Migration and Human Displacement in the Balkans

With Iraq crisis, the numbers of refugees worldwide has started to climb after years of decline; it now stands at almost 11.5 milliom people. Throughout Africa, Asia and Europe, more than twice that number of people-perhaps 26 million including 3 million Iraqis- are displaced within their countries as of October, 2008. And there are 200 million immigrants in the world.

The international community needs to establish a cooperative legal and policy framework based on humanitarian principles that will ensure that people who have fled serious economic, social, or environmental crises in their own countries are not subsequently deported from the countries to which they have fled. Rather, temporary forms of protection and material assistance, at least, should be provided to their most vulnerable among them. Border controls should be designed to the rights and safety of refugees.

A broad consensus has emerged on the principle that that all human beings have inalienable rights that sovereign states have an obligation to uphold, and at UN\'s 2005 World Summit, it was endorsed by leaders that sovereign state has a “responsibility to protect”, thus urgently calling to states to assume their rightful role in recognizing, respecting, and protecting the rights of their people.

Migration and internally displaced peoples in the western Balkans and ECPD

Against the general background as stated above, I would like to talk about the situation in the Balkans concerning migration and internal displacement.    
The West Balkans, after the grave internecine conflicts in the last decade of the last century, after the end of Cold War?continue to move forward for stability and peace. Nevetheless,many issues which arose from those conflicts still remain unsettled, and forced migration and internal displacement is still an issue and a cause for instability in the region.

Armed conflicts stated in the most sensitive areas of former Yugoslavia- in Kninska Krajna of Croatia, which were mostly populated by Serbs. They remembered atrocities committed by the Nazi supported Ustashe in 1941, during WWII, and were afraid that they could be repeated. They armed themselves and with the support of Yugoslav People’s Army, formed a separate “state in a state” the Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia. After the independence of Croatia 1991, there were fierce fighting between newly formed Croatian Army and Serbian forces and Yugoslav People’s Army and by September, 1995, Serbian rebellion were crushed and ethnic cleansing was carried out of the territories which were under the rebels control. As the reresult, there were avbout 6000 casualities and a large number of Serb refugees from Kninska Krajna of Croatia.  

Armed conflicts in Slovenia lasted only eight days. There were relatively few Serbs living in Slovenia and Milosevic was ready to let it quit easily, and Slovenia aquired independence.

Armed conflicts in Bosnia Herzegovina were extremely complicated. In a relatively small area, three nations and three religions clashed, Authodox Serbs, Catholic Croatians and Muslim Bosniaks, and  with the indirect or direct involvement of the forces of the neighboring countries and international forces. During wars that raged between Croatian and Bosniak forces and Serbian forces, severe genocide and ethnic cleansing with related human atrocities took place, and NATO forces had to resot to bombing campaign to stop them. There were about 200,000 estimated casualities and more than 2.2 million refugees and internally displaced persons, almost half the population and the greatest human tragedy in Europe except for two world wars. Only in 1995, through Dayton Agreement, they managed to arrive at ceasefire and formation of Bosnia-Herzegovina Federation and Republika Srpska Entitiy federal government. But reconciliation has been difficult up to the present day.

Macedonia seded peacefully from Yugoslavia in 1991 but war in Kosovo in1999 seriously destabilized Macedonia and about 360,000 Albanians took refuge in Macedonia. There was civil war between the Macedonia government and Albania minorities between March and June 2001 and only through Ohrid Agreement of August 2001, ceasefire was arrived at, and the Ohrid Agreement became the basis of dealing with unresolved minorities problems like improving the right of Albanian minorities and preparing the country for EU membership.

Montenegro became independent in May 2005 through referendum and Serbia confirmed its status as sovereign independent state. Thus former Yugoslavia disintegrated finally.

In Kosovo conflicts erupted. The population of Kosovo was 70% Muslim Albanians before the conflict, but Kosovo was the cradle for minority Serbian culture. From 1998, there were full fledged armed conflicts and President Milosevic reduced the level of autonomy of the Kosovo province. There were insurrections of Kosovo Albanians with intensified attack against the governmental institutions, police stations and army garrison. Milosevic tried to subdue them by police, armed forces and special units. Many

Albanians escaped to Macedonia and Albania. Serbia refused the demand of UN and NATO for ceasefire, and from March 24 June 1999, NATO carried out bombing campaign. After hard negotiation and renewed bombing, Serbia accepted the peace agreement and NATO organized KFOR was introduced into Kosovo and it was administered by UN representatives of UNMIK. After KFOR and UNMIK was introduced, about 800,000 Albanians returned to Kosovo, and approximately 250,000 Serbs and non-Albanians escaped to Serbia and Montenegro. In February 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, and recognition by US, EU and other countries is opposed by the government of Serbia and since end of 2008, EUlex was introduced to assist law , police and customs. Up to now, only about 15,000 non-Albanian refugees returned to Kosovo.

