Kosovo Roma Living In Extremely Poor Conditions

In Kosovo's camps, a story waits for an ending; The Roma
The International Herald Tribune - January 12, 2005 Wednesday

By: Marek Antoni Nowicki

PRISTINA, Kosovo - As my car entered the camp in Zitkovac, a town in northern Kosovo, a taxi followed, with a coffin tied precariously across the roof. The camp was supposed to serve as interim housing for some of Kosovo's Roma, or Gypsies, displaced from their settlement in the nearby city of Mitrovica. But since 1999, it has become the birth place and final resting place for many.

For more than five years, wind, rain, sun and snow have beaten down on the flimsy makeshift dwellings -- made of nothing more than tin and clap-board, insulated by plastic sheets -- that shelter 1,000 people in four Roma sites in northern Kosovo.

The only water flowing in the camps spills out from broken valves. Showers and temporary toilets are shared by everyone -- when they function. Putrid water muddies the dirt walkways between shacks and seeps inside the fragile households of nearly every family.

Inhabitants of the camps openly complain about the unsafe and unsanitary conditions in which their children play. The Roma camp at Zitkovac lies in the shadow of poisonous metal waste left over from the Trepca mines, which were among the largest in Europe, supplying lead, zinc and gold. Forty-one Roma children have been diagnosed with blood disorders as a result.

Many Roma settlements in Europe are transient, but the camps in Kosovo are very different from what their inhabitants were accustomed to before 1999. When I visit the camps, I am often presented with a folded worn scarf to inspect. Wrapped inside are documents verifying ownership for hundreds of their former houses and properties in what is known by locals as Roma Mahalla, in the south of Mitrovica.

The Roma in the camps in North Kosovo are what are left of the more than 7,000-strong Roma neighborhood of Fabricka Mahalla. The Mahalla, one of the oldest settled Roma communities in the Balkans, grew and prospered for more than 150 years. Most of the inhabitants lived in good houses, many of them had jobs and were a part of the community in Mitrovica.

In 1999, the population was forced to the north side of the divided city of Mitrovica when nearly every house and business in Mahalla was burned to the ground during violent reprisals against Kosovo's Serbs and Roma. The Roma of the Mahalla now live in unspeakable poverty, largely ignored. Even if they were not living in the margins of society, as other Roma in the region do, they were deeply marginalized by the violence in 1999.

People in Kosovo know what Mahalla means: a traditional old settlement, linked to the notion of an ethnic community. Like any other internally displaced people, these Roma have the right to be back in their homes.

Today, the vulnerability of this whole community is evident. The meager humanitarian aid they had been receiving dried up more than two years ago. Few Roma houses have been rebuilt.

My deep suspicion is that these people are being treated this way for no other reason than that they are Roma.

The widespread violence against Kosovo's non-Albanian settlements last March -- during which 4,000 non-Albanians were forced from their homes and 19 Serbs and Albanians died -- illustrated that the individuals who first destroyed the Mahalla five years ago are ready to do the same again.

The violence of last March indicates that this story is far more complex than a legal matter concerning property rights. Who could guarantee the Roma's security if they choose to return to their Mahalla?

During many discussions about security in Kosovo, I have heard too frequently, even from Kosovo's politicians, that security is the responsibility of the NATO-led international military force, known as KFOR, and the police forces of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, known as UNMIK. Of course these forces play a considerable security role, but only neighbors and the surrounding community can be the only real custodians of the Roma's safety in the Mahalla.

Too often there is resistance when I raise these problems. The pervasive attitude is: Why should Albanians take care of Roma? This attitude is present in the general public as well as in the news media, as evidenced by the lack of serious coverage -- the matter does not even register in public dialogue.

If these Roma can no longer live in Fabricka Mahalla, then this is nothing else but the de facto completion of the ethnic cleansing that started in 1999. If there were proposals to resettle the Roma community elsewhere, they would be appreciated as a purely humanitarian action, but this does not change the nature of what happened to the Roma.

Whatever conditions the people and government of Kosovo must meet in the pending political wrestling match over Kosovo's future status, one thing must be clear: All those who were violently thrown out of Kosovo in 1999 or after should be able to have a safe future in the place they consider home, no matter what their ethnicity or birth.

Kosovo's future depends very much on local and international governing structures, but ultimately it will depend on the people of Kosovo and their attitude toward their neighbors -- be they Serb, Roma or others. In this sense, the story of the Fabricka Mahalla is a major test.

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Marek Antoni Nowicki, a former member of the European Commission on Human Rights and the co-founder and president of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Warsaw, has been the UN-appointed ombudsman of Kosovo since 2000. Kata Mester contributed to this article.

SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 6