Yugoslavia and Rwanda, but There Can Be a Downside

Home , Battle of Banja Luka, Bosniaks, Dennis, Drvar, Independence of Croatia, Kompot

Vincent Cochetel

INTERVIEW

VOLUME 1 • NUMBER 114 • 1999

Rising from the ashes? 1999 A year of decision in the Balkans

UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees THE EDITOR’S DESK Targetting the helpers...

ust before Christmas last year, UNHCR staff mem- Why has aid work become so dangerous? Humani- ber Vincent Cochetel was freed after being held tarian organizations such as UNHCR which often hostage for 317 days in Chechnya. We chronicle his worked on the periphery of crises in the past, more and Jordeal elsewhere in this magazine, but the gruesome more now operate in the middle of conflict zones where details of his kidnap serve to underline the increasing there is little law and order. Protagonists are often a threat facing aid workers throughout the world. tricky mix of insurgents, terrorists and irregular forces, 1998 was more dangerous than most. In that period 22 combatants who neither know or care about interna- civilian U.N. workers were killed during the course of tional humanitarian law or the aid workers trying to their work (five officials also died in the crash of Swissair succor victims. flight 111). Eight others were held hostage and subsequent- Ironically, impartiality can be as much of a risk factor ly released. In the last seven years, 160 U.N. civilian per- as perceived partiality. Helping people on one side, no sonnel have been killed. More than 90 percent of those matter how innocent, may make an aid worker an enemy deaths were never adequately investigated and no one was of the other. Humanitarian groups support Criminal brought to trial. Non-governmental aid agencies suffered Tribunals such as the two established to cover the former similar casualties. Yugoslavia and Rwanda, but there can be a downside. People suspected of war crimes may preemptively target the perceived witnesses — humanitarian workers. There are other dangers, too: the problem of working UNHCR staff amidst millions of unexploded land-mines in Kosovo or

© S. PAPILLOUD / 24 HEURES undergo security Angola and the impact of instant satellite news on crises training. in even the remotest parts of the globe. Information, opinion, condemnation on a given situation made at a faraway headquarters in Europe or North America can be relayed immediately — and reacted to just as quickly, This situation will continue until either humanitari- by combatants who often see field workers as spies. an workers refuse to go to volatile areas, or influential Humanitarian operations have become a key compo- governments give the problem the attention it deserves. nent of the international response to crises and even a Until now, it has barely registered on the radar screen in substitute for political action. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi government or media offices. Annan said humanitarian involvement is too often a fig Consider: It was not until January 15 of this year that leaf, hiding a lack of political will to address the root caus- the 1994 Convention on the Safety of United Nations es of conflict. At times humanitarians work where gov- and Associated Personnel gained the 22 government ernments consider it too risky to send better trained, bet- ratifications (New Zealand was the 22nd signatory) ter equipped and better protected peacekeepers. needed to enter into force. Only three states have con- Humanitarian action is frequently the lowest com- tributed modest amounts to the Trust Fund established mon denominator on which consensus can be reached. by the U.N. to provide security training for humanitar- But in such a situation, the growing risk of doing good ian personnel. threatens the very foundation of humanitarian work.

2 REFUGEES N°114 - 1999

Editor: Ray Wilkinson French editor: Mounira Skandrani EDITORIAL Contributors: 2 Ariane Quentier, An increasing threat faces aid workers Wendy Rappeport, Andrej Mahecic, around the world. Judith Kumin, Kris Janowski, Maki Shinohara, Jelena Novikov, Paul Stromberg 4 COVER STORY Editorial assistant: UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN Virginia Zekrya Hundreds of thousands of people are Photo department: A UNHCR shelter waiting to go home but time is getting short. Anneliese Hollmann, project near Sarajevo as By Ray Wilkinson. Anne Kellner Bosnia attempted to Design: 4 Srebrenica. rebuild itself following the WB Associés - Paris Dayton Peace Accord. An aid worker returns to the killing fields of Production: Srebrenica. By Louis Gentile. Françoise Peyroux Administration: Chronology. Anne-Marie Le Galliard The breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Distribution: John O’Connor, Frédéric Tissot Mostar. Mostar, yesterday and today. By Kirsten Young. Map: UNHCR - Mapping Unit © P. TURNLEY Women. Making a difference for Bosnia’s women. Refugees is published by the Public Mayor. Information Section of the United Nations High Commissioner for A Serb mayor fights a lonely battle. Refugees. The opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of UNHCR. The designations and 16 CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS maps used do not imply the expression of any opinion or recognition on the Mapping the 1990s in the Balkans. part of UNHCR concerning the legal status of a territory or of its authorities. 18 QUOTE UNQUOTE

Refugees reserves the right to edit all A DANGEROUS PLACE articles before publication. Articles Exodus of Croatian 19 and photos not covered by copyright © Serbs from the Land-mines and political pitfalls in Bosnia. may be reprinted without prior Krajina area after the permission. Please credit UNHCR and 22 Croatian army launched the photographer. Glossy prints and Operation Storm to recapture CROATIA slide duplicates of photographs not the region. An estimated 20 covered by copyright © may be made 170,000 people fled. Will refugees go home this year? available for professional use only.

22 YUGOSLAVIA English and French editions printed The ‘forgotten’ refugees. By Paula Ghedini. in Switzerland by ATAR SA, Geneva. Circulation: 206,000 in English, KOSOVO French, German, Italian, Japanese, 24 Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Diary of a dirty war. By Fernando del Mundo.

Chinese. UNHCR / R. LEMOYNE

ISSN 0252-791 X 26 SHORT TAKES

Cover: Fire and destruction in the A brief look at world events. Sarajevo suburb of Grbavica in 1996. UNHCR / L. SENIGALLIESI 28 INTERVIEW Insert: Vincent Cochetel arrives in Moscow after his release from An ethnic Albanian A talk with Vincent Cochetel. By Ray Wilkinson kidnap. displaced child in the Urosevac region of ASSOCIATED PRESS/APTN/KEYSTONE 24 Kosovo as unrest continued in 30 PEOPLE AND PLACES UNHCR that province. P.O. Box 2500 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland 31 ARCHIVE www.unhcr.org

REFUGEES 3 Reconstruction work gets underway near the disputed town of Brcko in Bosnia-Herzegovina. | COVER STORY | A DECISIVE YEAR Hundreds of thousands of people are still waiting to go home, but time is running out in Bosnia

by Ray Wilkinson

he bloodstains from the massacre have seeped forever into the cold concrete floors of the farmhouse cellar and stair- T well. Amra points almost distractedly to the telltale signs of death as she remembers the Croat attack on the village of Ahmici in central Bosnia in April, 1993. She ran out of the building and into the nearby woods as the Croat gunmen, some of them neighbors for generations, burst into the hill- top village in the first blush of dawn. More than 100 persons were killed in a one hour massacre by the marauding thugs, elderly, retarded and children alike. The youngest was a three-month- old baby burned alive in an oven. The oldest was 96- years-old. Nine persons were slaughtered and their bodies burned in Amra’s own home. When British soldiers uncovered the attack and television footage flashed the horror around the world, Ahmici instantly became one of the most infamous atrocities of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Today, Ahmici is again a symbol. An experiment being carried out there and in hundreds of other regions which are trying to knit together old communities will eventually determine whether Bosnia and Herzegovina can ever forge a viable and lasting peace among its ethnic groups. The area around Ahmici and the nearest large town of Vitez had been predominantly Muslim, or Bosniak, before the war, with a sizeable Croat minority. As the fighting turned increasingly bitter and many communities, Serb, Croat and Bosniak, tried to carve out

UNHCR / C. SHIRLEY ethnically pure enclaves, villages such as Ahmici be- Ã

5 | COVER STORY |

Ã came killing fields. Today there is a new reality in the Vitez area bearing testimony to the results of those wartime campaigns; the majority of the population is Croat with a minority of Bosniaks. Despite this reversal and the obvious dangers posed if hostilities ever resume, Amra (not her real name) and around 150 other Bosniaks earlier this year put their nightmares aside and returned home after living for five years as virtual nomads. UNHCR and other international agencies helped renovate several dozen village houses, providing new roofs, windows and stoves to facilitate the villagers return. Twelve children have begun attending school in a basement. “I am happy simply to have survived,” the 43-year-old Amra says, eventually breaking into tears as she recalled the earlier attack. “You know, my father-in-law was an invalid who could not run away from the attackers. And three young girls were among those killed here. The healing will take time. It will be difficult.” Croat municipal officials were on hand to welcome the Bosniaks home and an elder, Fuad, said the village was further delighted when one Croat was recently extradited to The Hague to face trial for alleged war crimes in connection with the attack. Other Croat neighbors still live at the bottom of the hill, but the two communities do not speak to each other. Con- spicuously, the village mosque which was blown up by the attackers remains a heap of rubble. “Not even the babies will ever forget what happened here,” says Fuad.

A NEW BEGINNING One year after the Srebrenica massacres, the names of “disappeared” persons are displayed on individual pieces of cloth in the Bosnian town of Tuzla. Yugoslavia, a nation once considered the most progressive in the post World War Two communist bloc and a founding member of the world non-aligned movement, began to split apart in 1991 as ethnic divi- “Everyone believed sions deteriorated and the Republics of Croatia and Slovenia declared independence from the Federation. War ensued be- they were going to die....” tween Belgrade and Zagreb and spread to Bosnia and Herzegovina when Sarajevo Louis Gentile worked in Srebrenica during the siege of that also opted for independence in 1992. Nearly three million people fled their enclave and for the first time in five years recently revisited the homes at the height of the crisis, 700,000 scene to confront a personal nightmare: becoming refugees in Europe and other regions and the rest internally displaced t is four days before Christmas and still War, a place where, in 1993, I had wit- within the old Federation. As the lead hu- Idark as we climb into the hills around nessed hell on earth and then naively manitarian agency, UNHCR at one point Sarajevo and head for Srebrenica. believed that the international commu- was helping 3.5 million war victims — There is no avoiding it now. I will soon nity had finally stopped the killings refugees, the internally displaced and oth- be in a place associated with the worst instead of just standing by and watching Turn to page 8 Ã crime in Europe since the Second World another slaughter.

