hancock

RNN Exclusive:
STATEMENT REGARDING MY POSITION WITH THE INTERNATIONAL ROMANI UNION
Prof. Ian F. Hancock

I wish to state that I have severed all ties with The International
Romani Union. This was a decision first made following the Warsaw Meeting of
November, 1998. During the present decade, I have witnessed such a tragic
decline in its organization and operation, that I no longer want to be
associated with it. Because of my long-time work for the IRU, this decision
has been a source of considerable pain and disappointment to me, and it has
taken me a year to announce it publicly.
I have spent the greater part of my adult life in support of that
organization, among other things successfully pushing for its representation
in the UN and in UNICEF. Indeed, in Transitions Magazine (for September,
1997, p. 28)
I was credited with "keeping [the Romani Union] alive." At the Fourth World
Romani Congress in Serock in 1990, I was elected by virtually unanimous
vote, by over 200 people, to chair the UN Presidium and thereby to serve as
the UN Main Representative (cf. the Nesbitt Report for the National Gypsy
Education Council on the Warsaw Congress, p. 14, and the first issue of the
IRU's Informaciaqo Lil for July and August 1991, p. 2).
With the fall of Communism and the opening up of eastern Europe, IRU leaders
became more regularly involved in the West, but brought with them their
eastern European ideologies. Sadly, though perhaps understandably, these did
not include an understanding of the democratic process. While the statutes
require that a World Romani Congress be held once every four years to elect
a new executive, we are still waiting for WRC-5 nearly a decade later.
Nevertheless over the past nine years, individuals have been dismissed from
the Union without proper procedure, sometimes in the face of unproved and
unprovable charges of massive theft, and others have been appointed to
leading positions on the whim of the President, again without due democratic
process or acknowledgment of the 1990 statutes. Mr. Witold Lakatosz of New
York is in possession of documentation indicating that in 1991 he was sold
the IRU presidency for several thousand dollars. Negotiations in 1993
between the IRU president and Mr. Paolo Pietrosanti of the Transnational
Radical Party for that organization to take over the IRU lasted for nearly
that whole year, without any consultation whatsoever with presidium
members. In 1998, a staff Member of Voice of America was privately offered
the position of UN Representative for the Romani Union!
Several impromptu sessions involving a handful of IRU members have
been held, e.g. in Warsaw, Kolin and Prague, and decisions have been made,
again without even a majority of presidium members being informed or
invited. British and Irish representatives, for example, are routinely
excluded from Participation. The fact that some of the current executive
members allegedly have criminal associations and are involved in law suits
against them, also does much to shake my confidence in the integrity and
credibility of the leadership of the International Romani Union. Whether
these allegations can be proved or not, and I sincerely hope they turn out
to be false, the fact remains that even the hint of such criminal
association discredits all of us as a people. The Romani Union has become an
organization which seems to be led by its secretary rather than by its
president, and which is conducting itself in an unprofessional and
thoroughly embarrassing way. It has become an anachronism, a dinosaur. It
motivated 44 Member organizations to sign a vote of no confidence in the IRU
at the 1998 Warsaw meeting.
Our people are facing a time of crisis, and the situation is growing
more frightening each day. The treatment of Roma in Kosovo, the building of
the wall in Usti nad Labem, the recent decision to indicate who is Rom on
Czech airline passenger flight lists, are all grim evidence of a
relentlessly worsening future, a nightmare we must challenge and stop. Yet
we lack leadership.
Various non-Roma organizations are doing what they can to help us,
but we have in the end to organize ourselves; we cannot be charity cases
forever. No one really cares about Roma as much as Roma do -- and no one
will do as much for us as we could do for ourselves, if we were organized.

Those of you who know me, know that I strongly believe that our
shattered situation today is the result of treatment by outsiders across the
period of our history in the West. But I also believe that this fact cannot
serve as an excuse for inaction, or Victim mentality. We cannot turn back
the clock, we can only go forward. But going forward means going into a
world where communication and technology are essential factors for survival.
In 1846 Jacob Grimm said that "a nation is the totality of people
speaking the same language." I believe that the Roma National Congress --
the Congress of the Roma Nation -- understands clearly that technology and
communication are fundamental to the survival of our Romani people. With
the creation of RomNews, and the constant, daily dissemination of
information across the world, the RNC has achieved in a few years what the
IRU has never been able to achieve since its creation. The RNC is based on
Equal representation with no national leaders, no president or multiple
vice-presidents. It recognizes the vital importance of education, and
respects the maintenance of traditional Romanipe. It supports, in fact,
many of the original ideals of the International Romani Union, ideals which
have since become lost behind letterheads, posturing and rubber stamps.
In 1997, John Nickels and I incorporated a new organization, the
American Romani Union, Inc. here in the United States. We have now joined
the RNC, and urge all of you to consider how best your own organization can
help to combat antigypsyism and improve the situation of our people. Whether
you decide to join or not, this must be your highest priority. But if you
join the Roma National Congress you will immediately be connected to Romani
organizations everywhere else in the world. Your organization's voice will
have a massive audience -- on a daily basis if needed. And you will be
helping to unite us as a Diaspora people in a way that the IRU was never
once able to achieve.

Ian Hancock
xulaj@mail.utexas.edu

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