I meet Vuc over lunch. The 27 year old guy is picking his meal out of a dumpster on an alley in central Belgrade. Like half a million other Serbs in former Yugoslavia he has come here on the run from the ethnic cleansing that has taken place in Croatia and Bosnia during the past five years.
They're an anomaly Serbian refugees don't fit well with the picture we have drawn in the west of the Serbs as the culprits and all the "others" as the victims.
According to the Dayton agreement signed almost two years ago, these "expellees," as the refugees are known, will eventually be "repatriated." In reality, that is not going to happen. The local players (Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia ) have known this all along, of course, and the refugees are beginning to realise it, too. A recent United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) survey showed that only a fraction of the Serbian refugees in Serbia hope or expect to go home again. The Yugoslav government and most aid workers have reached the same conclusion. Unfortunately Belgrade appears to be unwilling to allocate the resources required to the care of the refugees, insisting that it is not their problem alone.
A handful of international relief organisations are working in Serbia, but their focus has been on emergency relief directly linked to the fighting, and they're unlikely to stay and handle long-term rehabilitation and integration needed. They are at the mercy of foreign donors (notably governments) who are reluctant to support the current Serbian leadership by taking over responsibility for its refugee problem;insisting instead that Serbia get its prioritites right and take the steps required to become an accepted international player.
While the diplomats and politicians talk, the question remains unanswered: how to deal with half a million destitute people stuck in a country that's hated, poorly run and basically bankrupt?
Loans, grants and motivation
The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is doing its best in places like Kraljevo, a pretty town in south-central Serbia with 80.000 inhabitants and 8.000 refugees, where a bunch of little old Serbian ladies are knitting away happily in a social club on a Tuesday morning. Throughout Serbia and Montenegro DRC runs clubs like this, which serve about 18.000 people;they keep the Serbian refugees from Krajina and Bosnia active and motivated, offer them vocational training courses and help them get involved with UNHCR projects like income generation. The IGPs, as they are known, are loans or grants given to would-be entrepreneurs among the refugees who can put together a feasible business plan and present it to an agency like DRC. With the funds they can generate income for themselves and their family, leaving them less dependent on aid from others. It is also a step towards establishing a new life in their new surroundings.
The concept was initially developed by aid workers in Africa and Asia, and has been a success elsewhere in the world. Today DRC has 3.000 benificaries in a few hundred projects. DRC has chosen to focus on large projects where groups of 7-10 refugees get together and receive a grant or a loan of dem10.000 (approx. usd 6.000) or more. While the aim is to establish succesful business operations, DRC's project director, Anette Christoffersen, points out that the psycho-social effect of just keeping the refugees busy remains an important aspect of the projects.
Establishing successful projects is not easy. The refugees are not used to long term planning, explains Anette Christoffersen, they find it hard to think about "the rest of their lives."They tend to focus instead on the here and now, living as they do from hand to mouth. Some exaggerate their past experience when they put in a proposal, in some cases claiming to have worked in areas that they've never been near before.
In some cases this means the project is one of "learning by doing."Once they're started, DRC must teach the refugees about optimizing utilization of capacity and planning of production basic business concepts that are unknown to a would-be Yugoslav businessman. A balance needs to be struck between working with the refugees on their terms, yet at the same time teaching them the concepts that will help them get on with life. A popular theme for IGPs is greenhousing. dem8.500 (usd 5.000) buys a 180 m2 (1.700 sq. feet) greenhouse, which can be assembled in a matter of days. It then takes about a season to teach the refugees how to run it efficiently, but they need to be closely supervised, and often lack the means of survival while they wait for the income from the first crops.
Land, but not his own
Bosko works on a plot of land just outside Kraljevo. He had his own land in Croatia, land that Bosko spent nearly fifty years farming. But in 1992 he and his family of six escaped from a village near Sisak, south of Zagreb when the fighting started there. Their first stop was Nis, but they did not care for the city life and couldn't make a living there. As is the case for many refugees, this is the second time Bosko is on the run;in 1941 he escaped to partisan-held territory as the Germans and the Ustashe Croats went after the Serbs in Croatia.
Together with three other families they now run a small-scale greenhouse operation financed by DRC with UNHCR funds. Bosko, however, still feels uprooted. He has heard that their house in Croatia is still in one piece, so if things should change for the better, he'd be eager to go back. "My kids can never feel content here," he says. "There are no jobs for them, no assurance for the future."Bosko and his family would love to work as much as they could, but there is not much for them to do. They are worried and Bosko says he has little hope for the future.
Sitting idle
Half of the DRC projects are in the hands of refugees who live in so-called collective centres a euphemism for the baracks, run-down schools and other institutions that local authorities have been forced to offer them as temporary housing. Adrani is one such centre just outside Kraljevo, that houses 85 refugees. It is in poor condition and has just one toilet for them all to share. "Still, that's a lot better than the camp just across the street," says the elected representative of the refugees. "They don't even have one."An old lady nods. At 79 she is the oldest of the refugees at Adrani. The youngest is a girl just two years old.
These refugees arrived from Krajina in May of 1995 and were first housed in the local sports centre. A couple of families to a room, they now share the crummy, cramped centre. As they are quick to point out, "even the animals on the local farms are better off than us." it seems that after two years, the realisation is slowly sinking in:"we won't be going back anytime soon."
On an old TV in a corner of the communal room of the Adrani collective centre the confused images of MTV flicker by. A group of refugees have come in to explain what life is like in the centre.
"We feel like prisoners you should see what we left behind back in Croatia. Here, we are just guest, and we've overstayed our welcome," says an aging man with a frown. The local Red Cross gives them clothes from deceased refugees at other camps, and the local municipality keeps them fed. The International Red Cross has provided them with matresses, and DRC has given them material for bed sheets. Apart from that, they get no help to speak of, and basic necessities like running water and medicine are not available at Adrani.
