v olume 3 • number 140 • 2005 · tarian agency—this time repatriating the war’s civilian...
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After The War WasOver
After The War WasOver
T H E C O M P L I C A T E D M O S A I C O F
SERBIA: Sarajevo woman and a new life in Belgrade. SERBIA: Croatian family applies for Serbian citizenship.
BOSNIA: An ethnicCroat risked staying in Republika Srpska during the war.
BOSNIA: A family of Kosovo refugees in Bosnia.
BOSNIA: A Muslim familyreturned home toa Serb-dominated regionafter the war.
BOSNIA: An ethnic Serb farmerwent back to the Sarajevo region.
BOSNIA: Widows of the Srebrenica massacre still wait-ing to go home.
BOSNIA: Croat returnees to the Mostar
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P O S T W A R L I F E
CROATIA: Croatian family who fled Serb militias in 1991 now back home.
CROATIA: An ethnic Serb returnee still waiting to reclaim her occupied home.
BOSNIA: An ethnicSerb family living in aMuslim-dominatedregion of Bosnia.region in the Bosniak-Croat Federation.
BOSNIA: Croatian refugee continues to liveand work in another refugee’s property.
CROATIA:An ethnicCroat familyfrom Bosniaresettled inCroatia.
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4 R E F U G E E S
The ‘miracle’ of Dayton The ‘miracle’ of Dayton
Mostar’s restored bridge.
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“THE BRIDGE, IN ALL ITS BEAUTY AND GRACE, WAS BUILT TO OUTLIVE US. IT WAS AN ATTEMPT TO GRASP ETERNITY”
–10 years later–10 years later
P H O T O G R A P H S B Y V I N C E N T W I N T E R
6 R E F U G E E S
The ‘miracle’ of Dayton– 10 years later
B Y R A Y W I L K I N S O N
uleiman the Magnificent commis-sioned the 16th century masterpiece toreflect the caliph’s own omnipotence.The mortar used to lace the dazzlingstone pieces together high over the RiverNeretva reputedly was mixed from thefinest egg whites and horse hair and in
the intervening centuries scholars, global travelers and clergy revered the bridge not only for its physical beau-ty but also as a symbol of religious and cultural toler-ance, a structure which outlasted Ottoman and Austri-an empires, royalist Yugoslavs and 20th centurycommunist cadres.
On a bitterly chill day in November 1993, CroatianGeneral Slobodan Prljak saw the bridge at Mostar, deepin the heart of the newly declared independent countryof Bosnia and Herzegovina, not as one of the world’scultural jewels but as an impediment to one of the 20thcentury’s latest and most insidious developments—the‘ethnic cleansing’—the separation or murder of ‘inferi-or’ local peoples.
“It’s just an old bridge,” the Christian general saidcasually as he ordered his artillerymen to destroy the graceful arch and 11 other surrounding historical build-
ings to further his war aims against neighboring Bosni-an Muslims.
The ancient stones crashed into snow swollen tor-rents below and Croatian journalist Slavenka Draku-lic, who had also penned the earlier lines about theMostar bridge, lamented: “Why do we feel more painlooking at the image of the destroyedbridge than the image of massacredpeople? We expect people to die. Thedestruction of a monument to civi-lization is something else. The bridgetranscended our individual destiny.”
As much as any other single eventin an unfolding tragedy which wouldlast for nearly four years, the Mostarbridge and its wanton destructionbecame another type of symbol—thistime not of tolerance, but of the intol-erance and depravity into which theBalkan region of Europe was mired atthe start of the 1990s.
A KEY PLAYERIt had all seemed so differentduring the previous four decades.After Josip Broz Tito and his commu-
SThe war years:A temporaryfootbridge replacesMostar’s historicalbridge.
Bosnians heldprisoners of war byethnic Serb forces.
Seeking safety from Serb snipers in a muddy trenchand behind U.N.armored personnelcarriers.
7R E F U G E E S
nist partisans seized power inYugoslavia in the waning days of WorldWar II, he welded it into a politically sig-nificant state which successfully strad-dled the world’s major power blocs—communist, socialist, capitalist andthird-world.
But when Tito died in 1980, ethnic,political, economic and religious tensions resurfacedand the façade of Yugoslav unity fell apart. After adecade of increasing regional tensions, Slovenia andCroatia declared independence from the Serb-domi-nated central authorities in Belgrade in 1991. Warengulfed parts of Croatia. Bosnia and Herzegovinadeclared its own independence in 1992 and interethnic
conflict between Croats, Serbs and Muslims eruptedacross that country, too.
In the ensuing fighting and localized wars-within-wars between 1992 and 1995, several hundred thousandpersons were killed. Serb forces committed the worstsingle atrocity in Europe since the end of the SecondWorld War when they massacred nearly 8,000 Muslimmen and boys around an obscure town called Srebreni-ca. Concentration camps were established. Half ofBosnia’s entire population—men, women, children, theold and the disabled—were ripped from their homes.
SLOVENIA
CROATIA
BOSNIAAND
HERZEGOVINA
SERBIA
VOJWODINA
KOSOVO
MONTENEGRO
FYR OFMACEDONIA
Ljubjana
Zagreb
Knin
Dubrovnik
Novi Sad
Belgrade
Srebrenica
Mitrovica
PodgoricaPristina
Skopje
Kraljevo
Tuzla
Sarajevo
Mostar
Banja Luka
HUNGARY
ROMANIA
ALBANIA
GREECE
ITALY
Adriatic Sea
The Balkans
As much as any other single event,the wanton destruction of the bridgeat Mostar became a symbol of theintolerance and depravity into which theBalkan region was mired.
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Digging new gravesfor recentlyidentified victims of the Srebrenicamassacre in 1995.
‘Ethnic cleansing’ became part of the internationalvocabulary. The bulk of Bosnia’s factories, bridges,roads, schools, homes and water and electricity supplieswere destroyed as were entire towns and villages inCroatia.
unhcr became the lead humanitarian organizationin the Balkans and began the most wide-ranging andcomplex operation in its history, spearheading a pro-gram to care for 3.5 million civilians. Central to thatoperation was what became the longest-running airbridge in history, a 3 1/2-year, almost daily shuttle of car-go planes which helped feed the Bosnian capital ofSarajevo.
Only a few years before, in 1984, this same city hadbeen the proud host to the world at the Winter OlympicGames, but now it had been reduced to a hapless collec-tion of traumatized civilians cowering in their dark-ened homes, targets in a virtual ‘turkey shoot’ by Serbgunners perched high in the surrounding hills.
After an increasing American and nato interven-tion, the Bosnian phase of the Balkan nightmare splut-tered to a halt in the most unlikely of venues when themajor protagonists agreed to what became known as
the Dayton Peace Accords on November 21, 1995, at aU.S. Air Force base called Wright-Patterson in Ohio.
