Macedonian Media Monitor, April 27, 1999
Slavko Mangovski
By Paul Goble, RFE
Even as NATO continues its air strikes against
Yugoslavia, ever more Western leaders are beginning to focus
on what the Western alliance should do in the Balkans after
the bombing has stopped.
Such discussions are likely to intensify now that the
alliance has issued a communique that suggests its member
states are at least as interested in a diplomatic resolution
of the conflict as in continuing to use military power to
achieve their original aims.
So far, most of the discussions have centered on some
kind of Marshall Plan for the Balkans. Such a program, named
for and modeled on U.S. assistance to Western Europe after
World War II, would apparently involve massive, multilateral
aid from NATO countries to the war-ravaged states of the
former Yugoslavia.
By invoking the name of the largest and most successful
foreign assistance program in history, officials in NATO
countries clearly hope not only to put additional pressure on
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to reach a settlement
but also to redirect the efforts of the Western alliance in a
non-military direction.
But there are at least three reasons why a new "Marshal
Plan for the Balkans" will have to be very different from its
model if it is to help bring peace and stability to that
turbulent region.
First, the original Marshal Plan was funded and directed
by one country, the U.S. A new such plan for the Balkans
would be funded and directed by a group of states and thus
subject to the kinds of decision by committee that appear to
govern much of NATO's activities. That would almost certainly
guarantee that any program announced would suffer from
inevitable differences of opinion within the alliance and
might even make it impossible for any program announced ever
to be realized.
Second, the original Marshall Plan took shape to counter
a single, overriding threat to Western Europe. While the U.S.
had hoped to extend assistance to all Europe, Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin's veto dashing that hope probably had the
unintended consequence of making the Marshall Plan more
successful than it would otherwise have been.
On the one hand, it meant that U.S. assistance was
focused on a smaller number of countries and thus had a
bigger impact than would have been the case if it had been
spread more widely. On the other, Soviet opposition had the
effect of generating more domestic U.S. support for it
because Washington was able to point to the way in which the
Marshall Plan was contributing to U.S. security interests in
Europe.
Any aid package to the Balkans will not have that
external disciplining factor. Not only will that mean that
the domestic constituencies in many countries will be
reluctant to fund a new plan at the levels that would be
needed; it will also mean that the lack of an external threat
will almost certainly guarantee that the members of the
alliance will stay less united on this issue, just as they
are on so many others.
Third, the original Marshall Plan was intended to
restore the economies of the countries of Western Europe, not
to create something fundamentally new. Any aid package to the
Balkans would have to address the far larger and more
complicated issues of nation- and economy-building, issues
that few foreign aid programs have been successful at
resolving.
In many ways, the discussions about a new Marshall Plan
for the Balkans reflect the difficulties of finding a
solution to the conflicts in that region. Obviously, the
people there will need massive amounts of aid to overcome the
tragedies visited upon them by Milosevic and his supporters.
But before the West can design an aid package that will
help them, these conflicts will have to be addressed and some
resolution found. Once that occurs, a genuine assistance
program can be developed to meet the specific needs of the
people and political structures that will then be in place.
In thinking about the future, those proposing a new
Marshall Plan for that region should remember that the
original Marshall Plan was not proposed until more than two
years after the bombs had stopped falling.
======================================================
BULGARIAN, MACEDONIAN MINISTERS MEET IN SOFIA. Bulgarian
Deputy Premier Evgeniy Bakurdzhiev and his Macedonian
counterpart, Dosta Dimovska, held talks on 26 April, BTA
reported. The two sides are seeking EU funding for the
construction of a railway line from Kyustendil to
Kumanovo as well as technical aid to establish a power
line between the countries. Dimovska also appealed to
Bulgarian companies to purchase Macedonian goods that
normally are bought by Serbia, which accounts for some
40 percent of Macedonia's total exports. Bakurdzhiev
said Sofia is determined not to let the war in
Yugoslavia "stamp out the fragile democracy in
Macedonia." He also pledged to help build pre-fabricated
shelters for Kosovar refugees in Macedonia. PB
===============================================
Canada sending troops to Macedonia, not for combat
01:55 p.m Apr 27, 1999 Eastern
By Randall Palmer
OTTAWA, April 27 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Jean Chretien announced on
Tuesday Canada would send 800 troops to join an eventual peacekeeping
force in Kosovo, but assured Parliament the intention was not to have
the force fight its way in.
