Refugees from Kosovo: From War to Chaos
AIM Tirana, 25 September, 1998
More than three thousand refugees, tired of their long walking and the terror, crossed the border between Montenegro and Albania. They slowly filled the squares of the city of Skadar, the biggest city in the north of Albania, gradually finding accommodation in the homes of the citizens of Skadar, but also in the offices of the regional council and the Palace of Sports. While news fom Tirana on political disorders were expected with anxiety, all that could be heard from Skadar were increasing figures about the newly arrived from Montenegro. This piece of news is certainly less frightening for the government of Fatos Nano than demonstrators headed by Berisha who demand unconditional resignation of the government.
Murder of Azem Hajdari which coincided with the new tide of refugees diverted attention from the tragedy of the refugees, for whom, now that Albania is once again slipping into violence and chaos, it is very difficult to understand whether they have actually saved themselves from the worst. After Tropoj and Has, Skadar is the third city which is receiving several thousand refugees from Kosovo, while in the meantime, in expectation of a severe and cold winter, the government has prepared a plan according to which they should be accommodated more to the south.
The topic of refugees which was hardly mentioned in the media in the beginning of the year, after the fall of the main force of the Liberation Army of Kosovo (OVK), has come in the focus of the international diplomatic activitity. On Tuesday, president Bill Clinton spoke about the possibilities of a yet unseen humanitarian tragedy in Kosovo if urgent measures for systematization and offering refuge to fugitives from the war were not taken.
It all began after a decision reached last Saturday by Montenegrin government. The decision, which was stated in the course of a few hours to western offices, prescribes blockade of further entrance for refugees to the territory of Montenegro due to "incapability of the Republic to receive more people from Kosovo". Immediately after that, about four thousand people running away from the war were stopped on the territory of Kosovo, in Prokletije mountains, at the border near Montenegrin town of Plav which is also inhabited by ethnic Albanian population.
The Albanian government reacted immediately and on Saturday evening demanded from the international community to exert pressure on Podgorica not to prevent people from Kosovo from coming to the territory of Montenegro. Albanian prime minister Fatos Nano who had just returned from the trip to Portugal, appealed on the international community to intervene with Montenegrin president Djukanovic "in the name of human solidarity, good neighbourly relations and peace in the Balkan", to let several thousand desperate people who were waiting in the hills and forests of Kosovo, enter Montenegro. There was no response to this appeal, and the tide of refugees were by force directed towards Albania.
The drama of the refugees from the war stricken Kosovo has by now stirred foreign offices and the Albanian state from the standstill. When in the beginning of this year, Serb forces for the first time attacked the village of Drenica and killed about 80 unprotected civilians, the threat of massive flight of the ppulation has not seemed imminent yet. Eight months after bodies of Jasari family and other Albanians had been drawn out from ruins of Drenica, the problem of displaced persons has turned into a matter of top emergency for the international community and the neighbouring states.
Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro have so far received about 100 thousand refugees and accommodated them in camps, centres and sports facilities. Being a humanitarian, financial and political problem, the topic of war refugees from Kosovo has already caused the first problems among Balkan neighbours who are all, with the exception of Albania, already manifesting signs of refusal to offer refuge to new refugees.
In the north of Albania, the situation of the newcomers is deteriorating as winter is approaching. Located in Tropoje and Has, in the two coldest districts of Albania, about 20 thousand people from Kosovo accommodated in camps, storehouses and homes of local inhabitants, are waiting for the beginning of implementation of the plan adopted by the Albanian parliament which prescribes their moving to the south. Five to seven thousand refugees will be accommodated in the districts of Puke, Debar and Skadar, according to the plan prepared by the government. Military facilities and schools are quickly being transformed into centres for reception of the homeless from Kosovo, while new refugees are crossing the Albanian-Yugoslav border every day, at all the crossings and along roads which have not been mined by the Yugoslav army. The eastern part of this border which separates Albania from FRY along about 90 Kilometres, is crossed every by several hundred refugees who have put the government in Tirana in serious difficulties since it has neither financial nor technical means for administering this crisis.
