The New York Times

Friday, June 11, 1999

MACEDONIA

As Hope Eclipses Doubt, Refugees Plan a Return

By DAVID ROHDE

KOPJE, Macedonia -- An ebullient Mustaf Domaneku arrived at the main border crossing into Kosovo at 8:45 A.M. Thursday, determined to return home in front of the NATO troops. Nine-year-old Burhan Ferati packed up his toys and clothes in his tent in a refugee camp this morning and announced to his mother, "I'm preparing to go to Kosovo."

And Emrush Demnika cheered with 200 other men tonight as they craned their necks to see the extraordinary announcement on a small television set in their refugee camp that Yugoslav forces were actually withdrawing from Kosovo.

"I feel good," Demnika stammered as an infectious grin spread across his face. "I can't describe with words what I feel."

In bustling camps and remote villages, refugees who had wrapped themselves in a self-protective cocoon of cynicism since diplomatic "breakthroughs" over Kosovo were announced last week began cracking smiles today and actively considering the possibility that they could soon, in fact, be returning home.

The mood among refugees is gradually shifting from a blunt refusal to believe anything said by the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, to creeping optimism that their nemesis may finally be cornered. The pressure that led many to flock toward the opportunity to go abroad is easing, refugees and aid workers said, and the idea of returning home is taking hold.

"Before, people were forming big crowds whenever there was the chance to go abroad," said Avni Rrustemi, a 25-year-old carpenter living in the Stenkovec I refugee camp. "Now, everyone is sitting in front of their tents making plans about going back."

Ed Joseph, an aid worker in the Stenkovec camp, said the first sign of a mood shift was occurring in a camp that has suffered flashes of violence in recent days. On Saturday, a mob of angry Kosovo Albanians tried to beat to death a gypsy they accused of committing atrocities. And on Monday, roughly 150 refugees grew unruly when they were told a rumor that Denmark was accepting volunteers to go abroad was untrue.

"I think it's sinking in," Joseph said. "The prospect of returning home is slowly catching fire."

The humanitarian evacuations to Western Europe and the United States have had the effect here of focusing many refugees' attention on how to go abroad, not how to return home, Joseph and other aid workers said. Refugees living in superheated tents, where temperatures can rise to over 100 degrees, became anxious, or angry, that others were getting the chance to go abroad instead of them.

But news of peace is resulting in changing attitudes, with several people Thursday announcing they would now rather go home than go abroad.

Naser Krasniqi, 27, said he had turned down the opportunity to go to Sweden this Tuesday. "We were on the list," he said, referring to the daily flight lists posted on camp bulletin boards that refugees anxiously pore over. "I want to go back to Kosovo."

The new optimism was also evident in smaller villages. Hisa Luma, a 39-year-old former policeman living as a refugee in the remote border village of Jazince, said he felt "more and more convinced each day" that this agreement is different than past ones.

"I feel more confident because the agreement was signed by the army," he said. "The army is not like the politicians. They won't change it."

The new energy and optimism of Luma and Domaneku, the refugee at the border Thursday morning, present a problem for NATO and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

United Nations officials announced their plans for the return of the refugees Thursday and estimated that, at the earliest, refugees could begin returning to Kosovo in three weeks. Paula Ghedini, a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said the repatriation would be "one of the most complicated operations we've ever seen. There are so many political and military and security sensitivities."

Officials plan to return the refugees to their regions by bus. But they first want troops to clear Kosovo of mines. They also want food and rebuilding supplies to be in place before the refugees arrive. Half the homes in Kosovo are believed to have been damaged. Ms. Ghedini said she was "fairly certain" that the vast majority of refugees would be back home before winter. Whether refugees will abide by that timetable remains to be seen.

While most refugees said they would wait, Luma and Domaneku both said they would go to their home towns in southeastern Kosovo on their own, either by driving in now or by hiking over the mountains. United Nations officials said that hundreds of men might do the same thing, acting as "scouts" for their families to determine whether homes are habitable for women and children.

Standing at the border this morning, Luma said he wanted to go into Kosovo before NATO troops did, so they would not slow him down. Having lost one foot already to a mine, he said he did not care if he lost the other.

"I was one of the first ones thrown out," he said. "I want to be the first one to go in."