as one the worst political crimes in Europe since World War II. The images were horrifying and indelible, but who can be blamed for not feeling any lingering attachment to a war that had few perceivable consequences for North Americans? No more than a few months later, our journalists had turned their attention to capturing new human disasters for our daily news programs, while the job of rebuilding and finding justice for thousands of displaced souls transitioned to the United Nations, NATO, OSCE and several dozen NGOs. The real “story” was just about to begin.