No Subject

["Oddone Virginio" <oddovir@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear colleagues,

I'm not good at making international pleas (I never did one before), but I
was thinking first of all of a sort of "summary" of actual scientific
knowledge on some of the long-term problems linked to the Kosovars'
tragedy, especially as it concerns children.  In addition,  it should be
addressed to Serbians (and Serbian intellectuals and scientists) too. So I
dare to submit to you the following draft, which I discussed with other
colleagues, particularly Raelene Freitag (Rfreitagmw@aol.com) and Prof.
Pratto and other friends. In my opinion, we should address to the problems
which, in the present emergency, are either overlooked or totally ignored,
essentially the late consequences of the exposition of children to
violence, and to that specific form of violence linked to ethnic cleansing
(which, in turn, is not new, since Kosovo comes after Bosnia). The draft
sounds as follows:

 "Attention is now focused on the short term needs of the expelled people
of Kosovo and on the survivors of bloody "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo. This
is understandable because  the dire need for food, shelter, and medical
care are immediate tangible realities at the Kosovo border.  Scientific
knowledge has piled up, since the 19th century, about the long term effects
deleterious short and long terms effects of disruption of normal family
life, of violence - received or witnessed - by children, of forced
relocation on the weak members of any society.  We know: 

 A.  At the biological level, the living conditions and the disruption of
sanitary and of preventive services will halt efforts toward the
implementation of WHO goals for complete immunization coverage against
important viral diseases in the Balkan area. The unavoidable rediffusion of
expelled persons in other countries, by illegal routes, will increase the
number of unvaccinated persons, thus increasing the risk of sudden
explosions of diseases (as happened in Russia with diphtheria), which will,
in turn, 
affect unvaccinated or insufficiently immunized persons in the host
countries.
 B.  In sociological and psychological terms, what's happening in the
former Yugoslavia is - simply stated - a demonstration the roles of that
violence and hatred pay, in terms of personal, economic, social, and
political success. Leaders of paramilitary groups have secured advantages
for themselves and their followers  far beyond to those enjoyed by
noncombatant people in Yugoslavia even in times of peace. Such behavior
encourages more violence and hatred as examples to be followed by others.  
A  reorientation of the cultures of the area may occur, with a greater
emphasis on values of violence and hatred, which are incompatible with  the
value systems of complex modern societies.  In turn, this will increase the
marginalization of those 
violent cohort communities, and encourage the emigration of the best
members of those societies, thus increasing the 
isolation and backwardness of those remaining. These groups will become the
"back alleys" of the modern world, used for 
the dirty jobs (which our societies will unfortunately continue to need),
but will be cut off from the mainstream of modern civilization and wealth.
 C.  Exposing children, both the children of victims and the children of
killers, to a "violence-pays" culture, will ensure that future generations
of the area will be contaminated by the culture of violence and hatred. 
Due to the massive and far-reaching migrations prompted by the destruction
in the former Yugoslavia, the seeds of such a culture will be dispersed
world-wide, providing the roots for future increases in criminal,
political, and inter-personal violence. At a more personal level, children 
of victims and children of killers will be at high risk of developing
personality problems, mental illness, and maladjustment.  These children
then  increase the abnormality of life in their communities as well as add
extra social and economic difficulties to our communities.
 D.  Reconstructing a decent framework of life for children implies at
least the following interventions: 
	1. support for a reunification of families as soon as possible; 
	2. facilitation of contacts with relatives in the "outside" (in this case,
the Serbian-controlled area); 
	3.  psychological help, with as little use of  psychotropic drugs as
possible; 
	4. restarting educational activities as soon as possible; 
	5. protection of the original values of the "victim community";  
	6. re-organizing, even in the camps, of a minimum  "rule of law" even in
family matters; 
	7. prevention of reactive misbehavior (violent, hyperprotective and/or
neglecting) by victimized parents toward their 	     offspring among the
refugees. 
 E.  International volunteers and professional helpers of the displaced
groups should receive basic information about child and family protection
and the main symptoms of child maltreatment. Protocols to treat such
occurrences among the displaced and forcedly relocated groups should be
developed.
 F.  Listserv members are ready, as individuals, as members of their
academic communities, and as members of local and 
national communities, to help in these activities.
 G.  The experience gathered in the Kosovo case should be used in order to
develop protocols for all such occurrences, in any part of the world, for
any group, community, race, or country.
 H.  We hope the Serbian professionals in the area of child protection will
help in this operation of international solidarity about - and around -
children."

To all this I would add a few more thoughts:

I. Serbs are taken away most of young and adult males from their families.
We don't know how many will return, there is a possibility of a "repeat" of
Srebrenica in Bosnia, Vukovar in Croatia, with the killing of thousands of
men. Other will die for other reasons, other will join the UCK and will die
in war. The net result will be the the formation of a huge amount of giant
"one-parent families", with Mom being left to take care of everything, from
feeding to breawinning to educating and disciplining of no less than 4 - 5
children (Kosovar Albanians have large families, are prolific; their
demographic success has been one of the reasons of the Serbian
nationalists' hatred against them). You all know, better than I do, what
this means in terms of future risks for both the family and each child in
it.

II. We do have now abundant data (among them those from the researches of
David Strauss and coworkers of UC at Riverside) about the death
consequences of relocation, of both handicapped and the elderly. I'm
finding here in Turin rates of death within the first 30 days from transfer
into a nursing home ranging from 7% to 10% of all new entrants, even in
not-too-bad structures, with as high as a quarter of all entrants not
surviving the first year in the nursing home. David Strauss found an
increase in mortality in California above 60% for the retarded people after
relocation. This happens in California and in North-western Italy, in
condition which, though below our WESTERN ideal standards, are not
infamous; think of what will happen of the elderly and the handicapped in
the Albanian, Macedonian and Montenegro camps: it will be not "ethnic" but
"genetic" cleansing. Of course this will please a good many economists (no
pensions for Kosovar elderly and handicapped for a number of decades); I
don't know if anybody else will be pleased. Yesterday evening I saw on the
Italian TV a scene of the flow of Kosovars at the Marini checkpoint in
Albania; among them I caught a glimpse of a handicapped adult (very
probably a spastic one), limping his way through the frontier helped by an
ageing woman, terror in his eyes. Does he deserves attention and life?

III. The destruction of elderly of both sexes implies the destruction of
the bearers of tradition. A community and its children will be stripped of
their cultural heritage and, moreover, of the right to accept or refuse it,
of the chance of contributing to its growth and transmission.


Forgive, please, my many mistakes and - moreover - my "heat" in discussing
this problem.


Virginio



Virginio Oddone MD
V. Avogadro 6
10121 - Torino (Italy)
e-mail: oddovir@ipsnet.it