Posted: Sat Feb 16th, 2008 04:38 pm Quote Reply
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=4&theme=&usrsess=1&id=191080
YK joukkojen valvoma ja suosima mustalaisien hidas kansanmurha kosovossa.
In a toxic wasteland: The Gypsies of Kosovo
Paul Polansky, Head of Mission, Kosovo Roma Refugee Fund (KRRF) and Society For Threatened Peoples (GFBV), is one of the most important contemporary writers on the suppressed history and reality of Eastern European Gypsies.
A native of Mason City, Iowa, USA, Mr Polansky has spent the last 15 years living with various Gypsy communities of Eastern Europe. Mr Polansky spoke to SHIV KARAN SINGH:
How did you first get involved with the Gypsies of Kosovo?
Because of my research in the 1990’s, documenting the stories of Gypsy survivors of World War II death camps in Czechoslovakia, which resulted in one book of their oral histories, two books of poetry and one novel, all based on their stories, by 1999 I was considered an expert on Gypsies. So when the UN needed an expert to help them with Gypsy refugees in Kosovo they asked me to volunteer to live in their only Gypsy refugee camp for three months. Eight years later I am still in Kosovo, fighting the UN for their systematic genocide against the Gypsies.
How has NATO intervention and UN involvement in the Balkans affected the life of the Gypsies?
Although the UN brought me to Kosovo in July 1999, about one month after NATO troops arrived, they did not like my advice. For example, when I moved into the refugee camp by Pristina, the UN did not ask me to see what help these people needed or even why they had arrived in the middle of the night wearing only their pajamas. The UN just asked me to get friendly with the Gypsies and then see if they had any guns in their tents. It soon became apparent that the UN wasn’t going to help these refugees. The UN only tried to force them to return to their old neighbourhoods where their Albanian neighbours had chased them out. In the end, I did a survey of all Gypsy communities in Kosovo (funded by Oxfam, UNHCR, and GFBV). I visited almost 300 communities and counted every Gypsy home. Before NATO troops arrived, there were about 17,500 Gypsy homes with a population of about 120,000. By the time I did my survey more than 14,500 homes had been destroyed by Albanians and only about 30,000 Gypsies were still in Kosovo. (Today most Albanian and Serbian homes destroyed during the war or after NATO troops arrived, have been rebuilt. But only 200 Gypsy homes have been rebuilt.)
Olin näkemässä mien alpaanit ajoivat mustalaiset ulos kodeistaan, ryöstivät näiden omaisuuden, ennen kuin polttivat asunot maantasalle, ja kaikki tämä Nato johtoisen rauhanturvaajien puutumatta asioiden kulkuun.
Minut jopa pidätettiin eräällä tiesululla brittiläisen upseerin huutaessa: - Pankaa putkaan tuo amerikkalainen mustalaisten kanssa eläjä!
I witnessed many Albanians chasing out Gypsy families and then looting their homes before burning them down. This happened in front of NATO troops. I protested, but the NATO commanders told me they were not a police force and that they couldn’t get involved in local disputes. I was even arrested once at a British checkpoint when the officer there yelled: “Detain that man, he’s the American who lives with Gypos.‿
On järkytäviä tietoja siitä, että UN väkin on pystyttänyt mustalaisien pakolaisreit myrkkyjen saatuttamalle kkatopaikoille.
There have been shocking reports of UN housing gypsy refugees on toxic wasteland. Can you explain this tragedy?
After the UN saw they could not send the Gypsies back to their burnt down homes, they decided to build four refugee camps for them until they could be relocated or sent to another country. Against my protests, all camps were built on toxic wasteland, the tailing stands of old lead mines. A year later, WHO did a survey and saw that many Gypsies, especially very young children, had dangerously high levels of lead poisoning. WHO recommended immediate evacuation of these camps. Eight years later, and after many deaths and miscarriages, the Gypsies are still living on or near toxic wasteland. All kids conceived in the camps are born with irreversible brain damage. I brought a doctor out from Germany who took 65 hair samples of kids in the camps and a lab in Chicago found the highest recorded lead levels in medical history. The UN still refuses to medically treat or evacuate these Gypsies, although Albanians and Serbs have been evacuated from dangerous areas in Kosovo. I got an American lawyer and tried to sue UN officials for child negligence and compensation. The UN doesn’t deny the lead poisoning but claims diplomatic immunity.
