HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER

Kosovo Roma: Targets of Abuse and Violence

24 March – 1 September 1999

The Roma population in Kosovo has been manipulated and abused by the ruling Socilialist Party of Serbia (SPS) since the abolition of the province’s autonomy in 1989 and the ethnic Albanian community’s boycott of all elections held in Serbia and Federal Republic of Yugoslavia since then. The SPS managed to win over the poorest Roma by distributing humanitarian aid to them during election campaigns. Others, under pressures and fearing reprisals, regularly voted for the Serbian ruling party. Because the Roma turned out at elections and supported the SPS, many Kosovo Albanians saw them as collaborators in the repression by the Serbian authorities against members of the ethnic Albanian community.

Drastic abuses of Kosovo Roma took place during the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military intervention. The Serbian police and local authorities forced Roma civilians, including minors, to bury the bodies of Albanian civilians and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) members, to dig trenches for the military, and to pillage and destroy ethnic Albanian property. Aid in food was distributed to ethnic Serbs, and to Roma only occasionally and then selectively. Furthermore, Orthodox Roma were more likely to receive aid than Muslim Roma.

Following the signing of the peace settlement, those Serb and Roma civilians who were involved in atrocities against Albanians left Kosovo together with members of the Serbian police force, the Yugoslav Army and their families, Serb reservists and paramilitary groups. Roma, along with Serbs and other non-Albanians who believed they had no reason to fear retaliation by returning ethnic Albanian displaced and refugees as they had not taken part in any crimes, stayed in Kosovo. However, both these Roma and Serbs became the targets of revenge and violence by the KLA, armed Albanian civilians and criminal gangs from the neighboring Republic of Albania. Attacks on Roma were organized on the pretext that they had all worked hand in glove with the Serbian police and local authorites in the repressive actions against and expulsion of ethnic Albanians, and could therefore no longer live in Kosovo. Roma became the object of the same kind of violence used by the Serbian authorities and police against Albanians: physical abuse, imprisonment, abduction, murder, rape, looting and destruction of property, forced labor, and expulsion.

Like the Serbian police and civilian authorities, the KLA in its turn made Roma work for them, from burying killed Serb civilians to looting and destroying Serb property.

The multinational Kosovo Force (KFOR) has not created conditions which would enable Roma to stay in Kosovo. The majority fled to Serbia and the few thousand who remain are to be found mostly in small enclaves protected by KFOR troops. In August, several thousand Roma displaced to Montenegro attempted to cross the Adriatic Sea in small boats to seek refuge in Italy. Dozens, including children, were drowned. No European country has shown any willingness to accept Roma forced to leave Kosovo.

More frequently than ethnic Serbs, Roma fleeing their homes were subjected to harassment by Serbian government agencies: they were denied humanitarian relief and/or forced to return to Kosovo. In contrast, there was no discrimination against Roma in Montenegro.

This report is based on the testimonies of 78 Roma who fled to Serbia or Montenegro following the deployment of KFOR in Kosovo. They were interviewed in nine cities in Serbia and three in Montenegro by Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) field researchers and activists of the Belgrade Democratic Alliance of Roma in the period from 4 to 31 August 1999. HLC researchers were assisted by the Committee for the Protection of Roma Rights in FR Yugoslavia, an organization based in Kragujevac, central Serbia.

 

Kosovo Roma during the NATO military intervention

From 24 March to 12 June, local Serb authorities, the police, and military and paramilitary formations compelled Roma, including minors, to bury killed Albanian civilians and KLA members or to dig trenches for the military. Roma were also forced to commit the criminal offenses of looting and destroying the property of displaced Kosovo Albanians. The recompense they received was small and most frequently in the form of food or clothing.

A significant number of Roma performed these tasks against their will, either fearing punishment or induced by the promise of rewards which would enable them and their families to survive. Finally, a number of Roma voluntarily joined Serbian police or military units.

Besides the systematic pillaging and destruction of Albanian property, cases have also been registered of looting by multi-ethnic criminal gangs.

