DATE=May 1, 2002

TYPE=English Feature

NUMBER=7-36247

TITLE=Kosovo: Building From the Ground Up

BYLINE=David Sommerstein

TELEPHONE=619-0112

DATELINE=Kosovo

EDITOR=Neal Lavon

CONTENT=

HOST: Last month, members of the U.S. Army's Tenth Mountain Division returned from Afghanistan to their home base at Fort Drum, in New York State. They are now waiting for their comrades-in-arms to return from another international hot spot, Kosovo. As we hear in this Dateline report, in Kosovo, the soldiers of the Tenth Mountain Division were more humanitarians than warriors. Here's Neal Lavon.

NL: More than 3000 American soldiers from Fort Drum are in the last weeks of their deployment to Kosovo. Their main mission was to enforce a safe and secure environment in the war-torn region. To fulfill their mission, the soldiers used music instead of mortars; food rather than force, and humanity over brutality. They worked incessantly to provide humanitarian assistance as a way of bringing ethnic Albanians and ethnic Serbs together and end centuries of hatred. In his third of three reports, David Sommerstein [SUMMER-steen] in Kosovo.

DS: The hospital at Camp Bondsteel is the latest top-notch facility to be completed at the U-S Army's main base here. It cost millions of dollars to build. It's the most sophisticated hospital in all of Kosovo. But it's not just reserved for soldiers. Kosovars who can't be treated at local hospitals are whisked here. And the medical staff ventures out to towns almost every day.

TAPE: CUT 1, NAT SOUND

DS: In the optometry wing, U.S Army soldier from the Tenth Mountain Division, Debra McNamara, digs through a cardboard box the size of a desktop computer. It's full of eyeglasses.

TAPE: CUT 2, MCNAMARA

"See we go through these? People send these to us."

DS: She repairs all these donated American glasses. And she trucks them out to the streets where she fits them on people who haven't seen clearly for years…

TAPE: CUT 3, MCNAMARA

"It's very rewarding especially for the older patients. Some have had cataract surgery or other problems where they need huge prescriptions. Lots of the women cry and the men, they hug you, they come back and give you presents, like we got a couple hats when a tailor who couldn't do his work anymore and we gave him some glasses. They're very giving people. They always want to have you for coffee and they don't have a lot to give."

DS: Medical clinics like these are key to the U-S peacekeeping strategy in Kosovo. One Tenth Mountain officer calls it "security by other means." Fort Drum soldiers still focus on armed patrols and border enforcement to keep a buffer between Serbs and Albanians. But they're also training doctors and firefighters. The army's buying garbage trucks and snowplows for local governments. They're helping to replace the infrastructure destroyed during the war. And they're trying to bring together two cultures that only a couple years ago were killing each other.

TAPE CUT 4, NAT SOUND/ HUMVEES

DS: It's a foggy afternoon when a convoy of humvees [armored troop transport vehicle] heads out to the mountain town of Pones [PONE-ish]. Piles of garbage line the roads. In town after town, half of the homes are unfinished red brick skeletons. My interpreter explains that owners ran out of money to finish them or didn't want to pay taxes on a completed home.

Pones is a mixed ethnic town it's 70 percent Albanian, 30 percent Serbian. The Americans consider it somewhat of a success story. After the war ended in 1999, inter-ethnic murders rocked Pones, like most other towns in Kosovo. But the U-S troops have been working to overcome the deep hate. They've convinced Serbs and Albanians to send their kids to the same school. Not at the same time they have a split schedule. But at least, they're using the same building.

NL: We'll have more from David Sommerstein in Kosovo.

Now back to David Sommerstein in Kosovo, and an attempt by the Tenth Mountain Division to bring Serbs and Albanians together for some music.

TAPE: CUT 5, NAT SOUND/ CHILDREN PLAYING

DS: Today Fort Drum's band transported from its headquarters in New York State for a three-day tour of Kosovo is playing at the Pones school. The goal seems simple: to get both Serbs and Albanians to come to the concert.

TAPE: CUT 6, NAT SOUND/ SOCCER GAME

DS: As the band sets up in front of the run-down schoolhouse, Serbian kids show off their soccer skills for the soldiers. Sixteen year-old Zvezdon says before the war, Serbian and Albanian kids used to play basketball and soccer here together…

TAPE: CUT 7, ZVEZDON

"But after war, nothing. Albanian hate Serb. Serb hate Albanian. All day, shoot, shoot. Nothing good."

