Word: kosovo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Unlike Kosovo?s Serbs and ethnic Albanians, its Gypsies have few international advocates speaking out on their behalf. U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson and its high commissioner for refugees, Sadako Ogata, have both visited some of the thousands of Gypsy refugees crammed into makeshift facilities inside Kosovo, and vowed to provide them with support. And pan-European Gypsy organizations such as the Romany Union and the European Roma Rights Center have sought urgent undertakings from NATO to protect their kin in Kosovo. In the end, though, there may be some cynical politics in play. "The campaign against the Gypsies...
...that was before NATO took control of Kosovo, right? Wrong. The ethnic cleansing of Kosovo?s estimated 100,000 Gypsies began only after the Serbs withdrew and the Kosovo Liberation Army moved in, and it has continued right under the noses of Western peacekeepers. And unlike Kosovo?s Serbs, the Gypsies have nowhere to go. Those who tried to leave with the Serbs were turned back at the border, leaving them to the face the wrath of the Kosovar Albanians. Although NATO's KFOR peacekeepers have vowed to protect them, the understaffed force isn?t geared up to deal with...
...despised people living at the margins of society all across the Balkans and the wider European continent from Russia to Spain, their persecution at the hands of returning ethnic Albanians in Kosovo is simply another chapter in a long history of suffering. Originally from Northern India, the Gypsies ? or Roma people ? were nomadic tribesmen skilled in crafts and music who were scattered westward more than a thousand years ago by successive waves of war and occupation. Passing through the Persian, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, they settled throughout Asia Minor, the Arab world, the Balkans and Europe but maintained common threads...
...That many Roma people worked for the Serbs ? usually as manual laborers ?- throughout their campaign of violence against ethnic Albanians is not in dispute. "Ever since Serbia withdrew Kosovo?s autonomy in 1989, the authorities have been reluctant to hire ethnic Albanians even as street cleaners," says TIME Central Europe bureau reporter Dejan Anastasijevic. "Because they accepted employment by the Serbs at a time when Albanians were boycotting all Serb institutions, they gained a reputation for siding with the Serbs. But as is the case all over the Balkans and Europe, Gypsies have always been the lowest class of citizen...
...Gypsies now is ethnic cleansing ?- it can?t be called by any other name," says Anastasijevic. "It?s directed against an entire ethnic group. And if those responsible this campaign against the Gypsies are allowed to get away with it, it will legitimize further violence against other minorities in Kosovo, such as the Turks...