VOLUME 3 • NUMBER 116 • 1999

Kosovo:Kosovo: OneOne lastlast chancechance TheThe racerace againstagainst winterwinter YetYet anotheranother exodusexodus

UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees THE EDITOR’S DESK

Why Kosovo and not Kabul? Question: What was the world’s largest war this year? once more raised troubling and legitimate concerns among Answer: In a conflict virtually unnoticed by the outside aid organizations about how and why the ‘international world, Ethiopian and Eritrean armies, each over one community’ responds to different humanitarian crises. quarter-million soldiers strong, fought over a meaning- The world’s most powerful nations, which are also less piece of land. Tens of thousands of people were the major donors, will always commit more funds and killed, wounded or captured and at least 600,000 civil- human resources to crises which may affect their own ians were displaced. national interests. Hence Kosovo and not Kabul. In an era of ever tighten- ing budgets, donors have also Internally become impatient with UNHCR/F. PAGETTI displaced apparently intractable prob- persons and lems such as Afghanistan. local Afghans In one important sign of awaiting a this, governments increasing- food ly ‘earmark’ their contribu- distribution in tions to organizations such as the devastated UNHCR, funding high-visi- Afghan capital bility ‘popular’ crises such as of Kabul. Kosovo and ignoring more difficult situations. Redressing the balance Question: What was the world’s most brutal war of recent will be difficult. The world community, through U.N. times? bodies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Answer: For eight years virtually the entire population must refocus its attention on longtime trouble spots like of Sierra Leone has been uprooted, mutilated, raped or Africa. Greater emphasis must be placed on crisis pre- abducted. At least 50,000 persons were killed. vention and long-term economic and social develop- Question: What is the world’s largest current refugee ment. problem? But countries and regional organizations in those Answer: There are still more than 2.6 million Afghan same areas must also redouble their commitment to refugees, but UNHCR’s programs to help them have effectively tackle their own problems. been virtually bankrupt for months because of lack of If these show progress then the rest of the world may donor interest. follow. Which is why recent home-grown attempts to The general public could be forgiven for answering solve wars in the Horn of Africa, Congo and Sierra “Kosovo” to all of the above questions, but the unprece- Leone, however tentative and faltering, may eventually dented news coverage and military, political and financial bring some good news for hundreds of thousands of commitments pledged to solve the Kosovo problem have uprooted people.

2 REFUGEES N°116 - 1999

Editor: Ray Wilkinson French editor: Mounira Skandrani Contributors: Judith Kumin, Ron Redmond, Kris 2 EDITORIAL Janowski, Paul Stromberg, Vesna Petkovic, Diane Goldberg, Wendy Is humanitarian aid distribution fair? Rappeport

Editorial assistant: UNHCR/R.CHALASANI COVER STORY Virginia Zekrya 4 Photo department: Kosovo’s race against winter. Anneliese Hollmann, Anne Kellner By Fernando del Mundo and Ray Wilkinson Design: Chronology. WB Associés - Paris A history of Balkan events. Production: Françoise Peyroux Opinion Administration: Serbs do not forget. By Tim Judah Anne-Marie Le Galliard Distribution: Statistics John O’Connor, Frédéric Tissot The war by numbers. Kosovo refugees arrive Map: The first exodus UNHCR - Mapping Unit in Kukes, Albania. The 4 majority of nearly Kosovo’s flight started in 1990. 450,000 people who sought Refugees is published by the Public refuge in Albania passed Information Section of the United through this tiny border 16 CENTERFOLD MAP Nations High Commissioner for town. Refugees. The opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those 18 ORIGIN of UNHCR. The designations and maps used do not imply the expression Start of the Kosovo conflict. By Nicholas Morris of any opinion or recognition on the part of UNHCR concerning the legal status of a territory or of its authorities. 20 SERBIA

Refugees reserves the right to edit all Europe’s newest exiles. articles before publication. Articles Montenegro and photos not covered by copyright © may be reprinted without prior All welcome. permission. Please credit UNHCR and UNHCR/R.CHALASANI the photographer. Glossy prints and slide duplicates of photographs not 22 INTERVIEW covered by copyright © may be made available for professional use only. Ethnic Serbs who A talk with UNHCR’s special envoy. fled their homes in the town of Pec 20 OPINION fearing ethnic Albanian 24 English and French editions printed reprisals, seek protection at a Military-aid cooperation. By Cedric Thornberry in Switzerland by ATAR SA, nearby KFOR checkpoint. Geneva. Circulation: 206,000 in English, GOING BACK French, German, Italian, Japanese, 25 Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Going back to Kosovo. By Fernando del Mundo Chinese. Saving lives ISSN 0252-791 X Charity suffers while saving others.

Cover: Villagers who fled their town in late March return to UNHCR/L. TAYLOR 27 AFRICA their destroyed homes in Kosovo. UNHCR / R. CHALASANI Africa suffers in silence. By Peter Kessler

UNHCR P.O. Box 2500 Unaccompanied 28 SHORT TAKES 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland minors from the www.unhcr.org 27Congo in a Tanzanian camp. There were widespread 30 PEOPLE AND PLACES fears that the plight of African refugees was ignored during the Kosovo crisis. 31 QUOTE UNQUOTE

REFUGEES 3 | COVER STORY | A RACE AGAINST Hundreds of thousands of Kosovars have returned home, but the approaching winter is a new enemy

By Fernando del Mundo and Ray Wilkinson sman Hysenlekaj found the body of his 83-year-old father stuffed into the well of the family house at the foot of the O Mountain of the Damned. In his frantic search for the old man after he returned from Albania in June, Osman had, at first, paid no attention to his surroundings. But now, in the fading Turn to page 6 Ã

Civilians who were herded aboard special ‘refugee trains’ walk along the track from the train to a nearby border crossing at Blace and safety in Macedonia. UNHCR/R. LEMOYNE | COVER STORY | TIME | COVER STORY | UNHCR/H.J. DAVIES

Blace border crossing, FYR of Macedonia early April 1999.

à light of a pleasant summer evening, he their homes earlier this year, said he had Hysenlekaj’s father had sheltered in the looked again at his father’s corpse and then already given thanks to the Almighty once same town to escape an earlier Serb at the once graceful stone house in the vil- for delivering his family so quickly from pogrom. This time, the patriarch decided lage of Stralc i Epërm in western Kosovo. the nightmare that had engulfed the re- to stay home. The building had been reduced to a gion in spring. charred shell. His 40 sheep and 10 cows It began on a Sunday, March 28, when a THE FIRST CASUALTIES had long since disappeared and the nearby local gypsy came to the family home with On that bitter March day Hysenlekaj se- fields were wilted and empty. an ominous message: they had one hour to nior became one of the first of an estimated Osman cleaned out a barn to shelter his leave, one step ahead of a military sweep of 11,000 people who were deliberately slaugh- wife and children and, a few days later, the region by Serbian forces. Hysenlekaj tered during the following several weeks in erected a tent he received from UNHCR and his two sons escaped to the snow-cov- what became one of the most dramatic and under a nearby tree to make the blistering ered hills and eventually made their way complex humanitarian crises in history. summer heat a little more bearable for his to the neighboring Yugoslav republic of There had been far larger refugee family. “All I know is that I have to get on Montenegro and then to Albania. flights, even in the recent past: nearly two with my life,” he says now with no obvious His wife, Sanise, and four other chil- million Kurds were uprooted in the wake sign of bitterness. “I am ready to work and dren clambered aboard a tractor trailer and, of the Gulf War. There were faster exo- take on any job, but I need help from God to the jeers of policemen telling them to duses: in 1994, more than one million and a miracle to get us through this winter.” “Go to Albania, Clinton is waiting for you,” Rwandan Hutus flooded across the border The Kosovar, like many of the hundreds lumbered slowly toward the frontier and into Zaire in just a few days. of thousands of ethnic Albanians who fled the town of Mamurasi. Seventy years ago, Nevertheless, the Kosovo emergency

6 REFUGEES | COVER STORY |

A CHRONOLOGY OF BALKAN EVENTS The seeds of unrest and 1989 such as Pristina, of conflict in the Balkans can Belgrade ends Kosovo’s Albanians. be traced back to at least autonomous status and an the end of the last century estimated 350,000 ethnic April-May 1999 when the then major Albanians seek asylum in International agencies, powers in the region met Europe in the next decade. governments and a special to redraw the area’s humanitarian task force frontiers, with little regard June 25, 1991 from NATO called AFOR for ethnic composition. Slovenia and Croatia begin to construct dozens Following are some declare independence from of camps for refugees in historical and Yugoslavia. anticipation they will spend contemporary highlights many months in exile. Some March 3, 1992 444, 600 refugees flee to surrounding the Kosovo Bosnia and Herzegovina crisis. Albania, 244,500 to proclaims independence, Macedonia and 69,900 to 1878 but Bosnian Serbs lay siege Montenegro. Because of The world’s Great Powers to Sarajevo and overrun 70 political pressures on the redraw the map of the percent of the country. Macedonian government, Balkans at the Congress of November 21, 1995 more than 90,000 Albanians Berlin after years of conflict Dayton Peace Agreement are airlifted to 29 countries in the region and increasing signed to end hostilities and for temporary safety. tension with Russia. Three pave the way for the June 3, 1999 new countries, Serbia, eventual return home of Montenegro and Romania, Yugoslavia accepts a peace millions of people plan requiring withdrawal of are established to ease displaced by the conflict. international tensions but all forces from Kosovo and the wishes of the local March, 1998 the entry of peacekeepers populations are ignored. After years of rising under a U.N. mandate. tensions, fighting erupts in 1912-13 June 12, 1999 Kosovo between the Russian and NATO forces Two Balkan wars are fought majority Albanians and involving all the regional enter Kosovo, followed the Serbs and within months next day by the first powers and Serbs, some 350,000 people have Romanians, Bulgarians, contingent of UNHCR and been displaced or fled other humanitarian Greeks and Albanians join abroad. forces to expel Ottoman agencies. forces from the Balkans October 27, 1998 June 14, 1999 after several centuries of Yugoslav President Despite appeals by NATO domination. Slobodan Milosevic agrees and UNHCR to be patient, to a cease-fire and partial June 28, 1914 refugees begin to flood pull-out of Yugoslav forces back into Kosovo, and in Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and the Organization for heir to the Austro- one of the fastest refugee Security and Cooperation in returns in history 600,000 Hungarian throne, is shot Europe sends the first of dead by a Serb assassin in return to the shattered 2,000 ‘verifiers’ to monitor province within the first the Bosnian capital of the agreement. Sarajevo, precipitating the three weeks. As the was unique. The first of nearly one mil- outbreak of World War February, 1999 Albanians stream home, however, around 200,000 lion refugees began fleeing the region One. Talks are held in Rambouillet, France, but Serbs and Roma head the within hours of the March 24 start of a 78- December 1, 1918 discussions break down and other way, seeking safety in day NATO bombing campaign. Yet within Yugoslavia, “the Kingdom of tensions and repressions Serbia and Montenegro in three months, in a dramatic reversal of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes” rise again in Kosovo. yet another new refugee is created from territories exodus. fortune, most of those who fled returned formerly occupied by the March 24, 1999 home to shattered villages and a devas- old Turkish and Austrian After repeated warnings, June, 1999 tated province. Perhaps never before had empires. NATO launches its 78-day UNHCR opens offices in seven locations in Kosovo so many people left and then returned in air war. Within three days, October 24, 1944 ethnic Albanians begin to and under a new U.N. civil such a short time. Josip Broz Tito’s communist arrive in neighboring administration, backed by Never before had a refugee crisis been partisans liberate Belgrade Albania and the former tens of thousands of NATO so interlaced with big-power politics, in- and establish a communist Yugoslav Republic of troops, begins the work of volving virtually every important capital regime in Yugoslavia. Macedonia in huge helping hundreds of numbers, walking, on thousands of people rebuild in the world and a military campaign by April 24, 1987 their homes and find access Serbs launch their first tractor-trailers and by car. the most powerful military alliance, Authorities expel thousands to food, water and major protest in the electricity with the harsh NATO, ever assembled. And never before town of Kosovo Polje of persons by special had what all the major players insisted was ‘refugee trains’ to Balkan winter fast against alleged persecution approaching. fundamentally a humanitarian problem by the province’s majority Macedonia, virtually produced such a profound aftershock. Albanians. emptying all major towns, In a gruesome knock-on effect, the re- Ã

REFUGEES 7 | COVER STORY |

Aerial photo of one Kosovo village shows 80 percent of the buildings destroyed.