The guns fell silent. Bosnia was split into two almostequal parts, the so-called Republika Srpska, spiritualhome to ethnic Serbs, and a Bosniak-Croat Federation.Under the terms of Annex 7 of the Dayton Accords (seestory page 14), unhcr again became the lead humani-tarian agency—this time repatriating the war’s civilianvictims from stinking collective centers across theregion, from abandoned homes and bomb-damagedbuildings where they had squatted after the originalowners had also fled; from as far away as refugee centersand private homes in Europe and North America—bringing them back to a shattered landscape sown withmines, with almost no physical infrastructure, few jobsand simmering ethnic hatreds.
On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Daytonagreement in November, the bridge at Mostar todayagain provides a dramatic backdrop against which tohighlight developments in the last decade—an easy ref-erence point to measure the progress or lack of it—intrying to patch together again Europe’s battered south-east corner.
The ‘miracle’ of Dayton– 10 years later
UNHCR again became the lead humanitarian agency—back to a shattered landscape sown
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1878The Congress of Berlin redraws the map of theBalkans and despite ignoring the wishes of localpopulations creates three new countries,Serbia, Montenegro and Romania.
June 28, 1914Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, is assassinated by a Serbgunman during a visit to the Bosnian capital ofSarajevo, precipitating World War I and thesubsequent collapse of the Austrian andOttoman empires. Yugoslavia, the ‘Kingdom ofSerbs, Croats and Slovenes’ is created fromthe debris in 1918.
October 24, 1944In the dying days of World War II, Josip BrozTito’s partisans liberate the Yugoslav capital ofBelgrade and establish a communist regimewhich will last for nearly a half century.
June 25, 1991Following Tito’s death, internal differencesbegin to surface. Croatia and Slovenia declareindependence, but the Serb-dominatedfederal Yugoslav army overruns 30 percent ofCroatian territory. Later in the year, UNHCR isdeclared the lead humanitarian organization inthe crisis.
March 3, 1992Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaimsindependence, but ethnic Serb forces seize 70 percent of the country and lay siege to thecapital, Sarajevo. UNHCR begins a 3 1/2-yearairlift to feed the city, the longest humanitarianair bridge in history.
1991-95In four years of warfare, several hundredthousand people are killed; the term “ethniccleansing” enters the international vocabulary as aid agencies struggle to feed and protectsome 3.5 million civilians. Bosnia’s physicalinfrastructure, in particular, is virtuallydestroyed.
July 11, 1995Serb forces perpetrate the worst singleatrocity in Europe since World War II when
they overrun the Muslim enclave of Srebrenicaand massacre nearly 8,000 men and boys.The catastrophe hastens the intervention ofU.S. and NATO forces.
August 12, 1995As the tide of war turns decisively against Serbforces, Croatia launches Operation Stormto retake Serb-held territory. Some 250,000ethnic Serbs flee Croatia during the war.
November 21, 1995The Dayton Peace Accords end hostilities inBosnia and Herzegovina. NATO-ledimplementation forces deploy and UNHCR isdesignated as the lead humanitarian agencyto oversee the repatriation, feeding andrehousing of the region’s uprooted peoples.
January 15, 1998Croatia peacefully reintegrates the last of itslands seized by Serb forces in the east of thecountry, assuming full sovereignty for the firsttime over its entire territory.
March 24, 1999As the rest of the former Yugoslav Republicattempts to recover from war, a new crisis hasbeen simmering in its southern Kosovoprovince between the majority ethnicAlbanians and Serbs. When peace talks collapsein France, NATO launches a 78-day air waragainst Serbian forces. Within days the first ofnearly 900,000 ethnic Albanians flee or areforced out of the province into Albania,Macedonia and Montenegro.
June 12, 1999After acceptance of a peace plan, NATO andRussian forces enter Kosovo, closely followedin later weeks by virtually the entire ethnicAlbanian population which had fled onlymonths earlier. It became one of the fastestrefugee exodus and returns in history. However,fearing reprisals from the Albanians some230,000 Kosovo Serbs, Roma and otherminorities flee in the opposite direction, intoSerbia and Montenegro. A U.N. civiladministration, UNMIK, is established to runKosovo.
December 11, 1999Political change begins to sweep the Balkans.Croatian strongman Franjo Tudjman dies and ademocratic system is established. In Octoberthe following year, Slobodan Milosevicconcedes defeat in presidential elections inBelgrade and on June 28,2001, is handed over tothe International Tribunal in The Hague toface war crimes.
February 2001Conflict breaks out in the former YugoslavRepublic of Macedonia (FYROM) and morethan 150,000 people flee, principally toneighboring Kosovo. In August, the country’stwo opposing sides sign a peace agreement andcivilians begin to return to the country.
February 4, 2003The parliamentary endorsement in Belgrade ofthe Constitutional Charter of a new country—the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro—also marks the formal demise of the earlierFederal Republic of Yugoslavia which collapsedduring the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
July 2004Bosnia passes an important milestone in itsrebirth when the one millionth persondisplaced during the war returns home.
January 2005Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia andMontenegro helped by UNHCR, the EuropeanUnion and the Organization for Security andCooperation in Europe (OSCE) agree to resolveall outstanding refugee and internaldisplacement issues by the end of 2006.
September 2005An estimated 2.5 million uprooted personshave returned home in all areas of the Balkanssince the mid-1990s. However, some 620,000civilians are still waiting to go back, themajor problem area being the return of ethnicSerbs and other minorities to Kosovo. UNHCRspent around $500 million on assistance in thedecade-long Dayton process, but after beingthe lead humanitarian agency during both warand peace, has been phasing out its operationsin the region for the last few years.
A brief historyof the BALKANS
this time repatriating the war’s civilian victimswith mines, few jobs and simmering ethnic hatreds.
10 R E F U G E E S
The bridge and surrounding buildings have beenlovingly restored in a multi-million dollar internation-al rescue project. Original stonework was saved fromthe river far below and new pieces mined from the orig-inal quarry. A temporary footbridge which providedaccess between the two divided parts of the town, itselfa symbol of war and division, has been dismantled.
Terraced restaurants with brightly colored parasolsserve local meat specialties such as cevapi (sausage), jag-njetina (lamb), silovane paprike (stuffed peppers) andfiery brandies, as locals and an increasing number oftourists mix easily. Children swim in the Neretva toescape the cloying summer temperatures. Laughterand music waft across the gorge.
Few people these days stop to inspect at one end ofthe bridge a small memorial slab, topped by the tail finof an exploded rocket propelled grenade (rpg) with thesimple inscription in English “Don’t Forget ’93.”
And just several streets away there is an even stark-er reminder of the conflict—rows of ghostly and shrap-nel splattered buildings, too gutted and expensive torebuild and maybe not enough political will among thecountry’s leaders to do so.
Like the contrasts in Mostar itself, optimists andpessimists both have plenty of ammunition to bolstertheir respective views of what has happened in theregion in the last 10 years.