1. Compulsory work

Roma were pressed into service in different ways: they were collected at their workplaces, most often in local sanitation departments and with the consent of their superiors, or picked up at their homes. A number were mobilized into the Civil Defense where they performed the same kind of tasks. The compulsory work involved both legal and illegal activities.

1.1. Forced to loot and destroy property

This form of abuse of the Roma took place in all major towns in Kosovo: Pristina, Gnjilane, Prizren, Pe?, Djakovica, Obili?, Lipljan, Kosovo Polje, Podujevo, Kosovska Mitrovica, and Klina. Roma were mainly made to load and transport stolen goods. Cases have also been registered of Roma, either alone or accompanied by police or military, breaking into Albanian-owned houses and stores and looting them, and rounding up livestock for transport to Serbia.

According to the Roma, the looting of Albanian property began immediately after the ethnic Albanians left Kosovo en masse, either because they had been expelled or had fled out of fear.

A Pristina Rom, whose young relatives were taken from their homes to assist the police, recounts: “The police rounded up Roma to load goods for them. They had to load furniture, home appliances and other things into trucks. They were given stolen food and clothes in return.”

B.Z., a Pe? Rom, states he was forced to steal for local police officials: “The Police Chief, Bata Bulatovi?, and an inspector they called Medo ordered me and my brother to take all the valuable things from abandoned Shiptar [Albanian] houses, and take them to their houses in trucks.”

Roma do not conceal that they occasionally took a few small items from Albanian homes for themselves. S.I. of Obili?, father of two youths exempted from military service because of poor health, recounts:

The first time, a policeman came and said they were to go with him. My sons refused, and the policeman said we were protecting the Shiptars. I told him to leave my sons alone, that we weren’t protecting the Shiptars, and only wanted to be left in peace to live our miserable lives. I said we would be here when the Shiptars came back and that they would kill us all, but they, the police, would go to Serbia where they would be safe. But my sons had to go or be arrested. They went around at night, collecting things and livestock from Albanian houses. They took some things for us - food and clothes. The police took the rest.

Roma working for public companies were ordered to steal by their superiors. R.R., a former employee of the Klanica enterprise in Kosovo Polje, says the Roma employees were forced to loot warehouses owned by ethnic Albanians:

1.2. Forced to bury Albanians

Displaced Roma say that most of the work they were compelled to do all around Kosovo involved burying the bodies of Albanians, in most cases victims of mass executions. The Roma were at times brought to the scene immediately after the executions had been carried out, and sometimes several days later, when the bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition. They worked without masks or adequate equipment.

A Roma woman who worked for a Serbian government agency in Kosovo testifies that Roma buried the bodies of KLA members who were shot immediately after being taken prisoner:

“My relatives A. H., D. H., and M. L. buried KLA members who had been killed. They buried them in villages. The police and soldiers killed them [KLA members] whenever they caught them. This happened around Pristina. Once when they were burying bodies, my relatives noticed that one man was still alive. He told them to keep quiet and they were very frightened. The one in charge told them to hurry up with the burying and, out of fear, they told him what they had seen. Then someone was told to kill the man.”

I. A., a Gnjilane retiree, says that when the authorities introduced compulsory work orders, Roma were assigned to bury the dead: “During the bombing, Roma were under compulsory work orders and many were in the Civil Defense. My father-in-law was among them. He worked in a detail which buried killed Albanians in Zegra and Lastice villages near Gnjilane. Some of the bodies they buried were already falling apart.”

M.L., a twenty-three-old employee of the Pristina Sanitation Department, recounts that he and nine co-workers were ordered by their manager and Serbian police officers to bury bodies of Kosovo Albanians.

1.3. Minors forced to work

Children were also forced to carry stolen goods, confiscated weapons and ammunition, and to steal. According to Roma witnesses, minors were made to work mainly in Pristina but also in Gnjilane. They were at times taken to perform such tasks outside their home towns.

