No subject

[owner-kan-l at alb-net.com]

[216.192.108.53])
	by hil-img-ims-5.compuserve.com (8.8.6/8.8.6/IMS-1.7) with SMTP id SAA26844
	for <kan-l at alb-net.com>; Tue, 20 Apr 1999 18:11:38 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19990420180612.0076d9c4 at mailbox.syr.edu>
X-Sender: tmcrawfo at mailbox.syr.edu
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.3 (32)
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 18:06:12 -0400
To: kan-l at alb-net.com
From: Teresa Crawford <tmcrawfo at mailbox.syr.edu>
Subject: [kan-l] More reports from Macedonia
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Sender: owner-kan-l at alb-net.com
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: kan-l at alb-net.com

**** Kosova Action Network Discussion List ****


Here is another report from Macedonia.  Will help to make any letters you
write better informed about work people are doing and what is needed from a
humanitarian perspective.  If anyone has any reports such as this for
Albania please post them to the list.

Teresa


(Re-posted from BosNet)
From: Steve Albert <albert at total.net>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 07:02:20 -0400

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


FOB Director Reports on Trip to Macedonia

Dear Friends:

Following is a report of a trip that I took to the Kosovo-Macedonia
border from April 1-8.

You can view photos of this trip on the Friends of Bosnia web site at
www.crocker.com/~fob or
www.crocker.com/~fob/macindx.htm

My purpose to going to Macedonia was three-fold. I went there on a fact
finding mission and to see if Friends of Bosnia could play a role in
helping with the refugee crisis. I also was interested in documenting the
crisis with photographs and recorded interviews. Lastly, I was interested
in providing limited humanitarian assistance in the form of food and
medicines.

I spoke with numerous refugees, both in English and in Albanian through my
translator Enver, and the stories were all very similar. Everyone spoke of
armed men in black ski masks entering their towns and villages and giving
people five to ten minutes to leave. The alternative was death. Many
people I spoke to told of seeing people killed, especially the elderly,
for refusing the leave. Most people also saw corpses on their way out of
Pristina and other towns and villages.

Skopje

When I first arrived in Macedonia, I spent a day in the capital city
Skopje. The city was overrun with journalists and hotel accommodations
were impossible to find. The first afternoon I walked into an anti-NATO
and anti-US rally downtown. This was similar to the concerts in Belgrade
with rock musicians and people wearing paper targets on their jackets. As
you can imagine, it was an extremely uncomfortable environment, but I did
stay for a little while to take some photographs. I also spoke with
journalists from other European countries and found very strong
anti-American sentiments for the bombing. On the other hand, journalists
from Holland said their country was supportive, and I assume that this is
in response to their failure at Srebrenica, which has deeply affected the
Dutch population.

Blace

The next morning I left Skopje at 5:00 a.m. for the border at Blace. I
went with a Russian photographer working for a French photo agency who
wanted to get to the border and back in time to have his film processed
and wired to his editors before noon. Unfortunately he forgot that
Macedonia just went on daylight savings time, and we spent an hour in the
dark at Blace before we could photograph anything.

Blace is the infamous "no man's land," heavily reported in all the
international media. Upon my arrival on Friday morning, April 2, the
refugee flow was still on the rise and almost nothing was in place yet. I
observed a huge sea of people standing in a dark, misty and muddy field,
being held back by armed Macedonian police and military guards. Some
refugees were filtering through to either get medicine or water at a
makeshift medical area set up by the International Medical Corps (IMC).
Others were leaving "no man's land" for either buses to take them to who
knows where (they didn't), or just walking on foot into Macedonia.

Most of these refugees were recently driven out of Pristina a day or two
before. They either drove to the border or were forced onto trains. In
either case, the trip was harrowing.  They had no food or water during the
trip. All along the way, Serb guards demanded money and jewelry and
continued to harass them.  They could not buy anything in the few shops
along the way that were open. Upon reaching the border, their documents
were destroyed, and they had to abandon their vehicles. Some were forced
to bribe Macedonian police to cross the border. The ones who came by train
were let out on the Kosovo side of the border and walked along the tracks
into no man's land because they feared landmines on either side of the
tracks.