Their chosen representative holds regular meetings with the local authorities, but to little avail. "We are always told that things will be improved, that something will happen, but nothing ever does. Usually the excuse we are given has to do with lack of funds from Belgrade. Then, when we finally do get something, it's often so little that it leads to internal bickering about sharing it fairly."
In 1996 DRC's local social worker managed to get the refugees at Adrani involved in some activities;they played games, started growing vegetables on a plot behind the centre, and socialized with refugees from other centres. But on this day in April it seems that they've lost all the initiative and returned to the apathy of waiting for something, anything, to happen.
Some of them have had temporary jobs, doing hard physical labor for around 60 dinars (approx. dem 15 or usd 9) a day, but even those jobs are gone now as the Serbian economy has slumped further towards a collapse. Working the 3.000 m? (27.000 sq. feet) of farmland they have rented nearby is not enough to keep them all busy, but only three of them have put in applications for income generation projects, and all were rejected. The rest of the group at Adrani seem to have given up hope. They complain obsessively about the food, the milk, the cold, the kids, the humanitarian organisations, and the system. Over and over they repeat the same laments: "What can we do?Where can we go? Who can help us?"
They are mostly peasants, whose simple lives for generations revolved around the land and their family. Before the war they didn't have much;now, they have lost even that. They were never supposed to show much initiative, and the notion of "starting a new life" is clearly quite incomprehensible to most of them.
"Yes," they admit, "we would have liked to have been part of a Greater Serbia, but not like this." The fear has come with them from Croatia;fear of someone pointing a finger at them, sending them back to Croatia to stand trial as war criminals. Of course, none of them will own up to having comitted war crimes, but most of them are old age pensioners and women anyway, hardly chetniks on-the-run.
Could they ever consider Serbia "home" and feel comfortable in their new surroundings?"Yes," says an old woman, "but it would be so much easier if things changed for the better."
Twice is twice too often
A sweet old guy with a quivering voice and a mild stutter steps forward and quietly shows me a picture of a house;his house back in Krajina, it turns out.
Milorad's sad, tired eyes reflect what is on the photo. The house is a large, good-looking home, and in front a family is posing around an aging Opel sedan. He then hands me six other pictures taken by a neighbor who fled to Germany, and who recently went back to visit the village in Krajina. It looks as if someone stepped on the house with big, heavy boots; the outer walls have collapsed, and rubble lies strewn all around it. It takes a second to appreciate what the reality of these pictures must mean to him.
Milorad's story is doubly tragic. As a three year-old he was expelled with his family from their home just south of Zagreb in Croatia. That was in 1941. They fled to Serbia, and by chance they ended up in Matarusjka Banja, the camp just across the street from Adrani. Milorad still remembers the family's trip back to Croatia in 1948, where they proceeded to rebuild their home and their life.
Then, in 1995, he and his wife had to leave again. The journey to Serbia took them almost two weeks. He had a good relationship with his neighbors and never imagined that it would happen again. By chance he ended up in Kraljevo again, almost 50 years later.
Perhaps we can go back after all...
An old resort south of Kraljevo currently houses 320 refugees, 55 of them kids. On the walls of the social club are children's drawings and posters with irregular English verbs. Here, I meet an old Serbian couple let us call them Tomislav and Dragana who escaped from the Croatian town of Nova Gradica in 1991. According to the woman in charge of the centre they may well be some of the very first Serbian refugees,
In their dismal little room the elderly Serbian lady is complaining of back pain, depressions and a plethora of other ailments. Dragana has one hand on her back and the other pressed against her stomach as she speaks. She moans and explains that she can't take the food any longer, that she has to be fed small portions several times a day and should be on a special diet, but that they can't afford to buy anything. Dragana is convinced that the sanitary conditions in the kitchen are disgusting and wishes the state would do something. She needs medicine to stabilise her mental condition, but they can't afford that, either. She has missed her last couple of doctor's appointments because they can't afford the bus ticket, and while she thinks she should be admitted to the hospital, she's worried about what might happen to her there.
"How is anyone supposed to live under these conditions," Dragana asks, and raises her arms in resignation. Two beds, a small table, a radiator, a cupboard and a couple of hot plates. That's all they have in their "home," all they have had for the past six years. She pulls out an old, brown sweater and holds it up in disgust. "I got this four years ago from the Red Cross," she says, "and haven't gotten anything since." While the couple is very appologetic on behalf of the local authorities and the rule in Belgrade ("Oh, that's just the system here...") they are very quick to point out the lack of foreign aid and what they see as broken promises made by various relief organisations over the years.
They did not believe anyone would actually go to war in what was then Yugoslavia back in 1991, but all hell broke loose while they were visiting a relative in Bosnia. Fearing that their son might be drafted into the Croatian army to fight Serbs if they went back, they chose instead to stay in Bosnia. Like so many others, they were later forced to leave Bosnia and move on to Serbia itself. Their son lives in Belgrade where we works and studies at the university.
As a former civil servant in Croatia Tomislav was eligble for a dem 1.500 (usd 900) annual pension;but while he was able to take it with him anywhere in the old federal Yugoslavia, he has, of couse, not received any money from what is now independent Croatia since fleeing in 1991. "If only I could get back to Croatia and settle things with the pension," he grumbles. He has heard from a few people back home and claims not be worried about his security if he went back his neighbors were nice enough, he says, and he has never caused anyone any trouble.
When I ask him why they don't try going back as part of the UNHCR repatriation programme Tomislav claims that his wife is just too sick to travel. But it quickly becomes quite clear that they know surprisingly little about the options that are open to them. They haven't taken part in any of the information meetings about repatriation and visit programs that have been held at the centre. He says it's because they're ashamed to discuss their problems and anxieties in front of other refugees.
While they have heard of the "Going Home" projects run by the Red Cross and UNHCR, they have also heard of people returning home only to discover that their homes have been destroyed something they do not wish to experience. They're also concerned about whether they would be able to go back to Serbia if things were to prove too difficult or dangerous in Croatia. And what about their safety on the trip can UNHCR guarantee that? Tomislav asks unconvinced.
