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Slovak
gypsies riot over cuts to benefits
By
Robert Anderson in
Published:
Impoverished
Slovak gypsies have launched mass protests and begun looting grocery stores
after the rightwing government slashed the social benefits on which most of them
rely.
The food
riots demonstrate the plight of the 375,000-strong gypsy or Roma minority,
three-quarters of whom are estimated to be unemployed, and raises fears over
their potential mass emigration to western Europe once
Hundreds
of angry Roma from shanty towns in eastern
On
Saturday, in the worst incident so far, 200 Roma attacked a supermarket in
Trhoviste. After breaking the windows they took everything they found before
police were called in and arrested 43 people, including 10 children.
"I've
never seen anything like this before," said Jan Krivy, mayor of Trhoviste.
"The government must do something. Roma can't handle this new [benefit] cut."
The
government has assured the EU that it is tackling the problems of its Roma
minority and that there will be no emigration wave once Slovaks are allowed to
work in western Europe after May 1.
But it
has launched a radical welfare reform to push the unemployed back to work by
cutting benefits and raising tax allowances.
For
those long-term jobless who cannot prove they are actively searching for work,
this will cut their unemployment benefit by a half to the equivalent of €50
($63, £34) for a family of four.
One in
four Slovak Roma live in shanty towns in eastern
The
government has so far chosen to view the food riots as simply a police issue and
has blamed rapacious Roma money lenders for provoking the disturbances.
"Tensions
in eastern
The
government will discuss the lootings tomorrow. On the same day Roma groups have
called a nationwide protest against the benefit cuts.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040224/ap_on_re_eu/slovakia_gypsy_protest_1
Tue
Feb 24, 4:33 PM ET
By ANDREA DUDIKOVA, Associated Press Writer
It was the largest deployment of law
enforcement in the Eastern European country since the communist era.
The violence erupted Monday when police
clashed with up to 400 Gypsies, also known as Roma, who had gathered in the
eastern city of
Some of the demonstrators plundered a
grocery store. When police tried to break up the crowd, protesters threw rocks
and glass bottles, Interior Minister Vladimir Palko told reporters.
Palko said police used a water cannons to
try to disperse the crowd — the first time the government has taken such
action since 1989, the year communism ended in then-Czechoslovakia.
Four people were charged with stealing and
one with attacking a police officer.
On Tuesday, police detained 126 Gypsies
nationwide for questioning as more looting was reported, Palko said.
Earlier in the day, President Rudolf
Schuster warned it could grow into a larger wave of social unrest.
The ferocity of the response has raised
awareness of the plight of the Roma, the poorest community in
The pro-business government of Prime
Minister Mikulas Dzurinda implemented the cuts this month in a move the
government contends will motivate the long-term unemployed to seek jobs.
Roma make up about 9 percent of the
country's 5.4 million people. The poorest live in settlements where there are
almost no jobs at all.
Under the new system, two unemployed
parents and five children would be eligible to receive up to $320 per month if
the adults do community work. They previously could receive up to $425 per month.
The head of the Slovak Romany Council, a
group that represents Roma issues, welcomed the deployment of troops, and was
working with police in
http://www.zol.ch/zo/detail.cfm?id=115723
Zürcher
Oberländer
04-02-22
Roma-Randale in der Slowakei
sda/dpa. Seit
Tagen anhaltende Proteste von Angehörigen der Roma-Minderheit (Zigeuner) in
der Ostslowakei sind am Wochenende in organisierte Plünderun- gen
ausgeartet. Mehrere Lebensmittelgeschäfte in verschiedenen Dörfern zwischen
der Hohen Tatra und der ukrainischen Grenze wurden von
aufgebrachten Roma ausgeraubt.
Bei einer Protestversammlung im Dorf Trhoviste drohten Roma am
© «Der Zürcher Oberländer» / «Anzeiger von Uster»
http://www.romove.cz/fr/article/19715
La Tchéquie et les émeutes rom en
Slovaquie
25-02-2004 - Alain Slivinsky
La situation en Slovaquie orientale, où les Roms ont déclenché des
émeutes, est toujours des plus tendues. En raison de la difficile condition
économique de cette ethnie,
Les
opinions diffèrent sur les raisons qui ont conduit les Roms de Slovaquie
orientale et du Sud à prendre d'assaut les magasins, dans certaines localités.
