Through no fault of their own, Slovak Roma have become a key topic in campaigns for both communal and parliamentary elections. As if nothing else matters, debates revolve around pro and against Roma arguments and whether there are more citizens who support the Roma and understand their precarious situation or whether those who simply hate them are in majority.

The Roma have become involuntary “hostages” of election campaigns. Some political parties opt for anti-Roma approach, perhaps because they are not able to come up with good solutions and good programs based on knowledge and clarity. Roma undoubtedly feel like being pushed between two mill stones in every election. Either politicians rouse the whole nation against Roma or they buy out Romani votes. But in neither case can the Roma benefit. When they support a party that other voters do not want to win, the majority blames them.

Parliamentary elections are scheduled for 10 June and anti-Roma sentiments have again become prominent.

Many bring in “new” ideas of how not to look at the real problem of the society. Politicians, instead of looking at how they have failed the Roma in the past, point their finger at the Roma in a bid to win more votes. Anna Belousovova, the vice-chair of the Slovak National Party (SNS), decided to bet on the anti-Roma card lately, proposing that crime statistics should include ethnic and national background of perpetrators.

The Roma are the most vulnerable group in the country in times of high unemployment and social hardship. Therefore they become very easy target for political parties bidding for parliamentary seats. But actions of some political actors depicts their immorality. So, what is their point? Well-being of society and peaceful co-existence which is the inevitable factor for good functioning of society? Or is their only target to get into parliament? Hunger for power does not take into consideration the well-being of the society. Prejudice against the Roma and other minorities is on the rise. Some politicians think this gives wind into their “voting sails.”

Today’s Europe, with such sentiments, strikingly resembles the pre-war Europe. Actually, should such political parties, the ones promoting intolerance, have the right to put up their candidates for parliamentary seats, from which they can then rule to our society? How this kind of society will evolve? A society in which ruling parties support intolerance among citizens? In these difficult times, when the financial crisis influences lives of millions, it is very easy to arouse hatred against scapegoats. In Slovakia, the Roma are increasingly seen as culprits.

Statistics on crime and ethnicity will only pour oil onto the fire. Fortunately, such ideas have triggered reactions from human rights organizations. Read them here.

– Mária Hušová

The Bulldozers of Burgas

As you are reading these lines it is already known that the Roma houses in the “Gorno Ezerovo” neighbourhood in Burgas, which were scheduled for demolition, are already gone. On the very day of the action the media exploded with sensationalist material on Roma uprisings, human chains, and stone throwing at bulldozers and policemen. Photos of angry and fainting Roma were circulated. And then it was over. The sensation died away. Nothing was heard or written on the next day as to where the people, who lost their homes, spent the night and what was to happen with them in the future.

Days before the bulldozers entered the Burgas neighbourhood, on the last sunny day of the summer, we talked with the head of the only functioning Roma NGO in the coastal city – Mitko Dokov.
“We are organizing the citizens of Gorno Ezerovo into an initiative committee. We are going to send an open letter to the city mayor, to the governor of the principality and to the Prime Minister. This reckless act, if not stopped, has to be deferred. So many people are panicking because of this” – were the words, with which the head of the local Roma Council greeted us.

In the Gorno ezerovo neighbourhood live around 2000 people. Most of them are local and not migrants, contrary to what the authorities claim. There are no more than ten families who came from other places to settle there, we learn from Dokov. The larger share of the land on which the neighbourhood is built is municipal, the rest is privately owned. None of the residents know what kind of land they built their houses on.

The Roma neighbourhoods were abandoned by the state and the municipal authorities after 1989. Their existence is only remembered before election time. And forgotten shortly after. What goes on inside, whether the law is enforced, how the people live, what the infrastructure is like, no one cares to know. The authorities’ reach generally ends where the Roma neighbourhood begins. They may do whatever they want, as long as they stay there, seems to be the philosophy of governance in this case. And so throughout the years, left to their own devices, the Roma have been taking care of their problems themselves. When the son of a family, which inhabits a one-room house, gets married, he attaches another one or two rooms to the house. There is no one to stop him, he knows all his neighbours, and the state is absent. This is the case in almost all Roma neighbourhoods in the country. And so the Roma live their own way until all of a sudden someone has a problem with it. Then the law comes down with all its force onto the heads of the people, who have been living in their illegally built homes for decades.

During the night after our meeting with Dokov the rain intensified and continued on the next day. In the morning we visited the neighbourhood. There was no one in the streets. At a café we found those who had been notified to demolish their own houses voluntarily or to wait for the bulldozers to do it on the next day, 7 September.

Among the crowd gathered in the café were the shaky 84-year-old Isako, who has been living in the neighbourhood for over 50 years, Guesa, 64 years old, Anguel, who has four children and promises to set fire on himself, Mirka, a mother of ten, Galabina, who wants to buy the land and keep her home. “The land is pricy and they want to drive the Roma away from it. They say we are migrants from Sliven or Kotel, but this is not true. I have been living here for 46 years” – an elderly man dabs his eyes. A young man says that he is 26 and was born here in the house that is going to be demolished. Mirka is clutching the notifying letter she received a couple of days ago and asks where she could possibly go to live when her two rooms are torn to the ground. The deadline in the letter is drawing close, which means that she and her children are going to be homeless. The elderly women are crying. The young are also upset.

In stages the families receive letters from the Regional directorate for building regulation (RDNSK) with a deadline for voluntary demolition. If this is not carried out by the deadline, what follows is forced demolition. The total of houses scheduled for demolition up to date is 54. No fewer than five people inhabit each house, which means that over 250 women, children, elderly sick, and men, are going to have no shelter for the winter.

“Come see if the houses are rickety as it says in the letters. Come photograph them!,” a young man calls out in the rain. In the muddy streets we walked around the neighbourhood to the very edge of the lake. As in every Roma neighbourhood there are big solid houses as well as small shabby ones, built in a day or two. “This one is going to be torn down. The one next to it is not. That two-floor one is going, too. Look here, these people have changed wooden frames for aluminium ones…Come into this house…No need to take your shoes off…See how they have furnished here? See how clean it is, and their home is going down, too…Over there the shabby one is staying intact, and the nice house next to it is to be demolished. And now tell me how they decided which houses are to go and which to stay!” – our guide kept pointing and asking emphatically.

