One example from when the events of ‘81 took place, there was an order that we had to play a Serbian song in the Serbian language during the Karavan të Fshatit [The Village Caravan] airtime. ‘Yes, okay,’ I said, ‘but I won’t take responsibility for [picking] a Serbian song, I’m not familiar with it, I’ll play whatever they send me, I won’t pick it on my own.’ And [they said] ‘The music editor will give you a list, and you will pick from that list.’ ‘Okay.’
[…] In Gllogjan, I remember well. They closed down the high school there, the classes. Outraged, I went and did a news report. The report was about five minutes long. […] And I wrote in the report, ‘The latest: a school has been closed down, now children will become shepherds and may God help them.’ They picked to play the song Ćobani, ćobanice [Srb.: shepherds]. I found it. And at the end, after saying that, I played the song Ćobani, ćobanice in Serbian.When I went to work the next day there was the editor-in-chief, [in fact] two editors were waiting for me at the front door of the Radio. […] I was invited to the director’s office, but the director was waiting for us at the editor’s office. It was Shaban Hyseni and some Dimić, Slobodan Dimić. Shaban said, ‘Martin, what did you do?’ ‘What did I do?’ I said, ‘Did I say anything that’s untrue?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘but you didn’t say even one positive word.’ ‘I didn’t have anything positive to say.’ He said, ‘Where did you find that song?’ ‘Ah,’ I said, by God’s will, ‘I won’t take responsibility for the song, I said I don’t know anything about it.’ He said, ‘Don’t ever play a Serbian song again.’ That was the first and last time a Serbian song was played during Karavan të Fshatit.’
Martin Çuni was born in 1948, in Ujz of Has. In 1971, he graduated from the Department of Pedagogy at the Faculty of Philosophy in Pristina. In 1974, Mr. Çuni was employed at Radio Television of Prishtina as a journalist in the editorial office for culture and worked there for eight years. Because of his political activity, he was arrested in 1982 and was imprisoned for nine years. After his release in 1991, he started working for Radio Zagreb, while in 1992 he emigrated to Germany, where he stayed until 1997. During the Kosovo war, together with other colleagues, he founded Radio Free Kosova and the news agency Kosovapress. Mr. Çuni writes prose and has published several books. He is the father of three children and lives with his family in Pristina.