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The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

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Civil Society in Exile

Following the outbreak of NATO bombing, the Serbian authorities began to expel large numbers of Albanians from their homes. Almost a million refugees streamed into Macedonia, Albania, and Montenegro. They included most of the activists who had been prominent in the parallel society.

Igo Rogova, from the women's group Motrat Qiriazi, was one of them. When the NATO bombing began, 37 members of her family had crowded into the family house in Prishtina. They waited while the Serbian militia methodically went from street to street, forcing Albanians out. Eventually it was their turn.

Igo faced down the Serb attackers and assumed responsibility for helping her terrified relatives reach the border. It was typical of the way women hold society together in war. Usually, they have no choice, because husbands and sons are the first to be killed or detained. War brings out qualities of leadership and management in women. 

'Disabled people were picked up and tossed about likes sacks. Wheelchairs were abandoned.'

Serbian paramilitaries came for Halit Ferizi, the inspiring president of Handikos, on March 30 and ordered him out of his home. Halit drove to the border with his niece, who was expecting a child. They were separated, and he found himself in a massive convoy of cars that was ordered to return to Prishtina. Somehow he managed to slip away and made it across the border. Along the way he saw horror. 'Disabled people were picked up and tossed about likes sacks. Wheelchairs were abandoned.'

It was a devastating experience, more so because it was occurring in the heart of Europe. Middle-class Kosovars suddenly found themselves uprooted from their homes, packed into cattle trucks that were reminiscent of the Nazi death camps, taken to the border, and pushed into Macedonia.

The Macedonians were anything but welcoming. Worried that the influx of so many Albanians would destabilize the delicate ethnic balance within Macedonia, they kept the refugees at the border crossing of Blace in mud, cold, and filth for days. Emptying the camp overnight, the Macedonians added to the trauma by splitting up families. Under international pressure, the Macedonians yielded and permitted the construction of refugee camps-while making intensive efforts to force the refugees to continue on to Albania.

There was, however, a positive-even uplifting-aspect of this crisis. Once they found temporary safety in the camps, many activists picked up where they had left off in Kosovo and turned to helping their compatriots. Being a natural organizer, Igo Rogova started training women and organizing singing and dancing in the camps:

"We tried to lift spirits. It started in tents, and later moved to public meetings. We found a comedian and started giving children's shows. The numbers of spectators increased, and we began giving shows for the adults, too. Some of the elders in the camp did not approve, saying that we should be quiet and mourn. We did not listen to them." 

Melihate Juniku: painting helped the children deal with trauma.

While Sevdie Ahmeti was trying to survive in Kosovo, her fellow directors of the Center for the Protection of Women and Children were re-establishing the Center in Tetovo, the predominantly Albanian city in Macedonia near the capital Skopje.

Melihate Juniku, the co-director of the Center, recalled:

"We tried to help women with gynecological and pediatric problems. We offered reproductive services, as well as a psychosocial program for children. They drew pictures about their feelings and pictures of a free Kosovo. We worked in the camps, together with the League of Albanian Women."

"We also offered refugees the use of our telephone so that they could find out information about their families. We collected testimony about human rights abuses and provided this information to the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms."

"What bothered me about the camps was the barbed wire. It was most difficult for the teenage girls."

Florin at Radio 21.

The staff at Radio 21 was clearly at risk if they remained in Kosovo during the NATO bombing. Aferdita Kelmendi and her husband Florin left for Skopje eight days after the bombing began. 

But by June, Radio 21 was again transmitting from exile, for 2.5 hours a day. The programs were sent via internet to Radio Nederland, a Dutch radio station, transmitted by short wave and rebroadcast on the web. Florin Kelmendi chuckled as he recalled it: "Only people who were truly in love with radio would do that." But it paid off. Radio 21's website attracted an astounding 2.3 million visitors in 1999.

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