E. A., a thirteen-year-old boy from Pristina, says he was made to work in different locations:

One day in April, a policeman came to our neighborhood and took me away. They took five other boys too, from 13 to 15 years old. Together with some older men, we loaded trucks and semi-trailers. We carried mortars, pistols, grenades, rifles, police uniforms. We were in Obili?, Graeanica, Ajvalija and Kosovo Polje. Once, in Ajvalija, there was shooting but we had to go on working. We loaded seven to eight big trucks a day and, by the end of May, up to 10 trucks. We were given a little food, in cans. We worked from morning till seven in the evening.

Almost all Roma displaced from Pristina confirm that in the course of April and May police came to Roma neighborhoods every day, rounded up children and forced them to work in the neighborhood, or took them to other parts of Pristina and farther afield. “At the end of May, the police collected children from the age of 10 and up to load tractors with things from Albanian houses. The children also loaded weapons. My nephews were among them. All the Roma children in Djurdjevdanska Street were made to work.”

G.B., a minor from Moravska Street in Pristina, recounts that children living in his street were also made to steal:

2. Larceny

The information collected indicates that criminal gangs looted abandoned Albanian homes in Kosovo in this period covered by this report. P.R. of Skivjan village near Djakovica speaks about one such gang made up of Serbs, Roma and Albanians: “At the end of May, my brother B.R., together with Z.G., a Serb, and his father M.G., and K.A., their Albanian neighbor, all from Skivjan, went into Shiptar houses to steal.”

3. Discrimination in distribution of food aid

Local Serbian authorities at times distributed humanitarian relief. The aid was earmarked primarily for Serbs. No food was given to Albanians while what Roma received depended on the inclination of individuals engaged in the distribution.

M. G., formely employed at the Bela?evac strip mine, alleges that only Serbs in Obili? received food aid, and that reservists who handed it out taunted and ridiculed Roma: “When the aid arrived, he gave nothing to Roma. He said that the delivery was for Serbs and that another one for Roma would come tomorrow. There was never a tomorrow.”

Several Obili? Roma claim that the Serbian authorities distributed aid to Orthodox Roma while treating Muslim Roma as Albanians. C.A., a Muslim Rom, recounts how his co-religionists were deprived of food aid that was distributed at the local Orthodox church: “Serbs and Orthodox Roma were given food. I went up and said my name was Krsti? [common Serb family name] and was given aid. Other Muslim Roma managed to get something the same way.”

4. Kosovo Roma’s collaboration with Serbian police

A large number of Roma were employed, either temporarily or permanently, in the police force. Others collaborated as informers, mainly reporting on their Albanian neighbors. A Pristina Rom recounts:

5. Roma harassed for maintaining contacts with Albanians

Cases have been registered of Roma being beaten for maintaining contacts with Albanians. Conflicts between Roma and the police occurred when police suspected them of supporting Kosovo Albanians in any way. A. D., a thirty-year-old Rom from Urosevac, testifies about an incident that took place in mid-May:

6. Fear of paramilitary groups

Like Albanians, Kosovo Roma were in great fear of paramilitary groups. Many Roma state that intoxicated paramilitaries forced their way into their homes and demanded money, saying they knew the Roma had stolen property from Albanians.

II. Kosovo Roma after the withdrawal of Serbian security forces and the return of Kosovo Albanians

Most Roma were aware that their involvement in the looting and destruction of Albanian property and burying of Albanian bodies would have an adverse effect on their relations with Albanians. Regardless of whether their involvement was voluntary or not, Roma in general encountered a great deal of hostility on the part of returning Kosovo Albanians.

Roma perceive themselves as the biggest victims of Kosovo Albanians. Both the KLA and Albanian civilians are taking vengeance against Roma for what they suffered at the hands of Serbs. Roma homes are torched, their property is taken on the pretext that it was stolen from Albanians, and they are physically abused to extract confessions of crimes against Albanians. Roma also allege that the KLA has killed a large number Roma but that official bodies, including KFOR and the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), disregard the problem.

