Elez Biberaj, a journalist who has spent 40 years at the Voice of America, shared his experience covering the Balkans, especially Kosovo, during the turmoil in the 1990s.
Elez Biberaj, a Voice of America journalist, reflected in an interview with BIRN on how the 1980-1990s rising tensions in Kosovo prompted VOA leadership to send correspondents to report from the region.
Biberaj, an ethnic Albanian from Montenegro, migrated to the U.S. with his family at the age of 15. He began working at VOA in 1980 as a journalist, eventually leading the Albanian Service for nearly two decades. From 2005 to 2020, he served as director of VOA’s Eurasian division, overseeing broadcasts to Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the Balkans.
He believes that VOA played a crucial role during this period. “In a very critical time, the Voice of America managed to unify, in a way, Albanians from Kosovo, intellectuals from Albania, and those in the diaspora.”
When it came to reporting on Kosovo in the 1980-1990s, “it was difficult to get approval for publishing interviews with critical views, especially since Yugoslavia was considered an ally of the United States,” he recalled, claiming there was hesitation to publish anything perceived as critical of the former Yugoslav government.
“We started covering developments in Kosovo immediately after the 1981 demonstrations,” Biberaj said, recalling the period of intense repression against Kosovo Albanians.
Fighting to tell the truth
As head of VOA’s Albanian Service, Biberaj oversaw two significant interviews with Kosovo’s first president, Ibrahim Rugova.
In one of them, in June 1989, Rugova’s comments on the nationalist speech given by Slobodan Milosevic weeks before the anniversary celebration of the Kosovo Battle led to tensions within VOA.
“My director called me into his office, saying, ‘This will not air,’ Biberaj recalled. “I argued it was a violation of our standards. The Voice of America should not be subject to political interference.”
Eventually, Biberaj managed to broadcast the interview one day later.
“At the time, U.S. policy was largely influenced by diplomats who had served in Yugoslavia, an ally of the U.S. This policy did not begin to shift until the 1990s”, Biberaj said.
Rugova had called Milosevic’s commemoration of the Battle of Kosovo a provocation.
“This jubilee, as it was organised, seems to be politically unwise. It is aimed at political deals and the current Serbian political profile. The battle was a historical fact, but it should be remembered that it involved Albanians, Hungarians, and Bosnians – a coalition against the Turks, not just a Serbian battle,” Rugova has said in the interview.
Biberaj also interviewed Adem Demaçi, Kosovo political activist and political representative of Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, known as the “Mandela of the Balkans” because of his long imprisonment for his political views.
In one interview, conducted shortly after his release from a Yugoslav prison in April 1990, where he had been imprisoned for 30 years, Demaçi had said that “people are now determined to live free.”
Despite his suffering, Demaçi referred to Serbs as “our brothers,” Biberaj noted, emphasising the activist’s interesting character.
“Imagine, he spent 30 years in prison and referred to Serbs as ‘our brothers.'”
Present during the making of history
Biberaj had translated for Demaçi during a 1992 meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, where Demaçi presented Kosovo’s demands for independence.
“When Eagleburger said the U.S. did not yet support Kosovo’s independence, Demaçi calmly replied, “that’s fine, today you don’t support it, but tomorrow you may change your mind.”
The meeting lasted over an hour, much longer than the scheduled 15 minutes. Biberaj suspects Eagleburger extended the meeting deliberately, as it was witnessed by the Yugoslav ambassador.
“When the ambassador saw Demaçi leaving the Secretary’s office, I thought he was going to faint,” Biberaj added.
In a 1999 interview for VoA during the Rambouillet peace talks between politicians from Kosovo and Serbia, Hashim Thaçi, leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Thaçi criticised Rugova’s actions during the Kosovo War, particularly his meetings with Serbian officials and Russian diplomats.
Biberaj would also act as a translator for U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during key meetings in the Rambouillet negotiations, witnessing firsthand the relations between Rugova and Thaçi.
“The Albanian delegation was united, while Rugova had been sidelined as the number one leader of the Albanians, with Hashim Thaçi emerging as the main leader. Rugova, willingly or unwillingly, had accepted this position,” Biberaj explained.