à turn of the ethnic Albanians triggered the operation ever undertaken by the U.N. sys- WIDESPREAD DESTRUCTION next of a seemingly endless number of pop- tem or the international community in Images from U.S. sources, taken from ulation movements in the Balkans, this modern times,” said former Swedish Prime high-flying reconnaissance aircraft showed time when around 200,000 frightened Minister Carl Bildt who had earlier run a more than 67,000 buildings out of 271,314 Serbs and Roma (gypsies) fled for their lives similar but more limited international op- surveyed had been damaged or destroyed. as revenge killing and other atrocities eration in neighboring Bosnia. U.N. Secre- A separate initial assessment of villages in- swept the province. tary-General Kofi Annan said putting dicated widespread destruction of schools NATO moved the first of more than Kosovo together again would probably take and health centers, agricultural produc- 50,000 soldiers into the prostrate province at least 10 years. The estimated cost could tion halted, the availability of food dra- and the United Nations assembled a civil- run as high as $30 billion. matically reduced and water supplies pol- ian administration, the U.N. Interim Ad- Dennis McNamara, UNHCR’s special luted by ‘a range of materials, including ministration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), envoy in the region and Kofi Annan’s human as well as animal corpses.’ to oversee everything from garbage col- deputy special representative in charge of Damage in the province was very un- lection and street lighting to the re-estab- humanitarian affairs in UNMIK, said since even. While some areas escaped virtually lishment of a police force, judges and jails, day one of the crisis, it had been a constant unscathed, others were almost entirely de- from the reintegration of hundreds of race against time for aid agencies; first to stroyed. When UNHCR’s Maki Shinohara thousands of people to the large-scale re- help the fleeing refugees find sanctuary, visited the small village of Cabra near construction of an entire region. then to help them return home and cur- Kosovska Mitrovica she discovered every “Kosovo will be the most challenging, rently to help them survive the next one of the 175 houses “turned into piles of the most complex peace implementation Balkan winter. rubble” after being deliberately torched

8 REFUGEES | COVER STORY |

and then bulldozed. “Some men have To meet the approaching threat of win- which proved their worth when a major returned during the day,living in blue ter UNHCR and European and Ameri- earthquake destroyed large parts of the UNHCR tents wedged between the heaps can government agencies rushed 56,000 city of Kobe several years ago. of rubble, wandering around the once shelter kits which include plastic sheet- “The return of refugees went rela- prosperous homes, school and clinic,” she ing, timber and tools to Kosovo allowing tively smoothly,” said Dennis McNa- said. families to weatherproof at least one room mara. “And we should have few prob- But within weeks of the large-scale re- in a destroyed house before bad weather lems with long-term reconstruction. turn to Kosovo, the province came back to descends in November and December. But our current headache is that one life as people jump started their old lives, UNHCR planned distribution of 30,000 step in between—emergency rehabili- clearing rubble from destroyed homes, sal- tents, 60,000 stoves, more than one mil- tation. The challenge in the next few vaging whatever was left in the fields, re- lion blankets, 550,000 mattresses and months is going to be getting Kosovo’s opening shops and starting open air mar- 183,000 hygiene and kitchen sets. population through the winter into kets with goods from neighboring Alba- Japan offered more than 500 prefabri- next spring when it will be an entirely nia and Macedonia. cated and self-contained family shelters new ballgame.” Ã

question was first posed by Serb forces in the summer of 1992 in Bosnia. “Bring buses to get these Muslims and Croats out,” they “The Serbs are not a told UNHCR. The organization agonised. Should it help save people whose lives were forgive and forget nation” in danger, the price being that it served the interests of the ethnic cleansers? The an- Albanian refugees have successfully returned home, but that is swer then, and ever since, has been that not the end of the affair in Kosovo lives come first. So, yet again, UNHCR is having to help By Tim Judah the European Union and other sources, it desperate people flee, this time Serbs. But, is more than likely UNHCR’s role in help- unlike for the Albanians, there will be no As far as refugees are concerned Koso- ing these build to rebuild their lives will bombing to secure their return. vo has turned out to be the most grotesque be far smaller than initially anticipated. Some think, but may find it politically of paradoxes. A simultaneous triumph and So much for Kosovo’s refugee triumph. incorrect to say so publicly, that if the Serbs tragedy. The tragedy lies in Kosovo’s historic cul- are cleansed from Kosovo then that is the Most have already returned. Despite ture of revenge. The return of the Albani- end of the matter. After all, Greeks do not criticisms from some, they had been looked ans has led to the flight of the Serbs, many yearn to return to their ancestral homes after in what could only be described as of whom may well have approved of the in deepest Anatolia, any more than Turks five star camps — if you want to compare original expulsion of the Albanians. It was do to return to Thrace. them with other refugee centers. Ninety- revenge, they argued, for the Albanians If they do harbor such thoughts, they two thousand were evacuated and cared having caused the NATO bombardment of may find themselves proved wrong, if not for in third countries. Yugoslavia, so NATO could look after them. in the near future then in decades yet to Inside the province all the internally Since NATO did look after them, and come. Aleksa Djilas, the Serbian historian displaced have also returned. Many of their in a far more dramatic way than the Serbs and political commentator says: “The pos- homes were burned and looted, but the could have imagined, they now find them- sibility of revenge increases the desire. So strength of Kosovo Albanian extended selves paying the price of being Kosovo while today Albanians wreak their re- family networks means far fewer will have Serbs. Fine words about multiculturalism venge, the day may yet come when Serbs to live in collective centers than is the av- interest nobody here and the history of Ser- can wreak theirs.” erage elsewhere. bian-Albanian relations in Kosovo this cen- The way the Serbs have lost Kosovo Another point in favor of a quick return tury has been nothing else but an endless means that tomorrow the Serbs will have to normal is that Kosovar modern history cycle of domination and revenge. no chance to get it back. But what will hap- has meant that almost every family has pen in 10 or 20 years? Just over a decade members working abroad. Anyone who PICKING UP THE PIECES ago, no one could have predicted the shape knows Kosovo will also know that while Neither NATO or the U.N. can break of the world as it is today. families tend to have large compounds the that cycle, but inevitably it falls to UNHCR Djilas says that the spirit of revanchism equally large houses are always in a state to pick up the pieces. Since NATO tanks may grow. “Of course,” he adds, “I would of permanent construction because bits first rolled into Kosovo on June 12, some not support such a thing, but Serbs are not and pieces are built as money filters in from 200,000 Serbs, gypsies and others have fled. exactly a forgive and forget nation. If they relatives abroad. Still, Bernard Kouchner, the head of the new have remembered the 1389 defeat for 610 This means that many Kosovars, un- U.N. administration in Kosovo, has appealed years, why not this one?” like in the west, know how to and indeed to the perhaps 25,000 remaining Serbs to Tim Judah is a journalist and author of: do build their own houses. If their house stay. But is that a responsible policy? “The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruc- is burned, most people will simply start re- As far as UNHCR is concerned there is tion of Yugoslavia” (Yale University Press, building. With extra money expected from no argument. In the former Yugoslavia that 1997). B

REFUGEES 9 | COVER STORY |

à SERBIAN HOLYLAND Kosovo is considered the holyland by most Serbs, ironically because of a battle there that their ancestors lost in 1389 to Moslem Turks. In the following centuries, UNHCR/R.CHALASANI legends flourished around the defeat un- til it was transformed into a mythical vic- tory fought on behalf of the Christian world against invading Moslem hordes. But by the late 1980s, in an estimated population of around two million, ethnic Albanians who mostly follow Islam out- numbered Serbs by a ratio of around nine- to-one. When Slobodan Milosevic inflamed Serbian partisan passions by revoking Kosovo’s autonomy in 1989, he set the stage for a showdown between the two groups. While the outside world focused its at- tention on the violent breakup of the Yu- goslav Federation in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s, the fuse was also running in Kosovo. Between 1989 and 1998, as repression became widespread, some 350,000 Alba- nian Kosovars sought sanctuary in Europe. Widespread fighting erupted in March, 1998 and within months another 350,000 civilians were displaced inside the province or fled abroad. UNHCR operated a $28 million pro- gram with 84 personnel, helping a total of 400,000 people but in late March of this year, along with other international orga- nizations, it was forced to pull out of the Kosovo refugees pass a KFOR tank column on their return to the village of Sopi. province ahead of the NATO air cam- paign. “We, like everyone else at the time, not anticipated a deliberate, well-planned in Rambouillet, France, would piece to- thought that if it came down to a shooting policy to virtually cleanse the entire gether a face-saving compromise. match between NATO and Belgrade, it province as Serbian authorities now began would last for a few days, and we would to do. Nor did anyone else, neither major A CONUNDRUM soon be back in operation,” recalled UN- governments such as the United States, Nicholas Morris, who was then UN- HCR’s Fernando del Mundo who was France and Britain, NATO or the bulk of HCR’s special envoy in the region, high- working in Kosovo at the time. Balkan specialists. Until the last moment, lighted a conundrum which the agency The bombing campaign lasted for 78 in fact, it had been hoped that peace talks faced at this juncture: key western govern- days. Nearly one million people ments were urging UNHCR flooded out of the province into to prepare to implement neighboring Albania, the for- Rambouillet only days be- mer Yugoslav Republic of Mace- fore the exodus began. It is donia and Serbia’s sister repub- unlikely, Morris argued (see lic of Montenegro. Several hun- page 18), that these same dred thousand people were governments who were sub- displaced within the province, sequently highly critical of hiding in the mountains or UNHCR’s lack of readiness trekking from village to village, when refugees did begin to sheltering for weeks and arrive in neighboring coun- months in basements and other tries, would have responded hideaways. to a request for preparations UNHCR had emergency predicated on the failure of UNHCR/R. CHALASANI stockpiles in the region for A German soldier with KFOR displays a deadly booby trap mine. their own peace efforts. around 100,000 people, but had Refugee crises are often