DS: The memories of violence are still fresh. Only Serbs, and a few Albanian children, gather as the band begins to play…

TAPE: CUT 8, MUSIC

DS: Children jostle each other for a spot up close. Tuba player Private Zach Da Shiell [de SHEEL] says even though the audience isn't as mixed as he had hoped, small steps like these are important…

TAPE: CUT 9, DA SHIELL

"Here we are playing in a war torn country, both Serbs and Albanians, that came together to just listen to us play instead of them fighting or in a conflict or something. It was quite a treat."

DS: The adults are all Serbs -- stand a good distance away with solemn faces. Alexander Risic [RIH-sich], the Serb Mayor of Pones, is among them.

TAPE: CUT 10, RSIC (IN SERBIAN)

DS: The music is good for the town, he says, but the fact that no Albanians are here is a sign that they don't like the Serbs. If Pones is truly going to be multiethnic, he adds, then the minority Serbs will need proof from the Albanians that they'll be safe.

[MORE SERBIAN]

DS: Two Albanian men creep up to listen. They stand apart from the rest of the audience. One of them, Verton Shola, says he has no problem sharing the concert with Serbs.

TAPE: CUT 11, SHOLA (IN ALBANIAN)

DS: The real problem is investment, he says. If there were enough money to build new homes and fix the roads, Albanians and Serbs would get along just fine.

[MORE ALBANIAN]

DS: For many Kosovars, this growing concern over the destitute economy and the 55 percent unemployment rate are becoming more important than hundreds of years of ethnic hatred. And the military and relief agencies see money as the key to a lasting peace.

TAPE: CUT 12, MEEHAN

"If you hold an ethnic tension in front of a basic need, you will let go of an ethnic tension to meet that basic need of either housing or food or shelter or your kids going to school."

DS: Shannon Meehan directs health and economic aid programs in Kosovo for the relief agency the American Refugee Committee, or A-R-C. She says reopening local stores and rebuilding traditional cottage industries is the greatest connector…

TAPE: CUT 13, MEEHAN

"We've discovered in projects with A-R-C and other NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that the Albanian women are really good at the selling of things and the Serb women are much better at the lace making. So there's a connnection. They form a business relationship. They're fine."

DS: As for the peacekeeping troops, Ms. Meehan has nothing but praise. The only problem is the experienced soldiers rotate out every six months. She says the troops play a crucial role in setting up business connections. While groups like A-R-C have the money, it's the soldiers who get to know people in the towns while they're on patrol.

TAPE: CUT 14: NAT SOUND/ GNJILANE

DS: In Gnjilane [jih-LAHN-ee], the largest city in this part of Kosovo, Tenth Mountain Sergeant Eric Knoll patrols a busy intersection. He's in full battle gear flak jacket, helmet, and M-16 rifle. He points to a dozen men chatting on the sidewalk, waiting for work…

TAPE: CUT 15, KNOLL

"They'll stand on the corner waiting for someone to pick 'em up, maybe some farmers are around that need an extra hand that day. They hire them, maybe give 'em four or five deutschmarks for working. They stand here and wait every single day."

DS: The opportunities for jobs are still few. But before the peacekeeping mission, men like these were involved in crime and violence. Sergeant Knoll says his patrols are making a safe space for Kosovars to return to everyday life.

TAPE: CUT 16, KNOLL

"When we walk up and down these streets, you do it so often, you don't think you're doing anything, but when you sit down and talk to the people, you get a sense of, I don't know, pride about being here. It makes you feel good."

DS: It's these daily things -- jobs, stores, hospitals, garbage trucks that will be the landmarks of a permanent peace when the peacekeepers go home.

For Dateline, I'm David Sommerstein in Kosovo.

NL: David Sommerstein's reports from Kosovo were heard on previous editions of Dateline. To end our program, we'll hear the Tenth Mountain Division's song, Climb to Glory.

It says, "we go where others dare not go… through the heat or cold or snow…climb to glory, Mountain Infantry." For Dateline, I'm Neal Lavon.

MUSIC: SNEAK CLIMB TO GLORY, PLAY TO TIME.