Murders of Roma

According to witness statements, the killing of Roma in this period can be attributed to both KLA members and Albanian civilians. The murders, the majority of which took place in Pristina, Obili?, Lipljan, Prizren and Podujevo, were very frequently carried out in a brutal fashion and were preceded by torture and mutiliation of the victims. Cases have been registered of Roma being burned alive in their homes. The exact number of murdered Roma cannot be established at the present time. Furthermore, the fate of a large number of missing Roma remains unknown; there are indications that some of them were executed after being imprisoned, and of the existence of mass graves.

Many Roma say they were eyewitnesses of murders by KLA members. N.T. of Brestvenik village near Pe? recounts how his relative Halil Muzija was killed on 16 June. Several KLA members came to the victim’s home and demanded that he turn over his rifle on pain of death. Though Halil did not possess a firearm, he was nonetheless taken away by the KLA men. “The next day, at sunrise, about 5 a.m., Halil’s wife went to look for him. She found his body some 300 meters from the house. There were chains around his neck and it looked to her that he had been tied to a car and dragged behind it. There were bloodstains on the road. He also had three stab wounds.”

Roma allege that Albanian civilians either aided the KLA in the violence against Roma or committed it on their own inititative. T.T. of Obili? and his wife, who were physically abused by two local Albanians on 23 June, testify that after leaving their house, these two Albanians brutally killed four members of the Krasni?i family. “I saw them set fire to the houses of Miljazim Krasni?i and Alija Krasni?i. Their family members - Djulja, Fadilj, Eerim and one-year old Nedjmendin - were burned alive inside.”

HLC researchers heard of the murder of Isljam Dibran in Lipljan on 23 June from his neighbors, also Roma. The neighbors said Dibran was killed by another neighbor, an Albanian civilian, who with two KLA members went around and threatened to torch Roma homes, ransacked their houses in searching for weapons, and often physically abused them. Citing his wife, one witness said E. and the two KLA men had previously come to Dibran’s house on several occasions, beaten him because his son, a reservist, had been called up by the Yugoslav Army during the NATO intervention, and demanded that he tell them where his son was stationed.

On 23 June, E. came to Isljam’s again. He went into the house alone while the soldiers stood guard outside. My wife heard E. beating Isljam with a metal bar. This went on until five in the morning when we all heard a shot. E. had killed him and put a pistol in his hand to make it look like Isljam had taken his own life. He warned us that all the Roma would be killed if anyone reported him.

M.B. (28), describes how his father Ibrahim Be?ej was killed: “We heard a loud noise outside. My sister went out to see what was going on and the first thing she saw was the body of our father. He had been stabbed with a knife under his left and right armpits. He also had two knife wounds on the left side of his back. My sister dragged his body into the house by herself.”

2. Battery and torture

When abusing Roma, KLA members and Albanian civilians most often resort to beatings and other forms of physical ill-treatment that leave the victims with serious or slight injuries. They force their way into Roma homes and abuse all the family members, including children. After searching the houses for concealed weapons, they beat people to extract confessions, the names of Roma who collaborated with the Serbian security forces, or were involved in looting Albanian homes and interments of Albanians, and to force them to disclose weapons caches.

A Roma man displaced from Pe? describes how KLA members came into his house and ill-treated him:

I came home from work one day at the end of June and found three KLA members in the house. They grabbed me and tied my hands with the cassette-player cord and started kicking and punching me. I know all three of them because they are from Pe?. One asked me how come I had all these valuables in my home and I told him my sister in Germany had sent them to me. They asked why I worked with Serbs, to which I said I had to so I could feed my family. They demanded that I admit how many Albanian houses I had torched, how many Albanians I had killed, and where I buried them. I said I had done none of those things because I really hadn’t. Then he hit me on the head with the butt of his pistol and said I was to stay at home and they would come back in 15 minutes with the top man at the KLA headquarters in Pe?. They locked me up in the house and left. Worn out and with blood all over me, I got a chair, broke a window and climbed out. There was a bike in the yard and I got on it and reached the first Italian patrol. I fell at their feet and blacked out. I woke up in the hospital.

