July 1999 Monitor

As the Forced Migration Projects (FMP) cease operations on August 31 at the Open Society Institute (OSI), it is appropriate to reflect upon the societal transitions that have produced or threaten to produce forced displacements in the regions where the Projects have worked over the past five years. The FMP is closing due to a strategic consolidation at OSI, but social disequilibrium, of course, continues to be an important cause and consequence of population dislocation. The need for international attention remains high, and the Projects have initiated durable approaches to managing forced migration in a humane fashion.
Nearly a decade after the spectacular implosion of the Soviet Union, that region continues to be driven by social disorder and impoverishment. The governmental capacities to address forced displacement are meager. Ethnic tensions remain high. Civil society organizations are still embryonic. Utilizing a framework provided by an action plan promulgated at a 1996 international conference concerning migration in the former Soviet Union, the Projects have worked to fortify human security. This has included establishing a CIS Research Council on Forced Migration composed of researchers in the region who are in the process of renewing cooperative arrangements shattered by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Projects have also worked to forge a network of indigenous NGOs working on migration-related issues, the International Nongovernmental Partnership on Migration. This network will provide a framework for NGO consultations in the region and serve as a channel to communicate NGO concerns to the international community. These achievements reflect our judgement that the vitality of the independent sector will be a key factor in building open society in the former Soviet Union-an optimal preventative strategy.
The projects, moreover, have worked with international actors such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe"s (OSCE), High Commissioner on National Minorities, and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in order to reduce the potentialities for conflict and ensuing forced displacement.
Specifically, FMP has undertaken initiatives relating to formerly deported peoples - especially Crimean Tatars and Meskhetian Turks/Meskhetians. The opening of the Gasprinsky Library in 1999 in Simferopol in Ukraine's Crimea, with the programmatic and intellectual support of the Projects, is a tangible manifestation of inter-ethnic tolerance, providing a concrete arena for inter-ethnic exchanges. A framework dialogue involving the protection and repatriation of Meskhetian Turks/Meskhetians has been sponsored as well by the Projects, providing a mechanism to ease tensions.
In the former Yugoslavia, the Projects have contributed to state-building efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and now Kosovo. A legal policy task force, composed of lawyers and experts from the region working with a variety of international actors including the Council of Europe, OSCE and UNHCR, has addressed several issues relating to the repatriation of refugees and displaced persons. The Projects have urged regional approaches to citizenship, property and pension rights in order to facilitate voluntary return. A recent initiative seeks to remedy "identity cleansing" abuses in Kosovo by promoting the establishment on international mechanism to re-document Kosovars in order to assist with re-occupancy and rehabilitation of homes.
In the Americas, based on earlier initiatives concerning asylum seekers from Haiti and Cuba, the Projects promoted international arrangements to address future migration and refugee emergencies. This includes the establishment of a permanent consultation on forced displacement at the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights in Costa Rica.
The Open Society Institute has provided a strong setting for the Forced Migration Projects to pursue policy prescriptions and advocacy strategies. A fine body of work and repertoire of publications targeted to policy actors has been developed. They are collected on our website at <www.soros.org/migrate.html>, and include this, the last issues of the Forced Migration Monitor.
If there is to be a legacy of our work, it is a recognition that international engagement must and can be sustained in preventing forced displacement, promoting the human rights of those dislocated, and formulating complex international institutional arrangements required to respond to humanitarian catastrophes.
Progress in dealing with such matters will be a significant measure of success in achieving human security for those who experience forced migration at the outset of the new millennium.

