Traveling to north part of Kosovo

Krzysztof,

I have travelled there during the Kosovo independence declaration time. The northern part of Mitrovica and beyond is very tense. At that time, Serbs of Kosovo were very hostile towards nationals of countries recognizing the independence of Kosovo… but I don’t think you would experience any unfortunate incident as a Polish since I didn’t as a Turk :)

If you need a contact for a fixer/taxi, I can PM you the number of a Serb taxi driver working in northern Mitrovica and the region. But he doesn’t speak English, only Serbian…

T.

Tamer,

Thanks for your info and help. I’ll be grateful for the number you mentioned (though I don’t speak Serbian it might be useful).
cheers,
Krzysztof

My own recommendation is to first spend a few days making the rounds in Belgrade. Contact people and organizations involved there and come in from Serbia, rather than from the south.

The most important thing with Serbs for your security is knowledge. If you are just another brush-fire jumper, eager to get some great photos and opportunistically “ride the gravy train” you will indeed be viewed with hostility. However if you arm youself with some real facts and history, rather than the usual CNN/State Department/Time/Newsweek crap, you will receive much better reception, and better able to become the RELIABLE LINK BETWEEN FACTS ON THE GROUND AND PUBLIC OPINION which is ultimately our job.

Start here:

1) The First Casualty: From Crimea to Kosovo –The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth Maker, Phillip Knightly
2) Degraded Capability: The Media and the Kosovo Crisis, Phillip Hammond
3) Liar’s Poker: The Great Powers, Yugoslavia, and the Wars of the Future, Michel Collon
4) Fool’s Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions, Diana Johnstone
5) NATO’s Empty Victory, Ted Galen Carpenter
6) One Woman’s War, Eve Ann Prentice
7) Diary of an UN-Civil War, Scott Taylor
8) Tested Mettle, Scott Taylor
9) INAT: Images of Serbia and the Kosovo Conflict, Scott Taylor
10) To Kill a Nation, Michael Parenti
11) Masters of the Universe?, Tariq Ali
12) Kosovo Crisis: A Study in Foreign Policy Mismanagement, Vojin Joksimovic

Good luck, be safe, and be accurate.

Hi Russell,
Thank you for your reply. You are absolutely right about the konwledege. And thats why I wanted to go there (and to any other place) – to learn more about the people and see how the place look – not how it look in TV – and than maybye take some photos. So I don’t see myself as you said “another brush-fire jumper” (if I was the one I’d rather go there 3 weeks before)but I understand your point.
Best
K.

Russell might be much more informed and experienced on the subject than I am, but my personal recomendation for a basic knowledge on the Balkans would be that book; Hearts Grown Brutal, Roger Cohen. A must read…

Given Cohen’s rather politicised coverage of the Bosnia conflict, I’d probably not recommend him as a source, but I have not read it. If you want credible sources with a New York Times affiliation, try Steven Erlanger, David Binder, or the late AM Rosenthal.

Good luck!

I can recommend reading and fully digesting Cees Wiebes’ “Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992-1995”. ISBN 3825863476
It is most excellent in giving the reader an idea of the centres of power and underlying conflicts, which is still relevant. This book is the official Dutch inquiry to study why the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica occurred and on publication in 2002, the government promptly resigned. Many within the intelligence community regard this report as the first of real report on how intelligence agencies, militaries and states, along with the UN and NGOs communicate and make decisions.

For those who want immerse themselves in other “US/NATO/UK + UN/NGO + other states”-conflicts, this book also offers an interesting but sobering view on coalition-building.

Good Luck!

I am not familiar with the above mentioned book, but perhaps it holds some very valid information. I do tend to withold the use of sloganeering like “highly regarded in the intel community” or similarly when people refer to the NYT as the “newspaper of record”, etc ad nauseum. When we follow these slogans and phrases to their origins, it often winds up to have been self-generated PR by the author or publisher that the public begins to parrot.

That said, an author certainly widely known in all Western intelligence circles for his Balkans and Middle East expertise is Yossef Bodansky. Two of his books are critical for understanding Islamist and Western covert ops, and bias, in the Balkans:
1( Offensive in the Balkans;
2) Some Call It Peace.

Good luck!