Pour certains, c'est la conséquence de la baisse de l'aide de l'Etat aux
familles nombreuses et aux chômeurs. Peut-être car, il est une cruelle
réalité que plus de 90 % des Roms de Slovaquie orientale sont au chômage. Ils
vivent dans des conditions des plus précaires, sont très arriérés, souvent
sans instruction, et leurs familles sont très nombreuses. Ils vivent donc aux
frais de l'Etat, dans des conditions indignes, rappelant plutôt l'empire
austro-hongrois que le début du XXIe siècle. Pour d'autres, ce sont les
usuriers rom qui sont derrière les émeutes. Ils prêtent à des taux
d'intérêts énormes, de 100 à 200 %, ce qui conduit les Roms à la misère la
plus sombre. Quelle que soit la raison, la condition des Roms de la Slovaquie
orientale est désastreuse et aucun gouvernement, qu'il soit totalitaire ou
démocratique, n'est arrivé à l'améliorer. Aux cris de « Nous avons faim
» les Roms ont dévalisé plusieurs magasins. Réaction du gouvernement ?
La répression, avec les forces de police et un millier de professionnels de
l'armée. Les Roms affirment que si leur situation ne s'améliore pas, ils sont
prêts à partir pour la Tchéquie. Bien qu'une immigration massive ne soit pas
à craindre, Ladislav Fizik, président du Parlement des Roms de Slovaquie,
confirme ces dires :
«
Il faut prendre en compte une telle éventualité, car les gens rechercheront
une solution à leur situation sociale précaire, quand il n'y aura pas de
compensation. Quand ils n'auront pas d'emploi ou de possibilités de gagner de
l'argent, ils partiront, peut-être en Tchéquie, mais pas seulement dans ce
pays. Une telle situation peut, vraiment, advenir ».
En
raison d'une telle éventualité, le gouvernement tchèque a décidé de prendre
des mesures de sécurité, aux frontières tchéco-slovaques. Le ministre de
l'Intérieur, Stanislav Gross, a donné l'ordre à la police des frontières de
l'informer immédiatement sur une éventuelle arrivée massive des Roms de
Slovaquie. Quelles sont donc ces mesures ?
«
Ces mesures sont celles que nous permet la loi. Il est impossible d'en prendre
d'autres. Par exemple, la loi nous permet de demander aux ressortissants
étrangers un certificat médical, une certaine somme d'argent minimum, ou bien
une invitation pour la visite de proches ».
Ajoutons
que les représentants des Roms slovaques affirment que les Roms partiront
plutôt vers d'autres pays de l'Union européenne.
http://www.romea.cz/english/index.php?id=servis/z_en_2004_0026
Roma crisis in
Withdrawal of riot police from Roma districts and release of those
arrested are among calming measures requested today (26 Feb) in a petition to
the Slovak Ambassador in
Thousands of police and troops have been drafted in to quell food riots
and mass rallies in at least half a dozen towns. Slovak President Rudolf
Schuster says benefit cuts were badly timed and could lead to wider disturbances.
Members of TERF are holding an emergency meeting on Saturday to discuss the
situation. Chairman Ladislav Balaz says he believes the present government has
got its policies wrong.
"High unemployment and a big cut in welfare benefits are at the root
of the trouble," Ladislav comments. "Roma are now desperate because
with price rises they can't buy enough food."
Protest action in
For l3 years aid programmes have apparently failed to bring more than
marginal benefit to those for whom they were designed. Unemployment has
increased and educational and housing needs remain unmet. Ironically,
Rudko Kawczynski, head of the Roma National Congress, has appealed to
Romano Prodi to take steps to ensure fairer treatment of Roma. He has told the
president of the European Commission that
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/02/27/4223307
posted
by alarm on Friday February 27 2004 @ 07:03AM PST
What we
have seen recently happening in
If we
want to understand the current revolt of Roma (and to a lesser extent even
non-Roma) proletarians in
How to
get rid of redundant proletarians?
Romas
represent some 400,000 people out of total Slovakian population of 5.4 millions.
However their share is still growing due to their higher birthrate. Given the
previous rates of welfare benefits it was possible for parents with a lot of
children to avoid wage-slavery. Of course, they would be very poor, but still it
would be possible to survive without starving especially if you could become
involved in black economy, shoplifting, petty thefts etc. or rely on your own
garden and breeding domestic animals. In fact Romas who have always been the
first to be sacked in any wave of redundancies since 1989 – and thus have been
to a great extent excluded from the labour market for more than a decade –
have not had any other option even if they wanted to work. It is even possible
to say that a large part of their younger generation has never been integrated
into wage labour.
Slovakian
government proclaimed that one of goals of its reform is to prevent working
class people from “living on children”. In this way it wants to make of them
a real “reserve army” of workers, which would be forced to take any job and
thus generally push down the wages which would in turn make the country more
attractive for foreign capital. In case of Romas this incentive does not work.
