Nov 17, 2000
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THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA Nov 17, 2000 |
| UVic student Liam Hall seeks a normal life after his ordeal in Yugoslavia
by Miguel Strother When UVic business student Liam Hall signed on to work for his uncle in Yugoslavia this past summer all he wanted to do was to make some money to pay for university.
“I just went to work with my uncle so I could come back to school,” says Hall. “Obviously, it didn’t turn out that way.” Now, after two months in a Yugoslav jail, while a dramatic election and the popular revolution that overthrew Milosevic played out around him, Hall is back in Canada taking some time to himself before returning to finish the degree he was working to pay for. “Initially, it was pretty scary because nobody knew what was going to happen,” says Hall. “We were taken to a military camp in the middle of nowhere and asked outrageous questions by guards who were trying to get us to slip up. But when we were sent to Belgrade and the embassy finally got in touch with us after days of trying, we got a lawyer and things started to get easier to take.” Although Hall says he might go back to Yugoslavia again one day, he’ll wait until democracy is legitimately back in place. “If you go by the law we shouldn’t have been put in prison,” he says. “Luckily there was a revolution in the middle of it all. If things had stayed like they were who knows what would have happened. We’d probably have been there until we proved useful in negotiations with the West.” Hall has a two-inch binder thick with newspaper stories about his life up until, and including, that fateful August day. But he’s fed up with reporters intruding on him and his family for quotes and photographs, as was the case during Thanksgiving dinner back home in Calgary. “Media inquiries have started to die down in Calgary, but now that I’m back in Victoria it’s picking up again,” says Hall. “I’m getting kind of sick of it.” As for how life will play itself out after such an incredible event, Hall isn’t sure. He’ll probably accept a few more drinks from well-wishers and take a course in international politics to get a better understanding as to why he wound up where he did. But other than that, he just wants a normal university life. The ordeal has forced Hall to make a few compromises, but with the help of university officials it looks like he’ll finish his degree in the four years he allotted for the task. “The university has been really accommodating at helping me figure out how to pick up what I’ve lost,” says Hall. “Everything looks like it’s going to be just fine.” |