According to the letters received by residents, all houses scheduled for demolition are classified as structurally unsafe. Among the houses our guide pointed out to us, were rickety as well as solid one-and two-floor buildings. We also passed a house, which was partly demolished by its inhabitant: “they are afraid that if the bulldozers have to do it, they will be made to pay fines. And that is why they tear the houses down themselves” – the young man explains.

We go back to the café. They have already decided that four representatives of the neighbourhood, headed by Mitko Dokov and Rumen Cholakov, leader of the Burgas chapter of the political movement Euroroma, are going to ask for a meeting with the regional governor and request a deferral of the demolition. It turned out that it is hard to enter the building of the regional administration. After Mitko Dokov had spoken on the phone with the regional expert on ethnicity and demographics, only Dokov and Cholakov were allowed to meet with the deputy regional governor. The deputy Zlatko Dimitrov was not acquainted with the case as he had only occupied the post for a couple of months. However, he promised to direct the governor’s attention to the problem, to examine the situation thoroughly, to see what actions are possible and to inform the Roma leaders by the end of the day whether the houses are going to be torn down on the following morning or not.

Meanwhile at the city hall we spoke with the deputy mayor, responsible for land regulation, architecture and construction, Kostadin Markov. We asked what their position is and whether there is an alternative for the people who are going to be left in the street. “The position of the city hall is that the law has to be abided by. Targeted are homes, constructed two years ago. These people know that the procedure ends with eventual demolition. These are mainly people, who are not residents of Burgas, but of Yambol, Sliven and many other places. From now on we are not able to give special guarantees for them. The city hall offers social housing, but there is a special application procedure and a waiting period. For the past two years they could have at least tried to apply. This has been explained to them more than once. There is however no extraordinary housing procedure, or available housing for that matter, which the city hall can offer them. I specify that the Burgas city hall declares illegal construction, but it is the RDNSK state regulatory authority, which executes the demolition procedure. Tomorrow or today, when the atmospheric conditions allow, I suppose that the houses are going to be removed.” – he said.

 

The municipal administration’s only obligation in this case is to preserve the property from the houses after demolition, for which municipal storage has been provided. On the same day the Bulgarian Helsinki committee sent a letter to the media, in which it stated that if the Roma houses in Burgas are demolished, Bulgaria will be violating the European Human Rights Convention. It also called for immediate action on the part of the government and Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, to either stop the planned demolition or find adequate alternate housing for the Roma.

Back in the neighbourhood people waited till the evening for a call from the deputy regional governor and hoped that their homes will not be demolished - in vain. The deputy governor called, but only to confirm the demolition.

On the morning of September 8th the electricity of the selected houses was cut. Bulldozers and police entered the neighbourhood. Desperate, the people tried to end this madness. But were left without a home.
Two weeks after that, again in Burgas, 19 more Roma houses were demolished in the Meden Rudnik neighbourhood.

The Sofia Bulldozer

On 15 October, a month and eight days after the demolition of Roma houses in the Burgas neighbourhoods of Gorno Ezerovo and Meden Rudnik, the bulldozer of law and order rolled in the capital, too.
When we arrived in the Sofia neighbourhood of Nadezhda we found the bulldozer working in a blocked-off space with police present on the Rozhen boulevard next to the tram stop. On the sidewalks in the rain were stacked up the baggage and possessions of the former inhabitants. Dismantled beds, mattresses, racks, tables, stoves, clothes in plastic bags, basins and whatnot drew the attention of early pedestrians and tram passengers. Those who had been residents until the night before were standing outside the blocked-off perimeter and sadly observed the demolition of their homes. Because of the early hour, the lack of information or other unknown reasons there was no media presence.

We approached Trajan and Magda. “Are you going to be housed somewhere?” – we ask. “Nowhere. We are staying in the street.” – was Magda’s curt answer. Trajan was more willing to speak. They have been living here for 19 years. 30 people were sharing a house with four rooms and two small additional units in the yard. Among them are women and children, pregnant and sick, who are now in neighbouring houses. They do not know where to spend the night. None of them have a stable job. “This man over there is our mayor. Let him tell us where to go” – Magda pointed. But the mayor of Nadezhda - engineer Dimitar Dimov - quickly got into his car at the sight of the journalist with a recording device, and drove away.

An old shaky man approached us; out of clod or emotion he had a hard time speaking. He explained that his children were standing on the opposite sidewalk by the traffic lights – his wife with the baby and his young grandchildren. They were up all night and brought everything they could to relatives. “A bag here, two bags there. There is no room for the rest. Here on the sidewalk.” – the 58-year-old father of six, Strahil, explained. “Why aren’t you wearing any socks?” – we heard a female voice behind us. A policewoman was talking to a barefooted girl. The child is the ten-year-old Gyula. She says she is not cold, although she has wrapped herself in her jacket. She is a student, but she did not go to school today, because her home was being torn down. She does not want to be photographed; she is shy. More children draw closer. Most of them have a bad cough. We tell them to go somewhere warm. They are puzzled.

Boncho has three children. He is holding the youngest one in his arms. He says they had no problems with the police in the morning. They just went outside when they told them to leave the houses. A woman came to them the night before and told them to take with them whatever they can before the bulldozers arrive at 6:30 am to tear their house down. What for? “I don’t know. Something from the administration…” – shrugs his shoulders the 23-year-old man and wonders what to do with the baggage and where to take his family.
We go back to Trajan and Magda, who are standing by their possessions on the sidewalk. Magda is now crying. We learn from Trajan that 19 years ago they moved into the house, which is municipal property. No one from the city hall reacted. They wanted to pay rent but were refused because they did not have a warrant for residency in the property. Five years ago the inhabitants won a lawsuit and continued to live there. And now all of a sudden the house was scheduled for demolition. “They say the subway is going to pass under here. But this is only a pretext. If it is so, why don’t they demolish the neighbours’ houses, too?,” asks Trajan.

