At first sight, Veton Halise looks like any other eight-year-old boy, a bit sad perhaps. The expression on his face could be boredom or maybe he has just been scolded for getting into trouble, but this is Kosovo, where nothing is as it seems and everybody must assume the worst.
Veton doesn't say or do very much. He just sits and kicks his legs repeatedly against the chair, refusing to play with the other village children. He wasn't always so quiet. He enjoyed playing football or running around with his brothers Hairu and Agon and his older sister Nitta. But they are not here any more. They are all dead. Hairu, his older brother of 13, was shot in the stomach, Nitta, aged 10, was shot in the back, and Agon, the youngest boy, only 6, was shot in the mouth - killed by Serb forces in one night less than four weeks ago.
Twelve members of Veton's family had been hiding for months until Serb soldiers arrived at their door on the night of June 12th, two days after the Serbian president, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, had signed the peace accord. The Serbs demanded money, gold, anything of value from the family. They handed over what they had. Dissatisfied and angry, the soldiers set fire to some pillows, terrorising the children by pushing them into their faces. And then they opened fire.
In all, seven of Veton's family were slaughtered, his aunt and uncle and their two children. His mother suffered six bullet wounds but miraculously survived. The body of his uncle was discovered five days later in the basement of a house where he had been brutally tortured, limbs broken and smashed, his finger and toe nails missing.
Veton survived by pretending he was dead, lying in the living room in a pool of blood from his dead brothers and sister. "The soldiers were stupid," he says, "they thought I was dead."
When the Concern social worker asks Veton what he wishes for, he replies that all he wants is a pair of socks . . . and for his sister and brothers to come back.
Veton's story is one of hundreds that the Concern team is witnessing since we gained access to Kosovo, after the end of the NATO bombing and the signing of the peace agreement. Too many people have suffered here - husbands, wives, children, brothers, sisters, have been brutally tortured, raped, killed. Mass graves now scatter a country that has been devastated. Entire villages have been levelled, crops destroyed, cattle slaughtered. The scale of violence and destruction of human lives and property is obscene.
At the same time, on the other side of Europe another province is struggling to bring to an end 30 years of oppression, injustice and violence.
Northern Ireland and Kosovo compete daily for the headline news; back-to-back stories played out on the TV screens every evening throughout the world, including here in Kosovo. Two different parts of the world, both complex political conflicts, both suffering violence, but one much more extreme than the other - and one common problem.
You could be forgiven for being confused as the news pieces appear to overlap.
The same international actors are involved, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, British soldiers patrolling the streets keeping the two communities apart, revenge killings happening on a daily basis, decommissioning, the IRA, the KLA, Belfast and Pristina, Northern Ireland and Kosovo.
Two days before I travelled to this tragic country, I was on a bus in Belfast. It was the first time in years that I had been home during the summer; working overseas with Concern for the past 18 years I had usually missed the marching season. The bus did not get too far before it was stopped as the first of the Orange parades marched through the city.
There was only a small turn-out of people cheering from the pavement, a few children and one drunk man singing "I was born under a Union Jack" to the tune of Lee Marvin's only hit song, making some of the people on the bus smile. But not for long.
A gang of youths arrived, more menacing than the curious onlookers, strutting down the street with empty beer bottles in their hands. The RUC went on the alert. The people on the bus stared ahead with a grey look of resignation. They just wanted to get home: housewives with bags of shopping, children returning from school, office workers, ordinary people. A minute later the parade had passed by, the youths following without incident. The moment had passed and the bus moved on.
"Here we go again," said one elderly man, shaking his head, and we knew what he meant. With the peace process at stalemate and the marching season underway, it could be a long hot summer in Belfast.
Less than a week later, on the Kosovo-Albania border, I saw the same faces on another bus, strong, determined people who had also lived with years of violence and oppression. They too were going home, afraid of what lay ahead, returning to a desperately uncertain future.
Kosovo faces enormous challenges. It will take years and a huge investment to rebuild the bridges, the schools, the houses. But this is the easy part. Rebuilding a sense of community and developing a reasonable level of confidence and trust among neighbours will take decades.
The people of Northern Ireland understand this better than most. We may be at the end of decades of violence and the start of a new process of reconciliation and co-operation. If the politicians in Northern Ireland can take a leap of faith together it will demonstrate to everybody, including the people of Kosovo, that it is possible to move forward, to realise a better future and an end to the cycle of violence. Northern Ireland has an opportunity to become a template for peace, an example to other parts of the world.
We operate in a global environment: news, images, messages, reach all parts of the world, influencing and shaping the lives of everybody. We have a responsibility that lies beyond our borders. The world is watching to see whether the politicians of Northern Ireland can move the peace process forward or return to fear, mistrust, confusion and inevitable violence.
They should remember that everybody is watching, even here in Kosovo.
Dominic MacSorley is Regional Director in Kosovo for the Irish charity Concern.