6 REFUGEES | SREBRENICA |

to target civilians, landed directly on A GLIMMER OF HOPE the town. Marinko Sekulic was a Serb journal- “Body parts and human flesh clung to ist at Radio Srebrenica for 27 years before the schoolyard fence and the ground is lit- the war and his parents and brother re- erally soaked with blood. I saw two ox carts turned there last year. In a chat in nearby covered with bodies, and what remained of Tuzla we discuss what happened there bodies, being wheeled into the hospital. and he leaves me with a small glimmer Total casualties were 56 dead and approx- of hope for a more tolerant future when imately 100 wounded. he says some of the original inhabitants “Suffice, to say, I did not look forward would like to see their Bosniak neighbors to closing my eyes at night for fear that I back. But these people are mostly elderly would relive the images of a nightmare and those who control the town today that was not a dream.” rule through intimidation. A young woman named Mirzoda AN IMPOSSIBLE JOURNEY recounts the fall of Srebrenica and the In less than three hours we make the three nights she spent in Potocari clutch- journey from Sarajevo that would have ing her baby tightly while her father and been impossible during the war and I husband fled into the woods, never to be think back to the first time I entered this seen again. place: The main street was crowded with She begs us to check among those people waving, blowing kisses, thou- detained and as I’m to discover, many Sre- sands of smiling children shouting thank brenica survivors hope their men, miss- you. Forty thousand people were ing for three years, are still alive, still de- crammed into a town which had once tained somewhere. But none of the ru- accommodated 8,000. mored detention centers have turned out Everyone believed they were going to be true. to die unless they managed to be evacu- It is probable that all 7,396 missing are ated. That panic dissipated when the Se- dead. The fate of only 49 has been clari- curity Council declared the enclave a fied and their remains returned to ‘safe area’ and I recall a Canadian officer families. The work of identifying other telling me his troops had a moral obli- remains from mass graves continues, but gation to defend the population, but he staff at Physicians for Human Rights be- was unsure they had the means to do so lieve only a tiny minority will ever be if the town came under renewed attack. identified. Nobody who was in Srebrenica in 1993 I recognize one young woman who is there today. All were subsequently ex- used to work as a cleaner at the post of- pelled or massacred in July 1995, when the fice building where I lived and she re- ‘safe area’ fell to the Bosnian Serbs. And members me. I ask after someone we it’s clear to me now that although I’m of- knew but “he never arrived.” Another ficially returning to write an article, I’ve woman says, “Everything good vanished

UNHCR / H.J. DAVIES really come back to mourn. in one hour of one day, my son, my hus- The majority of today’s inhabitants are band, my brother and my house.” It has been more than five years since I displaced Serbs from places like Sarajevo. There are people in Srebrenica who left Srebrenica and on this day I have still The town is run by a small group of ‘pow- know exactly what happened to their not come to terms with what I had seen erful locals.’ The return of Bosniaks is not families but I have no answers to their there nor with what has happened there a possibility according to one international questions. “Why couldn’t the killings be since. official here. The economy is a disaster. stopped after the first day when 1,000 or The closer I get the more apprehensive I walk through the town in the rain, past more were executed? If you had protected I feel. For the past few weeks in London I the schoolhouse playground where chil- us in 1993 why didn’t you continue until have been waking up in the middle of the dren were killed while playing football on the end? If you’d just left us alone maybe night in a cold sweat. I know why I’m April 12, 1993. I have no words. At Cafe 171 a few thousand of us would have died having nightmares but can’t remember a a group of local young men say they have fleeing in 1993, but not as many as were single detail once I’m awake. no jobs and they all hope to leave. slaughtered in 1995.” I re-read my old notes from Srebrenica. Nowhere do I ask the questions I really I’m grateful to have had the chance One entry from April 14: “Although I have want to ask: Who participated in the 1995 to see Srebrenica again, and even more witnessed many terrible scenes in killings? Who can confirm who was killed grateful to leave it behind. Alone in my Srebrenica...nothing I have ever seen to ease the grief of mothers, daughters, hotel room I mourn for the dead and for compares to the events of April 12 in terms wives? How can you live in this blood those who are still waiting for loved ones of sheer horror. At approximately 14:15 drenched, cursed place after everything who will never come. Srebrenica. a barrage of shelling, clearly intended that has happened here? B

REFUGEES 7 | COVER STORY |

Ã ers — with everything from flour, salt and Serbs surrendered some of the territory are planned. Some indicted war criminals sanitary supplies to blankets, stoves, wood they had captured, establishing their Re- were transferred to The Hague to stand and multi-purpose plastic sheeting. A UN- publika Srpska in 49 percent of Bosnia. trial at the United Nations War Crimes HCR airlift which developed into the An earlier established Bosniak-Croat Fed- Tribunal. longest humanitarian airbridge in history, eration controlled the rest of the country. The key to any enduring peace kept the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo alive Both, theoretically at least, came under a throughout the region, however, will be through three winters. the successful return and reintegration of But cities, towns, villages and huge the millions of people uprooted by the con- swathes of land were ethnically cleansed. flict. Since 1996 a total of 310,000 refugees As many as 200,000 persons were re- Helping ‘minorities’ has returned to Bosnia and a further 250,000 portedly killed in Bosnia alone, many of become the most displaced persons went home. them civilians. The country’s economic But at the start of 1999, there were still infrastructure — factories, bridges, roads, complex and difficult 400,000 Bosnian refugees and 800,000 dis- water and electricity plants — were placed persons waiting to restart their lives. destroyed. Sixty percent of the country’s problem facing Bosnia Those bald statistics tell only part of homes, 50 percent of its schools and 30 today. the tale. 1998 was declared The Year of Re- percent of hospitals were either reduced turn, but only 100,000 refugees, less than to rubble or badly damaged before the half the official target, went home. More worst European war in 50 years was central multi-ethnic authority in Sarajevo. worrying still, during this period only halted and Presidents Alija Izetbegovic Their armies returned to barracks and 30,000 people — refugees and internally of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slobodan more than 30,000 NATO and other in- displaced persons — returned to their old Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman ternational troops arrived to police the homes in areas which are now controlled of Croatia initialed the Dayton Peace peace. A $5.1 billion international recon- by a different ethnic group. Humanitar- Accords on November 21, 1995 at the struction package for 1996-99 helped re- ian officials believe the large majority of Wright Patterson Air Force Base in the build at least parts of the shattered infras- the 1.2 million people still waiting to re- United States. tructure. General and municipal elections turn home fall into this latter category. Dayton was to signal a new beginning. were held in the last three years and more Helping these ‘minorities’ has become

The price of war: Ruined houses in the Gradacac region of Bosnia, 1996. UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN

8 REFUGEES | COVER STORY |

the most complex and difficult problem facing Bosnia today with deteriorating do- THE BALKAN CONFLICT AT A GLANCE mestic economic conditions, turmoil in June 25, 1991: July 11, 1995: other parts of the region, the continued Croatia and Slovenia proclaim independence Srebrenica falls to Serb forces setting the opposition of extremists in Bosnia and al- from the Socialist Federal Republic of stage for the massacre of thousands of most impenetrable bureaucratic systems Yugoslavia. War begins immediately and rebel persons in the worst single atrocity in Europe all conspiring to undermine progress. Serbs backed by the Yugoslav army overrun since World War II. 30 percent of Croatia’s territory. August 12, 1995: THE YEAR OF MINORITY RETURN October 8, 1991: Croatia launches Operation Storm and Some international officials neverthe- Yugoslavia asks for UNHCR’s assistance and retakes the Krajina area from rebel Serbs. two weeks later the U.N. Secretary-General 170,000 Serbs flee. less have declared 1999 The Year of Mi- designates the organization as the lead nority Return and targeted 120,000 mi- humanitarian agency in the crisis. November 21, 1995: norities to go home. Given that only a Dayton Peace Agreement covering the end of January 2, 1992: hostilities and the return of refugees to quarter of that number succeeded in re- The Sarajevo Accord establishes the first Bosnia and Herzegovina is initialled and one turning in 1998, there is already a lively lasting cease-fire in the war in Croatia. month later the NATO-led Implementation debate whether the 1999 figure can be met. January 15, 1992: Force deploys to the region. “1998 was very disappointing and 1999 The European Community recognizes the independence of Croatia and Slovenia. January 9, 1996: cannot be just another year,” one senior The longest humanitarian airlift in world UNHCR field official said. “The obstacles February 21, 1992: history which fed Sarajevo for 3 1/2 years, to minority return have become clearer The U.N. Security Council authorizes the ends. deployment of the U.N. Protection Force and more intractable, but somehow they (UNPROFOR) in Croatia. It is later deployed September 14, 1996: must be overcome. This may be our last to Bosnia as well. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first post war chance. If there is not a major break- elections confirm wartime hard-line leaders March 3, 1992: in power, dashing hopes for a speedy return through in the coming months then we Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaims of refugees. will have to reexamine the reality on the independence. Bosnian Serbs lay siege to the ground.” capital, Sarajevo and seize 70 percent of the January 15, 1998: country’s territory Eastern Slavonia, captured by the Yugoslav A December, 1998 meeting of the army in the early part of the war returns to July 3, 1992: multi-nation Peace Implementation Coun- Croatian sovereignty following the departure UNHCR Sarajevo airlift, which eventually will cil, the organization effectively oversee- of the U.N. Transitional Authority (UNTAES). become the longest-running humanitarian ing the political and economic rebuilding airbridge in history, gets underway. At the March, 1998: of Bosnia, recognized the urgency of push- height of the conflict in the following two Fighting erupts in Serbia’s Kosovo province ing the process forward as quickly as pos- years UNHCR and other agencies assist as between Albanian separatists and Yugoslav sible. It approved a two-year package of many as 3.5 million people throughout the forces, setting off a new wave of displace- measures to reform the economy, former Yugoslavia. An estimated 700,000 ment. By September 350,000 people have Bosnian refugees flee and another two million fled abroad or become internally displaced. strengthen government institutions, cre- people are internally displaced. October 27, 1998: ate an independent judiciary and multi- January 11, 1993: ethnic police units and encourage the con- Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic bows Peace talks on the Vance-Owen plan start in to NATO military pressure and agrees to a tinued return of refugees. Geneva. cease-fire and a partial pull-out of Yugoslav Carlos Westendorp, the international February 27, 1993: military and police forces from Kosovo. The community’s High Representative in Airdrop operations began to provide Organization for Security and Cooperation in Bosnia, was given additional powers to assistance to besieged enclaves. Europe (OSCE) sends the first of 2,000 verifiers to monitor the agreement. combat the continuing efforts of ultra-na- May 6, 1993: tionalists among all the ethnic groups to U.N. Security Council Resolution 824 declares February 23, 1999: block progress. “A lasting peace within Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zepa, Gorazde, Bihac and Tentative agreement on substantial autonomy Srebrenica as ‘safe areas’ but the military for Kosovo reached in Rambouillet, France. Bosnia and Herzegovina is starting to take situation on the ground remains unchanged. B root,” the conference noted, but it added that “there is still much work to be done….and without the scaffolding of international support (Bosnia) would col- water, electricity or homes. The Decem- Regional political and military devel- lapse.” ber meeting in Madrid put Sarajevo opments also directly influence refugee The successful return of refugees and on notice that this help will not continue flows. A wider conflict in Kosovo could pro- internally displaced people depends on a indefinitely, but unless the overall econ- duce new waves of refugees in Bosnia and series of interlocking international, re- omy can be revived and multi- further afield, disrupting that country’s gional and local initiatives. The break- national companies rather than govern- own refugee return. Decisions taken in Bel- down of just one link anywhere in the ments convinced to invest in the near fu- grade, Zagreb or Sarajevo often produce a chain could disrupt the entire process. ture, those areas will remain no- domino effect throughout the region. If, In a global context, Bosnia receives one go zones and refugees will not return. for instance, national or local governments of the largest aid packages of any country Even the fragile peace will last only as hinder or block the return of ethnic mi- in the world but huge areas, especially in long as foreign troops remain, observers norities in one place, this produces a knock- Serb-controlled regions, remain without say. on effect in a second area where other Ã

REFUGEES 9 | COVER STORY |

Two women embrace after meeting for the first time in four years in Sarajevo in 1996. UNHCR / L. SENIGALLIESI

Ã refugees from a different ethnic group, are resentative Carlos Westendorp has the au- (see separate story on page 14). “Without an blocked in retaliation. The same is true be- thority to remove troublemakers, they SFOR tank parked in your front garden cause of housing shortages throughout the have become skilled in hindering the re- and a soldier on the roof, minorities would region — the lack of shelter in one area di- turn process. encounter even more violence,” Turk said rectly slows return in others. “Their weapon is generally no longer in referring to incidents where NATO the gun, but red tape,” Turk said. “At the soldiers have been called in to protect vul- A MISSION IMPOSSIBLE very top and at the very start of the pro- nerable returnees. On the ground the situation, if not cess we have to deal with 13 different con- Recent visits to Bosniak, Croat and Serb quite Mission Impossible, is nevertheless stitutions and 13 horrendously complex. Most of Bosnia’s different legal population of four million remains deeply systems, all with “Their weapon is generally no longer traumatized by the war years, by the death their own rules of close family members often at the hands and idiosyncrasies. the gun, but red tape. Bureaucratic of longtime neighbors, by the destruction Then, all the way of their homes and work places and an en- down from the warfare is proving more effective than tire way of life. Doctors and analysts be- highest govern- guerrilla warfare.” lieve that trying to come to terms with a ment office in very uncertain present and future could Sarajevo to the lo- be even more difficult than the wartime cal municipality there are opportunities communities within the Federation and experiences and take many years. to delay, divert and destroy. We are on con- Republika Srpska highlighted the day-to- In trying to promote minority returns, stantly shifting sands and bureaucratic day problems in helping minorities and the senior protection officer Volker Turk warfare is proving more effective even difficulties they face once they do go back. pointed out that UNHCR today still has than guerrilla warfare.” Before the war Godinja was a pretty to negotiate with hard-line officials on all And when administrative maneuver- weekend mountain retreat for Sarajevans. sides who were responsible for promoting ings do fail, extremists revert to terror. It was wrecked during the fighting, but ethnic cleansing in the first place. Though Returnees have been murdered in their UNHCR and other agencies rehabilitated most of these ultra-nationalists pay lip ser- own homes, beaten up and intimidated 22 homes at a cost of around $8,000 each vice to the Dayton Accords and High Rep- and their houses blown up around them Turn to page 12 Ã

