REFUGEES FROM KOSOVO IN ALBANIA

LONG AND DIFFICULT WINTER AHEAD

AIM Tirana, 10 December, 1998

The winter in Albanian Alps has amost blocked all the roads leading to the northern parts of the country. For a few weeks already, humanitarian workers who are offering aid to refugees from Kosovo gathered in Tropoja, Has and Kuks, had difficulties in providing normal conditions for families accommodated in school buildings and storehouses at the outskirts of towns. Nevertheless, it seems that the expected humanitarian tragedy has been avoided, at least in the north of Albania where the number of persons who had arrived here due to the war in Kosovo has significantly been reduced.

From about 20 thousand civilians who arrived when the conflict reached its climax during the past summer, about two thousand have been left in improvised camps by the officials in Tirana. Majority of them are women and children or families which could not return to their demolished homes in Kosovo, or be accommodated in seaside towns in Albania. The most courageous ones have set out towards their homes across the mined bordering region which now separates Albania from Kosovo, on a journey which often ends as a tragedy. Others have already resolved their situation by having found refuge in Tirana, Shkoder and Fierze, or by paying in German marks received from their relatives in Germany and Switzerland for the oneway ticket of their illegal journey towards Italy, the first stop on the way to countries of Western Europe.

Italian press is full of news about intercepted ships crammed with illegal emigrants mostly Kurds and Kosovars. Setting out from seaside cities, Vlore in the south and Shegjin in the north, refugees are striving to save themselves from the hopeless situation in Albania in an attempt to reach their dear ones in rich countries of the West.

War refugees from Kosovo have in this way chosen on their own not to spend the winter in northern Albania, spontaneously avoiding in this way the humanitarian situation which the government in Tirana had difficulties in coping with, while international humanitarian aid was very slow in coming. In September this year, the Albanian parliament adopted an emergency plan for systematization of the reception of the newly arrived from Kosovo. This plan prescribed their reception in a few districts near Tropoja and Kuks, mobilizing for the purpose military facilities, schools and institutions of local authorities. At the climax of the crisis and in the beginning of autumn, this plan was aimed at alleviating as much as possible the expected effects of a cold winter on civilians accommodated in very poor conditions, in fact in completely inappropriate conditions. This refers especially to the part of refugees who failed to find refuge in homes of their hosts, who were exposed to the cold winter which has already proved to be more severe than in previous years.

However, the climate in the north of Albania is not the only enemy of the newcomers from Kosovo. The tide of refugees and the crisis in Kosovo in general has coincided with a very difficult internal situation Albania is passing through. The beginning of the armed conflict on the other side of the border came at the moment when the Albanian North was almost out of control of the government. Absence of public order, mass poverty, big influence of the destabilizing opposition of former president Berisha, and presence of the mobsters' smuggling networks in this region were causing great difficulties to the official Tirana in overcoming the humanitarian crisis. In the months that followed and brought thousands of new civilians from across that border, it became clear how the local mob manipulated the newly developed situation by using refugees as a shield for their trade in weapons and people across the Albanian border.

However, refugees from Kosovo are above all victims of politics in Tirana. The party in power, but especially the Albanian opposition often used the topic of the newcomers for mutual attacks in the parliament and in the city squares. Berisha's taking position in the opposition inclined towards nationalism and northern regionalism made life bitter for the government of the left coalition which from the very first day of the crisis had no instrument at its disposal for overcoming the aggravated situation in the north of the country.

On the other hand, there were numerous attempts to turn the great mass of newcomers into a factor of influence on internal life. It could often be heard from the ranks of the opposition that civilians from Kosovo should be given the right to participate in the referendum for the constitution of Albania which in fact turned into an electoral clash between the right and the left. Such instrumentalization of the deeply humanitarian crisis produced disappointment and alienation in the ranks of the refugees from Kosovo who were for a long time considered to be representatives of the most nationalistic part of the Albanian nation.

Nine months since the beginning of the conflict in Kosovo, those who have crossed the border of Albania hoping that they were returning to their parent country, most frequently were met with indifference and extreme poverty of their compatriots. The country which had just emerged from the events of March 1997 which caused more victims than the current war in Kosovo, was utterly unprepared to deal with refugees although they speak Albanian. Nevertheless, it is certain that there will be no humanitarian tragedy of refugees in Albania as predicted by many. At least not this winter.

Arben KOLA