KK-Forum,
Roma's skjebne i Kosovo og Makedonia.
Knut Rognes
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When Is a Refugee Not a Refugee?
3 July 2001
Unsurprisingly, Roma citizens affected by the latest Balkan
flashpoints are falling by the wayside.
by Gwendolyn Albert
Hostility and extremism is alive and well in the Balkans, as media
coverage of the latest crisis--relations between ethnic Albanian and
ethnic Macedonian citizens of Macedonia--proves. However, what the
media, as usual, have failed to mention is the hostility directed
at another ethnicity: the Roma. Throughout Europe, the Roma
suffer discrimination, but perhaps nowhere is their plight as
desperate as in Kosovo and in the refugee camps of
Macedonia.
According to the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), after
the 1999 NATO intervention, ethnic Albanian extremists
returning to Kosovo destroyed approximately 75 Roma
communities. Statistics on the number of Roma who fled the
province are tenuous at best--hardly a shock since in conditions
of general chaos, people do not flee in orderly processions--but
the estimates range from the STP's own claim of 120,000
(made in a survey jointly commissioned by the STP, Oxfam, and
the UNHCR) to the Roma News Network's (RNN) numbers of
over 150,000 Roma, some of whom fled illegally to Italy and
Germany, others to Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia.
When the Kosovar Albanians were ethnically cleansed from
Kosovo and fled to Macedonia, the international community was
prepared to evacuate them to the West. But when those same
returning Albanian refugees ethnically cleansed the Kosovo
Roma, the international community was content to leave most of
them in the states neighboring Kosovo. Why?
Moreover, the Kosovar Roma refugees in Macedonia are
refugees only in the generic sense, not in the eyes of the law.
Legally, they are "temporarily protected" by Macedonia, a
protection extended piecemeal, a few months at a time. That
status entitles them to very little, and they live under the threat
of expulsion back to Kosovo when protection is deemed no
longer necessary. If they were to be given bona fide, legal
refugee status, they would enjoy almost all the rights of
Macedonian citizens, including the right to employment.
Persecution itself does not determine a refugee's status, but
rather who does the persecuting. While the Kosovar Albanians
were persecuted by the Serbian army, the Kosovo Roma were
persecuted by ordinary citizens supporting the KLA
paramilitary--in legal parlance, "non-state actors." The legal
distinction between state and non-state actors--and the law's
definition of persecution--is usually a guide to the assistance
refugees receive. Fleeing your neighbors will not entitle you to
full refugee status, but fleeing a police state should.
Of course, not everyone flees; Roma still live in Kosovo today.
But while the UN may claim it is committed to a multi-ethnic
society there, much more has been done to ease the
Albanians' plight than to alleviate the suffering of the Roma.
Even today, unless accompanied by KFOR troops, Roma in
Kosovo cannot leave their villages without fear of being
kidnapped or killed. They are turned away by Albanian
hospitals, Albanian schools, and Albanian employers. Roma
activists have repeatedly requested the Kosovo Romani
communities be given what they lack--security, clothing, sewer
systems, medical care, food, construction materials, electricity,
water, and garbage services-to no avail.
So while Pristina rebuilds, many destroyed Romani villages
remain piles of rubble, and the Kosovar Roma refugees are
thus unable to return. Stuck in legal limbo, many contemplate
illegal migration--perhaps understandably given their experience
at the hands of international aid.
"Just don't say we're helping Gypsies"
Consider, for example, the experiences of those who, in July
1999, entered the Krushevac displaced-persons camp for Roma
inside Kosovo. Dubbed "the UNHCR's Krushevac failure" by the
RNN, the camp offered food consisting primarily of flour and
beans. People lived in tents without water or heat; children went
barefoot; there was little medical support and, in the beginning,
no security. When security was eventually provided, the forces
were unarmed and sporadic, leaving the camp exposed to
assailants who would slash the refugees' tents at night.
According to both Roma and non-Roma who spent time at Krushevac, KFOR
and local aid agencies relied heavily on local Albanian interpreters
and drivers for communication with local communities in Kosovo. The
local staff made unsubstantiated allegations that the Kosovar
Roma had "sided" with the Serbs and committed atrocities
before the NATO intervention. Those rumors were then taken
as fact by many KFOR troops and aid workers.
