-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Sandeep Vaidya
Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 5:13 AM
To: Iraq Task Force
Subject: [ADC-ITF] Suffering of Kosovo Roma



Suffering of Kosovo Roma
Feel free to pass this around...
This is a leaflet we plan to distribute during a concert of "Roma" music
here in Imola, Italy. The text is rather long, but people have time to
read it while waiting for the music to start.
Miguel Martinez
[log in to unmask]
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There is corner of Europe where having a slightly darker shade of skin
is enough to risk being kidnapped, tortured, raped, killed... enough to
have your house burned down and all your belongings taken away.
This corner is Kosovo, the only place in Europe where the Roma used to
have houses and jobs and lived peacefully with their neighbours; where
they could study at school in their own language and where they even had
a minister in the government.
Thanks to the war we stepped so lightly into, our allies have cleaned
Kosovo from "Gypsies" with a pogrom which has no precedents since the
times of WWII. 50,000 NATO soldiers have done nothing to prevent this
genocide.
Thousands of families lost everything in a few days; those who survived
went to Serbia - a country suffering from an embargo and which already
hosts one million refugees; to Montenegro or Macedonia - countries on
the brink of civil war. A small nucleus stayed in Kosovo, besieged in
camps and ghettoes: going shopping or to hospital means risking their
lives.
Many borrowed money at an interest rate of ten per cent a month to get
on boats belonging to mafiosi from our and other countries, in order to
cross the Adriatic. Not all came across alive, and those who did often
live in hair-raising conditions in camps.
Tonight you will be listening to very beautiful music; but the happiness
it expresses should not allow us to forget the words of those who are
still down there - the Roma mothers of a camp called Stenkovac 2 in
Macedonia; words we pass on to you as we received them:
"Mothers all over the world, as we are writing this appeal to you, our
hands are frozen, the only light is the light of the candle whose flame
is swinging in the wind in our tent.
Instead of heat from the stove, our children's hearts are warmed only by
our motherly love and our hopes for abetter future. Mothers all over the
world, please help us, help our children in this, the worst times in our
lives."