THE GOOD NEWSThroughout the Balkans, around 2.5 million peo-ple returned home in the last few years. As many as650,000 refugees permanently settled overseas anddropped off the monitoring screens of agencies such asunhcr.
In Bosnia, following the signing of the DaytonAccords, more than one million civilians went back,almost half of them to areas where they are now ethnicminorities—the most difficult and sensitive part of theentire repatriation project.
Five billion dollars in aid poured into the country inthe early peace years. Around half of Bosnia’s 500,000destroyed homes were rebuilt or replaced. Some200,000 property disputes were resolved peacefully.
Like the bridge at Mostar, Sarajevo enjoyed a rebirth,flourishing once more with the snappy street life, smartboutiques and restaurants of an earlier era, even thoughthe overgrown shells of some downtown buildings area constant reminder of the more recent past.
The number of international peacekeeping troopsin Bosnia dropped from a high of 69,000 to 7,000 in theabsence of any major security incidents.
The Croatian government in 1998 reintegrated thelast of its lands seized by federal Yugoslav forces in theearly days of the war, bringing to a peaceful conclusionthe conflict between those two countries.
The ‘miracle’ of Dayton– 10 years later
Throughout the Balkans, around 2.5 million peoplePeople have beenreturning to so-called minorityareas all across theBalkans in recentyears.
An ethnic Croatfarmer in Bosnia’sRepublika Srpska.
An extendedBosnian family, halfof them now livingpermanently in theUnited States, attheir rebuilt home inthe former Croatstronghold of Stolacnear Mostar.
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The Zagreb government, accused by many critics ofdragging its feet over ethnic Serb returns, neverthelesssaid it had welcomed back more than 130,000 refugeesin the last decade. Another 240,000 persons internallydisplaced during the war had gone back to their townsand villages.
In Yugoslavia, which later formally changed itsname to the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro,the number of refugees dropped since 1996 by morethan two-thirds to some 150,000 today. More than100,000 civilians returned to Croatia and Bosnia andin a major development in the last few years, 116,000other refugees responded positively to Belgrade’sinvitation to settle there permanently and becomecitizens.
The international community welcomed Belgrade’snew flexibility by approving an early $1.3 billion aidpackage to help that country’s battered economy.
Across the three countries, these major returns didlead to Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks (Muslims) living sideby side again and working together in many areas.
(In the southern Balkans, separate ethnic conflictshad erupted in 1998 in Serbia’s Kosovo province and in2001 in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia(fyrom) after the guns had already fallen silent furthernorth. There were additional massive displacements ofcivilians during those conflicts, but more than one mil-
lion people in that region quickly repatriated. See sepa-rate story page 26).
Authoritarian regimes in Belgrade and Zagrebwere replaced by democratic governments andYugoslavia’s former leader, Slobodan Milosevic wassent to The Hague, where he remains today, answeringwar crimes charges.
have returned home in the last few years.
A young ethnicSerb girl near Kninafter her return fromSerbia.
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In January, the governments of Bosnia, Croatia andSerbia and Montenegro, together with unhcr, theEuropean Union and the Organization for Security andCooperation in Europe (osce) said they would fit thefinal piece to the refugee jigsaw in their respective coun-tries. They signed a Sarajevo Agreement or “3 x 3 Initia-tive” in which they agreed to resolve all outstandingregional displacement problems by the end of 2006.
That would effectively complete unhcr’s steward-
ship of the Dayton Accords’ humanitarian objectivesduring which the agency spent $500 million on protec-tion and assistance projects. It would also bring to aclose an extraordinary era both for the organization andthe region.
Paddy Ashdown, the High Representative of theinternational community in Bosnia, an unabashedrealist-optimist, called The Decade of Dayton nothingless than a “miracle.”
The ‘miracle’ of Dayton– 10 years later
For these threewomen fromCroatia and Bosnia,their only future is inan old folks homenear the Serbiancapital of Belgrade.
13R E F U G E E S
The former British Liberal politician said recently:“The miracle in Bosnia is how much has been done in10 years. [Remember] a sixteenth of the population waskilled, more than in France during World War II andhalf the population made homeless…”
A local aid worker who survived the siege of Sara-jevo was equally emphatic about the results of theAccords: “We would have signed an agreement withthe devil to end the war, all the suffering and all the
deaths. Nothing else mat-tered.”
THE BAD NEWSIn an old folks homeon the outskirts of Bel-grade, three ladies in their70s share a tiny bedroom,each with an iron bedsteadand one side table. Two arefrom the Knin region ofCroatia and the third fromGorazde in Bosnia. Allwere driven from theirhomes by the war and, asethnic Serbs, they soughttemporary safety in Ser-bia. In the interveningyears of exile they succes-sively lost their husbands,relatives, and worldly pos-sessions.
Seventy-eight-year-old Draginja Matijasexpected to return to herfarmhouse after only a fewdays when she fled in pan-ic in 1995 but now “all Ihave in the world is this,”
she explains clutching a black handbag. “This is all,”she repeats in tears. “I’m too old except to die here.” Hertwo companions nod in agreement that that will proba-bly be their fate, too.
There are an estimated 620,000 refugees and inter-nally displaced persons throughout the Balkans stillwaiting to go home but some of them like the threeladies in Belgrade—the forgotten detritus of any war—have nothing to go back to.
There are anestimated620,000 refugeesand internallydisplaced personsthroughout theBalkans stillwaiting to gohome but some ofthem have nothingto go back to.
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THE DAYTON PEACE ACCORDS ended the war inBosnia and Herzegovina. Theywere initialed by the leaders ofBosnia and Herzegovina, Croatiaand the Federal Republic of Yu-goslavia at the Wright-PattersonAir Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, onNovember 21, 1995, and signed inParis on December 14 of that year.
Under the terms of the treaty,the parties agreed to respect eachothers’ sovereignty, maintain acease-fire in Bosnia, withdrawmilitary forces to agreed lines ofseparation, approve a new consti-tution and hold presidential andlegislative elections.
The capital of Sarajevo was reunified, a central governmentwas established, but in one of themost controversial points, twoseparate entities were alsorecognized within the country
reflecting its ethnic reality, the so-called Bosnian Serb Republic(Republika Srpska) and theBosniak-Croat Federation.
At the start of the Balkan wars,the U.N. Secretary-General in 1991had designated UNHCR to be thelead humanitarian agency duringthe developing emergency. UnderDayton, the refugee agency wasagain asked to spearhead effortsto help millions of peopleuprooted by the fighting to returnto their homes.
Though the agreement was specific to Bosnia and Herzegovina,its political, military and humani-tarian impact was widespreadthroughout the entire Balkan region.
The humanitarian challengewas spelled out in Annex 7 of the Dayton Accords and its mainpoints included:
� UNHCR, as the lead agency, was entrusted “with the role of coordinating among all agenciesassisting with the repatriation” anddeveloping “a plan that will allowfor an early, peaceful, orderly andphased return of refugees and displaced persons.”