The results of the anti-Roma sentiment ranged from neglect to
hostility. As RNN reported, activists "heard these arguments very
often: 'It's difficult to raise money for Gypsies' or 'Just don't say
we're helping Gypsies' or 'Our organization cannot help
officially.'" According to Paul Polansky, the sole aid worker to
live 24 hours a day at the Krushevac camp, the Medecins du
Monde France clinic on the site refused to give the camp an
emergency contact for use after hours. UN police refused to
take ill or pregnant Roma to the hospital after hours, despite the
fact that they were the only means of contact with the outside
world between 6 p.m. and 10 a.m. When Polansky contacted
Islamic Relief to see if they would deliver aid to Krushevac, he
was told that, despite the fact that all the Roma there were
Muslim, Islamic Relief was supplying aid only to Albanians.
Oxfam and Children's Aid Direct were the only aid agencies to
make a concerted effort to help the Kosovar Roma.
On 21 September 1999, after two months of distress and
spurred on by fear of the rapidly approaching winter, half of the
Krushevac camp decided they would rather walk to Macedonia
than languish in the camp. At the Macedonian border crossing
in Blace they were halted. For eight days they were forced to
sleep on the pavement, and for two days received no food. Just
two temporary toilets were set up for 500 people. During that
time, the UNHCR tried to persuade them to return.
Macedonia eventually agreed to allow the Kosovar Roma in,
housing them in the infamous Stenkovec II camp, known to
television audiences worldwide as the first stop of the Kosovar
Albanians fleeing ethnic cleansing. The dire conditions in
Stenkovec had prompted Western governments to evacuate
the Kosovar Albanians to third countries; their televised
suffering helped justify NATO's intervention. Six months later,
when the Roma arrived, they were met at Stenkovec not by
CNN, but by Macedonian police, whom the Roma claim beat
them occasionally for drinking beer or chasing after soccer balls.
Next they were removed to children's summer hostels in isolated
areas such as Lake Pretor, without transportation to the outside
world. Written permission was required to leave the camp; if the
Roma returned later than agreed, the police would sometimes
beat them.
One year later the Macedonian government promised to build a
collective center so the Kosovar Roma would not have to spend
another winter in the hostels. With funding unofficially estimated
at $1 million, a center suitable for winter use, made of sturdy
materials and including a medical clinic, was to be built.
Unfortunately, what was promised was not provided. What was
built for that money, as journalists saw when, in February 2001,
they were finally allowed in, were 16 non-insulated sheds of
plywood 1.5 cm thick, and facilities too cold to use in winter.
There were no beds, just two-centimeter-thick mattresses on a
concrete floor. The promised clinic never materialized, and
according to Roma TV, there is now an epidemic of mange and
jaundice at the center. The camp's sole car goes to local clinics
just once a day, making emergency cases even more
life-threatening.
The Roma are aware that they are a burden to impoverished
Macedonia. They also know they are unwanted, as they are
constantly threatened by ethnic Albanian locals. One incident at
a Skopje hospital, where a Kosovar Rom patient was harassed
by her fellow ethnic Albanian patients, was reported to Amnesty
International (AI). While aware of the discrimination facing the
Roma, AI is also bound by human-rights law and cited the
distinction between state and non-state actors in their response
to this incident.
Returning to Kosovo would, even today, be dangerous for the
Kosovar Roma, as the spring 2001 extension of their temporary
protection implies. Moreover, most do not have jobs or homes to
which they may return. Given the misery they endure, it is no
wonder they feel abandoned by the world. They remember the
dramatic evacuation of the Albanians to the West. The
explanation that their status is different in the eyes of
international law seems incomprehensible, and they can only
think that, once again, the world is giving them second-class
treatment.
The Krushevac debacle was not the last time the Roma found
themselves low on the list of priorities. Plans for inexpensively
re-roofing Roma homes, drawn up by Denver architect George
Nez, were given to People in Need, UNHCR, and the U.S. State
Department refugee coordinator in Pristina in spring 2000--but
no one has contacted Nez since. Most international aid to the
Roma in Kosovo, such as it was, stopped in April 2000 as well,
without regard for the actual conditions on the ground. Of 368
international aid agencies in Kosovo, not one has made the
Roma a priority.
Kosovar Roma refugees now face several options as they listen
to the shelling on the Macedonian border. One young Rom in a
thousand might be hired in Kosovo's reconstruction effort, but
only if he has skills to offer and is willing to conceal his Romani
identity from those who would punish him for it. The others face
grimmer options: to return to the rubble and poverty of Kosovo;
to fester in the camps; or to escape through cracks in the
borders to the West. Increasingly, the Roma are heading for the
cracks. And as the death toll rises for illegal migration worldwide,
it is becoming clearer and clearer that those cracks can be fatal.
Gwendolyn Albert is a Prague-based freelance writer.
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