Asked, some 200 years after the event, to comment on the significance of the French Revolution, the Chinese Premier Zhou En-lai is reported to have replied, “It’s too soon to tell”. If it is still too early to assess the…
Recent violent events in Kosovo are part of an independence struggle that has existed for many years in both the old and new Yugoslavia. Until the NATO intervention, the most important new factor was an increase in the use of…
Whereas the 900,000 ethnic Albanians forced out of Kosovo received protection and assistance from the international community, those forcibly displaced inside basically remained unaided and unprotected. Between 24 March, when NATO airstrikes began, and 20 June, when Yugoslav forces withdrew,…
Since early 1998 international attention to Kosovo has had a very strong humanitarian focus. The problems faced by the majority Kosovan Albanian inhabitants and the international response have often been presented primarily in terms of the need for humanitarian assistance…
Media coverage of the Kosovo crisis has given the impression that UNHCR and the relief agencies were overwhelmed by the influx of refugees into Macedonia and that it was highly fortunate that NATO was on hand to save the day.…
The three months from April to June 1999 saw a massive emergency aid programme, as large and as high profile as any operation with refugees since the Great Lakes crisis of 1994. The stage may have been different but most…
Kosovan refugees started to arrive in the UK, as spontaneous asylum seekers, in larger numbers in 1997. In 1998 the Home Office received 7,980 asylum applications from nationals of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FYR), mostly from Kosovan Albanians. Between…
On 10 June, the day after the signing of the NATO-Yugoslav peace agreement, there were 138,600 refugees living with host families in Macedonia(1) with a further 106,500 refugees living in camps(2). By early August, 15,000 refugees remained with host families…
Since the mid 1980s when the numbers of asylum seekers claiming refuge in Western Europe began a sharp and prolonged ascent, refugees have come to be a most unwelcome sight. To prevent the entry of those seen as illicit economic…
Transmigration programmes implemented during Suharto's rule resulted in the movement of 1.6 million people, mostly from Java, Bali and Madura to Kalimantan, Sumatra, the Moluccas, Sulawesi and the islands of Eastern Indonesia. Transmigration was viewed both as a demographic imperative…