The figures vary considerably depending on the source, but no more than a few thousand Serbs have returned to Croatia. Some claim that the only people the Croats have allowed to return are old people who have gone to die in their home village. In Franjo Tjudman's republic a law was recently passed giving Croats legal rights to property seized from refugees, including their homes. And these days, only people currently living in Croatia are issued with proof of citizenship and other ID, effectively rendering the refugees in Serbia stateless.
Meanwhile, tension between Serbs and Muslims is building in Eastern Slavonia, threatening to restart the war and possibly send a new wave of refugees scrambling from the self-proclaimed Republica Srpska in Bosnia towards Serbia. The national Serbian elections slated for September of this year may bring a change in government, but while some relief organisations have found Zajedno people more dynamic and easier to work with on a local level compared to those of the old guard, it remains to be seen what a Zajedno leadership can do for Serbia as a country. The economy and infrastructure of the country is on the verge of collapse, and several difficult issues including the status of Kosova and Vojvodina need to be addressed before the world will lend a hand with rebuilding the Serbia. And even with foreign aid getting the country back on its feet will take quite some time and a lot of effort by a nation that seems for now to have given up, collectively.
It is hard to imagine what will happen with the half million refugees in Serbia. They will still be there when the next winter comes, but it is doubtful if there will be enough relief supplies to give them the help they will need to survive it.
And as with the Palestinian refugees I have met in Lebanon and Jordan, the dream of returning lives on in the minds of the Serbian refugees in Serbia. But as years go by and the reality of the situation engulfs it, that dream is turning into a nostalgic myth of better times. |
Prishtina Hostpital is a dodgy place to be, especially if you´re sick. But for Kosova´s prematurely born babies a regular checkups at the hospital after discharge may well be the singlemost important factor for increased chances of survival.
Prishtina hospital is the biggest in the rural region known as Kosova to the Albanians and Kosovo to the Serbs. The two ethnic groups lead an uneasy coexistence. While 90% of the population is ethnically Albanian, the administrators and heads of public institutions like the hospital are Serbian. Rumours circulate about Albanian patients being mistreated at the hands of Serbian doctors and nurses. While they are most likely all unfounded, they nevertheless add to the mutual distrust and suspiciousness permeating local society. The Albanians have created their own parallel health and social services system called "Mother Theresa," but the clinics are poorly funded and cannot offer much in the way of eg. nenonatal care.
Together with a general boycott of the hosptails by the Albanians, the fear of the Serbian medical proessionals keeps the Albanian mothers away, though a quick look at the hospital itself would be reason enough. The most basic facilities at the run-down facility are lacking (parts of the hospital are regularly without water or electricity), medical supplies are inadequate, the sanitation disgusting and the temperature in most wards not above 55 degrees. "Equal opportunity neglect," as one American midwife aptly describes it.
The infant mortality rate in Kosova is the highest in Europe, and so is the birth rate. Children are born either at home, at the Mother Theresa birth centres or at the region´s state-run clinics. Once born, the children are whisked away to their village, and that may be the last any doctor see of the baby. For the frail premature and SGA (small for gestational age) children this lack of doctor´s care can lead to the tragic neglect of otherwise curable medical conditions. "This is the single largest problem facing us: they don´t show up for the scheduled check-ups, so we don´t know how the baby is doing," explains neo-natologist Dr. Besa. "We can´t force the parents to bring the kids in for controls, only pursuade them and teach them the value of follow-up after birth."
Dr. Agim, who is in charge of neonatal care at Prishtina hospital, is quick to point out that people in the villages er intelligent enough. The problem is that the parents just don´t know the right things to do. "If we had these control visists, we wouldn´t be seing as many cases of anemia, poor growth etc," he points out. "I have seen the most incredible things. A perfectly healthy baby left this clinic; after two weeks, he came back, skinny and weak, in terrible condition. Two days later, he died. It turns out the mother had only fed him water skimmed from boiled fruit, nothing else. As she herself put it, 'well, he didn´t seem to care much for milk.´ Other mothers will wash their children with eggs, because it allegedly 'gives them such smooth and soft skin,´" Dr. Agim says with a shrug and sighs.
"A lot of the mothers make the strangest mistakes with the best of intentions, and it is very hard to convince them to do things differently. If you question their methods of child rearing they will respond with a sense of hurt pride: 'well, that´s how my mother taught me to do it.´" We have to get out there, into their houses, so we can see what the family setting is like, he concludes.
To boldly go where no nurse has gone before
This year, maternity and neonatal wards from both the Albanian and state-run Serbian institutions are taking part in an irc project providing comprehensive follow-up for those particularly vulnerable newborns after they are discharged from the clinics. The main goal of the IRC program is three-fold: 1) to watch the health of the babies as they return to their new home, 2) to encourage the mother to take her newborn to see the doctor for regular check-ups and vaccinations, and 3) to monitor the mother´s state of health when and if she becomes pregnant again, for her own sake as well as for the sake of the next child.
The work of providing the on-site follow-up will be done by a team of hand-picked, experienced nurses. All but one them were fired from the medical system in the ´91 purge of Albanians; the exception is the one Serbian nurse attached to the project in order to make it "politically correct" in the current Kosova setting and thus acceptable to the powers that be. These nurses will head off to the villages throughout Kosova and pay home visits to the families whose babies are part of the program target group.
Preventative measures
It is important, the nurses are told during the first of their three preparatory lessons, not only to watch the health of the new-born that has recently come home, but also to check on the health of the mother. She will most likely be having another baby, and it is the nurse´s job to make sure that the next one doesn´t become a "problem baby." Although the first baby may suffer from a medical condition, there´s a good chance of preventing that from happening with the next one.
The nurses should take notice of the hygiene conditions they encounter on their visits to the homes in the villages. They have the opportunity to observe the circumstances under which the newborn is growing up and the mother is living, and this may also be the setting for the birth of her next baby. They should make the parents aware of nutritional requirements , not only for her baby, but also for her as an expectant mother. This includes the taking of vitamines to prevent ao. spina bifida, avoiding drugs during pregnancy and so on.