M.M. of Pe? went through a similar experience when KLA members forced their way into her home and abused her family. “Five KLA members barged into our house. They started punching my husband and son. When my husband couldn’t stay on his feet any longer and fell down on the floor, they went on kicking him and beating him with wooden poles. “

3. Rape

Roma witnesses state that women were frequently subjected to violence by KLA members. Victims of sexual violence often suffered serious physical injury, and were raped in front of the members of their families. The following cases were registered in Pe? and Vitina.

F.A. and her daughter Z.A. (20) from Zitinje near Vitina recount how a large group of armed KLA members stormed into their home in mid-June and sexually abused them. Some of the family managed to escape so that only the witness, her daughters Z.A. and G.A., and a baby were left in the house. Three of the KLA men left to search for the other family members. Two remained and raped F.A. and Z.A. The mother recounts:

One pointed his pistol at me and tore off my blouse. I started hitting him about the head with my fists and swore at him but he banged me on the head with his pistol. I fell down and he lifted my skirt. My head was bleeding and I begged him to leave me alone. But he only cursed and raped me. While I was being raped, the other Shiptar raped my daughter. They were very cruel. When they finished with us, they joined the others who were looking for our menfolk. I helped my daughter up from the floor. We were both weeping. I took the baby, which was on the bed in the same room as my ten-year-old daughter G. She was there when they raped us. She was shaking all over and sobbing.

The witness’s daughter Z.A. describes the same event:

My mother hit and cursed one of the Shiptars until he hit her on the head with his pistol and she fell down, bleeding. I was standing in the corner of the room and crying. When he started raping my mother, the other one grabbed me. He took out a knife and put it to my throat. Sobbing, I told him I was a virgin and that this is very important to us Roma. But he put his hand over my mouth and ordered me to stop moaning and snivelling. I didn’t dare cry aloud, just sobbed silently. They raped us for half an hour. When they left, they said we were to go and not to come back ever. My mother helped me to get up. The pain was terrible and I was bleeding.

M. G. (40) of Kosovo Polje witnessed an attack by seven KLA members on her neighbor and his wife in late June, as they were passing down the street with their two children. The KLA men approached the family, knocked the husband unconscious and raped his wife. “They hit him and he fell to the ground. The children started to cry. They grabbed his wife, knocked her down, lifted her skirt and raped her. It took an hour for the seven of them to rape her. When it was over, they left. I don’t know what happened to the woman afterwards or where the family went.”

S.B. of Blagaj village near Pe? states that she was sexually abused in mid-July by a group of KLA men after the same men had raped her neighbor S.D. She recounts that six KLA members ordered S.D.’s husband to tell his wife to bring 150 Deutsche marks from the house and hand the money to them. When S.D. came out of the house, the KLA men seized her and dragged her into a nearby woods. Her husband was unable to help. S.D. subsequently told the witness that the men had beaten her until she ceased resisting and then took turns to rape her. Several hours later, the same group of KLA men came to the house of S.B. and demanded that she find another two women and then go with them. “I told them I couldn’t find more women and pleaded with them to leave me alone because I was a wife and mother. One of them threatened to kill my husband and my children if I didn’t go. Weeping, I went with them into the same woods they had taken S.D. In the woods, they dragged me around by my hair, hit and kicked me and, in the end, raped me. They left me there, crying and dishonored.”

5. Abuductions and disappearances

Roma allege that the KLA runs secret prisons in which Roma, Serbs and some Albanians are held. They say that these prisons are located in abandoned houses and factories and at local KLA headquarters. With regard to the abduction of Afrim Bens of Prizren, HLC researchers were told by two of his friends in separate interviews that Albanian neighbors had informed them that Bens was alive and was being held in a secret prison in Budakovo village. Several Roma told the HLC that some kidnapped Roma were released after their families paid ransom. No independent confirmation of these reports could be obtained.