Why are Kosovo Gypsies being ignored?
Many Gypsies still live by begging and refuse to work even if offered a job. To them begging is an honourable profession. But these kinds of traditions go against the grain in Europe and help keep alive many stereotypes against the Gypsies. Buying and selling young brides, not letting girls go to school because they should stay home and learn to be a housewife, all contribute to Gypsies being discriminated against and hated by most Europeans and institutions such as the UN and especially the UNHCR, which refuse to help Gypsy refugees, saying: “They don’t meet our criteria.‿
Pro-EU Boris Tadic’s victory over Tomislay Nikolic in the recent Serbian elections might hasten the announcement of independence in Kosovo? What does western-aided independence of Kosovo mean for its Gypsy minority?
Fearing independence, all minorities are still leaving Kosovo, many paying smugglers to take them to Italy, Germany, Switzerland, etc. Although the Kosovo Prime Minister has publicly stated that Kosovo is for all and minorities are welcome to stay, the reality is much different. After eight years of UN administration, there is still no freedom of movement for minorities outside their own villages. They have not been allowed to go back to the jobs they had before the war (the Albanians have taken those jobs). Water and electricity is cut off for days, sometimes even months, to the minority enclaves, trying to force them to leave. So many are leaving, and most will leave after independence is declared.
What are the options for Gypsies attempting to escape Kosovo?
Most Kosovo Gypsies are trying to join relatives who escaped to Germany in 1999. The German government acknowledges that there are more than 35,000 Kosovo Gypsies living today in Germany. Germany hopes to deport them when Kosovo has independence, but these refugees are sending money back to their relatives in Kosovo to pay smugglers to take them to Germany. It is a real mess. There are probably less than 5,000 Roma still in Kosovo and about 15,000 Ashkali and Egyptians. The latter speak only Albanian and live in Albanian communities so they might survive a bit longer. But the Roma speak no Albanian and live in Serbian communities. They see no future in Kosovo and are desperate to leave. Most don’t want to go to Serbia, where they are legally citizens, because they have Muslim names and the Serbs of course hate Muslims. So they try to get to Western Europe.
Having lived in Gypsy communities for over 15 years, what have you learnt about them in contrast to mainstream opinion?
I think the most important thing that I’ve learnt is that there are many, many different tribes or castes of Gypsies that have migrated from various Diaspora. Most historians and anthropologists toss all Gypsies into one basket and think that the few customs they have learnt about Gypsies applies to all of them. In Kosovo alone we have more than 14 different castes that seldom intermarry, let alone socialise.
Their customs are very different. For example, some buy their wives (an old Multani tradition) while others only pay for the milk their bride drank as a baby (an old Gond tradition from central India). Some Gypsy women still practice the con of sucking with a straw white worms out of children’s ears and nose to cure them of illnesses. This is an old tradition of the Sansis tribe in Punjab and is actually still practiced there to this day.
Many Gypsies who have moved to western Europe generations ago no longer remember the caste/tribe they came from, have lost their language and customs, and along with the white man now believe that all Gypsies came from the same source, at the same time. But in the Balkans, their different tribes/castes/customs and traditions and even language still survive. Some of their traditions are not good, for example, many young girls from the age of 12 on still get married, often sold by their parents into marriage.
Local authorities including the UN turn a blind eye to this terrible tradition, but many Gypsies feel that their traditions are the only thing they have left after ten years of war in the Balkans.
Do you think Indians have a special responsibility to help the Gypsies of Eastern Europe?