� “All refugees and displaced persons have the right freely to return to their homes of origin.They shall have the right to haverestored to them property ofwhich they were deprived in thecourse of hostilities since 1991 andto be compensated for any property that cannot be restoredto them.”
� Returnees could go back “with-out risk of harassment, intimida-tion, persecution or discrimination,particularly on account of their
ethnic origin, religious belief or political opinion.”
� All parties agreed to repeal “do-mestic legislation and administra-tive practices with discriminatoryintent”; prevent incitment throughthe media or other channels “ofethnic or religious hostility orhate”; protect ethnic minoritiesand their easy access to humani-tarian organizations; and prose-cute, dismiss or transfer any officialviolating the rights of minorities.
� The parties agreed to create“political, economic and socialconditions” to encourage returnand reintegration and, vitally im-portant, a Commission for Dis-placed Persons and Refugees wasestablished to adjudicate poten-tially hundreds of thousands ofproperty disputes and claims.
14 R E F U G E E S
The ‘miracle’ of Dayton– 10 years later
An ethnic Serb woman who continues to live in exile
Leading the returnhome
15R E F U G E E S
Others remain caught in the crosscurrents ofregional politics. When ethnic Albanians flooded backinto Kosovo in 1999 in the wake of retreating Serb mili-tary and police units, tens of thousands of Serb civiliansand other minorities panicked and went along with thetroops, fearful of potential reprisals by the Albanians.
A small trickle of people has returned in the inter-vening years, but while the international community,Serbia and the Albanians wrangle over the province’sfuture—outright independence for the majority Alba-nians or autonomy within Serbia?—a quarter of a mil-lion civilians remain stranded in legal limbo as dis-placed persons in Serbia proper, unsure and unwillingto gamble their futures by returning to Kosovo.
There are other formidable problems shared acrossall the countries in the Balkans. Foreign aid has beensharply reduced and regional economies face two over-whelming obstacles, trying both to recover from a dev-astating war and to retool obsolete socialist-communisteconomies with more flexible systems.
Unemployment is routinely 30 percent and as highas 80 percent in some regions. Fifty percent of Bosnia’spopulation is on or below the poverty line, 50 percenthas no health care and 18 percent no electricity. Bosnia’sbloated bureaucracy—five presidents, two prime min-isters, 13 education ministers to service the variouspower structures—swallows 60 percent of the country’sgross domestic product.
If the most obvious forms of discrimination havebeen eliminated, there is still widespread ‘silent’ or ‘vel-
vet’ discrimination practiced in trying to obtain jobs,health care or a school place.
Many civilians, particularly returnees, are forced toeke out a living by subsistence farming where a singlecow or a patch of vegetables may be the only source ofsupport. When an international field worker wasrecently asked how these people managed, sheshrugged and replied “They’re all magicians. We don’tunderstand how they even survive week by week.”
Security may have improved immeasurably, butthere are still at least 10,000 known war criminals atlarge from Bosnia alone, among them Radovan Karadz-ic and Ratko Mladic, the alleged architects of the mas-sacre at Srebrenica and other atrocities.
Even when minorities have returned, generallyonly around half their prewar populations have goneback to their original homes. And while these returneesdo live side by side with their former neighbors, and lat-terly their enemy in the recent wars, they rarely livetogether as they once did.
“I went back to see my house in Mostar one time,” awoman who now lives on the outskirts of Belgrade said.“My old neighbor saw me and said ‘What are you doinghere? For me you don’t exist.’ That is why I am nevergoing back again.”
Former High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers warnedunhcr’s Executive Committee in 2004 that all of theloose ends in the Balkans will probably never be neatlytied back together again. “While continuing returns forall those who aspire to it, we should abandon the artifi-
said Dayton “was a catastrophe that had to happen.”
Life is extremelytough for familiesreturning todestroyed villages in central Bosnia.
Navenka Bodiroga,originally fromSarajevo, hasdecided to stay inSerbia.
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16 R E F U G E E S
cial and counterproductive ambition to return allremaining uprooted peoples,” he said.
Some critics blame Dayton for the ills besettingBosnia and its neighbors. One Sarajevo university pro-fessor described it as a “Frankenstein agreement”because it had legally solidified the war’s ethnic cleans-ing policy by dividing the country neatly into two enti-ties—the Serb dominated Republika Srpska and theBosniak-Croat Federation.
Navenka Bodiroga fled Sarajevo at the start of thewar when she was many months pregnant and nowhelps to support her family by sewing small items in herapartment in the town of Sabac near Belgrade. She crieswhen she remembers Sarajevo where she was born. “Iam so very homesick,” she said. But she decided recent-ly to accept Serb citizenship and stay where she is.
“Dayton,” she said, “was a catastrophe that had tohappen.” It may have stopped the killing, but for Serbslike herself it was a long-term disaster leading to per-manent exile.
HOPES AND FEARSA recent journey through Croatia, Bosnia and Ser-bia highlighted all of the region’s post-Dayton contra-dictions—the hopes and concerns for return, the strug-gle for survival, renewed friendships and ongoingwartime animosities and the fears about a still veryuncertain future.
In Croatia’s Krajina region, locals believe the scrubhills and deep valleys surrounding the principal townof Knin were the original birthplace for the series ofwars which ripped the former Yugoslavia apart.
The flight fromKnin in 1995.
The ‘miracle’ of Dayton– 10 years later
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Croats still remember with a shudder one particularmeeting as early as 1989 when priests and other speak-ers at a nearby orthodox church called St. Lazar,whipped an estimated 60,000 crowd into a frenzy ofSerb nationalism. “We knew then war was inevitable,”one farmer said recently.
At the time, the Krajina was the heartland of Croat-ia’s ethnic Serb population which went on to declare itsown Republika Krajina (Krajina means borderland) in1991.
Unsurprisingly, a first mass exodus of civiliansbegan. With Serb soldiers and militias winning theground conflict at the time, some 500,000 Croats andother non-Serbs fled Krajina and other parts of thecountry. As the fortunes of war changed, a resurgentCroatian army in 1995 launched Operation Storm and
in turn forced some 250,000 Serbs into exile as part ofan ongoing and confusing mass movement of differentlocal populations throughout the Balkans.
An estimated 40,000 out of 120,000 ethnic Serbshave since returned to the Knin region, but today theycomprise only 10 percent of the population comparedwith 90 percent prewar. Nationally, Croatia’s Serb pop-ulation fell from 600,000 to less than half that figure.
The reversal in ethnic composition and the modestnumber of returnees to regions where they now live asa minority of the population is part of a similar postwarpattern of change in many towns and villages across theBalkans with still unforeseen future consequences.
And the personal stories of Croats, Bosniaks andSerbs here reflect both the successes and ongoing prob-lems of the region as a whole.
