UNMIK on air

October 17 2003

A sustainable Return is a successful Return

(By Valon A. Syla)

Hello and welcome to UNMIK on air with Sputnik Kilambi and Martin Redi

The right of internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees to return to their homes in Kosovo is indisputable, and has become a top priority of UNMIK. The record of the international community on the returns process has been mixed. Out of more than 200 000 displaced individuals, only around 8768 have returned during the last four years after the war. Kosovo still presents a very challenging environment for return says Karen McKenney from the American Refugee Committee (ARC).

Karen McKenney: Return is a right of every individual who left Kosovo during the conflict, which must be based on the voluntary choice of each individual, they must have accurate and current information, on which he or she can base that choice.”

The ARC is amongst several organizations involved in implementing the returns process. Podgorce is a village inhabited 60 percent by Albanians and 40 percent by Serbs. Most of the damaged houses have been rebuilt and returnees from both communities are now installed in their new homes, living together for the most part as before, like good neighbors. A striking feature is that not a single KFOR peacekeeper or policeman can be seen patrolling the village. An indication of how much things have changed, since this would have been unimaginable even a year ago. It is also further proof of the progress that can be made if there is no political manipulation.

The model of returns in Podgorce follows a bottoms-up approach with emphasis on maximum consensus amongst the people concerned. Stephan Maurer a Program Manager with ARC.

Stephan Maurer: we want to achieve the opposite of the enclave, what we want to achieve is that Podgorce should become a village as it was before the war, that was peaceful coexistence, so our job is to bring that back, not to do this with KFOR presence and police presence, we have to find a way that people here in Podgorce get along among themselves, that’s why we spent all this energy on the social side of the project.

ARC has been active in Podgorce for the last year and a half - preparing the ground, gathering information, and most importantly, listening to the villagers to gauge how they felt about returns. In the beginning the villagers were not very positively inclined but that changed gradually and they became more cooperative. Many lessons were learned from the past says Maurer - only a sustainable return is a successful return, he insists

Stephan Maurer: The most important thing is that you cannot only focus on building the houses, roof towers and bricks, return is about human beings. So we have to start with them from the beginning, to be with them when the return happens, and we have to continue when return has finished, we have to be here and help them to find the way through this new society in Kosovo.

On the 13 of June 1999 KFOR peacekeeping troops entered the village of Podgorce. Serb villagers were ill informed about the situation - frightened that the destruction wreaked by paramilitary forces would be blamed on them, they fled to Serbia. Vladan Dunecvic fled like hundreds of others – he found shelter with his sister in Smederevo. The ARC managed to track him down and convince him to return to his home-village.

Vlada Duncevic: Stephan was there, and he told me, if we bring you back home, would you like to live there again. I said, yes, if it is possible, and if somebody offers us help, I would be very glad to return and live there as we did in the past, with the Albanian neighbors without any problems. I lived here (Podgorce) all my life and I never had any problems with the villagers, but the war made us leave.”

Like most IDPs, Duncevic did not have the means to rebuild his house, at least without some help from outside, in his case from the ARC. His old 70 square metre house had been burned to the ground after he left the village. Four years on, Duncevic is satisfied with his new house and lives next to his old Albanian neighbor.

Vlada Duncevic: I’m not afraid at all, I feel very safe in my village, the neighbors are my friends, I did not do anything to be afraid. But I can be afraid if somebody outside our village wants to make problems. Before in our village we lived together, and we used to borrow each other’s tools to work the land and so on. I hope that in the future we will do the same. But how the conflict came I don’t know, to me only one thing is clear, that at the end, we the villagers always suffer.

Barely 30 meters away, a similar story, but this time from an Albanian forced out of his house four years ago. Basri Haziri, a village schoolteacher was forced to leave by Serbian paramilitary forces who burned his house in April 1999. Many in the village were robbed of their belongings and most fled to Macedonia until the conflict ended.

Basri Haziri: When I got back to the village, all my property was destroyed and ruined, so I had no option but to go to Vitina and settle in an abandoned Serb apartment. Since my family needed shelter, KFOR told us that we could stay there until we finished building our house. We lived there for three and a half years until they (ARC) created the conditions for us to return.

To date, the American Refugee Committee has assisted about 1250 displaced persons of all ethnicities in Kosovo. It is still unclear how many IDPs will return, but it seems highly unlikely that large numbers of displaced will come back in the near future. But the Podgorce model could well encourage more to, at the very least, come and see how things have changed before making the final decision.

This was all for today from UNMIK on air. Thank you for listening.