Tetova

That afternoon I left Skopje for Tetova, the center of the Albanian
population in Macedonia, and checked into the Hotel Macedonia. The next
morning, I was fortunate to meet up with a young Kosovo Albanian, Enver
Vrajolli, who became my translator for the remainder of the trip. He just
came across the border two days before from Pristina with his parents and
his girlfriend, Afradita. His story was just like the others. Armed
paramilitaries came to his house and gave them ten minutes to leave. They
also demanded money from him. When he said he didn't have any, they
pointed a gun at him and said they would kill him if he didn't produce
any. He did manage to give them 200 German marks, leaving him and his
family with 20 marks and the clothes on their backs upon entering
Macedonia by train. His father was a partisan in World War II and spent
the post-war years building a house and raising a family. Now they have
nothing. They don't know if or when they will be able to return.

West Kosovo

Enver educated me about-or told me his view of-the Albanian situation in
the region. Macedonia is officially 23% Albanian, the remainder being
primarily Macedonian, but with a sizable Serb and Roma community as well.
The Albanian community on the other hand estimates that the country is
really 50% Albanian. Like Kosovo, they feel oppressed by the Macedonians,
and do not have access to government institutions. They are vastly
under-represented in all aspects of the official economy, and have very
little representation at the ministerial level in government. Neither is
their university in Tetova recognized by the government.

Western Macedonia, closest to the Kosovo border, is 95% Albanian. The
Albanians refer to the region as West Kosovo. This makes no sense because
it is on the eastern edge of Kosovo. Someone later explained to me that it
is called West Kosovo because there is actually a region in northeast
Macedonia that is called East Kosovo.

Many Albanians I spoke with said they must fight for their freedom and can
imagine taking up arms against Macedonia. It is unclear from my
discussions if greater autonomy would satisfy their need for freedom,
although they did say they do not need land, just control of their
destiny. Understandably, the Macedonians are extremely nervous about this
new influx of Albanians that will skew the demographics in favor of the
Albanian population.

Enver and other Albanians repeatedly said that the Serbs and Macedonians
are of the "same kitchen." I am not so sure that I agree, but the
important matter is that they think so. They also are very suspicious of
Slavs in general, although they are somewhat sympathetic to Bosnians.
When I mentioned that Bosnians are Slavs, they didn't have an answer.

Albanians comprise the oldest nation in the Balkans and they have a
distinct language from the rest of the countries of the former Yugoslavia.
Most of the younger Kosovo Albanians also speak Serbian, but not all. The
Macedonian language is similar to Serbian-also written in Cyrillic-but
there are differences in the way Croatian and Bosnian are now distinct
languages.

Visiting refugees

I spent the afternoon on Sunday talking with refugees from Kosovo who had
settled in Tetova. They were not difficult to find. My translator
literally just stopped someone on the street and asked if they knew where
we could find some refugees to talk with. In the house in front of us were
three families from Pristina living on one floor. These were
professionals-doctors, economists, engineers-who like everyone else in
Pristina were forced to leave. And like everyone else, they were missing
family members and not knowing what would happen to them next. I loaned
one family my cell phone so that they could call their relatives in
Switzerland whom they had not talked to since there exodus from Pristina.

Enver and I later went to the El Hilal office in Tetova. We noticed this
organization at all locations where there were aid groups and they
appeared very effective in working with the refugees. Their office was
mobbed with refugees looking for assistance and they were extremely busy
working out logistics and helping refugees find lost relatives and find
places to live in Tetova. Friends of Bosnia will be sending donations for
Kosovo relief to El Hilal so that they can continue their work in helping
refugees.

