OT - Kosovo
Refugees Seek Safe Haven, but Not Asylum, in U.S.
By Anne Swardson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, May 4, 1999; Page A14
BRAZDA, Macedonia, May 3 – U.S. officials here began interviewing the first Kosovo refugees eligible for asylum in the United States today, and made an unexpected discovery: almost none of them wanted to move to America permanently.
Refugees said to immigration officials and in interviews that they were delighted at the chance to escape the heat and monotony of this overcrowded camp of 30,000 people. And they said they were grateful to be offered temporary shelter across the ocean.
If accepted, many said, they would be aboard the first chartered 747 jet from here to the Fort Dix, N.J., processing center, planned for Wednesday. But none said they would move to America for good.
"My home was burned, but I would live in a tent in my own land rather than live somewhere else," said Sinan Aliu, 47, a chemistry professor from Pristina, the Kosovo capital, who with his family of 12 was waiting in line for an initial interview. "We would like to be in a country that is so helpful to us, but we will go back as soon as Kosovo is free."
The United States has agreed to take 20,000 of the Kosovo Albanians who are among the 600,00 who have fled their homes for Macedonia in the six weeks since the commencement of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and their expulsions by Serb-led military and paramilitary forces. Kosovo is a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic.
Even as refugees lined up for a chance to leave Macedonia, more continued to stream into the country. An unexpected night train brought 2,000 to the border crossing at Blace north of here early this morning, followed by another 4,000 on the regularly scheduled train and 2,000 more on a third this evening. Others arrived on numerous buses.
Some of those people will be taken by bus to a new camp at Cegrane, 60 miles south of here, but that camp, open less than a week, is already bursting with more than 18,000 refugees, forcing some people to live and sleep in the open. Others will remain at the transit camp in Blace, a ravine at the border filled with tents designed to hold 1,500 people but now housing 9,000.
There was some good news today for the more than 185,000 Kosovo Albanians crammed into camps here.
During a visit to the Brazda camp, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced Britain would double its refugee aid contributions to $64 million and take in more ethnic Albanians. He did not name a specific number.
German Interior Minister Otto Schily said his country would double the refugees it accepted to 20,000.
And NATO forces in Albania said they would build new camps to take 60,000 refugees out of Macedonia. But British Lt. Gen. John Reith, commander of the NATO Albania Force for Humanitarian Assistance , cautioned that the new sites would not be ready quickly, according to the Reuters news service.
Many of the refugees waiting in line today to get on the list for travel to the United States selected other countries, particularly Germany and Switzerland, as their destinations of choice when they registered with the authorities here. Most of the slots in those countries were taken quickly.
When the United States agreed to accept refugees, the plan was to shelter them at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There, they would have had no opportunity to apply to remain in the United States. After criticism from human rights groups, the Clinton administration changed course, and last week Vice President Gore announced that the refugees would be accepted on the U.S. mainland.
Like refugees from other countries, the ethnic Albanians will be eligible to apply for permanent asylum. They will be required to spend two to three weeks at Fort Dix, where they will be given medical exams and documentation allowing them to work and study. Then they will be assigned to sponsors around the country. The sponsoring organizations will help with housing, school enrollment, job searches, health care and applications for benefits.
"All 20,000 will be offered the opportunity for refugee status and integration into American society if that's what they choose," said Kathleen Thompson, director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, here to begin the registration process. "They are being treated like any other refugee."
Though many of the refugees are educated and have employable skills in their own country, few speak English or have visited the United States. Wearing a scarf on her head and another around her neck, a large T-shirt, a long flowered skirt and sandals, Selime Pllana, 50, said she hoped her family group of 14 was accepted, but only because "I just want to get out of here. I just saw America on TV, I never was there, I don't know anything about it."
But to turn away from home and toward the United States would be to abandon their dream of living in an independent Kosovo, refugees said.
"Home is what it's all about," said one official who talked to the U.S.-bound refugees today. |