As they gain the trust of the parents it is hoped that the family will confide in the nurses and listen to the advice they give. If so, the nurses can offer some pre-conceptual information, including the suggestion that the family space the children by at least two years. "So, the next time a mother tells you that she´s expecting, you should be the one to tell her how happy you are for her, but also that she should go see the doctor to avoid, for example, having a big baby or small baby or premature baby due to complications from diabetes or other medical conditions," explains one of the American doctors who are training the nurses in preparation for the project.
The nurses are urged to give the mothers an explanation for the things that are happening to them, ie. explain to them why it is vitally important for them and their baby to go see a doctor at the hospital, even though they may be quite reluctant to do so.
Dr. Besa explains that it is hard for the parents to find the time to take proper care of the newborn once they get him or her home because there are so many other kids to look after, and so much that needs to be done in the daily life of a villager. Besides, she points out, they lack almost everything required to give their offspring a decent start in life water, electricity, decent roads and phones that work.
At the clinics themselves the project will provide the means to collect and store the data from the follow-up. It is hoped that statistically significant results may be achieved through the completion of the project, showing the true value of this kind of follow-up care. |
The images went around the world. In August 1995 convoys of civilians mostly elderly people and children, walking along the roads of Yugoslavia under the scorching sun.
By then, Balkan fatigue had made most western observers oblivious to the real meaning of yet another mass exodus of refugees in the Balkans, and few seemed to take much notice of this latest turn of events in Europe.
Those people on the roads were the Krajina Serbs, escaping a swift Croatian offensive that swept through the self-proclaimed republic of Krajina Srpska in Croatia. Two weeks later the escaping masses reached Serbia and other ethnic Serbs who had come from Bosnia and Northern Croatia. They had fled nationalistic expansionism in the early years of the the outbreak of hostilities in 1991.
In theory, the Dayton accord signed in 1995 provides for the repatriation of the refugees, or "expellees" as they are technically known. Most international observers agree, however, that these people are very unlikely to be able to go back home to Croatia or Bosnia & Hercegovina, despite the efforts of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR ) and others to make the civilian parts of Dayton, including repatriation, come into effect. The homes and in some instances entire villages of the Serbian refugees have been burnt down or taken over by Croats or Muslims, and should they choose to go back, the former Serbian inhabitants of these ethnically cleansed areas can expect to be met with strong hostility by the new occupants.
A number of refugees have attempted to go back assisted by UNHCR and have subsequently been beaten and forced back to Serbia. And so, we can expect to see half a million refugees stuck in rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) for quite a while yet, if not permanently.
A relatively small group of refugees (about 10 percent) live under poor conditions in so-called "collective centres" in groups of 50-300 refugees. But the vast majority of the Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia & Hercegovina live in private accomodations throughout Serbia and Montenegro. A dew have taken up residence on abandoned, isolated homesteads (salash'es, as they are known in Hungarian) scattered across the vast, fertile farmlands of Vojvodina in the norternmost part of Serbia. Some still receive occasional food or hygiene parcels from the Yugoslav Red Cross, UNHCR and the few foreign donors who acknowledge the plight of the Seriban refugees in Serbia. But this is all short term emergency relief that does not address the need to find viable solutions to their needs in the longer term.
Some of the refugees have been passively waiting around for up to five years, and they have lost any motivation or energy to do anything. Some still engulfed by bitterness and depression, others seemingly overwhelmed by the embarrasment of suddenly being dependent on others for your most basic needs. For many it appears that the memory of what they had and have now lost forever is almost harder to bear than the daily struggle to survive. When they tell of their hardships they do so with a shrug of the shoulders, but when they describe the home they left behind in Krajina their voice trembles and they can no longer hold back the tears.
Better than staring at the walls
One approach to getting the refugees back into active life is through so-called Intcome Generation Projects. irc is a UNHCR implementing partner. so UNHCR puts up the money, while irc does the "doing." The idea has been adapted by UNHCR from similar hugely successful programs in Africa and Asia. An interest free, short-term loan is given to a refugee intent on starting a business venture on his own or as part of a group, but who lacks the necessary initial capital to buy machinery or rent a shop or some land. The refugee is requested to submit a formal application with a business plan and an estimate of the required loan. By the spring of 1997 irc had started about 50 such projects in the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina.
An important aspect of IGP project is to try and to help refugees get a sense of purpose in their otherwise miserable lives. Which is why project managers behind several IGP programs throughout Serbia are quick to point out that while they would love to see the projects become financially succesful, and thereby helping the refugee's family towards financial independence, the primary aim is psycho-social. Participating in an income generation project is hoped to lead to a sense of purpose and to build confidence. If successful, it can encourage dispondent refugees to think more about future possibilities for themselves and their family than about the loesses they have suffered and the happy life they used to have.
Local field operatives associated with the irc program undertake the day-to-day contact with the refugees. They are responsible for encouraging refugees to apply for loans and help evaluate the applications, and they stay in touch with them once the project is up and running to give whatever help is needed along the way. They also collect the monthly installments on the loan. The irc loans are quite modest, and DEM 1.000 (approx. USD 670) isn't much when you're starting a whole new life.
Three cases in point
The following three case stories from Vojvodina should give an idea of the range of projects that may be funded through irc's IGP programme.
1. Welding together a new future
A decrepit red Yugo sits in front of the big, modern house. Next to it an ancient tractor is rusting away;that is the ride that brought Samac Dusan and his family from Prizlitse in Croatia to the town of Bracka Topola in Vojvodina, a couple of hours north of Belgrade, just south of the Hungarian border. When he and his family fled the Croatian offensive in August of '95 they came here because Samac has relatives in town.
Initially, the family of four relied on assistance from the Yugoslav Red Cross, but lately they've managed on their own. Samac's wife worked as a teacher, and he taught at a vocational school back in Krajina. They would both like to go back to teaching if it were possible, but for now they live off the income from Samac's blacksmith shop which is set up in the garage under the house.
