It is today three years since Mr. Sait Balic, known as 'baro manush', which in Romany means 'a great man', died. Mr. Balic was the most famous Roma person in Nis, the man who fought for the rights of Roma people for almost 3 decades, and he was also the President of World Roma Congress. In the seventies and eighties, Nis (which hosts one of the largest Roma populations in the entire former Yugoslavia, about 30,000 people altogether), became a centre of Roma life: it hosted the first (and unique) manifestation known as 'The Meetings of Roma of Serbia" (still active), and it organized the first Roma professional organization known as "Pride". Thanks to Mr. Balic's efforts, in the eighties the first Roma kindergarten was also founded in Nis. But during the life of this great man, the rights of Roma were largely neglected, partly because of the lack of care of Serbian population, and partly because of the attitude of Roma themselves.
Nowadays, at least officially, the situation is slightly better. Romany technically have the same rights as the rest of the population. They are educated in the same schools as the others. They have their political parties, NGOs and regular participation in the media. Until recently, there was a TV show on the local Nis Television every Sunday known as 'Akaja Rat Si Romani', sponsored by the Fund for Open Society and devoted to Roma people exclusively. In the last six months, a radio station in Romany language has been active in Nis. Mr. Balic's son, Osman, has followed his father's footsteps: he is today probably the most active Roma politician in Serbia, currently at the position of Assistant to the Republic Minister of National Minorities, probably the first time in the Serbian history that a Roma person occupies a relatively important political position.

It is the ordinary man on the street and his attitudes, however, that are ultimately relevant when assessing Roma position. Apart from minority militant groups, such as skinheads (virtually nonexistent in Nis, but pretty active in Belgrade and Vojvodina), who often attack Roma people in the streets, excessive physical violence against the Roma is rare. But, there is a general undertone among the Serbs which shows that nobody takes the Roma very seriously. They are seen as petty thieves and smugglers, average musicians or simple labour force, and this conception is enhanced by the fact that in reality they seldom take any upper positions in the society. Misconceptions are sometimes all-present. For example, popular Roma jokes often describe them as 'dirty', which is not only racist but also physically untrue, since their worldview implies the cult of purity, both spiritual and physical, unknown to most Serbs. Needless to say, any mix between the two populations is rare, which is shown by a recent poll where the percentage of Serbs willing to marry a Roma was 0 (strangely, knowing the situation, even Albanians were more suitable prospective marital partners, although that figure was also very low).
The Roma, on the other hand, do not generally do much to improve their position. Many seem to be satisfied with living in semi-ghettos (residential areas known as 'Gypsy-Towns'), sometimes in very harsh conditions. Their education often stops after primary schools, they usually get married early and have a lot of children, whom they cannot fully support, so they are themselves married young, and so on. Crime rates among the Roma are very high, although their offences are usually minor. Their political life, apart from some NGO activity in the recent years, is very modest. In the middle of the 'cast your vote, participate in the elections' campaign last autumn, a large part of which was aimed at the Roma, posters put up in Roma-town in Nis contained an additional inscription: "Whoever tears the posters, let his mother die soon!" - which aimed at the traditional superstition of the Roma, and seemed to be the only way for the posters to stay in one piece and communicate their message. In Vranjska Banja, a spa near Vranje, south Serbia, almost exclusively inhabited by Roma people, almost the entire population of age has joined the currently ruling Democratic Party of prime minister Djindjic. The explanation to this sudden interest in political life came after a local party official, also a Roma person, boasted in front of the foreign journalists that "the Roma are always with those in power, which today means Democratic Party, and that everybody will join. Those who do not, will be 'located'". Someone might call this a new reading of democracy.

However, the funny stories of the local Roma people and their clumsiness when they are to somehow integrate into society are replaced by very grim stories of Roma IDPs from Kosovo. While ethnic Serb IDPs had somewhere to go to, or at least were given some attention, the Roma were left to wander on their own. No one was willing to accept them (in Nis there was one (only one!) family ready to accept Roma population). There was virtually no organized care for the Roma once they crossed the administrative Kosovo border. On the other hand, it would be fair to notice that Roma NGOs, in spite of such a neglect of their compatriots, always make programmes which help all IDPs, irrespective of their ethnicity.

