Refuge in Macedonia

Friday, May 7, 1999

The increasing intensity and scope of humanitarian relief operations for refugees from Kosovo has raised many of the perennial issues of coordination, attention to the particular needs of women and children, relations with indigenous NGOs, the balance between relief and protection, and refugee participation in matters affecting them.

Kathleen Newland, senior associate and co-director of the Carnegie Endowment's International Migration Policy Program, and Roger Winter, executive director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR), both visited Macedonia earlier in the week, where they met with refugees and observed the state of humanitarian response.

On his return from Macedonia on May 5, Dr. Winter also accompanied the first planeload of Kosovar refugees to Fort Dix, New Jersey, where they will begin the resettlement process in the United States. Bill Frelick, senior policy analyst for USCR, placed their observations within the context of political considerations and humanitarian principles that underlie the crisis.

This report summarizes their remarks, as well as those of moderator T. Alexander Aleinikoff, senior associate of the International Migration Policy Program, and members of the audience.

Originally, ROGER WINTER and a Macedonian-American staffer traveled to Macedonia for the purpose of going to border points (as remote as possible) to examine the issue of access to asylum, visiting camps to conduct interviews and collect stories, making judgments about humanitarian conditions, and increasing the visibility of refugee needs. But before their arrival, it became clear that their program would change because the U.S. resettlement program was announced.

Pointing to a map of the border between Macedonia and Kosovo, Winter said it is important to understand the refugee crisis in the context of Macedonia's own political, economic and ethnic tensions. With a population of only two million (of which about 400,000 are ethnic Albanians and 50,000 are ethnic Serbs), Macedonia has received an influx of more than 200,000 mostly ethnic-Albanian refugees from Kosovo in the past two weeks alone. "The refugees add to what is already a tense relationship," he said.

"Macedonia is not only little, it's new and its politics haven't stabilized," Winter said. "Its elections are not far in the future and the potentials for ethnic conflict are there. The U.S. equivalent would be to have 27 million people of a specific ethnic population coming into our country within the next few weeks."

As a specialist in African refugee issues, Winter said that by African standards the Kosovo crisis was not the worst he had seen. Still, he called it "an impossible situation" and expressed his support for the humanitarian response led by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Camps & Border Crossings

Winter and Igor, the Macedonian-American staffer, covered every camp except Radusa, plus border crossings between Macedonia and Serbia proper because of reports of ethnic cleansing. Winter said that Tabanovce [a crossing point] is well-staffed and developed, though the guards at first were quite hostile. Kosovar Albanians were crossing the border in both directions at this point. They said they were going to Macedonia to avoid the implications of NATO bombing and did not mention ethnic cleansing. [See map: fYRO Macedonia / FR Yugoslavia (Kosovo) Border Area]

"Lojane was not a formal crossing, with just Macedonian military staff. It was difficult to get to, and while we were there one of NATO's aircraft droned above us to check for damages," said Winter. "Most of the refugees there were sneaking over the border without 'inspection,' a practice that is more dangerous and problematic and which UNHCR suspects may be refoulement [forcible return]."

Winter said that any discussion of solutions to the crisis should focus on the "ethnic mix" in the region. For example, many refugees in the camp at Senokos were not ethnic Albanians but actually Muslim Slavs.

The Flight to Fort Dix

Winter accompanied the group of refugees who flew to Fort Dix through his work with Immigration and Refugee Services of America, an umbrella organization including USCR that is serving as a joint voluntary agency (JVA) for outprocessing at Fort Dix . As a JVA, Immigration and Refugee Services of America is one of 10 resettlement agencies selected on the agencies' behalf to aid refugees' integration into U.S. society.

Considering the speed and difficult circumstances under which the U.S. resettlement program was put together, Winter said he thought the flight operation was "handled very well." A mix of NGO workers "in crash mode" coordinated efforts at Stankovac I (Brazda) to fill seats on the plane. The International Organization for Migration and other agencies targeted refugees who earlier had expressed their desire to go to the United States. Winter said that those refugees who had indicated they wanted to go to Guantanamo (the Clinton Administration's initial proposal before Fort Dix) had long ago "made a psychological break."

"Most people will say they don't want to leave the region," said Winter. "So when the call went out for resettlement purposes, those people who came in had preprogrammed themselves to leave." Winter said that that readiness benefited refugees who, in some cases, learned they would leave for the United States within 24 hours. "At 6 p.m. we were still processing people to leave at 4 a.m.," he said.