The woman who visited them the night before was from the child protection agency. No one knows her name. She came to invite Donka, who has a baby, to live with the child in a temporary shelter. Donka refused. She preferred to stay with her family. “Now we are worried that the social services are going to take our children away. And they are still only babies” – the young mother adds.

More inhabitants of demolished houses showed up. Some of them brought plastic covers to cover their belongings stacked on the sidewalks. Others gathered around us and wanted to talk to us. They did not see a warrant. In the morning the police came, woke everyone up and told them to leave the house. They hardly gave them time to bring their possessions out before the bulldozer began to demolish. They were told they were not residents of Sofia and must go back to where they came from, even though they are local. The daughter of the 45-year-old Veska is pregnant, her granddaughter has seizures, and her son is deaf and dumb. Dimitrina had wrapped her child in a blanket and was staring with eyes wide open. Some were crying, others blamed the mayor and the government, and cursed their fate.

Finally the bulldozer finished and rolled away. The policemen got into their cars and headed for their next task. We also left the people to their lot. Jordanka Bekirska, a lawyer from the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee appealed on behalf of 14 former inhabitants. Before the houses were demolished she had conversations with city officials to tell them that throwing those people out in the street is a violation of European laws. The answer was that the authorities were observing Bulgarian laws, and that the European ones do not matter. We decided that talking with the municipal authorities was futile. The answer would have been identical to the one we received the previous month in Burgas – that the laws must be abided by and enforced, that the administration cannot offer an alternative, that there is an application procedure for social housing, etc.

On the same day at a hotel in the capital a conference was held on the topic of “Realities and perspectives in the integration policies for the Roma.” On the conference were debated the main priorities and policy measures to go into the government’s four year Roma integration programme. It was chaired by deputy Prime Minister and minister of the Interior Tsvetan Tsvetanov, who is also leader of the ruling centre-right GERB party. We asked Mr Tsvetanov how many more demolitions of Roma houses were to be expected. We mentioned the demolition on the same morning and added that there have been court appeals which are probably going to reach the European Court, which is not good for the country. He answered that this is a problem of the municipal authorities, which have an obligation to enforce the law. And the law is the same for everyone in the country.

One of the presentations in the conference was on living conditions for the Roma. It included the following suggestions for the government: “to unite, direct and coordinate the efforts of state agencies, local authorities, citizens’ committees, the Roma community and every concerned institution in the country for the bettering of Roma living conditions and modernization of the neighbourhoods they inhabit.”
Hence, while Roma living conditions are being debated and discussed, the bulldozers of law and order are going to continue tearing down only those buildings inhabited by the Roma. Claims are still going to be made that the law is the same for everyone and that everyone is equal before it. It seems that the public at large is getting tired of this because internet forums contain comments such as “better stop playing busy with Roma shacks, and begin regulating the illegally built palaces of the newly rich.” Or are they more equal than the rest before the bulldozers of law and order?

No bulldozers in Montana, Yet

In the town of Montana there are two Roma neighbourhoods – Ogosta, with approximately 1800 inhabitants, and Kosharnik with around 2500. They are on the two opposite ends of the regional centre. At the beginning of the 1950s the Roma population was concentrated in Ogosta, which sprawls the banks of the Ogosta river. Floods destroyed many houses and bungalows at the time. A big part of the population was evacuated and placed in temporary shelters outside the town.

In 1972 a municipal project lay the foundations of the new Kosharnik neighbourhood, outside of town. Currently it is inhabited by many people who moved there from other towns in the last couple of years. In the grazing commons around the neighbourhood they built family houses out of bricks and without construction plans or building permits. The municipal authorities did not react to the illegal construction, even though local residents complained. Children are born in these houses and families grow in numbers, hence the need for land grows. More and more illegal houses and bungalows turn up, inhabited by new families.

Ogosta neighbourhood faces similar problems. It borders on railway tracks on one side, the river on another, and the E-79 road. The population grows every year, but territorial expansion of the neighbourhood is impossible. Few people manage to buy homes outside its territory – in the town or the neighbouring villages. The majority of the population remain in their old homes. This gives rise to more floors and adjacent units, which chip away from streets and sidewalks and violate regulations. Some of the inhabitants only have ownership papers for the land taken up by the old houses; others have no papers at all. But they all live with the conviction that these are their homes, passed down for four generations.

The state is powerless to stop these processes. The town does not have enough social housing available to answer the needs of the growing families. How long this is going to last for is unclear. What is going to happen to the inhabitants of illegally built houses, when the local authorities decide to follow the Burgas example and the bulldozers of law and order enter the Roma neighbourhoods of Montana?

The efforts of Roma NGOs to solve the problems with regulation of Roma neighbourhoods and finding alternative housing got only as far as to include those issues into the “framework programme for Roma integration into Bulgarian society.” The same issues were included in the international treaty that Bulgaria signed as part of the Decade of Roma inclusion.

Local strategies have been adopted on the initiative of the Roma Civic Movement, but the existing institutional discrimination on local and national level causes such policies to remain only on paper. Power-holders have no interest that those programmes become part of the budget. Ignoring Roma representation in the executive leads to ethnic, local, social and religious conflict. The insubstantial social contract between the Bulgarian citizen of Roma origin and the state with its institutions leads to regulatory problems in the neighbourhoods and their infrastructure. For these reasons there are no clear conditions between consumers and suppliers of services such as electric energy, water and sewage. The Roma neighbourhoods are usually situated in the suburban areas, which makes them strategic for big storage facilities, gas stations, factories, etc. This brings up a new problem between the Roma and business, where the state suddenly moves to regulate the status of those neighbourhoods, while at the same time securing the land for big business at a low price.

Representatives of nationalist parties in local councils tip the decision-making process in favour of certain citizens and usually to the detriment of the Roma. Maybe the goal of governments so far has been to keep the Roma population in uncertainty, unrepresented and open to manipulation during elections.