The Roma from Kosovo were put up in some camps where conditions were generally worse than those camps hosting Serbs. There is a large camp known as Salvatore in Bujanovac. From June 1999 to June 2000 the Roma there were put up in tents. Only last summer were they allowed containers donated by the Japanese government. The most terrible story was the one from Kursumlija, in the southwest, were a number of families settled downtown, in the open air, under the bridge. Some had to survive through the winter in unfinished buildings with no windows, no heating, and bad roofs - such as the Cultural Centre building in Kursumlija. In Kragujevac, their situation was slightly better - they were allowed to enter small bungalows with joint kitchen and toilet, shared by eight families. There are some situations where the Roma are settled within Kosovo, also as IDPs: such is the case in the camp in Plementina, a virtual ghetto a few miles from home, where there are about 700 IDPs (mostly Roma, with some Kosovo Serbs and a couple of Serbian families earlier settled from Krajina, Croatia). They are taken care of by the Kosovo branch of ICS.
It is rather difficult to work with Roma population and most NGOs avoid this activity. Repatriation programs still do not exist, and integration is almost impossible. The social habits of many are extremely low, so they are usually taught the most basic things by NGO activists: literacy, basic hygiene (for which they often get small packages with soap and toiletry weekly) etc. Some are trained in workshops, where they choose activity according to their wishes: they are taught some English, music, rap, folklore, even karate - virtually anything to get them socialized as much as possible. ECHO and ICS have started up the project "Evropako Rom" (European Roma), which consists of making the Roma population, especially the youth, active in preparing their own magazine. It is published every two months, and it covers the topics in Roma legends, history, culture, but it also offers some news and interviews.

The overall situation of the Roma, however, remains grim. Generally treated with disrespect, not well organized and not determined to fight, they have remained on the fringes of society for centuries. Among them, those displaced from Kosovo have probably generally been through the most humiliation and neglect of all ethnic groups since the break up of the former Yugoslavia.

The sudden rush about extraditing the former president Milosevic to the Hague Tribunal seems to have given another tumult to the political situation in Serbia. Its political, rhetorical, historical and (pseudo) patriotic consequences have unfortunately out-powered the real reason for the last-minute act: we need (a lot of) money, and we need it badly.
The present economic situation in the country is, speaking in terms of European standards, catastrophic. The first thing a foreign visitor would notice upon entering Serbia are the vehicles on the road - the average age of a Serbian car is 15 years. Scarce new Audis and BMWs are there just to remind us we are actually not in the eighties, and that there is a small minority who did quite well during the former regime. Black-market clothing, toiletries with fake labels, unreasonably cheap food and electricity and pirated property (software, movies, music etc.) have kept the population from bursting out in anger for years. However, in the changed conditions after October 2000, the intention to join the European integration processes means we will be forced to accept two principles: the rule of law and market economy. As for the first principle, courts are regaining their authority pretty slowly, although there is substantial consent within the population that they should pay taxes, respect regulations and cease with any illegal or semi-legal activities which helped them survive during the former period. Market economy, however, begins with privatisation.

