SPECIAL TRANSPORT

The affair with the refugees - with no status of refugees - a sign of fatigue with the war in the Balkans?

Summary: Yugoslav authorities reacted with indignation to the decision of the German Government to expel Yugoslav citizens who were not granted the status of refugees. Yugoslav Permanent Mission with the UN requested pressure to be exerted on Germany to change its decision. In the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, it was claimed that these people were not refugees, but people who were not granted the status of refugees because they were not threatened by any kind of repression in their homeland. A large number of young men who had refused to participate in the war left Serbia. What will happen to them? Draft Law on their amnesty was rejected. So far it is claimed that among those who will be sent back, the majority are from Kosovo, Albanians and Gypsies. The authorities in Yugoslavia sent word to them that they will be received if they had orderly documents, but that there was no jobs for them.

AIM, Belgrade, March 10

First it was announced that about 200,000 Yugoslav refugees would be expelled from Germany and that this measure was directed against the Serbs. Then, on Monday (March 7), the state news agency, the TANJUG published an assessment that about 100,000 refugees by origin from Serbia and Montenegro would be expelled from Germany. Two days later, this assessment moved around the figure of 40,000. In the meantime, it was specified that it was not a specific decision of the German Government, but new policy of offering asylum determined last summer, reminding that 5 to 6 thousand persons have already been expelled from Germany, and that it involved mostly Gypsies and Albanians from Kosovo. The figure of 100,000 referred to those who might be expelled in the course of next two years.

Then, on Wednesday evening (march 9) it was made public that the flight of the airplane with refugees for Timisoara was postponed; it was officially stated by the Romanian party that there were no negotiations about the transfer, although news came from Bohn at the same time, that the negotiations of experts about this would continue.

Urlich Kine(????), the press attache of the German Embassy in Belgrade, confirmed in a statement given to the TANJUG Agency that German Ministry of Foreign Affairs was acting in cooperation with its provinces, the European Union, and the High Commissioner for Refugees, that it did not consider the decision on sending away the obviously not predestined asylum seekers unlawful and that the German Government had no intention of abolishing it.

According to the Tanjug, he explained that the status of refugees in Germany was granted only to persons who were citizens of Bosnia&Herzegovina, and there were about 230,000 of them in Germany. For the time being, the refugees from B&H woul remain, and negotiations were initiated with the Croatian Government about the return of its refugees. The German Charge d'affairs was invited to the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide the requested explanation that it concerned only persons who had "not regulated their stay in Germany".

THE OFFENSIVE

The official authorities in Belgrade reacted with indignation to the decision of the German Government, in compliance with an anti-German propaganda which for some time has been quite fashionable. Radmilo Bogdanovic, the former chief of Serbian police, and now a Vice-Chairman of the Chamber of the Republics of the Assembly of Yugoslavia, said that "nothing coming from Germany could surprise him", reproaching this state for having recognized Slovenia and Croatia and proclaiming it as one of the guilty parties for the war in Croatia and Bosnia&Herzegovina. Bogdanovic specified that there were about 600,000 refugees on the territory of Yugoslavia, that there was a significant number of Muslims among them, that Serbia had no intention of expelling them, because that would not be pursuant to the norms of humanitarian law.

Yugoslav Permanent Mission with the United Nations demanded pressure to be exerted on Germany not to expell the refugees. It is assumed that there are about 600,000 refugees from war-stricken areas of the former SFRY in the "third countries" (Germany, Canada, the USA, Australia).

Slobodan Popovic, the Deputy Commissioner for Refugees of Serbia assessed this move as "provocative" and "inappropriate and inadequate, since the refugee status is regulated by international law which protects the refugees everywhere in the world". He stated that there were between 17 and 20 thousand persons from Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina in transit in the FR Yugoslavia, and that they left for Germany, the USA, Asia, and Australia. Some of them have retained the old "red" passport of the former SFRY, because they did not rcognize the division of their former homeland.

MOBILIZATION

It is a fact that a large number of refugees sought shelter in Serbia. They are subject of care, but also of manipulation of the media and politics. (In 1992 elections, over 200 thousand refugees were given the right to vote because the regime assessed that they would give their votes to the existing authorities, and in 1993 elections they were not included in the registers of voters.)

The Federal Minister for Human Rights, Margit Savovic, called upon the High Commissioner for Refugees to react against the decision of Germany, reproaching her for reacting against the "alleged mobilization" of, as she finally admitted "only several tens of refugees from Bosnia", and for not having done the same when Croats and Muslims were mobilized.

On the other hand, she said that the decision of the German Government means a specific recognition that Yugoslavia was not an unsafe area and that this was proof that there was no instability in Yugoslavia, which means that the "accusations on the alleged terrorism were shear fabrication", that there was no terrorism here and peace prevailed, that there was no violations of human rights in Yugoslavia, that there were no refugees from the FR Yugoslavia, that they were people who just declared that they were political refugees to use it as a pretext in order to regulate their status. She presumed that these people were used in Germany for purposes of propaganda and that they were not needed any more.

REBELS OF CONSCIENCE AND ILLEGAL WORKERS

It seems that denial of the right to refugee status in Germany will hit worst those who, seeking work without permits, tried to refer to the insecure political situation in their homeland (most of them are Albanians from Kosovo and Gypsies). There were the so-called affairs of "false political asylum seekers" before. In the beginning of the war with Croatia, however, a large number of young people in Serbia refused to respond to the military call-up. Some linked this phenomenon primarily to ethnic minorities, but the number of those who refused to go to war due to the "objection of conscience" was extremely high mostly among the Serbs. There were rebellions of reservists in Ada, Senta, Kragujevac, Kraljevo, Topola, Arandjelovac, Belgrade. The so-called objection of conscience, although a large number of young men avoided going to the war after that, by hiding or fleeing abroad. Deserters from the army could be prosecuted at any time, although the authorities did not take any comprehensive measures for their prosecution. Whole generations of young people went abroad, often to their relatives who worked in Western Europe. At the time when Milan Panic was the Prime Minister of the Yugoslav Government and Tibor Varadi the Minister of Justice, a Law on Amnesty of military deserters was drafted, but the coallition of the Socialists and Serbian Radicals prevented its adoption. There are no indications that the deserters could be prosecuted, but no moves were drawn which would eliminate their fears either. Milos Simovic, the Head of the Kosovo District, the place of origin of most of the refugees, stated that Yugoslavia did not question the return of those who have legal documents and regulated Yugoslav citizenship. He specified that those who will be returning from Germany could not be guaranteed employment, due to the sanctions.

Lyndell Sax, the spokeswoman of the High Commissioner for Refugees in a conversation with the AIM correspondent explained that in this case, strictly speaking, and according to the official information, these people are not refugees. These people had come to Germany, requested to be granted the status of refugees pursuant to United Nations documents. In a legal process with German authorities, which included the right to appeal, it was determined that these people were not threatened by trial based on their ethnic, political, or religious membership, and their requests were rejected.

This might be a sign that the opinion that the ground in Yugoslavia is gradually calming down is spreading or, that Europe, overwhelmed by refugees from the Balkans has reached its humanitarian limits and is becoming tired of numerous humanitarian problems and that it wishes to push them aside somehow. Yugoslav state, whose social welfare funds are ruined, is trying not only to gain points in propaganda, but also to slow down repatriatiation to the extent possible.

MILAN MILOSEVIC