Kosovo E-Mails Show War's Horrors

WILLIAM SCHIFFMANN, Associated Press Writer
AP Online
03-27-1999
Kosovo E-Mails Show War's Horrors

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Her face is a mystery, but the e-mailed words of a 16-year-old girl struggling to survive in Kosovo paint a stark picture of life in a land torn by war.

Her words, if not her voice, have been heard by millions of National Public Radio listeners as Finnegan Hamill, 16, a reporter for Berkeley-based Youth Radio, shares e-mail from the teen-ager he knows as Adona.

At times, there are light, personal moments -- she tells Hamill the music she likes (The Rolling Stones, REM and Sade), and is searching the Internet for colleges to attend.

But then the war creeps in.

``You don't know how lucky you are to have a normal life,'' the young ethnic Albanian wrote in February.

``I used to hang out with my friends,'' she told Hamill in another note. ``We were never safe on the streets, but now we're not safe in our own homes.''

``If you were the ones to taste this bitter and cruel part of the world, you would understand me and my imagination,'' she wrote. ``You would also understand the luckiness I feel just being alive.''

Adona's words are read on the air by Belia Mayeno Choy, another Youth Radio reporter.

Hamill, a high school junior, said he got Adona's e-mail address from a peace worker who visited his church after a trip to Kosovo, and they've exchanged more than 40 messages via the Internet.

``I started e-mailing her and we developed a friendship through our e-mails,'' he said Friday. The letters blend the personal and the political.

``They are half pen-pal stuff, things you would talk about with your friends, and half really heavy, living-in-the-middle-of-war stuff.''

Ellin O'Leary, who founded Youth Radio in 1992 and produced the series, says it has had a huge impact.

``We're getting e-mail from kids all over the world wanting to be in touch with her,'' she said.

O'Leary said Friday they went to great lengths to verify that Adona was real, speaking to her by telephone and talking to two people who had been in Kosovo and met her in person.

``The most amazing thing about this girl is that she has no investment in this war,'' O'Leary said. ``She doesn't hate Serbs, she wants to be friends, she doesn't hate Christians ... she just wants a normal life.''

Hamill said he hoped to meet Adona soon, and said they had received offers of scholarships for her and hoped to bring her to the United States.

Her latest message came Monday, two days before the United States and its NATO allies began bombing Yugoslavia to try to stop attacks by the Yugoslav military against the majority ethnic Albanian people of Kosovo.

From her balcony, she told Hamill that she heard gunshots as she watched people scurry by carrying suitcases. Her bags were packed, but she had nowhere to go.

``As long as I have electricity, I will continue writing to you,'' she wrote. ``I am trying to keep myself as calm as possible.''

Hamill and all who listen for her messages have been waiting since.

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