At Risk: Roma and the Displaced in Southeast Europe
Montenegro: There are 8,329 registered refugees in Montenegro (6,090 from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 2,239 from Croatia). Of these, 546 live in collective accommodations. Out of the 17,864 IDPs registered in Montenegro, 1,251 live in collective accommodations. Other estimates suggest that the displaced number some 50,000 - 70,000 – mostly from Kosovo, of which by the end of 2004 some 18,000 were Roma (Jaksic, 2002).
Vulnerability of the displaced
The status of displaced persons in the Western Balkans reflects the specifics of nation-building projects in the region
In addition to the physical hardships of displacement per se, further difficulties are associated with the status of displaced persons who, in the Western Balkans, reflect the specifics of nation-building projects in the region. The distinction between refugees and IDPs depends on whether the displaced person has crossed an internationally recognized state border.73 Until the beginning of the 1990s, internally displaced persons were defined negatively: they were people who had fled their homes, but were not refugees, as they remained within their ‘home’ country (Phuong, 2004). The many changes of borders, statehood, and legal status seen in the Western Balkans during the 1990s – changes which, in all likelihood, have not yet run their course – combined with the displacement of thousands of Roma (some of whom do not have identity documents) underscore the importance of devising a more comprehensive definition of internally displaced persons. An important step was taken in 1992 when the UN Secretary-General proposed a new working definition (UN Doc. E/CN.4/1992, 23, para 7); this definition was revised in 1998. The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement now define internally displaced persons as: “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or
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in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized state border” (UN Doc. E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2). Thus, Serbs who have been displaced from Croatia and settled in Serbia have the status of refugees, while Serbs who have been displaced from Kosovo and settled in Serbia do not (but are instead considered IDPs). The IDP category includes also citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who moved to the entity in which their ethnic group is in the majority and which does not correspond to the entity in which their town of origin is located. The difference is not a matter of semantics: refugees enjoy a specific set of rights under the 1951 Refugee Convention and can avail themselves of protection from the international community, such as UNHCR, UNDP, and UNICEF. IDPs, on the other hand, continue to be protected by the national laws of their State as well as by international human rights and humanitarian law; displacement does not change their status under international law. It is therefore first and foremost their national government which bears the responsibility to protect and assist its IDPs.74 As national authorities might be unable or unwilling to do so, the international community has a right to offer its services, with various agencies and organizations coordinating their responses through the collaborative approach.75 In the Western Balkans, thousands of families have been victims of multiple displacements: during 1992-1996, thousands of Serbian and Roma refugees from Croatia and Bosnia were resettled by the Milosevic government in Kosovo, in order to dilute the numerical preponderance of the Albanian community. Many of these ‘settlers’ had to flee Kosovo when the NATO bombing ended and Kosovar Albanians returned from their displacement. Because many had to leave Kosovo in haste, they did
Compare Article 1 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (according to which a refugee is a person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted […] is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country...”) to UN Doc E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2, Introduction, paragraph 2, The mandate of the representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons is limited to: (1) engaging in coordinated advocacy in favour of the protection and respect of the human rights of IDPs, (2) continuing and enhancing dialogues with governments as well as non-governmental organizations and other actors, (3) strengthening the international response to internal displacement, and (4) mainstreaming the human rights of IDPs into all relevant parts of the UN system (Commission Resolution 2004/55). www.reliefweb.int/idd.