He had already started the enterprise with his father when he applied for a loan through irc's IGP programme. The DEM 1.000 (USD 670) loan he was eventually granted, constitutes 20 percent of his total investment capital. While he rents most of the equipment in the shop, the loan allowed him to buy a spot welder and other heavy duty equipment for the shop. Samac proudly shows off one of several hundred bent metal rods with welded nuts that he's produced for a local builder. He only does commissioned work and charges half the payment up front. That covers materials, the other half is his income. Most of his customers are local entrepreneurs and a couple of state-owned factories in the area. But with the current state of the Serbian economy, they have almost no money to spend. Things are going reasonable well, Samac says, but it is still difficult to make ends meet. The loan was a help, but he had hoped for a bigger loan which would have enabled him to buy bigger, better and more modern machinery.
He is confident that spring will bring in more work, and he is quite optimistic about the future possibilities for his shop. Samac hopes to one day be in a position to hire some outside labour, and the driveway is already full of the building materials that will be used to construct a new workshop in the back yard of the family house. It should be ready by the end of summer. Samac no longer harbours dreams of going back to Krajina. He has put a lot of hard work into establishing this operation, he explains, and no matter what changes may occour over the coming years, he intends to stay here in Bracka Topola. While it's a hard life, they're at least making headway. "The past is history," he maintains. "I'm fortunate enough to be young and able, and blessed with a good set of hands."
2. A cow and a half
There's a wonderful twinkle in Savo Lubobratovic's eye, and a couple of teeth missing from his upper gums. He looks at least 60 years old, but as he leads me to the stables he points out that he has in fact only just turned 50. His wife is 47, and the two live in a small farmhouse in Vojvodina.
In 1994 their old house in Croatia was burnt down while Savo was away on business. The following day their Croatian neighbors showed up and offered his terrified wife a miserable price for their remaining livestock and the land. She accepted this offer she couldn't really refuse it and took off to meet her husband in Serbia. Listening to their discription of what they remember, they had everything: a lovely farmhouse, fertile land, he had a steady job as a carpenter and kept cows, pigs and sheep as well. They ended up in Vojvodina because her brother lived in the region.
In december of 1996 Savo was given a loan of DEM 1.250 (approx. USD 840) from the irc IGP programme. He used the money to buy a cow and a half he payed for the other half of the cow with the meager proceeds from the sale of the livestock and land back in Krajina. He's been very rational in his choice of how to spend the money. "Goats are no good, because people in Serbia aren't particularly fond of goat's milk, and pigs require special feed which is expensive. I would have liked a different breed of cow that yields more milk, but these are just fine, "he says with a smile of satisfaction. One of the cows is pregnant. If the calf is a bull he'll eventually sell it for slaughter; if it's a cow he'll keep her.
Savo is a tough old guy who a lot of self confidence and a belief that it pays off to make an effort, in spite of every one else claiming that it's impossible to make any headway in present day Serbia. "Some of the other applicants thought the 1.000 Deutschmarks offered was too little, and they complained bitterly. "That tiny sum won't do us any good at all,' they lamented. I, on the other hand, was happy to accept the loan, considering a means to an end and a new beginning." But things are tough for Savo and his wife. I ask them if they can live off the proceeds from the two cows, and they hesitate before answering. Barely, they confess. While they sell the milk to the local plant, he still has to work as a menial worker at a local shop and as a gravedigger for the church. He's payed in feed for the animals. Before getting the loan from IRC he did odd jobs around town and they recieved some help from UNHCR and the Red Cross.
Savo's dream is to one day have some pigs in the back yard, but his big dream is to one day have some land of his own. If he could take out a new loan it would be to buy a tractor so he could run the farm more efficiently. But first he wants to pay back his current loan, and he's well on his way to doing so, as a matter of fact, he's ahead on his payments.
The couple opens the door to their home, and it immediately becomes apparent how poor they really are. There is nothing in the combined kitchen and living room, exept for the old stove that the wife is using to keep the chill out, continuously stoking it with corn cobs. It smells nice, but it doesn't give much in the way of heat. In one of the two small bedrooms, half hidden behind a pile of empty old Red Cross food parcels, the mother-in-law is wasting away. "I just want to die," she says, and by the look of things she soon will. It's less than 15 degrees Celcius in the room, the floor is stamped earth. Savo's wife is very worried. "How will we afford the funeral," she asks? She's sick, too, and should be going for treatment at the local hospital once a week. But the Serbian government has recently done away with the free transport offered to refugees, and they can't afford the ticket. They have even heard rumours that the authorities will be cancelling their free electricity and demanding back pay for past supply.
As she tells of their home in Croatia, Savo's wife can't help shedding a tear, and it's hard for her to tell about her escape three years ago.
The whole village was burned down, so the couple have nothing to go back to in Croatia. Their children live a couple of hundred miles away, but the couple cannot afford to visit them. They are not in touch with old friends or neighbors, and they don't know any of the refugees in the new community. They're not very keen on associating with the other refugees, because "refugees are desperate people, you can't trust them," as Savo points out. "Now a days," he contiues, "you can only trust yourself."
3. What to bring in an emergency
"Not many people here in Vojvodina can afford to buy new clothes these days. It almost only happens for special occasions."
These words are Bogdanka Pavlica's. In July of 1993 she fled with her family from Ogulin in Croatia. They ended up here in Bracka Topola because her husband's friend the best man at their wedding, no less lives here. She worked briefly as a secretary at the local army barracks, then found herself without a job. But she had had the presence of mind to bring her sewing machine with her when she escaped, as a contingency plan if all else failed. And soon she established herself as a seamstress, offering alterations and repairs, working out of her home.
In november of '96 she applied for and was granted a DEM 800 (USD 540) loan through the irc IGP programme, and with the money she bought raw materials and sewing supplies to enable her to taylor new clothes for her customers. Her mother had taught her the skills, the designs are her own. Judging by the suit in progress, she is good at her job. It was not difficult for Bogdanka to muster the courage to ask for the loan. "After all, it's not like begging," she is quick to point out. She was confident that she would be able to pay the loan back, so she was willing to run the risk of putting herself into debt in order to get on with life.