ECPD, European Center for Peace and Development, is an affiliate of UN University for Peace, and over a quarter of a century since establishment in 1985, it has carried out educational and research activities for the peace and stability in the South West Europe, notably in the Balakns. Since 2005, it convened 4 Conferences on  “Iinter-ethnic reconciliation, Religious Tolerance and Human Security “, and on October 29,30 this year,  there will be 5th conclusive Conference on Brioni Island, Croatia. 

The question of refugees and internally displace people is one of the main tasks of our deliberation, since the human tragedy that ensued in the process of disintegration of Yugoslavia was so great and pervasive that the solution is not easy, because some of the emotional scars are too deep to heal.

Basic solutions of the problem

According to UNHCR statistics an estimated 487,920 refugees and displaced persons are still waiting durable solutions in the west Balkans; 116,870 of them being refugees and 371,920 internally displaced people.

Over the past decade steady progress has been made in finding durable solutions
for the hundreds of thousands of persons displaced after the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
The majority of the displaced having found solution during the past ten years have been refugees and internally displaced people displaced by wars in Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina in the first half of the 1990s. The largest part of the remaining refugees and internally displaced people in the region were displaced during the 1999 conflict in Kosovo.

Forced migration in Serbia is uniquely complex, propelled by historic forces still active in the western Balkan region. The dissolution of Yugoslavia has given rise to forced migration to increase dramatically. The sheer volume of forced immigrants on Serbian territory , estimated at an excess of 400,000, is only indication of challenges forced migrants face in realizing their human rights.

According to the UNHCR as of April 30, 2006, there were approximately 115,000 refugees in Serbia ( ?34,000 from Bosnia Herzegovina and 81,000 from Croatia ). In 1995, massive refugees from Croatia arrived from Serbian areas of Croatia The beginning of the Bosnian War in 1992 forced residents to seek refuge along ethnic lines and after Dayton Agreement of 1995, there were further arrivals of Bosnian Serbs who resided in the territory that was to become the Muslim-Croat Federation. The withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army from Kosovo in 1999 prompted 200,000 to leave the province and further 4000 people left Kosovo following the violence of March 2004 against minority communities.

The UNHCR High Commissioner Antonio Guterres said on 28,2009  during his visit to Belgrade that  " it is time to close the chapter of refugees in this region drawing attention to the lingering problems of refugees unable to return to their home 14 years after hostilities ended”. With a significant proportion of refugees and internally displaced persons from the region increasingly unlikely to return to their homes, Guterres proposed the establishment of an international trust fund to which all three governments, Serbia Croatia and BiH, and international donors would contribute , to enable a mechanism for fair and just compensation for lost property rights and facilitate local integration. He said, " We need to recognize that while return remains the most preferred option, return must be voluntary. The reality is that significant numbers of people , especially the elderly or ill, will never go back”. During his talk with Government of the Federation and Republika Sprska, and Croatia, he got their cooperation to finally resolve tragic wartime legacy of displacement by 2011.
For the overall solution of displacement problem on a permanent basis, restitution of property, security, housing, employment assistance, pension, citizenship, health care and education will have to the important challenges to be tackled with concerted efforts of the governments concerned and international donors in the Western Balkan region.

This can offer important model for the similar problems existing throughout the world from Asia, Africa and Europe. 

Human Security and Migration and internal displaced people

Guterres wrote in Foreign Affairs ( September/October 2008 ) “The post -Cold War view that the sovereignty of the individual can sometime override state sovereignty in situation of genocide, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing has become unpopular recently. The crisis in Iraq has revived more traditional interpretation of state sovereignty. Most of the developing world sees the responsibility to protect as a conceptual camouflage designed to enable the Western states to pursue their interests by interfering in less prosperous countries. But a reinvigorated global consensus of the responsibility to protect has to be forged. Last century’s genocides in Africa, Asia and Europe are reminders that the rejection of unilateral intervention should not allow authoritarian governments to believe that state sovereignty and the principle of noninterference will protect them as they terrorize and slaughter their citizens. The sovereignty of the individual must be paramount.”

This concept is the main principle that the concept of human security as enunciated in the report of the UN Commission on Human Security in 2003, in which the security of the state should now shift to the security of the individual, because, in the recent past, the states often failed to protect their citizens, and individual has right to live dignified life in a democratic society, in freedom from fear and freedom from want.

ECPD\'s Conference in Brioni is going to adopt a declaration, emphasizing the importance of the principle of human security to be established in the western Balkan region.