10 REFUGEES | COVER STORY |

KOSOVO STATISTICS

B The most recent census was taken in Kosovo in 1991 and listed a population of 1,956,196. It was boycotted by the majority of ethnic Albanians and was regarded at best as a ‘guesstimate.’ B The ethnic Albanian population was thought to be around 1.7 million people and the Serbs around 200,000 with far smaller numbers of gypsies and other minorities. B After abolition of Kosovo’s au- tonomous status in 1989, around 350,000 ethnic Albanians left Kosovo and applied for asylum in western Europe. B When the latest crisis began in 1998 another 100,000 people left the region. B NATO began a 78-day air campaign on March 24. B A total of 848,100 ethnic Albanians fled or were expelled, including 444,600 to Albania, 244,500 to Macedonia and 69,900 to Montenegro. B An estimated 45,000 refugees arrived in Macedonia on April 2 in the largest 24-hour exodus during the crisis. B A total of 91,057 refugees were airlifted from Macedonia to 29 countries as part of the Humanitarian Evacuation Program. B Within three weeks of the signing of a peace accord, more than 600,000 refugees had flooded back into Kosovo in one of the fastest returns in modern history. defined by one particular moment or one massive influx of ethnic Albanians could B In the same period an estimated particular incident. Kosovo became em- destabilize its own fragile ethnic mix, at one 180,000 Serbs and Roma fled in the oppo- bedded in the world’s conscience with the point kept thousands of new arrivals in an site direction to Serbia proper. arrival in the former Yugoslav Republic of open field with virtually no medical assis- B One official British report said at least Macedonia of the so-called refugee trains tance, little food, and limited access for aid 11,000 Kosovars had been killed by security and the incarceration of thousands of flee- agencies. authorities during the conflict. ing Kosovars in a nondescript open field at Under growing international pressure B UNHCR estimated at least 67,000 and a border crossing called Blace. and under cover of darkness, the authori- possibly twice as many homes had been Tens of thousands of Kosovar civilians ties, in an equally controversial move to destroyed or badly damaged during the were packed onto the trains by Serbian au- the initial detention, suddenly bundled the conflict. thorities from the province capital of Pris- refugees on flights to Turkey and shipped tina and other stations for the short journey others to Albania and to nearby hastily to the border. Inevitably constructed camps. An CRYSTALIZING THE CONFLICT the trains and long lines of unknown number of Blace field crystalized many aspects of shocked people carrying people died in that open the crisis. The world at large, including only a few hastily gathered Perhaps never field but by morning the governments, saw for the first time the possessions were com- only thing left was the sheer brutality and the careful planning pared, if incorrectly, with before had so sad debris of mass flight— behind the cleansing of Kosovo. Even the wagons which hauled many people sodden blankets, ripped though the destruction of the city of Vuko- Jews to the gas chamber clothing, a few children’s var, the siege of Sarajevo, the detention during World War II. The left and then toys, a few pieces of camps and the mass rapes of Bosnia had word ‘genocide’ began to be returned in such flimsy shelter, and the occurred only a few years earlier, there was used indiscriminately. wretched smells left by an incomprehension, an unwillingness to The Macedonian gov- a short time. thousands of terrified admit that “This is happening again in Eu- ernment, fearful that a people. rope, in 1999.” Ã

REFUGEES 11 | COVER STORY |

à In addition to not forecasting the exo- time were less important than political paign which was intended to pave the way dus, there was also now the perceived un- efforts to stabilize a shaky government. for the return of refugees, it is a pity they readiness of aid agencies once the influx Seasoned journalists who wrote articles are now not prepared to spend what we began and their inability to deliver emer- critical of UNHCR’s emergency response have asked for and see the refugees back gency supplies quickly enough, to build later admitted they were unaware of the to their villages,” Jessen-Petersen said at camps for the exiles and UNHCR’s failure constraints placed on the agency by a cum- one point in the crisis. “We need about 10 to protect refugees at Blace field. bersome financing setup; it has no ready million dollars a week and are living hand UNHCR admitted shortcomings in reserves to meet a new crisis and must ap- to mouth.” some areas including not getting more per- peal to donors for additional funds for J. Brian Atwood, administrator of the sonnel and aid on the ground quickly emergencies such as Kosovo, causing in- U.S. Agency for International Development enough, but Assistant High Commissioner evitable delays. To some degree UNHCR at the time gave his assessment: “UNHCR Soren Jessen-Petersen insisted there had can only react as quickly as new funding was not doing its job in the early days. They also been a lot of scape-goating and sheer is put in place. didn’t have the resources. They didn’t have ignorance in play. And ironically, though Kosovo was the the people. I say that their management At Blace, for instance, while UNHCR most reported humanitarian story in his- failure was the direct result of our failure was criticized in some quarters for its al- tory, rarely has UNHCR been so under- in providing them with the resources.” Fi- leged timidity, at least one government funded during its own 50-year life. nancial cuts forced on the U.N. had insisted behind the scenes that the agency “wreaked serious damage which was un- tone down its public statements and even LIVING HAND TO MOUTH conscionable” Atwood said. asked for the recall of one of its spokesper- “After the international community Even as traditional government donors sons. Humanitarian considerations at the spent billions of dollars on a military cam- severely trimmed their financial support

A doctor with Médecins du Monde helps ethnic Albanians at Morini border crossing. | COVER STORY |

for UNHCR (at the height of the exodus then its officials satellite links with Italy had officially contributed $800,000 simply disappeared “Kosovo will be the the town. Hun- to the agency. The Italian public donated one night without dreds of media more than ten times that amount pri- informing any most challenging, the stars, aid officials, vately), they channeled unprecedented other aid agency. A NATO officials, amounts to government-to-government, private organiza- most complex peace and celebrities de- or bilateral projects. tion established an- implementation scended on the The Italians were the first to establish a other camp in area, renting seedy camp in the northern Albanian town of Kukes, forbade operation ever downtown apart- Kukes and tens of thousands of refugees UNHCR or any ments from locals benefited from this and other government other officials from undertaken by the for $3,000 a run projects. visiting ‘our U.N. system.” month. But this type of assistance produced its refugees’ and re- A down at heel own headaches. UNHCR was mandated fused to attend hangout, perhaps to coordinate aid and protection for the agency coordination meetings. appropriately called Bar America, became refugees, but often was among the last to “Perhaps one of the most fundamental the unofficial hub of the whole affair where know about a new program or camp. This mistakes we made was to underestimate swaggering guerrillas of the Kosovo Lib- lack of coordination produced waste, over- the enormity of the stakes on the table,” eration Army kept journalists waiting for lap and confusion. In what in other cir- one senior aid official said later. “We knew days promising trips into ‘the occupied ter- cumstances might be comical, one Euro- of course that Kosovo was a huge human- ritories’ and where local gangs were over- pean government established a camp— itarian crisis, but the political and military heard wheeling and dealing alleged white reaped the media payoff for its actions—but stakes were even higher. In that environ- slavery deals among the refugees. Unem- ment every success, and every mistake was ployment disappeared as locals became magnified. And while everyone was quick drivers, translators and odd-job men. “It enough to take credit they were even was Christmas in Kukes for the locals,” one quicker to pass on the blame. We were am- aid official said. “They had never seen such ateurs in this game.” wealth, even though it was generated by a

UNHCR/R.CHALASANI refugee crisis.” SYMBOL OF HOPE AND TRAGEDY Thousands of tractors, some without If Blace seared the Kosovo crisis into the tires and running on steel rims, carrying world’s conscience, the town of Kukes is several families at a time swamped the lit- destined to enter refugee folklore, like Sara- tle town. The Italians established their jevo and Srebrenica before it, as a vivid high-tech camp near a disused mine and symbol of human tragedy, but also perhaps, officials and troops from the United Arab ultimately of hope. Emirates built, by refugee standards, a Northern Albania is a starkly beauti- sumptuous camp with a hospital which ful place of wild mountains and deep fjord- would grace any town in the western style lakes. Communist-era planners world. scarred the landscape with a series of five- A rickety fleet of buses and army trucks storey concrete apartment blocks at Kukes moved tens of thousands of people away to house workers for nearby mines which from the sensitive border zone to spots fur- have since closed. It is an area of feuding, ther inside Albania. It was not a pretty sight, gun-toting mafias, clandestine armies, but the convoy system worked amazingly smuggling and almost universal unem- well. Many other Kosovars moved in with ployment. A twisting, crumbling road local families or into seven camps on the links Kukes to Morini, a seedy and sleepy fringes of Kukes and ignored entreaties border post with Kosovo. from UNHCR to move out of range of Serb More than 440,000 refugees escaped artillery. They wanted to be close to the bor- into Albania, virtually all of them through der, they said, to reunite split families and Morini and Kukes, a town of just 28,000 return to Kosovo as quickly as possible. people. It is difficult to imagine any small European or American town handling a IGNORING THE WARNINGS sudden influx of destitute and terrified That seemed highly unlikely at the refugees around sixteen times its own pop- time, but as government and agencies ulation, but Kukes did so with a degree of geared up for a huge building program to aplomb. house nearly one million refugees through One of the most remote places in Eu- the winter, an agreement was struck be- rope, Kukes suddenly became a nerve cen- tween NATO and Belgrade. The refugees ter for the world. Dozens of international were urged to stay where they were until news companies established permanent Kosovo could be made safe, but they again Ã

REFUGEES 13 | COVER STORY |

à waved away the warnings and within days watched floods of Kosovars going home. ans just flashed a ‘V’ for victory sign and headed home as fast as they could go. “Two gigantic red billboards with skull and went home. ‘We don’t mind the mines,’ said “The scene at Morini crossing was sur- bones painted on them in black warned one old man, ‘as long as the Serbs have real,” said Kris Janowski of UNHCR as he against the danger of landmines. Albani- gone.’ Ã

who fled in 1990, was refused asylum by the Swiss authorities, as were two of his Kosovo’s first exodus children who subsequently joined him. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians had already Since then, he has been living precariously in Geneva on temporary permits, facing left Kosovo before the world began paying attention the periodic threat of expulsion and fill- Serbian security forces came calling for province shortly after Slobodan Milosevic ing menial jobs to support his family. Gashi after the young Kosovar had joined abolished its autonomous status within He is both bemused and full of irony an underground political organization and the Yugoslav Federation in 1989 and be- about the different treatment afforded his publicly demonstrated against alleged gov- gan a crackdown against activists. During generation and the latest refugees. “When ernment atrocities. Forewarned by his the next decade a massive exodus, mainly we talked about crackdowns and massacres brother, he made a dash for the border but to western Europe, took place. then, no one believed us,” he said in a re- his passport was confiscated along with all Between 1980 and 1988 fewer than cent interview. “Before this NATO war, of his foreign cash. A the Europeans didn’t second clandestine at- know anything and tempt was more suc- didn’t want to know cessful and he eventu- anything. Now their ally made it first to attitude has changed Slovenia then Austria, UNHCR/A.HOLLMANN 180 degrees.” Person- Germany and finally ally, he said, he felt “be- Switzerland. His wife trayed.” and four children re- Gashi has not seen mained behind in his wife and two other Kosovo. children since he fled Gashi’s story could nearly a decade ago be the history of any from a village called of the nearly one mil- Peqan in the Suva lion refugees displaced Reka area of Kosovo. earlier this year in the They, too, were forced province — with one to flee to Albania ear- major difference. His lier this year and their showdown with Ser- Early Kosovar asylum seekers at a reception center in Bavaria, Germany. family home was bian authorities and burned down. He has flight to freedom came since talked with his almost a decade earlier, in 1990. 42,000 Yugoslav citizens applied for asy- wife by telephone and his family is well. And whereas the plight of hundreds of lum in Europe, but between 1989 and 1998 He will return home before the end of thousands of Kosovars received unprece- the number jumped to 793,000 as the state the year to an uncertain future. “There dented media and political exposure fol- imploded. An estimated 350,000 of them will be a few problems,” he acknowledges, lowing the start of the NATO bombing were ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. especially for two teenage children who campaign earlier this year, the exodus of Most migrated to Germany and have become used to the sophistication of huge numbers of their countrymen Switzerland where many already had rel- Geneva city living and who will now re- throughout the 1990s went largely unno- atives, but their welcome was far differ- turn to a simple village existence. “But ticed by the outside world. ent to the support and help the interna- there will be no regrets. Our future is in The future of these ethnic Albanians tional community offered the 1999 exiles. Kosovo.” from the earlier diaspora is far less clear During the 1990s fewer than 10 percent The majority of those Kosovars who than that of the ‘1999 refugees’ the majority were recognized as refugees even though left at the same time as Gashi will also of whom have already returned home. How repression in Kosovo continued to esca- eventually return to Kosovo. Most will many of these older exiles want to go back? late. Indeed Kosovars were often labelled probably go willingly, and with NATO and Will the countries where they are currently with unsavory reputations linked with the U.N. guaranteeing the province’s safety living give them a choice? And how will smuggling and drug rings. and security, European governments will they and their children reintegrate in a tell even those Kosovars who have started shattered society after so long away? REFUSED ASYLUM new lives and want to stay that it is now Ethnic Albanians began leaving the Gashi, the young Kosovar locksmith time to go home. B