Chretien said the troops would join 12,000 NATO troops in Macedonia
ready to move into neighbouring Yugoslav province of Kosovo in the event
of a peace deal.
``If there is not a peace agreement, they will not move in. They will
not be involved. It's not ground troops. They are peacekeepers,'' he
said. ``They will go only when they have an agreement to move.''
Canada has long had 600 to 800 troops at the ready to take part in any
peace deal but a formal request from NATO to send them to Macedonia came
only recently.
``I would...like to assure all members that if there is a NATO request
to deploy Canadian troops in combat, the House (of Commons) will be
consulted before any final decision is taken,'' Chretien said.
NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana has ordered his strategists to
update military plans for a possible invasion of Kosovo, and Chretien
has said he would go along with an invasion if all NATO members agree.
He has insisted, however, that the intention now is to stick with the
bombing campaign.
Chretien recognised that NATO's actions against Yugoslavia had gone
beyond the North Atlantic alliance's tradition of defending against
aggression.
``NATO today is not only to defend against invasion,'' the prime
minister said.
Chretien and his ministers made it clear that any oil embargo imposed on
Yugoslavia would be very limited in scope -- not covering unwilling
parties, Russia, for example.
``We're not going to use force to establish a blockade,'' Chretien told
the House of Commons.
Defence Minister Art Eggleton told reporters that NATO ships would only
visit Yugoslavia-bound ships that come from countries that have agreed
to the embargo.
``The embargo, as it is developing, is a 'visit and search' of vessels
going into port in the area of Yugoslavia, and that visit and search
would be on the basis of countries that agreed that merchant ships
carrying their countries' flags would in fact be visited and searched,''
he said.
Ships from Russia, one of Yugoslavia's main suppliers, would only be
searched if they agreed to be, Eggleton said.
Opposition parties worried that any action against Russian tankers might
alienate Moscow at a time when Ottawa and others were courting Russia to
help forge a peace settlement.
Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, heading to Moscow on Wednesday, said:
``We do not want to have any provocation with Russia, and we want to
primarily apply whatever naval activity there is to those countries
which have agreed to the embargo.''
He said he would try to get the U.N. Security Council, where Russia has
a veto, to ``play a useful role in a peace resolution.''
Eggleton said the troops would take up to 60 days to arrive in
Macedonia. Accompanied by 280 vehicles and eight Griffin helicopters,
they will be part of a British armoured brigade. The Canadian contingent
will include a reconnaissance squadron and 200 combat engineers.
================================================================
FOCUS-Bursting Macedonia struggles with more refugees
01:51 p.m Apr 27, 1999 Eastern
By Jeremy Gaunt
BLACE, Macedonia, April 27 (Reuters) - A tide of ethnic Albanian
refugees rolled into Macedonia on Tuesday, swamping aid workers' ability
to house them and leaving thousands in a holding camp at the border.
The UNHCR aid agency estimated that as many as 3,000 refugees had
arrived by train and bus at Blace, the main crossing point between
Kosovo and Macedonia, taking the country's teeming refugee camps beyond
breaking point.
A further 1,000 came across the mountains to the village of Lojane,
where Macedonian police insisted that most be taken to camps rather than
stay with local families.
Aid workers said Macedonia's six refugee camps were now full and that
many of the refugees might have to bed down on Tuesday night with
sleeping bags and plastic coverings between tents.
In Luxembourg, Macedonian Foreign Minister Aleksandar Dimitrov told
Reuters his country could not cope with the latest influx and said he
feared as many as 150,000 refugees could eventually be on their way.
