Refugee Crisis in Kosovo

Friday, April 2, 1999

In response to the past weeks' reports of alarming numbers of refugees fleeing the province of Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia, the Carnegie Endowment's International Migration Policy Program convened a policy briefing with representatives of three refugee agencies currently working in the region, who provided updates and analyses of the field situation.

Karen AbuZayd, regional representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for the United States and the Caribbean, Nancy Lindborg of Mercy Corps, and Alan Jellis of the International Rescue Committee shared reports they have gathered from colleagues in Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro, who are helping to care for the tens of thousands of refugees streaming across the borders of Kosovo. They also shared the limited amount of information available directly from local humanitarian partners still inside Kosovo.

Trains carrying ethnic Albanians to the borders of Kosovo brought 10 to 12 carloads of civilians from Pristina, the provincial capitol, at the beginning of the emergency. Now the trains bring several thousand people, packed into 30 cars, all the way from Belgrade, said AbuZayd. A similar method of expulsion buses civilians to within several miles of the Albanian border, where they must then walk to safety under treacherous conditions. "This morning, two women and two babies died," reported AbuZayd.

Neighboring countries' practice of opening and closing their borders to streams of refugees has caused concern over the back-up that leaves thousands waiting to cross. However, AbuZayd said these governments have some excuse for exercising control because, with UNHCR, they are trying to register each refugee. In many cases, ethnic Albanians have been stripped of their identity documents (birth certificates, passports, etc.). Thus, "it is important to at least get their names and places of origin," said AbuZayd.

"A good sign is that we're now seeing men coming in [to refugee camps]," she reported. However, fearing that men will threaten the camps' security, the Macedonian government has been separating them from women and children, despite pleas from families to remain together. This precaution exemplifies "lots of delicate developments in Macedonia," according to AbuZayd. "Each day they come up with a new surprise, creating endless negotiations." Still, "the Macedonian people are being quite generous in letting refugees into their homes," she added.

In order to supply adequate food and shelter, UNCHR is "at the point of trying to get an airlift in order," said AbuZayd.

Since the logistics of an airdrop can entail "a bit of chaos," UNHCR is considering the use of NATO personnel. At issue is the question of when to accept military support. Secretary-General Javier Solana offered the use of NATO peacekeepers to the humanitarian mission last week, according to AbuZayd. In the past, UNHCR has accepted such offers only as a last resort. "We're at the point of taking whatever offers we get," said AbuZayd.

A number of countries, including Italy, Romania and Bulgaria, have offered themselves as venues for refugee resettlement or temporary safe-haven, said AbuZayd, "but people don't want to move yet -- they want to stay as close to home as possible."

Nancy Lindborg of Mercy Corps, a partner agency to the region's largest local humanitarian organization, the Mother Theresa Society, returned from Macedonia on March 31.

Mercy Corps' staff, which had been working in the former Yugoslavia since 1992, was evacuated last weekend. "32 chose to stay inside," said Lindborg, emphasizing that the agency's subsequent effort to maintain contact with them has put "a very human face" on the crisis as they describe events surrounding them.

The humanitarian response has been fairly large, with most capacity massed in Skopje since most agencies regrouped there after evacuating from Kosovo itself. The challenge has been deciding "how to appropriately organize that capacity and direct it in a meaningful way," said Lindborg.

One "logjam" has been funding the procurement of supplies, she said, since supplies that were in Kosovo are now gone. With the World Food Programme and Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps has access to warehouses in Montenegro. "At this time we have adequate food and the capacity to distribute it," said Lindborg.

In terms of the border situation, Lindborg said she got a call Friday morning reporting "20,000 people caught in no man’s land," between the Yugoslav and Macedonian border posts, with some having been there for three or four days. It has been raining there and many people are ill.

Lindborg echoed AbuZayd's reconition of the need to be sensitive to the Macedonian government. Catholic Relief Services is currently the only agency with government permission to work in the border area. "All of us need to work on increasing the number of agencies that have permission to go into that area to distribute aid," she said. In an example of NGO cooperation, Lindborg said, "Some of us have been slapping CRS stickers on our cars in order to deliver aid."

Relief agencies are also "very concerned about potential destabilization in Macedonia," according to Lindborg, who added that the area's unemployment figures were at 40 percent prior to the airstrikes. With these conditions in mind, relief agencies are helping to create local employment and to demonstrate "assurances that Macedonia will be amply supported."

Lindborg said she was in Macedonia during the demonstrations against NATO airstrikes, in which five relief agnecies had their vehicles destroyed. But, she said, "the media here overplayed the sense of imminent danger over last week." Lindborg said she did not feel a significant threat because she knew that "bus loads of people [from outside the area] basically were paid to go to the demonstration."

Lindborg commented on the NGOs' "excellent coordination" with the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration and Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance in order to make financial resources available. In this sense, she said the greater concern focused on making local commodities available.

"The issue at the top is one of security for relief personnel and at warehouses once commodities start coming in," said Lindborg.

Finally, Lindborg said she had witnessed an "incredible responsiveness in the local community." She estimated that 40-70,000 refugees were being housed with Macedonian host families, while some local residents spontaneously offer the use of their vehicles or other help when refugees cross the border.