10 REFUGEES | MOSTAR |

five minutes walk away on the other side of the river? But the Mostar dilemma is the same as that facing communities throughout Bosnia. The old-style politicians and the gangs of thugs are still there. New hard- liners, themselves displaced, are in town occupying the empty homes of the ethnically cleansed. They will not move from Mostar unless they can return to their own homes elsewhere in Bosnia. In such circumstances, going home may be hazardous to your health. One group of Muslims I talked with returned to their village south of Mostar a month earlier. They were greeted on their first night back by a grenade tossed through a window which killed one man and wounded a second. A tenuous bridge link between east and west Mostar, 1994. © E. DAGNINO For the moment the villagers are shrug- ging off physical attacks and other forms of intimidation. There is no electricity or water and their homes have been looted to “Going home may be empty shells. It is peacetime but the windows of their homes are newly covered with UNHCR plastic sheeting — for me hazardous to your health” the symbol of war from those earlier days Kirsten Young was a UNHCR protection officer during the worst and not the sign of a hopeful future. days of the siege of the Bosnian town of Mostar. She recently BEGGING FOR THEIR LIVES revisited the area to see how it has adapted to peace. Her report: In the final scene from the movie Schindler’s List, the hero says, “I should ostar, August, 1993: the stench of rot- failing to come to terms with the fact that have taken more” referring to the num- Mting corpses, the smell of excrement genocide was again on the loose in Europe. ber of Jews he tried to save. I felt enormous and garbage pervade the eastern part of Returning to Mostar rekindled the guilt in leaving Mostar that I had not been town. spine-chilling fear of that time under siege able to help in getting more people out of Ethnic cleansing is in full swing. when the airport was in no-man’s land and there too. Masked Croatian paramilitaries drag the only way ‘in’ was through a hail of Every day people begged us, often on Muslims and Serbs from their beds in the rocket and sniper fire across the frontline. their knees, to help them leave before they dead of night. Men are taken to detention were ‘next.’ We did what we could, but it camps at Dretelj and Gabela, some never A DIFFERENT SCENE was never enough. We would return a few to be seen again. Today, the mines, the trip-wires, the days later to find some of the people we had Women are expelled from the Croat- checkpoints, the raggedly-dressed kids talked to just a few days ago gone — disap- held western bank across the river begging for food have all gone. Sniper peared, ethnically cleansed, massacred. Neretva to the Muslim-held eastern quar- warnings along the main street have been I hoped a return to Mostar might help ter, often after being gang raped. covered by election billboards, bomb me confront the demons of guilt which Some are killed, but the survivors craters have been filled in, shattered have haunted me for five years. cower in candle-lit basements from day buildings rebuilt. There is a Benetton And then I met one man we did save — and night mortar bombardments, wish- store, dog walkers, water and electricity. a detainee from the Gabela detention camp ing only to escape to safety; Germany, Bridges have been repaired and who was resettled in Europe. France, anywhere. freedom of movement restored, but this He had returned to Bosnia several Memories are like a blurred fast mov- ‘normalcy’ is deceptive. months earlier but the reality is that he is ing film featuring columns of refugees, People who were forcibly evicted in now a ‘minority’ returnee in his own town. detention camps, wrecked hospitals, razed those dark days still cannot go back home His house is still half-destroyed, his neigh- churches, toppled minarets and public — despite Dayton, despite local pledges of bors are hostile but he says he is happier parks converted into cemeteries. reconciliation and despite the presence of than at any time during those ‘safe’ years in Mostar, it seemed to us foreign workers NATO troops. Europe. at the time, was the center of the universe, Why, I wondered in a city seemingly Why? Because he is home. My hope is our only purpose being to help the civilian so ‘normal’ did people not simply insist that all of the people of Mostar will even- victims of a brutal and senseless war but on their right to return to old homes only tually be able to go home too. B

REFUGEES 11 | COVER STORY |

Ã (throughout Bosnia, UNHCR has helped restore an estimated 30,000 family units) to try to kickstart returns to the region. Serifa Lindov, her husband, son and

daughter-in-law together with five other UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN Bosniak families returned to the village located precariously near the so-called Zone of Separation (ZOS) which marks the Serb and Federation entities, but other houses remain empty or are used only as weekend homes. “The school and clinic used to be next door but now the nearest are two hours walk away,” says Serifa in explaining why more of her neighbors had not come back. The homes were rebuilt months ago but the local Serb municipality only recently reconnected the electricity. A sawmill and several other factories were burned down several years ago and have not been rehabilitated and so there are no jobs. Serifa’s family survives on food handouts from relatives. There is no public transport and the Muslims must walk through heavy winter snows to reach the now exclusively Serb town of Trnovo and then the outside world. Between Godinja and Trnovo is the destroyed Muslim village of Turovi. For nearly two years UNHCR has been Walking aids for war victims produced in Sarajevo by Islamic Relief Worldwide. involved in tortuous negotiations with Trnovo’s Serb mayor to promote minor- outskirts of Sarajevo was ‘derecognized’ horrors of the earlier conflict and the ity returns to Turovi. In exchange for re- late last year because of the authorities dilemmas in trying to reconstruct a multi- building 20 Muslim houses, UNHCR of- slowness in implementing return pro- ethnic nation. fered to rehabilitate 20 Serb houses, a grams. “The Case of the Homeless Cow” Before the shooting began there were school and the sawmill. was symptomatic. When refugees want to an estimated 60,000 Bosniaks and Croats return to their old homes, displaced per- in Banja Luka. Today there are fewer than MOVING THE GOAL-POSTS sons currently living in that particular 1,000. Every mosque was deliberately But the goal-posts kept being moved, building must first be found alternate blown up and levelled though the rest of first over which houses should be rebuilt accommodation. In this particular case the the town escaped physical damage. first, then over the numbers of people person to be moved owned a cow but his It is a different story en route to Sanski involved. Bosniak refugees from Turovi proposed new location did not have room Most. A freezing, deep fog blankets the later intervened with their own objections. for an animal. He refused to move, the region for many days in the winter, re- When it became clear it would be too ministry did not insist and avoided dis- ducing visibility to a few yards at times. expensive to try to rebuild their former cussing the situation with UNHCR offi- Disemboweled vehicles, villages still homes, UNHCR offered to construct cials for one month. Yet another refugee destroyed and abandoned, fields laced with cheaper prefabricated houses. The transfer was put on hold. mines, a convoy of heavy British tanks all refugees refused. Today the sawmill re- Banja Luka today is appear out of the gloom mains closed. Turovi is a deserted shell. the capital of Republika and disappear just as The talks continue. Srpska, but the town and quickly into the murk. When UNHCR launched its ‘Open surrounding areas un- UNHCR has For a visitor the overrid- Cities’ concept in March 1997, the project derwent some of the increased its ing sense is one of illusion met with widespread international worst ethnic cleansing of rather than reality. acclaim. The idea was simple; towns and the war. The road corri- emphasis on Kozarac village looks municipalities which promoted minority dor between the Serb like a snapshot from the return and reconciliation would be stronghold and the Fed- high visibility worst bombing excesses rewarded with international assistance. eration town of Sanski protection of World War Two. Vir- Thus far, however, only 15,000 minorities Most 50 miles (80 kms) to tually every house has have gone home under the program. the west even now programs. been destroyed. Wild veg- The municipality of Vogosca on the vividly illustrates the etation threatens to over-

12 REFUGEES | COVER STORY |

whelm the ruins of this ghost town. Be- floor of their old home, eat bread and fore the conflict, 4,000 relatively wealthy Unless the process of cheese and an occasional potato. There is Bosniaks lived there. To encourage return no water. Serb authorities asked for the UNHCR and the Norwegian Refugee minority return is equivalent of 25 dollars to reconnect the Council rehabilitated 53 homes. Thus far, electricity. The couple do not have any five families have returned. accelerated this year money and instead use two oil lamps for il- Among them are Besic and Zumra Os- “we will miss the boat.” lumination. man. They were given 10 minutes to quit “When I first came back I lay awake at their homes by Serb soldiers in 1992 dur- It is a race against time. night listening and worrying,” the elderly ing the ethnic cleansing. When they clam- Bosniak woman said. “One house nearby bered aboard a waiting bus the village was was blown up. But I am not afraid any- still a pleasant, tree-lined place where the Zumra Besic said describing her return in more. If they come for me again and I get Osmans and their parents were born and December. “I was crying out of control. It killed, I get killed.” The returnees are com- raised. Two weeks after they left, the vil- was as if my entire life had been wiped forted by the nearby presence of Czech sol- lage was deliberately levelled. out.” The Osmans came back with a suit- diers of the international force and the fact “I had to take pills when I saw what had case full of clothes, one pot and a cooking that the ‘border’ with the Federation and happened to my home,” the 65-year-old stove. They live in one room, sleep on the thus ‘safety’ is only a few kilometers away. Ã

‘Are we going to stay here this time or are Helping the women of war we going to move again?’” the woman said. “I’m so tired. There is no solution.” A series of small-scale projects try to make a difference At another meeting, a group of doctors, social workers and counsellors sit around “In the war the kids were happy with independent and self-sufficient by training a table with several patients in group what they had. They were delighted with them in new skills, finding them work, therapy, including a single woman trying hand-me-down clothes from the Red helping them to overcome psychological to raise a child on $12 a month and a father Cross,” a young Bosnian woman said. scars and providing legal assistance. and his daughter who had been raped. “We “Now they want the latest shoes from Adi- The women at the Sarajevo conflict are trying to break the cycle of emotional das and Nike.” A second woman attend- center, many of them displaced, were numbing,” explains one counsellor. The ing a recent meeting in a ‘conflict resolu- attending regular meetings organized by woman patient explains, “We have no self tion center’ in downtown Sarajevo added a local group called Corridor. They learned esteem left. And we have no money to “Our children have grown up too quickly to design and knit yarn products and each replace that missing self esteem.” and become old too fast. School is boring meeting turned into an informal rap ses- “The country is still in a mental limbo,” and meaningless. And we feel so helpless.” sion where the women could discuss per- says social worker Ragib Vacnaga. “The A third woman added her point of view, sonal problems and their frustrations. real problems are still to surface, especially “The war was straightforward. Peace has Across the city in Vogosca municipality, in the young.” For Bosnia, that is the real become very complicated.” a young mother and her six-year-old son long term worry. B The physical scars of Bosnia’s war are from the town of slowly being repaired, but the psycholog- Srebrenica sought Women attend a course in home decoration in Sarajevo run ical trauma suffered by all of the country’s help from a lawyer by a local NGO Women for Women in Bosnia. four million people — soldiers, refugees at the Sun Side Pro and the displaced, survivors of the Sara- Femina Center to jevo siege, ‘ordinary’ villagers — runs much qualify for state deeper. Experts believe it could take years, benefits. Her hus- if ever, to repair the human damage from band disappeared the conflict. Last year, UNHCR allocated during the fall of $3.6 million from funds primarily supplied Srebrenica and by the United States, to help finance an since returning estimated 220 projects for one particular from Germany re- group — women — to try to patch their lives cently she, her back together again. mother and son, The projects, organized through local have survived on a organizations and collectively known as $70 a month pen- the Bosnian Women’s Initiative, are delib- sion. “I cannot face erately low key and small-scale, designed the question my to make a direct impact on individual lives. son keeps asking