To cap it all, household energy meters have been placed on top of electric posts, but the measurement of energy consumption has not become more precise, usually to the disadvantage of the Roma. Roma mistrust consequently has turned into silent protest. The protest becomes passive helplessness, verging on irresponsibility for their own future and that of their children.

Varna Awaits the Bulldozers

In the sea capital of Bulgaria the bulldozers have not taken any victims yet. At the very entrance of the city to the left is a big Roma neighbourhood. For the most part the dwellings in the Maksuda neighbourhood have been constructed without building permits, which automatically makes them illegal. In our conversation with Nikolay, who works in the NGO sector dealing with issues in Varna and the region, shares the rumour that the piece of land where the illegal houses are built has been bought by two brother businessmen. In fact the location of the Roma neighbourhood is exceptionally convenient: next to the very sea shore, and any businessman would have an appetite for it. “We hear that in two maybe three years they are going to start tearing houses down. There will be blood spilt. People there have nice two-floor houses and have been living there for a long time. They will fight for what they consider their own. There will be blood,” says the embittered Nikolay.

In fact the rumour about the two businessmen brothers in Varna is exemplary of the current impasse on Roma residential problems. Unfortunately, the state in the face of the municipal authorities does not succeed in finding the right approach to the solution of these problems. In order to wash its hands and make a profit the state sells the problematic Roma neighbourhoods to big business, which on its turn tries with all available means, including bulldozers, to clear up its newly acquired terrain and prepare it for development and investment. Thus the state shirks its responsibility and the Roma clash with big business to save their homes or to lose them, as happened in Burgas and Sofia.

Ognyan Isaev
Valery Lekov
Tosen Ramar
Dimitar Georgiev

The Southeast Europe Association (Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft - SOG) in cooperation with Schroubek Fonds, Giessen Center for East European Studies (Gießener Zentrum Östliches Europa - GIZO) and the chair of Southeast European History at Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen invite to a conference in Giessen, Germany.

Date:
22nd January 2010, 9:00-18:00

Location:
Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Alexander-von-Humboldt-Haus, Rathenaustraße 24a.

Since the 1990ies, a growing concern in both the media and academia emerged regarding the situation of Roma in Eastern Europe due to the fact that they became, in countries in transition, a target and victim of nationalism resulting in the worsening of the groups’ living conditions, especially in comparison with the majority society. This is also the case in former Yugoslavia, specifically after the wars of the Nineties. Since 1999, if one mentions Roma in Kosovo but also in Serbia and Macedonia, “Ashkali and Egyptians” has to be added for reason of specification. All three groups are referred to as “Gypsies” by the majority society and were expelled from Kosovo in 1999 and 2004.

Not only in Kosovo but also in the neighbouring countries such as Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia, members of all three communities are living as refugees from Kosovo or citizens of the country. As yet, only few scholars have discussed the issue of the nation building of Egyptians and the dilemma they are facing in a society predominantly Albanian, Serbian or Macedonian.

This conference aims at discussing PhD projects regarding the history and anthropology of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians in former Yugoslavia.

Program and further information:
http://www.uni-giessen.de/cms/fbz/fb04/institute/geschichte/osteuropa

Contact:
Claudia Lichnofsky
Osteuropäische Geschichte
Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen
35394 Gießen
Claudia.Lichnofsky@geschichte.uni-giessen.de
Tel. 0641-99-28024

Roma realized 20 years ago that the Velvet Revolution was also their opportunity for “freedom.”

From every side we hear of how prominent figures experienced the historically significant revolution. Their testimonies are important. But what about the experience of ordinary Roma from villages? Those, who were forced to assimilate, not allowed to use their mother language and to present their culture. Those, who were awaiting a rescue from the eternal damnation like a miracle.

How does Michal Hušo from Ondašovské Matiašovce in east Slovakia, a former member of VPN (Public against Violence), remember days of the revolution?

“It was something new. We had no idea what might come out of it. Majority of Roma were confused … we didn’t even know what democracy actually is. We didn’t know what this democracy could mean to us and what impact it would have on our lives. We feared that the protests would be harshly suppressed, and awaited another seizure of the country by Russia. When I recollect the first moments of the Gentle Revolution’s birth, it’s still alive in front of my eyes. It’s impossible to forget. Almost all Roma watched all TV news attentively. When seeing shots from Prague and Bratislava, we were scared that it’s the beginning of a civil war … many Roma were crying when they saw those shots. They were afraid of what awaits them and their children. A man always fears what he doesn’t understand. I was sitting in front of the TV with my family and despite that fear we all felt that something good is about to start and we rejoiced. It’s hard to describe it in words. It’s an amazing feeling. Those, who understood at least a bit what was happening and knew what it means to fight for freedom and what that freedom is, those were happy. I understood the meaning of democracy from tribunal speeches which I carefully watched on television.”

“So then we, all Roma men, got together. Roma seized an opportunity to be a part of the revolution and so Romani organizations were quickly formed in regional towns. It was incredible how quickly we were able to organize and network ourselves while all living in different towns and villages. Buses were taking us to various meeting points where we learned what was actually happening. We learned that it was the most important and positive turnover in our lives. So, we followed Bratislava and formed a VPN. Finally we could influence public issues. VPN was respecting us like its equal partners. It was precisely at that time when our so called Roma leaders like Gejza Adam, Ladislav Fýzik, or Mr. Patkolo started shaping out. But the most important personality and leader was Ján Kompuš. Unfortunately he’s not alive anymore and our chance had left with him. He was our hope to have a Romani member also in a parliament. However, I still hope that this will materialize once.”

“The Communist Party had a majority of non-Roma in our village Ondašovské Matiašovce. Like in many other villages, we Roma were not allowed to express ourselves freely. And therefore we perceived VPN as an incredible opportunity to take their power and not let them to make decisions about us anymore. That was the reason why I felt brave enough to join VPN at that time. We roused more and more Roma to action. For the first time in my life I believed and knew that this is the act which one is waiting even his whole life for. It’s the right thing with a sense of life. It’s the thing that plucks you out of the “robotized” crowd. Roma, in the scope of VPN, aimed for being able to take action in public service and to candidate for parliament. Simply, to decide their own case.”

