INTERNATIONAL HELSINKI FEDERATION ON KOSOVO-ALBANIAN DESERTERS
In a report on the situation of Kosovo-Albanian deserters in Macedonia, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) calls on host countries to grant asylum to Albanian deserters from Kosovo. The findings of the report sharply contrast with the official view of most Western European governments that the forcible return of deserters and draft resisters to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) is reasonable.
The findings of the report are based on the visit of an IHF delegation to Tetovo, Macedonia in mid-April.
Albanians constitute 85 per cent of the population in this town right on the border between Macedonia and Kosovo (FRY). Many of them are young deserters from Kosovo.
Neither the young men nor their relatives accept the draft orders sent by registered mail, i.e. they do not confirm receipt. If they sign the draft orders, they would have to report for active duty within three days. Those who do not follow this order, have to go into hiding or leave Kosovo. The police search for the deserters on behalf of the "Yugoslav People's Army" at their official places of residence, i.e. with their relatives. Very often such a visit takes a dramatic turn, if, for example, several policemen arrive and if they take relatives to the police station instead of the absent young men. Family members are often mistreated or threatened by the police seeking to extort information about the whereabouts of the draftee. Draft dodgers sometimes live underground for years.
In most cases, the younger ones do not have passports, which they get only after having done their military service. (Anyone who applies for a passport before having served in the army, receives only one valid for one or two years). Therefore they have to cross the border either to Albania or to Macedonia without documents, when they want to leave Kosovo.
Any Albanian wishing to travel from Kosovo to Albania, needs an exit visa from the Serb police. This is only available for business trips. If he crosses the border from Macedonia to Albania, his passport is stamped by the Macedonian authorities. This stamp means trouble with the Serb police upon return which can lead to arrest, a prison sentence up to four months and confiscation of the passport.
Thus, deserters are forced to live illegally abroad. Neither in Albania nor in Macedonia may Kosovo-Albanians be registered officially. As a result, they have no right to accommodation, food, work, or any form of social security.
In Austria (as well as in other European countries), asylum seekers who deserted need to present a draft order in order to prove their credibility. Since they - for the reasons described above - rarely have one, they often falsify one.
In Spring 1994, draft orders have reportedly been given on a massive scale in Kosovo. This seems to follow the general political goal of expelling young Albanians from Kosovo - a form of ethnic cleansing.
In Tetovo, the situation of refugees is catastrophic. They live in constant danger to be picked up by the police. They stand at the exit streets of Tetovo in the early morning and hope that somebody might offer them a job for 10 to 20 Deutsch Mark a day. They often sleep in houses under construction which are without roofs, windows and doors.
Return of deserters to Kosovo not acceptable
The IHF is of the opinion that the official reasoning of Austrian and other governments in favour of the return of deserters from Kosovo, according to which every state, including the internationally unrecognised ex-Yugoslavia, has a right to draft its male citizens does not apply in the case of Kosovo-Albanians for the following reasons:
1. According to the resolutions of the UN Security Council of August and October 1992 the activities of the army of the Bosnian Serbs on Bosnian territory constitute criminal activities. Every person participating in these crimes becomes individually responsible. Therefore every person drafted to a military unit on this territory has the right to refuse participation.
In his report from February 21, 1994, the UN Special Rapporteur on the former Yugoslavia, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, expressed his concern about the continued support of the Yugoslav People's Army for the Bosnian Serbs, thus confirming that recruits of this army can be forced to participate in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Consequently, there is an obligation on those states into which Kosovo-Albanians, but also Croatians, Bosnians, Serbs, and others from former Yugoslavia, flee to grant these draft resisters protection.
In February, the Administrative Court in Vienna, for the first time, took a decision along those lines.
2. No Albanian in Kosovo can be expected to serve in an army which has been present in Kosovo as an occupying power since 1989. The capital Prishtina, for example, is surrounded by tanks directed against the city. Albanian recruits in the "Yugoslav People's Army" are considered to be "politically unreliable" and are being harassed and tormented.
3. Reports from deserters show that refugees from Kosovo need protection from states to which they flee, since they are victims of collective ethnic persecution, a fact which is denied by the Austrian Ministry of the Interior and others. This evaluation was, however confirmed in a judgement of the Superior Administrative Court of Lower Saxony (Germany) of September 30, 1993.
Therefore the IHF urges that Albanian deserters from Kosovo are granted asylum. The IHF demands that the collective ethnic persecution in Kosovo is taken into consideration when dealing with asylum seekers from Kosovo.
Source: International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights: Kosovo Refugees in Tetovo, Macedonia, report, 5 p., 21.4.94. Available at: IHF, Rummelhardtg. 2/18, A-1090 Vienna; Tel: +43/1 4027387, Fax: +43/1 4087444.