France - The change of paradigm?

I was very happy the last week to be able to attend the Mona Ozouf's conference in Berlin. I had the occasion to read many of her books since I was at the university, together with the works of Pierre Nora being valuable tools in guiding me across the complicate world of national symbolism and painful national identities. In the last months I followed the various political interventions from France regarding the national paradigm and its possible crisis or, at least, the lack of adaptability to the daily reality from the Hexagone.

The conference was interesting and useful as an update of reevaluating the crisis from the point of view of the possibilities to go beyond the current conflict at the level of mentalities. Because, as Mona Ozouf outlined by various examples, the theoretical reality included by the political definitions of identity don't correspond to the daily and human reality of nowadays France. A ministry of national identity will not solve the increasing tensions by symbolic interventions in the educational system, as singing the Marseillaise or preaching about the common identity.

On the other hand, the messianic vision of a France fighting for universal values is contradicted by the daily reality of the diversity - regional, religious, ethnic. You might not recognize the idea of minority - of any kind - but it doesn't mean those minority don't exist or will accept to give up their identities. The structures and histories of the communities you have to deal are diverse and with different relations to modernity and various reasons - economic and political mainly - to choose France as their home country. Theoretically and simplified, if you are entering my house, you have to accept the rules of the house, isn't it? But you cannot impose me what to say or what to dress or what to eat! It is against the general value of human rights. And if you are not able to convince me by your "soft power" that I have to adjust my attitude, it is, perhaps, an error in the projection of the whole system, isn't it?

Purposely I will not refer to specific situations and cases: as the burqa prohibition. Our secular Western values and societies are in obvious contradiction with some values preached in the anti-Western religious communities from the Middle East. The dramatic tension is the result of two opposite standpoints, refusing any kind of dialogue and critical thinking.

But the daily human, social and political reality is different of the historical projections from the history books. The "glorious past" of France is not the necessary liaison to reinforce a national profile. We are living global, this is obvious, but our global world is made up of various networks and communities, created by individuals with different backgrounds. You can be in the same time European, France citizen, Hindi speaker and with a strong Corsican identity. It might be contradictory in some cases, hard to understand, but there we need first to map the reality, to understand it and after to find solutions, new solutions for new realities.

Sommer time

and intercultural problems on the beach.

in Egypt

and

in France.

And what the "burqini" creator thinks about.


Plus: another view from the Middle East: the religious Israeli beaches customers.

New violences against Roma in Hungary

Another deadly attack against the Roma community.

There are here two problems.

Roma is a huge transnational minority, with lots of problems and, mainly in Eastern Europe, lacking the proper organisation allowing them to defend in an organised way their rights. EU is mostly unable to tackle this issue, as the Central and Eastern European countries should go beyond a long inherited racism.

On the other side, you have an increasing violent and aggresive extreme-right, targeting - for the moment - mostly the Roma minority, without being countered with the proper tough actions. Finding the perpetrators of deadly attacks is in many cases a closed case, without any result.

Are the Central European countries ables to react in full awareness to those past threats to their present and future?

Gurkhas: Q&A

The Guardian
April 24

Background to the campaign to give Gurkha veterans who left army before 1997 automatic right to settle in UK

Who are the Gurkhas?

The Brigade of Gurkhas are Nepalese soldiers who have been recruited to the British army since a peace treaty between the two countries was signed in 1815.

They have fought as British soldiers in two world wars and many other conflicts including those in the Falklands, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan.

They were described by a high court judge in 2003 as having "established a reputation as frontline troops which is second to none".

Do Gurkhas have the same rights as other foreign soldiers?

Since 1980, the Home Office has allowed foreign soldiers to settle in the UK in most circumstances, but Gurkhas have been excluded.

Home secretaries have said the terms of their service were different in order to maintain their links to Nepal.

While they were in active service, Gurkhas could enter and remain in the UK but, once finished, they were discharged to Nepal and not allowed to settle in Britain.

Is this still the case?

The government has become increasingly aware of public concern about the treatment of Gurkhas.

In 2003, the then prime minister and home secretary, Tony Blair and David Blunkett, delivered statements acknowledging that "the men of the Gurkha brigade have shown unquestioning loyalty to the Queen and people of the United Kingdom".

