Roma in Republika Srpska

Between Jokes and Reality

AIM Banja Luka, October 23, 2000

The start of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina eight years ago coincided, as is usual in the Balkans, with the telling of jokes about Roma. One of them went like this: A Roma man gets stopped by the military police who want to know his nationality. He replies he is a Gypsy. "We didn't ask you that," yells an angry policeman. "We want to know whether you are a Serb, a Muslim or a Croat." "None of those," says the Gypsy. "That would be too much even for me."

This is how the proverbial Gypsy outwitted the Serb police. In a war they neither wanted nor started, however, the Roma suffered much throughout the former Yugoslavia.

When war broke out in Croatia, guided by their collective memory from 1941 when they were herded into Ustasha concentration camps en masse, the Roma were the first to hit the road.

After the war in Kosovo hundreds of bodies of unfortunate Roma were discovered along the Montenegrin coast. This is how their unsuccessful attempt to flee from both Serbs and Albanians and reach the promised land of Italy ended. Those who remained in Kosovo live in ultimate poverty, fear and isolation.

When the NATO bombing commenced Roma from Serbia fled to Bosnia. Several years earlier many of them arrived in Serbia after leaving their homes in Croatia and Bosnia. During the 1990s many left the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and found refuge in Republika Srpska. Others went the opposite way, and those most fortunate and capable managed to reach the West. There were those who fought and died as members of various armies, but that did not help them to become integrated in either one of the embattled ethnic communities.

While the Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks and Albanians are struggling to count their respective casualties, refugees, and returnees, even if only for pragmatic political reasons, almost no one in the former Yugoslavia has any idea how many Roma perished or went into exile. Even the news media pay attention to them only in one of two cases: when a major catastrophe occurs, or when they need a story on "the Gypsy way of life," the latter often lacking in good taste. Such stories, of course, do not contribute to eliminating stereotypes of the Roma presenting them as vagrants, beggars and petty thieves.

No statistical data on Roma exist in Republika Srpska. The Roma have no registered association there nor any political party. During the 1981 census in Bosnia-Herzegovina, that is, in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Roma were registered as a special group. During the last census taken in 1991 they were categorized as "Others." No other census has been taken since.

Thanks to a Banja Luka non-government organization called Zdravo Da Ste ("We Wish You Well"), which, together with the British Save the Children humanitarian organization is researching Roma in Republika Srpska, the Serb entity in Bosnia has become the only region on the territory of the former Yugoslavia where some data, albeit incomplete, has been gathered and reveals details of how Roma live.

Nada Uletilovic, the project manager of the Zdravo Da Ste NGO, explains that the data is not final because the research is still in progress. She estimates that there are 733 Roma families in Republika Srpska, of which 208 lived there before the war, 150 are refugees and displaced people, and 375 are returnees. Roma in Brcko, Brezik and Bijeljina have their associations, not registered in Republika Srpska but branch offices of the Roma organizations based in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Before the war, one of the largest Roma settlements in Bosnia-Herzegovina was Veseli Brijeg in the Banja Luka district of Rebrovac. Today the demographic picture of this area is completely changed. Most Roma have left Banja Luka, and exiled and displaced Serbs live in their homes in Veseli Brijeg. "Before the war the local elementary school enrolled up to one hundred firstgraders each year. Today only three Roma live in Veseli Brijeg," says Uletilovic.

Derventa also used to harbor a Roma settlement, which was home to some 300 families. Today only three elderly Roma can be found there, in the care of the local social center.

One of the most specific groups of Roma refugees are those who fled from Kosovo to Prijedor. They claim they would not go back to Kosovo though they lack any status and live completely isolated. They are Muslims and cannot speak Serbian, using their own language or Albanian instead.

Nada Uletilovic says that there are several other Roma communities in Republika Srpska. "The Mauro-Vlachs are Orthodox Christian Roma of Romanian origin. They have been living on the territory of Republika Srpska for over 300 years. They are rather well integrated in the local community, have their own homes and stable settlements," she says. The survey shows that one member of each family works in Western Europe. They are quite well off and their children attend school. Their largest communities are located in Mali Sitnes near Srbac, Devetina near Hrvacani, Vlatkovic near Bijeljina, and Ostruznja near Doboj.

