Tirana 27 June 1999
Mirdita,
Sunday is not always a sunday in a crisis area. And that, this area is for sure, especially since we are living in the midst
of the biggest and fastest refugee return in at least the last
25 years, maybe more. It means that we, (inter)national aid
workers, are running behind the facts. The Kosovars voted
with their feets, they want to be in their home country, not next
month, but now. This morning six volunteers left the house, they
are going to work at the way stations in Puke, Shemri and under
Lezhe (in the Danish refugee camp). At the same time an ever
bigger amount of people arrived in order to be trained in the
camps here in Tirana and prepare themselves for working on the
two other stations in Rreshen and Gojan, which are going to be
opened in a few days, when the official return will start.
Anyway at the station in Shemri they went through some big things, most
of the Kosovar youth who came with us up on wednesday
already had to leave since their parents wanted to leave for
Kosov@. When we left they had still wanted to wait another week, but now
everybody is leaving they want to go as well. Suddenly the
whole situation up there changed. On friday the camp of the
campmanagement was destroyed by an American army helicopter
which landed on the waystation, just to give a short message to
some other American soldiers working on the road there. The
tent was blown away and his satellite phone was damaged in
this action somehow.
On saturday afternoon an UNHCR car (with a local driver) went
too fast through the village and hit a ten year-old child. The
villagers took the child up to the way station hoping to
get some help, or at least to show their grief and anger, towards
the campmanagement and the UNHCR representative there. But
those just went down to the village, together with both the
doctors, to see if they could help. So our volunteers were the
only ones up there and they got the full load of feelings and
complaints. Luckily enough John and some of the Kosovars who could translate what was being said were
still there so the volunteers could at least understand what was going
on. They were threatened with blood revenge and made responsible
for all that happened. The women were crying and telling that
their husbands now will beat them all their lives since they
didn't take care of the child well enough.
When the official internationals came back they took over and
brought the villagers back to Shemri, and the doctors declared
that the girl died, or was already dead, when she was taken up.
So the representative from CARE brought the dead body in his
car back to her family and apologised for what had happened.
After he returned all the official internationals, also those
of the Salvation Army and THW left for Kukes or someplace, leaving the
station in the hands of our volunteers and the Italian army to
take care of it during the night. They said
they would return the next morning. The north is a hard place it seems.
Hopefully we will work something out in the next days.
This is how it goes, we are trying to do what we are able to
do, assist where we can, but the big organisations are simply
not flexible enough to understand that we are not like them.
That we don't have the fancy cars and the funds behind it to
just ship all our volunteers through the country like they can. The most incredible reaction we got was that we should have
our own security, and cars to be able to move out our volunteers
when there is a crisis. I am sorry that I have to write all of
this, I'd like to write other stories. But it makes me crazy that
all those huge NGO's are driving around in their 4-wheel drives
but are not able to help us with transport. Most of these cars
are empty, one driver and one aid worker. Besides, when it
is not safe for our workers how can it be safe for the refugees
who pass by. I mean, what I want to say is that according to
the idea of the way stations they are there to protect refugees
on their way back to Kosov@. And if NATO, who is involved in
the protection of these way stations, is not capable of protecting
a couple of internationals, what kind of protection are they giving to the refugees
then? I was really surprised by this.
In the afternoon Ramona and I went for a visit of some refugee
camps south of Kavaja. They are run by ASB and ASF (from
Germany and Denmark), before one hosted almost 1800, now 400, and
the other almost 1000, now 80. They asked us if we would be
able to work there if they'd put the two camps together.
And we agreed to come by and have a look. Coincidentally the
Czech organisation "People in need" also had six
volunteers in the first camp and wanted to see if they had work
enough, otherwise they would withdraw people from there and
bring them to the way stations or to Berat, where we just wanted
to start working, as there are still 5000 refugees there. So we
want to find out why the campmanagement asked us to send four
people down, when the Czechs were still there and had nothing to
do.
