The Romanian Serbs' Problem With NATO (1999)

Serb Support (1999): Romania’s Serb minority number 30,000. They’re torn between a government with ambitions to join NATO and their historic allegiance to Serbia.

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The town of Belobresca in the Southeast of Romania lies just 200 meters from the Yugoslav border. Most of the residents are Serbian. "We Serbs feel like Serbs everywhere,” says poet Ljubica Raicic, donning her anti-NATO ‘target’ badge. “The bombs do not hit our homes, they hit our hearts.” Since the start of NATO bombing, Romanian Serbs here have held festivals in support of their orthodox brothers across the Danube. Nobody knows much about the plight of the Kosovar Albanians here, the reports in the Western media are dismissed as propaganda and lies. In Bucharest, the protest banners are the same as they’ve been in Belgrade, “Stop the NATO Nazis” they read. Romania had hoped to be included in the second round of the NATO-expansion, so they grimly supported the North-Atlantic troops in the Kosovo conflict. But they have lost the approval of the people. Only a year ago, 90% of Romanians were in favour of NATO-Admission, today 70% of them are ‘sceptical’. For the Kosovan refugees who’ve set-up camp in the mountains in Valea Minisului the future is uncertain. In a country that can barely feed itself, they do not expect to be welcomed. With a government turned West and a people turned East, Romania has been utterly divided by the Kosovo crisis.

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ABC Australia – Ref. 0593