Reintegrating minorities is slow work and has met with only limited success so far

When NATO troops came into Kosovo, I thought the nightmare was over," Ragip Kovaqi said with a slow shake of his head. "But things move only very slowly for us in Kosovo. I am rebuilding my home, but I can still only eat once a day if my children are to get enough food."

Ragip is a member of the minority Ashkalijas sect which is closely related to the Roma and Egyptian groups. During the 1999 Kosovo conflict, his clan was forced to flee into the mountains and their homes in the village of Batlava were razed.

Last year, they were encouraged to return and begin rebuilding their houses as part of the international effort to stitch Kosovo back together again. Grainna O'Hara, a protection officer for UNHCR, cautiously terms the project "a return in progress" a remark which could apply to much of the Balkans.

Not all of the families have gone home. Rebuilding has been slow and there are no guarantees it will be finished. Ragip was turned down for the police force, apparently because of gossip from hostile neighbors.

And proof of the deep divisions still splitting the entire region lie as a dark reminder only a few feet away from the building site. Ragip's brother had also fled to the mountains during the conflict, but when he attempted to return to the village he was executed by Serb police on the spot. His grave is now covered with freshly cut flowers.

"I am not at all certain about the future," says Ragip.

REGULAR VICTIMS

These minority communities are part of the fabric of the Balkans. But they have also been victimized for centuries, as they were again during the upheavals in the 1990s, in Bosnia, in Croatia and in Kosovo.

The latest efforts at reintegration have been very slow and have met with limited results thus far.

The Roma community in the Kosovo town of Mitrovica was one of the most prosperous in the region. Six thousand people lived in modern two and three-storey homes before they were literally burned out and forced to flee in June 1999 to escape vengeful ethnic Albanians who accused them of siding with the Serbian authorities.

Roma Makalla remains a smouldering, empty ruin even today. Structures were firebombed. Others were dismantled brick by brick, by marauders who carted the materials away for their own homes and at the same time denied the owners a chance to rebuild their properties.

When the idea was recently mooted for a Roma return to Mitrovica, it was decided that security considerations were still too high risk for such an operation.

Other Roma homes escaped destruction in towns like Gnjilane in Kosovo but they remain occupied by Serbs or Albanians who were themselves thrown out of their own properties.

In this seemingly never ending game of musical chairs, some Gnjilane Roma ended up at the Salvatore camp in southern Serbia. The 'lucky' 145 Roma live in a series of rust-colored converted containers. One family of 10 occupies one 'room' measuring 18 feet by 18 feet and share one bed and space on the floor covered by pieces of carpet. A woven tapestry of Elvis Presley adorns one wall of the container "a hero when I was younger" according to the mother.

The 'unlucky' ones survive in flimsy constructions of plastic sheeting and cardboard, often without doors and which flood during the rains.

There is no work and one piece of firewood costs the equivalent of two dollars.

Visitors are blitzed with complaints. "We have no work, no food, no future. My daughter is dying. I will try to look after her, but if not I will dump her in your office," one young man says. "There is peace, but still no hope," another adds.

One unusual incident intrudes on this depressing scene. In one corner of the compound, a well-dressed local collecting fees is surrounded by Roma. When queried he said he was from the local mobile phone company and virtually everyone in the gathering agreed they had phones. The elders use them to keep in touch with events in Kosovo, the youngsters simply to call each other across the camp which has been home for so long.

These are people without voices and with no leaders to look to, the so-called 'wheel that never squeaks' and which is never heard, according to one Roma official.

SLOW AND HESITANT

Pristina was full of Roma in its prewar days, but the majority fled or were forced to leave to Serbia or temporary sites such as the Plemetina camp, a former barracks for electricity workers, on the outskirts of the city.

"If they are dark skinned then they are afraid to be in the city," one aid worker said.

But moves are underway to bring the Roma back. Houses are being rehabilitated, a playground, sewage project and proposed road for the entire community, not just the Roma, are planned.

Some Albanian leaders have begun to reach out to the minority communities and their own leaders have begun to appear on local television for interviews.

But rehabilitation is a painstaking operation. The return of one family may take at least a year of preparatory work, which can be blown away in a matter of seconds.

It had taken that long to prepare the ground for Roma families to agree to return to the Drenica Valley last year. Two days after three men and one teenager returned, their bodies were discovered next to their tents sending a chill through all minority groups throughout the Balkans.

"This was a model return project, but it only needed an instant to destroy it," said Grainna O'Hara. "We're conscious of these risks, but people want to go home. We can't simply freeze everything, even after incidents like that, can we?"

That remains one of the most difficult dilemmas in today's Balkans.

Source: Refugees Magazine Issue 124: "The Balkans: What Next?" (October 2001). Download the complete issue (pdf, 2.2Mb) here