By the way there was another reason to drive down there since
Vaclav Havel is in the country today and there was a
possibility to meet him or his wife there. But by the time we
arrived they had already left for Kosov@. That made Havel the
first president of any state visiting Kosov@, although it
wasn't really official. Politically speaking he was not allowed
to go into Kosov@, because some other important president wants
to be the first. But as it happens the German NATO batallion said
that they could safeguard his trip. Our driver, who is also the
coordinator of "People in need" told us how they organized the
trip. Havel was planned to go to Prizen, but when he (the
coordinator) visited Prizen some days ago he saw that the town
is not that destroyed. So he had to find another village in the
neighbourhood which was totally destroyed, otherwise the
message that help is needed wouldn't have come across. This
sounds a bit crazy but that's how it goes. Humanitarian aid is a
market system is what I found so many times in Croatia and Bosnia, you
have to present the reality in a way that people give money.
Of course the villages around Prizen are destroyed, like
Djakovica and Peja, but the cameras are not going there when
the president of the Czech republic is not going there. In
order to raise money you have to bring them to an area which
shows that help is needed. The villages just outside of Prizen.
That is how it works. Just always show what the people back
home want to see. The guy told furthermore that he had this
strange experience the other day, preparing Havel's trip. His
family comes from Bohemia (Sudetenland) and were driven from
there by German Nazis in the second world war, the nazis
killed lots of Czech people in that area and pushed the other
Czech people out (ethnic cleansing). Now this guy drove through an
empty Serb village near Prizen behind a German tank (to protect
him). He was wondering what his grandmother would say if he
told her that story.
We went down via the road over Elbassan, which is a beautiful
road through small mountains. Coming down into the valley where
Elbassan lays you see this few-square kilometres big steel
factory, which was built by the Chinese, but has been lying empty
for some time now. From there we took the valley road, which is
going back to the coast a little. In Pecin we visited the first
big camp, it was a good camp, but now that most of the people
left it is very unsafe. This is a major issue at the moment. More
and more camps are becoming rather unsafe. Due to the fact
that everybody is leaving the security guys (albanian police)
are not taking their job seriously anymore and more and more
reports of looting and stealing are the result. This is not
something special of this camp, it is happening everywhere.
As soon as the number of refugees in this camp reaches a level that it is
easy to transport them all, the campmanagement wants to transport
them to the other camp which is now almost empty but is lying
10 km further, in an industrial complex which is easier to
safeguard. So we agreed with the Czechs that we don't move people
there to help but that the Czechs stay there and work in both
camps. In the other camp, which I had seen when I passed it driving down to
Vlore some days (almost weeks) ago, we met up with a German, who had
worked in Laos the five years before. Like all the aidworkers I met
the last week he was looking tired and finished. This sudden
change took us all by surprise. We are planning now from day to
day.
From there we (Ramona and me) went furtheron ourselves. We planned
to take a bus or minibus from here. But when we were on the
place where the mini- and big buses normally stop, it was
explained to us, with hands and feet, that there
haven't been so many buses anymore in the last few days, and especially not that late (six
o´clock in the evening). Most buses have been rented by Kosovars
to drive them back to Kosov@. So the people here at
this place, who run all kind of fruit and cigarette kiosks,
started to stop every car with Tirana numberplate for us,
asking them if they would take us with them. One guy was
willing, but wanted 3000 lek for it, and knowing that the bus costs
300 lek I decided to just wait, hoping that somewhere along
the line a bus would come. And indeed after about half an hour
(and that is a long time here in Albania) a big bus came
humping and bumping down the road. Although it is only 60 km
from here to Tirana he told Ramona that the drive would take at least
two and a half hours (she was rather surprised, whereas I
overestimated the travel time with 15 minutes). All the refugee
camps which were here along the coastal road, small ones,
were gone. The only place where I saw some tents standing was
in the camp from ACT on the road from Durres to Tirana, but
that one too looked a lot emptier than before. How fast things
can change.
wam :-)
ps small party for me, this is the 50th issue of the Tirana
diary, not much if you compare it with the Zagreb Diary, but
still a nice start.
wam :-)