The information gathered by the HLC indicates that the greatest number of Roma were abducted in the period from 15 June to 1 August. Six men were taken in Orahovac: Adrian Isaku (20), Malum Mesula (49), Ali Tasin Halimi (45), Jusuf Harna (36), Hamza Halit Skelzen (34), and a young man who was visiting friends in the town and whose name no one can recall. The whereabouts of all six remain unknown.

Elmi Cigani of Eri? village near Djakovica was abducted in July. His father states that five armed Albanian civilians forced their way into the Cigani home and immediately started beating his son, accusing him of being a member of the police force, which, the father says, was not true. Two days later, the same group returned and took Elmi Cigani to Deeani. “They took my son, pushed him into a car and drove him away to Deeani, saying they would bring him back. They ordered us to leave Kosovo, they took everything we had. My son never came back.”

B.A. (33) of Pristina and his friend were detained by two armed Albanians in late June:

I was in town with my friend R.M., who is from Podujevo. Two Albanians came up to us and took us to Dragodan [district of Pristina]. I recognized one of them; he worked at the open-air market. Another civilian was waiting for us in a house in Dragodan and he questioned us. He asked if we were Gypsies or Albanians. We said we were Albanians because they would have killed us otherwise. They tried to make us admit we were Gypsies. They beat us with baseball bats and kicked us. We didn’t admit anything. They took our ID cards and said that, since we were Albanians, we would go with them tomorrow to kill Gypsies and Serbs. They threatened to burn down our houses and kill our families if we said anything to KFOR. Then they drove us home.

6. Looting and destruction of property

Entering Roma homes on the pretext of searching for property stolen from Albanians, KLA members and armed civilians seized valuables and smashed furniture and other belongings. Individual houses as well as entire Roma settlements were torched. Looting followed by destruction was widespread in Pe?, Gnjilane, Lipljan, Obili?, Djakovica, Klina, Srbica and Pristina. The information gathered indicates that Roma homes in Djakovica, Obili? and Kosovo Polje were burned together with all they contained, while theft appears to have been the primary motive in Klina and Srbica.

F.T. of Obili? states that Albanians first put pressure to bear on Roma to leave Kosovo and then stole and destroyed their property. “We couldn’t take it any longer and fled to Montenegro. My son went back to check up on the house and saw that the Albanians had stolen all our things: an electric heater, stove, two TV sets, nine carpets, gold jewelry, money.”

R.R. of Kosovo Polje confirms that he and his family had to leave Kosovo because of threats by armed Albanians, and that his house was torched: “When we left the house, R.T. and his sons went in. I saw when thick smoke started billowing from it. It was then that he also burned the house of my father-in-law.”

N. A. of Gnjilane recounts that a group of armed Albanians physically abused him and his family members in their home. After being beaten, the family was led out into the yard and the Albanians looted the house and torched it. “We had been so badly beaten that we couldn’t stay on our feet, so they dragged us out of the yard. We watched them loot our house and take away our things on tractors and trucks, which had licence plates with KLA written on them. Before our eyes, they poured gasoline over the house and set it on fire.”

7. Forced displacement

Roma were made to leave by threats, intimidation, physical abuse and destruction of their property. According to witness statements, the pattern was identical throughout Kosovo: KLA members and/or armed civilians stormed into Roma homes and, with threats and physical abuse, forced them to leave. Roma either made their way to Serbia or Montenegro, or to KFOR-protected Serb and Roma enclaves within Kosovo.

Several Roma allege that KLA members with whom they were acqainted and had had good relations before, participated in their expulsion. Z.V. of Lesane village near Pe? states that she recognized the KLA men who in early July took her husband to the local KLA headquarters where he was beaten and ordered to leave Kosovo before being released. “A bit later, the same two, Brahim Uka and Mustafa Hajrudin, came again and told my husband our house was now theirs. That’s how we were driven out.”

