Kosovar Refugees in Macedonia

Alive, but Non-Existent!?

AIM Skopje, 1 April, 1999

"I am saved, but I do not exist!", a terrified young man says inro the microhone of a foreign journalist.

"How come? What is happening on the other side of the border?"

"They are throwing us out of our homes! They have taken away my car, destroyed all my identity papers! They are burning archives, depriving us of the possibility to prove who we are and where we have come from. I cannot prove even that I am alive! They don't want anyone to even find out who was killed and who has left Kosovo!"

Journalists' notepads and TV cameras register yet another story of refugees from Kosovo. And a tide of people, similar to the young man who is terrified by the fact that he is saved but does "not exist", is incessantly flowing into Macedonia. People who know neither where nor how they will go are coming from the other side, and on this side Albanians from Macedonia are waiting to save what there is still to save. They testify that the column of those who are waiting to enter Macedonia is about 35 kilometres long (from the border crossing to Urosevac - at the moment this text is being written, the border is crossed by people who arrived three days ago) and that Serb police does not take only their German marks away, but also their cars and everything else that they can. There are also the journalists who are in a hurry to "get hold" of the most dramatic story possible, to learn the truth about a yet unseen exodus on the territory of Europe since the Second World War. They do not know, however, that the terror cannot be conveyed, that it cannot be retold - like everything else that is registered in the human soul, it remains like a stamp impressed by red-hot steel, a wound which can never be healed and which will always be clearly discerned.

While the column of refugees is entering Macedonia, it is evident that they were forced to leave their homes in a hurry: they are not carrying anything but their personal tragedy and the story that the Serb police and army gave them a few minutes to leave their native land; that Pristina is emptied by Serb soldiers street after street who load people into wagons, trucks and bring them to the border. They are all shocked, as if they still do not know what is happening to them. They speak about devastated cities and villages burned to the ground; about the money they had to pay along the road in order to arrive alive to where they are now and where new uncertainty awaits them where they will go next. It seems that even official Macedonia does not know it, which acted in the past as if it were not informed about what was going on at its border. And the border of Macedonia is very visibly "marked" by Biblical scenes of crying children and mothers who are waiting for days for the Macedonian authorities to have mercy on them and let them find salvation. There is public talk about two newly born infants and elderly who could not endure hunger and the cold and died at the border. Speculations are spreading that these authorities are intentionally creating chaos at the border in order to make the most of this horror and underline the danger it is faced with in order to convince the world public that Macedonia should be received by NATO in an emergency procedure.

The impression one sometimes gets is that the government does not know what is happening at the border. To a journalist's question whether a train with one thousand children, women, and feeble elderly people had been sent back from the Macedonian border, minister of information gives a curt answer - no! The journalists can choose whether to believe him or their own eyes - the fear they have seen in the faces of those who were forced to go back because Macedonian police did not let the train crowded with refugees enter Macedonia.

And while the refugees testify that they are waiting for three or four days to enter Macedonia, the officials declare that the border is opened and that refugees are coming without any problem. The author of this text has seen and can testify about the following: not a single refugee who has crossed the border has waited for less than two days and the rate of entering Macedonia is equal to the one which takes place in normal conditions - sometimes for hours nobody crosses to the territory of Macedonia. This leads to the conclusion that the government of Macedonia is playing a game with lines of people and vehicles waiting at border crossings and in forests around the bordering region. This game also reflects the momentary disposition of the ruling coalition partners - while the Albanian partner in the government (Democratic Party of Albanians) would let the refugees into the country as fast as possible and without a special border procedure, Macedonian partners in the government would gladly send these people back or at best deport them to third countries. Torn between these two extremes, the government seems to be applying the "halway" variant: refugees are crossing the border at the rate of tourists who are on vacation and who need to be checked in case they are smuggling a casette-player or a carton of cigarettes. It is clear to everybody that every possibility is used to stop the column of those who are entering Macedonia for at least a moment: people say that the border is usually closed at night, that the procedure of registering refugees is intentionally hindered. Nobody can explain such action of the official Skopje: maybe there is hope and something will suddenly happen and the line of people will turn back in the direction it is coming from!? They are forgetting, however, that these people have been starving for days, sleeping in the open and briefly - in their flight from Serb slaughterers, that they have encountered certain strange standards for reception of refugees.

"I have been waiting for two days to enter Macedonia!", a woman with a baby in her arms says. "Are the Serbs keeping you on the other side of the border?" "No", she says, "They are in a hurry to banish as many Albanians from Kosovo and as quickly as possible!"