At Blace, where 2,500 people spent Monday night in the holding camp
because there was no room elsewhere, buses crammed with refugees moved
on to the camps.
UNHCR official Astrid Van Genderen Stort said 2,200 had been moved to
camps along with 800 from Lojane.
That left more than 3,000 or so with nowhere to go except the temporary
camp next to the border, where tens of thousands had languished in filth
at the beginning of the crisis when Serbia launched what the West said
was a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
``There is going to be an overflow,'' UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said
earlier. ``But anything is better that what's in no man's land.''
A number of refugees arriving on Tuesday were wounded and Redmond said
there were reports of Serb atrocities. This included a report that 16
people had been massacred at Slavi village last week.
``These people are again telling stories of shooting and killing,'' the
UNHCR official said.
Aid officials indicated that they were just managing to keep the refugee
situation under control. But refugees again reported vast numbers of
their kin in Kosovo seeking to enter Macedonia.
They said large numbers of people were waiting at train stations along
the Pristina-Blace route. Stations and bus stops are said to be crowded
and an aid worker said Tuesday's train was too full to stop at Urosevac,
the main town between Pristina and the border.
Many refugees had waited days to get out.
Twenty-year-old Elizabeta said her family had tried to leave Kosovo a
week ago but had not been able to get out. She said thousands were
waiting for the bus when she left on Tuesday.
She said she came from Ferizaj, explaining bitterly that it was the
Albanian name for Urosevac and that she did not want to use the Serb
name.
One man pointed to an old woman in the crowd. She was 100 years old and
had spent 10 days getting to Blace, he said.
The surge of arrivals began on Monday when 3,000 people arrived on a
train and 15 buses and backed up behind 2,000 already there, leaving aid
workers scrambling to find space.
The UNHCR estimates that some 57,750 refugees are crammed into six camps
across the country, with the largest number being at Stankovic, where
two camps hold 26,200 and 16,100.
Officials have said a new camp in western Macedonia that could hold
20,000 would open as early as Wednesday, but a Reuters reporter at the
scene said it looked far from finished
=====================================================================
TABLE-Refugee camps and numbers in Macedonia
08:25 a.m. Apr 27, 1999 Eastern
SKOPJE, April 27 (Reuters) - The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on
Tuesday camps for Kosovo refugees in Macedonia were now completely full
and if more refugees arrived, they would have to sleep outside under
plastic sheeting.
Construction of a new camp at Cegrane in western Macedonia is behind
schedule and it will not be ready to take refugees until Thursday at the
earliest, UNHCR said.
The Macedonian government said in a statement it had taken in a total of
183,800 refugees from Kosovo since air strikes began on March 24, adding
69,960 were being held in refugee camps and 27,990 had been airlifted
out of the country.
A total of 3,428 refugees arrived on Monday, plus 494 illegal arrivals,
the statement said.
UNHCR, estimates that as of April 26, there were some 57,750 refugees
crammed into six camps around Macedonia.
Following is a breakdown of where the refugees are:
STANKOVIC - The biggest tent city in Macedonia, Stankovic is really two
camps. UNHCR estimates there are 26,200 refugees in the area known as
Stankovic One, while in Stankovic Two there are 16,100. The Macedonian
government says a total of 52,590 refugees are living in Stankovic,
which is near the capital Skopje.
NEPROSTINO - Northeast of Tetovo, in the west of Macedonia. UNHCR says
there are 6,000 refugees. The Macedonian government says Neprostino is
housing 5,393.
BOJANE - East of Tetovo. Macedonia says there are 4,980, UNHCR says
3,900.
BLACE - Holding centre alongside main border crossing into Macedonia
designed to work as a short-term transit centre. UNHCR says there are
2,600 refugees there.
RADUSA - Near Yugoslav border north-east of Skopje. UNHCR says it houses
1,500.
SENOKOS - South of Tetovo. UNHCR says there are 1,450 there.