Effectively they help women become more again and again UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN

REFUGEES 13 | COVER STORY |

so badly. In an were late in arriving, hindering the num- interview Petar ber of people going home. He added that Djodan, Deputy Mi- unless the process is accelerated this year, nister for Refugees “we will miss the boat” in helping large

UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN in the Bosnian Serb numbers of minorities return. government posed Meanwhile crime, black market activ- that very question: ities, alcoholism and child prostitution are “How can 50,000 all on the rise in Sanski Most. Destitute Bosniaks return refugees are increasingly being evicted here at this time? from rented accommodation by wealthier Where will all the returnees, mainly from Germany. “People Serb refugees go? arrive here with such hope, Bhandari said. Where will they “In Germany they have been told that ev- live?” But in a re- erything has improved. But nothing has gion where nothing changed. People quickly fall into a pit of is as straightforward frustration.” as it may first appear Bhandari, like other field officials, has on the surface, there noted other disturbing features of the mi- is widespread suspi- nority return. The great majority of peo- cion that authorities ple who have already gone back are elderly, deliberately keep a trend some local authorities encourage some centers open on the assumption that the old are easier just to be able to to manipulate and the minority popula- Minority return: Serb returnees in front of their UNHCR- repaired home near Sanski Most. make that point and tion will eventually die out. slow down returns. “The young will never come back Across the ‘bor- here,” says Zumra Osman. “My two sons Ã A few streets away from the Osmans, der’ Sanski Most has become an important have new lives in the city.” Some families 150 Serbs who fled from what is now center for the return process. An estimated split up, sending one or two members to Federation territory live in one of the 40,000 Bosniaks who formerly lived in their old home while others stay in region’s so-called collective centers, in this what is now Republika Srpska have wartime accommodation. In that way case a former school. They have been crowded into the once nondescript rural families could continue to qualify for there for three years and are among the town, waiting for the moment to go home. international aid, but by refusing to give war’s most poignant casualties — elderly, Many returned from Germany, either vol- up their ‘temporary’ accommodation they infirm and traumatized, often with few untarily or as part of a process humani- also block the return of minorities from close relatives, no independent means of tarian officials euphemistically call ‘in- the opposite direction. Others have support and with little likelihood or de- duced’ returns. Authorities on both sides become known as ‘day trippers’ visiting sire to go back to their old homes. of the line insist they are committed to al- old homes during the day but returning Serb authorities use the plight of these lowing people to go home, but the process to a ‘safe’ majority area at night. Some homeless as a bargaining chip to ask is agonizingly slow. returnees even leave the lights turned on international officials how they can wel- Bishnu Bhandari, a UNHCR official in the evenings to convince humanitarian come back Bosniak and Croat minorities from Nepal who speaks Serbo-Croat flu- officials they are living permanently in when their own people continue to suffer ently, said funds for some projects in 1998 a new location. Wealthier refugees sim-

Marceta is an unlikely hero. A stout, Bosnia’s Don Quixote greying middle-aged former salesman, he One defiant mayor with a dream tries and thousands of fellow Serbs were driven UNHCR / A.HOLLMANN to make a difference from their childhood home in Drvar by Croatian and Muslim troops pressing the final offensive of the conflict in 1995. But in n angry mob troops rode to the rescue and evacuated local elections permitting refugees to cast Abroke into him to hospital. Within weeks Marceta absentee ballots in their pre-war locations, Mile Marceta’s was in a wheelchair and then on crutches, Marceta was elected mayor of the town Mile Marceta, Mayor of Drvar. mayoral office sev- continuing a Quixote campaign which has in 1997 and immediately began pursuing eral months ago, earned him the hatred of hard-line na- his dream. dragged him from the building and beat tionalists and the admiration of some in- Several thousand Serbs gingerly fol- him to a pulp with wooden staves, ashtrays ternational officials — allowing the pre- lowed him back to Drvar in the most suc- and bricks. He survived by lolling out his war inhabitants of the west Bosnian town cessful single return of refugees across eth- tongue and feigning death until Canadian of Drvar to go home. nic lines anywhere in Bosnia. Though

14 REFUGEES | COVER STORY |

ply buy residency permits in areas such as Sarajevo where they would now prefer to live. Indeed, the country’s entire social struc-

ture has been turned on its head since the UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN war. Before the shooting began an estimated 61 percent of the population lived in rural areas. Today an equal number live in urban areas and there are indications that at least some of these people do not want to return to village life. One local study suggested as many as 35 percent of Bosnia’s displaced would like to sell their old homes and move to a new location. UNHCR reduced its operating budget from $87 million in 1998 to $64 million in 1999 and reorientated many of its projects. Funding for shelter projects such as house reconstruction was slashed by two-thirds from $30 million to $9 million, underlining the organization’s decision to phase out Sarajevan women undergo typing training in 1998 at a local NGO, Be My Friend. emergency reconstruction programs which other agencies will now take over. Increased emphasis was placed on UN- internally within Bosnia but, it is hoped, to rather than minority return whereby HCR ‘core’ projects such as high visibility and from neighboring Croatia and Yu- refugees would continue to be encouraged protection programs including increased goslavia. Since Dayton, the fleet has car- to go back to Bosnia and ‘relocate’ to ma- numbers of ‘house calls’ and monitoring ried an estimated 800,000 people annu- jority ethnic areas rather than going to patrols by protection officers in return ar- ally, a success story which Kleinschmidt their old homes. eas and monitoring and strengthening termed “one of our most beautiful activi- Such a plan has one obvious merit; it court systems, the police and humanitar- ties.” He now hopes to replicate that on a would be far simpler to implement than ian institutions. regional basis. trying to help hundreds of thousands of Senior program officer Kilian Klein- Many field workers are convinced they people return to areas where the local au- schmidt said UNHCR’s ‘in- are now in a race against thorities now in place don’t want them and ter-entity’ bus line pro- time. Says Barry Rigby, head at times are willing to resort to violence gram which was designed of UNHCR’s Bosnia opera- to stop them. Critics argue the interna- to break down barriers be- “The young tions, “This may be a defin- tional community would then be complicit tween the various groups ing year. It may be our last in supporting the basic aim of the war ex- by offering free transport will never chance” to make a major im- tremists in establishing ethnically cleansed to and from different eth- come back pact on minority return. mini-states. According to the respected In- nic areas will also be re- Some European govern- ternational Crisis Group, Bosnia’s peace is shaped. In future, the buses here.” ments are already professing still “built on shifting sands” and in such a will carry people not only a preference for ‘relocation’ situation there are no easy answers. B

they had comprised 97 percent of the buildings. It was during this period that The problem of minority returns re- town’s population before the war, the re- Marceta was personally targetted. mains the single most intractable problem gion is now dominated by Croat national- Even some international officials in postwar Bosnia. Marceta recognizes the ists determined to keep the region ethni- consider Marceta too abrasive, too deep divisions which persist: “Whenever cally pure. Pursuing a similar cause in Re- pushy, simply too obsessed with his I cross the inter-entity boundary line (the publika Srpska, hard-line officials there personal dreams. He is unrepentant. He artificial border between Republika Srpska were equally reluctant to dilute their own is highly critical of the outside world: and the Bosniak-Croat Federation) I am ‘purity’ by allowing fellow Serbs to leave. “There is still no security here, no not a human any more in the eyes of the Early last year, Croat nationalists de- housing. I do not call it the Dayton Peace Croats. When I go back to Drvar I return cided enough was enough and launched Agreement. I call it the Dayton Trap.” to the stone age.” an intimidation campaign — murdering But he recognizes that he still needs He adds, “I will fight as long as I can two elderly Serb returnees in their beds, all the help he can get: “We want breathe. We Serbs will never flee again.” torching dozens of Serb owned houses assistance. We want a cow from you, Marceta is one of only a few individuals in and even turning their wrath on inter- a chicken, a small fishpond. To help us Bosnia who have tried, and have been suc- national officials, attacking several U.N. restart our lives.” cessful, in making a little difference. B

REFUGEES 15 ADC/WORLDMAP 4 BALKAN SWITZERLAND SWITZERLAND 16

UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN but reconstruction and return have been very slow.havereturnvery and been reconstruction but region, the to haveback families moved Bosnian few A RepublikaSrpska. of area Prijedor Kozaracthe in of town BOSNIA CROATIA

© R. SIGHETI / REUTERS were discovered in the town of Racak. Racak. of town the werediscoveredin murdered severalvillagersdozen of bodies the incident infamous one in 1999and early in renewedturmoil was there but region, the to posted was force verification international An otherswerekilled. and weredisplaced people hundredthousand 1998.Several throughoutof much Kosovoplace LiberationArmytook the and police soldiersand government Yugoslavia, 9 GERMANY GERMANY other areas of the former the areasof other in ended had conflict Though 1 lasn’etrdtevcblr fwar. cleansing’of vocabulary the entered ‘ethnicterm the and flattened was River Danube the on town the bombardment, Serb of severalmonths fighting.During bitter most and earliest the of some Vukovarof scene the was immediately.followed of city Croatian The YugoslaviaJune,war 1991,in Republicof fighting between fighting ITALY ITALY devastated, including the including devastated, remain country the of Dayton,however, manyparts yearsThreeafter Bosnia. keya infrastructureis basic and EVENTS 10 When Croatia and SloveniaCroatiaproclaimedand When independence fromindependence to the future stability of stabilityfuture the to of homes, industry homes, of rehabilitationThe KOSOVO the Socialist FederalSocialist the SLOVENIA LJUBLJANA LJUBLJANA SLOVENIA ROME ROME Yugoslavia. former the in conflict the of height the at people million 3.5 as B UNHCR / L. SENIGALLIESI 2 MOSTAR UNHCR assisted as many as assisted UNHCR CROATIA CROATIA

UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN coastal town of Rijeka and catered to Bosnian children. Bosnian to catered and Rijeka of town coastal Croatianthe in field football a on established was WorldWar Two of end the since Europe in refugees for camp tented first homes.The their from uprooted were people of thousands hundredsof region, 2 CROATIA endorsement or acceptance by the UnitedNations.the by acceptance endorsementor official imply not do map this on shown designations and boundaries The ZAGREB ZAGREB in March 1992 March in Bosnia-Herzegovinaindependencedeclared BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA AND BOSNIA BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA AND BOSNIA and when conflict spread to that to spreadconflict when and 10 enteredeveryday language. cleansing ethnic term the and fighting, the during alone Bosnia in werekilled reportedly B 5 As many as 250,000 people 250,000 as many As More are planned. planned. areMore Mostar. of city Bosnian the in ones these interim, the in haveheld elections been municipal and General provisionelections. for 8 of Daytonwasof the keyfeatureAnother SARAJEVO SARAJEVO 7 8 TIRANA 6 3 MONTE MONTE 1 B The Sarajevo airlift ran from B There are still 1.2 million B A $5.1 billion dollar July, 1992 until January, 1996, and refugees and displaced persons reconstruction package has was of even longer duration than waiting to return to their homes helped rebuild parts of Bosnia the Berlin Airlift. The air-bridge in Bosnia at the start of 1999. since the Dayton Peace fed the city for three winters. Agreement, but huge areas still need assistance.

