Fwd: Roma Nation Day

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Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 05:44:12 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: Fwd: Roma Nation Day

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Ariel Eliyahu <[email protected]>

Fwd: Roma Nation Day


----------------Forwarded message----------

From:        ustibe n <[email protected]>
Web Site:    http://www.romani.org/ustiben.html
 
Romano Themutno Dives
ROMA NATION DAY
8 April
 
"March of 100,000"
Bratislava, 3 March
 
Members of the IRU Parliament meeting in Bratislava today are
discussing among other topics the celebration of Roma Nation Day,
which this year marks the 30-year Jubilee of the lst World Romani
Congress.
 
Chairman of the Parliament, Dragan Jevremovic as been asked to report
on the progress in organizing the "March of 100,000", which is taking
place on 8 April in many leading cities around the world.
 
The march is in support of the recommendation adopted at the UN Human
Rights Commission conference in Warsaw last November calling upon the
UN to recognize the Roma Nation.
 
Known as Point 5, the recommendation proposes that Roma be designated
"a nation without territory" and given a seat in the UN General
Assembly.
 
This proposal is also being backed at the first major Roma conference
in South America, taking place in Quito, Ecuador, l3/16 March.
 
The conference is being attended by Roma delegations from Argentina,
Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, the US and Canada.
 
"We declare ourselves to be a nation," said Venecer Gomez, of PROROM,
Colombia, recently. "Our wish is to utilize Roma Nation Day for a
militant mobilization of our people everywhere."
 
The militant tendency will be evident at "Ustiben 2001" rallies and
demonstrations in Bogota, Quito, Sao Paolo and Buenes Aires. In New
York Roma will assemble outside the UN building, while others gather
in San Francisco, Toronto and Vancouver.
 
In Europe, protests against racism are planned in London, Gent, Rome,
Thessaloniki, Berlin, Bern, among other cities. Bigger celebrations
for Roma Nation Day have been announced in Prague, Bucuresti,
Belgrade, Zagreb, Sofia and Skopje.
 
Many smaller towns, including Nis, Subotica, Kragujevac, Rijeka,
Kumanovo, Tetovo, Plovdiv, Sliven, Kosice, Brno, Oprava, Jihlava,
Oprava and Kladno will be markig the day with both celebrations and
protest rallies.
 
The day will also see a number of commemorations for the Roma victims
of the holocaust and present-day racist attacks, most prominent the
ethnic cleansing of the entire Roma community of Kosovo.
 
The Lety concentration camp, now a pig farm, will be the subject of
events in Lety itself, in Toronto and in London, where flowers will be
cast into the River Thames in memory of all those who died.
 
"This is a day both of celebration and sorrow,"  said Charles Smith,
chair of the Gypsy Council.  "In addition we are marking the 35-year
jubilee of our organization."
 
He said he hoped the Roma Parliament would now give support and
leadership to the Roma Nation Day rallies going on around the globe.
 
For the first time there would be events on 8 April in such far flung
cities as Sydney and Jerusalem, and in Chisinau, Moldova, as well as
Kiev, Moscow and Stockholm.
 
"This promises to be the greatest manifestation yet for Roma rights
and recognition," said Veerendra Rishi. "Indian Prime Minister
Vajpayee is taking part in 8 April as a sign of his support."
 
Rishi said he wished to see the impetus of Roma Nation Day carried
forward, in Europe and America, to the World Conference Against Racism
in Durban next August. The campaign for Roma Nation recognition and
the combating of racist attack whevere they occur, must be waged ever
harder.
 
Usten Romalen!
 
PHRALIPE + JEKHIPE = ZURALIPE
 
ustibe n
 
P.S. This appeal has been forwarded to you by "The Society of Gypsies
in Israel"
http://msnhomepages.talkcity.com/NonProfitBlvd/amoun_sleem/index.html

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