The Forced Migration Projects (FMP) are wrapping up activities on a high note in the former Soviet Union. A number of initiatives undertaken by the FMP in 1999 should have a lasting impact for years to come, promoting greater capacity among local migration-related nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and improving the prospects for solutions to lingering dilemmas faced by some displaced persons. In its more than five years of existence, the FMP helped ease hardships for millions of refugees and displaced persons not only in the former Soviet Union, but also in the former Yugoslavia and the Caribbean Basin.
"I am very proud of our very important achievements in these difficult settings," said FMP Director Arthur C. Helton. A major focus of the FMP's work in 1999 has been the promotion of greater involvement of local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in CIS states in the follow up to the 1996 CIS Conference on migration-related issues. The FMP provided critical support for the formation of an association of migration-related NGOs in the CIS, which was founded in December of 1998. With the CIS conference mandate set to expire in 2000, the NGO association is now in a position to assume significant responsibilities in the ongoing implementation of Program of Action-related activities.
Central to the FMP's support for the NGO association was the publication of a special report, Eurasia's Dispossessed: NGOs and Human Security. The report is based on a comprehensive survey of key local NGO leaders, who provide unique and up-to-the-moment perspectives on conditions and possible approaches to migration management dilemmas. One of the major aims of the publication is to underscore the best practices of migration-related NGO activity today, in order to help guide the further development of the NGO association. The FMP formally unveiled the special report at an event held June 24 in Geneva, coinciding with the annual meeting of the CIS Conference Steer-ing Group.
"We are in the midst of a transitional period in the CIS Conference follow-up process," Helton said at the event. "Easing hardships faced by refugees and displaced persons remains the aim of all concerned. At the same time, it is self-evident that the Program of Action is unable to meet its lofty expectations. New directions are thus warranted." While governments viewed NGOs skeptically at the outset of conference preparations," he continued, "the independent sector has now become central to conference follow up." Helton describes the NGO association as "perhaps the best safeguard against a human catastrophe," in the CIS.
The FMP, acting in the capacity of lead agency of the CIS Conference Working Group on NGO Legislation, continued its work in 1999 to foster a more comprehensive legal framework covering local NGO activities in CIS states. In particular, the FMP pressed for the simplification of registration and taxation policies. In many CIS states, current registration and taxation procedures for NGOs are burdensome, effectively discouraging the development and expansion of the independent sector.
"Substantial support should be directed towards the development of the legal environment in a way that encourages NGO activists," said Helton. "This would be a concrete way to promote civil society and engage in conflict prevention."
Another important sphere of the FMP's work in 1999 concerned formerly deported peoples. The FMP played a key role in a collective effort to resolve lingering issues connected with Crimean Tatars and Meskhetian Turks/Meskhetians, two ethnic groups unjustly deported en masse during World War II. Informal discussions on Meskhetian Turk dilemmas, co-sponsored by the FMP and held March 15-17 in Vienna, Austria, produced a landmark agreement among the participants, including representatives from Meskhetian Turk civic organizations and officials from Azerbaijan, Georgia and Russia. Meskhetian Turks are seeking formal rehabilitation and the right to return to their homeland in Georgia. A framework document issued at the meeting established guiding principles that will govern future talks on Meskhetian Turk dilemmas. The next step in the Meskhetian Turk dialogue will involve the collection of pilot project proposals under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Coopera-tion in Europe's High Commissioner on National Minorities. Selected projects will aim to improve understanding of the issues and facilitate equitable resolutions.
In Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, the opening of the Gasprinsky Library in June marked a major step in efforts to promote the cultural revival of formerly deported peoples, including Crimean Tatars, Armenians, Bulgarians, Germans and Greeks. The library contains roughly 45,000 volumes relating to formerly deported peoples in Crimea, as well as state-of-the-art research facilities. In addition, conference facilities will be utilized to foster greater interethnic understanding. Since the Soviet collapse in 1991, the return of formerly deported peoples to the Crimea has stirred interethnic tension, primarily between Crimean Tatars and ethnic Russians.
The final FMP initiative will be publication of a special report, Ukraine: State Building and Stability. The report focuses on Ukraine's language and education policies and their impact on ethnic Russians, who predominate in eastern regions of the country. The special report, which also contains 30 black-and-white photographs, is scheduled to be published in August. The FMP will cease operations on August 31, 1999. The FMP closure comes as a result of a strategic consolidation at OSI. The full text of all FMP publications published over the past five years, including special reports, are available on the FMP website at <www.soros.org/migrate.html> The website will contain instructions on how hard copies of publications can be ordered after August 31. "Our work shows that international engagement will be crucial in securing stability and achieving a viable approach to preventing the causes of forced displacement," Helton said.

