Exodus of Kosovo Serbs

Postwar Refugees

In the past ten days, after withdrawal of Serbian police and the Army of Yugoslavia had begun, more than fifteen thousand Serbs and Montenegrins have fled to Montenegro

AIM Podgorica, 17 June, 1999

Such developments can be directed only by life itself: on the same day when the first peace troops of the United Nations marched into the "cradle of the Serb state", mass fleeing of the Serbs from it began.

A couple of days after the two-and-a-half month long war between Milosevic's FR Yugoslavia and NATO had ended by a peace agreement, endless columns of refugees set out from Pec, Kosovska Mitrovica, Djakovica and other places of the southern Serb province towards Montenegro. They trudged down the same road down wgich Kosovo Albanians had been arriving in the past months in mass waves, saving their bare lives from the members of Serb police and the Army of Yugoslavia. This time, there are mostly the Serbs and the Montenegrins in the refugee camps, and a small number of Muslims and Romanies.

They have been arriving on the other side of Cakor for days. At Carine and Zeleni police check-points, not far from Rozaje, soul-stirring refugee stories are running, scenes well-known in this space for a long time are following each other. Distracted mothers with children red-eyed from crying, exhausted elderly women, cars packed with bundles, tractors and trucks loaded with furniture... Among the refugees there are members of Serbian police, the army of Yugoslavia and paramilitary units.

"After withdrawal of the Army of Yugoslavia and Serbian police we were left with absolutely no protection. Nobody could guarantee that we will be safe and we could do nothing but abandon our homes and leave behind everything we had earned during all our lives", these wretched people say with unconcealed bitterness. Many of them suspect that somebody had deliberately stirred panic among them to make them flee.

"This is shameful and disgraceful, because there is no justice and no state when this can be done to us", says Svetomir Djukic from Gorazdovac near Pec, who running away from his native home, loaded his whole life on a tractor trailer.

Family Bulatovic is from Dubocak near Pec. They too have left everything there: their house, land, cattle... They say they will certainly return to their native land if conditions will be created there for them to continue life:

"A great evil has befallen us. The politicians should have been wiser and not let us suffer like this. Everything could have been achieved without waging war. So many people killed - for what? For nothing!"

Refugees claim that even the mayor of Pec has left. The commander of Italian brigade looked for him in vain to discuss with him accommodation for his soldiers and operation of life in the city. The head of the Socialist Party of Serbia in Pec Zorica Gajevic has also left. "She is in Tivat and probably she will join some new political party which will lead us all to destruction all over again", a young man says tartly.

In the past few days, former neighbours, kith and kin from Kosovo are often running into each other in Rozaje, Plav, Berane. Naim Sabi, Albanian, who has fled to Rozaje almost three months ago, found in the column of refugees his friend Vlado who had helped him flee from Kosovo.

"We heartily greeted each other and had a drink together", Sabi boasted.

The tragedy in the Balkans is arranging strange scenes: some of the Albanians who had fled before nowadays recognise their own vehicles in the new columns of refugees. The police returns the vehicles to those who have papers, those who have not can only watch them go by. Many refugee families are brought by private transporters. They charge 700 German marks for transportation from Pec to Berane.

Some vow that they would never give Kosovo to the Albanians, others curse Milosevic for having betrayed them, some wonder why they have spent seventy dramatic days there while NATO bombed them and then, left without the army and the police, had to flee to uncertainty.

"This morning I broke Milosevic's picture. If I could only see him and give him a piece of my mind about what he has done to his people", a middle-aged man shouts acidly through the window of his car while waiting to pass police control.

These and similar harsh messages and this refugee drama can neither be heard nor seen by the leader even if he had wished to. A large part of his Serbia probably knows nothing about it either. Belgrade media have not carried a single word about the latest flight of Kosovo Serbs and their unfortunate destiny and suffering. Podgorica Dan, unofficial paper of the Socialist People's Party of Momir Bulatovic, also passes over this in silence.

In the past ten days, about 15 thousand Serbs and Montenegrins have fled to Montenegro. They have found refuge in northern Montenegrin municipalities - in Berane, Andrijevica, Kolasin, Mojkovac... The inhabitants have welcomed them in their hoems, although a large number of refugees from Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina had been here since before. A part of them is accommodated in hotels, schools and sports halls.

On the territory of Berane municipality, according to what its president Sveto Mitrovic says, about three thousand Serb and Montenegrin refugees have arrived in the course of last week, just as many as had arrived during the previous years from Croatia and B&H. Two thousand have arrived just on Saturday, 12 June. They have been accommodated mostly in homes of their relatives and friends, and about couple hundred of them are in the town sports' hall.

Citizens of Montenegro have once again manifested undivided solidarity with these unfortunate people. Many of them are coming to the offices of the municipal organization of the Red Cross and offering their homes, food, clothing... Without their help it would be difficult to take care of such a large number of refugees. When faced with the war chaos, people who had been forced to leave behind everything they had ever had have been arriving here for years.

"Our municipal organization of the Red Cross has handed out to the wretched people from Kosovo majority of whom are women and children emergency aid which cannot meet even their basic needs. What they need the most at the moment, besided food, are beds, mattresses, blankets, footwear and hygienic means. And there is none of that any more in the storerooms of the Red Cross", they say at the Mojkovac organization of the Red Cross.

The situation is more or less similar in other regions. The Commissariat for Refugees of Montenegro, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Catholic service for aid and other humanitarian organizations are also offering relief.

"We will do all we can to provide for the Serbs and Montenegrins who are coming from Kosovo and Metohija food, health protection and accommodation. It is true that majority of them are finding refuge with their relatives, but regardless of that it was agreed with representatives of UN High Commissioner for Refugees that all the Serbs and the Montenegrins who come from Kosovo refer to municipal organizations of the Red Cross for aid. "This also refers to health protection", says Djordjije Scepanovic, Republican commissioner for refugees.

Representatives of Montenegrin government have visited the refugees.

"The government and the people of Montenegro as they have always done will offer help and do everything they can to make these people feel as safe and as good as possible in our Republic. One should not forget that Montenegro is at the moment the only state with 12 thousand refugees and displaced persons on its territory, who amount to 20 per cent of its population. But, as always the Montenegrin people have opened their hearts and found possibility to help all these suffering people", said Predrag Goranovic, deputy prime minister of Montenegro, while he was visiting refugees in the municipality of Berane.

A few days ago, more than 150 refugee Montenegrins and Serbs gathered in Berane. They agreed that all the men should go to Kosovo to determine whether safe return and normal life were possible there. They called the other Serb and Montenegrin refugees to join them.

In the past few days, the arrival of the Serb and Montenegrin refugees from Kosovo has significantly been reduced. Most of them have fled. Those who have remained hope that the international military forces will protect them. Local "defenders of fatherland" are also leaving Kosovo in a hurry.

Veseljko KOPRIVICA

(AIM)