When she isn't busy working with needle and thread, Bogdanka looks after the family home and her two boys. She has ample time for that, unfortunately, because business is slow. For the month of February she only had two orders to fill, and it only takes her a day to complete a set of dress clothes. She charges DEM 120 for an outfit, 90 of which cover the cost of materials. It's not bad when keeping in mind that the average Serbian worker makes about DEM 200 a month.
Bogdanka does not belive she and her family will ever return to Croatia. She just hopes they will be able to sell their old house in Ogulin. "We all have hopes," she says, "but we really need the money badly. We barely have enough now to cover the basic needs for us and the kids." Her husband works at a local, state owned furniture plant that is failing. The factory has provided Bogdanka's family with the apartment and all the furniture in it.
She would be happy to see the business grow larger,, and she intends to focus on her tailoring work in the future. "I definitely feel a lot better now that I am doing something at long last," she says. "Anything is better than sitting around staring at your own four walls all day," she says with the conviction of someone who knows too well what that is like. |
Kosova is a mess. Not just politically, but physically. Crossing a muddy stream in a small village near the Macedonian border a local guy points to the plastic bottles, rusting metal and other junk floating along with the current. "See this stream?" he asks me rhetorically. "When I was a child not so long ago we could fish in in this stream." Not only is there no longer any fish in the water, it is also quite useless as a healthy source of drinking water. Such is the sad, neglected state of the environment in Kosova.
Why don't people just clean up their act and their neighbourhood? Ask them, and they'll tell you they can't. Most ethnic Albanians will be quick to point out that the problem indeed, any problem in the region is the fault of the Serbian regime. In 1989 Belgrade took complete and heavyhaned control of Kosova, revoking the autonomy the region had been granted in the 1974 constitution under Tito. It was to be the first step in Slobodan Milosevic's catastrophic campaign for a Greater Serbia, fed by nationalistic fervour among the Serbs.
Most Albanians were fired from management, local government and teaching institutions and hospitals. Within a year the Albanians had set up a parallel system of government, social services and teaching, headed by the largest underground opposition party, the LDK. In spite of the fact that they constitute 90 percent of the population in Kosova, the Albanians insist that the oppresive rule of the Serbs make it impossible for them to make any improvements to their quality of life. "Before the Serbs came," many Albanians will claim in all sincerity, "we had no problems here. And once we get our own state, everything will be fine again."
But while the Serbs are certainly not making it any easier for the Albains to maintain the infrastructure, numerous practical issues remain which the Albanians could and should be able to tackle on a local level, regardless of the political situation in the region. The problem there seems to be cultural barriers which must be overcome if the Albanians are to reach their full potential as a community if, indeed, they are ever to run their own state responsibly. One example is the mutual distrust (according to some, there were 600 bloodfeuds pending at last count) and the jealousi, and suspicion of anyone in the local community who shows initiative or leadership. These are just two of the age-old traditions that keep them from moving ahead. Another is the focus on the prosperity of the close family, arguably at the cost of the community as a whole. While the strength this gives the family as a unit is admirable and an asset in hard times, it also narrows the perspective for progress in the longer term.
A trip through any rural Albanian village reveals a surprising number of beautiful, at times downright opulent houses being built Swiss-style chalets with satellite dishes on the roof, dozens of rooms and great walls surrounding the large property. Yet the school in that very same village will most likely be falling apart, and the roads in desperate need of repair. The same will be the case with the medical clinic and any other communal features. The beautiful houses (in which only a few rooms are used, and even fewer heated and furnished) are unlikely to be connected to a sewage system, because very few villages have one. Instead, the local stream is used to remove refuse of any kind and send it on its way.
So while there are clearly some very practical steps that could be taken to help improve the lot of the poorest people in Europe, any outsider must approach that challenge with care and consideration. It is not just a question of doing it or showing them how to improve things. Real success also requires a thorough and thoughtful explain as to why it makes sense for them to take the necessary steps.
Five new ways to a better village life
In a bold new program, IRC is trying precisely that approach in four villages in the southern part of Kosova. "Community building" is a multi-faceted project aimed at improving the quality of life for the villagers. By implementing five different aspects of the same concept at the same locations the effect should be all the stronger and impress upon not only the local villagers but others, too, the possibilities of working together towards common goals.
Firstly, IRC plans to improve facilities at the local primary schools. The schools are typically shared by Albanian and Serbian students. While it must be said that the "sharing" is not always particularly fair, IRC will be improving sanitary conditions and teaching resources for both ethnic groups. Classrooms and walkways will be repaired and in conjunction with the Open Society Fund the program will supply computers, microscopes etc. to new, shared classrooms.
Much of what is needed is quite basic. A school of a thousand pupils or more will have only a couple of outdoor lavatories for the entire school; these lavatories are usually in horrible condition, with either no sewage treatment at all or a pathetic, overflowing septic pit. Of course, there are no facilities for handwashing. Indoor plumbing is limited, and there is little or no fresh water available to the students. In some cases the quality of the water supply may be suspect. IRC's two engineers (a local Albanian and an American volunteer) will assess the needs of each institution and in consultation with the local authorities decide what can be done.
The teachers who will be using the new equipment and facilities will be offered training as part of the community building programme. The "sharing" of facilities between Albanian and Serbian pupils is an important aspect of the projects; it is hoped that the cooperation needed to put the new facilites to use will encourage further joint ventures at the schools. This will require careful maneuvering by the IRC team in order to pursuade the two sides to work together as partners for mutual good, rather than play off one another as opponents with inherently opposing standpoints.
