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How Tony Blair Is Still Revered At The Savior of Kosovo AlbaniansMany Kosovan children were named "Tonibler" by grateful parents in honour of our former PM.There are many Tony Blairs in Kosovo and I was hoping to meet at least one of them. Most are aged 18 and were named by grateful parents in honour of our former prime minister, who is revered in Kosovo. Blair was instrumental in persuading Nato leaders to bomb Serbia in 1999 and thus became the saviour of the Kosovan Albanians.Our guide, Fatos, met us at Pristina airport. He was one of more than a million Kosovans who were brutally forced out of their country during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. He’s probably what our government would call a “model refugeeâ€. He sought asylum in the UK, where his children were educated at British universities. Now he’s returned to the country of his birth, setting up a successful travel business. The Nato KFOR peacekeeping force, which came to Kosovo to protect civilians, is still here. Nowadays Fatos takes the soldiers, who have a lot of time on their hands, on team-building exercises trekking in the mountains.We are here to hike in the Accursed Mountains. The name sounds scary but belies the landscape’s beauty and the friendliness of the people who live here. I’m travelling with Pete, my oldest friend, and we first came to what was then Yugoslavia in 1977. We camped wild in a corn field only to be woken at gunpoint by an angry peasant wielding his old Second World War rifle.Read more at: https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2018/09/how-tony-blair-still-revered-saviour-kosovan-albanians
