UNMIK on AIR

June 5^th

IDP’s

(Andrea Saula)

Hello and welcome to UNMIK on AIR with Sputnik Kilambi.

All recent wars in the Balkans left as an inheritance thousands and thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons. The process of bringing them back home is hard, long and painful one. For the refugees and IDP’s it’s rather difficult to understand all the not that easy problems that have to be solved and to wait. They just want to go back home.

IDP: I’m living in hard conditions. I can barely survive. I live in Mrcajevci with my family, without any salary, without anything, in one room at my brother’s place. Yes, I would come back at once, I would walk from Belgrade to my Klina in Kosovo.

Said this Kosovo Serb from Klina, although his house has been burned and despite the fact that he has no place to go. Couple of days ago, he was the one of the protestors in Belgrade demanding an answer on when Serbs would repatriate to Kosovo.

Representatives of several associations of Kosovo Serbs IDP’s have submitted requests to the Belgrade embassies of western countries and Russia.

IDP: Nobody takes care of us. For four years they haven’t been able to take me to see my house. They say that they can take me, but that I shouldn’t get out from the car.

Said one of the protestors in front of the US embassy in Belgrade. Minority return is marked as one of the most important benchmarks that have to be fulfilled. In May 2002 UNMIK formulated its return police with the concept paper “Right on sustainable return”. UNMIK, since the very beginning, has been working hard on returnee question, especially, as Sunil Narula UNMIK press office chief is emphasizing, on accelerating the whole program of returns.

Sunil Narula: It’s never easy in such situation to give a date. We totally understand the frustration of the people who have been displaced and who have been living in either Serbia or else where. We want returns to be sustainable returns and to be volunteer returns and we are doing everything we can, along with international community and the Government in Kosovo to accelerate this program. People returned in April. There were more returns in month of May and returns season has just begun.

Rapid Response Returns Facility is just a confirmation of that fact. Director of UNMIK Office of Returns and Communities Peggy Hicks explains that this joint initiative of UNMIK and UNDP, developed in cooperation with UNHCR, will help hundreds of displaced families return to their homes, by providing urgent assistance to individual and small-scale returns.

Peggy Hicks: This facility will be crucial because it will support such returns and it will send a positive message back to displaced communities that the right to return will be supported and there are efforts on the way to assist them in exercising that right.

RRRF, which initial funding has been established by the help of Norwegian Government, US and UNDP, has been designed to provide housing assistance and socio-economic support such as materials for small-scale agricultural projects or livestock for individuals and small groups returning to areas of Kosovo where they are a minority. According to Peggy Hicks, conditions in Kosovo are improved and, besides organized returns projects, all types of returns have to be addressed.

Nenad Radosavljevic, senior advisor to SRSG on returnee questions finds that the discontent of displaced people is absolutely justified by the results of implementation of the return during the last four years, but he stresses that the principles for the return were adopted and all western countries are obliged to follow those rules. Therefore, some efforts made by certain western governments to promote the return through the provisional Kosovo government are not acceptable, Radosavljevic thinks.

Nenad Radosavljevic: There exists all preconditions, absolutely all preconditions, for return, That is - the schedule and the principles, and it must be implemented now. There exist practical problems. That is the truth; first of all there exists a complex structure and hierarchy in the sector, which is due to implement the process of return.

But in recent time, Radosavljevic said, there exists also something that is very clear expressed – that is a resistance by the K-Albanians who occupied the IDP’s property. But in the same time that resistance is visible also inside the K-Albanians political circles, because the leaders are afraid not to loose the support, said Radosavljevic.

The Council for Defense of Human Rights and Liberties supports the Serb IDP’s who were protesting, since they believe, that it is a right of every human being to live in the place where they have been borne. But the problem that has been created around the returns has been taken in a direction opposite to where it should have gone, Behxet Shala the chairman of this Council thinks.

Behxet Shala: Another matter is the fact that the process of Serb returns is not treated as a humanitarian issue, as a right that is guaranteed by all international human rights conventions, but it is more treated as a political issue. So the process of Serb returns has reached a stage of high politicizing. This is something that is an obstacle for the process of returns.

Another issue, adds Shala, is the fact that Serb IDP-s do not wish to return to Kosovo as it is, but to a Kosovo they new. Shala says that IDP’s do not have trust in Kosovar institutions and they are sending their hopes to an address that doesn’t exist in Kosovo any more.

Main responsibility, Shala is emphasizing, lies with the people since it is them who will be deciding who will be their neighbor. And Albanians have been through the same pains that the Serbs are experiencing.

Behxet Shala: The responsibility, objective and moral, is with the Albanians. Albanians are the majority here and it is their duty not to stop Serbs from returning to their homes since Albanians have also been “In their skin” – once upon a time they were also forced to leave their homes and they know what it’s like to be without a house, a flat to be nowhere

With this message of Bexhet Shala we are ending this issue of UNMIK on AIR program. Thanks for listening.

Kosovska Mitrovica -- Premijer Kosova Bajram Redžepi izjavio je u ponedeljak u Kosovskoj Mitrovici da je integracija pripadnika manjinskih zajednica u kosovsko društvo težak proces, isto kao i proces povratka raseljenih lica u tu pokrajinu. Redžepi je na prvom skupu posvećenom ljudskim pravima Aškalija, Roma i Egipćana, koji je u ponedeljak održan u Kosovskoj Mitrovici, rekao da proces integracije može ostvariti vidan napredak, ali ne i čuda.
Najveće iskušenje, prema njegovim rečima, jeste integracija Srba i Roma u kosovsko društvo. Redžepi je kazao da treba činiti maksimalne napore da se povratak organizuje sa obe strane podeljenog grada Kosovske Mitrovice, te da bi to bio dobar primer i za druge delove Kosova u koje raseljeni treba da se vrate. Jedan od gorućih problema je, kako je upozorio, nezaposlenost gotovo 60 odsto radno sposobnog stanovništva, što ne motiviše povratnike da dođu u Kosovsku Mitrovicu, niti u bilo koje mesto na Kosovu. "Sigurno da je proces povratka težak, to se videlo i na primerima Hrvatske i Bosne i Hercegovine, gde taj proces nije okončan ni nakon više godina", kazao je kosovski premijer.

In May 2002 UNMIK formulated it’s return police with the concept paper “Right on sustainable return”

For returns to occur, improvements are most important in security and minority rights, along with the legal guarantees for their implementation.

UNSCR’s 1244 tasks international security presence to provide a securer environment in which refugees and displaced persons can return home in safety, the international civil presence can operate, transitional administration can be established, until the international civilian presence can take responsibility to ensure public safety and order. UNMIK is not only responsible for assuring the safe and unimpeded return of all the refugees and displaced to their home in Kosovo, but also in more general terms, to maintain civil law and order and to establish a local police.

Both KFOR and UNMIK therefore have key responsibilities and decisive roles to play in the context of protection the minorities in Kosovo and unimpeded return of refugees and IDP’s.

According to Constitutional framework, return is equally responsibility of PISG

Opposition towards return of Serbs is particularly widespread and deep-seated and is expressed in a variety of ways, ranging from demonstrations, and outright hostility towards attempts to re-established inter-ethnic relations.

Spontaneous individual returns, that represent major overall return, may require more accelerated response.

Wider context within which returns can take place:

- returns environment