14 REFUGEES | COVER STORY |

“Aid workers armed with hand coun- ters quickly gave up attempts to monitor the flood. Locally built Zastava cars which normally seat four were often crammed UNHCR/M. VACCA with nine people, roof racks groaning un- der the weight of mattresses and furniture piled higher than the cars themselves. Their chassis scraped along the road. A U.N. aid station had been established hand- ing out free food, but in the rush to get home, vehicles just drove by.” “When hundreds of thousands of refugees like these decide they want to go home, you just step aside and let them,” one awed aid official said of the return. “You go with the flow.” The dangers officials warned about were real enough. Dozens of people were wounded and some killed in the first few weeks, not only from the hundreds of thou- sands of mines which had been deliber- Aid is distributed to refugees returning to Pec, one of the most badly damaged ately planted, but also from unexploded towns in Kosovo. ordnance, especially deadly cluster bombs, dropped by NATO aircraft. Mine experts said Kosovo was at least as dangerous as Carl Bildt noted that in the case of liver the billions of dollars needed for hu- Bosnia, Cambodia and Angola, and it could Bosnia a formal and binding peace agree- manitarian aid and long-term reconstruc- take ‘a generation’ to make the region even ment, the Dayton accords, had been signed, tion. relatively safe. but there was no such framework to guide In the broader humanitarian context, As the crisis entered a new phase, all of how will the preference shown in Kosovo the parties involved faced problems and for government-to-government programs headaches as large and complex as during affect the coordination of future complex the emergency itself. In addition to mine Whatever the merits emergencies and the funding of organi- hazards and the race against winter, how zations such as UNHCR? What effect will could the new U.N. administration suc- of the bombing NATO’s role as both belligerent and ma- cessfully coax back the tens of thousands campaign, it is clear jor aid participant have on future human- of Serbs and gypsies in the face of contin- itarian-military cooperation? uing atrocities against their communities? that once the crisis The debate over NATO’s decision to There was general agreement that a bomb Kosovo will continue endlessly. Was lasting settlement would be impossible began, the it the only way left or was it the case, to without addressing the grievances of these humanitarian use a Viet Nam-era analogy, of ‘destroy- groups. And though it would be danger- ing the village to save it?’ ous to draw too many parallels, it was dis- operation was an Whatever the merits of those argu- couraging to note that hundreds of thou- ments, however, it is clear that once the sands of persons displaced in other parts of overall success. crisis began, the humanitarian operation the former Yugoslavia, 500,000 in Serbia was an overall success. Despite the initial and Montenegro, and many others in slowness in responding to the exodus and Croatia and Bosnia, were still waiting to the new administrators in Kosovo, mak- despite other mistakes, nearly one million return to their homes years after the shoot- ing their task even more difficult. refugees did receive assistance. Local gov- ing had stopped in those regions. The regional repercussions were im- ernments and host families played a ma- The bulk of the ethnic Albanians forced mense. Serbia itself was crippled by the ef- jor part, of course, but the end result was to flee this year, even the more than 90,000 fects of the bombing campaign and a vir- that there were fewer deaths than would who were flown to 29 countries around the tual international pariah. The political sit- be expected among a huge and vulnerable world for temporary refuge, had returned uations in Montenegro and Macedonia population which quickly received at least home by autumn or signalled their inten- were fragile. Albania remains the poorest minimal shelter, food and medical care as tion to do so. But what about the estimated country in Europe. Bosnia hosted more they left Kosovo. And when they returned 350,000 Kosovars who fled during the early than 20,000 Kosovars and its own internal home, the refugees showed a resilience and 1990s? Would they be allowed to stay in problems remained sensitive to regional strength of purpose to rebuild their homes European countries where they had lived developments. There were concerns that which will be a major building block in try- for years or, if they returned home, how once the spotlight shifted from Kosovo, the ing to patch together the shattered successful would their reintegration be? international community might not de- province. B

REFUGEES 15 BALKAN EVENTS

PRISTINA

BELGRADE Members of Slobodan 1 Milosevic’s Serbian Communist Party demonstrate in Belgrade in 1989 ‘defending Serb rights’ throughout the country. It was rising nationalism and Belgrade’s decision to end Kosovo’s UNHCR / M. SHINOHARA autonomous status that same year Widespread fighting spread which sparked the crisis between Serbs 2 throughout Kosovo in 1998 and and ethnic Albanians in the province. UNHCR helped an estimated 400,000 © C. CUPIC people inside the province during the year. Here an aid official checks stocks before distribution.

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA SARAJEVO MONTENEGRO SERBIA PODGORICA As Kosovar 9 refugees returned home, around 200,000 Serbs and Roma (gypsies) fled Kosovo fearing revenge attacks. The bulk of them, like the Serbs pictured, sought refuge in other parts of Serbia itself though U.N. officials had urged them SHKODËR to stay in Kosovo. © M. RASIC

ITALY

SERBIA TIRANA The NATO air 8 campaign wreaked widespread damage throughout Serbia, including against some unintended targets. A sanatorium in the town of Surdulica which had been 5 renovated by UNHCR to house refugees was KOSOVO destroyed when three missiles hit the building. An accord Sixteen refugees living 7 was signed in there were killed. early June ending © M. RASIC the fighting in Kosovo. Within weeks the bulk of the refugees returned home in one of the swiftest and largest repatriations in modern history. 16 UNHCR / R. CHALASANI B More than 67,000 Yugoslavs, B Cuban President Fidel Castro B The European Union pledged B The World Food Program mainly ethnic Albanians, applied offered to send 1,000 doctors to $500 million for each of the next announced plans to feed 2.5 mil- for asylum in Europe in the first Kosovo and other areas of the three years for Kosovo recon- lion people in Yugoslavia, includ- six months of 1999. former Yugoslavia. struction. ing Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia.

ROMANIA ROMANIA MACEDONIA KUKES As a NATO bombing campaign 3 got underway in late March the first of nearly one million ethnic Albanian Kosovars fled to neighboring countries. A family arrives in the Albanian border town of Kukes. 1 Hundreds of thousands more civilians were displaced within Kosovo itself. UNHCR / R. CHALASANI

BELGRADE 8 FEDERAL REPUBLIC UNHCR / H.J. DAVIES OF YUGOSLAVIA 9 Nearly one- 4 quarter of a million people fled to Macedonia. Many were housed in hastily constructed camps such as the one at Cegrane until they returned home. 7 MITROVICA 2 PEC KOSOVO PRISTINA SOFIA

BULGARIA PRIZREN BULGARIA 3 SKOPJE 4 KUKES UNITED KINGDOM FYR OF MACEDONIA Nearly 92,000 5 refugees who reached Macedonia were then temporarily evacuated to 29 countries outside the region after the UNHCR / H.J. DAVIES Skopje government made clear it could not absorb any more people. These ALBANIA Kosovars were en route to the United Kingdom. 6

ALBANIA The majority of 6 refugees who reached KORCE Albania found shelter with host families. An elderly couple and their grandchild

pose for a formal photograph IMAGE COURTESY OF LIVINGEARTH.COM with their hosts in the Albanian town of Bajram Albanian refugee exodus Curri. Refugee return UNHCR / B. PRESS Serb exodus GREECE 17 | ORIGIN | ORIGINS OF A CRISIS of the OSCE (Organization for Security An operation as difficult and Cooperation in Europe) Kosovo Veri- and complex as any fication Mission deployed and many dis- UNHCR has faced placed persons began returning home. O SOLUTION By Nicholas Morris N It was understood by all, however, that hen the Kosovo crisis began to this was not a long-term political solution: gain international attention two that only a little time had been bought in Wyears ago, it was presented pri- which to find one. By late December, the marily in terms of humanitarian assis- cease-fire was breaking down and security tance and reconstruction. But High Com- forces embarked on a series of ‘winter ex- missioner Sadako Ogata reported as early ercises’ clearly aimed at KLA strongholds as September, 1998, that “Kosovo is a po- but which also caused new civilian dis- litical problem, with devastating human- placements. itarian consequences, for which there is The Rambouillet negotiating process only a political solution.” At the heart of began in February 1999, but the violence UNHCR/R. LEMOYNE this problem were long-standing abuses of and displacement continued and acceler- human rights. ated markedly after the talks faced. The practical problems of assistance The long sim- ended without agreement on 23 were huge, but there were also major pro- mering crisis took February. When U.N. and NGO tection headaches in a highly charged po- on a new dimen- There were no humanitarian agencies had to litical environment where the stakes for sion in February, lack of claimants suspend operations in March, concerned governments were high. 1998 with major an estimated 260,000 persons The former Yugoslav Republic of clashes between for successes and were displaced within Kosovo Macedonia was reluctant to grant asy- Yugoslav and Ser- itself, 100,000 elsewhere in the lum. There were security problems in bian security forces an obvious region and since early 1998 close Montenegro where the government was who indulged in candidate for to 100,000 had sought asylum ready to protect refugees if it could, but severe human further afield, chiefly in Ger- where the presence of federal security rights abuses and blame for many and Switzerland. forces posed a threat to its very existence. the Kosovo Libera- By early this year UNHCR’s The KLA was actively recruiting and tion Army which perceived Kosovo operations were help- many families were split up during gained increased shortcomings. ing an estimated 400,000 per- flight. control of territory sons inside Kosovo in an opera- The most immediate problem was that and roads. There tion widely seen as effective. As UNHCR, like almost every western deci- was only limited need for relief assistance. in the earlier Bosnia conflict, UNHCR or- sion maker and indeed many Kosovo Al- In a counter-offensive in July last year, ganized international convoy teams and banians, did not predict the mass expul- the security forces re-established control made no distinctions among recipients ex- sions. Until days before the exodus, key over a number of key areas. They inten- cept on the basis of need. Unlike Bosnia, western governments were banking on sified a campaign of terror and forced dis- access for the convoys and humanitarian peace and urging UNHCR to prepare for placement as a massive collective punish- staff was rarely denied and delivery was the early implementation of the Ram- ment against the civilian population for its much easier, including to Serb civilians. bouillet accords. perceived support of the KLA which itself But the limitations of was responsible for human rights abuses. a humanitarian response By late September 1998, more than in the absence of success- 350,000 persons had been displaced inside ful political action had and outside the province and High Com- again been made starkly

missioner Ogata concluded that no just and clear. KEYSTONE/AP/M.EULER lasting solution would be possible without During the weeks of a fundamental change in Belgrade’s atti- NATO air action, around tude toward Kosovo’s Albanians. 850,000 refugees fled or The U.N. Security Council’s September were expelled from Resolution 1199 demanded the withdrawal Kosovo. UNHCR became of security forces from Kosovo which be- engaged in an operation gan in late October. As the KLA reasserted as difficult and complex NATO bombing began after the failure of the its presence, the first unarmed members as any the agency has Rambouillet peace talks in France.

