Short bureaucratic cronology of the events:

I filed SF 171 in summer 1990 while I was here on student exchange (F-1 visa) in Lock Haven, PA. I was tested for VOA in New York in fall 1990. In a letter dated March 20, 1991 I was informed of my eligibility for employment with the VOA's Yugoslav Service. My scores were GS-9=82 and GS-11=76, and I was declared eligible for employment until March 20, 1994. (smoothie)

Earlier in 1991 I requested asylum in the U.S. F-1 had expired, since I haven't returned to Yugoslavia, and I haven't continued college in the U.S. (barred by the lack of resources).

As I eventually mentioned zillion times I was persecuted in former Yugoslavia for my journalism and political activity and I had reasons to believe that that persecution would only worsen with the obviously emerging bloodshed. The asylum request however is still pending with the INS in a procedure that is unfortunately beyond my control. The last I've heard about it is from a kind soul working at the Governor Cuomo's Office, who learned that my case is currently in litigation, whatever that means.

INS believes that I am German since I was born there, and since my mother is a German. But Germans assert that I am not German, since my parents divorced when I was a little kid and I lived all my life in former Yugoslavia with my father's family. Also, Germans are afraid (as they put it diplomatically) that I wouldn't have any chances of getting asylum in their country - coming from the U.S. Then, again there is no more former Yugoslavia. The country that took away my passport, that kept me in detention, that limited my freedoms, that persecuted me, that even tried to kill me - is dead now. Or is it maybe just not as dead as the U.S. government would like to believe? Where are all that bad guys now if not working for present governments there? Oh, yes, before I came here I became a resident of Slovenia (which is funny since I never lived there) - but this doesn't count for citizenship: new Slovenian government requires a ten years of residency for citizenship, which I fail for about five years. In Croatia, on the other hand, I never resided - since I left Yugoslav republic of Croatia, before Croatia gained sovereignty. INS refuses to understand all those circumstances "cum grano salis", but is too cheap to deport me (and, well, the headlines would be devastating). So they let me cool off for a third year now and leave on my own, which I wouldn't despite their most sincere prayers.

On July 3, 1991, I was informed that I had been tentatively selected for an International Radio Broadcaster position in the Yugoslav Service, an eligibility valid through March 20, 1994. I filed the USIA questionnaire (SF 86). In September 1991 an USIA security officer had scheduled an interview with me in New York city. Few days before the interview he called me abruptly canceling the interview and referring me to the personnel office. Personnel office advised me that they are unable to proceed with my employment because of my not-resolved visa status. In a complex correspondence that followed the VOA upheld that opinion. In the letter on June 30, 1992, Janice Brambilla, the Personell head honcho at the VOA, advised me to contact her staff if I wish to REACTIVATE my application for employment upon adjustment of my visa status, which I did, and on her request David Dominey sent me a new SF 171 telling me that my candidacy has expired (although it couldn't before March 20, 1994) and that I should reapply, if I wished.

This insult was our last correspondence. Veljko Rasevic, formerly editor-in-chief of Yugoslav Service and now director of South-East European section, who once encouraged me applying for a VOA position, began avoiding my calls, once he explained to me that there was nothing he could do.

An American employer may hire a US citizen over a non-citizen that apply for the same job if they are equally qualified. Employer, also, may sponsor (for employment authorization; INS form I-140) a non-resident if there is no citizen or resident with the same qualifications for the position. The VOA personnel office told me in telephone conversation that for VOA it is impossible to sponsor somebody in that manner. However, in a recent conversation with members of the Croatian Service I found that 3 of 5 got the job through the sponsoring for visa. Of course, if those 3 are more qualified for the job than I am, then they should have that job. Nevertheless, VOA never issued such a statement. So, I have my reasonable doubts on propriety of VOA's employment practices. Furthermore, I have a job in NYC - well, I am the famous lifeguard, I pay taxes, I have documents (drivers license and social security number) which makes me technically legal to employ (according to "Getting Started", A Guidebook for Immigrants in New York, issued in 1992 by New York State, Office of the Governor), and I had all that in 1991, too.

Meanwhile, as we all know, Yugoslavia ceased to exist and the former Yugoslav Service at the VOA split accordingly. Newly formed Croatian Service (for which I suppose I was tentatively selected, since my background is Croatian) employed five persons. They were immediately widely rejected by Croatian-American community, because all of them were either children from mixed marriages (Serb-Croat) or married to a Serbian spouse, or ethnic Serbs from Croatia. That impaired VOA's possible impact on the course of events in the young Croatian state (where rich Croatian-American community plays an important role).

Unfortunately Voice of America did not realize the critical role it might play in a country like Croatia, which was effectively under a media blockade during the Serb-Croat war. Voice of America should also know that its efforts to now have not been effective. To be frank, opposition leaders today in countries on the territory of the former Yugoslavia do not quote VOA as their dissident predecessors used to do. VOA lost the last minuscule credibility it had when the editor-in-chief of Croatian Service had to resign that post since the editor-in-chief's estranged spouse became a spokesperson for Radovan Karadzic - the leader of Serbs in Bosnia whom State Department proclaimed a war criminal.

That editor-in-chief was replaced with even more bleak person whose name is not really worth mentioning. The person is one of those three persons sponsored for visa that I couldn't be sponsored for. Now you tell me that is not Kafkaesque.

Not in fact: INS does not leave me alone. They scheduled a master hearing in my deportation proceedings for January 3rd 1995 - close to beginning of my sixth year in the States. Did I hear it well? Deportation proceedings? In their last letter (in December 1993) they claimed their intent to deny my asylum request and consequentially withdraw the witholding of deportation. So, that means that the piece of their correspondence is missing: the one that will tell me that they denied the request and placed me in deportation proceedings. Conveniently, they failed to send me that letter. Because there they would have to answer the asylum rebuttal evidence, which they didn't want, since it embarassed them. And it embarassed them for a good reason: they claim that I have dual citizenship (Croatian and German) and fear persecution in Slovenia; they also claim that I said that in the asylum hearing. They got everything upside down, and besides that - I never said any of that. Why the INS think anybody would deem plausible that I gave them wrong data while that data was against my benefit? I requested tapes from hearing. They don't have tapes. But they have good memory. Yeah, right. So presented my request looks stupid. But I do not and may not have German citizenship (I am mad at Germans as I am mad at INS) and I do not fear persecution in Slovenia, but I am not a citizen over there, either. I may be a citizen of Croatia, although currently I am not a resident there, and it is debatable would I or would not I be persecuted should I return there (it is, however, clear that I will be persecuted there if the INS deport me with the resume: "you know this kid just requested asylum from your country in our country, but we rejected him, so take him back"; and what if Croatia then decide to deport all those nice "young Americans abroad" back to their homes?). INS sucks.