BONKERS IN THE BALKANS

Tom Walker explains how

Cupid's darts are more lethal than bullets

ALAS for the girls of Kosovo, and their inevitable summer of heartache. The British paratroopers are gone and many a silent tear has been shed by the young creatures who now wander Pristina's café- strewn pavements. Many of them would gladly have slipped the chains of their Albanian upbringing and eloped to colder climes and yet, as one who has just returned from the Nato statelet, I shouldn't think the local beauties will be mourning long; not if I know them.

More international personnel will come along to fill the void left by the Red Berets, the army's elite, the Alliance's very own Chippendales, who in their few short months in Kosovo gained near mythical standing among their teenage fans. Less drilled, less restrained than the soldiers, they will open their hearts to the possibili- ty of romance and, amid the beauty and the savagery that make up the territories of the southern Slays, they will follow in illustrious footsteps. From Byron to Rebecca West, and on to today's neo-colo- nial rulers, the cradle of Europe has induced many noble thoughts and deeds. But above all else, it has stimulated lust.

Never mind the prattle about ethnic reconstruction and harmony. In these fren- zied nether-regions of Europe, the diplo- mats, the aid workers and the soldiers all suffer the same affliction. They go hor- monally nutty. Of course the journalistic fraternity is not exactly immune. Married to a Belgrade girl and struggling with post -Balkan distress syndrome I have to nail my colours to the mast straight away.

The tales of passion are by and large happy ones. Yet, behind the comedy of wrecked careers and lovelorn bureaucrats learning Serbo-Croat, there is a more seri- ous question. In the face of these diver- sions and attractions, is the international community up to managing the Balkans?

If you can lose your heart to one side or the other, might your judgment not go out of the window, too? Yes, concludes the sociologist Vesna Goldsworthy. In her book, Inventing Ruritania, Byron, E.M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh and Lawrence Durrell are all taken to task for becoming infatuated with Balkan beauty and losing their grip on reality. The dangerous charm of the Balkans has not lost its power and still claims its victims. In the most extreme recent case, one thinks of the wretched Squadron-Leader Nicholas Tucker, who `One should exercise caution, Tommy, when toying with the date settings on computers.' conceived such a violent passion for his interpreter, blonde Dijana Dudjukovic, that he killed his wife. There are those, such as Colonel Bob Stewart of the Cheshires, whose marriages fall apart under the spell of their comely helpmeets, and then there are those who are somehow so bewitched by the Balkans that they make inept, catastrophic decisions, like pushing the button on unsupported air- strikes.

Some students of the Rambouillet talks say Madeleine Albright was just hopelessly out of her depth, but revisionist historians may yet conclude that the US Secretary of State was also swept off her feet by the 29- year-old Kosovar rebel leader, Hashim Thaci, otherwise known as 'the snake'. `Consider the Thaci effect,' says Tim Judah, one of Britain's leading Balkan ana- lysts. 'I've heard it suggested that she fell hopelessly in love with him.'

This chimes with the, admittedly partial, Serb view on fair Madeleine, which derides her as a traitor or janissary', a descendant of one of the Balkan subjects carted off to Constantinople by the Ottomans, only later to return and inflict misery on their coun- trymen. Mrs Albright, the daughter of a Czech diplomat, was born and raised in Belgrade where the locals still rejoice in the thought that she could never find a boyfriend. 'Do you want to make love or war?' said Mrs Albright to the Serb delega- tion at Rambouillet, according to sledge- hammer Slav wit. War, please,' they screamed in terror.

Or perhaps, say these spiteful voices, she was emotionally slam-dunked by the bas- ketball-player's frame of the young Mon- tenegrin president, Milo Djukanovic. If so, she is hardly the first woman to have been so affected by the Balkans. Rebecca West, the lover of H.G. Wells, is thought to have had an affair with her guide from the Ser- bian information ministry, 'Constantine', whom she refers to as 'bohemian and imag- inative'. Which is why Rebecca West is regarded in many quarters as being far too pro-Serb, especially in Kosovo.

And this is just the problem faced by today's administrators. Once you have fallen for one camp or the other, objectiv- ity suffers. No peoples in Europe are more welcoming than the tribes of the Balkans, but heaven forbid that you should remind them of their similarities. While in the embrace of a Serb girl, do not wax lyrical about the exploits of Skenderbeg, or at least if you do expect a punch on the nose. In Kosovo, the Serbs could have helped themselves immeasurably by welcoming the Organisation for Security and Co- operation in Europe last year, instead of sponsoring drunken policemen to intimi- date its monitors. But no, they chose to suffer and sulk, and it was the young Alba- nians who donned their miniskirts and fluttered their eyelids at the incoming del- egation, who were soon ensnared. At least one senior official lost his bearings, and later his marriage.

We are talking, let us be clear, about some of the most beautiful girls on the planet. As Miranda Vickers, Albania ana- lyst for the International Crisis Group, puts it, 'In northern Kosovo, around Podu- jevo and Mitrovica, the sinewy athleticism of the Gegs [an ethnic Albanian group] combines with the gorgeous facial features of the Serbs.' I have seen men crack in the face of such temptation. How the mighty have fallen.

At least one ambassador has left the region in part because of his uncontrol- lable urges. A southern European, he was so maddened by his (uninterested) Muslim secretary that he began scrawling her name in felt-tip pen on walls near their respective apartments. As his obsession deepened, and his offers of an education abroad were spurned, he wondered if it was his age that was putting her off. He could still perform in a certain department despite an operation he had received in Africa, he assured his intended, who passed the good news to the rest of the office. Should this man really have been in charge of a $130 million aid programme?

Another lofty UN official was discov- ered in a Republika Srpska layby, appar- ently administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a young translator with whom he had just shared a press-confer- ence podium. As for the journalists who, naturally, must not be allowed to escape, one of my favourite tales comes from a colleague who attempted to seduce a teenage Bosnian folk- singer. They sat in bed together watching a Bart Simpson cartoon and eating a local variety of crisps known as 'snack teddies'.

`My life really is leading nowhere,' he confessed to me. Has he seen the error of his ways and left the Balkans? Has he heck. Currently he is prowling the Croat- ian coast.

Where ancient hatreds lurk like quick- sand, those young bucks now snapping up the lavish salaries of the Kosovo recon- struction process should beware. Albanian girls invariably have fathers and brothers, adherents to the strict and bloody moral code or canun, where a shotgun awaits anyone who impugns the family honour.

The girls themselves can be quite spirit- ed, too, as the British diplomat Geoffrey Briggs discovered in Tirana in 1997 when he was stabbed during a mêlée with his Albanian companion and helicoptered to Italy for surgery.

Oh yes, these Slays and Albanians have soul, unfathomable depths of it. But treat them well and stay on their side, for the horrible doings of their own histories make them quick to attack. As Byron himself warned, tread carefully in a land

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,

And all, save the spirit of man, is divine.

Sheep dips.