“Whether I’m satisfied with the contemporary situation? I can vote liberally. Nobody stuffs an already filled election ticket into my hands anymore. Roma can travel and work in countries which they only dreamt about before. We didn’t have in shops what we have there today. Also healthcare has reached a much better level. There are more doctors available and we can choose among them. Our children can study at better schools and they can also study at universities. This didn’t exist during Communism. The communists decided who would study what or wouldn’t study. Roma were allowed to study only workers’ professions. Based on that fact our lives evolved. But unfortunately democracy also brought what we didn’t expect and what we weren’t ready for: unemployment and racism which violates our lives. I’m also not happy with the fact that our state sells itself out. There are very few Slovak products on the market while masses of low quality products are being imported - especially from China. The number of available jobs is going down and wages are lower whereas prices are going up. Even though it’s not flawless these days and it’s neither what we’ve been dreaming of, it’s always better than Communism. We have our freedom and our privacy. No one can violate my rights and if they do so, I want to believe that our legal system will righteously punish them.”

“Surely I wanted to achieve something during my youth but joining the Communist Party was the only way leading to a success. I based a music band during my military service years. But the Communist Party was a necessity if we wanted to play. They said that I’m a great soldier and if I’m willing to be a good communist also, I can achieve a lot in the army. I didn’t take the Communist Party very seriously but it was necessary to obey it.”

And how does the younger generation recollect the revolution?

“At that time I was … well, I couldn’t tell the difference between socialism and democracy yet. As the situation had progressed after the revolution, only then I understood in how unbelievable isolation we had lived. We had no idea about living in other countries. I wouldn’t want communism to return. I have two children and I want their dreams to come true; I want them to be what they want to be,” said Ľuba Bajzová from Topoľovka, a village in east Slovakia. “The school assigned me to become only a glass cutter. My daughter studies Sales Management today …”

“How do I remember revolution? I was thirteen at that time and I cried from fear when we were all watching what was actually happening. It came out of the blue. For us, ordinary people living our everyday routine, it was unexpected as we did not know about everything that preceded the revolution. We were sitting tense at the table with our ears widely open and our eyes glued to the TV screen. Even though I was scared that a war was about to start, after all those speeches I also comprehended that something better should be waiting for us. But I was dosed up with the ideals of socialism from school and therefore I was unable to understand what meant “that better something.” If you have no opportunity to compare things, you also cannot tell the difference between them. The same fear I experienced once again - when the terrorists attacked Americas twin towers. America has always been some kind of supervisor of human rights. I feared that all those rights we have been fighting for thanks to the Velvet Revolution, would also crumble down and be gone.”

“But I’ll get back to the revolution. I carry the last communist election in my mind. They were mandatory and as my father has always been the ideal I looked up to, I wanted him to take me to elections. I was curious. The chairman of MNV [Municipal National Bureau] was waiting for all voters in front of the election station with voting tickets in his hand. He gave one to my father and then he threw that ticket into a ballot box. My father explained to me before that every voter marks the name of a desired candidate or a party on the ticket. But when we were leaving the election station I alerted him that he did not mark any name on the ticket. My father replied that the name was already pre-marked on every ticket. When we passed the chairman, my father continued explaining that it is not allowed to vote anyone else except the Communist Party. If he wrote something else there, he would have ended up in prison. And he added that I should not tell anyone what he just told me. Later he explained that once I am eighteen I would be allowed to vote also. Luckily, when I started voting, I did it liberally and I filled the voting ticket myself. However, I will not forget the last communist elections. I would not want to experience them again. I cannot imagine what kind of life I would have now if the revolution had not come. Instead of journalism, social work and leading positions in prestigious companies I would sit behind a sewing machine with the highest possible education reached at an apprentice training school. I would not even know that I could reach much more in life. To be able to succeed in something one has not even been dreaming of is the most important about the Velvet Revolution … because we did not even know what we could possibly dream of.”

“It is true that the revolution has brought also many risks like homelessness …and nowadays thanks to unemployment a plummet of middle class Romani families into total poverty. But freedom is something what you once try and you never let it go. As we were watching broadcasting shots from the revolution, it was not easy to decide which side it was right or safe to join. I immensely respect those who were not afraid to go out into the streets. I think that during that evening some of our Roma were contemplating going to our local DK (Cultural House) and thereby support happenings in Prague and Bratislava.”

“Even though there is democracy, it is not correct that a party which used to breach all human rights, imprison without reasons, bully and persecute citizens still competes for their votes. It is absurd that a party which was overthrown for not behaving democratically, locking away democracy and presenting it as a demagogy of an idealistic socialism can compete for citizens’ votes. It looks like a democratic hypocrisy to me. It is as a mocking laughter at those people who were imprisoned and who criticized communistic tyranny often for a price of their lives. It would be appropriate to finally finalize the meaning of the Velvet Revolution to an end after twenty years.”

– Mária Hušová

At an international donor conference hosted by the Open Society Institute, the World Bank and the European Economic and Social Committee on 12 November, donors pledged financial support for education of the Roma minorities in Europe. The EUR 25.5 million in funding commitments announced by donors is intended for the Roma Education Fund (REF). See OSI press release.

1989 drastically changed the life and destinies of several generations of Bulgarians. It brought shiny new SUVs to some, to others a pile of old papers and cardboard to haul to the recycling authority, gathered from the backyards of shops owned by those with the SUVs. There are only two classes - the have-nots and the have-a-lots.