Privatisation law is currently being discussed in the parliament. It looks like a compromise between what is called here "shock therapy" (meaning - fire everybody you have to, sell state property quickly and then think what to do once you have the money) and status quo from the Milosevic era, known as "buddy privatisation" (meaning - restricted for the 'buddies', i.e. the chosen loyal businessmen who would split up all the property and snatch the profit). As all the Milosevic trademarks, "buddy privatisation" was accompanied by a seductive cover story: no factories would become majority owned by foreigners, which means 51% (or more) would become the property of the workers, since they would all get the initial equal share of the stocks once the privatisation process began. Many ill-informed workers, and even some trade unions, bought this story, which reminded them of the nostalgic years of the former Yugoslavia when the property was 'common' (as they believed, theirs). Of course, the story was just a fairy tale: in reality, most companies were not privatised at all, since Milosevic's cronies were waiting for them to deteriorate as much as possible so that they could be bought off at ridiculous prices in the end. Those that got privatised were in most cases bought by their former state-appointed executives and their next of kin. True, many workers were given stocks - but hardly any of them knew what those pieces of paper actually meant, and they were often willing to sell them to their 'kind' executives at the prices which to them seemed gigantic (a couple of grand) at the time their monthly salaries equalled 20 DEM or even less. Now it is too late to ask for the stocks back.
The new Government has therefore decided to stop this process and initiate a new type of privatisation - tender-based sell-out to foreign companies (up to 70% of the firms privatised). Their main argument is, paradoxically, historical: since Serbia is ten years late compared with the rest of the transition countries, it can at least take advantage of the historical perspective and not repeat the mistakes associated with some of those countries. One of the mistakes, as claimed by the Cabinet, is giving out free stocks to the workers.
Since the opposition has been using this fact to accuse the government of unfairness and even open brutality to the workers' rights, finance minister Djelic and privatisation minister Vlahovic have been at pains lately to explain to Serbian workers that it would be much better for them to become ordinary, but well-paid labour force in foreign-owned stable factories than 'owners' of non-existent property or, even worse, shareholders of factories up to their ears in debt. But the rhetoric of the opposition in the parliament seems to have alarmed the workers of their rights, and many trade unions are unwilling to comply with the total sell-out of the factories to foreign investors.
There is yet another problem behind the grain. Foreign businessmen care about profit, and profit only, regardless of their mild rhetoric assuring the workers they will all be taken care of. This means many will have to be fired. Large industrial complexes, based mostly in Nis (Electronic and Machine Industries, with smaller factories almost 40,000 workers altogether - with their families almost a half of the city population) and in Kragujevac (with Zastava automobile plant, hosting 11,500 workers). With no investment over the last 10 years, with no former Yugoslav or Soviet markets, these plants have been decaying for years. Their workers have got used to the minimal wages, amounting to 10-30 DEM a month, fictitious job positions (since they don't really work at all) and spending most of their spare time either selling smuggled clothing garments at the local flea market or ploughing their village estate and selling food in town. Their official salaries are indeed humiliating, but they believe they are at least socially secure, since they are officially employed, so no one can deny them their pension. Those who work hardly do what they are qualified for - the horrid reality has made the Machine Industry in Nis use one of its formerly most distinguished facilities for growing mushrooms! Similar stories are heard all over the country.

The Government has been trying to convince the workers that "reducing the labour force" does not mean that they are all automatically fired, but that there would be pre-qualification programmes and guaranteed social aid for the expenses. But the figures are unforgiving: out of 11,500 people, only 4,500 will be kept in the Zastava automobile plant. The rest will not be officially fired, but "pre-qualified" - though no one really knows how frightening this word sounds to a 55-year-old worker who has been assembling cars for the last 35 years. No wonder the trade unions of the factory yesterday (25 june) announced a new strike, although they seemed to have reached an agreement with the Government only five days before. On the other hand, the Government is rushing to extradite Milosevic and others, hoping it would get about $1 billion at the Donor's Conference Friday, and use the money obtained primarily for stifling expected social blows during the autumn.

Finally, some blows have come already. Although "shock therapy" is too tough a phrase, the Government has already carried out some unpopular decisions, such as allowing the prices of food, petrol and electricity to go up. The remaining unpleasant pill to be swallowed is the price of stable and mobile telephony, which was to rise for 60%, but the figure allowed by the Government yesterday stopped at 35%. Finance minister Djelic said earlier this was an important step for many reasons: first, this convinced the IMF that we were serious about the reform, including its less popular sides, such as allowing reasonable prices of basic articles and services; second, these prices have reached their limit for this year, and they cannot go any higher, whereas salaries are expected to continue (?) growing throughout the year, which means truly better standard of the population.
But the population is anxious. Along with these, other prices are also going up, and average monthly salaries of 150 DEM, even though twice higher than those of the previous year, are simply too low to cover even the most basic expenses.
The Serbian Government is therefore in a very delicate position. The latest polls have shown about 50% of the population still firmly in favour of the reform and the new cabinet. But the underlying message was: "do something that will make us feel at least small benefits of what you are doing, and do it quickly, or else..." Premiere Djindjic and his staff know this, and this is why they are rushing towards the Donor's Conference in Brussels and privatisation law.

Il diario di Agostino Zanotti sul viaggio a Travnik per testimoniare al processo contro Paraga, il responsabile del gruppo di militari che il 29 maggio del '93 presso Gornj Vakuf sparò contro i componenti di un convoglio umanitario uccidendo Fabio Moreni, Sergio Lana e Fabio Puletti. Solo Agostino e Christian Penocchio si salvarono. Ora devono testimoniare