In 2004, the Home Office changed its policy and said Gurkhas who had been discharged from the army after 1997 could apply for indefinite leave to remain in the same way as other foreign soldiers.

What changed in 1997?

Until then, the Brigade of Gurkhas was based in Hong Kong.

After the handover of Hong Kong to China that year, the brigade relocated to the UK.

Gurkhas discharged before 1997 would not have been based in the UK, whereas Gurkhas discharged after that point were, so the year became the cutoff point.

What about Gurkhas discharged before 1997?

Hong Kong-based Gurkhas discharged before the handover were only likely to be granted settlement if they had served in the UK for at least three years.

Many Gurkhas had served in the army for long periods in other parts of the world, but had not spent three consecutive years in the UK.

The Home Office had the discretion to allow these Gurkhas to settle if they had children being educated in the UK, or had a chronic, long-term medical condition where treatment would significantly improve their quality of life.

The Gurkhas in court today claim this policy has very rarely been used in their favour and that even those with substantial and threatening medical conditions have not been granted settlement.

Why did the Home Office stand its ground?

Two reasons were given for the government's stance.

Firstly, as the pre-1997 Gurkhas were discharged to Nepal, they were seeking permission to enter, rather than remain in, the UK, putting them on a different footing to other foreign soldiers.

Secondly, the fact they were based in Hong Kong rather than the UK meant they had not developed the same "close ties" with Britain as other foreign soldiers who were based in the UK.

What did the pre-1997 Gurkhas argue?

They said their treatment was discriminatory and a violation of the human rights and race relations acts because they were being treated differently to other foreign soldiers and to other Gurkhas who were discharged after 1997.

They argued that the home secretary behaved irrationally by making three years service at British barracks – as opposed to service abroad, including in conflict zones – the criterion.

The current policy, which does not apply to pre-1997 Gurkhas, does allow foreign soldiers to count time spent serving abroad towards their application for UK citizenship.

The Gurkhas argue that their long and distinguished record of service for the British army, heavy losses in conflict zones and dedication to the UK should be given more weight than the amount of time they actually spent on UK soil.

What are the implications of the case?

If the policy is changed, it is estimated that between 7,000 and 10,000 Gurkhas may settle in Britain.

OSCE's human rights office, minority commissioner express concern over violence targeting Roma

WARSAW/THE HAGUE, 7 April 2009 - Ahead of tomorrow's (April 8th) International Roma Day, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) expressed concern over the continuing discriminatory treatment and exclusion of Roma and the recent escalation in hate-motivated incidents and racist rhetoric reported in a number of European countries.

In a joint statement with the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights issued today, the two OSCE institutions call for concerted action from responsible authorities to eradicate all forms of discrimination and violence against Roma.

"In times of economic crisis, communities such as the Roma, along with migrants and other vulnerable groups, tend to become easy scapegoats for extremist movements and populist politicians," said the statement.

"Such 'scapegoating' has already resulted in damaging inter-ethnic relations and an increase in the number of violent hate crimes in some countries."

The joint statement calls on political leaders to "unequivocally and publicly condemn all forms of violence targeting the Roma". It also urges politicians and other public figures to carefully consider their statements, and journalists to apply ethical reporting rules, in order to avoid inciting ethnic tensions.

Turkey disregards minority rights in schools

Ayla Jean Yackley
Reuters, International Herald Tribune

March 16

Nearly half of the children of internally displaced ethnic Kurds in Turkey are unable to attend school and other minorities face institutional discrimination in education, a report said on Monday.

Nurcan Kaya, author of the report by Minority Rights Group International, said a failure to provide equal access to education for children from non-Turkish backgrounds could hamper the country's bid to join the European Union, which has called on Turkey to expand cultural rights for its ethnic minorities.

"The discrepancy between EU standards on education for minorities and those in Turkey will ultimately affect Turkey's efforts to join the EU," Kaya said at a news conference.

"The EU should give this issue greater priority during Turkey's accession process," she said.

Turkey only recognises Greeks, Armenians and Jews as minorities under a treaty that ended World War One and doesn't afford special rights to other ethnic or religious groups, including Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of the population, Roma, Syriac Christians, Alevi Muslims and others.

