2,300 DESERTERS FROM THE SERBIAN ARMY FACE AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
For the Interior Minister, Ms Birte Weiss, the question of how to cope with deserters from the Serbian army who for the last three or four years have been waiting for an answer to their application for asylum has been a constantly recurring problem. Should they be given asylum in Denmark or should they be sent back? It now seems that the minister is trying to get out of the dilemma in which she has put herself by applying a special interpretation of the Danish foreigner law.
Around 2,300 refugees from the FRY (Serbia and Montenegro) who have deserted or refused to respond to a call-up to the Serbian army are currently living in Denmark. Of this group the majority is from Kosovo and they fear persecution in the event of forcible return to the FRY. Their cases has been moving through the Danish asylum procedure and final decisions by the appeal court are expected within the coming months.
No serious risk of persecution?
The Minister's expectation is that the appeal court, which is a government-independent institution, will not grant them asylum on the grounds of their being war resisters.
The reasons are twofold: according to the asylum authorities, they do not face harsher punishments than a maximum 60 days' imprisonment - i.e. sentences that do not differ from those handed out to Danish draft dodgers in a similar situation.
The asylum authorities' view is, however, being seriously questioned by experts and lawyers in and outside Serbia-Montenegro and in Kosovo. In May, the Minister therefore decided to send a special delegation to Serbia to investigate the situation. The delegation was, however, not able to travel because the Serbian representation in Copenhagen denied them visa. The other argument used by the Danish asylum authorities is that formally Serbia is not a country at war and therefore any reference to paragraph 171 in the UNHCR Handbook on how to interpret the Geneva Convention is not relevant. In this paragraph it is clearly stated that deserters from wars condemned by the international community should be granted asylum.
A Minister's dilemma
The problem for the Minister is that she is not able to get rid of the deserters. Indeed, in November 1994, the Serbian authorities issued a set of guidelines regulating the readmission of citizens abroad. One of the points in these regulations concerns asylum-seekers. They must have a special permit from the Serbian representations allowing them to return. These rules are widely viewed as an attempt to keep people from Kosovo from returning and thereby as a means to alter the ethnic balance in Kosovo.
It is this difficulty which has forced the Danish Interior Minister to consider "alternative" solutions, such as using a paragraph in the foreigner law (§ 9.2.4) which provides for granting stay permits on "humanitarian grounds". Under this provision, the Minister could grant the war resisters concerned asylum on the mere ground that the Serbian authorities currently refuse to readmit them. Earlier this year, this practice of the FRY forced the Swiss authorities to postpone the deportation of Kosovo-Albanians until January 1996 (see FECL No.34: "No deportations to Kosovo before 1996").
For deserters from the Serbian forces in Denmark, this means that they have been allowed to stay on a temporary basis pending a change in Serbian readmission practice. In Denmark, temporary stay permits are granted for a period of six months. They can however be prolongated several times by further six months within a period of three years, after which permanent residence will be granted. The reality behind this so-called "solution" is that the Danish Government is de facto leaving it to the authorities in Serbia to decide if and when the re-jected refugees are sent back home.
A new loop-hole for forcible returns to the FRY?
Meanwhile, the Danish Government is already considering backing away from temporary admission. At a meeting on August 14 between the Interior Minister and representatives of the political parties in the Danish Parliament, the Minister announced that "a rumour" had arisen that it was actually possible to return rejected FRY-refugees through Italy to the port city of Bar in Montenegro. The Minister said she would await more precise information before making a decision on the FRY-refugees further stay in Denmark.
On the same day the Norwegian police made an attempt to forcibly return two young Kosovo-Albanians to the FRY. The deportees who were escorted by two police took a flight from Oslo to Rome from where they travelled to the port town of Brindisi. There, the Norwegian police escorts put them on a ferry bound for Bar in Montenegro. The exact circumstances around this deportation are still to be investigated. But at least one of the deportees is now in Prishtina, Kosovo. His situation is not clear and is being checked.
Mads Bruun Pedersen (Copenhagen)