"The first plane load is a very unique group -- their lives are changing so rapidly," Winter said. "Most of the refugees had never been on planes before," said Winter, adding that many became sick during the flight and one pregnant woman began having labor pains (though she did not give birth on the plane). "There were huge smiles all around. The basic feeling on the plane was absolute relief… When we landed everybody broke into loud applause and there were cheers: 'USA! USA!'"

Turning to slides of his visit to the camps, Winter paused on a picture of a 20-year-old Kosovar woman he met who said she was learning English because she wanted to become a flight attendant. "She said she saw people killed and her house burned, but she ended our conversation by saying: 'I will never be truly free until I can go back to Kosovo.' That is truly the sentiment of most people, even those on the plane," he said.

Winter said he briefed Mrs. Clinton upon arrival at Fort Dix. "There was a big welcoming committee. It was quite an exciting thing, although processing at the camp was moving more slowly than we had hoped."

Winter closed his remarks with some reflections on the larger conflict. "I don’t honestly think that these groups of people are genetically predisposed to killing each other, but I do think we underestimate the human capacity for violence," he said. Progress in this situation -- including the return of refugees -- will depend on positive leadership. "I personally don't think the refugees will be willing to go back if [Yugoslav President] Milosevic is there; yet the tendency of the international community is to leave Milosevic there." In that case, said Winter, "the refugees will remain outside Kosovo a lot longer than we think, and that will mean making their own judgments about their future."

KATHLEEN NEWLAND returned May 4 from a six-day trip to Macedonia organized by the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children of the International Rescue Committee. She conducted a variety of interviews both in refugee camps and in host families in the community. Newland said that more than half of all Kosovar refugees are being housed with the local Macedonian-Albanian population -- many with relatives, but also many with complete strangers.

Family Ties

"This is one of the most striking features of this crisis: the enormous strength of the ethnic-Albanian community in Macedonia and Kosovo," said Newland. "In the early days of the conflict, local Macedonian families were just driving up to the border and saying to the refugees, 'You can come and stay in my house.'"

Newland said she met a refugee woman who was a doctor from Pristina now staying with a host family housing six relatives per room. Newland said this type of living arrangement was common and told a story of a taxi ride with the doctor. "The driver asked about her situation. She said she was doing fine, and explained how she lived with many relatives under one roof. Without hesitating, the driver asked, 'Well, why don't you come stay with us? My family has some room…' I saw that kind of spontaneous generosity and hospitality often," said Newland.

Camp Conditions

Still, the refugee camps are desperately overcrowded, according to Newland. "When I arrived, there were 142,000 refugees in Macedonia by the government's official count (which is grossly underestimated). By the time I left there were 203,000. That many people had arrived in four to five days!"

Newland said that the Macedonian government is "completely unprepared" for this influx and consequently hindering UNHCR's operations. "[The government] is reluctant to allocate space for additional camps and insists on using a single contractor to build them," she said, adding that she heard stories of refugees being driven around in buses all night because there was no place to take them.

"With the weather warming up, these capacity problems at the camps are causing serious concern among humanitarian organizations. The lack of sewage disposal and insufficient latrines have created conditions that aid workers see as an epidemic waiting to happen. It's really a race against time to keep the health situation under control," said Newland.

"On the brighter side, there is an impressive amount of self-organization in the camps," she said. A large number of Kosovars are educated, urban people, so the camps are full of teachers, doctors, social workers, and others with skills who are going to international organizations like UNICEF and taking the initiative to help." Newland said that schools were beginning to function in most camps she visited. "One camp had 400 children under age five going to kindergarten in shifts of one hour each, which provided some structure for the day. For older children, the shifts were two to four hours per day."

Newland said that international organizations that had local staff in Macedonia before the crisis have an advantage in their ability to deploy people who speak the language and harness the skills of refugees. The IRC, Mercy Corps, and Catholic Relief Services were among the best-prepared international organizations, in that sense. "UNHCR was not in that position, however," said Newland," and had only six staff members in Macedonia on March 24. They were extremely slow getting started. When I arrived, UNHCR had a staff of 60. When I left they had 97. But everyone is just running in place to keep up with the numbers of refugees coming in."