The Forced Migration Projects (FMP) have been engaged in various initiatives relating to the Americas and the Caribbean Basin. The absence of a comprehensive temporary refuge arrangement in the Americas has resulted in inadequate responses to past refugee and migration emergencies. Aiming to ensure that potential future crises are managed more effectively, the FMP advocated the creation of a regional mechanism for the effective and humane management of refugee and migration emergencies. The framework also aims to reduce individual hardships associated with forced displacement. Regional cooperation would improve responses to crises, particularly if it incorporates arrangements among states to share responsibility for displaced persons. Working in close cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, the FMP have spearheaded the establishment of a permanent consultation mechanism on forced displacement in the Americas. The first round of consultations is scheduled to be held in Costa Rica, September 7-8, 1999.
"Strengthening regional capacities to deal with humanitarian emergencies will avoid hardships and promote human security," said FMP Director Arthur C. Helton. Other activities in 1999 included the conclusion of a seminar series on refugee and immigrant children, culminating with a panel discussion on the children's guidelines issued by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in December 1998. FMP also produced Protecting the World's Exiles: The Human Rights of Non-Citizens, a 60-minute video designed as an educational resource for scholars, teachers and practitioners.

Kyrgyzstan is an overlooked nation in former Soviet Central Asia. It does not contain the natural resources, especially oil and gas that attract foreign investment to Kazakstan and Turkmenistan. Likewise, it has not experienced the trauma of a civil war, like neighboring Tajikistan. Yet, though it struggles largely in anonymity as it attempts to economically recover from the Soviet collapse, Kyrgyzstan may hold the key to stability in the region.
Experts in the region have expressed concern recently about a rising potential for upheaval in Central Asia, in particular in the Ferghana Valley, a densely populated and fertile area that is geographically divided by three states Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Tension has been especially high in Uzbekistan, where a February assassination attempt against President Islam Karimov has prompted a government crackdown on so-called Islamic militants.
"Developments are unfolding in such a manner that Uzbekistan is heading towards a catastrophe," said Valery Uleyev, head of a nongovernmental organization "Spravidlivost", or Justice, which is based in the Kyrgyz city of Jalalabad in the Ferghana Valley.
Uleyev and international experts based in the region portrayed the situation in the Ferghana Valley as a potential self fulfilling prophecy, in which Uzbek government attempts to stifle opposition actually spurs, rather than eliminates, dissent. Religion is fast becoming the only means for the expression of opposition, Uleyev suggested, adding that "government policies are pushing people towards extremism." The danger is that upheaval in Uzbekistan could create a regional crisis, including a forced migration emergency that destabilizes neighboring states.
Kyrgyzstan, for example, is already struggling to accommodate 14,000 refugees from the Tajik civil war. "Kyrgyzstan would not be able to withstand a new and large wave of instability. It is a country already on the edge," Uleyev said.
At the same time, Kyrgyzstan could play an important role in promoting regional stability. The Kyrgyz government of President Askar Akayev enjoys a reputation as being the most democratically oriented of all Central Asian states.
As such, Kyrgyzstan has the most advanced NGO sector in the region, according to international organization officials. Kyrgyzstan's comparatively vibrant third sector could serve as a proving ground for regional stabilization projects, local NGO officials said. "Kyrgyzstan can be an important hub for NGO activity that engages in conflict prevention," said Talaibek Kydyrov, director of the Bishkek Migration Management Center.
Given the economic hardships, however, sustaining NGO development in Kyrgyzstan will be difficult without the active participation of the international community. "It takes time for people to sink deep roots," said Ruth Pojman of the International Organization for Migra-tion's office in Bishkek.