UKRAINE BOSNIA

MOLDOVA UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN GENEVA CHISINAU There were constant 4 diplomatic meetings to try HUNGARY to halt the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. In late 1993, High Commissioner Sadako Ogata met with Bosnian leaders in Geneva to The Bosnian capital of Sarajevo was try to halt the carnage and ensure 3 besieged and in July, 1992, UNHCR ongoing assistance to as many as began a humanitarian airlift to feed the city. 3.5 million people. The air-bridge became the longest-running UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN humanitarian operation of its kind in history and helped sustain the city through three winters. The airlift closed in January, 1996. ROMANIA BELGRADE BOSNIA FEDERAL REPUBLIC BUCHAREST OF YUGOSLAVIA

9 PRISTINA ENEGRO SOFIA © P. TURNLEY KOSOVO Croatian troops launched 5 Operation Storm in August, 1995, to retake the Krajina area of BULGARIA the country from rebel Serbs. Nearly SKOPJE 200,000 Serbs fled the region. Many FYR OF MACEDONIA trekked through Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia during their exodus en route to Serbia. DAYTON

ALBANIA

TUZLA The Bosnian GREECE enclave of © C.W. PATTERSON / AFP / KEYSTONE 6 Srebrenica became an After intense negotiations, the officially protected 7 Dayton Peace Agreement was U.N. safe area but it initialed at a U.S. air force base at eventually fell to Serb Dayton by all the involved parties. The forces in July 1995. agreement ended hostilities and paved UNHCR / E. DAGNINO Thousands of people, the way for the return of refugees and mainly women, children and the elderly were expelled to displaced persons to Bosnia. One month ATH EN S areas like Tuzla, but several thousand other mainly later, a NATO-led implementation younger males were massacred in the worst single force deployed to the region. atrocity in Europe since World War Two. The Dayton accord remains the corner- stone of rebuilding and reconstruction TURKEY efforts today. 17 | QUOTE UNQUOTE | © LOS ANGELES TIMES SYNDICATE. CARTOON BY DANZIGER REPRINTED BY PERMISSION FFF

“After the fifth stroke of “For the first time in my life, people the machete on my hand I risked their lives for me.” fainted. I only woke up after I heard my little UNHCR field representative Vincent Cochetel after being kidnapped and held for 317 days in Chech- daughter screaming. They nya and then freed by Russian special forces. were also chopping off her hand.” “We were forced to lie down he assisted in Bosnia’s ethnic ment, has in place some of A woman from Sierra Leone de- in the snow with our hands cleansing on behalf of the the most severe restrictions scribing one of the many daily behind our heads and we Bosnian Serbs. in its history.” atrocities being committed in that were beaten. We were then Dennis McNamara, director of West African country by ordered up a hillside and FFF international protection at UN- rebels. when we panicked and HCR, commenting on asylum started running the police “A lasting peace within procedures in the United States. FFF opened fire. Some were shot Bosnia and Herzegovina is down, others were executed starting to take root. But FFF “We should stop looking for where they lay.” there is still much work to scapegoats and look inwards A survivor of the Racak atrocity be done.” “For all intents and pur- to resolve our problems... in Kosovo. A statement by the multi-na- poses, the Angolan peace The illusion that...salvation tional Peace Implementation process has collapsed and will come from outside the FFF Council monitoring events in the country is now in a state continent should also stop.” Bosnia. of war.” Salim Ahmed Salim, Secretary “In Bosnia all of them were U.N. Secretary-General Kofi General of the Organization of doing so...Serbs, Croats, any- FFF Annan blaming both sides for African Unity, at a pan-African body. Ethnic cleansing was renewed conflict in Angola. conference on refugees. their specialty.” “Our main donor, our main Yugoslav President Slobodan supporter, with a proud FFF FFF Milosevic, responding to charges history of refugee involve-

18 REFUGEES | MINES | IT’S A MINEFIELD... The country is scarred by hidden explosives...and political pitfalls

s some of the worst fighting of the help finance six mine war raged near Sarajevo’s interna- clearance teams of Ational airport in 1992, Bego Memi- around 40 people each sevic laced the area around his suburban as part of an interna- home with mines. Serb attackers eventu- tional effort coordi- ally overran the district and Bego nated by the Mine Ac- did not return for four years. Poking tion Centre (MAC). through the devastation of his former res- Eventually, it is hoped idence he stepped on an explosive and that local groups and blew away his right leg. “It was a mine non-governmental or- I had planted myself,” he says today with ganizations (NGOs) almost a wry smile. “I guess I forgot where will take over these I had put it.” functions. Mines killed and maimed thousands Mine clearing, of soldiers and civilians alike during the Bosnia style, can be war and they remain a major deterrent to- deadly dull, deadly Bego Memisevic, who returned to his Sarajevo home day to efforts to resettle the homeless and slow and simply after the war and was disabled by a mine he had planted kick start the country’s anemic economy. deadly. In 1997, experts there and forgotten about earlier in the conflict. One million explosives may still be painstakingly cleared a UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN buried in an estimated 30,000 minefields total of 6.8 sq kms (2.6 across Bosnia. Most of them mark the sq miles) of what offi- former frontlines and according to Tim cials call the ‘silent Horner, technical adviser to UNHCR for menace’ but even then mine action, an ambitious database has at a high cost. Eleven pinpointed perhaps 60 percent of the mine clearers were hidden ordnance. killed that year. In Oc- “But it’s anyone’s guess where the other tober, 1998, two UN- mines are,” says Horner, a former British HCR mine clearers Royal Navy specialist and one of only a were killed in the Jajce few dozen experienced mine experts to be area of the country. Ex- A German “mine breaker” churns through a suspected found anywhere in the world. Sarajevo perts say the work is so minefield at Sarajevo airport. alone has as many as 1,400 mined areas slow and deliberate UNHCR / C.SHIRLEY even in the busiest section of the city. clearers find it difficult As trams and taxis rattle by on one of to maintain concentration. One slip, for In Sarajevo, Bego Memisevic’s life is Sarajevo’s main thoroughfares, the former just one second, could cost a life. full of tragic irony. He blew himself up Sniper’s Alley, experts still diligently clear There are many political pitfalls along with his own mine just a few months after the grounds of the former downtown Tito the way, too. Municipal officials deliberately leaving the Bosnian army. If he had been a Military Barracks. mislead international workers trying to pro- soldier at the time of the accident he would Mines continue to claim as many as 10 mote the return of ‘minorities’ by claiming have received the equivalent of 300 victims each month, but this figure is down villages and regions are heavily mined and Deutschmarks a month as a pension. As from 100 a month just a couple of years ago. not suitable for settlement. Later investi- a civilian he gets just 38. He has to spend Horner believes “we should be able to get gations often prove the areas are ‘clean’ but two-thirds of this, his only source of in- on top of the problem within five years” at the very least return has been slowed come, to dress his artificial leg each month. by clearing the most important areas, but down again. NATO troops in Bosnia have Still, he considers himself a ‘lucky’ vic- other experts talk about ‘two generations’ sophisticated mine clearing units, but tim. He rebuilt part of his house with UN- for a more extensive operation. though local commanders have been keen HCR assistance and lives there today with As part of its efforts to promote the re- to help the civilian effort, sensitivities over his wife and son. “What happened to me turn of refugees and displaced persons, just what troops can and cannot do have is God’s will,” he says. “But at least I am UNHCR allocated $2.5 million in 1999 to stymied any large scale assistance. still alive.” B

REFUGEES 19 | CROATIA | “THEY CAME BACK TO A BIZARRE AND SURREAL WORLD...” After a slow beginning, the number of refugees returning to Croatia is expected to increase this year

he first indications of war were A SURREAL WORLD turned, unless they had somewhere else to small telltale signs. Vera Kruljac The Croat eventually joined his wife go,” Vera Kruljac said. She remembers U.N. T remembers her Serb neighbors and family. They returned to Vukovar in observers in the region visiting regularly stopped socializing and wishing her good June, 1998, and entered a bizarre and sur- “to see that the Serbs were okay and not morning en route to work. Then the Serbs real world which many displaced persons, being victimized. They never asked about sent their children away. All too soon, not only in Croatia, but throughout the for- us.” artillery and mortar shells began raining mer Yugoslavia have faced since the end of down on their neighborhood. Vera Krul- hostilities. jac and her two sons were lucky. Helped by Most of the houses abandoned by fleeing the Red Cross, they fled their home and Croats which survived the bombardment The term ethnic reached the Croatian coast. Ivica Kruljac, were subsequently occupied by Serbs, cleansing became her husband, was taken prisoner by ad- many of them also victims of war from vancing Serb forces and even today will Bosnia and other parts of Croatia where firmly anchored in the only talk reluctantly about what happened vocabulary of war. next. Vera and Ivica Kruljac were both born and raised in Vukovar, the major town Vera Kruljac began to “expand my em- sitting on the rich alluvial plains of the pire, from the bedroom into the kitchen Danube River. The region is no stranger to where I cooked and took up residency on war and down the centuries armies and the kitchen stool.” The Serbs were even- empires, Hungarian, German, Austrian tually evicted on a technicality because and Ottoman, fought for control of the they had not officially registered as dis- strategic area. placed persons, but the Kruljacs suffered When Croatia declared independence one final indignity. On the day their ‘vis- from Federal Yugoslavia in 1991 and war itors’ left, the Serbs took most of the ensued, Vukovar became one of the first house’s furniture with them. The Krul- targets of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav jacs stood and watched from the garden People’s Army. In three months of round- but refused to try to stop their neighbors the-clock shelling, the city was literally looting for fear the eviction itself might flattened. The bulk of its 40,000 majority be halted. Croat population cowered in cellars for “It was almost funny,” Ivica Kruljac weeks. Some were killed. Many were says now. “We got our house back but this wounded. Most of the survivors were Serb could have had me shot during the subsequently forced to leave at gunpoint. early days of the war. We were lucky.”

The term ethnic cleansing became firmly UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN Many people have been far less fortu- anchored in the vocabulary of war. Returnee Vera Kruljac at work in her nate. Nearly 80,000 refugees and inter- “At first I was forced to replace tiles on kitchen in Vukovar. nally displaced went home since 1995, the roofs of buildings at the height of the including some 35,000 who returned from shelling,” Ivica Kruljac said, recalling his they were not welcome. The Kruljacs dis- Bosnia and Yugoslavia. But there are still days as a prisoner. “Then I collected dead covered their home had been occupied by an estimated 40,000 refugees in Bosnia bodies from the streets.” He was locked in a a local Serb family from Vukovar who re- and 300,000 in Yugoslavia. Many of those cellar at night and repeatedly beaten. “Some fused to move out. The Kruljacs eventu- mostly Croatian Serbs had been ruthlessly people were taken outside, tortured and ally established a ‘bridgehead’ moving into driven from Croatia’s Krajina region killed. We could hear screams and the shots,” one bedroom of their own home, along during the army’s 1995 blitzkrieg known he said. Prisoners who were detailed to get with the Serbs. “There was an agreement as Operation Storm and until now have rid of the ‘evidence’ were themselves then that people could not simply be thrown out been blocked by Zagreb from going home ‘eliminated’ according to Kruljac. of a property, even when an owner rein any significant numbers.