“I began to cry the moment I came back. I amstill crying. I cannot believeeverything.”
—An ethnic Serb who returned to Croatia, a newly rebuilt homeand a new grandson.
Ethnic Serb returnees in Knin in 2005.
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When Sava and Nevenka Stojanovic fled to Serbia in1995 their house was totally destroyed by Croat soldiers.They returned two years later and though they lived inan adjoining stable for three years, abundant assistancewas available at the time to help them rebuild theirancestral village home—help which is no longer aroundin today’s more difficult economic times.
Boris Petko’s home was also destroyed, but it is one ofan estimated 120,000 properties the government hasbeen rebuilding since the war. Though his wife cameback several years ago, Petko, an ethnic Serb fearful ofpossible harassment by the majority Croats, returnedpermanently from exile only recently. He was greetednot only with a new home, but also a grandson born afew hours after his return. The family survives, barely,on the sale of milk from four cows, but Petko is ecstaticand told a visitor: “I began to cry the moment I cameback. I am still crying. I cannot believe everything. It isbeautiful.”
Dusanka Jolic was not so lucky. Since her return, theethnic Serb has lived for five years in a small basementwhile only a few hundred meters away, an ethnic Croatrefugee from Bosnia has continued to occupy her three-storey family home in the village of Kovacic. The Croathad already dismantled part of the house for buildingmaterials and every time Mrs. Jolic demanded the prop-erty back, he threatened to totally destroy it. “I applied toget my house back first in 1998,” she said. “I am still wait-ing.” Croat authorities refused to intervene.
Perisa Mijakovac has neither a job, like the major-ity of workers in Krajina, or a home. Under the pre-
war communist system, he was guaranteed a govern-ment apartment, but tens of thousands of people lostthat privilege during the ensuing chaos. Trying toprovide people like Mijakovac with new, alternativeaccommodation is perhaps the biggest problem fac-ing Zagreb today, though some critics charged thegovernment had persistently undermined the pro-cess. Until the problem is resolved, Mijakovac con-tinues to commute between his mother-in-law’shome in the village of Ridjane and his home in exile,unsure whether to commit his future to Croatia orSerbia.
Robert Konforta faces a different dilemma. As aCroat, he fled in 1991, but returned in 1995 when hisSerbian neighbors boarded their tractors and trailersand headed off into exile. Though he is now a memberof the ethnic Croat majority, Konforta’s particular localmunicipality bizarrely is headed by a non-residentethnic Serb whom Konforta blames for blocking theexpansion of his small vegetable business.
“After the war we dared to say who we were for thefirst time—Croats,” Konforta said. “Now, we feel we arelike minorities again” – a potentially ominous under-current with the memories of war still so raw.
And when the 10th anniversary of Operation Stormwas commemorated recently, it again underscored theambivalence, anger and the wide divide that continuesto separate so many communities.
Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader termed theoperation “a glorious liberation action, a turningpoint in Croatian history,” but at the same time he
The ‘miracle’ of Dayton– 10 years later
“After the war, we dared to say who we were,Croats. Now, we feel we are minorities again.”
—A Croat in the Knin region of that country grumbling about continued Serb domination.
A Croat family which fled Knin in1991 began asuccessful small-scale vegetablebusiness after theirreturn home.
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B Y P A D D Y A S H D O W N
IN JULY, I ATTENDED THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY of the mas-
sacre at Srebrenica. The killings perpetrated there taint the soul
of Europe still. But Srebrenica also inspires hope as well
as fear and sorrow.
Every single man, woman and child who has returned to live
in that town give daily testimony to the fact that, in time, evil
does not triumph. Those returnees are asserting a right that has
never before been achieved in Europe: the right of refugees to
return, not only to Srebrenica but to their homes across Bosnia
and Herzegovina and the entire Balkan region.
In 1945, there were five million displaced people in Europe.
Almost none returned to their pre-World War II homes.
In 1995, at the time of the signing of the Dayton Peace
Accords, there were more than two million refugees and dis-
placed persons from the Bosnian war. Since then, more than
one million people have returned home, a degree of success
that was unthinkable during or immediately after the conflict.
At that time, the main obstacles to return were the trauma
of those who had been evicted and the continuing intimidation
of those who had evicted them. In a climate of lawlessness and
administrative chaos, local institutions—police, municipalities,
social services—were politically indisposed to support return,
or were administratively incapable of creating an environment
conducive to return.
Through a slow process of improvement, including the
removal of obstructionist police and municipal officers, the cli-
mate was systematically altered. Annual return figures
increased from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of
people at the start of the new millennium, though the trend has
again slowed down recently.
We have entered a new phase where the biggest obstacle to
going home is no longer political or administrative, but a lack of
economic opportunity.
Recently, I spoke at the opening of a metal processing facto-
ry in Srebrenica, noting this was an intensely practical event,
something that would put food on the table. I noted, too, that
the foreign investor hadn’t injected capital here for reasons of
altruism, but had made a hardheaded business decision based
on the long-standing tradition of metal working that is charac-
teristic of this part of the country.
The company was investing because of a combination of
skilled labor, competitive wage rates, a stable currency, abun-
dant resources and proximity to markets. I pointed out that
more and more investors are likely to respond positively to this
combination.
J O B S A R E K E Y
MORE INVESTMENT will mean more jobs which, in turn, will
mean higher living standards and this paradigm is at the core of
sustained refugee return in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
We are not engaged in charity; we are engaged in maximizing
economic potential so that it can underpin the return process.
Jobs are the building blocks of prosperity and they are also the
building blocks of the ongoing return.
UNHCR continues to play a vital part in this story. The
agency set the pace of refugee return following the Dayton
agreement and has ensured that the evolution of a modern
democratic society is predicated on the reintegration of com-
munities—not on their permanent division.
The agency has demonstrated an impressive ability to mod-
ify its programs and strategy in constantly changing circum-
stances. From providing physical shelter, it has moved through
stages of removing legal and administrative obstacles to sus-
tainable return, including the establishment of legal aid and in-
formation centers which have already helped several hundred
thousand people.
T H E S T O R Y I S N O T Y E T O V E R
THE PRIORITY is to breathe economic life into returnee com-
munities to make sure that the process is irreversible. Social
breakdown and political mischief have had to be overcome, but
this struggle, too, continues today in many places.
Yet in how many other countries have so many victims of
war been able to reclaim their property on a scale that has been
witnessed in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
By any standards, the return process has been a remarkable
success, but it will not be complete until every single person
who wants to return has had the opportunity to do so.
A Remarkable Success — But More Work to be DoneBosnia’s High Representative assesses 10 years of peace
20 R E F U G E E S
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THE REBIRTH OF A CITYSupermarkets, billboards, new high-rise buildings, trams and a vibrant street life.