It is hard to find even a badly paid job if you live in areas where unemployment
does not go below 30% and you are a victim of racist discrimination even on the
labour market. On top of that the eastern regions (Presov and
And
besides that paying out of new lower unemployment and welfare benefits is now
conditioned by working in publicly beneficial work schemes (on the lines of
workfare). Even if the local authorities would have enough money to hire for
these workfare schemes an actually needed number of workers, they would be still
unable to provide such schemes for all the unemployed.
Consider
all these factors and you can easily arrive at a hypothesis (suggested already
by one of our comrades on our webpage http://alarm.solidarita.org) that as for
the Roma proletarians an unspoken aim of government reforms is stop the
population growth of redundant workers. And they know or feel all of these facts
and seen together they make a pretty explosive cocktail. At the beginning of
February the Slovakian Intelligence Service warned against a possible class
radicalization of Romas which could merge with a more general dissatisfaction in
the working class…
Movement
of collective expropriations
The
first signs of growing social unrest in eastern regions of
Since
the 11th to 14th of February a Billa supermarket in Levoca was four times
repeatedly attacked by a group of more than 80 Romas who looted food. Most of
them had only a few rolls in their trolley-baskets, while under their coats they
had sausages, meat and various frozen products. Security guard in Billa called
in the city-police patrol, but looting Romas threatened them with revenge and
explained that they are forced to loot as they do not have anything to eat.
On
February 18 a joint protest of Roma and non-Roma proletarians took place in
Vranov nad Toplou, where people demanded new jobs. According to official
statistics there is 8000 unemployed people in their region and only 50
vacancies. They also condemned anti-social reforms.
On the
20th of February morning shop assistants who were coming for a shift found that
their shop in Drahnov is looted. Another expropriations took place in Cierna nad
Tisou. From 40 to 50 Romas including children looted food accounting for 40-50
thousand Sk. Thirteen of them were arrested and accused. On the other day about
two hundred Romas unsuccessfully tried to loot a COOP Jednota shop in Trhoviste
(Michalovce district). Manager locked the shop and called in the police. Looters
requested to be let in the shop in order to take food without paying. Police
orders were ignored so they called in reinforcements including a special police
unit from
The 23rd
of February saw a gathering of several hundred Romas in the centre of Trebisov.
The police declared their rally un-permitted and pushed them out of the town
centre. While on retreat they managed to loot a store. Police units drove Romas
into their neighborhood and besieged it. In the evening 248 police officers
tried to break the furious crowd using water canon, teargas, stun-grenades and
even warning shots. Romas responded with throwing stones and bottles injuring
two policemen and damaging two police cars and chanting slogans “Fascists!”
and “We want to eat!”. After one hour the riot was over, but the area stayed
sealed from the rest of the world. On the other day about 30 Romas – including
kids – attacked a police bus with stones. Several hundreds policemen again
raided the village and Romas dispersed in surrounding fields. 69 of them have
been accused of theft, rioting and attacking police officers. One of Roma
proletarians commented these events as follows: “We just wanted to point out,
that our children are hungry. The government does not give us either money or
food and on the top of that they send the police against us.” Shortly after
that a government decision to send more than 600 soldiers to the troubled area
was publicly announced. “There will be a war, we have got guns!” responded
an angry Roma in Trebisov.
On the
25th of February several Roma women, children and one man looted a shop in
Caklov. The police arrested them using violence and injuring a small kid. During
these last days there was a visible move of lootings from the East of Slovakia
to the central and southern parts. Nevertheless, these were only isolated cases.
What was important about them, was that in Zemplin (on February 24) also some
non-Roma working class people joined the collective expropriations. The fact
that news in bourgeois media helped to spark the unrest on several places is
also very significant. The protest, looting and riot in Trebisov actually
aroused from this source. Romas living there learned what is happening in other
places and spontaneously joined the movement. In several other cases Romas came
to the supermarkets and declared that they would take food without paying as
they saw it on TV.
Repression
and recuperation
Besides
the direct deployment of the police and army the Slovakian government also tries
to play with a racist card to prevent a possible generalization of this class
struggle movement. Slovakian president Rudolf Schuster openly warned against
this possibility. So they do their best to persuade major population that these
are not social riots but “Roma riots” (Minister of Interior Vladimir Palko).
They also claim that what is going on is not a real looting, i.e. collectively
organized and carried out expropriations, but “ordinary crime, which is being
committed every day” (the same person). On the other hand the government line
says that it is a looting, but organized by usurers. It is however hard to
determine what benefit would those usurers have from attacks on the circulation
of exchange value.
But
there is also other side of this coin and it is recuperation of Roma
proletarians’ struggle. The Minister of Social Affairs, Mr. Kanik, declared
that as for the Romas, the government is ready to make some concessions in the
reform of social benefits. Meanwhile social workers are being sent to the
troubled regions to explain Romas that looting is a bad solution with disastrous
consequences. Roma people from Novacany nearby
Critical
role in repression and recuperation have also played Roma middle classes and
their political representation. First the Roma Parliament of the
What
next?