Gnjilane Roma left Kosovo en masse when local Albanians employed a scare tactic on the night of 16/17 June. F. M., now a displaced person in Serbia, states that the incident was staged by a group of Albanians in Proleterska Street. “The Albanians let loose big dogs and opened the gates of all our yards so that no one dared set a foot outside. The next morning, an Albanian neighbor came and said we had five minutes to leave our homes. So we got ourselves off and came to Vranje.”

8. Using Roma as forced labor

Kosovo Albanians applied the same pattern of repression against Roma as had been used against them by Serbs from 24 March until the deployment of KFOR. They forced Roma to perform various tasks, to participate in looting abandoned Serb houses, and to bury Serbs who had been killed. Such cases were registered in Pe?, Obili?, Istok and Klina. Judging by the statements given by Roma to the HLC, the only difference was that, in contrast to Serbs, Albanians gave no recompense for the work performed. A Roma man from Pe? alleges that he and his brother were made to loot Serb houses in late June:

A KLA man came to our house at the end of June and ordered me and my older brother to go with him to load and unload goods the Albanians were stealing in houses from which Serbs had moved out. We didn’t want to, but went when he threatened to bring his men and put us and our families down like dogs. We had to go to save the lives of our families and our own lives.

F.T. of Obili? recounts how Roma were forced to bury bodies of Serbs. Albanian neighbors came to his house on 27 June and said he was to do “sanitation work” for them. “That meant that I had to go clean up and bury dead bodies. Otherwise they would have killed us all.”

9. Roma displaced forced to return

Roma joined the columns of Serbs fleeing Kosovo. They were halted at the boundary by Serbian police who insisted that they return to Kosovo, claiming that they would be protected there. Those who refused were denied humanitarian aid. According to the information collected by the HLC, Serbian police forced several groups of Roma to return to Kosovo; the majority, however, subsequently managed to reach Montenegro.

The HLC has on record a case of a group of Roma being forced to return to Kosovo after having reached a refugee center in Serbia. Among them was S.I. of Obili? and his 12-member family who had arrived at the refugee camp in Rudnik in mid-June. On 18 June, S.I. recounts:

A tall, dark man came to the camp and said he was a representative of the Serbian government and had been in Rambouillet. A short man with grey hair, his assistant, was with him. They came in a black car with Belgrade plates. He said we had to go back, that everything had been taken care of and that we would be safe. We objected, saying refugee columns were only starting to come in, that there were no English or French there [Kosovo], only Shiptars. And we told him plainly that the English were no better than the Shiptars... I argued with the police. They tried to make us climb onto a truck. I refused and said we would be attacked because our sons had worked for the police. Then a policeman told me to leave the police out of it. I asked how come they were giving us a hard time now but found us okay when they needed us. ‘Don’t make us use force. The column is going and you’re going with it,” the policeman replied.

Roma allege that many of them bribed members of the Serbian police force to allow them to stay in Serbia. D.A., now a displaced person in Prokuplje, states that he was at the refugee camp at Rudare, near the Kosovo boundary, on 19 August when he saw police officers taking money from Roma who wished to remain in Serbia.

There were police at every step, all around the camp. They wanted to make people go back. So they closed the food store in Rudare, to starve them into going back. Some paid the police 200 or 300 marks to stay. They asked to go to Krusevac, Subotica and other towns where they had family. They paid for their transportation.

10. Inhuman and degrading treatment

HLC documentation on police harassment and degrading treatment of Roma in refugee centers in Serbia includes the following two incidents, which took place in the refugee facility in Bujanovac and at a police checkpoint in the nearby village of Konculj.

R. A. of Gnjilane recounts how her eight-year-old grandson and another three children were injured in the Bujanovac camp on 18 August:

I was sitting in front of the tent. Two policemen came along at about 11 pm. One came up to me and hit me on the back with his nightstick, just like that, for no reason at all. He hit me once. Then he started chasing children around the camp and cursing them. He hit four boys – one of them was my grandson. He hit him two or three times on the left side of his back and once on his left leg. He also hit ten-year-old D. A., a boy whose name I don’t know and who was about nine, and A.H., who is eight. He hit them two or three times on the neck. One of the boys had his left eye hurt. The other policeman did nothing, just watched what was going on.