If you approached an elderly person with a question about their memories, they will remember that unforgettable summer at Ovcha Mogila (a Bulgarian resort) or somewhere along the seaside, such as Sozopol, because ironically enough of the old generation has vacationed on the seaside while many of today’s youngsters have not even set foot on the Southern coast of the Black Sea. The elderly person remembers his or her “savings book” and a range of basic human earthly provisions, which the time long past “before the 10th”—the 10th of November 1989—made certain. While some are still basking in their memories from the 1980s, others wake up in cold sweat from their nightmares. They relive the past in their dreams. Their memories are searing hot, horrid and painful from the merciless sun over the labour camps in Lovech and Belene. Why do some want that time back, and others dread it? Why do some reminisce of it with a smile, and others in tears?

And they “spake” for democracy! And democracy came. Precisely those who coveted it are today bewailing not having been able to go to the cinema or to the theater since the beginning of the transition. Down-and-out people are fighting for trash can territory. The trash cans symbolize the Bulgarian economy, because that is where former bread-winners find their scant nurture now. A sad and poor sight. Democracy is not for the unenlightened. It becomes a spectacle. The last twenty years have reduced everything to a spectacle of misery. And better still, so that we can remember earlier times. Gone are the calm, the cleanliness, statehood, safety and order of old! All that is left is fear, poverty and the eternal discontent, the apologetics of victimhood. And the dream for a national messiah. In twenty years we learned not to stay out after dark, and to go to our own beds in fear. As if in a film. To be afraid in one’s own home. To be afraid of the doctor, not because of bad news, but because you cannot afford seeing him.

It is truth and fact that the communist regime killed, without reasons or excuses. No one can deny this. Our grandparents tell a story where everyone was equal. Aunt Stanka, a worker at the local cooperative, had the same rights as nanny Minka, accountant at the cooperative shop.
NOT REMEMBERING THE LIFE IN RED

Our generation, 23 and 24-year old, did not see communism. Or at least we do not remember what life was like in Red. Our grandparents lament Todor Zhivkov’s red time and nostalgic thoughts drive them up the blue wall (blue is the colour of the democratic opposition) - cold and abrasive. Once upon a time people would build two and three floor houses with ease and cheerful labour. This is what our mothers and fathers say. Once upon a time we were all equal - at the shop, in the pub, before police officers. This is what everyone who lived during Communism says. People have their memories to keep them going. Nice memories. And what memories do we have? Blue, free, democratic…and hungry, and painful. What am I going to tell my grandchildren tomorrow? Am I going to tell them about Ahmed Dogan, Ivan Kostov, Simeon Saxecoburggotha, Sergei Stanishev, Boiko Borissov (all leading Bulgarian politicians, some former Prme Ministers)? Wonderful people, no two opinions on that. We did not see communism, but we witnessed the vicissitudes of democracy. We are free to vote and starve. Poor and hungry, we enjoy our freedom. Education is without principle. Too many college graduates. Too many fools. We only heard that during Communism our education was of world class. And today our illiteracy and unemployment are of world class.

Some people really wanted to speak freely. Some people wanted to tell jokes about the government. Some people cried and pulled their hair and spoke of freedom. And now that we speak freely and tell government jokes, what came out of it? What use is it to us, average citizens? Some will say, it is thanks to democracy that you are today writing this text, but I would answer, we prefer a stable job to freedom in unemployment. Socialism is dead. Democracy wilted. What’s next?

We changed Russian for English. We proudly beat our chests because we speak the language of America. And we can even congratulate ourselves in English: happy democracy!
Happy democracy made of communist concrete!

DISCRIMINATION OF ROMA PERSISTS

And what about Bulgaria’s Roma people? Before the changes the Roma worked in the factories, in the field and on construction sites. Their lower level of education notwithstanding, the Roma had jobs, even if low skilled ones. Even if they did not share the social standard of the majority, they were not outsiders, but part of the common social structure. During the transition their social position changed. After the factory closures (that accompanied privatization) they were among those laid off. Now it’s easier for some to find a job, for others not. A big part of the Roma today do want to integrate and share rights and duties in society. They had that once and still hope to get another chance at it. Or at least that their children will have the opportunity to be equal movers and shakers in society. This is why they send them to integrated schools if they can afford it.

That the lack of a sewage system and road infrastructure in the ghettos create a sense of misery, is a different issue. These people want to be respected by society. They might at first sight appear as marginal individuals, but they do not see themselves this way. They have potential and do not need to be pushed or forced, all they need is a hand outstretched. They do not need someone to force them to send their children to school. Besides, birth rates in many communities have long dropped to the average for Bulgaria. It is very important to approach the Roma community with respect to their aspirations to be part of society. During the transition period, due to the lack of policies targeting minorities, and in some cases due to misguided policies, illiteracy, low skills and other Roma-related problems began to intensify. Desegregation in schools and encouraging education is one of the best and most successful integration policies. It is almost a hundred percent sure that the community will integrate faster if Roma children attend school. But it has to be taken into consideration that it is going to take time. Depending on the situation, different incentives will have to be applied.
The low educational status of the Roma population made the Communist government open many special schools, which in the beginning were not meant exclusively for the Roma. However, they de facto became “gypsy schools”. These are the so called secondary schools with applied labour. To them were added the boarding institutions for Roma children. The special schools continue to exist. In 1984 playing gypsy music in public was entirely forbidden. This ban showed the change of direction of the Buglarian Communist Party (BCP) towards the Roma. The de jure liquidation of the whole minority finds expression in the erection of large walls around the ghettos in certain cities. When the so called “revival process”, aiming to subdue Turkish minority identity in Bulgaria through renaming citizens with Turkish names reachesdits climax in 1984/5, many Roma with Turkish or Arabic names, who had not voluntarily changed their names, were forced to do so. Around 180 000 Muslim Roma were targeted by this campaign and renamed with Christian names. In this atmosphere, poisoned by assimilation attempts, warning signs began to appear at railway stations, alerting passengers of pickpockets, more precisely gypsy pickpockets. In some coffee shops and restaurants the Roma were denied entry.