The government statement gave no separate figures for the Blace, Senokos
and Radusa camps.
============================================================
FOCUS-French PM to visit Macedonia, Albania
12:11 p.m. Apr 27, 1999 Eastern
PARIS, April 27 (Reuters) - French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin is to
visit Macedonia, where French soldiers have come under attack from angry
residents, and Albania on Friday and Saturday to discuss relief to
refugees from Kosovo.
Jospin made the announcement during a National Assembly debate on NATO
air strikes against Yugoslavia. Aides said he would travel to Skopje and
Tirana on his way to Egypt, shortening a previously planned weekend
visit to Cairo.
Unidentified attackers threw two hand grenades at a French sentry post
as they drove past a French army camp at Kumanovo in Macedonia on Monday
night. There were no injuries but the incident was the worst to date
against NATO troops in Macedonia.
Earlier, French soldiers fled their blazing jeep last week after they
were attacked and stoned by Serb sympathisers angered by NATO air
strikes on Yugoslavia.
NATO has more than 12,000 troops in Macedonia, intended to move into
Kosovo as peacekeepers if an agreement is reached.
Jospin was holding talks later on Tuesday with visiting Albanian
President Rexhep Meidani, who was also meeting President Jacques Chirac.
Jospin told the assembly France would fully participate in international
efforts to help the two Balkan countries whose economies have been hit
hard by the crisis, through the European Union, the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund.
France was already helping refugees directly through doctors, civil
defence experts and army planes ferrying thousands of tonnes of food and
medicine. It was also studying how best to help Albanians and
Macedonians who were putting up refugees.
Jospin told the assembly he opposed a ground offensive in Yugoslavia
which could cause heavy civilian and military losses, spread war through
the Balkans and alienate Russia which he said was an indispensable
partner in solving the crisis.
In any case, France would not participate in any such offensive without
parliament's green light, he said.
``You would be formally consulted in order to authorise, or not, such an
intervention,'' he said.
Faced with some charges at home that France was slavishly following
Washington in the Kosovo crisis, Jospin said France was a full NATO
partner wholly involved in its decisions.
But he recalled France's insistence that conflicts be solved through the
United Nations.
``We do not want NATO to turn into a world organisation that would
ignore universal U.N. rules and intervene when and where it chooses,''
he said.
Jospin said France and its Contact Group partners were drafting a
Security Council resolution, based on proposals by U.N. chief Kofi
Annan, to provide for an international security force and an interim
administration in Kosovo.
The National Assembly planned no vote following Tuesday's debate,
intended to let Jospin brief the house and enable the various political
parties to air their views.
Jospin's left-wing coalition has played down divisions over France's
participation in NATO raids which has come under fire from his Communist
partners and the Citizens' Movement of Interior Minister Jean-Pierre
Chevenement.
========================================================================
==
INTERVIEW-Macedonia fears even bigger refugee flood
09:08 a.m. Apr 27, 1999 Eastern
By Janet McEvoy
LUXEMBOURG, April 27 (Reuters) - Macedonia said on Tuesday it could not
cope with the latest influx of refugees fleeing the war in Yugoslavia
and said it feared up to 150,000 new refugees would try to cross its
border.
``We can not cope with this new influx of refugees,'' Foreign Minister
Aleksandar Dimitrov told Reuters in an interview before meeting European
Union foreign ministers.
``Maybe it's possible, depending on the possible negative developments
that the new influx of refugees can be 100,000- 150,000...It will be an
additional, extremely sensitive and dangerous problem,'' he said.
He spoke as busloads of ethnic Albanian refugees, fleeing the crackdown
on Serbia's Kosovo province by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic,
flowed into Macedonia on Tuesday at the main border crossing point.
With the country's four refugee camps already overflowing, aid workers
have become anxious about where to put new refugees from the war,
particularly as reports circulate of tens of thousands heading in
Macedonia's direction.