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held out a conciliatory hand to ethnic Serbs by insist-ing “We must separate it (the liberation) from theshameful acts that followed against Serbs.”
At the same time, Serbian Prime Minister VojislavKostunica said, “The column of the exiled, from Kninto Belgrade, was the site of a horrible unseen crime, thebiggest ethnic cleansing after World War II. Even tenyears later, there is neither justice nor acknowledge-ment of the truth.”
BOSNIA’S SERB HEARTLANDAcross the border in Bosnia, Serbian forces totally‘cleansed’ the Muslim population from the town ofKozarac and other nearby villages in 1992. They want-ed to create a ‘pure’ heartland for their Republika Srp-ska centered on the nearby city of Banja Luka.
Thousands of local men were incarcerated in infa-mous and murderous wartime concentration camps atOmarska and Keraterm. Others were murdered andtheir bodies dumped into the shafts of nearby mines,from which some are still being recovered. Houses andmosques were systematically destroyed.
When Refugeesvisited Kozarac in 1999, it appearedthat efforts to encourage Bosniaks to return weredoomed to failure because of the blatant resistance oflocal Serb zealots.
“Kozarac looks like a snapshot from the worst bomb-ing excesses of World War II,” the magazine said at thetime. “Virtually everything has been destroyed. Wildvegetation threatens to overwhelm the ruins of thisghost town. Before the conflict, 16,500 relativelywealthy Bosniaks lived there. Five families havereturned.”
Today, the picture is far brighter. Ninety percent ofthe region’s housing has been rebuilt and some 7,000
Bosniaks have returned. If that overall figure is still dis-appointing, the Muslims who have gone back felt confi-dent enough about the future, they have reclaimed thebodies of several hundred of their fellow Bosniaks frommass graves and mine shifts and reburied them in alocal cemetery.
The flow of returnees has dropped again in the pastcouple of years and the enormity of the task to rebuildBosnia may best be judged in a cramped lawyers officein nearby Prijedor, the regional headquarters for agroup called Vasa Prava (Your Rights).
Established as a country-wide network with thehelp of UNHCR, the rights agency has helped at least300,000 persons, for free, to solve problems rangingfrom property repossession to repatriation to Croatia,from divorce to obtaining a work permit.
“I may see 20 to 30 persons a day here,” says lawyerSnjezana Cepic. “And our workload is increasing.Unfortunately, our services will be needed for years tocome.”
unhcr’s recent Representative in Bosnia, Udo Janz,said the establishment of Vasa Prava was one of the bestand most important projects the refugee agency hadundertaken during its Balkan operations. “Vasa Pravahas been indispensable to our efforts to bring hundredsof thousands of people home,” he said. “It has been anoutstanding success.”
THE HORROR. THE HORROR.The religious and ethnic madness that becameSrebrenica begins many miles from that benightedplace. At a village crossroads leading into the Sre-brenica valley, religious zealots built a small orthodoxchurch in the front garden of a Muslim woman’s homein the waning days of the war, apparently as a deliber-
The ‘miracle’ of Dayton– 10 years later
Religious zealots built an orthodox church in front of aThe woman is trying to get the church removed, but
Rebuildingin Republika Srpska.
Lawyers from Vasa Prava helping the needythroughout Bosnia.
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ate provocation. The woman is trying to get thechurch removed; but now she has been accused of fan-ning religious and ethnic hatred.
It was at this same crossroads that Serb forces wouldseparate Bosniak men and women, leading the malesaway for execution in 1995.
Further into the valley, workers recently rushed tofinish a seven-meter high concrete cross to commem-orate the murder of 49 ethnic Serbs by Bosniak mili-tias on January 7, 1993, the Orthodox Christmas day.
“No one remembers the Serb victims,” one workersaid bitterly in obvious reference to services plannedthe following day to mark the mas-sacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim menand boys from Srebrenica, a fewmiles up the road.
And while the destruction ofthe bridge at Mostar became animmediate and convenient rally-ing point to denounce the atroci-ties of war, it was not really untilthis year—a decade later—thateither the Serbian leadership orthe international community atlarge really came to grips with the
enormity of the crime at Srebrenica and publiclybowed their heads in shame for their roles in it.
Tens of thousands of persons, statesmen, diplomats,the President of Serbia and the relatives of victims, con-verged on the memorial site, opposite a disused batteryfactory where the males were sorted from the femalesunder the hapless gaze of a handful of U.N. soldiers andsent to their deaths.
More than six hundred victims were buried duringthe ceremony as the world watched, joining 1,326 oth-ers who had already been interred. Many other bodiesremain unidentified or undiscovered.
Muslim woman’s home, apparently as a provocation. is now accused of fanning religious and ethnic hatred.
In the name of religion:
Reburying theMuslim dead inKozarac.
A disputedorthodox church.
Honoring the Serb dead nearSrebrenica.
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A marble obelisk at the memorial site speaks to thehopes such a massacre will never happen again:
May grievance become hopeMay revenge become justiceMay mothers’ tears become prayersThat SrebrenicaNever happens againTo no one nowhere
Many people are not so sure. Only around 4,000Muslims out of a prewar population of nearly 28,000Bosniaks have returned.
“For months I washed my face in tears,” said 58-year-old Hafiza Hodlic whose husband and two sonswere taken away during the town’s fall and have neverbeen seen again. “I don’t have any more tears left. But Istill hope that one day I will see my husband and sonscome walking back from somewhere.”
Her daughter, Merima Mustafic watched a recent-ly released video which showed Serb forces killing six
captured Srebrenica men, the first visual evidence ofthe atrocity. The family’s menfolk were not in thevideo, but the experience was still too much for Meri-ma who was rushed to hospital for sedation. Weekslater she is still in shock.
“I just want to remember the life we once had here,”her mother said after another abortive visit to thelocal municipal office to try to get help to rebuild herhouse which remains gutted. “I have nothing else tolive for.”
Women and their children at the nearby Jezevaccollective center have been a little luckier than HafizaHodlic. They have been able to recover and identifythe bodies of their ‘disappeared’ menfolk.
“At least we know where their bones are,” one wom-an said. “It’s better this way.”
But could they live comfortably with their Serbneighbors again? “Never. Never. Never,” was aninstant chorus from all of them. “We don’t trust themand they don’t trust us,” one woman said. “How do youthink our young people will act when they know their
The ‘miracle’ of Dayton– 10 years later
Looking ahead, ‘sustainability’
Hafiza Hodlicremembers a massacre.
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fathers were killed by the neighbors?They will always remember.”
SARAJEVO AND SUSTAINABILITYIn Sarajevo, dilapidated tramsonce more rattle along the centralboulevard which, during the siege,became known as Sniper’s Alley andcould only be used by armored cars. Astinking barracks for refugees hasbeen rehabilitated as a sparklinglyclean Coca Cola factory.