Alan Jellis of the International Rescue Committee said his organization has been working in the former Yugoslavia since 1982 and traditionally had worked with Serb refugees. IRC has been doing community development work in Kosovo since early 1997. Jellis said the agency's effort to build bridges between ethnic groups had been successful until the airstrikes.

"All our capacity within Kosovo proper is now defunct," Jellis said, adding that workers have moved to conduct large-scale emergency assistance. "Particularly, we are looking to be involved in shelter and water sanitation" in cooperation with other agencies, he said. In Albania, IRC is running small shelter programs and an education program with refugees, according to Jellis. A field office director arrived April 1, and Jellis said he expected an assessment team would arrive shortly.

Question & Answer Session

Roberta Cohen of the Brookings Institution asked about the political situation in Montenegro: "Rumors are that there could be a coup and the government could be overtaken by a pro-Milosevic faction. In such an eventuality, are there any plans for the refugees there now?"

AbuZayd responded: "That is a problem. There is a lot of hostility toward the internationals already, and a greater presence of Serb military forces… The Montenegrans are encouraging refugees to move on, but they are not saying anything explicitly -- just putting up fliers and leaflets. Especially the men are paying attention, but our information is minimal."

In response to a question about hesitations to use military and whether the international community will attempt to move refugees out of area, AbuZayd added that soaring numbers will make it physically and politically impossible to keep all of the refugees in Macedonia and even Albania. "The generosity of the [local] people is truly amazing. You see people going up to the border in their tractors to help," she said. "We may be reaching that last resort of using the military," she continued. Right now, UNHCR is contemplating the use of the the military "purely in a logistical sense" and would ask NATO forces to work bilaterally without uniforms or weapons, if possible.

AbyZayd expressed surprise at the relatively little political insecurity there is in Albania, despite massive movements of people and goods. With this level of security, "some military have suggested sending volunteers to help guard commodities … and the Italians have sent 80 police rather than military," she said.

Patricia Weiss-Fagen of the Inter-American Development Bank asked about the degree of coordination among relief agencies: "In Goma, issues emerged ex post facto about coordination and the distinction between categories of agencies. Are these issues coming up in Kosovo? It seems inevitable at this scale."

Lindborg responded, saying that a council of NGOs in Kosovo had been meeting regularly as recently as last week. The council also divided into sector meetings (devoted specificially to shelter, food, etc.) and formed a "Principles Group" to address sensitive issues such as respect for local NGO responsibility.

Jellis added that "the coordination occuring in Kosovo is good to excellent in all sectors. But until we are allowed to operate there by the government, the exercise is largely academic."

Susan Woodward of the Brookings Institution asked: How much of your coordination includes local agencies? She said she saw a "clear repetition on Milosevic's part of the Croatian model," including the practice of destroying identity documents. "Have we learned lessons from what we did on the Croatian front?"

Newland responded: "One clear lesson is that allowing people to get away with such atrocities in the past only encourages the same in the future."

Newland then moved the discussion to consider the assumption that refugees will be able to repatriate. "What role will the humanitarian agencies be playing in terms of repatriation?" she asked. "What kind of planning have you done?"

Jellis said the IRC is "prepared to go in as soon as Kosovo is relatively secure," and noted that the "U.S. government has made a strong commitment to supporting repatriation."

Lindborg said she believed all the humanitarian groups have a similar perspective: "There is an assumption that all physical infrastructure has been destroyed, and an aim to help preliminary agriculture activites. When and how is speculative at this point."

Touching on a question about the effort to incorporate local leadership in relief activities, Lindborg said that "Mercy Corps has always worked in partnership with local organizations, and capacity-building has been one of our primary objectives." She pointed out that Mercy Corps has 62 branches throughout region and an enormous number of volunteers (including many from the Mother Theresa Society). "We assume that when we go back in that the system will reconstitute itself to some extent. It's a pretty good network," she said. "We've already begun assembling lists of people who have surfaced in some areas."

However, she stressed that "as the crisis continues and escalates, the temptation will be to bring in the military and roll over those [local] structures. It is a tough balance at this point between those groups that are fully engaged."

Jessica Mathews of the Carnegie Endowment posed two questions: "Does UNHCR get consulted on political planning? And is anyone taking documentation from refugees on what's happening?"

AbyZayd said that High Commissioner Ogata has tried to keep her planning within a humanitarian scope, yet "she’s already making a strong statement." In terms of documenting abuses, AbuZayd said: "Both Louise Arbour and Mary Robinson have spoken, and will be sending teams out to collect information. UNHCR is trying to register people right now, with the intention that if things settle down we would send out protection officers who could take things down."

Newland added that NATO says it is using technical means to take pictures of convoys, implying that these materials would be made available to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Lindborg said that some humanitarian groups have worked out an agreement with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe [that had been monitoring the situation prior to the airstrikes] by which aid workers may use OSCE vehicles as along as they bring a human rights monitor along with them.

A freelance reporter asked a final question: "How does this compare to other mass exoduses, like Rwanda and Bosnia?"

Newland said that the scale of this refugee flow is "certainly not unprecedented," noting that in the Rwandan crisis there were 6,000 per hour fleeing into Goma. "There have been more intense flows, but this is still extremely intense," she said.

AbuZayd added that "there are still many disasters that don’t get any attention, like Sierra Leone."