The story spinner and his country’s reputation

While people in Kosovo, with the highest degree of hostility, condemn Marty’s report, the bad news has travelled a long way at the speed of light. I must say, last week I would have probably avoided entering my University library in Hull had I known that I’d be faced with a snide comment of this nature: “Hey mate, how much for a kidney? The rates on ks-gov.net need updating!”

Although the levels of dry British humour are highly concentrated in this comment, it ought to be noticed that the world now sees Kosovo as home to institutionalised, organised human trafficking. Now, having high government officials under investigation clearly does not help our case in defending ourselves, but seriously, can we not make the distinction between targeting leaders of a country versus targeting a whole nation? This is, unfortunately, at best foolhardy.

When the report emerged during mid-December last year in the wake of industrial scale fraud allegations in the general elections, its direct target was Kosovo’s departing PM Hashim Thaci and his clique. Not long after publication of the report, which was clearly putting Thaci under the spotlight, it suddenly, by magic, became ‘the report against the whole nation’ and became labelled as an anti-Kosovo move prepared by serbophiles.
Hashim Thaci acted quickly and sharply. He was well aware that spinning the story as if the whole KLA and Kosovo was being named and shamed for organ trafficking would be a clever ruse. This, of course, paid dividends by causing major public objections to the report.

Smothered by emotions of hatred after the accusations, Kosovo Albanians today are not interested in probing and scrutinising the allegations in the report. We are far too busy signing petitions like headless chickens. Spinning the story this way has also been helpful in diverting attention from the fraudulent Kosovo elections.
Headlines screaming rigged elections and the organ trafficking ordeal have severely tarnished Kosovo’s reputation and this will inevitably weaken our position during the EU’s attempts to glue Kosovo and Serbia to the negotiating table.

The resolution adopted by the Council of Europe calling for an investigation into Marty’s allegations should be acted upon immediately for two reasons. One, the public in Kosovo is owed the truth. Two, if Marty’s allegations are found to be true, Kosovo risks entering negotiations led by individuals who have lost any semblance of respectability.

The people of Kosovo are owed the truth on many other issues, but we seem incapable of demanding it. We are far too forgiving and don’t hold our leaders accountable for any allegations or their actions.
Will Kosovo one day follow the same path as the Egyptians are now? I hope we can avoid this, but I am not convinced.