Millions of Kurds over the last three decades have left the countryside in southeast Turkey for urban centres to find work and escape fighting between the army and Kurdish separatists.

Forty-eight percent of these families questioned said they were unable to send their children to school after moving, citing poverty as the main obstacle, according to the London-based NGO's report, which was funded by the EU.

Literacy rates are 73 percent in the mainly Kurdish southeast, compared to 87 percent in the country's more affluent west, the report said. Only 60 percent of women are able to read in the Kurdish region, it also said.

Turkey has eased restrictions on the Kurdish language, which was completely banned until 1991, and language courses are now available at a handful of universities.

Kurdish children, as well as other ethnic groups, who attend state school are unable to study their mother tongue, the report concluded.

Officially recognised minorities operate their own schools and are able to teach some classes in Greek or Armenian, but are given as little as $1 per student annually in financial assistance from the government, said Garo Paylan of the Armenian Foundation Schools at the news conference.

Minority schools are unable to find properly trained teachers and updated textbooks, he said. A Turkish assistant principal employed by the Education Ministry is the main authority at the schools.

Religious education that teaches the Sunni Hanafi creed of Islam remains mandatory in state schools and non-adherents can only opt out of classes if they disclose their faith, which violates Turkey's secular constitution, the report said.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that religion classes in Turkey's state schools violate pluralism in a case brought by an Alevi father.

See also:

about Alevi

The report of Minority Rights Group International

Roma bear brunt of Hungary downturn

Thomas Escritt in Miskolc, Hungary

Financial Times

February 20

When night falls in Hetes, a gypsy settlement on the edge of the northern Hungarian town of Ózd, the men take to the streets and mount a guard, arming themselves with all kinds of makeshift weapons, from clubs to kitchen knives.

"We're up all night," said Henrik Radics, his hands resting on a scythe. "If a car comes in, we stop it and find out what they're doing. If they're peaceful we let them go."

Mr Radics and his companions took matters into their own hands after a spate of incidents that culminated in a house being set ablaze and plans by Magyar Garda, a rightwing uniformed group that claims to protect ethnic Hungarians from "gypsy crime", to hold a recruitment rally in the city.

Ózd is typical of the towns of Borsod county: once a proud industrial centre with a giant steel plant, it has struggled since the fall of communism in 1989, with no employers emerging to create jobs on the scale of defunct socialist-era heavy industries.

But the economic downturn in central and eastern Europe has added new urgency to a problem of marginalisation that goes back decades. Surveys show Hungarians, like many of their neighbours in the region, nurture strong feelings of prejudice against gypsies. That means Roma stand to be hit first and hardest by rising unemployment, which stands at 14 per cent in Borsod county, with its high gypsy population, twice the national level. With the government's own forecasts predicting that the economy will contract by 2.7 per cent this year, unemployment is set to rise sharply.

"The matter has reached critical mass," said Peter Hack, a criminologist. "With the economic downturn, the traditional scapegoat hunt has happened. Since there are no immigrants in Hungary, the Roma are the target."

Zsolt Farkas, a gypsy in Miskolc, Hungary's third largest city and the county's capital, speaks for many when he says work is becoming impossible to find.

"I worked on an assembly line at Bosch, and then I installed shutters in houses, but now it's impossible to find a job. When . . . they see I'm a gypsy, they're no longer interested."

Last month the Movement for a Better Hungary, a far-right party, won 8 per cent in a district election in Budapest after campaigning on a slogan of "gypsy crime". Last week Albert Pasztor, police chief in Miskolc, attracted opprobrium and praise in equal measure when he told a press conference that "all the muggings" on a Miskolc council estate over the past two months had been committed by gypsies, adding: "Hungarian and gypsy culture can't live together." He was suspended on the orders of the justice minister but reinstated less than 24 hours later after a chorus of protest from senior police officers, a cross-party show of support from the city's local government and a 1,000-strong rally well attended by skinheads.