I think the Indian government and cultural institutions should be extremely grateful for Balkan Gypsies keeping alive a language and traditions that long ago died out in India. Of course the Indian government is reluctant to associate Gypsies with the great Indian Diaspora because many of the castes that came to Europe were what the British colonisers once called the “criminal tribes.‿
There is no denying that many of the European Gypsies had their origins in the predatory castes of Sansis, Bauwari, Kikan, Kanjer, Dom, etc. And some of their worst traditions are still alive today in these different Balkan groups. But many Gypsies have moved beyond their worst traditions to become lawyers, doctors, professors, etc. Unfortunately, once they escape through education they don’t go back and help their own people. The Indian government should try to reach out to the Balkan Gypsies to keep alive some of their better traditions, and language.
(The interviewer is a Special Representative of The Statesman, Kolkata)
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=4&theme=&usrsess=1&id=191080
YK joukkojen valvoma ja suosima mustalaisien hidas kansanmurha kosovossa.
In a toxic wasteland: The Gypsies of Kosovo
Paul Polansky, Head of Mission, Kosovo Roma Refugee Fund (KRRF) and Society For Threatened Peoples (GFBV), is one of the most important contemporary writers on the suppressed history and reality of Eastern European Gypsies.
A native of Mason City, Iowa, USA, Mr Polansky has spent the last 15 years living with various Gypsy communities of Eastern Europe. Mr Polansky spoke to SHIV KARAN SINGH:
How did you first get involved with the Gypsies of Kosovo?
Because of my research in the 1990’s, documenting the stories of Gypsy survivors of World War II death camps in Czechoslovakia, which resulted in one book of their oral histories, two books of poetry and one novel, all based on their stories, by 1999 I was considered an expert on Gypsies. So when the UN needed an expert to help them with Gypsy refugees in Kosovo they asked me to volunteer to live in their only Gypsy refugee camp for three months. Eight years later I am still in Kosovo, fighting the UN for their systematic genocide against the Gypsies.
How has NATO intervention and UN involvement in the Balkans affected the life of the Gypsies?
Although the UN brought me to Kosovo in July 1999, about one month after NATO troops arrived, they did not like my advice. For example, when I moved into the refugee camp by Pristina, the UN did not ask me to see what help these people needed or even why they had arrived in the middle of the night wearing only their pajamas. The UN just asked me to get friendly with the Gypsies and then see if they had any guns in their tents. It soon became apparent that the UN wasn’t going to help these refugees. The UN only tried to force them to return to their old neighbourhoods where their Albanian neighbours had chased them out. In the end, I did a survey of all Gypsy communities in Kosovo (funded by Oxfam, UNHCR, and GFBV). I visited almost 300 communities and counted every Gypsy home. Before NATO troops arrived, there were about 17,500 Gypsy homes with a population of about 120,000. By the time I did my survey more than 14,500 homes had been destroyed by Albanians and only about 30,000 Gypsies were still in Kosovo. (Today most Albanian and Serbian homes destroyed during the war or after NATO troops arrived, have been rebuilt. But only 200 Gypsy homes have been rebuilt.)
Olin näkemässä mien alpaanit ajoivat mustalaiset ulos kodeistaan, ryöstivät näiden omaisuuden, ennen kuin polttivat asunot maantasalle, ja kaikki tämä Nato johtoisen rauhanturvaajien puutumatta asioiden kulkuun.
Minut jopa pidätettiin eräällä tiesululla brittiläisen upseerin huutaessa: - Pankaa putkaan tuo amerikkalainen mustalaisten kanssa eläjä!
I witnessed many Albanians chasing out Gypsy families and then looting their homes before burning them down. This happened in front of NATO troops. I protested, but the NATO commanders told me they were not a police force and that they couldn’t get involved in local disputes. I was even arrested once at a British checkpoint when the officer there yelled: “Detain that man, he’s the American who lives with Gypos.‿
On järkytäviä tietoja siitä, että UN väkin on pystyttänyt mustalaisien pakolaisreit myrkkyjen saatuttamalle kkatopaikoille.
There have been shocking reports of UN housing gypsy refugees on toxic wasteland. Can you explain this tragedy?