As with the schools, the medical clinics in the villages will be given an overhaul by the IRC community building team in consultation with the local health workers and authorities. The focus there will be on sanitary conditions; in most of the clinics toilet facilites for patients are either lacking or in unspeakably bad condition. "Turkish style" squatting toilets are the rule, there are no facilities for washing hands and in some cases the toilet (often there is only one) is located outside the clinic exposed to the elements. As with the school lavatories, the sewage from the medical clinics' lavatories is most often led straight out into the local stream or feeds into a decrepit, leaking septic pit.
IRC will try to upgrade the techical equipment at the clinic to enable them to better diagnose and treat disease, and the medical teams there will be given computers to improve the clinic's record keeping.
In any Kosova village, plastic bottles, scrap metal and a range of other debris can be found scattered in gutters, along roadsides and in the local streams and fields. In the four project villages IRC and the local population will together plan a village clean-up campaign to get rid of the accumulated junk once and for all. The villagers will provide the labour, ie. they will be cleaning up their own neighbourhood, and IRC will ensure that a local dump is established for proper disposal of the collected trash. A rubbish collection system will be set up for the village so that hopefully future garbage will not end up in the local environment.
While these practical, highly visible improvements will do much to improve the health and quality of life in the village (and, hopefully, local acceptance of the whole program), the real challenge will be changing the attitude of the local population. By teaching them about the connection between environment and health, they should begin to appreciate that they are not only ultimately responsible for their local environment, but also that they are in a position to make a real difference if they face up to that responsibility.
Based on previous positive experience from programs in other villages, IRC will be offering groups of village women health education. The classes, held in the village on an informal basis, will cover traditional subjects like breast feeding, hygiene and children's health and anything else that the villager's themselves wish to bring up; they will also touch on more controversial subjects such as family planning and the women's role in society.
Even more challenging to the villagers will be the men's groups. Here, again, the villagers will essentially set the agenda themselves; the planned subjects are agriculture and other issues of interest to village men, but it is hoped that areas like family planning, gender relations and the importance of sending girls to school can also be approached.
In both groups issues of ecology and community awareness will be raised. The same will be the case with the last group addressed in the community building programme the children. The hope is to arrange a summer camp for the village children where they can meet kids from other villages and get a chance to learn about issues like basic health to ecology in a fun and stimulating environment.
The approach taken by the community building program offers two immediate advantages. First of all, by actively involving them in the process and giving them tangible results all along, it gives the people in the village the best possible incentive to move on independently once the programme is over. Many villagers claim that what they need is an example to follow in order to break the spell of apathy that leaves them with so much to be desired.
Secondly, IRC here has the perfect opportunty to improve the practical implementation of a strong project concept before moving on to the next village down the road where they will most likely have heard of the results achieved by the time community building comes to town. |
A Passion for Compassion
It was so convenient. The picture was finally painted neatly in black and white by most mainstream media in the West. On the one side were the bad Serbs, and then there were "all the others," who were, on the whole, victims of Serbian aggression. It made sense, there were winners and loosers, good guys and bad.
Based on that it is difficult at first to fully appreciate the plight of the sad-looking bunch lined up outside an apartment building in Belgrade one cold morning in April. The compassion is initially dampened by some cynical doubts. After all, they´re just Serbs, aren´t they? If they have it tough - well, they have themselves to blame, don't they?
But a closer scrutiny of the story behind these people makes it clear that this group of people are caught between a rock and hard place. Yes, they are Serbs, but these were the Serbs who lost without even trying to win. "Ethnically cleansed" over the past five years from their homes by Croats (and in some cases Bosnian Muslims), they have been forced to head East away from areas that are currently under Croatian or Bosnian control. With nowhere else to go they ended up in Serbia, the pariah state of the Balkans. Some are actually located in Montenegro, and while the two republics form the unrecognized Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, most observers agree that the Serbian regime in Belgrade rules supreme.
These refugees have lost almost everything, even their citizenship. They are now semi-citizens of a nation with about as much appeal as, say, Zaire as far as hospitality and possibilities goes. Some have called Serbia a corrupt, bureaucratic dictatorship, hated by its neighbors. Sanctioned off from the rest of the world it is challenged with an economy and infrastructure best described as "dead."
Most agree that Serbia, as an abstract nation, has brought these troubles on itself by initiating the latest rounds of Balkan fighting and by maintaining an antiquated, inefficient, centralized system of government. But only a cynic would claim that the sorry-looking Serbs standing on Simina Street this morning could have been the cause of much unrest. They don´t look much like militant nationalists who have wreaked havoc across the Balkans, and they probably have few ambitions for a "Greater Serbia." These are "plain and simply" plain and simple Serbs.
Whereever you go, there you are
According to unhcr (United Nations High Comission for Refugees) there are currently 617.700 asylum seekers in Serbia. Of these, 537.900 are considered by international law to be refugees. Forty percent come from Bosnia & Hercegovina, and left their homes (primarily in Sarajevo) either during the figthing early in the war or as a consequence of the handover of local authority to the Muslim-Croat federation with the signing of Dayton. Fifty-five percent are from Croatia the majority fled during the August ´95 Croatian offensive into the self-proclaimed republic of Krajina Srpska.
All told, that leaves half a million refugees in Serbia today. They´re not in good shape, and despite Dayton's provisions for their return they are likely to be staying for a while, and the the current Serbian leadership can not or will not take the necessary steps to provide for them.
The strange thing is, you hardly ever see them. That's a large part of the problem. They do not live up to our expectations of what refugees look like. They are not housed in huge camps, sitting around with flies in their eyes starving. They look pretty much just as depressed as all the other Serbs (which of course should give an indication of the state of the nation in general), and 90 percent are privately housed. That can mean anything from staying with friends or family, renting a place or sleeping rough in abandoned houses or sharing stables with farm animals. The other ten percent live in so-called collective centres, often just a euphemism for make-shift barracks filled with refugees. They, too, need a lot of help, but they are easier to find and administer to on a regular basis. The biggest challenge is helping those who are in need, but who, for one reason or another often simply pride or embarrasment choose to remain hidden and try to struggle by on their own.
