A lone aviator pleads the case for Kosovo

| Friday March 4, 2011 00:00

'I have two passports. I got here on a United States passport because technically, here in Botswana, we don't exist. Even though I am here, I don't exist,' says James Berisha, a pilot from the Balkan state of Kosovo.

His tale paints the story of a man on a serious mission. And serious his mission is because James Berisha is fighting for the independence of his country and its recognition. However, he does not go the route of inciting uprisings and use of violence to attain his ends. Two years ago, Berisha, an airline captain, started the Flying for Kosovo Mission.

To explain the purpose of his mission, he first delves into the geopolitics of the Balkans, a region central Europe has seen as a theatre of bloodshed partly because of what should have been regarded as a rich mixture of ethnic groups. He is from Kosovo, a former state of the now disintegrated Yugoslavia that collapsed at the height of Slobodan Milosevic's dictatorship. 'I am from Kosovo, the newest country in the world,' he declares. 'The purpose of Flying for Kosovo is to raise awareness around the world; to tell other countries that we are an independent state. We became independent three years ago. What I do is choose a region and then fly from one country to another to ask for the recognition of Kosovo as a sovereign state. I also hand over official letters from the Government of Kosovo.'

Of the 192 countries in the world, only 75 countries recognise Kosovo, among them 22 European Union countries, the United States of America, Canada and New Zealand. In Africa, only 12 of the continent's 53 nations recognise Kosovo as an independent country, among them Swaziland, Malawi, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Guinea Bissau.

Berisha says he is in Botswana as part of his two-month-long trip to Africa where he is pleading with governments on the continent to recognise and accept his country as part of the world's community of nations.  Relating the background to his mission, Berisha says the Balkan states of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo split because instead of uniting the constituent states under his government, Milosevic concentrated on ethnic cleansing in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed, 'including 10,000 people in Kosovo, one of whom was my 47-year-old father', he says. Berisha grew up in Kosovo where he suffered as an Albanian because Milosevic wanted to eliminate all Albanian speakers. A year after Kosovo was declared independent, only 55 countries recognised the country's sovereignty, a state of affairs that worried Berisha, who was living in El Paso in the US. 'I realised that the world was not accepting our independence,' he says. 'I have so far visited 73 countries to raise awareness. After I am done in Africa, I will have covered half of the world because I have been to Latin America and other continents.'

He has been using the same Cessna that took him seven hours, 20 minutes to fly from Lusaka to Gaborone for the past three years in his mission. Berisha says he is grateful for the support he receives from sponsors in and out of his country, thus facilitating his journey around the world on this important diplomatic mission. Africa, he says, is a continent of good-natured people that has a lot to offer. However, he notes that some African leaders give the continent a bad image by mismanaging their countries and their failure to uphold democratic values. 'It is a concern that though their countries are rich in minerals, the people wallow in poverty,' Berisha says.

At the end of his mission, will he work for government, perhaps as an envoy? 'I want to stay in aviation for the next 20 years,' he answers. 'I can help my nation through my profession.

To me, being an ambassador or president does not matter. I just want to help my people. I am an airline captain, which is the greatest achievement for one in my field. What more should I want?'