18 REFUGEES | ORIGIN |

as to its ability to influ- denly a massive humanitarian crisis which ence governments on governments and NATO urgently needed matters where their na- to contain and major and sometimes com- tional interests were so peting political considerations were at stake. engaged. The humanitarian operation was both a ve- hicle for and subordinated to these concerns BURDEN SHARING with no lack of claimants for successes and For years the case of an obvious candidate for blame for perceived ‘burden sharing’ has shortcomings. been argued in hu- manitarian meetings DIRECT GOVERNMENT but countries of asy- INVOLVEMENT lum wishing donors to Unlike in Bosnia, where UNHCR con- share the asylum, not trolled the operation and coordination was just the financial bur- relatively easy, some governments became dens, have had little directly involved in humanitarian initiatives, leverage in the past. sought their own visibility and the quick so- With NATO’s presence lutions which were simply not available. on its territory, Mace- Coordination in Kosovo, though a man- donia had leverage and dated UNHCR responsibility, was always Wheatflour is unloaded at Urosevac the humanitarian difficult and at times impossible in a ‘free- during aid operations in Kosovo in 1998. evacuation program for-all’ atmosphere. UNHCR was urged was the condition for to coordinate more effectively by govern- keeping the border ments which then made bilateral ar- FAILED PEACE INITIATIVE open. UNHCR launched the program rangements for assistance and camp con- It is unlikely these same governments, though it would have happened anyway. struction about which UNHCR often some of whom have been sharply critical of Selecting refugees for evacuation was learned post facto. UNHCR’s lack of preparedness, would fraught with potential protection problems. Some NGOs arrived without knowl- have responded to a request for massive The concept itself was new; it was not re- edge of the region or a clear understand- preparations predicated on the failure of settlement and not even temporary pro- ing of the context or needs and sometimes their own peace efforts. To have been pre- tection. Some participating governments without the necessary experience. pared for what actually happened, such a sought to limit their responsibilities by re- Such early problems are characteristic request would have had to be already met fusing to allow immediate of high-profile emergencies, at a time when the success of peace efforts family reunion, even of but proved particularly dif- still looked possible. spouses, because this could Coordination ficult to handle in this one. UNHCR’s key concern as the exodus be- have given evacuees the The experience reinforced gan was less the absence of contingency full rights of refugees. in Kosovo was the importance of UNHCR planning and stockpiles than lack of field One of the ironies was always spelling out the challenges staff with a high level of experience and that governments which and problems more clearly keen political judgement. had respected UNHCR’s difficult and from the start and the need A week after the exodus began and with requests with regard to the for a team/consortium ap- 300,000 refugees already in Albania and protection and non-return at times proach with U.N. and other Macedonia, UNHCR asked for NATO’s as- of Kosovo asylum seekers impossible in a partners. sistance in an understanding which ex- before NATO’s action, be- UNHCR has commis- plicitly recognized the primacy of the hu- came more restrictive af- ‘free-for-all’ sioned an independent eval- manitarian organizations. The potential ter it. UNHCR even had to uation of the operation to problems of humanitarian groups working refute arguments that be- atmosphere. ensure that lessons are cor- with a military are well documented. But cause deportees had not rectly analysed and learned. the reason for UNHCR’s April 3 request themselves fled persecution, they were not It is to be hoped that lessons will also be was that there was no other way to unblock entitled to protection as refugees. learned from the cumulative failures to a political impasse in which up to 65,000 Kosovo and Bosnia have often been take resolute political action that con- people were left stranded on the Kosovo- compared, but the fundamental differences tributed to making such a difficult opera- Macedonia border. NATO’s readiness to between these two operations have tended tion necessary in the first place. B build camps and the start of the humani- to be overlooked. UNHCR’s Bosnia opera- tarian evacuation program was the ‘pack- tion was, in a sense, a substitute for politi- Nicholas Morris , whose views do not nec- age’ Macedonia required to allow asylum. cal action and ensuring its success was im- essarily reflect those of the U.N., was UN- UNHCR considered that this military portant to key governments. HCR Special Envoy in the Balkans in 1993- support was better coordinated by the The Kosovo exodus was the consequence 94 and again in 1998 until April 1999. This is agency than provided bilaterally, as it would of, but certainly not caused by, political ac- an abridged article which first appeared in otherwise have been, but had no illusions tions of key governments. There was sud- Forced Migration Review.

REFUGEES 19 Ethnic Serbs flee Kosovo. EUROPE’S LATEST EXODUS But when Albanian refugees began Serbia, already host to a half million refugees, streaming back into the province in early receives a new influx from Kosovo June, he recognized ‘it was time to go again’ despite international pleas for the esti- his is a road to nowhere, except a big dark history of the Balkans. Three times mated 200,000 ethnic Serbs and tens of “ black hole. But for us, there is no in less than a decade Didac has become a thousands of Roma (gypsies) in the T choice. We must go,” said 45-year-old refugee as successive conflicts engulfed the province to remain. “For us life just turned Didac as he looked north from Kosovo to- region during the 1990s. into a permanent hell,” Didac said as he ward the hinterland of Serbia recently, his Born in the Krajina area of Croatia, Di- joined a growing exodus out of Kosovo. dark eyes blank and expressionless. His wife dac’s family was among 170,000 ethnic Thousands of gypsies tried to escape to and two children, all ethnic Serbs, along Serbs chased out of that region by the Italy, but many were returned. with two other fam- Croatian army in “We are a people without a country,” said ilies huddled silently 1995. When he one Roma. “We go where the wind blows.” on the back of a trac- “For us life has become reached his ances- tor-trailer. “We are tral homeland of A SIGNIFICANT BURDEN doomed to become a permanent hell.” Serbia and apparent Around 200,000 displaced from Kosovo permanent wander- safety, he was headed north to Serbia or west to Mon- ers, shunned by the world,” Didac said as moved by local authorities and became a tenegro trying to escape an increasing num- his small convoy of farm vehicles trundled ‘settler’ in Kosovo as part of the central ber of atrocities. They became an economic slowly forward. government’s efforts to maintain control of burden in a country reeling from war, a crip- Etched deeply into his weather-lined a province dominated numerically by eth- pled infrastructure, rampant unemploy- face was not only personal tragedy, but the nic Albanians. ment and which was already host to the

20 REFUGEES | SERBIA |

largest single concentra- ficial admitted: “Let’s face it. through the NATO bomb- tion of refugees in Eu- The Serbs aren’t popular “Let’s face it. ing earlier this year, with rope, more than 500,000 refugees with international 815 civilians returning to people who had fled ear- donors. The bulk of any avail- The Serbs Croatia and 35 to Bosnia. lier regional conflicts. able funds will go toward re- aren’t popular More than a half mil- The government in building Kosovo. The Serbs lion long-time Serb Belgrade initially used a will get the leftovers.” refugees with refugees —joined this year series of bureaucratic ob- Some ethnic Serb refugees by an additional 200,000 stacles to try to force peo- have managed to start a new international people from Kosovo— are ple to return to Kosovo. life. Serbia introduced a new donors. They living their lives in bu- Displaced Serbs were for- Citizenship Law in 1997 and reaucratic limbo, unsure bidden to register with around 42,000 people were ap- will get the they will be able to return local police until they proved for citizenship and per- to homes some families had ‘deregistered’ in manent residence. Since 1992 leftovers.” have occupied for cen- Kosovo. But in a classic nearly 13,500 refugees from turies, or whether they Catch 22 situation, there Croatia and Bosnia were resettled by UN- will be able to start afresh somewhere else. were no civil servants left HCR in other regions, primarily the United For its part the new U.N. administration in Kosovo to deregister States, Canada, Australia, Chile and vari- in Kosovo is convinced the key to long-term them. Without Serbian ous European countries. stability in the province must be the suc- registration the new ar- Disappointingly only around 5,000 peo- cessful reintegration of the region’s Serbs rivals could not obtain ple had gone back on UNHCR-organized and Roma. Given the discouraging example pensions, fuel coupons or repatriation programs to their original from other areas of the former Yugoslavia schooling for their chil- homes in Croatia and Bosnia by the end of that may well remain an elusive goal and a dren. “They are trying to 1998. Some of these returns continued future potential flashpoint. B force them back with red tape,” said UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski at the time. When some Serbs did re- Tolerance in a sea of hatred turn to Kosovo they One tiny republic keeps its doors open to everyone found their situation as UNHCR/R. CHALANASI precarious as when they Ethnic hatred and cleansing became That tradition of tolerance continued had left. The govern- a virulent disease in many parts of the through the recent troubles in Kosovo, ment later said it was working urgently to former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. An hon- despite the fact that Montenegro re- eliminate the bureaucratic bottlenecks and orable exception to this behavior has mains officially allied with Serbia in the make the displaced more welcome. been the conduct of the tiny republic of rump Yugoslav Federation, the Yugoslav Even when refugees found accommoda- Montenegro. army has troops stationed in the repub- tion, the conditions were often inadequate. As early as 1991, Montenegrins lic and Yugoslav police control the com- A UNHCR team visited the region and in vividly demonstrated their opposition to mon frontier. one old school building in Sirco found around a conflict which eventually engulfed the The government in the republic cap- 120 refugees. In one room seven adult Koso- entire region, when army reservists re- ital of Podgorica, which means Under vars and 12 children shared four beds. In an- sisted attempts to mobilize them to fight the Mountain, openly opposed Serbia’s other a woman still recovering from an op- in the Yugoslav army against Croatia, actions in Kosovo, despite the obvious eration, her nine-year-old daughter and hus- which had declared its independence political threats to its own survival, and band and grandfather shared two bare steel from the old Yugoslav Federation. again welcomed floods of uprooted Koso- beds and used toilet paper as pillows. As war spread, the tiny republic — vars of all ethnicities. At another location, scores of refugees re- population only 616,000— sheltered as Initially, an estimated 70,000 mostly ceived only a quarter loaf of bread and a small many as 45,000 refugees from Croatia ethnic Albanians sought shelter in Mon- sliver of pate per day as a food ration. In the and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Remarkably, tenegro, a region of splendid beaches, town of Leskovac, an estimated 200 people they included both Serbs and Muslims mountains and marshland. The bulk of who fled the Krajina region seven years ago, at a time when other countries in the re- those people returned home in early continue to live in a school with no hot wa- gion were slamming their doors shut to summer when the fortunes of war ter, no electric boilers, little electric light, anyone other than their own ethnic kin. changed dramatically in their favor, but leaking pipes and ‘an overpowering smell Aid officials particularly remember when Serbs and Roma fled the province coming out of the building’ . the government’s kindness in 1992 toward in turn, Montenegro sheltered some Muslim and Serb men who had been held 22,000 of them. THE LEFTOVERS in wretched conditions in various deten- The government’s openness toward all Since 1991 UNHCR provided an esti- tion centers in Bosnia, by housing them victims of war showed a welcome touch of mated $250 million in assistance to the early in coastal hotels which normally catered humanity in an area where ethnic intol- refugee arrivals in Serbia. But as one aid of- to the lucrative tourist trade. erance has become the norm. B

REFUGEES 21 | INTERVIEW | “IT’S HARD TO BE OPTIMISTIC” Dennis McNamara became UNHCR Special Envoy in the Balkans as the Kosovo crisis exploded into full-scale conflict. He was subsequently also named as a Deputy Special Representative of Secretary-General Kofi Annan in charge of humanitarian affairs for the province and in the following interview examines some of the early problems and the future.