Just now
it seems that the situation has been calming down. So far the heavy repression
has intimidated revolting Romas from further mass direct actions. This together
with the fact that on a conscious level the movement was very defensive might
make its recuperation easier. In this respect it is also necessary to point out
that the movement failed to spread into major cities. For example
On the
other hand it is needed to stress that the movement was in some cases able to
overcome deeply rooted racism against Romas. We have already mentioned two
examples, but there were more of them. Especially during the peaceful protests
on February 25 Roma proletarians demonstrated together with some “white”
workers, who declared their support to the collective expropriations (eg. in
Humenne): “they should have done this long time ago” or “we are not
surprised by their actions, because it is really impossible to live like this”.
One
thing seems to be obvious – capital and its government are not able to solve
this problem in the same way as they are not able to solve their crisis. If they
will succeed in suppressing the movement this time it will be more like
postponement of a day of reckoning.
*This
article is going to be published in magazin Wildcat (
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1158660,00.html
Roma
face starvation in the slums of
Gypsies
loot supermarkets as government slashes benefits and fails to offer jobs
Jane
Burgermeister
The
Observer
Dressed
in thin pullovers and baggy trousers, half a dozen children gather outside on
the trash-strewn street to watch hungrily as two older children spoon a semolina
pudding out of plastic bowls.
A
grandmother, wearing a red headscarf as protection against the chill wind that
blows across the east Slovakian steppe, stands chatting to neighbours in the
osady or settlement where the Roma community lives in abandoned houses and
wooden shacks, without water, electricity or sewers.
Because
almost none of the adults who live here can find a job, they have plenty of time
to discuss the government's latest cuts in benefits and how to avoid starvation.
Last
Saturday 200 Roma - gypsies - left this settlement in eastern
Such
scenes were repeated last week in towns across eastern
'We know
stealing is not a solution, but I cannot let my children go hungry,' said a
protester in the town of
'If we
can't get food from the supermarkets, we'll go into the villages,' warned
another demonstrator.
The
centre-right coalition government has halved weekly unemployment benefits to
1,450 Slovak crowns (£24) and abolished children's benefit in a move that has
triggered the most serious civil disturbance since the fall of communism in
Dusan
Dirda from Levoca will have to feed his 11 children on £69 a month, the maximum
any family can expect under tough new rules. Until 1 January, Dirda could expect
between 1,000 and 1,600 Slovak crowns for each of his children, plus 2,900
crowns for each unemployed adult.
To quell
the riots Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda last Tuesday sent 20,000 extra police
and 1,000 soldiers to eastern
On
Monday, 250 riot police used water cannon to disperse 400 Roma in Trebisov.
Police arrested 100 Roma and special units were filmed beating gypsies,
including children. Roma leaders have warned that demonstrations against the
government cuts will continue.
'Why
shouldn't they loot? They have no money. A hungry man will provide for his
family in any way he can, and we think the problem will only get worse,' said
Ladislav Fizik, head of the Slovak Roma parliament. Social Minister Ludovit
Kanik is adamant that the cuts are needed to encourage the long-term unemployed
to find jobs.
The
pro-business government has won strong praise from the European Commission for
its market reforms, including a low flat tax that it hopes will attract
international investors. 'Cuts in benefits are needed to end a culture of
dependence among Roma,' said Kanik.
But for
the Roma minority, the chances of finding a job are remote. The unemployment
rate for Roma, who live in impoverished settlements, commonly without water or
electricity, is between 90 and 100 per cent.
Faced
with prejudices branding them as work-shy and criminal, Roma say they find it
almost impossible to find jobs and break out of the cycle of poverty and
illiteracy and disease. Authorities in Varhanovce admit that they had to turn
away 230 of the 290 Roma who applied for a communal work programme that would
have allowed them to supplement their benefits by £20 a month because there
were not enough places.
Gypsies
are now stepping up their calls for an honest day's work. 'We don't want to rob
and steal, we only want to work,' said Fizik. His demand was echoed by
demonstrators who held a series of peaceful protests on Wednesday.
President
Rudolf Schuster, a former Communist running for re-election in April, attacked
the government for slashing the Roma's benefits and warned unrest could spread
to Slovaks, many of whom have seen a deterioration in their living standards.
Rudko
Kawczynski of the Roma National Congress, an organisation that fights for the
human rights of Roma, also blamed the European Commission for the deteriorating
living conditions of the two to three million Roma who are settled in central
and eastern Europe.
He said
'When
May comes, the current members of the
But Roma
who seek to escape poverty and discrimination in
The
neighbouring liberal
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