At night, thousands of families,tourists and lovers crowd the cobbledwalkways, restaurants and gold shopsin the old Turkish and Austrian sec-tors of the city or attend fashionablephoto exhibits at the world famouscity library whose interior remainsgutted.
Newly built hypermarkets are full,but a small eternal flame at one busywalk-through reminds Sarajevans ofthe city’s darkest moment when ashell smashed into a group of shop-pers in February 1994, killing 68 ofthem and wounding 200 others.
In the surrounding hills, the Jew-ish cemetery, which was part of thewartime front lines, is again quiet.Some repairs have been undertaken,but distressingly, the carnage is notquite over. Some grave sites have beendesecrated by peacetime hooligans.
Sarajevo was once a vibrant multi-ethnic city. Some Serbs have returned to outlyingsuburbs, but many others who owned downtownhouses and shops prefer to remain commuters, livingin Serbia or further afield, but visiting their old homeson occasion.
Indeed, as travel restrictions have eased in most ofthe Balkan region, tens of thousands of people whoremain uprooted, return briefly to see family, friendsand home and maintain a link with their past—a hope-ful sign for the future, too.
Looking into that future, ‘sustainability’ hasbecome the new Balkan buzz word, underlining theneed to strengthen and consolidate the progressalready made in the last 10 years and to resolve out-standing refugee issues in most of the Balkans—Koso-vo is an exception—by the end of 2006.
“A couple of years ago the overriding issue wassecurity, security, security,” unhcr’s Udo Janz said.“Today, it is the economy, stupid.”
Despite the massive rebuilding program across theregion, it remains scarred with the rusting industrial
dinosaurs of the prewar era: the mines, power plantsand brick factories which employed the bulk of theprewar workforce.
A few new industries have opened and agencieslike unhcr have promoted many small-scale self-helpprojects. But the uprooted civilians who have alreadyreturned and those still deciding their future werevirtually unanimous that employment or the lack ofit was now the key to the region’s future success.
Seventy-one-year-old Franjo Majijevic, a Croat,returned to his old home in Republika Srpska in 1998and though there are no security problems for minori-ties he worried that, “When we talk about jobs, thefuture is bleak. The coal mines are closed. The smelt-ing factory has gone. This is a dying community.”
Across the country, 69-year-old Vidak Dujkovic,an ethnic Serb, went back to his village near thetown of Tuzla, but the fields he once farmed are cutoff by minefields, there is no telephone to the out-side world and running water is available only everysecond day.
“Can we survive here?” he asked rhetorically.“Well, there are no jobs and we cannot eat the wallsand roof of our house.”
Marjana Andzic and her family moved ten timesafter fleeing their Bosnian home and recently boughta house in Croatia’s Knin area. Would she like to even-tually go home? “Of course,” she replied immediately.“But there are no jobs for us and there will be no jobsfor our children. We cannot go back.”
If Paddy Ashdown, the High Representative inBosnia, believes that that country has alreadyachieved a “miracle” he is still realistic enough toknow that particularly in the current tough economicclimate which could undermine much good workalready achieved, there is a long way to go.
“We have lost touch with how long it takes” topatch war-ravaged societies together again, he saidrecently. “Healing is always measured in decades.” �
has become the new key Balkan buzz word.
Sarajevo’srestored synagogue,once the front lineduring the siege ofthe city.
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The bewilderment andbitterness are still very rawemotions.“We had much hope and now wehave lost all hope,” says 37-year-
old Dragisa Petkovic. “We thought wewould go back home in two or three days.But now we think maybe we will never goback.”
Danijela Stanojevic shivers. “Justthinking about being back there brings abig fear into me,” the young mother says.But glancing around the one tiny roomshe shares with her husband and twochildren, she insists, “Weneed a lot of courage, nervesand patience to live like this.Sometimes we feel likeanimals.”
A 21-year-old neighbor inthe same collective centerexpresses her longtime angerand frustration: “People comehere all the time. They askquestions. We fill in forms.They promise help. But whatdo we get? We are still heresix years later and we havenothing.” Her plight and thatof her neighbors, she said, “isall the fault of nato. nato isto blame for everything that has happenedto us.”
In early 1999, after a year of mountingcivil unrest, nearly one million ethnicAlbanians fled in panic or were forciblythrown out of Yugoslavia’s (since renamedSerbia and Montenegro) southernmostprovince of Kosovo by troops and police.
The international communityintervened and within three months, in astunning reversal of fortune, nato forcesentered Kosovo, closely followed by themajority of the displaced Albanians.
Serbian forces withdrew from theprovince under the provisions of a peace
plan, but fearful of retaliatory attacks byvengeful returning Albanians, it was theturn of more than 200,000 ethnic Serbsand minorities such as the Roma (see page29) to flee the province.
A United Nations administration(unmik) was established to run Kosovo aselections were staged, administrative andpolitical institutions were set up and therecently displaced civilians urged toreturn home prior to a decision on theprovince’s long-term future.
Thus far, however, Dragisa Petkovicand his family, Danijela Stanojevic and
the great majority of Kosovo’s uprootedcivilians—an estimated 226,000 people—continue to live in a kind of legal limbo inSerbia and Montenegro, unconvincedthey can safely return to an uncertainfuture in Kosovo, but with few currentalternatives to begin life afresh any-where else
“I have been back for a visit,” DanijelaStanojevic says. “But everytime I cross theborder into Kosovo, I lose my legs. I am soafraid.”
GOING HOMESome 13,000 Serbs and other
THE TROUBLED PROVINCE FACESA DIFFICULT FUTURE
KOSOVOA ProgressReport
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minorities have returned, but thepolitical, economic and social landscape isdaunting.
Like much of the Balkan region,Kosovo is mired in economic stagnationand widespread unemployment.
The province’s ethnic mix anddistribution has changed dramatically.
Albanians comprise 90 percent of thepopulation and, with the exception ofMitrovica, the Serbs have largelyabandoned urban centers.
The nascent ‘return home’ projectsuffered a severe setback in March 2004when an estimated 50,000 Albaniansrioted across the province. At least 19
“We thought we would go back homein two or three days. But now wethink maybe we will never go back.”
R E F U G E E S
Mitrovica’s Serb cathedral (above). Danijela Stanojevic contemplates an uncertain future (left). Kosovo’s children of war and their KFOR protectors (below).
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persons were killed, thousands of Serbswere driven from their homes andhundreds of buildings and churches weredestroyed.
The region is still feeling the effects ofthe uprising. Marauders attacked thenorthern village of Svinjare from threedirections. Nearby international kfortroops rescued hundreds of civilians, butthe attackers burned down 135 Serb housesin the ethnically mixed township.
The government quickly rebuilt mostof the main structures, but only aroundone third of the Serbs have returned andthere is an uneasy truce between them andthe Albanians. “Our neighbors helped theattackers loot and destroy our homes,” onefarmer insisted recently after going back tohis property. His family is still too afraid tostay overnight in the house, and should thekfor soldiers leave “life would be very,very difficult for us,” the farmer said.Another insisted, however, “I will neverleave here again, whatever happens.”