Dimitrov said that while Macedonia had only been prepared to take in
20,000 refugees when NATO launched air strikes on Yugoslavia just over a
month ago, it had taken in 175,000, divided between its four camps and
local families.
Figures from Skopje earlier on Tuesday said the total was now 183,800
and still rising.
While 25,000 refugees had been transferred to third countries, very few
EU states had shown willingness to help by taking in refugees Macedonia
could not find room for, Dimitrov said.
He warned that any NATO move to use ground troops to defeat Milosevic
quickly could worsen the situation rather than help it, and he ruled out
a change of policy to allow NATO to use Macedonian territory to help
launch a ground offensive.
``The sending of ground forces to Yugoslavia may be more dangerous than
the situation now,'' he said.
``We do not expect any demand asking for use of Macedonian territory for
transporting of ground troops to Yugoslavia.'' Dimitrov said he would
urge EU foreign ministers to bring Macedonia closer to the EU fold by
committing themselves to opening talks by the end of June on an
association accord acting as a stepping stone to membership in the
longer term.
He said Macedonia would apply any international proposal to help secure
peace in Yugoslavia, but he would not be drawn specificially on whether
it would respect a new EU embargo on deliveries of oil and oil products
to Yugoslavia.
At separate meetings with Albania and Macedonia on Tuesday Austria,
Germany and Finland -- the so-called EU troika representing the
previous, current and next EU presidencies -- will explore ways of
shoring them up politically and economically from the Kosovo crisis.
Dimitrov said that Macedonia had secured 25 million euros ($26.5
million) of a 100-million-euro pot of money earmarked by the bloc to
help the countries worst hit by the Yugoslav crisis.
Albania has received 62 million euros of the fund and Montenegro,
Yugoslavia's junior partner in the federation, 13 million.
($1-.9409 Euro)
===================================================================
Macedonia Full, But Refugees Still Come
06:32 a.m. Apr 27, 1999 Eastern
By Jeremy Gaunt
BLACE, Macedonia (Reuters) - Refugees flowed into Macedonia from Kosovo
Tuesday as the United Nations issued a dire warning that there was no
room for them.
Paula Ghedini, spokeswoman for the UNHCR refugee agency, said the
numbers coming in had already taken the country's teeming refugee camps
beyond breaking point.
``If we get any more today, we are going to have to give them plastic
sheeting and have them camp in between other tents,'' she told Reuters.
Aid workers have become increasingly anxious about where to put new
refugees from the war, particularly as reports circulate of tens of
thousands of people working their way toward Macedonia.
But no let-up appeared in sight Tuesday as busloads of refugees crossed
into Macedonia at its main border post with Kosovo. A new train full of
fleeing ethnic Albanians was expected to swamp Blace later in the day
``It is going to be crowded,'' an official with the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe said.
He said police at the border had informed international groups that a
train would arrive from Kosovo, probably in the late morning.
Other border posts said the situation was relatively calm. Police said
about 200 people were waiting to cross at Jazince, in the northwest. A
local official at Tabanovce, to the northeast, said some 600 had crossed
illegally during the night about half of whom had been apprehended by
police.
Refugees caught by police are usually sent to refugee camps.
At Blace, scene earlier this month of horror when 65,000 people were
stranded in a no man's land of mud and filth, a steady stream of
refugees arrived early, many on buses from Urosevac, south of the Kosovo
provincial capital of Pristina. They appeared to be arriving at about 50
a time every few minutes, a Reuters Television crew reported.
Ahead of them in the process to enter Macedonia's overcrowded camps were
some 2,500 refugees who had spent the night at a muddy holding camp,
unable to move on to a proper facility.
Reports from across the border threatened a worsening situation.
Refugees say large numbers of people are waiting at train stations along
the Pristina-Blace route, which runs through Urosevac.
A sudden surge of arrivals Monday -- when 3,000 people arrived on a
train and in 15 buses and backed up behind 2,000 already there -- left
aid workers scrambling to find space.
Officials said a new camp in western Macedonia that could hold 20,000
would be opened as early as Wednesday, but a Reuters reporter visiting
the scene said it appeared far from finished.