Another group is composed of Muslim Roma, who lived there before the war and left Republika Srpska while it was in progress. They are now returning. The third group is that of Eastern Orthodox Roma who are not Mauro-Vlachs and who came to Republika Srpska from Croatia as refugees during the early 1990s. They have settled mostly in parts of the Sava River Valley near Srpski Brod after abandoning their homes near Novska, Zagreb, and Virovitica. They live in Republika Srpska like all other refugees, that is to say, face great difficulties. They are threatened with eviction, because they usually live in homes belonging to other people, mostly Croats. Though they were rather well off and well integrated in Croatia, they do not even consider returning there. Unwilling to reveal their true reasons, they only say that their homes were burned or destroyed, and that therefore their return to Croatia would be senseless. Though having no regular income, they cope well with their new environment. Most of them took to collecting metal scraps, old paper, and other recyclable material.

A small group of Muslim Roma, refugees from Sanski Most, lives in Prijedor. They left their homes in 1995, and fled to Republika Srpska together with Serbs. Their life is extremely hard.

The Roma who left the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the NATO bombing did that mostly for economic reasons. They have no rights in Republika Srpska nor do they ask to be granted any. These odd economic émigrés are constantly on the move. They used to live near the railway station in Banja Luka. When their settlement of improvised plastic homes began to expand excessively, the city authorities ordered its removal. The Roma initially dispersed across the city, and later embarked on a search for abandoned property throughout Republika Srpska. This group is not integrated at all, their children are beggars at cafes and on roads and their parents do not even consider enrolling them in school. They mostly came to Republika Srpska from around the Serbian towns of Cacak and Sabac.

The Muslim Roma who left Republika Srpska at the beginning of the 1990s are gradually returning. The majority of such returnees are to be found in Suljagica Sokak, Brodusa, and Brod, near Brcko. Over one thousand of them came back to Bijeljina. Many also returned to the municipalities of Modrica and Vukosavlje, whereas slightly less came back to Teslic and Prijedor.

Roma returnees live particularly hard in the village of Brezik, near Modrica. Some 30 families came back to the village where only two houses have been made fit for use. The others live in tents and shacks. The village has no power or running water, but there are many children.

International donors remodeled 16 homes in Suljagica Sokak and they now house 50 families. The homes, however, lack running water and sewage systems and cases of jaundice have been registered.

Before the war a numerous and rich Roma community used to live in Bijeljina. In the Tombak settlement eight thousand Roma had luxurious homes. Even certain state institutions of Republika Srpska were headquartered in some of them. The Bijeljina Roma earned their capital by trading in brass and copper, and also as cattle traders. Over one thousand of them returned to the town, but they mostly live in smaller buildings next to their former homes, because not a single eviction order has been carried out. Only the president of the local Roma association, Hamdija Husic, had a part of his home returned to him.

The Bijeljina Roma are embittered, believing that the local authorities are delaying the return of their homes in order to get rid of them once and for all.

The South-East Europe Stability Pact has suggested, that in the year 2001, which has been declared the international year of Roma, both government and non-government organizations in the region focus their efforts not only on making surveys of the life of this specific ethnic group, but on taking concrete steps that would help them to become integrated in their respective environments.

For now, however, the Roma remain but an inspiration for making anthological movies and witty jokes. Rumor has that in the Sept. 24 elections in Serbia the Roma from southern parts of the country voted en masse for Yugoslavia's new president, Vojislav Kostunica. When asked by journalists to explain why they did this, they said Kostunica was their favorite because he made the best movies about them. If this anecdote is true, then the Roma in Serbia are quite well integrated indeed. Their inability to tell Vojislav Kostunica from Emir Kusturica in this particular case is not that important.

Tijana Tadic

AIM Banja Luka