This week the gypsy panic reached hysteria when three professional handball players from Croatia, Romania and Serbia were stabbed in a nightclub, allegedly by a 30-strong gang of gypsies, in the western city of Vesz-prem. The Romanian, Marian Cozma, a rising star, died from his wounds.

In the wake of the murder, Ferenc Gyurcsany, the socialist prime minister, promised to "act decisively" against violence, and the rightwing opposition party said the government's focus should be on catching criminals. "The number of serious crimes committed by people of gypsy origin is rising at an alarming pace," it said.

Janos Ladanyi, a sociologist, says that gypsies, deprived first by resettlement programmes in the 1970s of their traditional itinerant lifestyle and then by the deindustrialisation of the 1990s of the low-skilled jobs on which they depended, have turned to crime, both petty and organised.

"We now have a population that's lived completely outside society for 20 years. Every so often, somebody calls for a quick, simplistic solution, which leads to an outbreak of gypsy-related panic, except this time the economic crisis makes it more serious," he said.

This excluded group, which makes up six per cent of Hungary's population, is also the fastest growing.

"If we can't integrate them into the labour force, then the long-term stability of the fiscal system is in question," said Gordon Bajnai, the economics minister. A package of €2bn ($2.5bn, £1.8bn) to be ploughed into the construction industry is part of the answer, he says, creating the kind of low-skilled jobs this population needs.

Immigration issues and racism on Facebook. Concerns in Italy

The on-line environment and the social networks are the favorite and cheapest way to share fast and cost-free your ideas and thoughts. The principle of the freedom of speech is an advantage able to wave on various occasions. Including when you use it for expressing your hate, and even the incitement to kill.

In Italy the anti-immigration campaign is continuing, two days before the discussion of the security package by the Council of Ministers. The package was drafted by the Minister of Interior, Roberto Maroni, representing the anti-immigration Northern League. He also announced its intention to call for a G8 reunion, this May, dedicated to countering the illegal immigration. Also this Friday, the Senate is expected to discuss an anti-rape decree, issued by the same minister, aiming to prevent and counter those crimes. Last Saturday, the Italian media covered the case of a 14 year old girl, raped by a man of Romanian origin.

The Italian president, Giorgio Napolitano, rejected recently one of the key of the security package, the creation of volutarily militia units, working alongside the police force in the operations of identification of people considered a security problem. In the last two years, such units operated at informal level in various towns in Italy and were involved in various actions against the Roma people and immigrants, including the arson attack on the Roma settlement from Milan, in 2007. Between November 2005 and June 2007 the so-called “Black Panda Gang” made up of private citizens and members of the police force, were guilty of many cases of beatings, violence and kidnapping carried out against illegal immigrants.

Among the provisions of the package it is also the requirement for doctors to denounce to the police their patients, if they detain information they are illegal immigrants. According to Vivere Italia, Sveva Belviso, in charge with the social policies at the Mayory of Rome, created a Facebook group where the members are encouraged to offer information about the illegal Roma camps. Out of the 352 members - as for yesterday - 14 of them already reported such situations.

Also on Facebook, a couple of groups - whose age range of the members is mostly between 20-40 - are preaching various actions against the immigrants, mainly Romanians (rom+rum, Quelli che odiano i romeni, Piacere di conoscerti??? /ironisation of the logo a recent public affairs campaign of Romania in Italy etc.) - but also Chineses, Albanians, Tunisians. You could find there: anti-immigration posters; calls for expelling of all Romanians or even for coordinate action to aggress and kill them; solidarity with the victims of rape, violence and murder; call for individuals to do justice "by themselves, as long as the Italian justice is inefficient"; expulsion of Chinese immigrants. On the other side, the Romanian and anti-racism groups are almost absent, groups as "Against fingerprinting of the Roma community" or "Stop Discrimination against Romanians" aren't active for one, respectively almost two years.

The anti-immigration discourse is a constant of the last years in the Italian politics. As a leader of the opposition, in November 2007, the current prime-minister, Silvio Berlusconi, urged Italy to close its borders to Romanian workers and a conservative ally, from the Northern League called for an expulsion of tens of thousands of immigrants, after a wave of alleged crimes by foreigners.

