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EDICOLA / KIOSK | LADINBolzano/Bozen, Göttingen, 29. August 2007
With their intervention in 1999, NATO troops achieved that 1.5
million Albanians - displaced persons and refugees - could return
to their homes. However, under the eyes of NATO radical,
chauvinistic parts of the Albanian public turned against the
indigenous minorities of the Sinti and Roma, the Ashkali, and the
so-called Kosovo-Egyptians. 75 town districts and villages of the
three minority groups which had been socially and economically
integrated into Albanian society, were completely destroyed,
14,000 out of 19,000 houses were destroyed.
Threats, maltreatment, torture, murders, kidnappings and sudden
disappearances led to a panicked flight of the Roma and their
relative groups. In March 2004, terrorist-like Albanian crowds
raged once again through the remaining settlements of the Sinti
and Roma, Ashkali and Serbs. Of the about 150,000 Romanies and
Ashkali who once lived in Kosovo there are not even 15,000 left
today. After almost all international relief organizations had
left Kosovo, the humanitarian situation of the remaining minority
members in Kosovo deteriorated more and more. The stream of
refugees did not stop. Up to 95 per cent of the minority members
were unemployed although once the majority had worked in the
industry and energy sector, or as excavator drivers, merchants
and small farmers.
Regular research conducted by Society for Threatened Peoples in
Kosovo has shown that the security and humanitarian situation of
the minorities of the Romanies, Ashkali, "Egyptians", Serbs,
Turks, Gorani, Bosniaks, Croatians, and Torbesh is extremely
worrying. After no agreement could be reached in a one and a half
year-long dispute about the Kosovo status between
Kosovo-Albanians and Serbs, and after Marti Ahtisaari's plan was
rejected by the UN Security Council, the EU, the US and Russia
formed a troika in mid-August 2007 in order to open up a new
round of negotiations.
And while so far the interests of the Kosovo-Serbs were
officially represented by Belgrade and one representative of the
"Srpska lista s Kosova i Metohije", the minorities of the
Romanies, Ashkali, "Egyptians", Gorani, Turks, Pomaks and
Bosniaks had almost no chance to adequately represent their
interests and rights.
Catastrophic circumstances in refugee
camps
Society for Threatened Peoples has observed the human rights
situation in Kosovo since 1999 and considers the situation of the
minorities of the Romanies, Ashkali and "Egyptians", who had to
live under precarious circumstances in refugee camps in Kosovo
for eight years now, to be hopeless. The refugee camps are
Leposavic/Leposaviq (215 refugees, 110 of them minors), Cesmin
Lug (144 refugees, 77 of them minors), Osterode (382 refugees,
208 of them minors), and Plementina (60 Romanies families).
In the refugee camp Osterode (the former casern of the French
KFOR soldiers in North-Mitrovica) there are Roma refugees who had
been moved there from the lead-poisened refugee camps of Kablare
and Zitkovac. There they had been exposed to heavy metal
concentration (with a high lead-concentration) since February
2006. Not only the health of the adults, but especially that of
children and pregnant women is at risk. It has been proven that
the French soldiers had left the casern due to the high
lead-concentration there. Doctors had advised them not to beget a
child within the first nine months after leaving the
casern.
The heavily poisoned UN camp Cesmin Lug/Cesminlukë is still
in use, too. The number of its residents is even increasing as
refugees who come back to Kosovo from Serbia and Montenegro are
brought here. Despite several deaths and numerous miscarriages
which are caused by the lead-poisoning, UNMIK and WHO did nothing
to solve this problem. The only things that have been done were
small "cosmetic" changes.
In early June 2007 WHO conducted new blood tests with the
children in Osterode. The parents of the children agreed with
this checkup only under the condition to receive a copy of the
test results. So far WHO has not complied with its promise. Only
the family Jahirovic managed to get the test results after
repeated enquiries. Sara, the youngest child of the family, is
vomiting every day and has epileptic attacks - symptoms of a bad
lead-poisoning. Her test results she had the highest and acutely
perilous level of lead-poisoning. This confirmed Society for
Threatened Peoples' worst fears.
