Almost three months ago, when this reporter spent time in Mitrovica and asked the young men "on watch" at the bridge how much truth there was to the stories that a certain Oliver Ivanovic, a mechanical engineer and former master of karate, was their leader he was told that "Ogi [nickname for Oliver] rules". When asked who elected him, the reporter was told that the British queen had not been elected in parliamentary elections, either.
REPORTER: I am interested in who really did elect you to represent the people in the north part of Mitrovica?
IVANOVIC: In the very beginning, during the first few days, there was a group of people who had organized themselves, some twenty of them. Several of them came to me and asked me to join them. I wasn't interested. I was already prepared to move away. Then they asked me to stay several days and help them to organize the group. Since I have considerable experience as a coach, they felt that a sort of a match was under way and that they could use a coach. I accepted, got involved in the game, and for a quite a while there was a kind of collective administration with seven members which, like a sort of contingency team, solved all the problems and made important and less important decisions. That's how it all began; then, with time, the organization grew, it became larger and larger, and once it had more than hundred members a need arose for that organization to have some sort of political, I would say, position. Even though we had had a series of other offers in the meanwhile, we had rejected them all because we did not want the opening up of political party problems to become an issue. We decided to accept the offer of the Serb National Council, a unique political movement whose fate lay in our own hands. The Serb National Council, by remaining open to all political parties, became an important political factor and we gained a political wing. Someone had to represent us, on behalf of the organized citizens, in contacts with domestic and foreign factors. I was elected president of the executive board of the district board. This position included official contacts with the other side.
REPORTER: You are in contact with key people in KFOR and UNMIK but also with representatives of the Albanian side, especially Bajram Rexhepi, the mayor of the south part of the city. I have heard that in addition to English you speak excellent Albanian. In what language do you communicate with Mr. Rexhepi?
IVANOVIC: In situations where he addresses me first in Albanian, I respond first in Albanian without any qualms, of course, because this doesn't bother me at all. If both of us speak exclusively in our own language it isn't going to prove that he is a bigger Albanian or that I am a bigger Serb. I don't care what language we speak as long as we understand each other.
REPORTER: But apparently you understand each other less and less. Mr. Rexhepi has decided to break off all contact with you!
IVANOVIC: That says a lot about him, not about me. I have always been in favor of dialogue and I am prepared to negotiate with all sides involved in all of this.
REPORTER: Sorry for asking, but in what language do you communicate with Zoran Andjelkovic, the president of the temporary executive council of Kosovo?
IVANOVIC: I don't communicate with him in either Albanian or English. He doesn't come here. I know Zoran personally as the minister of sports and in that capacity we have met several times. Since he has come here he has not come to see me and he hasn't called. I would go see him without any qualms because he is a representative of the country which I consider to be my own. Regardless of perhaps some differences of opinion, I think that it would be beneficial for us to talk, for the good of these people, whether I were to call him or he were to call me, whether he were to come here or I were to go there. It doesn't make any difference at all.
REPORTER: Has he had contacts, at least, with the people?
IVANOVIC: No, he has had no contacts with the people, either.
REPORTER: You have just said that all political parties have merged into a single movement. Does that mean that there are no party activities going on in this area?
IVANOVIC: You could say that, more or less. Of course, those parties which did not enter the Serb National Council... for example, it is a fact that the Socialist Party of Serbia does not acknowledge or recognize the leadership of the Serb National Council in this area but, viewed objectively, this doesn't mean anything to the people, which is very important, and to KFOR and UNMIK, which is less important but not insignificant. They have some political activities such as forums and meetings but they have no real influence and contact with the people, and no influence on the decisions of UNMIK and KFOR.
REPORTER: I have heard, for example, that they "hold" Zvecan?
IVANOVIC: That is not true. Not true at all. Especially of Zvecan.
REPORTER: But that is where those forums and meetings are taking place, that is where Tatjana Lenard visited a few days ago and delivered some kind of humanitarian aid on behalf of the Yugoslav United Left!?
IVANOVIC: They are constantly delivering something but that is their only contact with the people, through humanitarian aid. However, despite these humanitarian shipments and contacts of this type I do not believe that their reputation is improving in this region. Simply put, the people are disappointed in the former administration which led this city. It did not succeed in stopping migration, it did not succeed in organizing the people, in opposing the attacks of Shiptars [Kosovo Albanians], UNMIK and KFOR all of whom acted in a very synchronized manner in the beginning. It did not succeed in establishing a single citizens' organization, so to speak. The citizens organized themselves; I have already said that we accepted the political position of the Serb National Council as our own.
REPORTER: The political positions of the Serb National Council of Mitrovica and of the central Serb National Council don't appear to have much in common. I have noticed that there is considerable animosity toward [Bishop] Artemije and Momcilo Trajkovic in Mitrovica.
IVANOVIC: That is true. The people unmistakably recognize a political game when they see it. I also think that a big political game is hiding behind them and that there is an attempt by some people to realize their influence through Bishop Artemije, a respectable ecclesiastic with a high position in the church, and Momo Trajkovic, a former politician who is again becoming active. We believe that we have in principle the same task but we also have rather different ways of achieving it: they are not even attempting to contact the ordinary Serb citizens, they are interested exclusively in contacts at a high level. Those of us in the Serb National Council in Mitrovica are not interested in this: we represent our people with full authority, we have an established political structure, we have lively contacts with boards wherever a need exists and we are trying to resolve the common, everyday issues which are significant for the normalization of life, inasmuch as we can talk about that in this region. Over there, it is a different story.
REPORTER: Here, then, they have no influence at all?
IVANOVIC: None. They only have people who are on the payroll. Therefore, we did not fight to have this kind of recognition. Our first goal in the beginning was to defend ourselves. We didn't even think about anything else. With time, the idea of defending the city, the bridges and the boundary became recognized and won popular support among the people. The course was completely normal: from the foundation, the common folk, to a structure, to recognition for what we are doing. Simply put, I say, perhaps this is not a good indicator. But it is what it is. Our rallies are an indicator. They are attended by twenty five hundred to six thousand people. It is difficult to get that many people together anywhere in Kosovo.
REPORTER: During the last few weeks, Mitrovica has become the center of the world, at least as far as media are concerned. Earlier you didn't really care for reporters.
IVANOVIC: That is not true. We even talk with those who portray us completely differently from what we really are. We have become interesting for the foreign media because everyone sees that something is going on in Mitrovica. They understand that some kind of organization is involved. We are constantly being observed by foreign media and they have not found anything wrong with us. Up to now they have been saying very ugly things about us, especially in the beginning and continuing on to September. Since September their treatment of us changed a little bit; we are always the ones who are defending ourselves, the Shiptars are always the ones who are attacking. They are always trying to resolve things by violence. The reporters have seen through their intentions and stories about multiethnicity, and they have seen what is behind those stories. But it is difficult to bring about a change in public opinion, especially in Western countries. I think that we have taken on a pioneering task, to try to change opinions at least about the Serbs in Kosovo. Without attempting to change opinions about Serbs in general. First we will change opinions with regard to Kosovo because there is no doubt that we are a civilized people and that we are a part of Europe. It is not enough to talk about history; one must offer something concrete. We are offering something concrete.
REPORTER: It appears that we are relatively well-versed in history but that we have problems with geography.
IVANOVIC: Our history is growing, our geography is shrinking.
REPORTER: Are you personally disappointed by the political leadership in Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia? By what they are doing and by what they have done?
IVANOVIC: For me it is not enough to have someone always saying that the whole world is against us because I immediately want to ask the next question: Why is the whole world against us? And why did we have to be against the whole world?! It seems to me that somewhere, in earlier moves, in the very opening moves, as chess-players would say, we missed out on a victory. We had a good position. After all, all of our pieces in the front row were in place, we could have tried to make a move of some sort. I would analyze this, not in order to repair this most recent period, but to learn from it for the future. Whoever tries to repair this will have to analyze the first move and the first loss. There is a mistake there somewhere. I think that we have failed to acknowledge the reality of the world, and to accept relations in the world not in accordance with our wishes but in accordance with possibilities. At our first rally I said: I, as an individual, cannot pursue any kind of policies ignoring the decisions of the Serb National Council or pursue policies on the basis of my own or our collective fears, or my own or our collective wishes.