Refugees: The Kosovo crisis seemed to a. It was a Catch-22 situation to some ex- be a race against time with the international tent. Initial criticism led to withholding of community always playing catch-up...the race funds and an amazing situation where we to help hundreds of thousands of fleeing had to keep appealing for humanitarian refugees...the race to assist the flood of re- funds during a conflict when governments turnees and now another race against the ap- had spent billions on military hardware. In- proach of winter. creased government-to-government pro- a. A half a million people fled in 10 days grams are a reflection of a global phe- contrary to all predictions. Then a half a nomenon. Governments see bilateral pro- million people went back in two weeks, grams serving national interests more again contrary to all predictions. Playing effectively. Hence there is support for catch-up was inevitable. NATO’s post-conflict role, for European Union and OSCE bodies and at the same q. Can the humanitarian community win time there has been very inadequate fund- this latest race? ing for an organization like UNHCR which a. We’ve managed more people in more is charged by these same players with co- difficult circumstances than Kosovo over ordinating the humanitarian response. the last few decades so the humanitarian task is eminently doable. That’s not the ma- q. Given that many of these governments jor hurdle. The real challenge is the over- are also major donors of UNHCR, isn’t this all political, security and military envi- a worrying development for the future? ronment and the plethora of major actors a. Donors have many voices. There is including NATO, the European Union and rhetoric supporting UNHCR’s coordinat- the UN. How are they going to fit to- ing role but those same institutions fund gether? agencies bilaterally and issue precise in- structions not to be coordinated by the U.N. q. UNHCR was heavily criticized for its Those are inherent dilemmas which have performance at the start of the Kosovo exodus. to come out in the open. The current situ- a. Part of the criticism was valid, some ation cannot continue. of it invalid and some of it in-between. Parts of the system should have moved ef- q. Did UNHCR underestimate the sheer fectively and quickly, but there were no political and military complexity and magni- predictions of the magnitude of the exo- tude of Kosovo? dus by any government. We had appealed a. On the humanitarian level we have early for donor support for contingency handled more difficult situations. But once planning. The support was not forthcom- NATO launched its first military action ing. Those factors must be balanced against ever, the stakes were fantastically high po- the slowness of the response. litically and it was no longer business as usual. Humanitarian agencies are likely to q. Why was UNHCR constantly under- get crushed when elephants of that size funded by donor governments who also un- are unleashed and we are convenient dertook far more government-to-government scapegoats when things go wrong. It was A 13-year-old girl who lost both legs to a booby trapped mine when she programs, so-called bilateralism, than seen also a media war, a media circus, a four- returned home, at Pristina hospital.

previously? month crisis 24-hours a day and the only © O.VOGELSANG

22 REFUGEES | INTERVIEW |

news seemed to be bad news. Today, infor- tection means both physical and compre- mation and perception are as important as hensive legal protection and this tragic gap actual performance and that’s a lesson we in protection in Kosovo could be fatal to have had to learn. If you don’t you will be the ideals of multi-ethnicity. trampled. q. One refugee exodus seems to beget q. Humanitarian military cooperation has another. Is there any way to break this cycle? always been a delicate subject. Will Kosovo a. Hundreds of thousands of people strengthen or sour future coordination? have returned to Kosovo but the conflict a. That’s a key question. During the war produced another 200,000 refugees. The this massive interface meant constantly cycle continues. It’s hard to be optimistic redrawing the lines of responsibility. but population stability is the bedrock of NATO was one hundred times superior in human rights and democracy. manpower and resources and when not en- gaged militarily they began setting sched- q. Donors increasingly earmark funds for ules for repatriation and doing other things specific crises and the hundreds of thousands that were our mandate. They didn’t ap- of refugees already in Serbia have sometimes preciate us saying ‘hold it, don’t do that.’ been forgotten by the international commu- And we didn’t appreciate them overstep- nity. Isn’t this another dangerous trend? ping the line. The powers that be, how- a. Earmarking funds is clearly politi- ever, recognized they couldn’t solve the cri- cally driven but UNHCR has channeled sis purely militarily so they returned to the $250 million to Serb refugees since 1992. It U.N. to manage the consequences. It’s been will be far more difficult to get new funds difficult for both groups. I’m sure it will af- for the latest Serb displaced and for the fect future cooperation. longtime displaced in Serbia who are living in pitiful conditions. q . The threat of mines is going to be with us in Kosovo for a very long time? q. What is UNHCR’s medium and long- a. They recently found a World War term role in Kosovo following the return of Two unexploded bomb at London airport. the majority of refugees? Kosovo will be no different. But unexploded a. We will continue to address the hu- military ordnance may be a bigger prob- manitarian hazards of winter. We must lem than mines themselves. We don’t know continue to care for refugees in Albania how much is out there and where it is. We and Macedonia who have not returned are talking years here. home and address the problems of Koso- vars who went further afield to Europe, q. In humanitarian crises there always Oceania and North America. We will be seems to be a dangerous gap between emer- engaged for a very long time. gency assistance and longer term recon- struction which seems to be happening in q. What about the surrounding states who Kosovo too. housed so many Kosovars? a. The rebuilding of civil society must a. A fundamental message must be ‘You be in the frontline with humanitarian re- are not forgotten because you’ve served your lief. Funding states must be committed and purpose.’ Our message is ‘We will remain alert enough to send in the people who are committed to you.’ These countries are an- going to rebuild the roads and electrical gry about the lack of economic assistance plants, the judiciary and the police along they believe they were promised and Euro- with the aid workers. They should be on pean nations must invest in these countries. the ground with us so that this dangerous, lawless environment is not allowed to q. But we’ve seen this all before. The cam- flourish in a vacuum. eras go away and the world forgets. a. Kosovo is too important politically to q. Isn’t it just naive and wishful thinking be simply brushed aside when the televi- to believe Kosovo can be multi-ethnic again sion screens are empty. When politicians after such violence and atrocities? After all, are embarrassed by television images they hundreds of thousands of people are still wait- respond. But, slogans and images are not ing to go home in Bosnia. the way to run international affairs. We had a. To be sure, revenge is in the air and a war in Kosovo based on principle. Now whether this hatred is stemmable or not, let’s invest in the future by continuing to I’m not sure. What’s for certain is that pro- support these same principles. B

REFUGEES 23 | OPINION | LEARNING TO LIVE WITH THE MILITARY Cooperation among humanitarian bod- Soldiers and humanitarian workers often make ies, and among the sprawling family of U.N. uneasy partners, but they need each other organizations, should further improve with the strengthening of the Office for the Co- By Cedric Thornberry tary may also be asked to supplement the ordination of Humanitarian Affairs humanitarians’ logistical capacity. (OCHA), but renewed attention needs to urely it is not an ineluctable natural be given to civilian-military relations law that peacekeeping’s soldiers and DIFFICULT which could become a major issue in the Shumanity’s warriors must always TO SEPARATE new century. snarl when the cause of peace and hu- Thus civilian and military tasks may Above all, the need of both military and manity brings them together in some sav- encroach upon one another and cannot— civilians is for education for mixed peace- age new scenario? other than on paper— be fully separated. keeping operations, and for informed lead- They have complementary roles in as- How, for instance, is the military’s nega- ership, especially in the field. Much prej- suaging the outcome of disaster. Each tive evaluation of the security of a proposed udice and misunderstanding comes from knows its specialist segment of responsi- relief convoy’s route to be weighed against ignorance of each other’s professional tasks bility. But each pursues a common goal. an imperative to reach a specific village and values. The era of U.N. Cold War peacekeep- whose inhabitants are starving? NATO has been trying to incorporate ing, mostly after cease-fires between feud- Four years ago, UNHCR produced two humanitarian concerns and civilian roles ing countries, led, a decade ago, to more booklets: A UNHCR Handbook for the into its main peacekeeping exercises in re- complex operations that began cent years without always in Namibia and Central Amer- having full support from the ica. For the first time, multiple major agencies. Many defence tasks —political, military, police, forces now teach peacekeep- humanitarian, legal, develop- UNHCR/H.J.DAVIES ing, including civilian tasks, mental— arose. as part of their staff courses. Since then, the international Bridging the chasm will community has been increas- not be easy. Two major struc- ingly drawn into calamitous in- tural problems create unnec- ternal conflicts ranging from the essary tension. former Yugoslavia to Rwanda, It is hard enough to main- and UNHCR has become an ha- tain good coordination be- bitual participant together with tween soldiers and humani- countless, but often divergent, tarian workers when both an- U.N., intergovernmental and swer within a unified chain of non-governmental organizations. British soldiers distribute bread to refugees at Stenkovic command emanating from a Each body has a different 2 camp, Macedonia. single head of mission in an mandate and focus. This at once integrated peacekeeping op- affords potential for friction in eration. Deliberately to split even the most harmonious operations. In Military on Humanitarian Operations and military and civilian operations into two Namibia, for instance, UNHCR’s mandated a training module for its own staff on separate entities, as has happened in the emphasis on returnee welfare was not en- Working with the Military. Still relevant, Balkans, looks like reckless endangerment. tirely consistent with the United Nations they deal gently with a basic truth of mil- Moreover, the wasteful organizational Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) itary-humanitarian relations. gyrations imposed in Europe to placate a mission’s overall duty of impartiality to- This is, that many humanitarian work- certain anti-U.N. attitude must inevitably wards all Namibians. ers seem young and inexperienced to their diminish the coherence and strength of How does military-civilian friction military counterparts. Soldiers, in turn, are mixed-task peacekeeping. arise? In theory it should not. It is the mil- often seen as favoring simplistic, short- No. It is not an immutable law of nature itary’s business to support UNHCR and term and aggressive solutions to complex that soldiers and civilians should disagree. other humanitarian bodies’ relief activi- issues. There are, often, different mind- But they do need every opportunity and ties. UNHCR does not challenge the mili- sets, and it would be wrong to disregard encouragement to talk to one another, and tary’s security role. But humanitarian ac- the reality that training, experience and to learn to understand and respect one an- tivities may be intimately linked to the mil- divergent approaches to decision making, other’s mandate and professionalism. B itary in that peacekeepers may, in use of resources, command and control, Cedric Thornberry was Head of Civil Af- dangerous environments, be mandated to may increase difficulties of mutual un- fairs and Assistant Secretary-General in the work with UNHCR to deliver protection derstanding and enhance any tendency to former Yugoslavia, 1992-94 and a U.N. peace- and assistance to those in need. The mili- think in stereotypes. keeper in Cyprus, the Middle East and Namibia.

24 REFUGEES | GOING BACK |

air campaign and the worldwide headlines and I visited Lodja several times as a UN- HCR field officer. An air and ground as- sault by Serbian paramilitary units had re- duced virtually all of the 100 houses and a mosque in Lodja to rubble. It reminded me a little of my home in Manila, one of the most heavily devastated cities in World War II. Troops had scrawled graffitti on one wall declaring ‘Café Lodja does not exist anymore’, similar to signs other victorious Serbian forces had plastered across the Balkans in the 1990s. I revisited Lodja recently, after most Albanian refugees had again returned. There was an immediate sense of déjà vu. To be sure, there was even more de- struction than I remember. Downtown Pec, with its cobbled streets of gold shops and boutiques, had also been levelled. But there was that same sense of resilience of a year earlier. A 44-year-old Albanian surveyed the wreckage of his home with his wife and four young sons, still brimming with hope. “We have to start organizing ourselves first, and then things will get better,” he said, ex- plaining he planned to reopen his carpen- try shop as soon as possible. Anyone who knows Kosovo well was not surprised that hundreds of thousands of refugees, even those as far away as the United States and Germany, would ignore the pleas of the international community to be patient before returning home. In 1998, civilians had moved like a whirlwind from one village to another, always within the vicinity of their own homes, as the Serbs and Kosovo Liberation Army played

UNHCR/F. DEL MUNDO deadly games of hide-and-seek and catch. The massacre at Racak village in January in which 45 persons were executed. Whenever there was a lull in the conflict, they returned home as quickly as possible.

