By Robert Tinsley

Objectivity is widely held to be among the qualities of an effective journalist, but for an ethnic Albanian to practice journalism today in the Serbian province of Kosovo, the profession can require a disciplined detachment from one's emotions.

During a recent visit to the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in Washington, D.C., radio journalist Aferdita Kelmendi spoke of coping with the demands of her work in Kosovo. Serbian forces are engaged in quelling a separatist movement there, a struggle in which Serbs have driven out ethnic Albanian civilians--who constitute Kosovo's overwhelming majority--and have destroyed their homes.

"Maybe because of a longtime experience in journalism I have built in me some mechanisms," Kelmendi said. "When I am working, I work only as a professional, but after I work I cry for what I have seen. ... During time of work I am not Albanian, I am not Serbian. ... I am a journalist."

Kelmendi is directing manager of Radio 21, the first independent Albanian-language radio on the Internet, broadcasting from Kosovo's capital, Pristina, since May. Programming is in Albanian with summaries in English, and it includes news, interviews and sports. Kelmendi continues to report for the Voice of America as she has done for five years.

Because many people in Kosovo have been displaced, gathering news has become vastly complicated. Telephone links are unreliable. Correspondents are difficult to coordinate. Radio 21 is able to ease these difficulties in some areas through the use of mobile phones and trustworthy civilian sources, but information is often late, Kelmendi said.

"Sources of information are very few, but even in the conflict we have found a way to take information from our sources there (in Kosovo)," she said.

Kelmendi is also the founder of the Media Project, an investigative journalism program for young women. The project, which includes Radio 21, also features a media center with video, television and radio production. To date, 80 women have taken part in the project. Other news media in Kosovo have hired graduates of the project's training courses, Kelmendi said.

"Our goal is to increase the number of young women who work for media in Kosovo because they make up only 1 percent of the journalists in Kosovo today," Kelmendi said in a recent e-mail correspondence.

Once the news has been gathered, reporting it poses yet another challenge. In her remarks at ICFJ, Kelmendi explained that disrupted communications mean Internet links generally are unavailable, ruling out Radio 21 as a news source in Kosovo. Radio 21 has plans for ordinary radio broadcasts, but gaining access to frequencies is a problem, she said. Printed news reaches only a part of Kosovo's population due to the conflict with Serbian forces.

But a torrent of e-mail offers evidence that Radio 21 is being heard by Albanians and other interested people around the world, Kelmendi said. Messages have come from news media abroad and from individuals in places as far-flung as Malaysia and Australia as well as the United States and throughout Europe.

"So people are listening to us, and that is great," she said. "We are satisfied."

Still, the satisfaction of a job well done cannot banish the shadows that seem to stalk a determined journalist in Kosovo. Some of them are difficult to identify, such as a vague "feeling that you are followed." Others have names, such as fear, provoked at the sight of military or police personnel on the streets of Pristina.

"I see them, and I am shaking, thinking: 'Is this the last day for me? For my daughter? For my son?'" Kelmendi said.

Whether Kosovo regains its autonomy or even achieves independence is not the most important thing to Kelmendi as a woman and mother who lives there. The most important thing is to stop the war, she said.

"I have my independence, and that independence is in my head," she said. "... I'm not living by Serbian rules or Yugoslavian rules. I'm living by my own rules. I am independent, but I have not freedom. ...

"I need that freedom to become as you. You are working here, and you are not afraid."

Radio 21 is accessible on the Internet atwww.radio21.net. SBS radio in Melbourne, Australia, broadcasts excerpts from Radio 21, and stations in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Macedonian towns of Gostivar and Tetovo are seeking to do the same, Kelmendi said. Future programming at Radio 21 will include excerpts from I Am Eritrea, a monthly women's tabloid that is also part of the Media Project.

Sokol Mici, associate editor of the International Journalists' Network, contributed to this report.