There is a joke which describes Roma feelings towards the BCP’s assimilation policy: “A gypsy man is standing on the road and beating his donkey with a stick, yelling “Turn into a horse! Turn into a horse!”. A policeman passes by and asks him: “How can you be so foolish to think you can turn a donkey into a horse?”. To that the gypsy man answers: “If you can turn a gypsy man into an ethnic Bulgarian, then you can surely turn a donkey into a horse.”

The Roma today definitely live a freer life and have more opportunities for self- and professional realization. But discrimination is still pervasive. And after the unsuccessful Transition to democracy Bulgarian society often accuses the Roma of being thieves and welfare queens, living on the back of tax-payers, which is the way they are portrayed in the media. This warped view of Roma reality leads a big part of the Bulgarian society to heap guilt for the transition hardships on the Roma.

–by Ognyan Isaev

On 5 November, Serbian police arrested five persons suspected of war crimes against Roma civilians in eastern Bosnia. The arrests followed an official request for investigation issued by Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor.

Speaking about the case, Kandic also highlighted alleged crimes specifically aimed against Roma women, who, according to Kandic, were enslaved.

“Here we have, not just killings of Roma civilians, plunder, burning and destruction of their property, but also the use of young Roma women for housework, for cooking, for serving men in a number of different ways… Some of these girls ended up in Serbia as they were brought as mistresses and some of them continued living with their rapists, with perpetrators of terrible crimes,” Kandic said.

The five suspects are not yet indicted. The war crimes prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic, said in an interview a day before the arrests that his office was preparing to open three new cases.

The Balotescu children are off-duty in the afternoon, done begging and free to run in the weeds along the railroad tracks behind the rubber factory in Targu Jiu, where the family lives in a shanty with a bed. One bed for seven children, two adults plus the two black cats that sprawl on the blankets in the middle of the day. Outside a pot simmers on a fire.

Corabian Balotescu – everyone calls him Minut – says he has no choice but to have his wife and children – from the 14-year-old to the 6-month-old baby– beg. There are no jobs, he said, and if he applied for welfare, they could no longer get food from the local soup kitchen.

Begging works. Sometimes police will chase the three older girls, but that’s all.  “People help them when they see how poor they are… “ he says.

Every day his wife Marinela Luncan, 32, takes the children into Targu Jiu, not far from the Roma settlement of Obreja from morning until mid-afternoon. They each work a different area; Luncan keeps her youngest daughter at her breast.

“Do you think I wanted my children to beg?” says Luncan who had her first baby at 15. “Honestly, they are not even clean. More often than not, we don’t have drinking water, let alone for water for washing. I beg from morning till 2-3 p.m., sometimes till late at night.”

Daughter Eliza, 12, in a sooty dress and shoeless, likes school, but she cannot fit it in. Instead she takes a bus into the city and when she is finished begging, she returns home to babysit while her mother does chores. The money she makes goes to her parents. A local Roma leader has instructed the family what to say when asked and Roxana and Eliza report that they make only the equivalent of €1.4-2 a day.

Balotescu wanted to go to Italy last year.  He figured the children could earn much more begging there, but moneylenders refused him money for the trip because they had no guarantees he would pay it back.

From Tandarei to London
The Roma in Tandarei on the other side of Romania in Ialomita County, are divided into rich and the poor from the Strachina neighborhood who borrow money from them.

If the poor borrowers do not or cannot return the money they borrow with interest, they pay a heavy penalty – they give the moneylenders their children, who become beggars in the UK.

Instead of money, parents turn over notarized powers of attorney, so that the children can leave the country legally. Once in England, the children are forced to beg for coins to pay off their parents’ debt.

Paun Dorina, an illiterate mother of five, divides her life between her children and the church. She can’t write or read, but she knows that if she borrows €100 she has to return 200. As she explains it:  “The Gypsy man comes and says: if you give me the child, he will send you money, food, clothes. Not for me. I’d rather work for the children. They are taken to France, England, Spain…everywhere. If I send this one now (her daughter) will she send me money so that I can make both ends meet? No, I’d rather keep her home. They can beat you if you don’t give them the money. The children have to pay their parents’ debts.”

Juberian and Norvegia: traffickers in Europe?

Two Tandarei men - Ionel “Juberian” Stan and Adriana Stan or Norvegia as he is better known – ran a business with children, according to case working its way through the law enforcement system now.

It began when Juberian found the Duman family in his native Bolintin Vale in  Giurgiu County. He promised Maria Benone Duman, who is disabled with four young daughters, that the girls could send her money if she agreed to let them work abroad. He also promised her that the girls could get medical treatment they needed.

What really happened was revealed after a yearlong investigation by authorities that resulted in accusations of human trafficking and trafficking of minors against the men. The two took the Duman girls, another child from Bucharest and one from Ialomita County into Belgium and then Spain. The children were forced to beg and were sometimes beaten, investigators said.

From Oltenia to Milan
For several months last year, a group from Craiova, led by Marin Musi and Luminita Adir, sent 34 Roma children, aged 8-13, to beg in Italy, according to police, the Agency against Trafficking in Persons and the undercover agent with the Department for Combating Organized Crime who worked on the case.

The children were recruited in Craiova and its outskirts. Traffickers also took children from Ocolna, a very poor Roma community. Moneylenders sent children into Italy to pay off the debt of penniless relatives, officials said. The relatives signed and turned over notarized powers of attorney that gave the moneylenders responsible over their children.

Authorities found that the children were sent to Milan, kept on a remote farm and sent out to beg, pickpocket or  rob the tourists in front of the Central Station in Milan. They were required to bring back €800 a day or risk being beaten. Italian police do not charge children under 14—they simply return them to the adults responsible for them, in other words, to the traffickers.

One 12-year-old told Romanian police investigating  in Italy that he was from Craiova and was leaving in a farm in Bareggiate. The child claimed he had been forced to rob the tourists. “They threatened me, they told me they would break my arms if I didn’t steal. When I told them I wanted to go back home, they hit me in my genitals,” police quoted the child. Romulus Ungureanu, head of the Agency against Trafficking in Persons, said: “This is a case of children’s exploitation.”