A SMALL PLACE Kosovo is a small place. The Albanian I A SENSE OF DÉJÀ VU.... met in the ruins of Lodja knew me. He had seen me in September, 1998 in the village A returning visitor finds a continuing degree of Krusevac. More than 25,000 ethnic Al- of resilience and optimism in Kosovo. banians were fleeing from a Serbian mili- tary sweep and as the sound of artillery By Fernando del Mundo pair kits and other aid agencies fixed the blasts followed them, they pleaded with electricity and water facilities. One 70-year- me to somehow stop the bombardment. I n the devastated ruins of Lodja there old woman stared at the unblemished called UNHCR’s Belgrade office. The mat- was a determined sense of renewal in facade of her home, which hid the ruin ter was raised at the highest levels, but I Ithe air. A dozen residents busily re- behind, and sighed: “This is my life... will never know if the phone call made any paired a school for use as temporary quar- everything I had I spent to build this place.” difference. ters while they rebuilt their homes in an But when her daughter began to cry, the The Albanian, who admitted that he was area which was considered the heart and old woman almost angrily hushed her. a KLA soldier, said he saw me again the soul of Kosovo’s second largest town, Pec. Reconstruction must continue despite the following day in Istinic, just south of UNHCR provided the civilians —artists, personal despair. Krusevac, where the civilians were cornered professionals and entrepreneurs— with re- That was last year, before the NATO because the Serbs had blocked the road.

REFUGEES 25 | GOING BACK |

At the time UNHCR was help- is war. The pain is the same.” ing around 400,000 people and On one of my last working field staff members, including local “War is war. The pain is the same” trips in Kosovo I encountered a personnel who had everything to all over the world. group of 100 terrified villagers lose in such a dangerous environ- huddled into two houses as special ment, roamed the province in forces troops conducted an offen- vulnerable ‘soft-skin’ vehicles, often visit- We were ordered to leave for Macedo- sive against their village near Pristina. ing areas where international observers nia that same night. Most of us thought we Masked soldiers angrily took away video would not go, on assessment missions to would be back within a few days. The films I had shot of the operation, but an of- gauge the needs of the population. shooting lasted for 2 1/2 months. ficer apologetically handed them back to We had run convoys virtually every sin- When I did go back, the pattern of our me. “There is enough space for everyone gle day since the spring of 1998. A col- aid effort had changed. We continued to in Kosovo,” he said. “But this dirt is con- league, Francis Teoh, led the last fleet of help the uprooted Kosovars, of course, but suming us all,” he added as he twisted his trucks before we were ordered out of a major protection concern now was the boot into the mud patch on which he was Kosovo in advance of the NATO attacks. enclaves —particularly the pockets of Serbs standing. The trip between the town of Mitrovica and Roma who found themselves sur- As I left Kosovo this time, 14 Serbian and a village called Ade normally takes 30 rounded by ethnic Albanian majorities farmers had recently been massacred by un- minutes. That day, as he negotiated 11 check- across Kosovo. known gunmen. In one of the defining mo- points, it took him several hours. At one road- This reversal in fortunes reminded me ments in the Kosovo conflict, 45 ethnic Al- block special forces troops beat up a driver of a remark made earlier this year by Jo banians were slaughtered in Racak village in and shoved a Kalachnikov rifle in Francis’ Hegenauer, who headed UNHCR opera- January. That incident drew worldwide con- stomach as he tried to intervene. ‘Nema tions in Kosovo. Asked if there was any dif- demnation. Now it was the turn of an Al- problema’ (no problem), he assured the sol- ference in the suffering of people in the banian acquaintance to show remorse. “Oh diers as his infectious smile and sense of hu- midst of conflict in Europe compared with my God,” he said on hearing the news. “We mor rescued him yet again from a tight spot. other parts of the world, he replied, “War have become just like the Serbs.” B

By 1998 its network had expanded so rapidly, it was able to help as many as a Saving lives... half million people and became UN- HCR’s main distribution partner for re- but losing their own lief supplies. For months leading up to the NATO A local charity helped many old and infirm Kosovars, but bombing campaign, multi-agency con- volunteers paid a heavy price voys hauled food, blankets, mattresses and other supplies to society warehouses As hundreds of thousands of people hind and as food levels dwindled they from where volunteers distributed the fled their homes during the Kosovo war, began scouring ruined houses for wheat aid by tractor-trailer to remote areas, in each village and town pockets of peo- flour to feed the old people. many of which had been cut off by Ser- ple remained behind. They were the old The charity workers saved many bian military activity. and infirm, men and women who either lives, but at a high cost to themselves. In It was dangerous work. In a foretaste couldn’t physically the town of Djakovica, of things to come, Serbian tanks target- leave or had simply six society workers ted one tractor-trailer convoy in August given up the will to were killed, two were last year, despite aid agency logos being live. Unable to fend for By 1998 the society wounded, six captured clearly visible on relief boxes, and killed themselves “as the was helping a half and tortured and nine three volunteers. days went on, it be- simply disappeared. As the chaos increased, virtually all came apparent they million people and Throughout the the Mother Teresa warehouses were were facing starva- became UNHCR’s province 100 society looted and torched. Of 92 clinics, 78 were tion,” says Fatima personnel were killed destroyed. Most of the society’s 22 offi- Boshanjaku from the main distribution or went missing. cials and 8,000 volunteers fled to neigh- Mother Teresa Society. The society was boring countries where they helped or- The Albanian char- partner. named after the late ganize relief operations. ity had been helping Albanian nun who Today, the society is back in business. 500,000 people earlier won the Nobel Peace The majority of volunteers have returned, this year, but as the NATO air campaign Prize for her work among the poor of 38 of 44 branches and as many as 500 of began and Serbian troops intensified Calcutta. In its first year in 1990 society the 636 sub-branches operating before the their campaign of ethnic cleansing, this volunteers helped an estimated 15,000 war have reopened. “Conditions are bet- aid effort collapsed. people, mostly families of the unem- ter now,” says Jak Mita, the society’s vice- Still, some volunteers remained be- ployed. president. “We can work freely.” B

26 REFUGEES | AFRICA |

more likely that people like Justine Kokolo and her family will remain destitute and SURVIVING ON homeless for all of their lives. AN EMPTY SHELL Conditions were so bad in Pool that ROOTS AND LEAVES mother and family decided to make the dangerous trek back to the capital recently. A crisis largely ignored by the outside world But Brazzaville itself is a shell of a city. Gunfire echoes through the empty boule- By Peter Kessler They fled south to the Pool region, a vards 24 hours a day. Food is constantly in swampy and inhospitable area virtually cut short supply. Many buildings are gutted. s world attention focused on events off from the rest of the devastated, oil-rich The transit center where Justine stays is a in Kosovo, Justine Kokolo and her country. The displaced—the government es- half-built sports complex which, like most Aseven children were surviving, timates there are as many as 200,000 in Pool other centers, has been looted many times barely, on a diet of manioc leaves and roots alone though aid agencies say the over. It can accom- deep in the heart of Africa. The family true figure is probably half that —sur- modate 2,000 peo- had fled Brazzaville, the capital of the Re- vive by foraging in the forest and ple sleeping on the public of Congo, late last year when fight- picking clean abandoned farms. Mal- One of the bare floor of a bas- ing flared anew between government nutrition has begun to skyrocket and most ketball court. The forces and guerrillas. But they only ex- children have begun to die, even af- nearby once-ele- changed one hell for another. ter escaping the region and reaching dangerous and gant race track is the apparent safety overgrown. of U.N. centers. difficult Justine is hav- But food is only situations in ing second or even one of the problems third thoughts facing these dis- Africa, but it about which is the UNHCR/B. NEELEMAN placed Congolese. safest—or less dan- Civilians claim that never makes gerous place—in Ninja rebels operat- world Congo, if one ex- ing in Pool, who ists at all. There back the country’s headlines. are no blankets for former Foreign Justine and her Minister, Bernard family and she Kolelas in his struggle now complains, “Life in Brazzaville is ter- against the current gov- rible. I’d like to go back to Lomou (in the ernment, use them as hu- Pool region) but there is no way to get there.” man shields against at- Since early 1999 an estimated 35,000 tacks by government heli- malnourished Congo refugees sought asy- copters. The guerrillas are lum in the neighboring Democratic Re- often drugged, the civil- public of Congo, itself in a state of turmoil. ians say, rampaging A further 25,000 traumatized civilians es- through the area, issuing caped to Gabon in the first weeks of July. bizarre decrees and orders Since April, despite warnings by UN- that often result in the HCR about the perilous nature of things murder of innocents for no at home, at least 30,000 people have re- apparent reason. turned from Democratic Congo to Braz- The situation in the zaville to a very uncertain future. Congo is one of the most Salaried employment in the once-thriv- dangerous and difficult in ing capital is virtually non-existant. One- Africa. But it never makes time civil servants squat in the shadow of world headlines and is, in a downtown office tower, trading what fact, rarely reported at all. they have for what they need. Humanitarian officials Most of these people depend on the lim- working in Africa worry ited supplies distributed by a few relief that ‘glamour’ crises such agencies. But the latest U.N. appeals for ad- as the Kosovo problem ditional funds have thus far not been an- siphon off not only media swered, making it unlikely that the lot of A child in the destroyed center of Brazzaville, capital of the Congo. attention but precious aid Congo’s victims will improve any time dollars, making it ever soon. B

REFUGEES 27 B Hong Kong reopened a second B More than 100,000 Afghans camp for boat people after fled the latest fighting between SHORT TAKES rioting between ethnic Chinese Taliban and Northern Alliance and Vietnamese groups. forces.

AFRICA Seekingasylum Good news and bad ETHIOPIA hen African leaders gathered recently ward resolution. If stability could be reimposed, Restarting operations in in Algiers for their last summit meet- it would bring relief to millions of people. There the Horn Wing this century, there was some good are currently 450,000 refugees from the Sierra The repatriation of Somali news and some bad news for the continent’s Leone civil war and hundreds of thousands have refugees from Ethiopia refugees. Efforts to end three of Africa’s most in- been displaced within the country. At least restarted in June after being tractable conflicts—in Sierra Leone, the Demo- 600,000 civilians fled the latest fighting on the suspended in late 1998 be- cratic Republic of Congo and the war between Horn of Africa. In Central Africa at least 100,000 cause of the continuing hard- ships faced by the returnees in Ethiopia and Eritrea—were inching slowly to- have left the Congo in recent months, another northern Somalia. UNHCR 700,000 are internally displaced and there are an scheduled three convoys a additional 300,000 refugees from surrounding week until December and countries in the Congo itself. The bad news in hopes to move up to 60,000 Algiers was it remained very uncertain any of people before the end of the the agreements would stick. Even after a peace

year. Ethiopia still hosts © KEYSTONE/AP/C. NTAYE around 200,000 Somalis of accord was signed in Central Africa, thousands the hundreds of thousands of of refugees continued to flee the Congo. High people who had originally Commissioner Sadako Ogata attended the sum- fled their country, first during mit and said there was an “encouraging new re- the Ogaden war in the late solve in African leaders to stop feeling sorry for 1970s and then during Soma- themselves and to tackle the immense political lia’s own civil war earlier this The Presidents of Sierra Leone, Nigeria and and economic problems” which plague the conti- decade. Liberia witness the symbolic destruction of nent. “That new attitude is Africa’s hope for the weapons. ANDORRA future,” she said. B Every little bit helps With a population of around WORLD 60,000 Andorra is one of the smallest countries in the world. However, early in the Kosovo crisis, Andorra’s U.N. Refugee numbers ambassador donated $100,000 towards UNHCR’s he number of refugees and other people placed persons and certain war-affected people. efforts in the conflict and said of concern to UNHCR dropped by The largest declines among refugees were in his country would be willing T around four percent in 1998 compared Latin America and the Caribbean which record- to accept up to 10 Kosovar with the previous year to a total of 21.5 million. ed 11 percent declines, Europe which showed a refugees in need of medical assistance. Officials believe Figures recently released show the number of nine percent fall and Africa with a six percent this is the first time Andorra refugees in that overall figure also fell by a simi- drop. The estimated asylum seeker population, has involved itself in refugee lar four percent to a total of 11,491,710. Other cat- however, showed an overall increase of 38 per- issues. egories of people UNHCR helps include asy- cent to 1.3 million people worldwide. B lum seekers, returned refugees, internally dis- UNITED NATIONS Ending a conflict GUATEMALA The U.N. Security Council has home, either individually or ile. “We are still nervous. We called for increased efforts to with governmental and UN- waited for several years in reinforce peace agreements A last HCR assistance. On 24 June, Mexico (following the sign- signed by warring factions. In a journey home 167 refugees went home in ing of peace in Guatemala), formal statement, the Council the last voluntary repatria- but now we feel we can re- proposed a series of ‘practical measures’ ensuring more ef- s many as 45,000 tion, effectively bringing the build our lives in Guatemala.” fective disarmament of ex- Guatemalans fled to Guatemalan operation to a Some 22,000 Guatemalans combatants and their reinte- AMexico starting in the successful conclusion. “I have elected not to go home, and gration into civilian society. early 1980s as civil unrest a dream and that is to estab- the Mexican government of- The Council noted that de- gripped their own country. lish my own organization to fered the chance of full Mexi- spite peace agreements and Some started to trickle back work with the disabled, those can nationality to members of the presence of U.N. peace- keeping missions on the almost immediately and in who were injured during the this group, more than 1,200 of the intervening years the war,” said one male refugee whom have already received grounds, combatants in many B recent conflicts simply kept great majority have returned who had spent 16 years in ex- citizenship. on fighting.

