Ready For War

by Roksanda Nincic

We have suffered ten years. Now it is enough, we want to be equal.
What kind of equality would satisfy your demands ?
Only independence ?
That probably means war.
So be it.

This conversation took place in Geneva when a group of Yugoslav reporters met a group of ethnic Albanians. It happened just before the latest wave of clashes between Yugoslav troops and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo's border region. The meeting was held in the Albanian Workers' University in Geneva, founded in April 1996 by Uli Loenberger. Several hundred legal and illegal ethnic Albanian occupants of Geneva gather in the university premises every day. When the Yugoslav reporters were there, many of them watched the news broadcast on Albanian television.

The university says that some 8,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo live in Geneva. Around 5,500 have a temporary permit, 1,000 want political asylum, and the rest are aliens. Uli Loenberger says the ethnic Albanian community faces serious problems regarding residential permits, health, unemployment, and keeping their young ones away from the ethnic Albanian crime organizations in Switzerland.

They were very open to Yugoslav reporters. Loenberger spoke in French and declared himself as a neutral observer, although he said a few specific things about the ethnic Albanian right to self-determination. The rest spoke in Albanian, and their words were translated by those who could speak Serbian. They all seemed to understand what the Serbian reporters were saying. Their hosts offered food, drink, and places to stay in Geneva and stressed their patience has come to an end. They said the time has come to fight for the rights of the Kosovo Albanians and that they are not afraid of war. Only one of them, a former diplomat, would settle for some sort of autonomy as a bridge to independence. The rest demand full independence now.

A 34-year old ethnic Albanian said he found the woman of his life in Geneva and emphasized he had enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life. However, he said, that is all meaningless if there is no respect, equality, and freedom. He believes the Serbs and even the Swiss would think the same if they suffered as much as the Kosovo Albanians.

Virdzina has been in Switzerland for over ten years. She says that she doesn't come from a nationalist family. Much like everyone else, she too is worried for her relatives in Kosovo. She says things can't go on like this any further and adds that ethnic Albanians can no longer accept mere promises.

Naim is the most radical of them. He says he was arrested for verbal fallony when he was 16 and spent four years in jail before he came to Switzerland. He maintains that a Western military intervention would resolve the problem because, according to him, the Bosnian conflict has clearly demonstrated that force is the only language the Serbs understand. He says he wouldn't like NATO to drop bombs on the Serbs, but added that the alliance needed to take some sort of action.

When we told them that the world hasn't shown much interest in giving independence to Kosovo, they said the world supported Yugoslavia’s integrity when the war broke out and then recognized Slovenia and Croatia as independent states. They know there will be casualties and they are prepared. They are convinced that the time to achieve their political objectives has come.

"If a war breaks out, will you go to Kosovo and fight", Vreme's reporter asked an ethnic Albanian who kept saying there must be some way of avoiding the worst. "What would you do? I will go and fight if I have to", he replied.

"I don't hate Serbs. I had a Serbian girlfriend and a lot of Serb friends in Kosovo. But you must understand that things can't go on like this any more", another ethnic Albanian said.
"All right, don't get killed then".
"I hope I won't, I love life".
"Try not to kill me either".
"God forbid, I told you I don't hate anyone".
We have the impression that neither he nor any of his compatriots had any bad feelings for us or anyone else. Unless the wrong thing happened in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Awaiting Repatriation

According to the Federal Committee for Refugees, which operates under the wing of the Swiss justice and internal affairs department, 800 persons migrated to Switzerland from Yugoslavia last month. Exactly 89.6 percent of them entered the country illegally and most of them were from Kosovo. Most aliens come to Switzerland from Yugoslavia, Albania, Turkey, and Sri Lanka. The number of refugees coming from Yugoslavia increased since the end of last year. Most of them have relatives in Switzerland. They ask for political asylum if they are caught by the police.

The committee says quite openly that most of them lie and that they have false papers. The Swiss run a check on every persecution story through their embassies, ethnic Albanian lawyers, and activists dealing with human rights in Kosovo. They check if an asylum seeker is telling the truth about an incident on the basis of which he is seeking refuge in Switzerland. Only six percent of the asylum seekers can count on a residence permit, because all others are considered economic immigrants. On the basis of an agreement signed by the Yugoslav and the Swiss government in 1997, some 14,500 refugees should return to Kosovo. The Swiss send them home on a daily basis. The Refugees Committee says ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova did not oppose their repatriation, saying that it was good for keeping the upper hand in terms of population in Kosovo. Switzerland did not stop with the repatriation even after the Drenica massacre, because that would have encouraged even more Kosovo Albanians to come to Switzerland. Swiss officials said off the record that they would have to stop the repatriation in case of a war in Kosovo, and they are obviously not happy about it. Both the police and the Swiss foreign affairs say the ethnic Albanians are not too popular in Switzerland. Many of them are involved in all kinds of crime, mostly drug dealing. An ethnic Albanian name comes up in almost every police raid, so even Swiss political parties want refugees to be arrested and repatriated as soon as they are denied political asylum. A Swiss immigration officer said he was astonished with the fact that ethnic Albanians steal cigarettes from supermarkets and then sell them on the street, but that’s only because he is probably unaware of the fact that this is how they survive in the country they come from. That is why ethnic Albanian rallies after the Drenica massacre did not arise much sympathy among the Swiss.

Commenting on charges by the Belgrade authorities that the leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) are in Switzerland, the Swiss authorities say they would never support a terrorist organization wanting to topple the legal authorities of a legitimate state. The Swiss foreign ministry told us the country opposed Kosovo's drive for independence and added that it favored a political solution within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. If UCK representatives came to Switzerland to plot a conspiracy against Yugoslavia, they would be arrested and sent back to where they came from. Things, however, are a bit more complicated when it comes to Swiss-based financial support for the UCK. The police knows about the three percent tax paid by every working Albanian in Switzerland to their illegal government, allegedly for education. The police can't stop it although they know the money is taken to Albania via Italy. The Swiss authorities have sent reinforcements to the border with Italy and devised a plan as to what to do if a fresh wave of refugees comes to their borders again.