Politics and Poverty in Macedonia

Picking up on Roger Winter's comments on the ethnic-political tensions posed by the influx of refugees, Newland said that the "Macedonian authorities are making things more difficult than they need have been. There are great fears of upsetting the ethnic balance, but many in the camps felt the United States was being overly solicitous of these fears and more forgiving of the government's treatment than was proper. The authorities' behavior toward refugees is having a polarizing effect on ethnic groups in Macedonia. Tension and hostility between the two communities [ethnic Albanians and ethnic Serbs] is growing perceptibly. Thus, the attitude of Kosovar refugees toward Macedonian authorities was a virtual transference of the fear they felt of Serbs in Kosovo," said Newland.

Government officials insist on speeding up the refugees' evacuation process, according to Newland. "When I was there they were planning a corridor to move people from Macedonian camps into Albania. However, there is some concern about whether that movement would be voluntary. Some families fled to Macedonia because that is where the train brought them or because it was the closest border, but others are there because they have relatives or family in the area," she said.

The strength of family ties has created a "safety net of remittances," according to Newland, that "has prevented the crisis from turning into a truly ghastly situation."

While poverty increases (over 40 percent of factories in Macedonia are closed because of the war's disruption of trade), refugees and host families are managing to survive with support from relatives abroad. "Almost everyone I talked to had relatives elsewhere," said Newland. "When I asked how they managed, they said, 'We have an uncle in Germany sending money,' for example."

However, host families in private homes are not getting much assistance from the relief community. Newland noted that NGOs are aware of this need, but their priority is the camp population.

In particular, a local NGO was trying to distribute food and oil, while the IRC had proposed to set up two health clinics for the local and refugee populations.

Concluding her remarks, Newland said that her trip devoted specific attention to the role of women's organizations in the crisis. "We wanted to find out what local capacity exists to help women and children in the refugee community," she said. "There are lots of women's organizations working in Skopje and Tetovo, especially. But, really, they are working on a shoestring, trying to provide counseling and other services to host families. I saw Vjosa Dobruna and Aferdita Kelmendi [two Kosovar refugee activists who spoke at the International Migration Policy Program's last briefing on April 16]. Their efforts are impressive and demonstrate a tremendous amount of internal strength and resources."

BILL FRELICK sought to lend a wider context to the discussion of Yugoslavia's ever-changing emergency by reexamining fundamental humanitarian principles over time "to see how they relate to the present situation."

"In our discussions with officials, we should try to see whether any lessons learned are being applied or whether they are acting as if this were the first crisis in history," he said.

Placing priority on the preservation of the principle of first asylum, we can look at the following durable solutions: repatriation, local integration, and resettlement, according to Frelick.

Repatriation

On repatriation, Frelick said, "The overwhelming message from refugees is that they want to go home. And we've heard that commitment from NATO. There is a strong preference not only for the status quo ante, but also for the reversal of ethnic cleansing."

Frelick emphasized that these conditions, however, must be voluntary. "UNHCR has observed Macedonian authorities pushing refugees back across the border. This is the clearest violation of refugee law, particularly on the part of a signatory."

Also, if repatriation is to be a durable solution, it must be supported both politically and economically. Frelick questioned how sustainable current political proposals for a "lightly armed" peacekeeping force would be in light of lessons learned in Bosnia. Peacekeepers "would carry side arms to protect themselves but not the refugees," he said.

"What I see happening is the marginalization of the humanitarian solution and a need to address the root causes of the political problem. I would suggest that the solution here is one of independence," said Frelick.

"On the economic side, we will have a huge job ahead of reconstruction and rehabilitation," he said. Practically speaking, harsh Balkan winters make it unlikely that reconstruction or the return of refugees will occur until next spring. "That means the winterization of the camps," said Frelick.

Local Integration

"Local integration is one durable solution that is always overlooked," said Frelick, noting the "outpouring of solidarity, hospitality and generosity from ethnic-Albanian communities." If the situation is not resolved politically and refugees cannot return home, local integration would help preserve first asylum, according to Frelick. As this possibility begins to unfold, he urged the international community to help improve local infrastructures (especially in remote camps) and provide positive incentives for the generous treatment of refugees in order to preserve first asylum.

Echoing Newland's observations about the lack of assistance to host families, Frelick said that, in some cases, local families already are asking refugees to leave. Such hardship increases the pressure on refugee camps as the population continues to grow. "Here we have the grafting of the notion of evacuation as a temporary solution with resettlement as a durable solution," said Frelick. "It's an awkward hybrid."