After the UN saw they could not send the Gypsies back to their burnt down homes, they decided to build four refugee camps for them until they could be relocated or sent to another country. Against my protests, all camps were built on toxic wasteland, the tailing stands of old lead mines. A year later, WHO did a survey and saw that many Gypsies, especially very young children, had dangerously high levels of lead poisoning. WHO recommended immediate evacuation of these camps. Eight years later, and after many deaths and miscarriages, the Gypsies are still living on or near toxic wasteland. All kids conceived in the camps are born with irreversible brain damage. I brought a doctor out from Germany who took 65 hair samples of kids in the camps and a lab in Chicago found the highest recorded lead levels in medical history. The UN still refuses to medically treat or evacuate these Gypsies, although Albanians and Serbs have been evacuated from dangerous areas in Kosovo. I got an American lawyer and tried to sue UN officials for child negligence and compensation. The UN doesn’t deny the lead poisoning but claims diplomatic immunity.
Why are Kosovo Gypsies being ignored?
Many Gypsies still live by begging and refuse to work even if offered a job. To them begging is an honourable profession. But these kinds of traditions go against the grain in Europe and help keep alive many stereotypes against the Gypsies. Buying and selling young brides, not letting girls go to school because they should stay home and learn to be a housewife, all contribute to Gypsies being discriminated against and hated by most Europeans and institutions such as the UN and especially the UNHCR, which refuse to help Gypsy refugees, saying: “They don’t meet our criteria.‿
Pro-EU Boris Tadic’s victory over Tomislay Nikolic in the recent Serbian elections might hasten the announcement of independence in Kosovo? What does western-aided independence of Kosovo mean for its Gypsy minority?
Fearing independence, all minorities are still leaving Kosovo, many paying smugglers to take them to Italy, Germany, Switzerland, etc. Although the Kosovo Prime Minister has publicly stated that Kosovo is for all and minorities are welcome to stay, the reality is much different. After eight years of UN administration, there is still no freedom of movement for minorities outside their own villages. They have not been allowed to go back to the jobs they had before the war (the Albanians have taken those jobs). Water and electricity is cut off for days, sometimes even months, to the minority enclaves, trying to force them to leave. So many are leaving, and most will leave after independence is declared.
What are the options for Gypsies attempting to escape Kosovo?
Most Kosovo Gypsies are trying to join relatives who escaped to Germany in 1999. The German government acknowledges that there are more than 35,000 Kosovo Gypsies living today in Germany. Germany hopes to deport them when Kosovo has independence, but these refugees are sending money back to their relatives in Kosovo to pay smugglers to take them to Germany. It is a real mess. There are probably less than 5,000 Roma still in Kosovo and about 15,000 Ashkali and Egyptians. The latter speak only Albanian and live in Albanian communities so they might survive a bit longer. But the Roma speak no Albanian and live in Serbian communities. They see no future in Kosovo and are desperate to leave. Most don’t want to go to Serbia, where they are legally citizens, because they have Muslim names and the Serbs of course hate Muslims. So they try to get to Western Europe.
Having lived in Gypsy communities for over 15 years, what have you learnt about them in contrast to mainstream opinion?
I think the most important thing that I’ve learnt is that there are many, many different tribes or castes of Gypsies that have migrated from various Diaspora. Most historians and anthropologists toss all Gypsies into one basket and think that the few customs they have learnt about Gypsies applies to all of them. In Kosovo alone we have more than 14 different castes that seldom intermarry, let alone socialise.
Their customs are very different. For example, some buy their wives (an old Multani tradition) while others only pay for the milk their bride drank as a baby (an old Gond tradition from central India). Some Gypsy women still practice the con of sucking with a straw white worms out of children’s ears and nose to cure them of illnesses. This is an old tradition of the Sansis tribe in Punjab and is actually still practiced there to this day.
Many Gypsies who have moved to western Europe generations ago no longer remember the caste/tribe they came from, have lost their language and customs, and along with the white man now believe that all Gypsies came from the same source, at the same time. But in the Balkans, their different tribes/castes/customs and traditions and even language still survive. Some of their traditions are not good, for example, many young girls from the age of 12 on still get married, often sold by their parents into marriage.
Local authorities including the UN turn a blind eye to this terrible tradition, but many Gypsies feel that their traditions are the only thing they have left after ten years of war in the Balkans.
Do you think Indians have a special responsibility to help the Gypsies of Eastern Europe?