G.M. (30), from Prizren, describes how he and his father K.M. were beaten and humiliated when they passed through the checkpoint at Konculj on 11 August. There were over 15 police officers at the scene. Stopping G.M.’s car, police asked to see the two men’s papers and then asked if he and his father were KLA members, if they had killed Serbs and collaborated with Albanians.

They got us out of the car and one of the policemen started hitting me. He punched me in the chest two or three times. I felt a blow with something hard on the right side of my back and fell to the ground. The policeman who punched me started yelling, ‘Get up! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, falling around like that?’ My head cleared a bit and I tried to get on my feet. Then a policeman hit my right arm with his nightstick. They swore at my father, saying, ‘Shame on you - an old man letting his children misbehave like this.’ The other policemen stood around, with bottles of beer in their hands.

After more harassment, G.M. and his father were allowed to go and warned to keep silent about the treatment meted out to them.

11. KFOR ineffective in protecting Roma

All the Roma interviewed by HLC researchers complained of their experiences with KFOR. When they reported cases of violence, KFOR officers allegedly replied that they were unable to deal with the problems. Some Roma state that KFOR members failed to take any action even when confronted with blazing houses.

Urosevac Roma say German members of KFOR openly told them they were unable to protect Serbs and Roma. G. Z., who fled his home after being held and physically abused in a KLA prison, said his impression was that KFOR members were also afraid.

I spent four days at the railway station together with Serbs and Roma who had gathered there to escape the violence. German soldiers guarded us. They couldn’t help at all. We could see that they were scared. They stayed with us for four days. They had food and water. We had nothing to eat. They didn’t give us anything.

B.G. (27), who lived in Uljcinjska Street in Prizren, also alleges that KFOR took no action to establish law and order and allowed the KLA to continue unlawfully detaining people. This witnesses says he was imprisoned in the building of the former special school for deaf-mute children where he was beaten and tortured by KLA members. His house was torched and his mother died while he was being held. Neighbors requested the assistance of KFOR but to no avail. “My neighbors let KFOR know and asked them to use their influence with the KLA to let me bury my mother. I wasn’t let go and my neighbor had to bury my mother.

S.I. (62) from Obili? states that a KFOR patrol went past his house at the moment he was being harassed by KLA members.

KFOR went on their way and they [KLA] carried on with their cursing. Then the one in charge – I know him by name – gave the order and four KLA men set my house on fire. I went to the Town Hall to see the mayor. He asked KFOR why they were allowing houses to be burned and where they would put us now. They said they didn’t know what to do.

N.S. of Pristina, a former store clerk, says he requested KFOR’s protection for himself and other Roma in Pristina in late June but that there was no response:

‘No problem,’ they said. But they did nothing to protect us. The next day, we went to the bus terminal, caught a bus and left for Serbia at four in the afternoon.

Recommendations

Kosovo Roma are the most deprived group among the displaced persons in Serbia. The overwhelming majority have found refuge in existing Roma settlements, which lack even such basics as water and electricity. Those Roma who have been placed in refugee camps sleep on the ground in dilapidated tents. A number of Roma families are still without any shelter whatsoever.

In view of the coming winter, priority must be given to securing accommodation for Roma families to protect them from the cold, rain and snow, and from the disease and infection that run rampant in unhygienic Roma settlements. Trailer houses large enough for multi-member families have proved to be one of the most effective solutions.

When distributing aid relief, international humanitarian organizations must bear in mind that Roma are the most threatened category of displaced persons in Serbia and Montenegro.

Roma children, who attended Roma-language schools in Kosovo, cannot continue their education as schools providing classroom instruction in the Romani language are few and far between in Serbia. Hence, the setting up of temporary schools in places where large numbers of Roma displaced have concentrated is an imperative need of this ethnic community. Unless international organizations lend their assistance, primarily by providing the material requisites, Roma teachers will not be able to gather together Roma schoolchildren to continue their education.