Resettlement

Finally, Frelick credited U.S. government officials for choosing a "more humane, reasonable course" of resettlement at Fort Dix instead of Guantanamo. He also recognized the "humane response and outpouring of interest from the American people" to integrate refugees here, as well. Still, the United States is taking only a small fraction of the refugees. "For the majority of refugees, the emphasis has to be put on a regional solution," said Frelick.

In response to Frelick's comments, Newland said she agreed with his description of the potential for local integration, but, due to ethnic tensions, it will be extraordinarily difficult in Macedonia. "When I asked refugees how they felt about the evacuation program, they said they didn't want to leave the area. But they also said there will be a war in Macedonia in six months."

Opening the session up for DISCUSSION, moderator Alex Aleinikoff posed a dilemma: "I think this crisis may be showing us that our current way of thinking about the problem no longer works. Refugees are the dispute here. None of the durable solutions appear that they will ever be durable. On repatriation, we have the political problem of Milosevic's intransigence. On local integration, we have the problem of Macedonian politics. Resettlement will be only a tiny portion of the flow, and most refugees want to return. It makes me think that refugee advocates may need to start being less humanitarian and more like politicians. We need a military solution that brings peace and stability to the world, and then we can let the refugees decide where to go."

Winter agreed, but noted that Aleinikoff's sentiment is not new. "The diplomatic model hasn't caught up. We tend to treat the Hitlers of the world as just another political opinion," he said.

An audience member said he heard of reports in USA Today that said refugees didn't think the bombing was helping. He asked if the panelists had noted refugees' opinions on NATO airstrikes.

Newland responded: "Everyone I talked to was strongly in favor of [the bombing], including recent arrivals [in the camps]. There is an element of randomness to these opinions. But nobody I talked with thought the bombing was enough. There was a level of unity in wanting ground troops. There was also pretty universal support for the Kosovo Liberation Army, except among Pristina intellectuals who were thinking ahead about democratic commitments. They felt it was important to keep civil society organizations active as a counterbalancing force to the KLA."

Newland added that "internally displaced people in Kosovo are the number one concern of refugees in Macedonia." She met one father who fled separately from his family and had had no contact with them for over a month. Another recent arrival said he finally left Kosovo because he couldn't get food -- the few shops that were open would not serve ethnic Albanians. "The biggest concern is for the people who have left their villages but not yet made it across the border. Some stories give a sense of that process," said Newland.

She told one story of two teenage sisters who recently were reunited in the camp. While the 17-year-old was separated, the 13-year-old remained with the family as it traveled from town to town, staying in each village for three to four days before Serb paramilitary forces came and made them leave. Each time, they packed their bags, got on their tractor and went to the next village. They repeated this process at least six times over two weeks. Finally, in one small town, they were forced to leave their tractor and all their belongings before boarding a truck to cross the border. According to Newland, every story started the same way as refugees recounted: "Men in ski masks came and made us leave…"

Another audience member asked if Newland had learned anything about the rape of women in Kosovo.

"It's not a question you ask in the first five minutes when you're meeting someone," said Newland. She said there is a legitimate concern about media intrusion, since there have been some insensitive journalists who come to camps asking, "Is there anyone here who has been raped and speaks English?" "Many camps are trying to set up trauma counseling services and clinics in order to recognize symptoms of rape and try to build trust for people to seek help," she said. "The fear is that there is a high incidence of rape but women aren't talking about it very much. A number of groups are collecting testimony for the war crimes tribunal. But still, there is a concern that interviewers will be adding to the trauma of those who have been raped. The aid community is very protective of the population."

Returning to Alex Aleinikoff's point, Roberta Cohen of the Brookings Institution said: "It doesn't look like all the Yugoslav troops will be removed. Milosevic will be there and the protection force is gradually being watered down. From your conversations with the refugees, do they have any conditions for return? Do they have a set of criteria?"

"It is instructive that, in the evacuation program, the word voluntary has been attached, but it has not been mentioned regarding returns," said Frelick in response. "Even with respect to temporary evacuations, we have to be on the lookout for coercion or less-than-informed consent."

Winter also responded: "I'm totally cynical. The politicians are going to make a deal and the refugees will not be considered."

"I didn't hear anyone talking about conditions for return," added Newland. "Even those refugees trying to join relatives in Germany or the United States said that going home is their bottom line."

To learn more about the Women's Commission on Refugee Women and Children, go to: http://www.intrescom.org/wcrwc/wcrwc.html

To read Bill Frelick's recommendations to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration, visit: http://www.refugees.org/