Macedonia says it has taken in about 175,000 refugees from Kosovo, more
than 68,000 of whom are in camps, with the rest being flown to other
countries or placed with families in Macedonia.
======================================================================
Macedonia President Aims for More Powers
Reuters
27-APR-99
SKOPJE, Macedonia (Reuters) - President Kiro Gligorov said Tuesday he
would convene Macedonia's National Security Council to discuss declaring
a state of imminent military threat that would increase his powers.
"The president reaffirmed his intentions to summon the National Security
Council, but did not specify a date," the president's spokeswoman Suzana
Kostadinova told Reuters after a news conference restricted to local
media.
Gligorov returned Tuesday from NATO's summit in Washington where he
slammed the West for not doing enough to help the tiny Balkan state cope
with a huge influx of ethnic Albanian refugees from war-torn Kosovo, a
southern province of Serbia.
NATO's decision not to invite new members to join also quashed
Macedonia's hopes for early admission into the alliance.
Gligorov said last week he would ask the council to consider introducing
a state of imminent military danger, involving a heightened level of
alert for the armed forces and an increase in his powers, currently
largely ceremonial.
The motion would deepen rifts between Gligorov, a socialist, and the
government of Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, whose center-right
coalition came to power after November elections ending 53 years of
leftist rule.
Under a state of imminent military danger, the president, who under
Macedonia's constitution is also commander-in-chief of the army, is
empowered to appoint a new government.
Analysts said the motion was unlikely to pass because Gligorov lacks the
required support of the majority both in the council and in parliament,
where such a motion needs to be approved.
Macedonia's assembly is dominated by Georgievski's coalition, which is
also under pressure to balance the country's fragile economy with
180,000 refugees flooding the country in the past month and the
deployment of NATO troops.
The security council consists of Georgievski, the defense minister, the
interior minister and 20 experts.
"This is an attempt by Gligorov to strengthen his power on the eve of
presidential election, due at the end of the year," said one political
analyst, who declined to be named.
Gligorov, 83, has been in power since 1991, when Macedonia declared
independence from Yugoslavia. He was seen by many as a figure preserving
the country's unity in this volatile region in the early 1990s, but
reformists frequently have accused of him of obstructing reforms.
========================================================================
===
Poverty Grows as Refugees Pour In
Influx Is Pushing Macedonia to Crisis
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 27, 1999; Page A12
GOSTIVAR, Macedonia, April 26 After three weeks of living hand to mouth
in both Kosovo and Macedonia, Halida Jashari has pared her immediate
needs to just a few. "I just want a toilet and a small kitchen to make .
. . something to eat," she said, as well as a place to sleep where rats
no longer can bother her three young children.
But in this teeming city and virtually anywhere else in this
economically stressed country, Jashari, 31, may be asking for more than
anyone can provide. Together with another ethnic Albanian family of
five, she and her children have been sleeping on the floor of a local
mosque because no more space is available for refugees anywhere in the
area.
Gostivar, like virtually all of Macedonia, is filled to the brim with
the victims of the violent conflict in Kosovo, according to local
officials and Western aid workers. No more refugees can be readily
squeezed into tents. No more tents can be squeezed into existing camps.
And no more families can be squeezed into homes in the limited areas in
which the government allows the refugees to travel.
The crisis might be called the second phase of the disaster wrought by
the Serb-led Yugoslav government's expulsion of ethnic Albanians from
Kosovo. The first was the forced migration of approximately 600,000
people from the Serbian province into Albania, Macedonia and
Montenegro -- Serbia's small, uncooperative partner in the Yugoslav
federation. The latest phase is the growing spread of poverty and food
shortages caused by the overcrowding of hundreds of villages and towns
in the region that lack sufficient resources to support the new
arrivals.