REPORTER: Having followed what you earlier said in public, it seems to me that your approach was much more radical at the last meeting.
IVANOVIC: I think that you are mistaken. Everything was consistent with what I had said earlier.
REPORTER: No, I think not. For example, you said "If we cannot share a common life with them, we will share a border."
IVANOVIC: I have said many times before that common life is in our future. I am deeply convinced that the Serbs must become integrated into the international community. When I say this, I am thinking that those of us here in Kosovo will also become integrated into the international community. That is what we are faced with, that is the future, there is no alternative. The stories that we are something special, that we are "a heavenly people" are pointless. Those mistakes and stories started it all. We are not anything special. We are Europeans and we need to remain Europeans. However, it is obvious that at this moment we do not have a partner for dialogue on the other side. We don't. We have an aggressive Albanian expansionism and an euphoric attempt to finish off their conquest. It is difficult to talk to such people at this moment in time. I think that the solution lies in a fine distancing of the two ethnic communities. A mild version, nothing too distant, which might rule out the possibility of ever joining each other again or integrating. The story of the border which already exists is the story from day one. I don't want to stress what is already painful in itself. It is painful, believe me: if the border stays, we will never be able to go to the church, or to the cemetery; we will never be able to go to Vucitrn. This is unacceptable to me. But for now the essential thing is to survive and to stay alive. It is essential for the Serb people, for Serbia and for Yugoslavia.
REPORTER: Do you think that the people who are left here can successfully defend themselves?
IVANOVIC: I think that they can with the help of wise policies. We don't intend to irritate anyone; we don't intend to provoke conflicts. The conflicts which have occurred to date, during these eight months, were provoked by the other size. And no matter to what degree UNMIK and KFOR came here with certain prejudices about Serbs, no matter how one-sided the information they received from their intelligence service was, encouraging them to treat the Shiptars as political and military partners and to treat us as political and military enemies, now they are prepared to understand the balance of power here and what is going on here.
REPORTER: You really believe that they are prepared?
IVANOVIC: All right; they understand, but they are not prepared to act in accordance with what they have learned. There exists a close relationship between public opinion and political leadership and they need to change something which was programmed into the heads of all citizens for years. They need to be re-educated.
REPORTER: The way you re-educated the soldiers from France in Mitrovica?
IVANOVIC: The French understood what was going on. It is much easier to deal with the French than with the Americans. They have a manner of thinking similar to our own. They quickly comprehended these farces regarding collective attempts to cross across the Ibar because we were patient, because we gave them arguments, because we offered a projection of events. They did not believe us the first time nor the second time nor the third time but they finally comprehended that we were able to forecast events and that we know what is going to happen because we know the temperament and way of thinking of the Kosovo Albanians. This was something that they could not ignore. In addition to this, now we have the opportunity to have contact with representatives of the international community at a higher level. Our reputation is growing in their eyes; there is more and more weight on our side of the scale until one day it will reach the critical point and tip in our favor.
REPORTER: You will stay, therefore, at the bridges?
IVANOVIC: We have no alternative.
IVANOVIC: I did not say that but that's how it will be. Except I personally will not be there because there is another group of people in charge of that, mainly women. In our organization everyone has their duty and it is more shameful when women turn back men. The explanation that some residents of Mitrovica started to flee the city to save their children is invalid because I think that no one has the right to endanger everything else because of his own cowardice. That is what led to the fall of Krajina. As long as a man is with his family, he knows what he is fighting for. He has a concrete duty; he will be firm and unwavering. The moment the family is gone, our determination to wholeheartedly participate in this battle for our survival are greatly diminished.