The young, professional, ethnic Albanian woman drinking coffee in a Pristina cafe yesterday morning was unimpressed by what she called the "noise" being made abroad about Kosovo.
"They don't care how many of us die. It's the geographic problem they are worried about. If we all die, that's fine. But if the fighting spreads into Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, and around the region, only then will they do something."
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 per cent of the population, and the minority ethnic Serbs have at least one thing in common - they both feel they are ignored and abandoned by the rest of the world.
The bleached-blonde woman in her early 30s smoked cheap, strong cigarettes. She had a third cup of thick Turkish coffee as she outlined how people like her had become radicalised by the recent violent Serbian crackdown.
"I know people who left Pristina, went to Albania, joined the KLA, and came back across the border to fight. It became a moral need after Drenica."
In February and March, 80 to 100 people were killed in the Drenica area at the height of the crackdown. The Serbians say they were attacking "terrorists"; the ethnic Albanians say they were attacking civilians. Many women and children were found among the corpses.
Yesterday's "noise" abroad included the sound of NATO aircraft exercising over northern Albania and Macedonia, the sound of sabres rattling at the EU summit in Cardiff, and the sound of the aircraft carrying the Serbian President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, touching down in Moscow, where today he will meet Serbia's friend, President Yeltsin.
"Noise will not stop Milosevic, it never stopped him before," the young woman said. Her male companion, in blue jeans, blue Tshirt and blue waistcoat in flakjacket style, came in with another point he wanted to impress on me.
"Tell your Irish people that this is not about religion, it is about nationality. This is not a religious town. There are a dozen mosques for 200,000 people. We do not attend prayers very much."
Indeed for what was portrayed by a Serb I met on Sunday as a Muslim town with a besieged Serb population, there are few outward manifestations of Islam. No muezzin calls the faithful to prayer from loudspeakers on the minarets of mosques, as happens in towns elsewhere with even small Muslim populations. There are very explicit pornographic magazines displayed by vendors all along the streets. It has all the appearances of a secular society.
"We will win now," the professional woman said. "The Serbs cannot find KLA members to kill, so they kill civilians, but there are too many of us. They have to bring people in from Serbia to fight, and those soldiers want to go home."
The rumour on the lips of many ethnic Albanians yesterday was that a group of mothers of young Serbian soldiers are due in Pristina today to demand that they be allowed to bring their sons home.
As an outsider, it is difficult to know a Serb from an Albanian. However, locals have no such problem.
Driving with an Albanian yesterday, we decided to stop to ask directions. "Not him," she said, as I slowed near a man walking on the street.
"Not him . . . not him . . . him!"
How did she know? I asked. "The way they walk," she replied.