UNMIK/PR/738
SRSG Michael Steiner, during a visit today to the homes of recently–returned Kosovo Ashkali families, launched his Concept Paper on the Right to Sustainable Returns.
The Concept paper lays out the basic principles that are to guide returns of displaced persons and refugees to Kosovo in the future, with the understanding that returns and integration are key priorities for UNMIK.
The two fundamental principles are that returns must be based upon the rights and decisions of individuals. These rights should apply equally to members of all communities. Secondly, returns must be sustainable, meaning returnees must have equal access to public services, employment, property, humanitarian assistance, freedom of movement and other attributes of normal life.
The document goes on to stipulate that no displaced person should be forced home, or used as a political pawn and that displaced persons should endeavor to return to their original homes or at least the area they originated from.
The Concept paper notes that security conditions for minorities continue to improve and that freedom of movement has gradually increased: “KFOR and UNMIK Police are shifting to a flexible, threat assessment-based approach in order to achieve the gradual dismantling of protected enclaves, and to promote local-level integration and reconciliation.”
With these improvements and the establishment of a multi-ethnic government, “there are emerging opportunities for returns,” the paper notes.
The concept paper calls for a “unified mission-wide approach …to achieve breakthroughs in minority returns during the summer and autumn of 2002, to effect a change in climate and to build momentum for more significant numbers of returns during 2003 and 2004.
“SRSG Michael Steiner delivered the concept paper in the garden of the homes of some Kosovo Ashkalis who recently returned from exile in Vojvodina, Serbia.
“I am here to honor the brave men and women who’ve exercised their inalienable right to return home,” he told the families and media. “The homecoming of these 59 individuals demonstrates the principles embraced by UNMIK and other agencies, as well as the Government of Kosovo.”
The 59 Ashkalis organized themselves to return with the help of Adem Demaci, the Kosovo Prime Minister’s advisor on communities. SRSG Michael Steiner also acknowledged the role of the Vushtrri/Vucitrn Municipal Assembly, the Kosovo Protection Corps, UNHCR, the World Food Program, the Agencie d’Aide au Cooperation Technique et Development, and the American Refugee Committee. Extra patrols have also been put on by KFOR and UNMIK Police to protect the returnees, whose homes were looted shortly after the Housing and Property Directorate evicted squatters who had been occupying them.
The SRSG called on the Provisional Institutions of self Government to help ensure the sustainability of the returns and recalled that “integration at home means integration in Europe.”
