People without a country

Roma refugees from Kosovo struggle in Montenegro

BY MATTHEW MCALLESTER | Newsday Staff Correspondent

June 22, 2006

PODGORICA, Montenegro - Bedri Shala has his reasons for not wanting to go home to Kosovo.

Back across the border, he said, are Kosovo Albanian men who in the aftermath of the war in 1999 kidnapped, tortured and raped him repeatedly, shot his brother dead, and tried to shoot Shala, too, as he ran away.

"In Kosovo? Never," he said, when asked if he would even visit his home. He would rather stay in the rundown Konik 2 refugee camp, as he has for seven years, even if it means a life of poverty, hopelessness, statelessness and discrimination.

Shala is one of nearly 5,000 refugees from Kosovo living in the newly independent country of Montenegro who belong to the Roma ethnic minority, commonly known as Gypsies, a term considered derogatory by many. They are a people - as many as 10 million worldwide, demographers say - without a state anywhere in the world and a minority that for centuries has suffered discrimination and oppression. Aid workers say some of the Romas' social habits do not make their lives easier - a tendency to keep their children out of school, for example. But with no natural allies in positions of power, the Roma of Kosovo have become that war's forgotten victims, an uncared-for legacy of Slobodan Milosevic's final round of ethnic bloodletting.

Around 2,000 Roma live in "appalling conditions" in two camps on the outskirts of Montenegro's capital, Podgorica, said Andrej Mahecic, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva. Other Roma spread around the country in unofficial camps live in even worse conditions, aid workers say.

Konik 2, one of the official camps, was built after the war by the aid group World Vision and is run now by the local Red Cross. Like its neighbor Konik 1, it has a building with showers but, for no reason anyone at the camps could explain, both buildings are padlocked. The refugees said they haven't had access to the showers for years and instead use cold water from a central block with taps.

A World Vision official who is based in Bosnia and was involved in building the camp said these Roma are casualties of a common phenomenon. "While an emergency is still in the news, aid comes in," said Sue Birchmore, now national director of World Vision Bosnia and Herzegovina. "Once it's out of the news, then interest drops off, donations drop off and very often the problem is not solved."

Most of Kosovo's Roma were forced out in the summer of 1999 by Kosovo Albanians who themselves had been violently evicted by Serbs during the war. Many Albanians said the Roma had collaborated with the Serbs - and now wanted revenge.

Kidnapped and tortured

In August 1999, 11 Albanian men kidnapped Shala, his brother Rexha and Rexha's wife. First, they were taken to a textile factory, then to a hotel in the ruined Kosovo town of Djakovica, where they beaten, tortured and raped, Shala said. He said the Albanians, soldiers from the Kosovo Liberation Army, accused his family of collaborating with the Serbs.

"You killed Albanians," Shala recalled them saying. "You took them from Albanian houses."

Shala said the men drove them to a slaughterhouse and killed his brother. He was able to flee through a stream that he said was littered with the bodies of people who appeared to have been killed recently. He and the rest of his family managed to escape to Montenegro.

The fury directed toward the Roma lingers in Kosovo, say aid workers, Montenegrin government officials and the Roma themselves. Zeljko Sofranac, the government's commissioner for refugees, said in an interview that about 400 Roma refugees had been persuaded to return to Kosovo so far, but he acknowledged the homes of some had been set on fire again. He said the government would prefer that the Roma return to Kosovo but accepts that most probably will stay in Montenegro.

Considered a burden

In an interview, Montenegro's president, Filip Vujanovic, said the refugees were a "huge burden on Montenegro." So far, the government has not granted citizenship to refugees from Kosovo. But that is only one of the reasons the Roma have found it hard to integrate into Montenegrin society.

For a start, many speak only Albanian, making them unattractive to potential employers in a country with high unemployment. Most Montenegrins speak Serbo-Croatian. Very few Roma have academic qualifications, ruling them out from most professional positions even if they do speak Serbo-Croatian.

A danger is that this cycle is being perpetuated, partly by the Roma themselves. Sinisa Nadazdin, a local aid worker for a small group called Philia Ministries, said there is a "resistance to education" among the Roma community. Out of a combined refugee and indigenous population in Montenegro of about 23,000, Nadazdin said there are fewer than 20 Roma children enrolled in high school in Montenegro - and "five or six" in college.

Shala and his wife have eight children, aged 11 months to 11 years. None attend school. "It's a tradition," Shala said, adding that he sends the older ones to sift through garbage, collecting bottles and scrap metal. The family lives off whatever the children and Shala can find and sell.

There is a sense in the two camps that the Roma there have been all but forgotten. Every now and then, one of the wooden huts bursts into flames. Dozens of babies are born every year, making conditions even more cramped.

Shala, like many Roma, dreams of getting away. "I want to go to another country," he said. "Anywhere. Not Kosovo and not here."

A persecuted people

The Roma are Europe's largest minority, living in nearly every country there and in Central Asia. Their history dates back more than 1,000 years, when groups of people living in northern India began migrating to Persia and Armenia.

Medieval Christians believed that a conspiracy of blacksmiths, wizards and women had been organized to attack the Church. Because many Roma were blacksmiths, the conspiracy was expanded to include the Roma.

A Christian genocide against witches during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance also targeted the Roma. In 1492, the Roma were subject to the Inquisition as suspected heretics.

During the Holocaust, the Nazis declared the Roma "subhumans." In 1941, a campaign began to "kill all Jews, Gypsies and mental patients." Many were sent to concentration camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau to be killed.

During the Balkan wars of 1990s, thousands of Roma become victims of ethnically motivated violence. More than 100,000 flee from Kosovo

7-9 million Current estimate of Europe's Roma population

1-2 million Estimate of Roma population in Romania, largest number in any European country

4,700 Estimate of internally displaced Roma living in Montenegro

SOURCE: ESRI,NASA, NGA