A Local Mission Of Mercy

As ethnic Albanian refugees stream from their burned-out towns to Kosovo's borders, with little more than the clothes they are wearing, Terry Heselius recognizes their faces from the dozens of weddings, births and town gatherings he attended over the years.

But now the faces are stiff with trauma.

"It's devastating," said Heselius, the local chief of Portland-based Mercy Corps International, speaking from Macedonia. "You look and you see man's inhumanity to man."

During the nearly six years he lived in Kosovo before NATO began bombing, Heselius visited more than 700 villages, helping thousands of villagers struggle through a crushing economic crisis.

He helped Kosovars build greenhouses to grow their own vegetables, and distributed sleeping pads and boots to cash-strapped families. He also joined them in the celebrations that marked their lives.

Now he is helping them survive.

One of the first agencies to begin offering aid to Kosovo, Mercy Corps was one of the last international aid organizations to leave the province before the bombing began. Because of its deep roots in Kosovo, the Northwest organization is now one of the authoritative voices on the refugee crisis.

"Mercy Corps was definitely the lead agency within the region," said Steve Hricik, a program director with InterAction, a New York-based coalition of humanitarian organizations. "They've been there. They know the terrain. They know the issues. They know the key players."

$30 million spent in Kosovo

Founded by Bellevue native Dan O'Neill about two decades ago, Mercy Corps has provided food, shelter, health care and other aid to more than 2 million people in 16 developing countries. Donations to the agency come from individuals, corporations, foundations, churches, governments and such international organizations as the United Nations and the European Union. The agency was founded by Christians but has no particular religious affiliation.

Since 1993, Mercy Corps has spent more than $30 million on relief efforts in Kosovo, helping about 250,000 Kosovars through an era that saw unemployment rates as high as 80 percent.

O'Neill, a Sammamish High School and University of Washington graduate who maintains a Bellevue office of Mercy Corps, was on his way to the Balkans yesterday to boost the morale of his employees and figure out what the organization should do next.

Mercy Corps began its work after then-Sen. Bob Dole visited Kosovo in 1991. He recommended that $5 million out of $20 million in relief funds for the Balkans be set aside for Kosovo. Mercy Corps won $3 million of the grant to begin providing aid there.

With his experience in the region and close ties to many Kosovars, Heselius has become a recognized expert on Kosovo.

But his work with Mercy Corps is his first experience in the world of humanitarian aid. The 65-year-old former businessman had spent a dozen years in the Middle East starting companies before joining Mercy Corps in 1993. He was living in Kirkland with his wife, Nell, and his son and daughter-in-law when he began his search for a new career in humanitarian assistance. Shortly after he got the job with Mercy Corps, he headed to the Balkans.

"It was obvious this was an area of the world where there was significant need," said Mercy Corps spokesman Matthew De Galan. "There was a lot of unemployment and economic depression. People needed help. People needed some kind of relief."

A worsening situation

When Heselius first arrived, thousands of families were out of work, and schools and health clinics were shut down. He hired Kosovars to help with food distribution, agriculture programs and education. In February last year, Heselius said, Serbian forces attacked two villages, displacing villagers and foreshadowing the unrest to come.

Throughout the past year, the situation worsened. Heselius, who was living in Pristina, the provincial capital, said thousands of people were displaced from their homes by Serbian forces, and human-rights violations mounted. As the NATO bombing started, the fear grew to panic. An Albanian Kosovar who worked as a Mercy Corps warehouse manager was shot and killed March 28. Another Mercy Corps food warehouse was burned to the ground.

Once the bombing began, the organization lost touch with many of its Kosovar employees.

"Everyone was trying to move as best they could," Heselius said. "Everyone was trying to find their families. It was scary."

Heselius and his colleagues led several trips to the border to help Kosovars reach safety. He got out just hours before the bombing began.

`A heartbeat away'

Since then, Heselius and his colleagues have been able to locate most of the Mercy Corps employees at the borders.

On a trip to north Albania a few days ago, Heselius talked to dozens of people leaving Kosovo and was struck by the similarities in their stories.

Rich and poor, young and old, all have reported being told to leave their homes, sometimes with only five minutes of warning. After they stepped out of their houses, Serbian forces torched everything they had, many refugees told him.

"There was one lady who was nine months pregnant," Heselius said, recalling how he and several colleagues wrapped up her two children, offered to take her to a hospital and gave her food. "She just sat there. She was just not there. She demonstrated no emotion."

Heselius said he was once asked by a Northwesterner why he was interested in helping people so far away.

"To me it's a heartbeat away," he said. "If it affects people, we as a country need to be concerned about it - wherever it is."

Susan Byrnes' phone message number is 206-464-2189. Her e-mail address is: sbyrnes@seattletimes.com