Romany Refugees from Kosovo

People from No-Man's Land

AIM Skopje, 29 September, 1999

For a whole week Macedonian police did not enable a group of 600 Romany refugees to cross the border line. Therefore this group at least half of which were women and children waited for days outdoors on no-man's land at the Blace border crossing, the same one from where last spring moving pictures of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians toured the world. Unofficially, policemen will say that the authorities could not make up their mind to receive this group of Romany refugees for so long only because they were afraid that all the other Kosovo Romanies would hasten in this direction aware that nobody else would receive them.

Representatives of UNHCR tried to persuade the officials to open the border to this group of unfortunate people without promising anything in return except for humanitarian aid; the Romanies would like to be enabled to go on to a third, preferably Western country; but over there there is no readiness to welcome this type of wretched people. Without exception, all these Romanies claim that they were terrorised in Kosovo and that this is the reason why they do not wish to go back to that province. On the other hand, KFOR command says that it cannot keep anyone in Kosovo, but that it is offering protection to everybody who needs it...

At a press conference in the beginning of the drama of this group of refugees, deputy prime minister Bedredin Ibraimi confirmed the stand of KFOR by saying that all the inhabitants of Kosovo were safe and that nobody had any reason to flee... Some Skopje media recalled Ibraimi's arguments when as one of the key persons in reception of Kosovo Albanians he advocated open European and Balkan borders; which makes it difficult for them to understand the current change in his attitude?! Inflexibility of the government astonished the public despite unanimous conclusion of deputies in the assembly that the government should re-examine its stand. The government needed no less than seven days to reach a favourable decision which was stated at a press conference by prime minister Ljubco Georgijevski himself. At the same time he sent word to representatives of UNHCR that this was a precedent and that in the future the government would not meet demands of this kind.

According to the data of some Romany associations, not more than 20 thousand Romanies from Kosovo have fled to Macedonia. There would have been nothing exceptional about their position if at the height of the refugee crisis in Stenkovac camp it had not been for an actual lynch of three Romanies by an enraged mass of the Albanians who had allegedly recognised persons who had set their houses on fire on the account of the Serb para-military. Ever since then Romany refugees are mostly living with their relatives, friends and all those who wanted to receive them in their homes. Regardless of the internal political division among the Romanies who live in Macedonia, everybody is united in the assessment that their Kosovar compatriots as refugees have never had equal treatment as the Albanians who had stayed here before them. This is a fact for several reasons: the Albanians have participated in distribution of humanitarian aid, they have cooperated with UNHCR in preparation of lists for evacuation into "third countries", the Albanians have created the image of refugees in the media according to their own "shape and appearance"... Nobody listened to what the Romanies had to say. Media in Macedonian are not spreading an intolerant attitude towards Romany refugees like they once evidently did towards the Albanians.

According to the latest census conducted in 1994 under supervision of the European Union and the Council of Europe, there were 43,707 persons in Macedonia who declared themselves as Romanies. The Romanies have never had a conflict with the Macedonians. As government officials like to brag, this is the only country in Europe where the Romanies have their own municipality - Suto Orizari. The constitution of this country has given the Romanies the status of an ethnic minority which means that in the communities where they live they are offered the possibility of acquiring elementary school education in their mother tongue, the possibility of use of Romany language, of opening radio and TV stations and similar. Despite everything, the Romanies are often at the very bottom of the social scale due to high unemployment rate, their poor qualifications, etc. From time to time it is possible to hear in public uncorroborated opinions that the crime rate among the Romanies is high, but it is rarely possible to read data that would actually confirm this thesis. That is, nevertheless, the reason for the fear among the police that the arrival of new thousands of the Romanies from Kosovo could cause an increase of crime among the Romanies.

The Romanies have their political representative in the Assembly - deputy Amdi Bajra, who won his seat in the parliament last October almost by acclamation of his electoral district. By his populist, some people would even say demagogic idea of emancipation, he won the favours of members of his ethnic group. However, by his extravagant way of life, often tactless public statements which are not even taken seriously by a significant part of the media, this 44-year old has acquired the reputation of the uncrowned king of the Romanies whose biography can be read only in fairytales: a small washer of windshields who has soared up and become a multimillionaire who owns even a private airplane... But tactlessness of some of Bajram's statements cost dearly some of his ethnic brethren in the context of current developments in Kosovo. Carried by emotions at a public gathering Bajram threatened that he would go to the president of FR Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic and ask for weapons for the Romanies to go to Kosovo to fight against the Albanians. After this statement, relations between the Romanies and the Albanians in Macedonia, for the first time in history, became strained. It took a lot of effort and skill of local political representatives of both parties, as well as representatives of local authorities in the environments where members of both ethnic groups live together to re-establish somewhat more tolerant relations.

Prime minister Georgijevski stated in public the decision on offering refuge to the people from no-man's land on the same day when the government decree abolishing the status of humanitarian protection for the citizens of FR Yugoslavia (Macedonia has never accepted the status of refugees) came into force. Even on that day, the last day of hospitality for the refugees, the prime minister used the same symbolic word "precedent" which was repeated a thousand times during the refugee crisis. This was because in the beginning of the crisis the government had determined the figure of 20 thousand refugees as the upper limit that could be tolerated; little by little, precedent after precedent, at a certain moment the number of refugees approached the figure of 300 thousand. Fortunately, ill-omened forecasts that the refugees would disturb the necessary balance, which could bring about sinking of the ship called "Macedonia", did not come true. Kosovo Albanian refugees have mostly left as quickly as they had arrived. With the Romany and a certain number of Serb refugees the situation is obviously different: many of them do not have where to return! Georgijevski's cabinet was considerate when it set the additional time limit of six months which expires on 28 March next year by which refugees should go back to Kosovo. Whether this will be possible is a different question.

AIM Skopje

ZELJKO BAJIC