Delivering Aid in Blace

On Tuesday, April 6, I joined forces with some local concerned Albanians
and went out to the markets in Tetova to purchase direct aid for refugees.
With resources that I had at hand just in case this opportunity arose, I
spent $800 on the following items:

50 liters of juice
100 bottles of water (1.5 liters)
80 loaves of bread
150 liters of milk
30 packages of cheese
100 packages of crackers
Miscellaneous medical supplies

Members of the local Macedonian Red Cross joined us with a van filled of
water, and by mid-afternoon we drove back up to Blace. I spent the rest of
the afternoon bringing arms full of food down into the no man's
land-alternately taking pictures and ripping open six packs of water and
juice. I also helped to bring four elderly people and one invalid on a
stretcher out of no man's land to the medical tent set up by the IMC.

Delivering Aid in Jazince

The next day I met two Germans who had come down to Macedonia to help out
with the refugee crisis and to bear witness. We again went to stores in
Tetova to purchase food and medical supplies. We rented a taxi for the day
and drove to the border at Jazince where there were about 7,000 Kosovo
Albanians at the border but prevented from coming in by the Serb police.
On the Macedonian side of the border were approximately 15 aid workers,
10-15 journalists, and 50 refugees who were waiting for family members to
cross.

Upon our arrival, nothing was happening other than both sides watching the
stand off. My German companions and I went up to the border where we
negotiated with the Macedonian police to allow us to bring food to the
other side. For a brief period of 20 minutes, we grabbed all the food that
we brought, as well as food stockpiled by the Macedonian Red Cross and
brought it to the border where it was delivered to the waiting refugees.
Finally the Macedonian police forced us to stop.

We then attempted a similar effort to bring sick people from the Kosovo
side across the border to waiting medical personnel. We were unsuccessful
in this effort. An hour later we watched as the refugees in Kosovo started
to turn away from the border and head back into Kosovo. We soon realized
that the Serb military were forcing them back into Kosovo for unknown
reasons. Perhaps they were to be used as human shields, or worse.
Standing next to me was a young Albanian woman with tears streaming down
her face as she watched members of her family who were moments before
within view, head back into Kosovo.

Vratnica

When we realized that there was nothing else that could be done, we loaded
up our taxi with the food that was stockpiled by the Red Cross and drove
back towards Tetova where we noticed earlier a group of refugees waiting
in a small town Vratnica. They were from a village in Kosovo, and like all
other refugees were forced out at gun point. They had walked over steep
mountains in two feet of snow and just wandered across the unmanned border
into Macedonia.

My German companions drove back to Tetova to purchase another taxi load of
food to distribute to this group. About an hour later three buses came and
the group were brought to the nearby refugee camp set up by NATO.

NATO refugee camp

This was erected by German and Dutch NATO forces to house 3000 refugees.
When I arrived there were only 900 refugees, but within a few days the
camps was filled. It was quite an impressive facility with tents with
wooden floors, windows, heaters and electric lights. There were also
washing facilities, a fully equipped field hospital and a mess tent to
feed the residents.

Enver and I went into a few tents while he was looking for family members
from Pristina who were unaccounted for. The refugees now were living the
slow, sad life away from their homes, with no apparent future. They didn't
have access to news and didn't know what was happening in Kosovo,
Belgrade, or to the hundreds of thousands of other refugees coming across
the border into Macedonia and Albania. They all wanted to know when they
could go home.

I met one woman with a five week old baby swaddled in white cloth. The
infant had been driven out like everyone else, and now was laying
peacefully on a green army-issue blanket in the tent.

An appeal for contributions for refugee relief

Friends of Bosnia is accepting cash donations to send to El Hilal in
Tetova to further their support for refugees. Checks can be made out to
Friends of Bosnia/Kosovo Relief Fund and sent to the address below. FOB is
a non-profit, tax-deductible organization.

Glenn Ruga
Director

________________________________________
Friends of Bosnia
47 East Street
Hadley, MA 01035
Tel: 413-586-6450
Fax: 413-586-2415
fob at crocker.com
www.crocker.com/~fob
________________________________________





contact information:
teresa at advocacynet.org
(315) 471-7790 voice mail
Syracuse, NY 13210

www.advocacynet.org






------------------------------------
Submitted by: Teresa Crawford <tmcrawfo at mailbox.syr.edu>