28 REFUGEES B Holland said it will send B The European Union approved B Ireland is considering allowing B Hundreds of Sudanese fleeing rejected asylum seekers back to $4.7 million in aid for Myanmar some asylum seekers work per- conscription into the rebel Sudan their countries within four weeks. refugees living in Thai border mits to help meet the country’s People’s Liberation Army fled camps. labor shortage. into neighboring Uganda in July.

UNITED STATES ralization Service appealed the U.S. bars spousal abuse victims first decision and in a 10-5 deci- Seeking sion, the Board of Immigration asylum Board of Immigration so badly she haemorrhaged. It Appeals ruled Mrs. Alvarado SWITZERLAND Appeals has ruled that a was argued the Guatemalan had not proved she suffered un- Tougher rules Awoman fleeing violent government had failed to pro- der any of the five categories abuse by her husband is not el- tect her. The Immigration and outlined in international and for asylum seekers igible for asylum in the United Naturalization Service in 1995 U.S. law: race, religion,national- Swiss voters, increasingly con- cerned at the growing number States. An immigration judge had issued guidelines intended ity, political opinion or mem- of people seeking asylum in had granted asylum in 1996 to a to recognize gender-based bership in a targetted social their country, in June approved Guatemalan woman, Rodi Al- persecution under asylum group. The dissenting Board new rules for asylum seekers. varado Peña, who had left her laws, but it remained unclear members insisted the U.S. had The new measures allow col- home after her husband had whether women fleeing an obligation to protect anyone lective temporary admission pistol whipped her, broke win- spousal abuse —as opposed to who feared harm because of for certain groups such as eth- dows and mirrors with her governmental persecution — “some fundamental aspect of nic Albanians from Kosovo, but head, raped her and kicked her could seek refuge. The Natu- their identity.” B at the same time limits refugees’ rights to make their case for individual persecu- MALI tion, a necessity for perma- nent asylum. People arriving without proper identification must justify its absence to gain

The end of a revolt UNHCR/C. SHIRLEY access to regular asylum pro- hen nomadic Tuareg the country. The cedures. Switzerland antici- tribesmen rose in re- agency spent nearly pates as many as 60,000 peo- volt against the cen- $240 million on 638 ple will seek asylum this year, W the highest number per capita tral government in the west returnee sites in the in Europe. African state of Mali in 1990, the regions of Gao, Kidal, entire country was thrown into Mopti, Segou and UNITED STATES Refugees online turmoil. More than 300,000 peo- Timbuktu. In late Returnees in the Gao region of Mali ple were forced from their homes, June, the agency offi- The American Red Cross said more than one-third of them be- cially ended its north- projects to stimulate economic it will launch a new online sys- tem for tracking refugees and coming refugees in Mauritania, ern Mali operation when Africa growth and improve security in displaced persons worldwide. Burkina Faso, Algeria and Niger. director Albert-Alain Peters the region. A smaller UNHCR During the Kosovo crisis, the In the late 1990s, UNHCR under- handed over to President Alpha Mali office will continue to care Red Cross developed an on- took an ambitious program to Oumar Konare a 700-page report for around 2,000 urban refugees line database for Kosovar help the refugees return and re- which summarized its four-year from Liberia, Sierra Leone and refugees arriving in the United settle the entire northern part of program but also called for future the Great Lakes region. B States. Together with Oracle, the software company, it plans to expand this “Dis- SOLOMON ISLANDS FINLAND placed Persons Linking Sys- tem” as a worldwide general Another war in the islands Gypsies on the run reference point which hey gained infamy as the scene of osovo is not the only place in Europe where refugees and other displaced some of the worst fighting in World the continent’s gypsies (Roma) are on the run. persons can access. TWar II and the battle between U.S. KFinland recently suspended visa-free entry SOMALIA Marines and Japanese defenders on for Slovak citizens after more than 1,000 Slovak Another famine Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands has gypsies sought political asylum in the country since Southern Somalia is facing an- been immortalized in dozens of films and the beginning of the year. The Roma said they were other massive famine because books. Since the end of the war the Islands, fleeing persecution in the central European state. of limited rains and continued deep in the Pacific Ocean, slipped back into However, Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda has fighting between rival warlords obscurity. Recently, however, they became pledged a ‘new deal’ for the gypsy community as the in the perennially troubled re- country sought to improve its human rights record gion on the Horn of Africa. In- the scene of another conflict, this time of ternational aid workers say as their own making. The U.N. helped medi- and its chance of eventual entry into the European many as one million people are ate an ethnic dispute in June between the Union. Finland is the latest destination in a string of at risk and appealed for $17.5 majority Gwale population and the minor- countries targetted in the last few years by gypsy million in aid to help them. ity Malaitan country people. Several per- immigration including Canada, Britain, Belgium Around 300,000 people died in sons were killed in the clashes and as many and Germany. B an earlier famine in 1992 in the as 20,000 forced to flee their homes. B same area.

REFUGEES 29 | PEOPLE AND PLACES |

COPYRIGHT Free at last or 11 years he slept Fon a red plastic Volleyball game in Albania bench at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle A sporting airport and ate at a nearby pizza parlour © KEYSTONE/AFP/M. DEGHATI hand and fast food restau- rant. Barmen and orld sports bodies and hu- airport doctors manitarian agencies W helped the Iranian joined forces to bring a little who spent his days light relief and relaxation to at listening to the radio least some of the hundreds of and writing a diary. thousands of Kosovar refugees But in early July the during the recent crisis. The In- ‘Mr. Alfred’ writes a letter from his ‘bed’ at Roissy airport. ordeal of 54-year-old ternational Volleyball Federa- Karim Nasser Miran, known to local air- and entered a bureaucratic never-never tion, which has worked with port officials and immigration officials as land. Because he had no official docu- UNHCR on other projects in Mr. Alfred, ended when Belgium granted ments he could not be deported and was Africa, distributed balls and him refugee credentials. He was expelled dumped into limbo in the so-called ‘in- nets in several camps in Alba- from Iran, without papers, in the 1970s ternational’ no-go zone of the Paris air- nia and the former Yugoslav Re- after protesting against the Shah’s port. The stolen document recently sur- public of Macedonia and also regime, but was eventually given refugee faced and the Belgian government provided funds for local instruc- papers in the 1980s. His legal nightmare offered him sanctuary. Miran said he had tors. The International Olym- began when his briefcase containing the been taking a correspondence course pic Committee, the Interna- refugee document was stolen. He was during his incarceration and hoped to re- tional Football Federation subsequently arrested by French police turn to Brussels to complete it. B (FIFA), the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) together with UNHCR and UNICEF also provided thou- sands of soccer balls and other equipment to refugee camp and Good samaritans community schools reaching he Organization of Tanzania and Côte d’Ivoire. level of government in tens of thousands of kids. “Play- T African Unity (OAU) an- The award is based on a coun- refugee issues. The launch of ing a sport allowed refugees to nounced the creation of an try’s long history of hosting the award this year was timed discover that one can still live, award for Outstanding Ser- large numbers of refugees, a to coincide with the 30th an- without forgetting,” says 21- vice to Refugees and Dis- country not being a refugee niversary ofthe OAU Refugee placed Persons in Africa and producing country itself, and Convention (see Refugees year-old Leonora Luttori, her- B self a refugee who was wounded said the first recipients were its involvement at the highest magazine No. 115). in the head and arm and saw her best friend die in her arms be- fore escaping to Albania and be- coming a local UNHCR field A new Deputy for UNHCR worker. The programs were NHCR has a new Deputy High Commissioner. Frederick Bar- launched in anticipation that Uton, a director of the U.S. Agency for International Develop- the refugees could spend many ment, succeeds the Austrian Gerald Walzer who retired in May af- months in exile, but the groups ter a 40-year career with UNHCR. Barton’s latest job was head of involved said they will pursue USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives. He handled programs these activities inside Kosovo it- dealing with human rights monitoring in Rwanda, land mine pro- self as an ongoing contribution jects in Angola, ethnic tolerance and violence avoidance in Indone- in helping to restore the sia and programs to promote news reporting in Balkan areas. In 12 province to a semblance of nor- years in the private sector he dealt with strategic planning, organi- mality. B zational development and marketing for a wide range of clients. B

30 REFUGEES | QUOTE UNQUOTE |

© TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION

children of the dangers of not “In Kosovo they got cell only Serbian mines, but also un- phones and psychological “Kosovo must be rebuilt, exploded allied ordnance. counseling. All we are ask- FFF ing for is maize.” recreated stone by stone.” A frustrated U.N. official in An- “Thanks to Milosevic’s gola highlighting the world’s dif- Bernard Kouchner, the U.N.’s new civil administrator for Kosovo policies there are no more fering priorities. Serbs in Krajina (Croatia), FFF “They burned and burned cratic and at peace for the there are no more Serbs in and burned.” first time in history.” Slavonia, there are no ‘This is probably the great- U.S. President Bill Clinton on a more Serbs in western A sister of the Mother Teresa So- est challenge the U.N. has ciety describing the Serb with- visit to the region. Bosnia and Serbia has re- ceived about 600,000 faced since the launching drawal from Kosovo. FFF refugees who are not being of the concept of peace- FFF “The province of Kosovo is well cared for.” keeping in the late 1940s.” “I do ask the Serbian popu- now one of the largest Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemiji Sergio Vieira de Mello, interim lation to stay in their homes. crime scenes in history.” of Kosovo, condemning the policies U.N. chief in Kosovo. We’ve had enough refugees. Louis Freeh, director of the FBI of Belgrade in the last few years. FFF We don’t want any more.” which is helping investigate war FFF NATO’s Kosovo commander, Sir crimes in Kosovo. “In the last 10 years, four Michael Jackson, appealing to FFF “We estimate that mines times we went into war Kosovo Serbs to stay in the will be an everyday fact of with tanks and four times province. “The U.S. bomblets look life of the Kosovar people Serbs came back from war FFF like round silver toys, for as many as three to on tractors.” while the British versions five years.” Serbian opposition leader Zoran “We must build a Europe look like soda cans that U.S. mining expert Donald Stein- Djindjic on Serbia’s involvement with no front line states, a have been painted orange.” berg, on the challenge of mine in several losing conflicts in Europe undivided, demo- A western mine expert warning clearing in Kosovo. the 1990s.

REFUGEES 31