|
A L S O+T O D A Y
Day Two: The airstrikes persist Outlaw nation? Verdict on Starr's witness
T A B L E+T A L K Don't ask, don't Teletubbie? Know of any other gay icons for children? Do tell in the Headlines area of Table Talk
R E C E N T L Y The bombing begins The Kosovo myth Banned in Belgrade Where does Elizabeth Dole really stand on abortion? Susan McDougal's moment of truth - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Browse the - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
![[ 21st: PARC: A definitive new history ]](/news/1999/03/src/26newslinks.gif) |
||
|
THE UNHAPPIEST ALLIES | PAGE 1, 2
So far, the arrivals have been light. On Thursday, police found 62 refugees in Puglia. They said they had been able to pass into Albania several days earlier and waited for weather conditions to improve before boarding a smuggler's raft for Italy. In addition to the humanitarian tragedy that could result from a massive refugee wave, Italy runs other risks as well. The country is in an ongoing battle with the Albanian smugglers who regularly unload refugees in Italy, as well as with illegal immigrants seeking entrance into Europe. Albania, Europe's poorest country and an all-but-lawless land, openly admits that it is woefully unable to control the smugglers, who transport drugs in addition to people. It has invited the Italian army onto its soil in a limited capacity to help control the traffic. But the arrival of thousands of refugees threatens to bring the smuggling racket -- which is already the major industry in port cities like Vlore -- to new heights. The smugglers are modern-day pirates who live completely outside the law. They cram as many as 35 people in small rubber rafts with powerful outboard motors, and prefer to have at least two children aboard on each trip. That way, when the Italian coast guard catches up with them, they can hoist the infants up in the air, threatening to toss them overboard if they are stopped. The coast guard usually responds to the threat by backing off. In order to avoid being apprehended when they arrive at the Italian shore, they usually force their passengers to jump off when they are still about 150 yards out to sea. A number of refugees have made it to within feet of the Italian shore, only to drown at the last minute. It is not just the Kosovars who have made the smugglers rich. Because Albania has become known throughout the Mediterranean as a smugglers' mecca and an easy way into the European Union, thousands of Kurds fleeing oppression in Iraq and southeastern Turkey have also hitched a ride into Italy on the rubber rafts. All efforts to dislodge the smugglers have proved futile. For the moment, however, the refugee crisis seems to be far enough away from Italy. For this, the Italians have Milosevic to thank. Serbian forces have heavily mined the border between Kosovo and Albania. As a result, about 20,000 refugees have spilled into Macedonia, on Kosovo's eastern border, instead. On Thursday, Macedonia's prime minister complained that his tiny country was being overwhelmed. "If responsibility for the humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo rests on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic," said Ljubco Georgievski, "then the spillover of this catastrophe here is the responsibility of the U.S. and the E.U." But the volatile situation could change quickly. Albanian authorities reported late Thursday that several hundred refugees had crossed into Albania and that as many as 3,000 more were massed at the border. Those who made it in said they had witnessed mass executions of ethnic Albanians that same day in the village of Godem.
Gabriel Kahn is managing editor of Italy Daily, the Italian supplement to the International Herald Tribune. |
||
