KOSOVAR REFUGEES

	May 7, 1999
	Correspondent Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW, Chicago, reports on the nearly 1000 Kosovar refugees who arrived at Fort Dix, NJ, this week.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: It is the children who are the most resilient, say officials working with the newly arrived refugees. Within 24 hours of their arrival, kids were playing familiar games, and even trying a new one, American baseball. Army Reservist Seth Gladstone. CAPTAIN SETH GLADSTONE, US Army Reserve: Kids will be kids anywhere. They're making do. In the adults, you can see it in their faces. For them, I think for them it's going to be a little longer and harder. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The first plane bringing the refugees to dramatically different lives landed on Wednesday. Among the long line of refugees deplaning, Roger Winter, head of the private US Agency's refugee resettlement program. Winter says it was quite a trip. ROGER WINTER, US Committee for Refugee: It was touch and go on the first leg from Skopje to Rome. These people basically hadn't been on planes before, and there was a lot of air sickness and that kind of thing. After that, it was just fine. When we landed, they broke into cheers and started saying USA, USA. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Shortly after their arrival, the exhausted refugees were welcomed to the US by the First Lady. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: I know that you have had a long journey, and you are very tired, but you look very good to me as I look at you right now. (Applause) SPOKESMAN: Welcome to America! ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Even as the refugees settled in at Fort Dix, pushed their children in newly donated strollers, and talked quietly in small groups, the trauma they had lived through was evident. 19-year-old university student Albert Kasumaj relived the day, less than a month ago, when Serbian police knocked on his door in Pristina at 6:30 AM. ALBERT KASUMAJ: You cannot imagine, you cannot feel the fear. The men with masks, I mean with colors on their faces, came to your door and said "You have to leave in five minutes. You have five minutes to pack your bags, or you will be shot, or you will be killed in your house." ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Kasumaj's family was one of the first families in the Stenkovic 1 refugee camp in Macedonia. When word went out that some refugees would be sent to America, Kajumaj's mother, father, and two sisters eagerly signed up. ALBERT KASUMAJ: I'm going to someplace that I will be safe, I mean I respect and I know that the American people are the best in the world. And I think for them they are doing everything to help us. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: No processing will be necessary for the littlest arrival. The seven-pound, eight-ounce baby boy born yesterday in nearby Mount Holly, New Jersey to refugees Lebibe and Naim Karaliju is automatically a US citizen. The baby's father told a packed news conference they may name the baby America. The doctor who delivered the new citizen pronounced him healthy. DR. MICHAEL SNYDER, Physician: He really was great. He came out with his hand wrapped around like this, the umbilical cord was wrapped around once. And despite all that, he was strong and healthy. He looked wonderful. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: These first arrivals will spend two to six weeks here at Fort Dix to finish up their processing. They will then be resettled around the country under the sponsorship of private relief agencies. Many Americans, particularly Albanian Americans, have contacted relief agencies, offering to sponsor a refugee family. Kosovo-Albanian American Ana Menetaj came to Fort Dix from Chicago, hoping to bring a newly arrived family home with her. ANA MENETAJ: I'm here today to sponsor a family. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But those hopes were dashed by Roger Winter. ROGER WINTER: Well, it's not possible today. The way the system works, these people are in a deferred status. In other words, their processing has not been completed. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Menetaj was not inexperienced in helping refugees. Just last Friday, Menetaj had brought to Chicago her sister and two-year-old niece who had fled from Kosovo into Macedonia. SHEFKIJE FERATAJ: Now I'm so happy, because I'm with my family, with my baby first, and I'm in a safe country. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The two were admitted after Menetaj had gone to Macedonia to find her family, then persuaded embassy officials in Skopje, Macedonia to issue tourist visas for her sister and daughter. ANA MENETAJ: I thought it was going to be easy. I brought a letter from one of the congressmen, and when I went to United States embassy, they treated me basically like I was some kind of a criminal, or, you know, I don't belong there. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But Menetaj's persistence paid off, and her sister was now safely ensconced in Menetaj's high-rise Chicago apartment, listening to Besarta practice her new-sounding A-B-C's. (little girl reciting ABC's) But the horrors that had driven 31-year-old Ferataj from her home in Kosovo were still fresh in her mind. SHEFKIJIE FERATAJ: In my country, the police burned all Albanian houses, and they burn my three houses, and I don't have time to think, only to take my baby and to leave, because it's so dangerous. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Only one month ago, Ferataj and her daughter had been living in this pleasant village in Kosovo, where she and her sisters had been raised. But then the terror began. Her baby's father fled into the hills. Ferataj headed for the Macedonian border by bus, then on foot. SHEFKIJIE FERATAJ: I see the women raped and I see all time,, only this thing, and oh, my god, I think I'm so scared from this, from rapes and from -- they took -- Serbian police took all gold from woman and I see blood. And I see dead people. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Dead people? SHEFKIJIE FERATAJ: Yes. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Ferataj too wound up in Stenkovic 1, then to an apartment in Skopje with the help of family friends. It was there that her sister found her. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: How glad were you to see Ana when she got to Macedonia? SHEFKIJIE FERATAJ: To see Ana. I know, because Ana and I had something special. I know that Ana one day come to see me but I never believe I come with Ana to the United States. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Menetaj helped more than her sister. An Albanian television station in Macedonia recorded her visits to the refugee camps, where she passed out close to $20,000 to help refugees who had lost everything. The money helped them buy their way out of the camps and start new lives. Next, she made her way to Albania, where she found another sister, along with her family and 30 neighbors from their village in Kosovo sleeping in a warehouse. ANA MENETAJ: It was shocking for her when she saw me. My main thing was to get her out of there and put her in a decent place. And she was there with 30 people were left from the village from hundreds. They fled. There were only 30 left. And the hardest thing was to separate them. I was stuck in a position, I'm thinking, oh, my God, what am I going to do now. I said I tell you what, I promise I'll get you a place, too. So I did. I got all 30 of them out. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Back home, Menetaj plays with her niece whose, clearest English word reflects her experiences. CHILD: Bomb. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Both mother and daughter are a little overwhelmed by America's abundance, whether in the grocery store, or in the salon and spa that Menetaj owns. SHEFKIJIE FERATAJ: Everything from USA, everything best -- but then I think from town, my country, my Kosovo, my people, I feel so bad. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Similar mixed feelings from Albert Kasumaj. ALBERT KASUMAJ: They said we can live here forever in USA, but that's not good. I mean, every people that came here - I'm talking to their names -- in fact doesn't want to live in USA; they want to return to their places. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But even with the new talks between the West and Russia bringing a faint hope of peace, there are few refugees here who think they will be returning to their country anytime soon.