by STEPHAN BURNETT of the Weyburn Review
Former Weyburn resident, Jim Hill, is leading an eight-man team who are acting as the eyes and ears for Canada's foreign service in the Balkans while the bombings continue in nearby Serbia.
The Canadian Foreign Ministry decided to have personnel on site in the region acting as their "eyes and ears on Kosovo as well as Macedonia," said Hill, first secretary-political with the Office of the Canadian Embassy, during a telephone interview from Skopje, Macedonia, on Sunday.
One day earlier, Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy was in Skopje.
Axworthy stopped in Skopje to make some calls to Macedonian government leaders and he also visited a refugee camp to get a first-hand view of what the dimensions of that dilemma are, said Hill.
Hill has been working in the Balkans since November of last year. For much of that time he was stationed in Pristina, Kosovo, as the head of a Canadian diplomatic observer team.
By the end of March, "the politicking and positioning was going on with Belgrade and they decided, after a sufficient number of threats, that if the situation wasn't resolved that they would deploy air strikes. To do that effectively, they would have to withdraw the international presence and the principal international presence was the KVM, the Kosovo Verification Mission."
Hill said he suspected his team's stay in Kosovo was tenuous near the end of March. He was starting out on a four-and-one-half hour trip from Pristina to Belgrade when his colleagues in Belgrade told him to bring everything from the observer mission in Kosovo. But Hill still wasn't sure if it was the final evacuation notice from Kosovo, for his team had been at the evacuation stage on three earlier occasions.
After travelling to Belgrade, Hill returned to Pristina the next day. "We still had an armoured vehicle back there which we used outside the city and basically, I came back to get the armoured vehicle to close up everything at Pristina and leave for Skopje," he said.
A little over one month later, there are an estimated 800,000 refugees from Kosovo in the surrounding Balkan countries.
"There are stories from friends of mine from Pristina; masked paramilitaries would start at one end of the street and they didn't have to go to too many houses before the people at the other end of the street knew what was up and they would leave of their own accord. You can talk to any number of people and get really tragic stories, and with the volume and the common elements in all of them, you can't help but believe the large percentage of what they're telling you is factual. There's no doubt there are a range of events that would be classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity and those are being documented," said Hill.
Hill confirmed Foreign Minister Axworthy is part of a concerted effort by NATO countries trying to engage Russia as a mediator looking for a peaceful solution in the area.
"The diplomatic solution is always the preferred option and it's always something that countries pursue, that is the essence of diplomacy. NATO and like-minded nations are always searching for diplomatic solutions. If that can be followed and if that can be achieved, then of course, that is the preferred way to deal with it."
Hill calls the Rev. Jesse Jackson's successful release of three American soldiers one variable in very complicated story. "What was hoped to be gained and what will be gained, they're really unknowns," he said.
The first flight of refugees from Kosovo to Canada left from the Balkans yesterday although Hill adds there have already some refugee reunifications with family members in Canada.
The best way for concerned Canadians to contribute to alleviating the misery in the region is through a financial contribution to agencies such as the Red Cross, World Vision, the Catholic Relief Organization, the Jewish Congress and Oxfam, said Hill.
"They all have programs designated to helping Kosovo refugees they're making a great effort to provide a controlled and balanced inflow of aid. What you want to avoid is getting 10,000 blankets and then no medicines. So these NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) are specialists in making sure what is required arrives at the proper time."
Hill has overstayed his original commitment to the Balkans by several weeks. He hopes to be back in Canada and on a different assignment by the end of the month.
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