UNMIK ON AIR

TRYING TO GET OUT

Tuesday 18 February 2003

(Hysni Recica)

 

CUT 1: ATMOS: 4 A baby crying

 

VOX-POP  (the baby crying in the background)

Hysni: Lady, how long have you been waiting here?

Since 6 o’clock in the morning.

What are you waiting for?

To get a visa to go to my husband.

 

INTRODUCTION: Hello and welcome to UNMIK on air!

 

Fahrie Hasani has come from Ferizaj with her baby in the hope of getting a visa to travel to Germany where her husband is working. It’s freezing cold on Monday morning, the 17th of February, the first day the German Office in Pristina is issuing visas. It seems as though thousands of people from all across Kosovo, like Fahrie, have come. They flood the street in front of the office, and block the road…. Almost like another column of refugees leaving Kosovo.

 

And it’s not just Germany. It seems these people are willing to go almost anywhere, to look for a better life. Poverty and unemployment seem to be the driving force behind these desperate people.  More than half of the Kosovo population lives in poverty, different surveys show, and around 50 % are not employed.

 

But if you want to go somewhere outside Kosovo, and a huge number of people would unfortunately do everything to be able to, you need a passport or a UN travel document. But they’re useless for most countries without visas. And until recently, Kosovars had to go to Skopje, Belgrade or Tirana to get them… not always an easy trip.

 

The Swiss office was the first to break the ice and start issuing visas in Kosovo, followed by Italy, and now Germany.  Peter Rondorf is the head of the German office in Pristina.  He stresses that while being able to apply for visas in Pristina certainly makes life easier for Kosovars, it doesn’t increase their chance of actually getting accepted.

 

CUT 2: The most important thing is that there has to be an invitation from the Federal Republic of Germany. The inviting person obliges himself to pay for all costs and also takes the responsibility for a possible misbehaviour. Then there is absolutely necessary a health insurance and the proof of sufficient money.

 

 

LINK: Meanwhile, in the crowds outside the office, there’s still some confusion. Heda Elfeti, from Ferizaj wants to visit her son in Germany… but she’s been getting the runaround.

 

CUT 3: I arranged everything in Skopje to get a visa, and I was sent to get it here. I was in Skopje, I just got back from there, they told me to come and get it here, and these are telling me to go to Skopje again.

 

MUSIC

                  

LINK: Maybe because of anger, maybe because of cold, Mrs Elfeti was tightly clutching her UNMIK Travel Document. The UN issues travel documents because many people’s passports were confiscated, lost or destroyed during the conflict. The travel document is not a passport – because Kosovo isn’t a state – but, with the right visa, it allows Kosovans to travel to many countries.

 

Since December 2000, 368.000 Travel Documents, including 40.000 for children have been issued and distributed so far. And Leonid Bidny, director of Directorate for Administrative Issues, says more and more countries are recognizing the travel document. 

 

CUT 4: We are from time to time reminding other countries that this is an opportunity for them to consider the recognition of the Travel Document of UNMIK… The latest example is that a couple of days ago, one of UNMIK’s officials was in Mexico, and they raised this matter, and Mexico got interested and asked us about the procedures of the issuance of documents, the specimen of documents,…and we hope it will lead to the recognition by this country of the travel documents. 

 

LINK: More countries are accepting the document and more foreign offices are making it possible for people to apply here for a visa. So how come   40.000 Travel Documents are waiting to be picked up in different municipalities across Kosovo?  Bidny urges people to come and collect their travel documents… though he thinks that most of those who haven’t are probably already abroad.

 

CUT 5: It is possible that people come here and leave Kosovo on the basis of other documents that they may have, passports of other countries, they may have Yugoslav passports. Whether the pile up of the documents can be explained by the inability to get a visa, I doubt, because if you want a visa to be put in your Travel Document, of course you have to pick up the travel document and then present it to the authorities of other countries, consular of countries. 

 

CUT 6: Crowd noise.

 

BACK/ANNO: Meanwhile people are willing to lining up in the snow for hours outside foreign offices in Pristina, desperate for a visa to leave.