In Mitrovica, Greek troops had guardedits orthodox cathedral located in theheavily Albanian southern section of thecity for several years. But during the 2004
rioting, the church was totally gutted. Fouryears earlier Slobodanka Nojic, the wife ofone of the cathedral’s priests had toldRefugees: “I am too afraid to leave thechurch. And if we tried to leave alone, wewould be kidnapped or killed. To be sure,we would never return to this house.”
Her fears were justified. Today, all of thepriests and their families have fled and thechurch is locked and forlorn.
To gauge the pace of reintegration inanother part of Kosovo, after an absence offour years a visitor recently returned to themainly Serb enclave of Slivovo, an area ofeight villages with the picture-postcardbeauty of Switzerland.
While most of the villagers had leftafter 1999, Miro Pavic stayed on his farmgrowing wheat, corn and fruit and tendinghis cattle. He described his existence thenas “life in a gilded cage. We are prisonersamong our vegetables.”
Slivovo was considered one of aroundonly a dozen areas safe enough toencourage minority return at the time andSwedish troops were stationed nearby tobolster security. Pavic insisted theirpresence was “absolutely essential. I
couldn’t think of lifewithout them,” hesaid.
The Swedeshave gone. Therehave been noincidents and Pavicworks in a nearbytown. But only a fewdozen Serbs havereturned and mostremain suspicious ofthe uneasy peace.One 75-year-oldfarmer said: “Life inthe village is quietand I never leavehere. Outside,things are not sogood.”
Major strideshave been madesince 1999 in tryingto stabilize theunruly province,but far more needsto be accomplished.
The u.n. refugeeagency believes, forinstance, thesituation is still toounstable in manyregions to allow it toactively andofficially encouragedisplaced minorities to return.
The respected International CrisisGroup said in one report that governmentinstitutions had to be strengthened“otherwise Kosovo is likely to return toinstability sooner rather than later andagain put at risk all that has been investedin building a European future for thewestern Balkans.”
At the core of any successful outcome isthe need to overcome a seeminglyimpossible dilemma. After years of ethnicharassment by the central government,the majority Albanians have demandedfull independence. Such an outcome wouldprobably preclude the return of many oftoday’s uprooted civilians and possiblyspark a further exodus.
Belgrade favors what one humanitarianofficial described as “something more thanautonomy, but not full independence”—aformula Albanians would likely reject.
Currently, there are two outlooks forthe future, the official said: “A bad scenarioand a worse scenario.” �
Some 13,000 Serbs and otherminorities have returned to Kosovo,but the political, economic andsocial landscape is daunting.
What does the future hold for theseyoung ethnicSerb returnees?
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Hell could look like this. A seriesof squalid huts have beenpatched crazily together frompieces of wood, cardboard,plastic sheeting, tin and cinder
block. Rusting containers serve as toilets.Children splash through fetid puddles of
town of Mitrovica has leeched into thesurrounding soil and water, creating whatinternational health officials describe asan environmental disaster for some 500Roma living in nearby makeshift camps.
The Romany community and theclosely related Ashkalijas and Egyptians
R E F U G E E S
“Why aren’t they helping us? Why aren’t they saving our kids?”
UNCERTAIN TIMES FOR KOSOVO’S MINORITY ROMA
sludge in the shadow of an abandonedbrick factory and a toxic slag heap of lead.Dust clouds coat everything—faces, teeth,clothing, food and furniture—with a deepgrey-black grime.
For years, contamination from adisused lead mine in the northern Kosovo
The province’s minority Romany population just waits.
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have been part of the fabric of the Balkansfor centuries, but during the 1999 Kosovoupheaval, thousands were forced to fleethe province alongside more than200,000 ethnic Serbs with whom theywere accused of collaborating (see storypage 26).
Many escaped into Serbia proper andsurrounding countries, but others weregiven shelter in what was expected to betemporary accommodation for a fewweeks. Six years later, the majority ofthem are still displaced and for theMitrovica Roma it has turned literally into a deadly waiting game.
When the World Health Organization(who) tested Roma children in 2004 forlead poisoning, the readings were so highthe equipment was unable to accuratelymeasure them. Some children may havealready died with others possiblysuffering from memory loss, vomitingand convulsions. Health expertsdescribed the situation as “shameful” and
“disgraceful” and the Roma themselveswere fearful and confused.
“When I look at my child I feel likedying,” one mother told newsmen at theZitkovac camp recently. “The dust iskilling her, she can hardly walk.” HabibHajdini, the camp’s spokesman wonderedaloud: “How can we believe these studies?If the results are true, why aren’t theyhelping us? Why aren’t they saving ourkids?”
URGENT RELOCATIONunhcr, among other agencies, hasbeen urging for at least a year that thisgroup of Roma be relocated immediately.But through inertia, indifference,changing political priorities and intriguenothing happened.
The Roma themselves were alsoreluctant to move to anywhere other thantheir original homes and for the majoritythat means a short trip of just a fewkilometers to a section of Mitrovica called
Roma Mahalla, until 1999 oneof the largest and mostprosperous Romanysettlements in the Balkans.
However, during ‘thetroubles’ all 6,000 Mahallaresidents fled and vengefulethnic Albanians who hadabandoned their own homesjust a few months earlier,firebombed and destroyedthe entire enclave.
Apart from the occasionalscavanger, Roma Mahallaremains empty, though thereare renewed plans to beginrebuilding. Optimistically,
reconstruction could begin withinmonths, but realistically it may take muchlonger than that to begin rehousing theminorities in their old neighborhood.
While the Mitrovica Roma wait, a fewothers have returned to their prewarhomes across Kosovo. The AmericanRefugee Committee (arc) in late 2004finished the first phase of a project inGnjilane township to rehabilitate theRoma neighborhood of Abdullah Preshevaand some 114 people from a prewarpopulation of 2,500 went back.
In the village of Radivojce, oneextended family of 16 people ranging in agefrom 1 1/2 years-old to 74 returned in April.
R E F U G E E S
Going home to Gnjilane.
Roma Mahalla remains destroyed and deserted.
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“We have been welcomed backvery warmly here. No problem.”
They are still living in a flimsy hut of woodand plastic sheeting provided by unhcrwhile a new three-storey home is builtnearby.
All of the family’s neighbors are ethnicAlbanians, but the patriarch is optimisticand expects his work as a blacksmith tothrive in this rural community.
“We have been welcomed back verywarmly here. No problem,” he said as hisentire family clustered around recently.“We didn’t do anything wrong, so whyshouldn’t we come back. I’m clean and it’sour home.”
That is a sentiment all of Kosovo’sRoma would like to share. �
Displaced children kill time as best they can.
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Sarajevo’s eternal flame to the war dead.