CZECH REPUBLIC: Evict the Roma, Become a Top Politician

By Zoltán Dujisin Reprint | | Print |

Zoltán Dujisin

BUDAPEST, Dec 15 2006 (IPS) - When Mayor Jiri Cunek ordered the eviction of Roma inhabitants from his town last month, voices were raised demanding he step down from politics. Instead, he has been elected leader of the Christian Democratic Party and will probably have a role in forming the new Czech government.

Cunek, a member of the Senate and mayor or Vsetin, a town of 28,500 inhabitants situated 270km east of Prague, ordered in mid-October the removal of hundreds of mostly Roma rent defaulters from dilapidated flats in the town centre to container-like apartments in Vsetin’s outskirts and to far-away villages.

Hana Silhanova, director of the Civil Society Development Foundation criticises the measure for its short-sightedness. “The unhappy decision of Mr. Cunek does not solve the problem from a long-term perspective,” she told IPS.

It is estimated that in the Czech Republic, a country of 10 million, roughly 80,000 people live in approximately 330 isolated Roma settlements in underprivileged conditions, and the number is growing.

Roma are a minority group who are believed to have migrated to Europe from Asia since the 14th century.

Roma in the Czech Republic face social exclusion, resulting in poor housing, high crime, bad healthcare, poor education and a 90 percent unemployment rate, ten times higher than the national average.

“The integration of the Roma population is a process that should be handled complexly and other kinds of solutions must be looked for,” Silhanova said, adding that this kind of unfortunate solution might “set an example to follow for other community leaders.”

Though facing criticism from human rights activists and even a few politicians from his own party, the move projected Cunek’s tough stance at a national level, giving him unprecedented popularity.

Cunek survived accusations of racism and was last week elected head of the Christian Democrats, a right-wing party that won 7.2 percent of the vote in the latest legislative elections.

Only a few dozen people demonstrated against his election outside the Party’s congress hall.

Katerina Hruba, a lawyer from the Will of Law association, one of the civic groups present at the protest, thinks the evictions are behind his sudden popularity.

“He was a regional politician and he knew this segregationist policy will succeed,” she told IPS. “The majority of our society has prejudices and is receptive to the kind of simple solutions he offers.”

Czech President Vaclav Klaus was also criticised for not condemning the resettlement, and received a letter from the Czech Romany Regional Leaders’ Board in which they warned the Vsetin municipality was attempting to divide “members of different races” to create a “Gypsy reserve”.

“You’ve done nothing to protect human rights and civic freedoms though they were grossly violated. You thus made it clear to Romanies that you are not a president of theirs,” the letter said.

Klaus responded to the letter claiming the method had not been “very fortunate” but said he refused to “cheaply condemn” the policies of Cunek. He warned that eviction of rent defaulters should not be given an “ethnic label”.

Some of the Romany victims have filed legal complains against Cunek claiming their rights had been violated.

“It’s a question of basic human rights and of freedom of decision,” Hruba told IPS. “There was an absolute lack of information; they were forced to sign contracts regarding the new houses without knowing their content or seeing the houses.”

The lawyer, who spoke to some of the victims, accuses the Vsetin municipality of using all sorts of mechanisms to put pressure on those evicted.

“They were told their children would be placed in institutional care, and the municipality also cancelled their social benefits as a way of pressuring them into changing their permanent residence,” the lawyer said.

A group from the Senate Committee for Human Rights, a body of the upper house with consultative and monitoring functions, visited the locations allocated to the evicted Roma last week. After initially praising them, some senators retracted the following day and said it had “turned out that not everything is in order.”

“The Romanies did not know in advance where they would be resettled (à) and signed the agreements under duress. Their ignorance was abused and they ought to have received more information by a lawyer,” said Senator Josef Pavlata.

Cunek is rebuffing all accusations of racism and wrongdoing, reminding his opponents he had a legal basis to leave the Romanies homeless and that he instead offered them state housing. Cunek insists his measures will help Roma integration in the Czech Republic.

Analysts argue that Christian Democrat Party members hope Cunek’s pragmatic, direct and uncompromising style will resuscitate a political force whose influence in Czech politics has dwindled over the last years.

The Christian Democrats are currently the fourth largest group on the political scene, but have often found themselves in influential positions within government coalitions, and they are likely to make it into the next government as well.

Cunek, who considers himself a centrist, has been in negotiations on a grand coalition government with the two largest groups in the parliament, the neo-liberal Civic Democrats and the Social Democrats.

After apparently having reached an agreement, the Civic Democrats backed out from the deal and announced they wanted a coalition with the Greens and the Christian Democrats, but this format has failed in the past, and the Greens are wary of Cunek’s anti-Roma credentials.

The Czech Republic has been without a government for six months now after the June parliamentary elections ended in a left-right deadlock.