Bread Of Life
Enter Bread of Life. Ostensibly a Christian humanitarian organisation, the small group operates out of two churches in the centre of Belgrade and are establishing distribution points elsewhere in Serbia. Their aim is to get whatever aid they receive from foreign donors to the Serbian refugees.
Overworked, but with the compassion and determination of true samaritans, the volunteers face an enormous logistical challenge trying to cope with the sheer number of refugees who come to Bread of Life asking for some help. They have set up a small pharmacy and have a volunteer doctor on hand assessing the need of individual refugees. They´re feeding and clothing as many as they can, but donations are scarce, and the people they help need almost everything. Bread of Life has designed its own allocation program in order to distribute the sparse supplies of food, clothes and medicine as evenly and fairly as possible.
The refugees are not obliged to join in the religous services at the church in order to get aid; the Serbs are mostly Serbian Orthodox, and it seems that most of the refugees only come to receive the material assistance offered, not the spiritual.
On one particular Thursday in April Bread of Life is celebrating their fifth anniversary; as usual, the basement under the church in Belgrade is packed and crawling with activity. Several hundred people have come at the designated hour to receive their aid parcels. It is a strange mix of old, frowning men in threadbare overcoats, wrinkled grandmothers in dark headscarves who have a curious blend of gratitude and dejection showing in their sky-blue eyes. There are younger couples, too, even mothers with children of school age. Some of these people are here for the last time. Seven visits is normally the limit, though in some cases Bread of Life may choose to extend the coverage.
They line up and their quato meeted out at lightning speed. The volunteers on the other side of the table have lots of experience at this, and before long a steady stream of refugees are heading back up the stairs to the streets of Belgrade with their bags and boxes bulging with milk powder, soap, oil and other basic provisions. They don't have much to look forward to, except of course their next visit to Bread of Life.
"Nema problema"
"No problem" used to be the catch frase heard on the streets of Belgrade, but not any longer. Few Serbian refugees today believe they will be able to return to their homes in Croatia or Bosnia & Hercegovina. But fewer still have any idea how they are supposed to survive by their own means in Serbia where a third of the population is believed to live at or below the poverty line. Nevertheless, the international community still has as a declared goal to repatriate the majority of the Serbian refugees. This is an essential part of the Dayton agreement, and this is why a Serb from Krajina is not a refugee, but an "expellee" a politico-technical term coined for the occasion that supposedly indicates his or her special status as forcibly displaced, if only temporarily so.
A changed description, however, does not change the fact that the person in question is a real refugee with a real need for housing, clothes and food. Today, almost two years after the signing of Dayton, there is no reason to believe that the majority of the refugees can ever be sent back. With every passing day the current state of affairs becomes less and less of an exception, and at some point the status quo will have to be dealt with as such, not as a temporary crisis. but for 1997 most relief organisations are choosing to cut down their operations in Serbia, or pulling out completely, leaving the refugees to an uncertain future at the mercy of a regime that has to concentrate on issues like survival in spite of its track record. Elections in September may see a change in leadership in Serbia, but it will not change the situation for the Serbian refugees in the country. And while it remains to be seen how much of Dayton will actually be implemented, there are fears of more refugees coming in from eg. Eastern Slavonia, where tension is still high and the risk of new outbreaks of conflict remains.
A safe place to die
Travelling from a town 80 km southwest of Belgrade, Stanko is bid welcome at the Bread of Life office. A Krajina refugee, he has come to ask for some warm clothes, and, as he realizes that Bread of Life have a doctor on hand, he also asks for some medicine for his sick wife. They could not afford two bus tickets, so he has come without her. Stanko heard about Bread of Life from a friend of a friend who had received some aid from the organisation, and he figured it was worth the time and price of a ticket. "What I´m wearing are all the clothes I´ve got," he says, "and even they have been given to me by others." Stanko is a proud 65 year old Serb with striking partisan features. His well-worn cap does a poor job of hiding the sad, yet determined look in his eyes. "God gives me health," he proclaims, "but where should I go?"
He tells the story of how he and his wife left their village near Petrinja south of Zagreb in August of ´95. The convoy of refugees was bombed on its way through Bosnia. They were initially housed in a school building, but the local chapter of the Jugoslav Red Cross then tried to send Stanko and his wife a few hundred miles south to the Kosovo region along with other recently arrived refugees. "We´d rather die right here than go down there," he told them, alluding to the fear most Serbs have of the Albanians who constitute the overwhelming majority of the population in ethnically tense Kosovo. He managed to pursuade the authorities to allow the two of them to stay on in central Serbia, and, left to their own devices, they have since found an abandoned house where they now live. By a stroke of luck they have tracked down their daughter who lives in the Southern part of Serbia. "Our living conditions are terrible," he says. Stanko earns a few dinars now and again by chopping wood, but he and his wife depend on charity for their daily necessities. Back in Croatia he worked as a mechanic at a mining facility, well on the way to retirement when the war changed everything. His boss "a friendly Croat" warned him of impending trouble, and Stanko and his wife were able to get away in the nick of time. "But all that we owned is gone, even our garden gate, everything has been burned down," he explains.
Like so many others in the Balkans Stanko supplemented his income with small scale farming. "I left six cows, three calfs, 35 sheep, five big pigs and 20 small ones," he laments as he clutches his refugee card even harder in his hand. He now hopes he will eventually get his pension from Croatia forwarded, If so, he´ll be content with staying in Serbia. "A safe place to die is all I hope for," he says and turns to tell the volunteer Bread of Life doctor which medicines his sick wife needs.
A million dollar effort
The good news is that International Rescue Committee (irc) was recently given a USD 1 mio. grant by an American government agency, which is to be spent on a project with Bread of Life as the local implementing partner and the Menonnite Central Committee (mcc) as project consultants. A select group of particularly vulnerable refugees are to be fed for the duration of the project, while a doctor connected with the program will see to the medical needs of the selected group.
This program started in April of '97 and should ensure that the spirit of the Bread of Life commitment to humanitarian aid will live on at least until the end of the year. |
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