Srđan Pantić
Interviewer: Could you introduce yourself and say what you remember from the period before the war?
Srđan Pantić:Well, it’s an ugly period, during the war. Hey, what can I say?! An empty city, a city of 300,000 people, will be some 40,000 – 50,000. There are no neighbors around you, it’s not… it’s not all the same. What I… it’s ugly, ugly.
Interviewer: And how did you leave your city? Do you remember a time when you had to leave your home?
Srđan Pantić: Well, so hard, and I left somehow unconscious. Well, I didn’t even expect that I wouldn’t come back. I was expecting this, yes… that it would last maybe a month, two, three and that someone would finish that story and let’s go back. However, that lasted until 2005, when I returned to the city itself and tried to exercise some rights. That fight lasted a long time and was generalized like that.
Interviewer: And what kind of relations did you have with your neighbors? Before the war, did you have good relations with your Albanian neighbors?
Srđan Pantić: Before the war? On great… on great terms, really. Here, even today when I see them, it is so cordial on both sides. That’s a really good contact. Of course, there are individuals who will not respond. If he doesn’t want to answer then I won’t either and that’s it, that’s how it ends. But um, on really good terms, and we didn’t have any problems. Until those from elsewhere came.
Interviewer: And do you think that the Serbs…? Do you think we can put the war behind us and build a better society in Kosovo together?
Srđan Pantić: Well, I think I can. I think that they can let the Serbs and the Albanians talk so that they would come to an agreement rather than a third party.
Interviewer: Thank you!