The effects can be readily observed at refugee camps here, such as one
outside the town of Brazda near the Yugoslav border, where more than
23,000 people live cheek-by-jowl atop soil that was being readied for
spring planting a month ago. In the evenings, the camp's residents eat
from tin cans heated over twig fires and heat water the same way inside
plastic bottles that emit toxic fumes as they melt.
The impact is more subtle, but still devastating, in cities such as
Gostivar, where residents have opened their arms to more than 20,000
refugees. The neatly organized streets are full of men with vacant eyes
in search of food and missing relatives. The sounds of crying babies and
coughing children emanate from virtually every packed home.
The problem grows by the day. In addition to the 55,000 people already
in camps that have three times the density they should, and the more
than 70,000 people dispersed to the homes of what aid workers refer to
as "host families," another 3,000 refugees showed up today at the
principal border crossing between Yugoslavia and Macedonia. That is
typical of the recent arrival rate, which outstrips the number -- about
800 -- who left Macedonia today for one of the 15 nations that have
accepted some of the refugee burden.
Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov, worried about the enormous pressure
on his country, accused other European nations of breaking promises to
take in refugees, the Reuters news service reported, while Macedonian
Economy Minister Zanko Cado resigned, partly because of the crisis. So
far, Germany, Turkey and other countries have taken in about 20,000
Kosovo refugees, or about one-seventh of those who fled to Macedonia.
Newly arrived Kosovo refugees -- many offering fresh accounts of
lootings, burnings and executions in the towns of Lipljan, Kosovo Polje
and Urosevac -- were packed into what was meant to be a temporary
processing facility at the Blace border crossing. It is built atop the
debris left by former residents of a notorious camp in a muddy field,
where three weeks ago 65,000 refugees were held without shelter for days
by the Macedonian government. The Blace site is once again awash in mud,
and even the insides of tents housing an estimated 900 people there
tonight are wet from spring rain, according to Ron Redmond, a spokesman
for the U.N. refugee agency. At other overflowing camps, Redmond said,
"Security is a problem. We're worried about health and sanitation; we're
worried about fire."
The Macedonian government has tried intermittently to deal with the
problem by delaying the processing of new refugees at its official
border crossings. But those in a hurry to flee the terror in Kosovo
respond by finding more challenging and hazardous alternative routes
into Macedonia.
One such crossing is high in the mountains northeast of Skopje, the
Macedonian capital, at a tiny hamlet called Malina Maala, which Kosovo
Albanians are able to reach only by bribing Yugoslav border police. More
than 3,000 refugees arrived there unexpectedly 10 days ago, and since
then between 350 and 1,000 people a day have made the arduous trek there
through forest and snow. From there, they trek to the impoverished
village of Lipkovo 20 miles to the south.
Macedonian police have set up a checkpoint north of Lipkovo, where they
have been collecting refugees and placing them aboard buses that take
them to camps. But most refugees prefer to live outside the camps, and
so many walk miles out of the way to avoid being spotted. Izet Rexhepi,
who briefly took refuge a few days ago in one of the village's 60 homes,
said he and nine of his relatives had to climb along a goat path for
more than 10 hours to reach it.
A council of Lipkovo residents essentially administers a refugee
underground railway. Although they are in desperate need of such
essentials as cooking oil and flour, they share whatever they have with
the new arrivals and register just enough of the refugees to satisfy
local police. They send a far larger number directly to the homes of
ethnic Albanian families elsewhere in Macedonia.
In such economically marginal cities as Gostivar, the influx of an
average of more than 50 families every day is sorely straining limited
resources. Even before the latest crisis, nearly one-sixth of its 30,000
residents were receiving public aid, and many other families were
surviving on monthly remittances of $300 from relatives working
elsewhere in Europe.
The local chapter of an Islamic-based humanitarian organization, El
Hilal, gets no assistance from the government and has only enough
donated food to feed refugees for the next six days, according to its
president, Sali Selimi.
The picture is different 20 miles to the south in villages surrounding
the prosperous city of Struga. "We have enough room for more refugees,"
said Fatmir Zhubi, who was already sheltering a half-dozen at his
comfortable home.