The test results show that the lead-concentrations in the blood
had gone down only insignificantly after they had been moved from
the refugee site to the casern Osterode and that the
concentration still is very much over the point at which strong
and irreversible signs of poisoning occur. At the end of June
2007, UNMIK stopped all food aid as there would allegedly be no
money for this service. Most of the families are now forced to
comb through garbage cans in order to find food.
Also in 2006, ethnic cleansing, violent assaults and
discrimination were common parts of everyday life in Kosovo. For
the minority members, living without danger to life and limb is
impossible in most places in Kosovo.
Refusal to allow them access to employment:
Minority members were not allowed to return to their employment
after NATO troops and co-workers of the UN had arrived in 1999.
Even the latter hardly recruited any of the minority members for
assistance jobs. Today, eight years later, only five Roma work
for UNMIK.
Lack of Housing: After the war, in the 300
Romanies communities more than 14,500 houses were looted and
destroyed. Less than 400 of these houses have been rebuilt by
today. According to UN speaker György Kakuk the majority of
the families who have returned to the Mahala in South-Mitrovica
come from Serbia and Montenegro. Only 12 families from the highly
polluted camp Osterode and Cesmin Lug have returned - despite the
UN claims that the families from those two camps would have had
to be the first to be evacuated due to the high risks of
lead-poisoning.
Restrictions of freedom of movement: The leader
of Society for Threatened Peoples' Kosovo team often witnessed
that members of the Roma minority were prevented from freely
moving in the country. In his car he transferred them from their
villages in southern and central Kosovo to the hospitals in
Serbia and North Mitrovica. If one of his dark-skinned Roma
colleagues drove the car, they were stopped by the Kosovo Police
Force. They had to wait in the sun at the roadside until the
officers decided about what to do.
Derecognition of property rights
As long as the Roma do not have official documents,
UNMIK-administration and the PISG institutions in Kosovo refuse
to recognize property rights of the Roma in South Mitrovica, even
though the overwhelming majority of the families have been living
on this ground for 200 years.
Living in constant fear because of gestures of vengeance
by Albanians
Society for Threatened Peoples is regularly notified about
everyday vengeance of Albanians against communities of Roma,
Ashkali but also Egyptians, Gorani, Torbesh, Bosniaks, Turks and
Jews. Members of these minorities are pressured into leaving
Kosovo.
Discrimination in daily live- even in
Prizren
Prizren is thought to be the most liberal city for minorities in
Kosovo. But even here Albanian merchants only sell to minority
members if they speak Albanian.
Domestic violence: Society for Threatened
Peoples regularly receives news about the fact that Roma women
are beaten up by their husbands, brothers or cousins. Other
international organisations confirm these shocking events. If
these crimes are reported to the police - which is rarely the
case- the officers in charge reject doing something hinting at
cultural differences between Roma and the majority population in
this respect.
No witness protection law
Victims of human rights violations fear vengeance of the
perpetrators. That is why many crimes are not accounted for.
There is no protection in case of revenge. Even The Hague War
Crimes Tribunal witnesses are not protected in Kosovo. After the
latest trial against Ramush Haradinaj the crown witness of the
accusal, his son and his cousin were murdered. A further
Roma-witness to this trial was run over by a car.
The Kosovo parliament categorically rejects to name an
independent ombudsman even though many human rights complaints
are being ignored. The successor of the former ombudsman, Marek
Antoni Nowicki is Hilmi Jashari as "acting ombudsman". Society
for Threatened Peoples regrets to state that since 20 months
Jashari, an ethnic Albanian, has hardly done anything in the
matter of human rights.
Eight years after the end of the Kosovo war UNMIK and KFOR have
failed to establish large-scale protection measures for
minorities as well as European standards in the human rights
domain. Society for Threatened Peoples stands for the right to
self-determination and security guarantees for ethnic minorities.
These guarantees are necessary for the solution of the status of
Kosovo and the future of this region.
Society for Threatened Peoples calls on the Human Rights Council to: