Prague / Czech Rep. (RNN Correspondent) 16.04.1998

They are called the "black Czechs". Most of them came once from Slovakia to Bohemia and Moravia. They settled - or to say it clearer - they were admitted to the towns and villages that had been left by the German refugees after 1945. The communistic regime tried to "make the new human beings" and at the same time to erase the memory of the past of the border districts. They forbade the migration of the Roma and favoured them with flats and houses. But it did not work. The Roma - ghettos soon looked like Ame rican slums and became social focal points. Children who were of school age were immediately put in special schools. Czechs and Roma watched each other distrustfully. With the introduction of market and competition there arose another trial for the "Black s" and "Whites". To-day there are about 70 % of the 500.000-600.00 Czechian Roma unemployed. The rate of crime increased. Extreme right groups persecuted the Roma. In early February skinheads threw a 26 years old woman into a river and drowned her. Huma n right groups have found out, that about 17 people have been killed by racist attacks since 1990. In 1997 many Roma emigrated mainly to Canada, after a Prague radio station had spoken of "conditions like in paradise". However, the Canadian authorities sen t back most of them.

Now the Catholic Church has sided with the Roma. Last Sunday they read a pastoral letter in all churches. The bishops said that the Roma should feel that they will not be left alone. Indifference towards racist terror means a support of the criminals. It i s the duty of the church to contribute to a complete integration of the Roma. But even the bishops cannot offer a magic formula because not even the "little integration" has succeeded.

In the meantime the conflict has become an international political matter. The European Parliament and the US-Congress are concerned. The problem of the minorities could become a stumbling block for Prague along its path to Europe and NATO.

The Sudeten German community have already warned Czechia of a participation in the EU. The problem had been put aside under the government of Vaclav Klaus , but now it has been at least recognized. Vladimir Mlynar (32), minister without portfolio, set a s ign: "Black Czechs" belong to his closest collaborators.