Syndicate: SERB THUGS TARGET ROMA

[Syndicate admin <syndicate@v2.nl>]

Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 09:17:45 -0600
Subject: SERB THUGS TARGET ROMA
From: fran ilich <ilich_030@hotmail.com>

SERB THUGS TARGET ROMA

Far-right skinhead groups are scaring Roma off the streets of Belgrade

By Daniel Sunter in Belgrade

Katarina Zivanovic arrived at the Rex Cultural Centre on Jevrejska ulica, 
Jewish Street, last week to find the doors and walls covered with swastikas, SS 
insignia and anti-Semitic stickers and posters.

It's widely believed the outrage was carried out by Serb skinheads, apparently 
provoked by a widely publicized and well-attended photographic exhibition on 
the Belgrade's Roma community in the same building.

This was the latest in a series of racist attacks against the capital's Roma 
over the last three years. Many blame ethnic hatred stirred up during 
Milosevic's regime for the intimidation.  Zivanovic, curator of the Rex 
Cultural Center and one of the organizers of the Roma exhibition, told IWPR 
that she encountered racist attitudes on the streets all the time.

"All sorts of people come up to me, educated people, artists, and ask why I'm 
holding the exhibition, why I'm not doing something about Serbs and Serbia, " 
she said. " I'm so dismayed by people's reactions."

Zivanovic believes the exhibition has exposed disturbing levels of racism in 
Serbian society, resulting from years of isolation under Milosevic.

"Milosevic's fierce propaganda turned people from different ethnic and 
religious backgrounds against each other," agreed the Federal Minister for 
Ethnic Minorities Rasim Ljajic, himself a member of the Bosniak 
minority. "Mutual mistrust among these communities is vast."

Police estimate there are about two thousand skinheads in Serbia, based in 
Belgrade, Nis and Novi Sad. They emerged, as in most countries of Central and 
Eastern Europe, during the early nineties and were thrust into the headlines in 
late 1997 after being implicated in the murder of a Roma teenager.

Dusan Jovanovic had walked into a Belgrade store to buy a can of coke and was 
beaten to death by a group of thugs. The store, close to the university law 
faculty, had been a renowned skinhead haunt during the 1990s.

Two and a half thousand people turned out for Jovanovic's funeral which was 
attended by senior members of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The gathering 
suggested there is, at least, some support for the victims of racial violence 
in Serbia.

Since then, however, the intimidation has increased, much of it directed at 
Belgrade's Roma street cleaners. They've sought police protection, but their 
assailants have got around this by targeting suburban areas where the police 
presence is low.

Earlier this February, a second fatality shocked Belgrade. This time, the 
victim was the well-known Belgrade actor Dragan Maksimovic, who died after 
being beaten up by a skinhead gang in the centre of the city. The local media 
said Maksimovic, a Serb, had been attacked because of his dark complexion.

The new government of President Kostunica has taken a strong stand against 
racist intimidation.  Aside from the appointment of Ljajic as ethnic minorities 
minister, Kostunica has himself condemned the emergence of Nazi symbols and 
anti-Semitic slogans.

Kostunica has spoken out in public against the recent violence and apologised 
to the  Roma and Jewish communities. He said the perpetrators were trying 
to "spoil Serbia's new democratic foundations" and that he intended to crack 
down hard on them.

The president, who has the backing of most political parties on this issue, 
found himself the target of the right-wing slurs a few days after his 
speech: 'Kostunica, the son of a Jew' read a message scrawled on a wall in the 
city center.

Most commentators seem to agree that though the skinheads employ anti-Semitic 
slogans and have attacked some Jewish property, the principal target is the 
Roma community. President of the Jewish Community in Belgrade, Misa Levi, 
described the assaults on his community as "isolated incidents".

Roma community leaders, meanwhile, have said they are willing to take the law 
into their own hands to look after their own if the government fails to take 
adequate measures.

"We know that the authorities in the past have supported the actions of those 
who hate the Roma," said Roma Congress Party leader Dragolub Ackovic. "We also 
know that those now in power have promised that we will be treated as equal 
citizens. They should keep their word. We have no intention of leaving Serbia."

Human rights groups and NGOs are taking steps to bring the skinheads to 
justice. An ongoing court case in Nis is being seen as a litmus test for the 
prosecution of racist offenders: for the first time in Yugoslavia, racial 
motives have been brought as charges in a criminal trial.

The charges are being brought against two twenty-year-old youths and a minor 
for the attack earlier this year on a 15-year-old Roma boy and his father who 
had leapt to the boy's defense. One of the attackers, Natasa Markovic, told 
police after the three were arrested that, " I hate Gypsies. They don't belong 
in Serbia".

Markovic's vituperative remarks could land her withYugoslavia's first 
conviction for racially-motivated crime. "Previously, courts have only dealt 
with the actual physical attack," said Igor Olujic, a lawyer working for the 
Belgrade Humanitarian Centre, which is bringing the case against the three 
skinheads.

Legal analysts in Serbia will be paying close attention to the trial, which 
begins March 8. A successful prosecution would represent a major victory in the 
struggle to overcome the ethnic hatred of the Milosevic era.

Daniel Sunter is a regular IWPR contributor



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