20 REFUGEES | CROATIA |

Vukovar itself, despite widespread international attention, is still on a life support system. Only 1,600 of the city’s former Croat population has returned. Serb

residents fearing reprisals from hard-line UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN Croats, have continued to desert the region. A few buildings have been symbol- ically restored, but Vukovar remains a monument to the folly of war. Factories, homes and shops remain gutted. Unem- ployment stands at around 90 percent. Traffic signals have been re-connected, but they almost mock the empty streets and buildings. Throughout the entire Danube or East Slavonia region which returned to full Croatian sovereignty in 1998 following a period under United Nations administration, less than half the pre-war population has returned. As in neighboring Bosnia, 1999 may become a decisive year in efforts to resettle Croatia’s refugees and internally displaced. Under intense international pressure to A reconstruction project in Vukovar funded by the European Union. end years of deliberate foot-dragging and speed up refugee return, Zagreb in June in such areas as jobs and schooling. The but we will also try to help more people.” 1998 approved a National Return Program government allocated the equivalent of The overall strategy will be a community which, in principle at least, should make it nearly $2.5 billion for reconstruction in the based approach with the aim of rapid rein- easier for everyone, whatever their eth- next five years, but some estimates suggest tegration. nicity, to return to Croatia with a mini- $25 billion is a more realistic figure for what But whatever happens, it will be a dif- mum of formalities. This move was rein- is needed. ficult end of the millenium in Croatia. In a forced when the government also re- International donors are wary of pump- best case scenario, officials estimate 30,000 scinded two harsh pieces of wartime ing large amounts of aid into Croatia people will return this year. Even if that legislation which made it difficult, and at given what they feel is the government’s target is met, it will still mean that less than times impossible, for returnees to reclaim disappointing record in promoting mean- 10 percent of the country’s refugee popu- their old properties. ingful return. A December 1998 interna- lation will go home in 1999. B tional conference on reconstruction and COMING HOME development in Zagreb, for instance, was In the half year since the plan was only partially successful; it was useful in adopted returns have picked up only promoting a greater awareness of Croa- slightly, though UNHCR protection offi- tia’s needs but generated little of the assis- cer Arvind Gupta said he anticipated the tance the government was looking for. flow will increase in spring. “Our nightmare scenario is But daunting problems that large numbers of peo- face the returnees. Croat- “We expect to ple will come home,but then ian politics are in a state of they will decide to go back flux and a forthcoming see a surge of to Yugoslavia because there general election will only returnees in are still too many problems add to a mood of national here,” one UNHCR field of- uncertainty. Many senior the spring.” ficer said. officials simply do not During an era of reduced want the Serbs to return spending in most regions, and those who have gone home thus far UNHCR maintained its 1999 budget in are mainly elderly people with no real fu- Croatia at $13 million, the same as the pre- ture ahead of them. vious year. Program officer Iain Hall said

Economic conditions in Croatia are bet- in the coming months UNHCR programs UNHCR / A. HOLLMANN ter than in Yugoslavia, but not by much, would focus on “following the returnees A UNHCR repatriation officer in and younger Serbs remain fearful of re- home and helping them on the spot in such Osijek discusses the problems a Serb refugee woman faces in returning to turning because of perceived ongoing dis- areas as minor home repairs. We will re- her pre-war home. crimination, not only politically but also duce the amount given to each individual,

REFUGEES 21 | YUGOSLAVIA | EUROPE’S ‘FORGOTTEN’ Ironically, the Kosovo conflict has highlighted the largely ignored plight REFUGEES forgotten people has come into sharper of 550,000 refugees focus. When the old Socialist Federal Repub- by Paula Ghedini lic of Yugoslavia crumpled in 1991 and fighting erupted first in Croatia and the hey number more than half a mil- next year in Bosnia-Herzegovina, hun- lion exiles, and as a group form the dreds of thousands of civilians fled in every T largest concentration of refugees in direction, many ethnic Serbs to the rump Europe. Thousands of people live in con- Yugoslav state comprising the Republics verted schoolrooms, barracks or former of Serbia and Montenegro. In 1995, 170,000 factories. Entire families have squeezed local Serbs abandoned the Krajina region of into tiny single-room accommodation, Croatia following a government onslaught many for as long as seven years. Some peo- called Operation Storm and trekked on ple, having escaped war once in their own foot, by car, horse-drawn carts and tractors country, find themselves entrapped by re- toward Belgrade. newed conflict in their adopted homes. By this time, Yugoslavia was playing Thus far, only a few thousand people have host not only to the largest number of managed to go home and for the first time refugees in Europe, but also one of the Last year, the organization helped more many are beginning to accept they may largest in the world. But because President than 510,000 people directly or through co- never return. Slobodan Milosevic was widely perceived operating agencies. UNHCR allocated $8 The plight of these refugees living in to be the main instigator of the Balkan con- million in 1998-99 for income generating the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has flict, the international community was less projects, to help refugees remaining in Yu- remained largely ignored by the outside generous with its aid programs toYu- goslavia to establish small businesses by world for years, but ironically, as the con- goslavia than to other areas such as Bosnia. opening beauty salons, restaurants, bee- flict in the country’s Kosovo province ex- The situation deteriorated further when keeping and agricultural cooperatives. Dur- ploded onto the world’s television screens fighting in Kosovo began and renewed eco- ing 1999 it will continue a program to build in 1998 and this year, the future of these nomic sanctions were slapped on Belgrade or finance 480 housing units for around for its role in that situation. And although 2,500 refugees. Two-thirds of these units all governments in the re- are self-help projects in gion paid lip service to which UNHCR and local helping all refugees go The most municipalities provide the home, in reality large-scale materials and technical sup- repatriation has been ef- disappointing port and refugees them- fectively blocked. selves build their own and homes, fostering both self NOWHERE TO TURN frustrating reliance and community Those developments spirit. left the bulk of Yugoslavia’s problem For the 40,000 people still 550,000 refugees in a state remains the living in 544 collective cen- of limbo, uncertain ters throughout the country, whether they would ever right of return. UNHCR has continued to be allowed to go home and provide not only traditional if not, whether they could dry food items, but through rebuild their lives here or seek a new fu- five consecutive winters such things as fresh ture in a third country. fruits, vegetables, heating fuel and high pro- UNHCR since 1991 has provided $250 tein food as well as implementing educa- © L.SENIGALLIESI million in assistance, first as emergency tion, health and social projects and recre- Tens of thousands of Krajina Serbs help for newly arriving refugees and then ational activities for children. trekked towards Serbia after being ousted from their homes during for a series of programs designed to help But the future remains clouded by doubt a Croatian army offensive in 1995. them whatever final decision they made for the great majority of refugees. Since Ser- on their future. bia introduced a new Citizenship Law in

22 REFUGEES The most disappointing and frustrating problem, however, remains the right of return. Thus far only 3,000 refugees have gone back to Croatia and 1,000 to Bosnia. According to UNHCR and government estimates there could be a larger return in 1999 which officials not only in Yugoslavia, but also in Bosnia-Herzegov- ina and Croatia (see separate stories) see as a decisive make-or-break year in trying to engineer large-scale repatriation. UNHCR had filed 14,000 return applications with the Croatian Office for Dis- placed Persons and Refugees (ODPR) by the end of 1998 and a further 8,000 applications in early 1999. This followed a joint country- wide voluntary repatriation information campaign jointly presented by UNHCR and the Serbian Commissioner for Refugees (SCR) which included briefings by UNHCR field officers from Croatia. After one such meeting, members

UNHCR / A. KAZINIERAKIS of the Karan family from the Krajina Krajina refugees at the Kragujevac collective center in Serbia. decided to put aside their deep fears and return to their ancestral home. “Of course we worry about security,” the father said. 1997, 100,000 people have applied and UNHCR program, primarily in the United “I just hope I can find a job once we return. 42,000 have been approved for citizenship States, Canada, Australia and various Eu- But we know our house has not been and permanent residence. No one has been ropean countries. A similar number are ex- destroyed and we need to go home.” Most rejected thus far. Others would prefer to try pected to move this year, though with ap- refugees in Yugoslavia probably have to restart their lives in a new part of the plications running at around 400 per week similar sentiments, but a big doubt hangs world and last year more than 6,000 especially from Kosovo, demand far out- over whether they will be able to fulfill refugees were resettled under an official weighs the number of places available. their dreams. B

their house was only minimally damaged Events in Kosovo will probably continue An open door and is still empty. to dominate humanitarian actions in Mon- Montenegro, which together with Ser- tenegro. UNHCR has maintained a per- Montenegro may be a small bia comprises the Federal Republic of Yu- manent presence and has been providing republic, but it warmly goslavia, is a tiny republic famed locally for assistance to refugees in the republic since its Adriatic beaches and mountain ski re- 1991, with offices in Podgorica, the capital, welcomes refugees sorts. It covers 14,000 square kilometers and others in the towns of Ulcinj and hen Croatian troops stormed with a mixed population of 635,000 Mon- Rozaje, but it was not until Kosovars flee- through the Krajina region in tenegrins, Serbs, Muslims and Albanians. ing the fighting there began to arrive in W 1995, Jovan and Milica Jojnovic, Remarkably, given its small size and pop- large numbers that the international com- like most of their Serb neighbors, fled their ulation, Montenegro also hosts an estimated munity became interested in the region. home. “We thought we would be back in a 85,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and Today around 22 international humani- few days,” Jovan Jojnovic recalls, but instead internally displaced people, mainly from tarian organizations are working in the re- they have spent the last 3 1/2 years as nearby Kosovo — one of the highest per- public. centage concentrations of exiles compared Longtime refugees feel perplexed and refugees in one small room at the Hotel with local citizens anywhere in the world. angry with this situation. Vladimir is a Bor in the town of Gusinje in Montenegro. Some, like the Jojnovics have spent years refugee who says he hardly saw an aid “Look at this room,” Milica wept to one rein the republic which not only allowed worker until people fleeing the fighting in cent visitor. “We eat here, sleep here and unimpeded entry of refugees and Kosovars, Kosovo arrived and now he cannot keep everything we own is here. This is not a but more remarkably, opened its hotels, hos- track of everyone visiting his hotel. But if home. We must go back.” pitals and other accommodation to the new all the Kosovars go home from Montenegro The elderly Jojnovics have now arrivals. Others spend a matter of days — — and 12,000 people did in one recent lull in officially applied for permission to return depending on the ebb and flow of the con- the conflict — he wonders, “Will the world to their village of Gracac after learning flict in Kosovo — before returning home. forget about us again?” B

REFUGEES 23 Civilians flee the village of Racak in early 1999.

mother tells me the child she is carrying was born in the woods five weeks earlier. She is still looking for her two other children who were separated from her when KOSOVO DIARY her village was shelled. August 29: Two colleagues and I visit Fernando del Mundo arrived in Kosovo for Senik which was hit the day before. Houses UNHCR shortly after Yugoslav President Slobodan still smoulder. Tractor trailers filled with food and personal possessions are ablaze. Milosevic agreed to allow humanitarian agencies free At least 17 people were killed in the attack. The villagers ask us to stay on to deter sni- access to the region’s war-affected people. Following are pers as they bury their dead in the rain. highlights from his diary about what happened next: Among the victims is a two-week old baby who died of starvation because her wounded mother could not feed her. August 16: Attempted to deliver August 18: A Kosovo Liberation Army September 1: Orahovac was abando- emergency supplies to 100 displaced commander accuses UNHCR staff of ned in July, but the government says people in Decane but by the time we being spies as we try to deliver aid to 30,000 people have returned from the arrive they had vanished. Returning to 20,000 people in central Kosovo. A local woods and things appear normal with Pristina, we see groups of 100-200 doctor is treating 100 people per day, 90 shops open. It is the first sign that people, people along theVistrica River and local percent of them children stricken with though still scared, are going back. aid workers say there are 10,000 home- diarrhea. Their distended bellies remind September 4: There were 5,000 less in the area. It is still summertime me of Africa’s malnourished children. people on a hill above Sedlare 24 hours ago, and fruits and vegetables are plentiful August 25: Three Mother Teresa but today the place is empty. It is like this but the signs of war are everywhere: Society workers are killed when seven throughout the summer — people moving rotting crops, the carcasses of machine- tractor trailers loaded with UNHCR in and out of villages, from one place to gunned livestock, clusters of ruined emergency supplies are blasted by artillery another. It is difficult to even keep track stone houses. rounds. Passing by Pagarusa, a 34-year-old of this constant swirl of people.