The targets of the "citizen justice" are not only Romanians - after the rape of the 14 year girl, in the North of Sardinia, ten Italians entered and attacked in their house two men and one woman of Romanian origin - but other immigrants as well. On February 4, the Italian president called for a stop to xenophobia and racist violences, after an Indian man was beaten and set on fire near Rome. Navtej Singh Sidhua, a 35 year-old homeless working in constructions, was attacked while sleeping rough at a train station at the seaside town of Nettuno near Rome. Police have arrested two adults and a minor, who have confessed pouring petrol on him and setting him on fire. The reason: according to the Police sources quoted by ANSA news agency, the group wanted to "cap off" a night on the town, fuelled by drugs and alcohol, by doing something "sensational, to experience an intense emotion". In late October, a Chinese immigrant was beaten up by teenagers, while waiting for a bus in Rome and a young student from Ghana was beaten by Parma traffic police who mistook him for a drug posher.

According to statistics covering more than ten years, the assumption of a possible increase of the level of crime under the effect of the recent immigration waves is not covered by the reality.

Looking for scapegoats

The headline is back: The Italian politicians are angry against the increase of crimes committed by
immigrants originary from Eastern Europe. Berlusconi's centre-right coalition won the elections with a tough message against crime and he should continue to feed its voters by rhetorics, not by valuable steps to counter a phenomenon not suddenly appearing with the enlargement of the EU. But now it is possible to dilute the responsability, by focusing mostly of the ethnic origin of the perpetrators. As long as they hold IDs with citizenship of an EU country, they have to be treat exclusively as citizens of another EU country, and to apply in their case the rules and regulations available in this case.

If they are staying in camps, illegaly, in the suburbs of various Italian cities, the question is how it was possible to let them stay for so long? If they are begging in the street, try to apply the law and treat them as citizens who infringed this law.

For the individuals with criminal records, they are inter-state agreements according to which they could be extradited in their country of origins. Fingerprinting them, as it was asked at the end of the last year, it's again only a populist measure, without solving in fact the problem and only fuel the xenophobic feelings. Which is quite dangerous, because fueling also in their country of origin the ancient resentments. In Romania, they are often portrayed as being guilty of the bad image of the country abroad and such a positioning is nothing else than a green light encouraging the radical discourses.

On the other side, in the case of Roma the issue is a bit complicate and request a multi-layered approach. Many of them are simply victims of the human trafficking regional networks, both in their country of origin, than in Italy. Some of them don't even know where they are going to and they are simply exploited for prostitution or producing money. The NGOs should get more involved by preventing and protecting these people to get abused as well as to ensure their rights as full citizens are respected.

Moderation is sometimes an unsuccesful political strategy. But appealing to basic human feelings of hate, you open Pandora's box. Today, they are the Roma, tomorrow, they could be replaced easily by other ethnic groups. The general opinion is already prepared for everything.

FACTBOX - Myanmar's Rohingya - who are they?

Reuters
January 30

Myanmar's junta stepped into the deepening Rohingya crisis on Friday, denying any of the Muslim boat people washing up in Thailand, India and Indonesia were from its soil, but promising to take unspecified "measures".

Following are some facts about the Rohingya people, 550 of whom are feared to have drowned in the last two months after being towed out to sea by the Thai military and set adrift in rickety wooden boats:

-- The Rohingya are a Muslim minority in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, formerly Burma. The military government does not recognise them as one of the country's around 130 ethnic minorities.

-- Most Rohingya come from Rakhine State, also known as Arakan State, in northwest Myanmar, abutting the border with Bangladesh.

In a 2004 report, Amnesty International said there were between 700,000 and 1.5 million Muslims in Rakine, most of them Rohingya.

-- Their roots are disputed and unclear, although Rohingya groups in exile trace their ancestry back as far as 9th century Arab merchants and settlers.

Such groups deny a prevailing Burmese version of history which suggests they descend from Bengali-speaking Muslim labourers brought in by Britain after it annexed the region as a province of British India in the 1820s.

-- When Burma won independence in 1948, the Bengali-speaking Muslim population near the border exceeded that of the Buddhists, leading to secessionist and political tensions.

