Blunt diplomacy

The ethnic cleansing which claimed the lives of 15,000 people there may have ended in 1999, but Kosovo is still riven with enough divisions to keep its NATO peacekeepers on a heightened state of readiness.

Before Christmas the autonomous province’s parliament voted for full independence from the Republic of Serbia. A cold war chill set in overnight as Britain, France and the United States welcomed the 85 to 22 decision, and Russia and Serbia itself went the ‘over our dead bodies’ route.
“The concern being whether those ‘dead bodies’ are metaphorical or not,” says James Blunt who in his pre-pop star days lead the advance of 30,000 British troops into Kosovo.
“Yes, I was Captain James Hillier-Blount, troop leader of D Squadron of the Household Cavalry Regiment in those days,” he smiles. “We turned up at the border not knowing what the reaction would be – there was a very real fear that we’d be shelled or shot at – but they just waved us through.
“The tragic thing about Kosovo is that until the wider Balkan conflict impacted on them the majority Albanian population and minority Serb one had lived together without any bother. They were sucked into a murderous conflict that was of other people’s making.
“I’m not 100% sure what rhetoric’s been coming out of Belgrade and Moscow recently, but I’m sure there are politicians in both cities who’d be prepared to inflame the situation if it suited them. The potential for slipping back into violence is huge.”
In his first Hot Press interview in July 2005, Blunt spoke of “seeing things in Kosovo that will live with me forever.”
What he didn’t mention was that these included digging up a mass grave, and giving the Albanian bodies that Serb militia had dumped there a proper burial.
“There were some extremely harrowing moments,” he now acknowledges.
The exhumation is just one of the grisly tales recounted in Return To Kosovo, a 45-minute documentary that Blunt shot last year when he went back to play a gig for troops in Pristina.
“He’s been very modest about the role he played there,” director Steven Cantor recently told the BBC. “I went into the film thinking he was one of the low level soldiers there, just there for a couple months. But he was actually the leader of one of the first tanks to roll through Kosovo and free the Albanians from the Serbs.
“So he goes back and the first thing he did was meet up with his interpreters he worked with back then, all three of whom had really close relationships with him back then and had memories of their time together, and funny stories about discovering he’d become a pop star.
“I think you have to see the film to see how genuine it is and how knowledgeable about the situation he is, and how close his relationships were with these people.”
Unlike the Troubles in the North, where there were ostensibly two sides, the Kosovo war involved four or five main players.
“It’s an incredibly complex situation,” he agrees. “Before going in there we were given history lessons, and learned some of the language. The only word I still remember I’m afraid is ‘falemnderit’ – ‘hello.’
“The whole point is you’re in someone else’s country and that country needs to be respected and their issue’s understood. You hear all the different parties’ perspectives, and realise that they’ve all got a point! What’s most amazing about being in the army is that you probably learn more compassion than anywhere else. You think of the army as a violent, aggressive place, but it’s actually much more about diplomacy, understanding and compassion. Qualities that aren’t always evident in the music business!”
While describing himself as “a non-political animal”, Blunt reddened Gordon Brown’s face last year when he highlighted the obscenity of soldiers in war zones having to source and buy their own equipment.
“We had to buy our own body armour which, you’re right, is obscene. The politicians have their own agenda, but from my perspective we were in Kosovo saving lives in the same way that the chaps are now in Iraq and Afghanistan. They’re trying to bring stability to a region, yet when they come back maimed and injured there’s no proper support structure in place.”
And members of the public complaining about them using a council swimming pool for rehab.
“It’s fucked up, isn’t it?” he says shaking his head. “Like I say, I’m not political but while there’s stuff like that going on I’m going to make a noise about it.”

James Blunt plays the Waterfront, Belfast (January 28) and RDS, Dublin (29).