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ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 211812Z MAR 06
FM USOFFICE PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5933
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 0910
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RHMFIUU/USNMR SHAPE BE//INTAF//
RUFNPKD/USDOCO SOUTH NAPLES IT//INTAF//
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PRISTINA 000256 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/SCE, EUR/ACE, DRL, PRM, IO, NSC FOR BBRAUN, 
USUN, BUDAPEST FOR POSNER-MULLEN 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF EAID SENV PHUM UNMIK KDEM YI
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: RECOMMENDATION ON TREATMENT OF ROMA LEAD 
POISONING 
 
REF: 05 PRISTINA 1172 
 
Sensitive but unclassified, please protect accordingly. 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY.  International community stakeholders have 
decided that Roma victims of lead poisoning can be safely 
treated at Osterode, UNMIK's temporary relocation facility. 
Notwithstanding the insistence of Roma leaders that their 
constituents will accept relocation only to their old 
Mitrovica neighborhood, destroyed by ethnic Albanians in 
1999, ten Roma families took up residence at Osterode on 
March 20, after being forced out of their refugee camp by 
flooding and fire.  Post recommends that SEED funding 
earmarked for treatment of Roma lead poisoning be released 
for use in constructing, supplying, and operating a 
convalescence center at Osterode or any other consensus 
venue.  This is not a perfect solution in that we aren't 
certain the Roma will agree to treatment at Osterode and we 
have reservations about plans for the international community 
to deal directly with the technically illegal hospital in 
north Mitrovica run by E.O.-listed Milan Ivanovic.  We 
recommend that the USG endorse the plan, nevertheless, as the 
option with the best potential for mitigating the health 
crisis faced by Roma children.  See action request in 
paragraph 9.  END SUMMARY. 
 
INTERNATIONALS COMMUNITY AGREES ON OSTERODE 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) USOP prevailed upon the major international 
organizations involved in the ongoing Roma lead poisoning 
situation in the Mitrovica vicinity -- World Health 
Organization (WHO), UNICEF, UNMIK, UNHCR -- to join us in a 
March 13 working session.  Based on recommendations of lead 
abatement public health expert AmCit Barry Brooks, who 
recently visited the area from the Centers for Disease 
Control (CDC), these organizations have agreed that victims 
of lead poisoning can be safely treated at a 
treatment/convalescence center planned for the former French 
KFOR base Osterode, already retrofitted to house refugees. 
 
¶3. (SBU) UNMIK's Neville Fouche told poloff on March 20 that 
55 Roma from ten families have appeared at Osterode in recent 
days.  Most of these Roma are from the Kablar refugee camp, 
which had experienced severe flooding and sewage 
contamination this winter and a fire on March 19.  Others are 
from the Cesmin Lug camp.  Fouche said Osterode is ready to 
house all 500-plus Roma living in lead-contaminated camps in 
the Mitrovica vicinity.  Fouche and UNMIK are hopeful that 
other Roma will find their way to Osterode notwithstanding 
the insistence of Roma leaders that their constituents will 
relocate only to their old Mitrovica neighborhood (or 
"mahala"), which was completely destroyed in 1999 by ethnic 
Albanians who accused the Roma of collaboration with Serbian 
forces. 
 
UNMIK NEGOTIATES WITH SERB LEADERSHIP 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) Recent WHO testing confirms that children living in 
the Roma camps have dangerously elevated blood lead levels. 
UNMIK has reached agreement with the Serbian Ministry of 
Health in Belgrade for treatment of the children.  The 
ministry operates a hospital in north Mitrovica as one of 
several "parallel institutions," tolerated by UNMIK 
notwithstanding their lack of legal standing in Kosovo 
because they provide essential services to Kosovo Serbs. 
Treatment is to be administered on an in-patient basis for 
five days by ethnic Serb doctors to be trained in lead 
abatement techniques by a WHO-appointed AmCit doctor 
scheduled to arrive in Kosovo on March 27.  The in-patient 
care would be followed by 14 days of outpatient care at 
Osterode. 
 
¶5. (SBU) UNMIK Acting PDSRSG Nell Waring told poloffs and 
polFSN at the March 13 meeting that, in return for allowing 
the Roma to move to Osterode, Serb leadership received from 
UNMIK space in Osterode for what they call utility storage 
(trucks, essentially, whose maintenance, UNMIK says, would be 
 
PRISTINA 00000256  002 OF 002 
 
 
performed by the Roma), and access for Serb children to 
newly-built recreational/playground facilities.  (NOTE. The 
Kosovo Serb leadership contends that Osterode, a former 
Yugoslavia military installation, belongs to Serbia and 
opposes any use of the camp not approved by Belgrade.  END 
NOTE.) 
 
¶6. (SBU) Rand Engel of the NGO Balkans Sunflowers told poloff 
on March 21 that six members of the north Mitrovica Kosovo 
Serb advisory council visited Kablar camp on March 20 and 
persuaded the families victimized by the fire to move to 
Osterode.  Waring believes UNMIK's engagement with parallel 
political and health structures in the north is a "necessary 
political reality" to get a Roma population scared of violent 
Serb repercussions and distrustful of ethnic Albanian medical 
professionals to be effectively treated and moved to the far 
less contaminated environment of Osterode. 
 
¶7. (SBU) COMMENT.  Post's recommendation to address the acute 
lead contamination emergency in the three camps is to fund a 
convalescence center at Osterode.  Placing the convalescence 
center in Osterode is not a perfect solution, and involving a 
parallel structure and an E.O.-listed hospital administrator 
raises obvious concerns, but the action plan indisputably 
addresses the health crisis in a context of what is 
medically, legally, and financially doable.  END COMMENT. 
 
¶8. (SBU) ACTION REQUEST.  Post recommends that SEED funds 
earmarked for the Roma medical emergency be used to fund a 
convalescence center at Osterode.  USG funding would be 
earmarked for reusable, movable equipment - beds, bedding, 
containers - and immediate needs such as food and the 
remainder of medicine not provided by WHO. 
GOLDBERG