Constant appeals of Albanian leaders are nowadays additionally alarmed because of the approaching winter and the increasing number of refugees. The international community responded to this concern instantly. A month ago, European commissioner for refugees, Emma Bonnino, sent an appeal from Pristina that the problem of about 300 thousand displaced persons in Kosovo deserved serious treatment. Bonnino stressed that the part of the border crossed by most of these people was the one between Albania and Montenegro. The World Bank allocated five million dollars for reconstruction of houses damaged by attacks of the Serb army, while American president Clinton approved of a fund of 20 million dollars for the same purpose, after creation of conditions and establishment of peace.
The government in Tirana has already addressed international organizations for help. The first tide of refugees in the beginning of summer was accompanied by the arrival of missions of the UNHCR, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other organizations that offer aid. From both the West and the East, equipment for accommodation was offered to Albanian officials, as well as food, drugs and money. The Boeing 747 from Iran which was carrying humanitarian aid and which landed at Rinas airport was the biggest aircraft which has ever touched ground in Albania. The government in Tirana received all kinds of offers. A few days ago, a Scandinavian NGO offered a certain number of prefabricated houses adapted to cold weather, and the OSCE received a demand of the UNHCR for 54 million US dollars which will be needed for humanitarian necessities this winter.
Albanian government has established a commission at the ministry of local administration, headed by one of the two deputies prime minister. The government has also nominated an envoy for Northern Albania to deal with the problem of refugees. In the course of a few months after the envoy from Tirana had come to Tropoje, the situation around him has constantly been deteriorating, not so much in the financial and humanitarian sense as in the sense of public order in the whole region. The arrival of refugees and especially that of international organizations has attracted gangs of criminals and all kinds of bandits who have started massive plundering of convoys of humanitarian aid, taking away vehicles from the foreigners and armed robberies of persons who were travelling down these roads. There were several such cases registered as attacks on representatives of the UNHCR, monitoring mission of the EU and the OSCE office in the northern city Bajran Curri. Three bodyguards of the head of the UNHCR mission resigned two weeks ago after they had stated that it had been impossible for them to secure lives of the team which was working on delivery of aid to refugees and that they had been faced with threats of armed gangs which were practically controlling the city. These are the gangs which currently control armament trade, making in a single day a profit which an ordinary Albanian cannot earn for a lifetime.
Regular reports of the OSCE office in Bajram Curri which are believed to be one of the most reliable western sources about the situation on the border between Albania and FRY, underline that the situation is dominated by a dangerous mixture of ordinary crime, armament merchants and radicals who are regularly crossing the border in order to supply the armed groups in Kosovo.
On the other hand, such an atmosphere which is dominated by street crime, total chaos and complete lack of state authoritiy, threatens to cause departure of numerous missions which are monitoring the tide of Kosovo refugees in Northern Albania. The alarm is sounding for some time in offices of the Albanian state which cannot do anything specific. The strained political situation in Tirana has temporarily pushed the topic of refugees to the margins, as well as the conflict in Kosovo in general. But, there is also a large number of those who think that the two crises are deeply interwoven, who even speak of complete interdependence between that which is happening in villages of Kosovo and developments on the central square in Tirana.
Such logic which looks upon the Albanian crisis as a global problem, on this and on that side of the state border, is convincing, although during all that time Albanian politics was trying to treat the newly arrived women and children in Northern Albania occasionally as allies and occasionally as potential political opponents. The latter was corroborated by the fact that at manifestations of the opposition extremely violent groups from Kosovo were seen. Some of them who were in the funeral procession of the democratic leader Hajdari, and who were wearing the coat of arms of the OVK, demanded Nano's head even. However, in one of its latest statements, the OVK disassociated itself from violence resorted to by the opposition, as it seems in order to avoid suspicion.
A day before the developments of 14 September, minister of defence of Italy openly pointed out to the existence of "units from Kosovo which are offering assistance to Berisha". he added that he was afraid of a precedent "such as the one in Lebanon", stressing, at the same time, the uncontrolled wave of refugees who were crossing the northern border of Albania.
Regardless of all that, the refugee crisis continues to have a domineering dimension of a humanitarian tragedy which, if not overcome in time, may turn into not only a humanitarian catastrophe, but also into a regional political crisis.
AIM Tirana
Arben KOLA