WHO IS APT, WHO IS NOT

The return of asylum-seekers still uncertain

AIM, Belgrade

When more than 200 thousand Yugoslav citizens started on theur journey towards a better and a safer place somewhere in the West, they could not have even dreamt what uncertainty was awaiting them. The majority of these "world fugitives" found themselves last year between "the hammer and the anvil", since the countries where they sought refuge announced (and attempted it) that they would banish all asylum-seekers who were refused that status. On the other hand, Yugoslavia immediately sealed its borders hermetically, with its officials clearly stating that they were against receiving these citizens back.

In Germany, the campaign concerning the return of the asylum-seekers to the FRY because "there is no war over there", lasted for months. Germany has now decided not to prolong any more the six-month "exemption" which protected those who were refused asylum (mainly the Kurds from Turkey and citizens of Yugoslavia) from banishment since May 1994. Therefore, it was announced that return tickets would be bought for about 167 thousand people, only from Germany, out of which 95 per cent were of Albanian nationality. Similar messages started to arrive from Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands and other countries which have decided to refuse hospitality to the asylum-seekers. The whole affair was intensified after the embargo on air and sea transportation was lifted, which opened a shortcut for a massive return of "nobody's citizens".

Promptly reacting in the beginning of November 1994, the Government of the FRY adopted a regulation, "on a temporary basis", on special requirements for entering the country. The objective of this decision which, by the way, was not published anywhere, was an obvious thorough classification of the citizens of the FRY into "apt" and "inapt" ones. Without taking into consideration numerous reports about the situation of human rights in Kosovo, a representative of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that this concerns "people who falsely identified themselves as prosecuted for political reasons". It was explained at the time, that Yugoslavia was not refusing to take its citizens back (which is, by the way, its duty according to its Constitution and the signed international conventions), but that it was against "forcible deportation of false asylum-seekers" until conditions for their return had not been created. "A country exhausted by international blockade and by reception of 600 thousand refugees cannot be expected to provide for of asylum seekers on a mass scale, because this would create large problems of economic nature", the stance of the FRY authorities was stated.

In elaborating its decision "who can(not) board a plane", the Federal Government adds that this problem can be resolved only by signing bilateral agreements between the FRY and the states where the asylum-seekers were staying. Those of them who have valid passports, permanent residence or a visa of a country, can travel to Yugoslavia with no problem. But, "persons who have no certificate on authenticity of their passports or a passport issued by Yugoslav diplomatic consulates, or those who possess passports with serial numbers of the seceded repoublics of former Yugoslavia" cannot enter the country. Citizens of FRY (Muslims and Croats) who possess Yugoslav passports but with addresses outside its territory entered in them cannot cross its borders either.

According to figures, the greatest problem is banishment of Kosovo Albanians from countries which have refused to give them the status of refugees (asylum). First, because a large number of inhabitants of this province left without adequate papers, so that according to the assessments from Prishtina, there are about 30 thousand of Albanians without valid passports just in Germany, while there are even more in Switzerland. In the Yugoslav Consulate in Vienna they say that the Austrian border, especially in the beiggining of the nineties, was crossed by people from Kosovo with identity cards only, since they referred to political pressures and refusing to join the army. They can return, they say in this Consulate, only with a travelling permit issued with the approval of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia, which is a very long and uncertain procedure. To be more precise, such applications are mostly refused.

In the past few months, refugees and asylum-seekers cannot prolong their passports in Yugoslav embassies and consulates, because they are expected to submit a certificate on regulated status in the state which had received them. According to the assessments of these diplomatic representative agencies, there are only five to ten per cent of such cases.

As things are at the moment, the precondition for even an intention to return to the home-country is signing of an agreement between states which would, as demanded by the FRY, "determine precisely conditions of return of asylum-seekers to the country". By this the authorities here imply, among other, "the issue of money which, for instance, Germany would have to pay for providing for the asylum-seekers after their return (?!) At this moment, negotiations with Sweden and Germany have begun, but the uncertainty of a final signing of any contract is best illustrated by the fact that the FRY is, for the international family, a country "with an unregulated status", and it is therefore impossible to speak with it "on equal terms".

And the country which does not wish to receive its own citizens has not even attempted to explain the categorization between the refused asylum-seekers, refugees, deserters, persons whose residence has exprired somewhere. It still just bargains with human misery instead.

Bojana Oprijan Ilic