24 REFUGEES | DIARY |

September 9: Thousands of people spared thus far because there have fled to the Pec region. A colleague are 13 churches here and God and I try to estimate numbers packed into has protected them from the cars, carts and tractor trailers bumper-to- bloodletting. bumper but we give up after walking December 4: All but two three kilometers. Shell fire is getting nea- houses in the village of Lodja rer and an old man begs, “Please, could have been destroyed by war- you do something to stop the shelling.” As planes, artillery and mortar we leave soldiers and tanks are gathering fire. The mayhem is reminis- a few kilometers away. When we return cent of Warsaw during World the next day, all the people have gone. War Two. A sign in Serbian is September 11: Houses in the town of scrawled on a wall at the en- Barane are burning. Police emerge from trance to the village that some homes as we drive by. One carries a roughly translates ‘Lodja does television set. Further on, the villages of not exist anymore.’ Celopek and Kostradic have been dama- December 14: Despite the ged by the fighting and are empty. October cease-fire, the spiral September 19: After three previous at- of violence ratchets up. Mas- tempts we reach villages north of Pristina ked men spray gunfire at the which have been engulfed by a four-day Panda Cafe in Pec, killing six government offensive. Ten thousand people Serbian teenagers playing have fled. In Dobratin, 30 of 70 houses have pool. Along the frontier, sol- been torched. The villagers are stoic. The diers kill 34 armed Albanian next day they are very agitated; they have intruders.

just found the charred remains of three UNHCR / R. LEMOYNE January 16: Forty-five people burned in an outhouse. Kosovo civilians camped out in the open near people are massacred in the September 21: KLA soldiers have Kisna Reka in late 1998. village of Racak in Stimlje du- been helping old men, women and chil- ring a Serb sweep. The strikes dren from Kacanol mountain village nor- are triggered by KLA assaults © KEYSTONE/EPA / L. GOULIAMAKI thwest of Pristina. One 70-year-old man October 27: Serbian troops pull back on policemen and the kidnapping of eight wandered the woods for five days looking from positions in Kosovo following a peace soldiers and five Serb civilians. More than for his family of eight. Another is on the agreement that 2,000 verifiers of the Or- 30,000 ethnic Albanians are again on the verge of tears; a six month supply of wheat ganization for Security and Cooperation move. There is no sign of a political break- he bought with money sent by a brother in in Europe will oversee. The atmosphere through and there are again threats of Germany has been burned by soldiers. is like Liberation Day. People return to NATO airstrikes. September 25: A military offensive is their homes for the first time in months. January 21: Despite the renewed figh- at its height. Houses are on fire in villages Relatives embrace each other weeping. At ting, some areas are stable. Malisevo was in central Kosovo. We pass a convoy of go- Malisevo, the purported capital of a libe- emptied in July and its 3,000 residents vernment trucks with signs pasted on rated Kosovo, a guerrilla commander talks were afraid to go back because of a heavy them ‘Social Humanitarian Aid of Kosovo to reporters as government troops with- police presence. Following the deployment and Metohija.’ The wind whips up the tar- draw from a garrison just a kilometer away. of the international monitors, however, paulin on one truck, revealing blue uni- November 3: As snow begins to cover more than half the people did return, in- formed police crammed inside. the mountain tops, the last of an estima- cluding Ramadan Mazreky. He considers September 26: High Commissioner ted 50,000 most vulnerable people en- himself lucky because none of his exten- Sadako Ogata visits Resnik 25 kilometers camped in the hills, go back to their vil- ded family of 45, including 25 children, north of Pristina and talks with some of the lages. But many find their houses destroyed. were harmed in the fighting. 25,000 people who fled a military sweep in There are still 200,000 people displaced in January 28: Travelling along dirt the region. As Ogata sloshes by in the mud, Kosovo. tracks in the snow covered valley at one portly old man in a woollen skullcap November 9: The war is never far Velika Reka we can hear the rattle of gun- mutters: “It is a shame for Milosevic to put away. Several hundred returnees at Opte- fire and occasional mortar blast as his people in a situation like this.” rusa in the Suva Reka municipality flee government forces pursue another September 30: Three Red Cross wor- again. Five KLA guerrillas are killed in a offensive. A KLA commander sweeps by kers lie dead or dying on a sunlit hill at nearby ambush three days later. and says, “we are not giving up one inch of Gornje Obrinje after their car hit a land- November 19: Velika Hoca is a mainly our positions.” At the nearby village of mine. People try to attract a Yugoslav heli- Serb village and local Serbs flash the Bradas a group of men say that 20 percent copter by waving Red Cross flags. My thumb and two finger sign of defiance. of the people from each village in Kosovo colleague, John Campbell, a veteran British Over coffee and local brandy a couple say have already fled abroad. More are thin- soldier, turns on his vehicle’s headlights to Albanian villagers have fired on them but king of getting out. “How many more attract the chopper. It is too late for one there have been no major confrontations. people must die before NATO acts?” wounded doctor who died moments before. The housewife says her village has been demands one old man. B

REFUGEES 25 B U.S. President Bill Clinton has B Nearly two million people authorized spending an addition- have been killed in Sudan’s 15-year SHORT TAKES al $25 million to aid refugees civil war according to the U.S. from the conflict in Kosovo. Committee for Refugees.

ANGOLA Seekingasylum It’s war again KAZAKHSTAN nly a year ago the situation had seemed A United Signing on promising. The Angolan government Nations food Kazakhstan has acceded to Oand UNITA rebels had signed a peace aircraft in the 1951 Refugee Convention accord in 1994, the U.N. had spent $1.5 billion to Luanda. Two and its 1967 Protocol, the similar aircraft fourth country in Central Asia help stabilize the country and it was beginning were shot down to do so, following Tajikistan, to scale down its presence. But the conflict be- in late 1998 and Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. gan again and by early this year the conflict was early 1999.

After the collapse of the Sovi- so widespread U.N. Secretary-General Kofi An- UNHCR / C. SATTLBERGER et Union and Kazakhstan’s in- nan announced “The conditions for a meaning- dependence in 1991, hundreds ful United Nations peace keeping role (have) year. Refugees arriving in neighboring Zambia of thousands of people criss- ceased to exist... the parties and their leaders said both the army and rebels were again press- crossed the country, fleeing political and ecological disas- must assume full and direct responsibility for ganging young men as soldiers in a conflict ters. There are currently the suffering of their people.” UNHCR, which which has ebbed and flowed for more than 20 around 14,000 refugees and had nine field offices last summer trying to help years. An estimated 500,000 people have died. asylum seekers in the country. hundreds of thousands of people, withdrew its The U.N. lost 60 staff members during its in- ETHIOPIA staff to Luanda, the capital. Around one million volvement in Angola, including personnel people had been displaced by earlier fighting aboard two charter aircraft which were shot Somalis flee and an additional 550,000 fled their homes last down in December and January. B to the Ogaden Several thousand Somalis crossed into the Ogaden region of Ethiopia late last year. It was the first large-scale FRANCE exodus of Somalis into Ethiopia since civil war and famine in 1993-94, but An unusual journey Ethiopian officials stressed the new arrivals were escap- he setting is the ing the effects of drought and Parc de la Villette not ongoing clan-based in the center of warfare in their home region. T Paris but the scene is fa- UNITED STATES miliar to refugees around Help on the way the world. Inside a 1,500 Nearly two million people, square meter tent, people some of them former sit on hard benches refugees, are waiting to be- clutching handfuls of im- come American citizens. Now, Washington said it wants to migration forms waiting speed up the naturalization fretfully for an interview process. The Immigration and with a hostile official. Naturalization Service said it The ‘refugees’ are, in fact, will hire 300 more employees visitors to an exhibition and create a national hot line organized by UNHCR to help prospective citizens. and several non-govern- President Clinton said in his State of the Union address in mental organizations to © C. KLING January that his budget pro- mark the 50th anniver- posals would “expand signifi- sary of the Universal Declaration of Human One of the organizers, Pedro Vianna, fled per- cantly” efforts to chip away at Rights. ‘An Unusual Journey’ allows day-trip- secution in Brazil and Chile before arriving in the backlog of people waiting pers who pay the equivalent of $6 for the expe- France. Some of the ‘government officials’ in to become citizens. Immigra- rience, to become temporary refugees and live the sketch are refugees. An estimated 6,000 tion officials said they expect the lives of any one of 12 individuals ranging people have experienced their own ‘Unusual the measures to cut in half the normal two-year waiting from a Kurdish Iraqi guerrilla to an anti-gov- Journey’ and many later said they would have time. ernment exile from the former Zaire, in their found it impossible to complete a real refugee quest to seek a safe refuge from persecution. trek. B

26 REFUGEES B Canada and the U.S. have broken B The United States deported B The number of asylum appli- B The U.S. has agreed not to up the first known large-scale alien 300,000 illegal immigrants in the cations jumped 72 percent to deport illegal immigrants from smuggling operation which, trans- last two years, more than twice 41,300 in Switzerland last year, Central American countries hard- ported more than 3,600 Chinese the number who were sent back because of a large increase of est hit by Hurricane Mitch for at across the common border. in the previous two years. people from Yugoslavia. least 18 months.

GENEVA lum applications. The five Applications on the rise countries which received the Seeking largest number of applications asylum when compared with their own SIERRA LEONE he number of asylum ap- to an increased number of peo- populations were Switzerland, plications in 24 European ple fleeing the conflict in Koso- Luxembourg, the Netherlands, The war goes on Rebels and ECOMOG troops Tcountries in 1998 totalled vo. Four countries — Germany, Belgium and Norway. Around fought for control of the Sier- 366,180 people, an increase of 27 the United Kingdom, the 100,000 Yugoslavs, mainly ra Leone capital of Freetown percent compared with 1997. Netherlands and Switzerland — Albanian Kosovars, asked for early this year as the war in The rise was attributed mainly received two-thirds of the asy- asylum. B that West African country dragged on. Nearly a half million people have already fled CENTRAL AFRICA a nation the U.N. describes as the world’s poorest country and thousands more were dis- Tanzania: A safe haven once more placed in the latest battles. High Commissioner Sadako Ogata warned in a letter to re- haos gripped parts of gional leaders that the situa- Central Africa again tion was deteriorating to- C in early 1998. In the wards a repeat of the previous turbulent eastern parts of year when reports of the Democratic Republic of widespread torture and maim- Congo where a three-way ing by rebels first surfaced. conflict between government troops, anti-govern- GEORGIA ment rebels and local Mai- New moves in Georgia Mai guerrillas continued, The U.N. Security Council has civilians took refuge in extended the U.N. peacekeep- neighboring Tanzania. As ing mission in Georgia for six many as 1,000 people a day months until the end of July. The Council also adopted a paid 10 dollars for a one-way unanimous resolution calling ticket on leaky fishing ves- for a comprehensive settle-

sels to escape the carnage. UNHCR / M.S. MADANGA ment of the political status of Most headed for the Tanza- Civilians fleeing the latest fighting in the Congo Democratic Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia nian town of Kigoma where Republic arrive by boat in Tanzania. region. Nearly 300,000 Geor- UNHCR transferred them gians fled Abkhazia when civil to the Lugufu refugee camp 90 kilometers (56 shasa’s western neighbor, Congo Brazzaville, war erupted in 1992 and as many as 10,000 people were miles) to the east. By the end of January at least where government soldiers and ‘Ninja’ militia killed in the fighting. 30,000 people had arrived, some telling stories of battled in and around the capital, Brazzaville. At massacres during the fighting. Tanzania current- least 40,000 people fled the scene, half ot them UNHCR ly hosts 358,000 refugees, 280,000 from Burundi, citizens of Democratic Congo. UNHCR main- 65,000 from Democratic Congo and 13,000 from tained a skeleton staff in the area making daytrips A new budget Rwanda. There was also renewed trouble in Kin- across the Congo River in Kinshasa. B UNHCR needs a total of nearly $915 million for its 1999 operations to help an esti- CAMBODIA mated 22 million refugees and other displaced persons. “The funds... around 11 cents per A new start refugee per day... can make a huge difference in the lives of hey had lived under the Mondolkiri and Kompot in will now have the chance of a the most vulnerable people in control of the Khmer eastern Cambodia. The new beginning, free of the dis- the world,” High Commis- T Rouge for decades. But refugees had fled to Thailand credited regime for the first sioner Sadako Ogata said in a earlier this year, several thou- in May when the Khmer time. Elsewhere, UNHCR re- foreword to the organization’s sand Cambodians left a Thai Rouge stronghold at Anlong ported that land-mines con- 360-page global appeal. The refugee camp at Phu Noi and Veng fell to government tinued to pose a danger to re- funds will be used not only in traditional refugee situations, accepted an offer by UNHCR troops. The civilians had ef- turnees, especially in western but also to help people re- to resettle anywhere in Cam- fectively lived under Khmer Cambodia where several peo- B turning to areas devastated by bodia they chose — in this case Rouge control since 1975, but ple were recently wounded. war.