I think the Indian government and cultural institutions should be extremely grateful for Balkan Gypsies keeping alive a language and traditions that long ago died out in India. Of course the Indian government is reluctant to associate Gypsies with the great Indian Diaspora because many of the castes that came to Europe were what the British colonisers once called the “criminal tribes.‿
There is no denying that many of the European Gypsies had their origins in the predatory castes of Sansis, Bauwari, Kikan, Kanjer, Dom, etc. And some of their worst traditions are still alive today in these different Balkan groups. But many Gypsies have moved beyond their worst traditions to become lawyers, doctors, professors, etc. Unfortunately, once they escape through education they don’t go back and help their own people. The Indian government should try to reach out to the Balkan Gypsies to keep alive some of their better traditions, and language.
(The interviewer is a Special Representative of The Statesman, Kolkata)
Vastaukset 4
Vanhimmat
hakee ootko ihan varma ettei suomesta ois löytynyt jotain vastaavaa,laita linkki tai tietoo jos L.ö.Y.D.Ä.T,KIITTI
Jos et kykene seuramaan maailmalla tapahtuvaa kehitystä josta on suora linkki oman olemassa olosi tunnustamiseen, niin et ole edes Kosovon mustalaisien tasolla. Jos yhdistyneiden kansakuntien edustujat, kun nyt siltä näyttää - kieltäytyvät valvomasta romanien kohdalta ilmioikeuta ja antamasta lainmukaista ruumiillisen koskemattomuuden suojaan, niin huomenna täällä vovat asia olla jo paljon huonomassa asemassa kuin Kosovon romaneilla tänä iltana. Täältä on yhtä lyhyt matka pakolaisleireille kuin kosovossa. Suojalait ja demokratia on vain paperia, niin kuin Hitlerin sanoi.
tuolle alottajalle viestis et tainnu oikeen ymmärtää mitä tarkotin
Mitä Kosovon itsenäisyys merkitsee Kosovon vähemmistöille?
Peläten Kosovon itsenäistymistä ovat vähemmistöt pyrkineet pois alueelta turvautumalla salakuljettajien apuun, Italiaan, Sveitsiin taikka Saksaan.
Siitäkin huolimatta että Kosovon pääministeri on julkisesti toivottanut vähemmistöt tervetulleeksi itsenäiseen Kosovoon, on todellisuus aivan toista.
Kahdeksanvuotisen YK hallintakauden jälkeenkään ei alueella ole vähemmistöjen oikeuksissa tapahtunut minkäänlaista kehitystä. Vähemmistöihin kuuluvien ei ole anneltu palata työpaikoilleen, jotka ovat miehitetty uudelleen Kosovon albaaneilla, ja vähemmistöjen asualueelta ovat vesi ja sähkö mielivaltaisesti katkaistu.
Mitä mahdollisuuksia on sitten romaneilla karata Kosovosta?
Suuri osa Kosovon romaneista jotka ovat siirtyneet saksaa, lähettävät rahaa Kosovossa asuville sukulaisille, jota nämä kykenisivät hankimaan saluljettajien välityksellä keinon siirtyä saksaa, missä tähän päivään mennessä on Kosovon romaneja 35000
Saksa toivoo voivansa karkottaa romanit maasta takaisin Kosovoon, Kosovon julistautuessa itsenäiseksi.
Kosovossa on edelleen arviolta 5000 romania. 15 000 Ashkalia, joita on virheellisestti pidetty romaneina, mutta ovat turkkilaisia alkuperältä ja elävät albaniayhteisöissä, sekä puhuvat albanian kieltä. Romanit sen sijaa eivät puhu albani ja elävät serbivähemmistöjen alueilla. romanit eivät näe tulevaisuuttaan hyvänä, sillä Serbiaan he eivät vois siirtyä, missä he joutuisivat uudistaa vihan ja hyljeksinnän kohteeksi, jo senkin vuoksi, että suuri osa Kosovon romaneista ovat uskonnoltaan muslimeja.
Kuka haluaa verrata näitä olosuhteita suomen romanien elinoloihin?.