Acquiring an Identity, the Slow Way

AIM Pristina, December 31, 2000

If a citizen of Kosovo, especially an Albanian, is asked to show an identity document, he might produce several or none! A number of them have come out of the war with burned documents, together with burned and destroyed houses, and some are even said to have had their identity documents torn apart by Serbian security forces at the border between Kosovo and Albania or Macedonia, during their flight or deportation in the spring of 1999.

But there are those who never had any documents whatsoever. All inhabitants of certain villages, especially those in the zones known for their resistance to the Serbian authorities, were never issued any ID papers. Not applying for them was most frequent during the 1990s, and particularly in rural areas, where it was considered a part of "passive resistance." Of course, most documents were destroyed during the war, and those who left for Albania were the ones who most often "lost" them. The explanation is simple. Milosevic's forces wanted to exile people, to "deprive them of their identity" so that they could later carry out a strict selection of returnees. It seems that all of this was used to prove that many inhabitants of Kosovo were in fact immigrants from Albania an not natives of Kosovo.

Be it as it may, some several hundred thousand of people after the war found themselves without any proof of identity, but the process of obtaining such papers progressed at a snail's pace. The U.N. administration promised that the first documents would be issued at the beginning of the summer of 2000, after voter registration for the local election scheduled for Oct. 28 was finished. This, however, did not happen. It took months before the process actually began, though very slowly, on Dec. 19. The deputy of UNMIK head Bernard Kouchner, Tom Kennings, said that (finally) 34 identification documents (ID cards) had been prepared. All those who are to obtain these papers are persons who during the population registration were classified as "cases under review," or more precisely, persons not possessing a single ID document. On the other hand, by the end of January, 2001, the printing of 250,000 ID cards is expected to be finished. Some 700,000 additional ID cards should be corrected, because many technical mistakes were noted during the population registration, international representatives said, apologizing "for the mistakes and delays." Kennings said that in this way UNMIK was creating a central database that should serve as a civilian register to be used for issuing all documents in the future -- ID cards, travel documents, driver's licenses, as well as for preparing voter rolls for upcoming general elections.

The UNMIK confused the public when it said that "the data was processed in India and that many mistakes were discovered." Kennings attempted to justify that by saying that "for someone who does not speak Albanian it is not immediately clear how certain names are correctly spelled. We called an international tender and selected the fastest and the least costly offer, and when we realized that the quality of service was not good, it was too late." He admitted that it was both UNMIK's and the OSCE's mistake to send the data to India, instead of forming a local office to process it. The mistakes were discovered immediately after the population registration was finished, but international officials claimed that even the flawed lists would suffice for identification of voters, but that the mistakes concerning other data hindered the issuing of ID cards. Now all these mistakes have to be corrected here, in Kosovo. The entire process, according to international officials, will cost some DM30 million, and only for the correction of mistakes DM250,000 will have to be set aside.

Still, the issuing of ID cards has begun. Under normal circumstances, this piece of news should bring a general relief, but disappointed Kosovars "are pleading that the process not be stalled by the mistakes." They hope that they will soon be able to obtain "passports," which the UNMIK calls "travel documents, because Kosovo, with its substantial autonomy, cannot issue passports." Tom Kenning says that all those who are issued ID cards can immediately apply for travel documents, for which they have to pay DM60, as opposed to ID cards which cost nothing. Those applying for a travel document have to wait four weeks to obtain it, because the forms are sent to Germany where they are specially processed to prevent forgery." If one is lucky enough to get hold of his or her travel document (not a single such case has been registered), he or she can visit a total of 14 countries which recognize it: Finland, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, England, the U.S., Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Greece, Austria, Croatia, France... But Macedonia does not recognize them, and as it was announced, negotiations over this issue with the Macedonian government are under way. There has not been any explanation yet whether any visas for these countries will be required, but it is known already that neither Serbia nor Montenegro have recognized the documents.

This is to say that Kosovars will be equipped with documents allowing them to freely move all over Kosovo, and that, as a local publicist wittily remarked, this "grants them the status of a heavenly people, because in order to reach the countries recognizing them they would have to learn to fly." Although the documents themselves traveled from Kosovo to India, and then back to Kosovo again, their owners will remained "ghettoized" inside Kosovo proper.

Paradoxically, those willing to travel are seeking salvation in an office located in downtown Pristina, where they can still obtain a Yugoslav passport, bearing the seal of the Serbian Interior Ministry, although the ministry neither controls nor administers Kosovo. This "activity" in preserving "Yugoslavia's authority" is being carried out at the Center for Peace and Tolerance, guarded by KFOR forces. Many Kosovars line up in front of its doors to obtain a document issued by a country they "do not recognize." UNMIK says that it is the right of every citizen to obtain a Yugoslav passport if he or she wishes to do so, because from the viewpoint of international diplomacy there is a great difference between the Yugoslav passport and Kosovo's travel document. Furthermore, they add that according to U.N. Resolution 1244, Kosovo is a part of Yugoslavia and that the country has every right to issue passports. Albanians look the other way, curse, but continue forming long lines... Their leaders cannot prevent them from doing that, nor can they help them, because they can offer them no alternative. And besides, they themselves do not have valid papers either...

But despite all this, the process of issuing ID papers has begun and albeit long, slow and painstaking (the mistakes have not yet been corrected), it is considered very important. The only hope is that with the passage of time there will be less people "lacking identities" in the streets of Kosovo. If for nothing else that at least for reducing the number of those who might be linked to crime, because most criminal cases have so far remained unresolved...

Besnik Bala

(AIM)