The humanitarian crisis in Kosovo prompted the Forced Migration Projects (FMP) to become involved in a series of efforts advocating the international community to adopt more effective policies to safeguard the rights of refugees and displaced persons in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
During the initial stages of the conflict, when international involvement was limited, FMP urged the OSCE's Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) to take the lead in formulating capacity building programs for local NGOs in Kosovo.
Strengthening the work of local NGOs would help reduce the hardships for displaced persons in the war-torn Yugoslav province, the FMP argued. Specifically, FMP Director Arthur C. Helton called for the creation of an NGO forum. Helton subsequently prepared a draft annex on property rights for inclusion in a future peace agreement that he presented to State Department officials on May 10, 1999. The draft was prepared in consultation with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Sarajevo-based Commission for Real Property Claims, which was established under the Dayton peace agreement, as well as with lawyers from the former Yugoslavia. The annex highlighted issues which have challenged the international community refugee return efforts in Bosnia and are likely to become crucial in Kosovo once a settlement has been reached.
The proposed annex seeks to emulate the best practices of Bosnia by "establishing an international mechanism with legal supremacy on property rights issues." The FMP went on to propose the establishment of a $10 million fund to facilitate real estate transactions and compensation activities. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) would act as the lead international actor in supporting the proposed Kosovo Property Commission's activities, Helton recommended. The existence of the draft was designed to ensure that these issues are considered appropriately by policymakers.
The draft annex also noted "concerted efforts" to destroy identity and property-related documents of Kosovo refugees, calls for the early establishment of a database that can be "relevant to proving ownership or lawful possession" of real property in Kosovo. Such a database could be instrumental in constructing a new property register for Kosovo, thus neutralizing the consequences of "identity cleansing." Within the notion of recovering identity at least three categories of documents are involved: personal identity documents, property-related documents, and the civil register (voting lists). Each category relates to different aspects of a settlement and correspondingly would be of interest to different actors and international organizations that may be involved in any rehabilitative process. In all of these three areas, including the discrete area of property rights, there was a need for further fact-finding and policy coordination. Factual questions relating to property included the scale of displacement, the nature of barriers to return (i.e., occupation by others, destruction of homes, the status of central records on property, etc.). Since estimates vary on the magnitude and gravity of the documentation problem, further research was necessary.
To this end, on June 11, 1999, the FMP conducted a survey amongst approximately 3,000 Kosovar refugees temporarily housed at the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey. About 60 percent of the Kosovar refugees at the Fort Dix Army base lacked personal identification. In addition, approximately 64 percent did not have documentation relating to property.
The FMP later organized a one-day meeting on "Identity Cleansing in Kosovo" at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, on July 1 to discuss efforts to remedy identity cleansing for Kosovars, including the establishment of an international commission. Participants included US diplomats and representatives from UNHCR and IOM. Issues discussed included the dimensions and consequences of the lack of personal identity and property-related documents among Kosovars, as well as recommended followup activities.
During the discussion, participants made several specific recommendations. Firstly, they urged that immediate steps be taken by NATO's Kosovo Implementation Force (KFOR) to preserve and safeguard records in municipal offices which might evidence personal identity, lawful possession or ownership of property. Some records have already been destroyed and others may have been relocated to Belgrade or elsewhere, and others may be in the custody of local contenders for political authority.
Secondly, they felt that a civil registry for Kosovo should be created drawing upon a variety of sources under the auspices of OSCE which has election-related responsibilities under the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK).
Thirdly, there was a consensus that issues of property rights required immediate and sustained attention due to the need for shelter before winter for returning refugees and displaced persons, as well as the entire reconstruction process.
Creation of a property register and credible mechanisms to resolve property disputes will be needed and the rights of fleeing Kosovar Serbs to some sort of compensation for the property they have left behind should also be considered. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), which has experience with similar issues in Bosnia, is willing and well placed to take the lead on property-related issues under an UNMIK framework. IOM was requested to convene a followup meeting on property-related issues in Skopje, hopefully by the end of July, for which papers would be prepared on a possible structure for a property claims mechanism, and a survey of property law in Kosovo.
FMP advocacy efforts throughout the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo have sought to highlight shortfalls in international policy regarding the rights of refugees and displaced persons. The draft property annex, property and personal identity documents research, and the identity cleansing meeting in particular, assisted in focusing the attention of the various international actors on property related issues which have proven difficult to address in Bosnia and now require immediate attention in Kosovo.