REFUGEES 27 | COCHETEL | “WHY DID I SURVIVE AND OTHER HOSTAGES DIDN’T?” Vincent Cochetel recounts a Cochetel was forced to kneel on the floor then stuffed into the rear of the car for of his tiny kitchen, a gun jammed into his three days. harrowing tale of torture and neck. “I was just waiting for the shot,” he “I concentrated on breathing and not endurance said. “I remembered a scene from the panicking and protecting myself from the movie The Killing Fields (set during the cold,” he said recently. When he com- by Ray Wilkinson genocide in Cambodia) when people were plained at one point that he was freezing being murdered and I thought I don’t want in the sub-zero temperatures, his captors rofessionally, it was a wonderful time to die like that, like a dog.” started the car engine but that attempt at Pfor Vincent Cochetel. As the head of The Frenchman, who was born in the would-be kindness backfired when Co- UNHCR’s office in the northern Caucasus provincial city of Tours in 1961, was not ex- chetel almost suffocated in the deadly region, Cochetel was trying to help tens of ecuted as he expected, but for the next 317 fumes. thousands of persons displaced by the con- days he was held prisoner in appalling con- He was moved from North Ossetia to flict in Chechnya, Ossetia and Ingushetia ditions. neighboring Chechnya and remembers and loving every minute. He was stuffed into the boot of a car for that when he reached there, “it was the three days, was regularly beaten, manacled first time I had been to Chechnya and not © O. VOGELSANG “It was a fascinating melting pot of virtually the whole period of his impris- feared being kidnapped. I was already kid- peoples, ideas and work,” he says. “In the onment and underwent several mock exe- napped.” morning you might meet a president to cutions. One attempt to free him in April, He realized something else, too. His discuss strategy and a few hours later be 1998 backfired at the last minute and for captivity would be a long one. “Other col- splashing through the mud to help a des- nine months he was kept in a series of cel- leagues had been kidnapped and the av- titute family.” lars and saw natural daylight only once erage time they had been held was 3 1/2 He was separated from his wife and during that entire period. months,” he said. “I knew I had to be pa- two young daughters for the first time, tient.” and like many humanitarian workers dis- During his first month in Chechnya he liked that part of the job. But he had been was interrogated at least 10 times, one hour involved as a ‘militant activist’ on behalf “I was just waiting for a day. He adopted a survival routine. In the of the downtrodden since he was eight series of dank, dark cellars he would call years old when he had fasted for the the shot” in the back of home for 10 months he was always chained safety of Spanish priests gaoled during to his metal bed by handcuffs and a one me- the Franco regime and awaiting execu- the neck... ter long cable. That allowed him to walk ex- tion. actly four steps. “I always dreamed of making that additional fifth step,” he said. GUNMEN COME CALLING He survived mostly on a thin gruel of He exercised twice a day, 1 1/2 hours each The Caucasus region was already a dan- hot water, occasionally spiced with a potato, time, running in place, doing press ups and gerous place when Cochetel arrived and carrot or onion. On one occasion he was strengthening his stomach muscles. He was he was under no illusions. Like other or- given a chicken leg and the next day, in given a chunk of Georgian bread and would ganizations UNHCR hired armed guards what his guards thought was a huge joke, only eat it after exercising “as a reward to and armored vehicles. In their daily rou- the bare bone of the same chicken leg to myself.” Even in the darkness, he deliber- tine, Cochetel and his colleagues used de- eat. His captors told him he was being held ately established a routine, carefully putting coy cars and never followed a regular rou- for ransom, mentioning sums ranging on his glasses each ‘morning’ (he never knew tine in an attempt to deceive would-be kid- from 1.5 to six million dollars. whether it really was morning or the mid- nappers or killers. dle of the night) as an indication that his day But as he unlocked the door to his sev- HELD IN A CAR BOOT ‘had started.’ enth floor apartment in a crumbling Soviet- His first days in captivity were almost He squatted for hours on his bed simply era tower block in the city of Vladikavkaz his last. He was bundled into a car after listening, to footsteps, to the birds in the at 10 p.m. on the night of January 29, 1998 leaving his apartment and one kidnapper morning and frogs at night. three gunmen, each armed with two pis- “tried to knock me out by smashing his pis- He heard children going to school, and tols and their faces covered in heavy bala- tol into my neck. He had probably seen too those times were among his worst moments. clavas, rushed from the darkness. many bad movies,” Cochetel said. He was “The children became a symbol of every-

28 REFUGEES Vincent Cochetel with his wife Florence, at a news conference shortly after ending 317 days in captivity. thing I had lost and a symbol of the real Shooting erupted. One of Cochetel’s hours because he did not have an exit visa world,” he said. “It was terribly depressing.” guards in the rear seat slumped over the from Russia. There were other bad moments, too. prisoner, possibly dead. The Frenchman Four days before Cochetel’s release four Two of his guards at one point thanked him crawled or was pushed — he doesn’t re- foreign hostages had been brutally mur- for the assistance UNHCR had provided member — out of the vehicle and sheltered dered in Chechnya and one of Cochetel’s when they were displaced persons. That near its rear wheel. Shouts in Russian first reactions after his release was guilt. seemingly kind remark sent him into a tail- “Where is the hostage?” and “On the floor” “Why did I survive and other hostages spin, leaving him wondering about the ra- mingled with the cacophony of machine- didn’t?” he asks now. He was always a wor- tionale for his humanitarian work. gun, pistol, rifle and grenade fire and rier, always planning ahead for the next In October last year, several young, shouts in the Chechen language. work assignment or the next holiday. “Now drunk guards staged one of several mock He was eventually I have learned that the future executions, firing their weapons around dragged and pushed into is the next hour.” He reads, his head. another vehicle and “I broke down a watches a rerun of the world “I broke down a couple of times, but thrown on the floor cup soccer final won by never in front of them,” he said. “I did it where he felt a military couple of times, France, talks with friends (in- under my blanket. My blanket was my hid- helmet. “I knew then, for cluding former hostages) and den garden. At times there was a very thin the first time, I was on but never in finds the greatest pleasure in line between being sane and being crazy.” the right side,” he said. front of them.” doing simple things such as His captors and Chechen taking his girls to school or ESCAPE ATTEMPTS fighters did not wear standing in the rain. He tried to unpick the lock of his hand- helmets. He had been rescued by Russian But he continues to fight the demons of cuffs. “In the movies they do it in one special forces, one of whom politely apolo- his captivity. He cannot go near an under- minute. I pulled some wire from my mat- gized, “I am sorry, I don’t have a key for ground parking lot or into a cellar to pick tress and it took me 15 days to open the cuffs, your handcuffs.” out a good bottle of wine. He misses his but I still couldn’t escape from the cellar.” Cochetel, 23 kilograms lighter and three-hour daily workouts but says he needs On another occasion he tried to unpick the sporting a huge black beard which he said to find “a different way to keep fit”and get metal cable tying him to the bed. He was had “acted as my calendar during my cap- rid of some accumulated violence. discovered on each occasion and beaten. tivity,” was whisked to Moscow after a bliz- Above all, he wants to fade from the in- Cochetel’s release came amidst a bliz- zard of celebratory vodkas with his res- ternational spotlight. “I want to become a zard of gunfire on December 12 last year. cuers and then on to Geneva for a short full family man again with my wife, Flo- He was driven to a rendezvous, handcuffed reunion with his family. There was one rence and daughters Sarah and Salomé, and and blindfolded, where he changed cars final bureaucratic hitch in Moscow. His resume my work. I would like to become and captors. flight home was delayed for more than two anonymous and get on with my life.” B

REFUGEES 29 | PEOPLE AND PLACES |

A lifelong achievement ari Brissimi, a former longtime UNHCR official, has been honored by the Athens Acade- H my with its highest individual award, The Silver Medal, for a lifetime of outstanding work on behalf of the needy. From a very early age during the German occupation of Greece in World War Two, she organized meals for undernourished children in her home town of Volos. She taught English and asked for payment in food which she then donated to the needy. Later, while studying in the United States, she founded an organization which collected clothes and other assistance for poor villages in Greece. She worked in UNHCR between 1955-80, becoming the first woman to be promoted to the senior rank of director. After her retirement she helped

COPYRIGHT found the Greek Council for Refugees in 1989, of which she is the elected president. B Hurricane Mitch A global hen Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America, the remote Nicaraguan village of jamboree WWiliwili was virtually destroyed when the local river rose 25 meters. Three weeks after the disaster Fabio Varoli, food aid coordinator with UNHCR’s emergency he 19th World Scout Jamboree response team, reached the area and began a quick impact project (QIP) to provide shelter for Twas held in Picarquin, Chile in the survivors. Materials were hauled laboriously up late December and January. It was the river and Fabio said the project had “both a phys- attended by 34,000 scouts and guides ical and psychological impact because the people of from 160 nations and UNHCR this remote village felt they had not been abandoned promoted several activities at the and they had a roof over their heads.” Varoli’s partic- gathering. UNHCR has agreements ipation was the first time a UNHCR staff member with both the World Organization of had participated in a so-called UNDAC (U.N. Disas- the Scout Movement and the World ter Assessment and Coordination) team which assists Association of Girl Guides and Girl © UNICEF / A. BALAGUER in such calamities. The U.N. Development Program is Victims in a makeshift settlement Scouts to promote joint projects to assessing whether similar shelter projects will be in Nicaragua. B help refugees and the jamboree pro- useful in other emergencies. vided an excellent venue to continue these activities. UNHCR presented videos on refugees and the organization’s work. It organized two work- The Hungarian shops each day, including a simula- Obituary: Leo Cherne tion game called “Passages” in which scouts and guides participated as eo Cherne, a lawyer, economist and connection actors in a typical refugee situation. A businessman, who transformed the L NHCR’s Hungary office has news conference on refugee rights International Rescue Committee into one Uawarded its Menedek Prize for and human rights was staged in of the largest agencies in the world 1998 to the government Office of the cooperation with Amnesty Interna- helping refugees, died early this year in Parliamentary Ombudsperson for its tional and a photo exhibit on the Manhattan at the age of 86. Mr. Cherne work in general and its efforts on be- same subject was also presented. B became chairman of the IRC in 1951. The half of aliens, asylum seekers and Committee had been formed with the refugees. The prize was established in modest aim of helping to rescue a few 1995 to recognize outstanding activi- thousand people from Nazi-occupied ties benefitting refugees and asylum France during World War Two, but in seekers in Hungary. Professor Katalin subsequent decades the New York-based Gonczol, Parliamentary Commissioner organization helped hundreds of for Human Rights received the award thousands of people throughout the because he had “personally devoted world. Cherne was awarded the U.S. considerable time and energy to Medal of Freedom in 1984 and was cited investigate and assess the situation of by President Ronald Reagan for his foreigners in Hungary, especially those “moral passion in serving the cause of whose freedom of movement has been human freedom, especially through his B limited.” The $2,500 prize money will work on behalf of refugees.” be used to promote the work of the B Ombudsperson’s office. COPYRIGHT

30 REFUGEES | ARCHIVE |

UNHCR participated in relief efforts for victims of a devastating drought in the Sahel region of western Africa in 1974. Women and children scramble in the sand for fallen grain after a cereal distribution along the border between Mali and Upper Volta.

REFUGEES 31