While the ones from the other side of Sara mountain range are in a hurry to quickly and efficiently empty Kosovo of the Albanians, on this side the others are seeking for every possibility to prevent or slow down their arrival in Macedonia. Both the ones who are banishing the Albanians from Kosovo in a hurry, and those who are trying to slow down entrance of refugees are guided by almost the same motive. The former want the fewest possible Albanians to remain in Kosovo, and the latter do not wish the percentage of ethnic Albanians in Macedonia to increase. Due to that tensions in Macedonia are increasing, both among ethnic Macedonians and Albanians. The former are "terrified" that ethnic balance will be disturbed, and the latter that Macedonia will deport the refugees to third countries in order to send them as far from Kosovo as possible and make their return home more difficult. About a hundred metres from Blace border crossing (like in other places) lines of cars of Macedonian Albanians are waiting to pick up Albanians from Kosovo and take them to their homes in order to remain as close to the place they have fled from as possible.

"Why is the state complaining when it does not care about them at all!", an Albanian from Skopje says. "It has already received plenty of aid from western countries and they are all in our homes and we are supporting them for the time being!", he continues explaining to foreign journalists that there are Macedonian Albanian families which have accommodated forty refugees from Kosovo.

Macedonia has made it clear a long time ago that it could receive just 20 thousand refugees. This figure has been doubled a long time ago. The state explained its reason: economic impotence of the country to offer them adequate protection, which conceals fear that a part of them will remain in Macedonia and change ethnic composition of the country. Regardless of the number of the Albanians who have entered Macedonia fleeing the horror of the war in Kosovo, this small country is passing the most difficult test since it has become independent. There are unofficial information that Arben Xhaferi (leader of the Democratic Party of the Albanians) has threatened that he would leave the ruling coalition if the police continued to treat the refugees in the present manner. Also unofficially it is possible to learn that a part of the cabinet (ministers from Vasil Tupurkovski's party and some from the most powerful party VMRO-DPMNE of Ljubce Georgievski) is persistent in the demand that either the border be closed or "corridors" for transportation of refugees to the third countries be opened, which is especially irritating for Macedonian Albanians. It is also unofficially claimed that the prime minister is having increasing difficulties in establishing balance in his cabinet and in keeping the situation under control.

The situation in Macedonia is alarming. All information are becoming "unofficial" and vague. If Milosevic's aim was to destabilise the neighbouring countries with refugees, it is almost completely achieved in Macedonia. If for no other reason, because uncertainty and fear of what the next day might bring have seized every inhabitant. Local Albanians are shocked with what is going on exactly like Kosovo Albanians who have encountered the horror. "If Milosevic manages to effectuate his concept to prevent return to these people to their homes, this will not be the greatest tragedy of the Albanian people but the greatest tragedy of the Balkans: we have no other choice but to become 'Balkan Palestinians'", a known Albanian intellectual from Macedonia declared to foreign journalists. "If the status of Kosovo had been on the agenda until Rambouillet, from now on it is the survival of a few small Balkan states", he adds for AIM.

What will happen to this space in the future, nobody can foretell. A tide of refugees from Kosovo has already transformed local schools in Albanian language into reception centres. And while the Albanian part of the population of Macedonia is living in an emergency situation, a part of ethnic Macedonians complain because the authorities are forbidding them to organise anti-NATO protests. City streets are deserted at twilight and for days cafes and restaurants are not what they used to be. While a large number of Macedonian Albanians are spending nights at the border waiting for their banished fellow-Albanians from Kosovo to cross to this side of Sara mountain range, ethnic Macedonians are shutting themselves up in their homes listening to roaring of air-planes flying over this territory. A few nights ago powerful detonations were heard which according to the explaination of a government official exploded on the other side of the border, but later on turned out to have been a missile (according to certain allegations) launched from a NATO aircraft in the vicinity of a Macedonian village. Media and journalists continue their own "war": ones with the aspiration to do their job professionally, and others as "spokesmen" of this or that faction. There are also those who apply the principle "the worse the better" which are identified as pro-Serb here. A general conclusion that can be drawn is that Macedonia can be saved only by foreign forces and foreign aid. It seems that possible "saviors" have become aware of this: they are announcing the opening of a NATO office in Skopje and the arrival of high officers of the alliance, along with financial aid in order to avoid refugee catastrophe so skilfully transferred by the Serbian regime to Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro. When talking about these countries, journalists of foreign agencies claim that with the exception of Albania (which is believed to be naturally obliged to take refugees), Montenegro was the fairest: it has opened its borders and received the people without exposing them to illtreatment similar to the one at the Macedonian border. Who knows what is in the background of this, when one has in mind that Montenegro is by far more threatened that its "ethnic balance" will be disturbed than Macedonia. Perhaps this is just the result of heroism and humaneness all Balkan nations brag about so much.

Kim MEHMETI

(AIM)