Visiting U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton on Sunday empathized with Hungarian Roma whose lives have worsened with the fall of communism. Mrs,Clinton, on a goodwill tour of Eastern and Central Europe that has sometimes seemed like a meandering seminar on problems of democracy, spent about an hour at a run-down Roma community centre in a decaying neighbourhood here. Representatives of the down-trodden minority group told her that they have been the victims of economic changes that have swept Hungary in the last 10 years.``I think there is no better way to describe the situation than as a disaster,`` one man said. Many Hungarians share a deep-seated dislike of the country's one million Roma, who maintain a separate ethnic and cultural identity. In recentyears there have been repeated racially-motivated attacks on Roma, some resulting in deaths. Roma are among the least educated people in Hungary and make up a disproportionate percentage of the prison population. Krisztian Simon, a thin, dark-eyed youth of 14, told Mrs. Clinton about the sting of discrimination. ``In school, people are not interested in who I am. They say, ``Oh, another gypsy,`` he said through an interpreter. `` In my country and other countries, I have heard similiar complaints from other young people,`` the first lady told the boy.``And I always tell them if they give up on their education and feel bad about themselves, then the person who (discriminates) wins and you lose.``I don't think you look like a loser to me,`` she said. Simon smiledwanly upon hearing the translation of Mrs. Clinton`'s encouraging comment. Mrs.Clinton, who later held a rountable discussion with a women's group at Central Europe University, was on an 11-day trip that has taken her to Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Mrs. Clinton's trip is designed to show U.S. support for democracy in the old communist empire and provides a respite from problems at home that include unrelenting questions about the Whitewater affair, a tangled web of business and legal dealings in President Bill Clinton's and her Arkansas past. On Monday, Mrs. Clinton was to meet Hungarian President Arpad Goncz and visit a pediatric centre before departing for Estonia. She planned to complete her trip with a visit to Finland later this week.