Petru Zoltan

An 11-year-old Romani girl from the the Nadezhda (Hope) ghetto in the Bulgarian town of Sliven has given birth. Clearly, there has been a violation of the law (and, moreover, a moral wrong). This is not a Roma tradition, nor a widespread fact of Romani life.

It makes me angry and disgusted when great and “competent” Bulgarian journalists dissect a case that involves Roma. I would never comment on an issue that I am not qualified on or informed about.

The journalist from the TV program Cheliusti (Jaws), Diana Naydenova, treated the case of the 11-year-old girl superficially and disrespectfully. I do not know what kind of preparation goes into her show, but it smacks of unprofessional journalism. At university I was told that when I take up a case, I need to acquaint myself with its specifics and its background. A friend of mine, an American journalist living in Slovakia, calls the process “journalistic Darwinism.” Just as Darwin traced human evolution throughout the centuries, so must journalists track changes in a certain condition or issue throughout the years. Alas, our best journalists do not have a sense of this, or the motivation to think in terms of cause and effect. They prefer to make a sensation out of ugly “effects” while enjoying a cup of coffee in the warm, cozy studio. At the end of the day, my least favorite aspect of Bulgarian journalism resurfaces – a generalization is made about a whole group of people.

Unfortunately, Ms. Naydenova is ignorant of another lesson of journalism. Usually she hosts two guests. But her bias for one side never remains unnoticed. I know from another journalist, the editor of a popular Western newspaper, that a journalist must always be at war with his personal judgment. He calls it “journalistic jihad: for short. Reporters should fight their personal opinion by trying to keep it to themselves, and not show it and press it on their studio guests in order to channel the conversation into some preordained direction! After all, journalism has to be objective.

But in Bulgaria, anything goes. Not only is everyone an expert on football and politics, but every citizen and journalist is already competent on the problems of the Roma and DANS (State Agency for National Security, recently implicated in corruption scandals).

Whoever invented journalistic “areas of expertise” must have been an amateur. Look here, another “area of expertise”! Tough! There is only one big area and it’s apparently open for everyone.

- Ognyan Isaev

P.S. I am expecting Bulgarian cabinet members Boyko Borissov, Simeon Dyankov, and Tsvetan Tsvetanov to soon express their own expert opinion on the 11-year-old mother from Sliven.

Some 60,000 Madonna fans added a sour touch to the pop diva’s “Sticky and Sweet” tour when it touched down at Bucharest’s Parcul Izvor 26 August. The generally rapt crowd turned momentarily hostile, showering the star with boos when she briefly interrupted the show to speak up for Roma rights.

“It has been brought to my attention … that there is a lot of discrimination against Romanies and Gypsies in general in Eastern Europe. It made me feel very sad,” Madonna told the crowd, according to an Associated press report. “We believe in freedom and equal rights for everyone.”

Madonna spoke after mashing up her 1987 hit “La Isla Bonita” with the Roma song “Leila pala tute” (Crazy love) in collaboration with the Russian Roma band Trio Kolpakov. The performance was part of the “Gypsy” segment of her show, which included traditional Roma dancers and costumes and images of Roma people on a giant video screen. According to Laura Coroianu, one of the organizers of the event, the segment “had been part of Madonna’s ‘Sticky and Sweet’ tour ever since her first show and it wasn’t created especially for Eastern Europe. Elsewhere, the public enjoyed it.” Trio Kolpakov said at a press conference that the reaction from the Romanian audience was the “worst” they have seen on the tour.

Madonna declined to comment on the boos, but Bulgarian newspaper Novinite reported that she didn’t reiterate the speech at her next show, held 29 August in Sofia.

While Western media outlets such as the Guardian and the Telegraph covered the incident as a sign of Romanians’ prevailing anti-Roma sentiment, the domestic view was slightly different. Romanian journalist Cristian Tudor Popescu interpreted the incident as “a question of customer protection,” saying concert-goers had paid to see a show, not a political lecture. “Nobody can tell you who to love and hate,” he said. Romanian tennis legend Ilie Nastase, who also attended the concert, also thought that the moment had been inappropriate for Madonna’s declarations.

All in all, these two public figures seem to share the view held by many Romanians who expressed their take on the concert: it was not Madonna’s views that were inappropriate, but the context she chose to voice them in, given that most concert goers were expecting a night of sheer entertainment and not a discussion on issues thorny enough to begin with.

The Roma parliamentarian Madalin Voicu further explains the issue: as an interpreter of pop music, and a “product of American kitsch” Madonna has a fan base whose education matches their kitschy music tastes. In other words, it was the interpreter’s credentials that undermined her sincerity, making her views seem just another quirk of a star well-known for her eccentricity, or perhaps a prop for show, in any case not a sign of deep felt concern for the discrimination against Roma.

Her declaration would have been met with cheers elsewhere”, he adds for Evenimentul Zilei, thus supporting the point of view held by the Western media: the lack of democratic education of the Romanian public was also to blame for their hostile reaction. However, according to Canada’s Globe and Mail, bloggers around the world echoed the boos of Madonna’s Romanian fans, and qualified her reaction as “deeply silly,” given her lack of information on the topic, coupled with her naivety that she could “deliver everyone a quick telling off at a pop concert, and solve all the world’s bloody problems in one fell swoop. Thus, to attribute the public’s reaction to their deeply ingrained anti-Roma feelings might seem like missing the point, given that most of her fans’ criticisms were directed to the inappropriate context of her gesture, and not to the statements themselves, seen as true by most them.

Commenting on the concert, the Romanian president Traian Basescu, present at the festival Romani Kultura (Roma Culture) held 28-31 August in Sibiu, declared that, despite Madonna’s claims, Romanian politics doesn’t discriminate against Roma. The president’s involvement itself testifies for the amplitude taken by the issue. The enduring Eastern European prejudices against Roma are old news, and, while people such as Radu Motoc from the Soros Foundation Romania are skeptical about the change brought about by Madonna’s declaration, the public debate that sparked in Romania brought the issue of discrimination into a spotlight that should make it hard to ignore.