This translated into harassment following the 1962 coup that has led to nearly five decades of military rule by the ethnic Burman majority. Thousands fled to Bangladesh to escape a 1978 military census of the Rohingya called "Operation Dragon".

-- In 1991, another wave of Rohingya fled to Bangladesh, where the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says more than 200,000 now live a perilous, stateless existence.

The Bangladeshi government runs two camps funded by the UNHCR, but only 28,000 people are officially recognised.

-- Rohingya in northwest Myanmar are restricted from travelling inside the country, and those in Bangladesh have little prospect of ever returning home.

As a result, thousands have fled to try to start new lives, chancing their luck at sea in wooden boats.

Many are aiming for Malaysia, home to 14,300 officially registered Rohingya. Saudi Arabia also has a sizeable Rohingya population.

-- The Rohingya have seldom hit the headlines. One exception was in April 2004, when a group armed with axes and knives burst into the Myanmar embassy in Kuala Lumpur, attacked embassy officials and set fire to the building.

(Sources: Reuters News, Arakan Rohingya National Organisation, Amnesty International, UNHCR)

(Additional reporting by Aung Hla Tun in Yangon; Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Darren Schuettler)

TIME - A closer look at Burma's minorities

Kosovo's poisoned generation

By Nick Thorpe BBC News, Kosovo January 14

A small child is sweeping the yard outside her home - anywhere else the scene would be touching - but here in the Cesmin Lug refugee camp in northern Kosovo, it is tragic.

The children are sick with lead poisoning.

The camps were built close to the Trepca lead mine and smelting works.

The factory was closed by order of the UN administration in Kosovo, in 2000. But the slag heaps were never cleaned up.

The lead blackens the children's teeth, blanks out their memory, and stunts their growth.

The children swing between bursts of nervous hyperactivity, and something like a coma. Some have epileptic fits.

This is the worst ever lead poisoning that we know of in Europe Dorit Nitzan WHO regional office, Belgrade

"Every child conceived in these camps will be born with irreversible brain damage," says Paul Polanski, a US human rights activist based in Nis, Serbia.

"Everyone talks about resettlement, but that's not the problem, the problem is medical treatment."

Dangerous levels

Mr Polanski claims 77 people have died in Cesmin Lug and another nearby town, Osterode, mainly through complications from lead poisoning.

The local UN administration in Mitrovica sees him as a trouble maker.

Lead in the blood is measured in micrograms per decilitre.

"This is the worst ever lead poisoning that we know of in Europe," said Dorit Nitzan, head of the World Health Organization (WHO) regional office in Belgrade.

"We are talking in the tens - 40-50 mg/dl, more than a 100 in the blood... really high levels."

In 2004, the WHO recommended the evacuation of Cesmin Lug, and two more Roma camps at Kablare and Zitkovac.

All had been set up by the UNHCR in 1999 as a temporary measure, when the Roma Mahalla, on the southern shore of the Ibar River, was burnt down by Albanians in the dying days of the conflict over Kosovo.

The Roma want medical treatment not resettlement

In 2006, Kablare and Zitkovac were closed down, and the Roma from there moved to Osterode, a former French army base.

It was polluted by lead too, but after the topsoil was removed and concrete put down, the WHO classified it as "safer" than before, and about 600 Roma, including some from Cesmin Lug, moved in.

Some children began medical treatment, known as "chelation" - to clear the lead from the blood - sponsored by the WHO.

But the success of the treatment assumes that the children have been removed from the source of the pollution - that assumption remains a source of controversy today.

Who is responsible?

In Cesmin Lug, children go barefoot, even in winter, on the polluted earth.

In Osterode there is concrete, running water, and indoor toilets, but still the wind blows the deadly dust through the air.

In May 2008, the UNHCR handed responsibility for the camps to Kosovo.

"It was quite a shock," says Sasa Risic, the minister for communities and returns.

"We were told to solve, immediately, a problem which the UN had not been able to solve for nine years."

The UNHCR turned down our request for an interview, on the grounds that administration of the camps belonged to the UN Mission in Kosovo, Unmik.

"The main culprit is always Unmik, or the UN, but it's not true," said Gyorgy Kakuk, outgoing spokesman of Unmik in northern Mitrovica.

