Events >> The Democracy Award >> 2000 Democracy Award
Natasa Kandic

Veton Surroi
The 2000 Democracy Award

The Endowment presented its annual Democracy Award to Veton Surroi, the editor and publisher of Koha Ditore, the most widely read Albanian language daily in Kosovo, and Natasa Kandic, head of the Belgrade-based human rights organization, the Humanitarian Law Center, which has been documenting human rights violations in Yugoslavia since 1992. The Award was presented May 3, 2000 at a Capitol Hill ceremony.

"These two individuals represent the best hope for democratic progress in Serbia and Kosovo today. Their refusal to compromise their commitment to human rights, free speech, and ethnic tolerance in the most desperate of circumstances serves as a beacon for all those in Serbia and Kosovo who still dare to strive for a peaceful, democratic, and multi-ethnic future," said NED President Carl Gershman. "Their willingness to place their own lives at risk to protect the principles of democracy and the lives of others should inspire all people around the world who are also struggling for freedom and human rights, as well as those of us who are privileged to live in democracies," said Gershman.

When most other NGO leaders in Serbia had been silenced by intimidation from the Milosevic regime, Natasa Kandic bravely continued her work and spoke out against the Serbian attacks in Kosovo. During the war in Kosovo, she, at great personal risk, shuttled back and forth between Kosovo and Belgrade, first to save her own terrorized Albanian staff members, and then to collect information on human rights abuses to disseminate to the outside world, including the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague.

Veton Surroi was a member of the Albanian delegation to the Kosovo peace talks in Ramboulliet, France, and remained in Kosovo during the war, despite being targeted by Milosevic. Surroi hid underground during the eleven weeks of the siege, emerging only to change hiding places four times. Commenting on his decision to remain in Pristina, Surroi told the New York Times, that as a signer at Rambouillet, "I had taken some responsibility and could not go out. I thought, 'I am going to suffer the consequences." He emerged as a hero to his fellow Kosovars, to whom he has continued to preach the importance of mutual tolerance in the post-war period. Recently, Surroi has been using the pages of Koha Ditore to speak out forcefully against taking revenge on the Serbs who remain in Kosovo. In a recent column, Surroi commented that violence against the Serbs "brings shame on all Kosovo Albanians, not just the perpetrators of the violence...It will dishonour us and our own recent suffering."

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