Macedonian "Gypsy King" Wants to Fight Alongside Serbs
By Dina Kyriakidou
Reuters
June 30, 1999

SKOPJE, June 30 (Reuters) - Seen by his people as a modern- day Gypsy King, Macedonian parliamentary deputy Amdi Bajram vows to take up arms to defend his Kosovo kin against ethnic Albanian reprisals.

He accuses the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) of wanting an ethnically cleansed Kosovo and says the province's more than 150,000 Gypsies as well as Serbs stand in their way.

"I will go to (Yugoslav President Slobodan) Milosevic and ask him to give us guns to fight the Albanians. I will be on the frontline, leading the assault," the portly 44-year-old grandfather told scores of Kosovo Gypsy refugees in Skopje, who burst out in wild cheers and applause.

Albanians returning to Kosovo to find mass graves and homes destroyed by Serbs have turned against Gypsies, accusing them of collaborating with their oppressors.

Bajram said he was deeply angered by reports of killings and abductions of Kosovo Gypsies and of Gypsy districts being burned to the ground.

"Roma (Gypsies) are blamed for crimes against humanity, for digging graves for mass murderers. In war conditions, with violence and pressure from all sides maybe some people were forced to do such things to survive," he told Reuters.

"The KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) is not committing atrocities against other nationalities? Are they walking around handing out flowers?" he asked.

Bajram said KLA guerrillas fighting for an independent Kosovo wanted to rid the region of all non-Albanians.

"The whole world should know that Roma exist in Kosovo," he said. "Albanians fight for their rights but deny the rights of others. They want an ethnically cleansed Kosovo."

Most estimates put the number of Kosovo Gypsies at 150,000 out of the province's population of 1.8 million but Bajram said the number was closer to 350,000.

The Gypsies of Kosovo were proud of their origins. "They want to keep their identity, that's the problem," Bajram said.

He was received like royalty on a walk through the maze of narrow paths that make up Skopje's Topana Gypsy shantytown, where thousands of Kosovo Gypsies have found refuge.

He shrugged off his people's obvious adoration, saying he was no king: "I'm an elected official. It's even better."

Bajram is a stunning success story-from car window cleaner to textiles manufacturer-as his gold-and-diamond Rolex watch and huge gold ring attest.

"I held my son's wedding on my private jet over lake Ochrid," he said. "I got my grandson baptised Gianni Versace (after the late Italian designer) on a helicopter over the Vardar river."

Not a man to shy away from a grand gesture, the flamboyant Bajram said he left his business to his children and turned to politics in order to help Gypsies.

He is President of the Roma Emancipation Party and the committee coordinating help for about 20,000 Gypsy refugees in Macedonia.

Although the 120,000 Gypsies of ethnically-tolerant Macedonia are represented by three political parties, Bajram is their only deputy in parliament. About 11,000 live in the sprawling, 300-year-old district of Topana.