But three weeks ago, police established checkpoints nearby that blocked
refugees from reaching the Struga area, out of fear that they might
stay. The Slav-dominated government is "against Muslims" and prefers not
to disturb the ethnic balance in mixed communities, said Abdul Gani
Cako, an El Hilal aide.
There is a refugee camp outside Gostivar that could readily expand into
nearby fields, but the Macedonian government has told aid workers that
no expansion is possible unless the work is done by Pelogonija, a
slow-moving construction firm linked to top government officials. "We
could have [done] . . . this two weeks ago, but we had no authority,"
said Nigel Pont, who manages the camp for Mercy Corps International.
"There's no forward thinking anywhere."
Reuters reported from Washington:
Some refugees from Kosovo may be sent to Fort Dix Army base in New
Jersey before being resettled with relatives in the United States, White
House spokesman Joe Lockhart said. The base is one of several American
locations where refugees could go after being "processed" in
southeastern Europe, Lockhart said.
Lockhart said he expects the resettlement in the United States of up to
20,000 refugees to start soon after a survey team returns Thursday from
a six-day trip to the Balkans.
He said several options for settlement were being considered, and that
Fort Dix is one of them, "but, frankly, our first preference is to do
the resettlement on a regional basis rather than in one central
location." The idea, he said, was to "process them in the region and
then take them directly to where we think they will go."
Refugee Count
Arrivals SundayTotal since March 24
Albania* 1,400 364,500
Macedonia 1,800 136,500
Montenegro n.a. 64,300
Bosnia n.a. 15,000
TOTAL 580,300
* arrived from Montenegro
About 1,000 refugees a day are leaving Albania for temporary shelter in
15 nations. Departures so far:
Germany 9,974
Turkey 4,671
Norway 1,265
France 907
Belgium 676
Austria 645
Poland 635
Netherlands 305
Britain 161
Sweden 132
Spain 103
Israel 106
Croatia 88
Switzerland 33
Iceland 23
Total 19,724
SOURCE: UNHCR
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Finance Leaders Discuss Kosovo Woes
By Harry Dunphy
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, April 27, 1999; 4:23 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The fighting in Kosovo is casting a shadow across the
economies of the Balkans, and finance ministers from the world's wealthy
nations are trying to get a handle on the costs.
Paying for economic reconstruction in the region after the fighting ends
could cost $30 billion, according to preliminary European estimates
reviewed by the ministers attending the spring session of the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
On Tuesday, they were discussing the economic disruption caused by the
exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Kosovo. Also under
review: how the fighting is affecting the economies of neighboring
Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia and Romania.
``If you knock out an area of major trade'' by bombing, there can be
severe economic disruption, said World Bank President James Wolfensohn.
For example, he said, Romania can't trade cement and oil because it
can't get it up and down the Danube River and barge companies are going
bankrupt.
NATO's bombing of bridges along the river that stretches from Germany
through the Balkans to the Black Sea has sent shippers scrambling to
find other routes.
Across the region, tourist companies are reporting cancellations.
Bankers are warning of a probable decline in foreign investment,
increased borrowing costs and difficulties for governments with
privatization programs.
Wolfensohn said he hoped wealthy nations would make support pledges, and
he predicted the World Bank and the 15-nation European Union would take
the lead in coordinating emergency assistance as they did in Bosnia.
He said the bank would offer $40 million in financial assistance to
Macedonia and $30 million for Albania. The IMF also was looking at
assistance to keep the region's economies going.
A World Bank-IMF study concludes that if the crisis continues all year
the six Balkan countries will need $1.8 billion in outside assistance.
The money would cover increased balance-of-payments deficits as a result
of lost trade and the costs of refugee care.
The study also said that budget deficits of the six governments will
increase by $652 million because they will lose customs revenue and
incur other war-related costs.
So far the EU has given $265 million to half a dozen Balkan countries,
who in turn have appealed for much more financial assistance.
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