One of the hallmarks of the conflict in Croatia (1991-1995) was the forced displacement of rival ethnic groups from different parts of the country. Hundreds of thousands of homes were abandoned and tens of thousands destroyed. After the Croatian government consolidated its authority throughout the entire country, it set up the Agency for Property Negotiation (APN) on April 29, 1997, a government-funded agency to facilitate the exchange or temporary use of abandoned property, which had been placed under the administration of Croatian authorities. The agency later expanded its activities to include responsibility for the sale or exchange of any property in Croatia, including purchasing property for the Croatian government to be assigned for use by other Croatian citizens. The agency is governed by a Central Council whose members include the Minister of Development and Construction and the Minister of Justice.
Most of the property affected by the APN was in the Krajina region of Croatia, where approximately 200,000 Serbs fled from, or were expelled, in the summer of 1995. The Croatian government subsequently passed the Law on the Temporary Administration of Property, placing property under government control if the owner "abandoned" the property and did not return by December 31, 1995. Initially, Serbs were prevented from returning because they were denied citizenship documents by the Croatian government. Meanwhile, inhabitable homes were distributed to Bosnian Croats and displaced Croatians whom the Croatian government sought to settle in the Krajina region. As time passed, some Serbs managed to obtain Croatian citizenship, but remained unable to return to their pre-war homes since the Croatian government was unwilling to evict the temporary occupants to other homes.
As a result, the role of the APN in facilitating property transactions in Croatia remains rather controversial. Serbs unable to repossess their property sell it to the government funded agency, which is then promptly rented to the "temporary" occupants at below market rates of $7-15 month. The APN has thus been seen as facilitating the acquisition of Serb property by Bosnian Croats or Croatians. Of particular note, the agency is allowed to purchase the property from non-citizens, making more than 300,000 Serbs from Croatia, currently residing in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, eligible to sell property in Croatia.
Despite the heavily damaged infrastructure and lagging economy in Croatia, the APN spent $46 million from September 1997 to December 1998, purchasing 2,669 properties for the government. In principle, the properties purchased by the agency are inhabitable and are made available to municipal authorities and housing committees throughout the country to accommodate persons qualified for housing under the Croatian government's refugee return program. The APN, however, will not provide information identifying how it has distributed 1,424 inhabitable homes that it has acquired and rented out. While a portion should be used as alternative housing for the occupants of Serb homes, enabling the pre-war owners to return, this has rarely turned out to be the case.
Throughout 1999, the Civic Committee for Human Rights, a nongovernmental organization based in Zagreb, received complaints from 40 returnees who have been waiting two to three years to repossess their property. The Committee filed appeals and sent letters on behalf of refugees to the Croatian Office for Displaced Persons and Refugees, the government's Commission for the Monitoring of the Implementation of the Refugee Return Program and the APN. To date, not a single response has been received, which would seem to reflect the Croatian government's effort to return Serbs to their pre-war homes. The APN in Croatia has played a particularly partisan role in the politics of refugee return in Croatia.

Editor's Note: This article was written by Dubravka Miskovic-Prodanovic of the Civic Committee for Human Rights in Zagreb, Croatia.

The Forced Migration Monitor is published bimonthly by the Forced Migration Projects of the Open Society Institute-New York. The
Forced Migration Projects were established to monitor circumstances in different regions of the world in order to provide the
international community with early warning of forced movements of people, as well as to identify the social, economic, and political
conditions which cause such dislocations. The Projects encourage early and effective humanitarian responses to migration emergencies;
advocate the humane treatment of those unable to return; urge permanent solutions for those displaced; and promote measures that
avert individuals’ need to flee. The Projects gather information concerning displacements and the circumstances that motivate them,
concentrating primarily on the countries of the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, Haiti, and Cuba.

Forced Migration Projects Open Society Institute
400 West 59th Street, 4th floor
New York, NY 10019
tel: (212) 548-0655
fax: (212) 548-4676
e-mail: refugee@sorosny.org
http://www.soros.org/migrate.html

     Ludmilla Alexeeva
     Jeremy R. Azrael
     Arthur C. Helton (convenor)
     Murray Feshbach
     Morten Kjaerum
     Aryeh Neier
     Barnett R. Rubin
     Warren Zimmermann

     Arthur C. Helton, Director
     Justin Burke
     Eliana Jacobs
     Marie J. Jeannot
     Paulette A. Layton
     Alexander Lupis
     Tatyana Lyutova
     Yuri Spartesnyi

The Open Society Institute-New York is a private operating and grantmaking foundation that promotes the development of open
societies around the world. OSI-New York develops and implements a variety of domestic and international programs in the areas of
educational, social, and legal reform, and encourages public debate and policy alternatives in complex and often controversial fields.
OSI-New York is part of a network of more than 24 autonomous nonprofit foundations and other organizations created and funded by
philanthropist George Soros in Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Haiti, and South Africa, as well as in the United
States.