So what can Unmik fairly be blamed for? I asked.

"Our responsibility over the years," he replies carefully, "lies in the fact that we were not tough enough, in bringing those people back, from the beginning."

Children have little protection from the polluted soil

"We always withdrew when we faced resistance."

Resistance came from two sources.

One was the local council in Albanian-run southern Mitrovica, which delayed the rebuilding of the Roma Mahalla, where the gypsies lived before 1999; the other was the Roma in the camps themselves.

Today, the rebuilding of Roma Mahalla in southern Mitrovica, funded by the Dutch and Norwegian governments, is proceeding slowly.

In Phase 1, some 400 Roma returned, but Phase 2 has not yet started.

The US government has also launched a new project to re-house 50 families from Cesmin Lug - but there are complications.

Some Roma at Cesmin Lug told me they were afraid to leave the Serb-controlled north, for the Albanian-majority south, because they feared they would lose their welfare payments - which were still paid by Belgrade.

Others said they would not feel safe living among Albanians again, after what happened in 1999.

Later this month, the WHO will make their next fact-finding visit to the camps.

As a wintry sun sets over the slag heaps, the children sing a nursery rhyme some say dates back to the time of the Great Plague in England.

"Ring a-ring o'roses, a pocket full of posies. A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down."

Slovakia Urged to Take Care of its Roma Population

The situation of Roma in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the problems they are facing in Western Europe are one of the most serious concerning European minorities. For the new EU members, improving the situation of the Roma population was one of the condition of getting the full membership, and the general standard improved, but still they are confronted with serious inequalities and discriminations in terms of recognition of their basic human rights. In addition, in comparison with other minorities, they are lacking a strong and self-aware intellectual leadership able to support their rights. In the case of Roma, we can say that as majorities, we could easily identify them on the street, we can shout their ethnic belonging but, in fact, what we know about them is almost nothing. Their world is still a mistery, but not one that propel us towards dreaming, but one when ignorance kills. Isabel Fonseca is among the few researchers who made a personal journey in the life of Roma communities in Central and Eastern Europe, experiences gathered in a very interesting book. OSI devoted several exhibitions and studies to Roma, among which Rolf Bauerdick's insights of the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe.

Tolerance.ca

Amidst grand celebrations over its switch to euro and entry into euroclub, Universal Society of Hinduism president, Rajan Zed, has urged Slovakia to take care of its most disadvantaged Roma population and stop human rights violations reportedly suffered by them.

Zed says that in Slovakia, Roma reportedly live in deep poverty and many of their children study in segregated schools offering inferior quality education and many do not attend school at all.

Alarming condition of Roma is a social blight for Slovakia and the European Union as they reportedly regularly face social exclusion, racism, substandard education, hostility, joblessness, rampant illness, inadequate housing, lower life expectancy, unrest, living on desperate margins, stereotypes, mistrust, rights violations, discrimination, marginalization, appalling living conditions, prejudice, human rights abuse, unusually high unemployment rates, etc., Rajan Zed argues.

It is like an undeclared apartheid and it is almost total societal exclusion of Roma. The maltreatment of Roma is outside even the European Union norms. Roma issue should be one of the highest priorities of human rights agenda of Slovakia. Strong political will is needed to resolve this, Zed points out.

Roma inclusion and integration programs need to immediately take off the ground providing them with better health and education avenues, higher economic opportunities, sources of empowerment and participation, etc. Expand their access to preschool education, let their children attend mainstream schools and launch awareness campaigns. Available Roma workforce, if utilized effectively, can bring unexpected economic gains to Slovakia, Zed says.

Rajan Zed suggests that Slovakia might need help in improving the plight of Roma. A comprehensive, sustainable, cohesive and integrated Europe-wide policy with strategic focus is needed to target discrimination against Roma and their integration; providing them equal access to education, employment, public services, housing, and health care; empowerment through participation; increased transparency of authorities; improving their material and human rights situation, etc. Involve Roma in policymaking and its implementation and assessment. Establish a monitoring body for programs and projects.

Zed says that all world religions, denominations and religious leaders should also come out in support of the cause of this distinct ethnic and cultural group of Roma, because religion teaches us to help the helpless.